September and October Life

Just some random stuff that's happened in September and October!

My little brother Cee Ryle is a sophomore in high school and on the cross country team. He had an invitational at BYU and none of my family could drive down and go, so I went and supported him. He did great!

I realize my fifteen year-old brother is taller than me and we look the same age (especially in this picture)! Haha it's kind of ridiculous how young I look in this photo. But I swear I'm eight years older and not one of his classmates. Nonetheless I love him so much and am glad I got to see him race.

My aunt Zildy face painted at the State Fair and was able to get some free tickets so I went with my parents and sisters to it. Haha it was a pretty regular state fair...dirty, lots of rides, crazy people, booths, photo ops, interesting animals and vegetables, a very ...interesting freak show, and an awesome face painter! Haha. We had fun.

I got to go to Chalk the Block with some of my best friends (l to r: me, Lauren, Jessica, Alyne, Cameron (alyne's husband)) and we had a great time! The chalk was cool but the company was even better.

I face painted a TON during August and September, which was really great considering I don't have another job, and I face painted at Tracy Aviary three times, so I got pretty good at doing birds hah.

I got to go with my mom and my sister Sidney to the General Women's Meeting! It's held by our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (we're also known as Mormons!), every six months for every girl and woman eight years and older. It was fabulous and we had a really fun time going! It also rained like crazy getting there so that was definitely an adventure too.

After the meeting, we met up with the rest of our family to go bowling. We had passes to use at this one place and it ended up being kind of lame and crappy but we made memories and had fun, which is what really matters. Also, I bowled the first strike I have ever bowled in my life! It only took me 23 years to get there.. ;)

I often force my family and friends to take pictures..sometimes on self-timer haha!

 I'm taking a public speaking class right now and we had to do a demonstration speech. I decided to show how to face paint a skull and my roommate Carli was kind enough to let me practice on her! We also had to give a handout so I put this picture on there too. If you want us to come face paint for you, you can go to our business's website HERE!

This past Saturday was the Cougar Run at BYU, due to it being homecoming. My parents, Cee Ryle, and Gracie all signed up to run so I went to cheer them on (clearly there are some fun times to be had at the BYU track). Sidney and I weren't running so we each ran a lap of Gracie's race with her. That poor girl was dying by the end of the race but she was a trooper and ran and finished the whole thing (it was twice around the track--I think that might be a 400 meter? Don't count on me for that though!)! Cee Ryle and my parents all placed in their divisions which was pretty awesome of them! My dad got first in his, and my mom and Cee Ryle both got third in theirs.

Later that day I took a test and did poorly on it :( No worries, I'll scrape out a good grade in the class! And then I met up with my mom and Sidney again where we volunteered at the US Junior Figure Skating Championships! I think it was for like the Pacific Northwest division or something like that but some of those girls and guys were really really good! We volunteered for a bit and then when they didn't need us anymore we got to watch which was fun.

I took a picture of this because I LOVED the back of her costume! Isn't it gorgeous! It inspired me :)

On Monday, my roommates surprised me with a PUPPY!! You're probably like, wait what?! No, I don't own a puppy. Here's the story:
Jessica asked me I was going to be home on Monday at 7 and I was like "do you want me to be home?" and she was like "yes!" because apparently her friend Reese was coming and she thought he and I would get along well. And I was like ohhh a set up, but okay, whatever. So Monday at around 7:15 this guy came to our door and I thought it was Reese, but then he left and Jessica brought in a puppy! My roommates rented me a puppy for an hour for a birthday gift! (Can anyone say best birthday gift ever?? Yes!)

Haha Reese actually turned out to be a girl (and a dog, but whatev) and she was so cute and fun! She peed twice under our watch and she was quite a handful, but so much fun. We were all sad when she left. But we had fun watching her tug on Jessica's shoelaces and putting her head into a mug on the floor and just being so darn adorable. I took some pictures, but the lighting in our apartment is terrible, so I had to use the flash.

