Hiking again!

I went hiking for the second time this summer! I was so proud of me! ::wipes a tear::

Last Friday Kralc, Tryndakai, and Elizabeth gathered up our stuff and headed down to Calf Creek which is just north of Escalante. The great part was that we had to drive through the two cities that Tryn and I maybe had a car accident at. And, randomly, may have gotten turned around/lost for about an hour. But, other than that and some rain, we were able to meet up with Becks, Fred and Goliath. :)

The guys. Being the manly men they are.

I asked Tryn to maybe sing a little anthem to the water. You know, the kind that begins, "what I love most about rivers is you can't step in the same river twice . . . "

Fred, nearing the waterfall--he got to touch it!

And so did Becks! She's nice and brave!

Aw, cute. It was a roommate picture on a log!

Stacey and Clinton would kill me

I just realized I'm wearing paisley, plaid, polka dots and zebra print. At the same time. Oops!

It's been a while

I'm starting to get mysterious bruises again. And I'm not quite sure how they got where they are . . .

Shout Out

Sometimes, DianeyFace makes me really happy!

Why I will never . . .

. . . be tiny in any way, shape, or form.

My lunch?

A salad.

A salad with an entire chicken breast, 2 hard boiled eggs, 2/3 C of peas and most of a bag of lettuce.

I think the correct phrase for what I did to my salad is "drowned it in ranch dressing."

Hey, at least it's light ranch dressing.

Dance party--IN LONDON!

Awesome things that happened yesterday:

• I was doing a little cleaning/organizing last night and came across two different fan fics that I originally read two or three years ago along with a few essays about theories on how things would end.
• I purchased mugglenet.com's "Harry Potter Should Have Died" and have been working my way through that.
• I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for the second time (still awesome!)
• Looked up a bunch of Harry Potter fan art while on Deviantart.com
  

Have I mentioned how much of a nerd I am when it comes to Harry Potter?

Jack's Mannequin and the Fray

Saturday night I was able to see and hear Jack's Mannequin and the Fray perform at the USANA Ampitheater. I feel so completely lucky that I was able to attend because it was a GREAT concert and I got to spend all day with Clark. :D

Um, yeah. Clark obviously attended the WRONG concert. ;) Just kidding, I know he loves the Fray!

Anyway, here is the set list:

Jack's Mannequin:
The Mixed Tape
Crashing
Spinning
Swim
Don't Stop
Bruised
La La Lie
Hammers and Strings Lullabye
Dark Blue
Watch the Sky
The Resolution
cover of Tom Petty's American Girl

the Fray:
Happiness
Cable Car (Over My Head)
Absolute
She Is
Say When
How to Save a Life
Ungodly Hour
Vienna
Enough for Now
Syndicate
We Build Then We Break
Where the Story Ends
Never Say Never
You Found Me

Encore:
Heartless (cover)
All At Once
Happiness

P.S. I know the videos don't actually show the bands, but I love both these songs enough I wanted to share the audio with you!

Worst luck in the world

I've been missing my house keys/car keys for two days and my cell phone for 12 hours.

Pull out the world's smallest violin.

Survey says . . .

was AWESOME!

Red, yellow, green, red, blue, blue, blue!

For those of you who keep track of my weird, random quirks, here's another one:

I eat M&Ms in pairs. Well, I eat a lot of things in pairs or halves. But M&Ms, in particular, get eaten in colored pairs. It's like Noah's ark, sort of, in that I eat two reds, two blues, etc. I just pour them into my hand and start matching up colors. I have yet to finish a bag based solely on my weird eating habits.

HOWEVER

Today, something even more awesome happened. I got to the bottom of the bag and poured out . . .

Well, I guess you won't know, since Blogger won't upload my picture. I'll update later. Not immediately, since I'll be at HARRY POTTER tonight! :D

Edit: Here is what came out of the bag at the very end!

Bear Lake

This weekend I was able to go to the Earley family reunion up at Bear Lake. I drove up with Clark and Tyler on Friday afternoon and, after seeing my fourth new temple this year (I'd never seen the Logan temple in person, but I still haven't visited the grounds) we made our way across the Utah/Idaho border and crossed over into Fishhaven (sp?) to stay at the cabin that had been borrowed for the week. The Earleys were very sweet and here a few pictures from the two days I was able to visit:

Lots of little seashells on the narrow strip of beach. I just liked that these were grouped together.

Possibly the town of Fishhaven. I'm not really sure. But I do know that the cabin we stayed at is just to the right of where this picture was taken.


Some bullrushes or tall grass or whatever you want to call them. It reminded me of Moses being set adrift in the Nile from among the reeds. And, yeah, I have no idea why I only think of Moses when I see tall grass. You'd figure I'd think of . . . running, or deer, or something else. Oh, well, I'm weird and I know it. :)


Aw, cute. This is the only picture of the two of us from the entire trip. It was actually the backyard that had been used to play several rounds of Bocce. Please note the HILL behind us. That made for some interesting strategy although it seemed to entertain all the boys that participated.


This is the view first coming into Bear Lake. We're on a hill that was highly reminiscent of Lombard St., what with all the crazy switchbacks. But look at all those pine trees! I sure do miss trees while I live in Happy Valley . . .


