Welcome to College

Welcome to college. It's the place for you!

There's a school for everyone (I chose BYU).

Classrooms, hallways, and buildings galore,

They probably even have a bookstore.

There's parties and freedom with lots of late nights,

Just make sure you have some hours of sleeping tight.

You get here, excited to start anew

Even more excited to leave mom's vegetable stew.

Unpacking and decorating your room, it's all so great!

Hopefully you get some nice roommates...

Saying goodbye to mom and dad

Will probably make you a teeny bit sad.

The first week is filled with job-hunting, new teachers,

Lots of syllabi, and cheering your football team from the bleachers.

You dance like crazy and make plenty of new friends,

It's all fun games until it all ends.

Then it becomes....

Boring classes, three tests in a week;

Camping out in the library, forget about sleep.

Teachers are piling on homework and reading,

It’s a miracle if you can make time for eating.

Awake all night trying to study for a test

Only to take it the next day and get a D-minus.

10-page paper due one day, a presentation the next,

The realization comes—you’re taking way too many subjects!

The happy campus you thought you once knew,

Becomes a place crazier than the zoo.

Too many girls on diets, trying to avoid the "Freshman 15,"

"I quit," becomes some students' new routine.

There are couples all over, dotting the grounds,

When single people see them, their smiles turn to frowns.

The first snowfall comes: you get slush in your shoes

And make a resolve to buy some rain boots.

You get so homesick missing your parents,

These bills coming in make you scared to pay rent.

Students get creative, taking naps any place they can find,

A bench, a chair, the floor, anywhere to recline.

Going to great lengths to keep yourself alive,

And as the end of the semester nears, you think you might just survive!

Finals come and go and before you know it, you’re done!

It’s probably okay to have some fun.

And so…

The parties return, excitement is bursting.

No more worrying about a grade that is hurting.

You think to yourself, “Now that wasn’t so bad,

Next semester will be cake compared to that!”

And so in your ignorance you go online,

To register for classes at least one more time.

Welcome to college, it’s a little bit wild,

It’s exciting and scary, leaving life behind as a child.

Just know that one day, when you are old and gray,

You’ll look back on these times, smile, and think, “I loved those days.”

The Story Behind the Pictures

My crazy, silly life...

This happened a few weeks ago on a Friday. It was any other day and I was driving in my car to find a place to take outfit pictures. I was about 10 blocks from my apartment when I saw this cute white picket fence and decided to take pictures by it. I left my phone inside my car, and as I locked the car and shut the doors I realized in my stupidity that I had also locked my keys in the car. Not to mention the fact that my wallet and purse was also inside the car. All I had was my camera and my tripod. It was about 4:00 and I was supposed to go with my roommates to sign a contract for the place we're living at next year at 4:30. Problem? Yes. So I wasn't in a super great mood to take pictures, having locked everything I needed in my car. I was right by a house, but because of technology these days, I didn't have any of my roommates phone numbers memorized. So with tripod and digital camera in hand, I proceeded to walk the ten miles back to my apartment.

It actually wasn't that cold, almost warm and the walk took about 20 minutes, so it really wasn't bad. My roommate Katie was thankfully home when I told her the news. She (and most of my rooomates) has a car so we drove back to my car, taking a fly swatter and some other tool with us. My car's an explorer, so there's a window in the trunk door that comes up on it's own. There was a little unlock button just inside the door that if we could get the fly swatter in and maneuver it to push down on the button we'd be golden. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough leverage using the fly swatter to push down on the button. It was about 4:30 and we had to go sign the contracts. But...my cash for the deposit was in my wallet, which was in my car (I know, I know)!!

So Katie offered to just write a check for my deposit and then I could pay her back with the cash. We went to the apartment signing, and the lady was actually okay with me just bringing the cash on Monday so it worked out. We went back to our apartment and found some flowers on the doorstep. There was no note, but there was a clearance sticker on the flowers saying they'd been bought for $2.50. We tried figuring it out and the flowers weren't given to my roommates who had boyfriends. The flowers were a mystery.

