April 8, 2016: Carrie Underwood Concert Number FIVE

This post is here for my sole purposes only, because it deserves to have a place on the blog forever and ever as the current best day of my life! OBVIOUSLY.

Quick rundown: When Carrie Underwood announced the first leg of her wondrous Storyteller Tour, no Utah dates were announced. I repeat, NO UTAH DATES WERE ANNOUNCED. However, I'd been to four of her concerts, and this was simply a small hiccup in the road. My mom is the greatest and has been to all of her concerts with me. She's now the only one I can go with to a Carrie concert, because I know nobody else would be as much fun or be able to experience it the same way. Anyway, when I told my mom this, she didn't even question the fact that we were going to have to go see her in concert somewhere else. So after much researching and planning, we decided on Reno, NV and many long months of excited anticipation began.

I got the day off of work and we road-tripped the long and pretty boring way to Reno. One cool thing about the trip was that we took it in a BLACK CADILLAC. I took my car in for a repair while we'd be gone and the only rental car they had left was a Black Cadillac. It was very boujee and we had no complaints (only that it was so new we had trouble working some of the controls at one point haha). We stopped at the Salt Flats and took a few photos, and also stopped in Elko and Winnemucca (I would definitely recommend taking trips to these lovely middle-of-nowhere-towns if you ever get the chance NO PLEASE DON'T).

Reno is..put shortly, a place I really have no desire to ever visit again. It is a smaller, dirtier, and less exciting version of Las Vegas. We took a visit to the University of Nevada - Reno campus, saw the Reno arch, and searched for a while before we finally found a place where our food wouldn't smell like smoke. I was verrrry anxious throughout the whole night because I was terrified that something would go wrong and also excited about the concert. I can't help but get like this in high-excitement/stress situations. But once we got into the venue, all my fears went away and everything I felt was pure happy.

Easton Corbin and the Swon Brothers were the opening act, and while they were great, we all know all I wanted to see was Carrie Underwood. And then, she came, and thus began the greatest night of my life. It was THE most amazing concert EVER. We had floor seats and I have never been so close to her. I definitely cried multiple times during the night and just felt so incredibly grateful for the opportunity. All the waiting, driving, and anxiety was worth it. Because I was there and Carrie Underwood was there, and she was singing amazing things and it was all just incredible. (Side note: if you would like to know reasons why I love Carrie Underwood, you can read so here.)

(btw, WE WERE SO CLOSE. These pictures are not zoomed in, they are an actual representation of what we were seeing so it was amazinggggg!!!)

When she sang "Two Black Cadillacs" (because of COURSE it happened during this song, are we even surprised?!) I looked around me and noticed all the people around me with their phones up videoing her, and I thought about how weird it must have been for her to be there singing to a crowd of people with all of them taking pictures/videos of her in response. So in that moment, when she was right by the stage part where I was at, I put my camera down, put my hand up, and waved.

And what do you know SHE WAVED BACK TO ME OMG I DIED. (I'm very sorry this is such a fangirly post, my goodness, but honestly, how can I not?!) I am pretty sure I legitimately died and went to heaven for a split-second. And what do you know, my mom happened to be one of those people taking pictures at that moment (for which I was ever so grateful) and she got a photo of it!

To see the person you love and admire most in the world is already an amazing thing and almost more than my heart can take, but to have that person look at me and know I existed even for just a second? I hope everyone gets that opportunity at least once in their lifetime, because it truly was incredible.

The rest of the concert was amazing. And the rest of the trip, regardless of all my fears, went completely smoothly and we had a great ride back to Utah (albeit a little sad that the concert was over). The even greater silver lining of all of this is that a week before we left for Reno, Carrie Underwood announced a second leg of her tour, and guess which place is the last stop on the tour?

You guessed it...SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH! So Carrie, I'm coming for you again November 28, floor seats and everything. And obviously. I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED!

Movie Making!

I've recently found a new hobby of mine in videography. It's a different way to document my life and it's fun to look back and watch them. I kind of wish I'd gotten into it earlier because there are so many things I would have loved to document this way. I'm not professional or anything but I definitely love it and would like to get better. I got a new camera in November and it takes way better videos so it's been fun to use. I figured it was probably easier to put them all in one post, since there are so many. I have a lot of stuff to update on that I might not get to, but these videos sum up the big events, and they may have to do.

