2017

I came across my blog and realized I hadn't been on here in so long that my google doesn't even autofill the website anymore. :O (I wish I could do emojis on here haha). However I've always done my yearly recaps on here and wanted to continue that tradition.

Best moments of 2017 (there are videos related to a lot of these that are all linked below):

Filming a Beauty and the Beast styled wedding with a bunch of other great vendors. It turned out so pretty!

A video shoot inspired by the fabulous tv show Good Girls Revolt

Having a killer Valentine's Day party. I've never really been a huge V-Day celebrator before, but Amanda is super into it which helped my attitude. It definitely ended up being the best Valentine's I've ever had.

Watching SO MANY tv shows! such as: Game of Thrones, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Schitt's Creek, Sweet Vicious, Jane the Virgin, The Carrie Diaries, GLOW, Veronica Mars (still need to see the movie!), Don't Trust the B**** in Apt 23, the end of PLL (boo - to it ending and also the ending), Big Little Lies, The Handmaid's Tale, Freaks and Geeks, Riverdale, The OC, and Stranger Things s2 - these are not in order of importance because there are several shows on here I can't even rank I loved them so much.

Producing, filming and editing Stoneybrook Revisited: A Babysitter's Club Fan Film for AJP. We had an all-female crew and things were so efficient that we had several hours of down time on set. It was also my first time filming a series in traditional camera format and I am so pleased with myself for how cute it turned out.

Going to New York with Amanda! The best part of this trip was seeing all the friends that lived there (and the LA friends who were there the same time as us) and also getting to see some really excellent theater - Present Laughter, The Play that Goes Wrong, Puffs, and The Phantom of the Opera. Also getting to go to the GORGEOUS Frick Collection. The best part about this trip was that since we had both been to New York several times before, we didn't have to do any of the touristy things and just did exactly what we wanted to do. It was honestly so much fun.

SIDNEY COMING HOME! My sister had been serving an LDS mission for a year and half in Arizona but it was a huge highlight of the year to have her come home in May.

Getting raises at both of my jobs (main and side)!

The lantern festival in May. We got hired to face paint at this and made some killer tips and also got to float some lanterns. The event was slightly disorganized but it was so much fun because of the people I was with.

Taking a very chill hike with my family on Memorial Day. We normally get together with the whole extended family for every single holiday and it was nice to celebrate this one with just us.

Seeing Carrie Underwood for the 7th time in a surprise concert on June 17, 2017. More details in a later post, because this is a story that deserves its own.

Spending the majority of the year working on Lily Evans and the Stroke of Midnight. This was 100% the best part of my year. I LOVED filming and editing this film and I am so sosososo happy with how it turned out. We had a crazy amount of hiccups in the production process and so many things went wrong. But man, it was awesome, which was largely due to the people. Our cast and crew were great, and so many of our friends flew in to help us on set. It was so fun to work on something together in one place and it definitely bonded us all.

Turning 26 in October!

Growing out my nails! This is probably my biggest success, because anyone who knows me knows I have been an incessant nail biter since my early days of life. It's definitely a process but my nails look and feel so much healthier and I actually love them.

Getting the love of my life - my ipad - and learning how to illustrate on procreate.

Watching Stranger Things and celebrating Halloween in October. Also helping Amanda with all her Costober stuff was super fun.

Remaking the Parks and Rec intro with my family, continuing that new annual tradition.

Writing and directing a very cute Christmas short in December! We just filmed it one morning and did it with a bunch of our friends. I'm really proud of this because I put the whole thing together, made it happen, and it honestly was super fun to do.

Celebrating New Year's Eve with Kamille and Amanda in our pjs.

Honorable mentions: fidget spinners (my golden snitch one!), Simply Kenna's youtube videos, the chipmunk filter in snapchat providing us way too many nights of endless laughter, me eating vegetables a few times this year and liking it!, the delicious smoothies from Dancing Crane, my ipad (I really love it), the #metoo movement and everything happening for women right now, youtube (I'm finding myself obsessed with managing channels


I love this blog because it gives me a voice that I don't often use to speak out loud, and I kind of miss that. So I may be posting on here a bit more often that I have in the past. I'm really trying not to give empty promises this year so hopefully I can stick to it! (also honestly I don't even know if anyone reads this anymore, but I always wrote for myself more anyway.)