And I was super stressed. The thing was, I was supposed to go on a date at 6:00, but I had nothing! What if my date needed to text me or something? I tried calling BYU Police to see if they could unlock me from my car (they did it for my mom and I once...though that's another story) but they can only do it if your car is on campus. So I called the Provo Police, who told me very rudely that they don't even have tools to break into cars. By this time I was freaking out (it may have been an emotional time in the month for me as well...) because a locksmith would be too much money. I messaged my date on facebook asking if we could leave at 7:00 instead, because I was a mess and still had to do my makeup and I wanted a chance to back to my car and try breaking into it again. I called my mom from Heidi's phone and was just bawling (emotional time of month, remember) and my date hadn't replied to the facebook message yet. So I got my bearings together, redid my make-up and made myself look cute. I also sent my date another message telling him to disregard the one I had sent before, just in case he read it right before he left.

Important fact: We still did not know who the flowers came from.

Well, 6:00 rolled around and he wasn't there. 6:05, 6:10. Still no date. So of course, speculations started and they had to do with the flowers. This was the conclusion that we came up with. My date was the one that brought the flowers earlier. He brought them because he had to cancel last minute on the date, so that's why the flowers had no note and why there was a clearance sticker on them. But because we weren't home, he just dropped them off at the doorstep and then texted/called me. I just didn't get any texts because I didn't have my phone. By 6:30, I figured he wasn't coming. My roommates were going with our friend Bryan to a photography exhibit, so going along with the flower theory, which at this point, I believed to be 100% true, I went with them, and then we'd go look at my car after. The exhibit would just be closing soon so we had to go there first.

On our way to the event, we called my roommate Talya to ask her to put a note on the door, just in case my date did come so he'd know where I was and that I hadn't just ditched him. Just to make sure. The exhibit was great, here's a link to what it was about (just so I don't make this post longer than it already is). After the exhibit, we went to my car but by that time it was about 8:00 and it was too dark to see anything so we had to go back to our apartment to get a flashlight. I also checked my facebook and he had messaged back just asking if I'd gotten my keys and phone, but said nothing else. So now I was very confused.

We went back to my car, and finally, with a lot of work and using the fly swatter, we got the car unlocked! I looked at my phone and had a few missed calls and texts. Oh dear.

6:02   Hey I'm on my way, what's your apartment number?
6:15   Missed call
6:25   I think I'm here, is it called the ___? (sorry, don't wanna give out too much info)
6:50   Missed call

Wow, I felt SO bad. Seriously. I mean, I did everything I could to try and contact him, but I felt really bad. By this time it was about 8:30 and I called him right away. I told him sorry a bajillion times and said we could still go on the date or we could just postpone for another time, whatever worked for him. We ended up going on the date and had a fun time. This was his side of the story: He did not bring the flowers and obviously from the texts he didn't have my apartment number (I thought I gave it to him, but turns out I didn't, oops) so he didn't know where I lived. He waited for a little bit and then figuring something must have been wrong, he went to his friend's house and checked his facebook. He saw the message and then his friend suggested he just go back to my complex and start knocking on doors until he found mine. Then he found the note (see, it was good!) and things started to come together after that.

Moral of story? NEVER lock my keys or my phone in my car again. Obviously. But really, they are always going to be with me, I'm super paranoid now!

And in case you made it all the way to the end of this story...no, we never found out who gave us the flowers. Though they really messed things up for that date. Goodness gracious!

The end.

Mission Goodbyes

Today was an exceptionally bittersweet day. My cousin Alex has been preparing to go on a mission pretty much his whole life, and today was the day. My uncle and him flew out and then me, my mom, my aunt Zildy, my sister Gracie, and my cousin (Zildy's son) Tayevion were all able to go drop him off at the MTC today.

Eating lunch at Rubios before dropping him off

haha Alex's last request was to get a jamba juice...hey and apparently if you go there the day you go to the MTC they'll give you a free jamba! sweet!

best cousins :)

My uncle Derick (Alex's dad) gave Alex his name tag from when he went on his mission. It was really cool.