At the end of June/beginning of July, I went on a vacation with my family to Moab in southern Utah. We've been on vacations to a lot of places outside of Utah but none actually in the state we live in, so it was fun to go and see all the arches and stuff.


August was a sad month because it became the end of an era for my old roommates and I. A few of us had gotten married and graduated and we were all going our separate ways and moving to different places. So to commemorate it I made a little video to our favorite theme song for ourselves. I love these girls to pieces..I will seriously never have better roommates.


I work at a daycare in the toddlers class and in December we had a little Christmas program. We practiced Jingle Bells A LOT but I knew that once the program came around and my kids were up at the front, they'd freeze and barely sing (I was right). So I filmed them a bunch over a couple of weeks and made a music video to show the parents at the program. It was way fun and the parents (and the todders--they kept wanting to watch it over and over again) loved it! Success. :)


At the beginning of December I went on a trip to NYC and Boston with my family. My aunt and uncle take their family every year since my aunt works for Jet Blue and her whole family gets to fly standby for free. So we decided to tag along this year. We had some trouble getting there, but we had a BLAST. We have relatives in Boston too so it was great to see them.


One of my old roommates and best friend (featured in the 22 video above) Olivia got back from the LDS mission she served in Brazil in December, and since all my old roommates were back in town for Christmas break (a plus of all of us being from Utah) we were able to go get her from the airport! She had a five hour layover in the Salt Lake airport before going home so we took her out to lunch and got to see her before her family! It was definitely one of the best days ever. And now I feel pretty lucky because Olivia is living in my apartment complex and I see her almost daily. Its great.


If you want to see any other videos of mine that I already put on this blog, the link to my youtube channel is here. I am working on getting a link on my sidebar and putting them all in one place for easy viewing. Let me know what you think! :)

[California Trip] Day 4: LA Fashion District, Hollywood, and Venice Beach

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Day 4, we woke up from our hotel semi-early (probably like 9 am? I can't remember really), and headed to downtown Los Angeles for some shopping! This one of the things I was most anticipating the whole trip, because I have been dying to go the the LA fashion district for the looooongest time. I was so excited!

It is crazy cool there. Everything is dirt cheap, like wholesale prices, and they also sell lots of great fabric for cheap as well. I want to go back and buy more fabric, because I didn't buy too much during this trip. We all bought a few things and found an accessories store where everything was only $0.50, so we stocked up on souvenirs to take home to our families there.

Next, it was off to Hollywood. We had fun looking at the stars on the sidewalk (which, I think that Carrie Underwood needs a star there, don't you agree??? How do we make this happen?!), seeing the Hollywood sign from afar, and seeing all the crazy people on the streets. Hollywood is a fun place to be, but there isn't much to actually do there, so we didn't stick around for too long.

Venice Beach was next and last on our list, and let me tell you that it was so cool. It was super cultural and I felt like I had walked into a movie because it was filled with tons of different, crazy, and cool people. We just walked the boardwalk for a little while and then to end our trip we sat out on the beach together one last time before going home.

Other fun facts about the trip:

-We successfully read and finished the first Harry Potter book throughout the whole vacation

-You may notice that on the previous days, the other three girls all happened to match...and then there was me. I assure you, this was not on purpose, but a really funny coincidence. For instance, when we went to Knott's Berry Farm, they all happened to be wearing neon. I remember that because it was a lot easier to spot them on the roller coasters haha.

-This trip to California was actually supposed to be a trip to NYC, but since we were flying on standby, it was risky and turned out that we probably wouldn't have been able to get home had we gone to NY. So we spontaneously decided to go to California just a few days before it was scheduled to happen. While I was sad we didn't get to go to New York, just as we all were, I think our California trip was perfect. We all bonded so much and it was also cheaper on our wallets.

-Many sessions of truth or truth were played in Katie's car as we drove and drove

-While we did of course have some tension and slight disagreements, the whole trip was practically drama free, which is how we have always been as friends. And let me tell you, it's very nice.

All in all, one of the best vacations I have been on thus far in my life :)

Friendship bracelets from the Santa Monica pier :)

For the video version of the trip, go to 13:06 for LA, 14:27 for Hollywood, and 16:16 for Venice Beach (the Venice Beach part is definitely the most fun to watch, if you have to pick one).