I made a little video too! The lighting was terrible and since I currently just use Windows Movie Maker, there was no way to correct that, but you can watch it and get an idea of Reese's cuteness.

Other fun little things from these past two months that I unfortunately have no pictures to document:

-School is grrrrreeeat!, as Tony the Tiger would say. I'm glad I have more time to focus on it now that Provo Fashion Week is over. I really do love all my classes to death and am really happy! Also I got a 93% on my last Statistics test, a 98% on my last Doctrine and Covenants test, and a 94% on my demonstration speech (that I did the skull face for above)! Boo ya! I don't always post about my grades, but when I do...they're pretty darn good!

-I discovered this wonderful thing that Carrie Underwood actually did TWO demo albums before American Idol. Which, can we all realize what this means? 31 NEW SONGS! They are albums of covers and some of them she did when she was 14! Geez she's so good! If you are wanting to know what they are, they're listed here and here and most are on youtube! Also I found out she waited until marriage (awesome!) and had a third nipple (interesting..and a bit weird, but we've all got our quirks). Learning new things every day, people.

-Have you seen Meet the Mormons?? I saw it last Thursday with Jessica and it was so fabulous! Maybe I cried... because yes it was good! If you are person living on this earth, you will like it. Oh hey, that's you! It's great. :)

-Provo Fashion Week has gotten a ton of press since it happened, and I got featured in two different articles! Both for BYU stuff so that's fun. One was for my department's (Family, Home, and Social Sciences) magazine here and the other was for the BYU newspaper The Universe here. I think that may have been my third time being in the BYU newspaper! haha.

-In public speaking, we have to make a video of a news report type thing and my group is doing it on Ebola. We filmed some stuff today and let me just say 1) I love my group and 2) I can't wait to edit the video because we got some hilarious responses!

-From Amazon, I ordered for myself The Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan version, one of my favorite movies ever in this world) and Project Runway Season 4! (its the one with Christian Siriano and I'm dying to see it because I know his designs will inspire) The only problem is I haven't had time to watch them! Hopefully I'll get a break in the next few days that I can start.

Oh also on October 10, this one little thing called Provo Fashion Week happened :) and it was awesome! I can't wait to tell you all about it...later haha. It was a blast though. Man :)

It's Beginning to Look Like Autumn

it started to rain :)

Well, its definitely starting to feel like fall around here! Its been raining quite a bit the past few days and it's been getting cooler too. The leaves on the ground are getting crunchy and turning into lovely shades of yellow and orange. Midterms are in full swing, Homecoming is here, football games are at their peak, and Halloween decorations are covering store shelves like no other holiday has ever existed. Pumpkin flavored things are in almost every restaurant and every girl is pulling out her rainboots and cardigans for the cooler weather. I like it a lot. :) I feel like it's supposed to be fall and it's a time that I really enjoy. For one, my birthday. And then it means that lots of holidays are coming up: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. And holidays mean family, breaks from school, fun, and happiness (and fun shopping too!).

Probably the one thing that makes me sad about fall though is the fact that winter is just around the corner. After Christmas, it's winter semester, snow everywhere, no breaks or holidays, cold, not a lot of fun events like sports or stuff, and more sickness. :( Winter in Utah is what makes me want to live in California. But at least for now, fall is one of the reasons that reminds me why I love Utah too. I just hope it stays for a long long time...we could postpone snow until Christmas and I wouldn't mind it one bit!!