Studly mish

Father and son

our whole group :)

final goodbyes

And then there he goes... :(

Alex is my closest cousin, because he's only a year younger than me and there aren't any other cousins really close to our age. We grew up together and we've stayed close. I love him so much and I know that he's going to be an awesome missionary in the San Fran/Oakland California mission.

Then...

In Guatemala together

And now...

Love you Alex, and I can't wait to see you in two years! Go share that gospel!! ;)

I Work Out

Yes, these are just pictures of us posing our muscles and how cute we look, and yes, I may have been forcing Olivia and Heidi to take them...but we did indeed go work out! For me, it was the first time I've gone in a while and we just did weight-liftting and machine biking (me) or treadmilling (definitely not me). I feel great (although my legs would say otherwise haha...)!! I think I'm going to make it a goal to go work out more. I want to build up my immune system and also get stronger. Think I can do it? Heck yes I can!

Presidents Day Weekend

I spent it all with my family and it was wonderful. On Friday and Saturday I went with my mom, dad, brother Cee Ryle, and sister Gracie to go to a gymnastics meet Cee Ryle had down there! The drive was kind of long, but I honestly kind of love long drives because they mean relaxation. We listened to music, I talked to my mom while my dad got a chance to sleep, and I read. We stopped in Cedar City at this gas station called "Love's" that also had a Subway and Carl's Jr. inside. I sat at a table with Gracie while my parents ordered the food. We had fun taking lots of "funny face" pictures together. :)

Yeah..we're a little crazy haha. After dinner we continued onto St. George where we stayed in the house of some nice friends of ours and watched tv and ate ice cream! Yum :) We packed up in the morning and then took off for the meet!

bright and sunny in St. G!

In case you don't know how gymnastics meets are run (at least the boys ones), because I definitely didn't know before my brother did this, this is how it is:

There are a certain number of teams at the meet, usually about 5-6. It depends. There are different levels ranging from 4-9 (my brother's on level 5) and sometimes the meet is just one level or sometimes they'll combine levels, like have levels 4 and 5 in the same meet. In this case, the meet was small so it was combine with levels 4-9. For the medal awarding though, they divide it up by age group and levels so that it's fair. Then the boys go with their team and rotate doing each event. So usually there are multiple people competing at one time. There are 4 events: floor, pommel horse, parallel bars, and rings.The highest score you can get is a 15, but then you can actually get more points than that if you do something more difficult or not required for the level because it's harder. They award medals for each event and then also award them for the All-Around of course. They get your All-Around score but adding up each of your scores from the events. Haha if you're confused, it's totally understandable because it's Cee Ryle's second year doing gymnastics meets and this still gets me.

Anyways, the meet was kind of long, about three and a half hours of sitting on a hard bench. Needless to say, we had lots of snacks, Gracie colored a lot, and I progressed much further on the Harry Potter lego game on my ipod touch haha (don't worry, I watched Cee Ryle during his turn on the events!). It was CR's best meet but he still did pretty well. He got 2nd place on parallel bars (missing 1st by only a tenth of a point) and 7th on rings (I think), so he got medals for both of those. I'm so proud of him because he works so hard training three times a week and still has a lot of other stuff he does during the week. Go Cee Ryle!

We started the 5-hour drive back home after the meet. We got some linner (lunch/dinner) and headed back. I wrote a letter to my friend Jessica on her mission and then practiced spelling words with Cee Ryle, who won his school spelling bee (for the third time in his life)! Told you the kid's awesome :) Oh and we stopped at Love's on our way back and decided it's our new official stopping place whenever we go to southern Utah haha.

Sunday was spent going to church and then celebrating my grandpa's birthday! It was fun to get together with all our extended family..they are crazy and I love them!

I started feeling sick on Sunday but really got a load of it when I woke up on Monday morning. I cannot seem to stay away from colds :( I slept in until about 10 AM and then just spent the day relaxing with my family and doing whatever. I love having days off of school! Then that night I went back to Provo with one of my roommates and the happiness of school began again. haha :)