Summer 2014

Guys. It's been nuts, and I have possibly been the worst blogger ever. For some reason, whenever summer comes blogging always goes down the drain (so hopefully that means it'll pick up again in the next few weeks!).

It has been a summer of bandanas in my hair, skirt and dress-wearing, video-making, weddings, cute kids (at the daycare), way too long of drives in my non-air conditioned orange car (kill me!), snap-back hats, traveling, face-painting, and great memories. Honestly, it's been a really good summer and I would like to credit that to me just feeling really good. Life is just good right now and nothing is really wrong, which feels awesome. I know that probably means something bad is coming, but I'm enjoying this good peace in my life for as long as it's here. :) This is going to be kind of a long post, but if you'd like to bear with me, enjoy the rundown of my awesome summer (also, there are many videos, all of which are pretty fun, but if you have to pick, watch the Cali one and the Fancy one--both are definitely my favorite videos I've ever done!).

I don't think I ever posted this video so I'll lump it in. My roommate Lizzie got married back in April and I didn't finish her video until like July haha! I'm really happy with how it turned out, I think I am starting to get the hang of this thing a little better.


At the end of May, Sidney graduated high school...


And the next day or two Cee Ryle had his Eagle Court of Honor for getting his eagle scout award! Kind of a big deal since he's the only boy in the family. We all just love him so much, he's such a great kid. :)

So my sister Sidney and I do face-painting for our aunt's business, which is super fun. Last year we face-painted at an event for Jet Blue and they paid us each with a round-trip ticket to Long Beach, California. They expired a year later, and we never went, and then it was like a month before when we realized, oh crap, we need to go! I might not have gone, except I wanted to get all my fabric for my October Provo Fashion Week show, since fabric is amazingly cheap in the LA Fashion District. Sidney was way too busy with Senior year stuff to go, so Carina paid her for her ticket and we went on a really quick trip (Saturday-Sundy) to California! Super fun! I got a lot of fabric, we did some fun shopping, went to Venice and Huntington beaches, and also stopped by the grounds of the Newport Beach temple on Sunday to get our spiritual fix for the day haha. I had a great time and obviously made a video of it. It's my favorite video I've ever made so if you have the time, feel free to watch!

Sidney had her last ballet recital at Clytie Adams, which was a big ordeal (to me, at least) because it felt like the end of an era. Carina, Sidney, and I all danced ballet there pretty much until we graduated high school, so it was really cool, yet sad, to see her at her last recital. Happily for us, Gracie is still dancing there and since she's only seven, we don't have to say goodbye anytime soon! Gracie was in the recital too, sorry forgot to mention that!

One Sunday I went to temple square (one of my favorite places ever!) in Salt Lake City with my family and that was pretty fun. I always love going to that place.

We went on a fieldtrip to the Hutchings Museum with the daycare kids. I got moved to the preschool/school-age class after being with the two year-olds since June. It was a really good change and I've a lot of fun being with the older kids!

At the end of June, my uncle got married, so we drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming where all of my dad's side of the family lives for the wedding. It was super fun! I don't think I have any good pictures with me in them, but I made a video for this too so feel free to watch. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and so much fun in Cheyenne that we decided to go again in July (more on that later in the post).

By awesome chance, our Texas cousins happened to be in Colorado at the same time we were in Wyoming so we met up with them for a few hours, which was lots of fun.

We had dinner at the most delicious Italian buffet in Denver called Cinzzetti's that you should probably try if you are ever in Denver! We went years ago and have been begging to go again ever since. It's really good and we had so much fun!

We also had fun upholding our second annual candy poker night. :)

July brought more business and more weddings haha! Katie, one of my old roommates, was in town for the 4th, so she, all my old roommates and their spouses, and I got together at Gurus for some yummy food (like their sweet potato fries!). I always love getting together with my old roommates, it really is the best.