And random movie talk now...I watched Titanic today (don't worry, I skipped that one part, if ya know what I mean--it's a lot easier to do when watching it on the computer) because I haven't seen it in a while and I was kind of wanting to. Now I'm just thinking, "Why did I want to watch it again?" Titanic is one of those movies that I think I really love and is a good movie to watch every once in a while, but then for a few days after watching it, I can't stop thinking about all the sad and scary parts. Man, it was so intense and sad to watch. Another bad reason for not having seen it in a while is that I can remember what happens but not enough to convince myself that it will still happen. Like I still get anxious when I'm waiting to see if Jack will survive not drowning in the little basement room and I still get nervous because I'm wanting Rose to just blow the whistle so she survives. Of course, the movie always follows it's plot the way it has before but it still makes me anxious every time. Titanic really is such a good movie. It's very gripping and very sad and it's definitely a nail-biter. It's also a wonderful love story. I can't help but watch it and think how grateful I am that I was not born in that time and that I was not on that ship. I also can't help but just feel for every person on that ship, because I know what's going to happen the whole time, but they don't know. I like it because it focuses on the story of Rose and Jack, but not the entire time. It also shows the other stuff going on the ship, with the captain, the band, all the people on the lifeboats, the people jumping in the water, the crew, etc. Ahh I think I've convinced myself of the amazing-ness of this movie again! haha.

I think the lesson I learn from the movie and story of it (and I don't mean this in an insulting way at all, it's just my observation) was just that the Titanic was a very worldly thing. It was a huge fancy ship and said by many to have been "unsinkable." When they received the warning for the icebergs at night, they didn't stop like other boats, they just kept on going. They were too prideful to have enough lifeboats for all the passengers because it would have cluttered the deck. There were so many rich people on deck that were actually annoyed when told to put on their life jackets and no one wanted to believe that their magnificent ship was sinking. I guess it kind of makes me think about the Second Coming (okay, I'm getting a little churchy here..) and how like the people on Titanic, we need to be prepared, or else we're not going to make it. There were so many people by the end just jumping off the huge boat or clambering into life boats trying to save themselves. Some people didn't even try because they knew they wouldn't succeed. It's so sad. But it teaches me that I need to be ready for that now so that when it does happen, I don't freak out over it because I'll be ready and know it's coming. Sorry was that too LDS missionary sharing/churchy for you? I don't really talk about that stuff on here very often but maybe it's good to, because it is a part of I am and what I think about. And just to clarify, I'm in no way saying the people on the Titanic were bad or that they deserved to die. Not at all! But I do think they could have been more prepared for the outcome of it or could have done so many things to prevent it, as I'm sure many people know. It was just an analogy in my head. Wow, but really, it's a good movie. If you've never seen it (its PG-13 fyi), I'd recommend watching it because I think it's one of those movies that every person should see.

Anyways, why do I write SO much? So much that probably no one reads. Oh well, sorry for all the words taking up space on your browser. I hope it didn't drive you crazy! Have a great Thursday, it's almost the weekend!!!

Autumn Lovin'

Wow, Autumn in Provo is SO pretty. I was with a friend today and we were both just commenting on how much we love the colors at this time of year. All the reds, oranges, greens, and yellows are so vibrant and look so beautiful. We just have to enjoy it because winter will be here in like 3 weeks...the joys of Utah weather. :/

So this skirt...I got it at a grocery store! For $3! It was just on one of those random clothes racks that they sometimes have in grocery stores. It actually seems pretty durable and well made. It was little big, but there's an elastic to tie it, so I'm not complaining. Any cute skirt, and a cheap one for that matter, is good with me! I feel like I wear skirts more than pants, so they're more worth it to me to buy.

Jacket: Gifted from my mom

Pink Shirt: Down East Basics:

Skirt: Buy Low supermarket

Shoes: Payless

Bag: Target

Headband: BYU Campus Craft and Floral

Leaves are Changing Color

Yes, I could feel it in the weather today. Fall is here. Gone are the happy sunshine days of green grass, shorts and sunglasses, and sunburned arms and legs. Here are the rainy days, long sleeved shirts, and the colors turning darker to match nature. (how poetic am I?! haha) It's supposed to rain this whole week, so I settled for my cute new boots and this super cute new jacket, both of which I got for my birthday.

Jacket: Gifted from my mom

Green Blouse: Forever 21

Pants: Ross

Butterfly Necklace: Forever 21

Boots: Gifted from my mom