And last, but not least (since these pictures uploaded in a completely random order), Clark playing in the sand with a few cousins. This was the beginning of our amazing Colosseum. It was so amazing, it lasted about ten minutes. :D

My favorite part was being able to help take the family pictures. I loved it! There were 21 members of their family there, so it was great breaking everyone down into generations or genders or spouses and just getting some nice pictures of everyone. I hope they like them, too!

Anybody got a wig?

I freakin' shed like a banshee.

The Beginning of the End . . .

Once upon a time there was a girl.

She was a regular sort of girl, shorter than most, liked to be with friends, but mostly liked to read.

One day, this girl was visiting a friend's house. There, on a chair, was a copy of TIME magazine (one of her favorites, along with the National Geographic). On the cover was an illustration of a dark-haired boy surrounded by swirls and glitter. In fact, THIS is the cover. The friend, offhandedly, said "I think you'd like the books it talks about, have you heard of them?" and the little girl picked up the magazine and immediately read the article.

This began her not-so-secret love of the Harry Potter novels.

Nearly ten years (has it really been that long?!) after finding out about these wonderful books, the series has concluded, but this young woman is starting to get excited again. Because, 6 days, 6 hours and 44 minutes from posting this, she will be sitting in a theater with some of her dearest friends, watching yet another film adaptation of these amazing books.

I. Can't. Wait.

How to celebrate Independence Day, pt. 2

All right, kids. This is how you finish up your Independence Day celebration: go out and buy a TON of cheap fireworks and light them up in your neighborhood! Huzzah! Here are a few pictures of the fountain-y fireworks that were set off in the middle of the street.







And last, but not least, make sure you eat cake. Or, at least, bribe your roommate to bake and decorate cake for everyone else. I still love the two cakes on the left (no matter how she tried, the frosting wouldn't dye straight red. I guess that proves that pink really is red and white mixed together.)

Memory

Today would have been my grandmother's 87th birthday and my grandparents' 69th wedding anniversary. My grandparents were wonderful people and I loved them very much. I remember once, when I was younger, my grandma visited us (I think we lived in Puerto Rico at the time) and I was complaining that I was always held responsible for things that weren't necessarily my fault, just because I was the oldest child. Grandma told me that I shouldn't feel bad that I was the oldest--it was actually a privilege to be able to be the oldest--and the oldest girl, no less. She then invited me to her special club, the "Oldest Girl" club. She told me that she had been an almost life-long member and that my mother had joined, too. She also said that it would be our special thing, because not everyone could join the club.

I also got to live with my grandma and grandpa the two summers after I graduated from high school and I am forever grateful that I was able to. Even though I worked crazy hours (usually at least 60 hours a week), I was able to spend a lot of time in what I called my "second home" because my grandparents moved into that house back in the 1950s ('57 or '59, you'd have to ask my aunts and uncles to give you the specific year). Those summers I learned to garden, love tomatoes, get along with my sister (love you, Nicoel!) and learned the importance of knowing personal family history. I am so grateful that Grandma did so much family history and shared the information with all of us. I'm glad she instilled a love of our country in her children and me. I am grateful to have had such wonderful people in my life for as long as I did.

How to celebrate Independence Day

This morning was AMAZING! Not only did I get to see hot air balloons (which I LOVE), I was also able to participate in the parade itself by being a balloon wrangler! (note: being a balloon wrangler involves being places before 7 in the morning. This is evil. Balloon wrangling still isn't.) Here are a few pictures from this morning!

This was our eagle balloon! See how many people were needed to hold it? Notice how HUGE it is? And, yet, every ten feet the children would shout out: "SPIN IT!" Frick! It's hard! :D



Our eagle loves us!


Some members of our ward got to be on the tiger balloon. A tiger for the Fourth of July? Any guesses as to what a tiger would have to do with Independence Day?


Hooray! Some hot air balloons! LOVE these things! There were a lot more, too, I just didn't want to bother with editing the others so they could be put on here. :D

Happy Independence Day!

Happy birthday, America! I love you!

A sporty gesture

Anyone who knows me can now freak out just a little. Naazju blogging about sports? What has this world come to? I don't know either, my dear, sweet friends. But I'll have you know that in the last 365 days I have been to
(2) football games
(2) basketball games
(2) lacrosse games
(1) soccer game (granted, this wasn't professional, but still!)
(1) Frisbee game (intramural)
and about to attend my (2nd) minor league baseball game.

We're not even mentioning how many events I've caught on television [although I will say I watched almost the entire BYU Football season last year. I'm kind of proud of that, hee hee hee. :)]

But, seriously. Why are these games so complicated? Just when I think I finally get the hang of the sport, someone goes tearing down the field whacking someone else with their pole and a golf ball gets chucked through a basketball hoop. Okay, nothing quite that bad. But sometimes it feels like that.

Planning

I've always been a fan of having everything planned out. However, I've discovered that everything can't be planned. Especially if plans involve more than just yourself sitting in the middle of somewhere. You have to factor in people, weather, money, random illness, other plans that come up, transportation, etc. Which I normally have no problem with. Except this summer. This summer has been insane. I also can't even begin to list all sorts of variables that didn't even occur to me.

Which is why I've been completely lame and stopped planning things. If I can make it to your birthday party, awesome. If I can drop in on your BBQ celebration, even better. If not, I'm sorry. I just have a lot going on.