July 4th was an AMAZING DAY because it was the day of Stadium of Fire which Carrie Underwood, my absolutely MOST favorite singer and person in the world ever, was singing at! In the morning I went to our hometown parade and then face-painted with my aunt at a festival for a while and then we all went to Stadium of Fire!

And let me just tell you, it was really soooooo great. Wow. Obviously of course! Carrie Underwood is amazing and I love her! I was dying the whole time. It was my fourth time seeing her live and it was just as great as all the other times. She really is so good. We got a picture with all of us (my family minus Gracie, plus our cousin Shayden, plus my friend Jenna who came and sat by us) and my mom and I had to get a picture because we've gone to every Carrie Underwood concert together. I love sharing that with her.

We went to see Mary Poppins at Hale Center Theatre and it was SO good! We got a picture with Mary (who was actually in my BYU ballet class like five years ago, but the picture taking happened very fast so I don't think she remembered me) and Bert. Gracie especially loved it, she wanted to listen to all the music afterward haha!

Volcano making day at the daycare! The girl in front was in a bad mood at the moment. ;)

Meetup with my best friends at the Chocolate in Orem!

My roommate (well, old roommate now) Stephanie got married on July 22! We threw her a little bridal shower the Saturday before the wedding. Jessica pretty much planned it all, but I did do the decorations! I was especially proud of that star banner.

Stephanie's wedding was beautiful and so much fun. I'm working on a video for it. They were married in the Provo temple, we went to a delicious luncheon at Magleby's, and the reception was really gorgeous in the Provo Library Ballroom! Sorry, not a lot of pics and I only posted the one so you could see a picture of me at the wedding.

Went to Wyoming again with my family for Frontier Days! We had a lot of fun with cousins going into the park, the indian village, and the parade. We spray painted shirts the night before the parade and all wore them the next day. We'd also all won free sunglasses and hats at the park so we were wearing those too.

On July 31st (Harry Potter's birthday!) I ran the Potter Run! It was just a 5k, but my first race that I trained for a total of two times. I walked and ran it, but it was a lot of fun and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I'm only posting the picture of me after the race as proof that I ran it, I swear I look way better than that normally! Also, thanks to my awesome family for cheering me on.

The only picture I got of when Alyne, Jessica and I got henna! I got a really cute flower on my foot and never got a picture of it unfortunately, and now it's almost all gone. I loved it though.

Bowling with some girls from my ward!

My best friend and old roommate Heidi got married two weeks ago in the Manti, Utah temple and it was one of the funnest days ever. It meant getting together with all the old gang again and we just had a blast. Earlier in the week we had a bachelorette party where we went and got pizza, caught each other up on all our m&ms (holding hands) and ice-cream (kisses) stories, and watched Austenland.

The Friday before the wedding, Katie, Meghan and I went shopping for a bit and then ate a lot of big food, I kid you not haha! We got a 24 inch long crepe at The Roll-Up, realized we were still hungry so we went to Slab and got delicious pizza (they give you a quarter of a huge pizza, so also big food).

The morning of the wedding we had breakfast at Kelsey and Scott's and then went to the Manti temple for the wedding, and to Leamington, UT for the luncheon and reception. Leamington is this really REALLY middle of nowhere town like an hour and a half south of Provo. It's cute, but there isn't much to do there. We had two hours to kill in between the luncheon and the reception so we thought, "hey! let's make a music video!" So we did. And it's really great. We did it to "Fancy" because we were in fancy clothes. I know, we're a creative bunch. Really though, the video is quite hilarious if you wanna watch.

And guess what, I'm going back to school this fall! Finally! I'm so SO excited. I'm definitely sad to be leaving my daycare job though. I love all those kids so much. I'm trying to really enjoy my last few days, I will miss these kiddos like crazy.

But man, bring on school. It'll be a new adventure after not being in it for a year and a half. I will hopefully graduate in the spring so I can't wait. :D