Busiest Weeks of My LIFE!

The last two weeks have been insane, crazy busy. I have not been able to just sit still and relax without my mind jumping to something that I need to get done, something that I need to study, or an assignment I need to finish. At times, I sort of felt like I was going crazy. Finals had me stressing out over the smallest things.
Thank goodness for weekends at home! Last weekend, after a long, busy week I got to go home and spend time chilling. On Saturday morning, Brad and I made an enormous breakfast. It was tons of fun, even though by the time I'd gone to the store to get the food and we'd finished cooking, it was about noon. And yes, I am a pro at frosting cinnamon rolls. (And yes, that was sarcasm.)Also, Brad does not like to have his picture taken. At all. Such a stubborn boyfriend I have.
On Sunday we got to go to the Christmas devotional by the First Presidency, which was really great. The talks and the music really brought the Christmas spirit.
But then I had to come back to school for Final's Week. Oh, how I hate finals week. I've been studying nonstop and still cannot feel sure of myself. I have so far completed three finals and my final project for my theater class. The studying and preparing paid off; I didn't fail anything. Actually, I did pretty well and I'm so happy this semester is almost over, even though I cannot believe it went so fast. I only have one more final, and that's tomorrow, for my Archeology class. It's my toughest subject... So I'm gonna get back to work now. Ha ha

Time For Christmas

I don't know if you know this, but Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday, above all others. It's the spirit of the season, being with loved ones, great Christmas music, giving of gifts and love, awesome treats and food, and the wonderful reason for the holiday that make Christmas my favorite. The feelings and spirit that surround this holiday and make it so special and different from the others. But for the moment, I have to take a step backwards.
This last week was Thanksgiving Break and it was wonderful. Thanksgiving ranks pretty close to Christmas in my holiday list, coming in at second. For me, Thanksgiving is the real beginning of the "Holiday Season", and leads up to Christmas perfectly. I love all the food, being with my family and loved ones, and just relaxing and enjoying the break. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving was the day of David Archuleta's Christmas From the Heart concert that I was so excited about. I had good reason to be excited. It was a wonderful concert and tons of fun. I got one picture on my phone... But as you can see, it wasn't all that great of a shot. Suffice it to say, I had a blast and the music was amazing.
Thanksgiving Day was also great. Brad and I got to eat two awesome Thanksgiving Dinners, first at his house and then at my grandma's. I just want to say how grateful I am for my family, my friends, for Brad, and for the wonderful life that I have been blessed with.
So I have been really getting into the Christmas spirit! I've been listening to Christmas music since November first, and yesterday, Brad's sister Amber, and his mom, and I made gingerbread houses! Voila, our beautiful creations!
Today, back up at school, I decided to decorate my room a little... Let it snow! Also, a Countdown 'Til Christmas chain...
I am so excited for Christmas and I'm sure to have tons of adventures this month, so you'll hear from me soon!
Merry Christmas!

The Costume Shop

For my Understanding Theatre class (aka Most Useless Class Ever besides Humanities), we have to complete a certain number of shop hours, either in the set shop, costume shop, etc., in the theater department. I figured I'd have more luck in the costume shop than anywhere and turned out I was right, even though I have pricked my fingers about a kazillion times with a needle so far.
Yesterday while I was there, we were given a bunch of crafts, chopsticks, and a hot glue gun and told to make Japanese head-dresses. Sort of like this.

And so, these are what I came up with.

It was actually really fun, and I managed to keep the hot glue off of my fingers. Maybe I have a career in costume design? Ha ha ha.

Trick or Treat!

Ah, Halloween. Who doesn't love the candy, scary movies, cute little dressed-up children, and yummy treats that go with this holiday? I know I do. So, Halloween night Brad and I are heading back to his house to watch scary movies and chill out. We walk up to the front door, but instead of opening the door, Brad gives me a sneaky little smile and says, "Ring the doorbell". Well, I smile too, because I think we're going to trick his sister, Amber, or something. So I go along with it and ring the doorbell. Sure enough, she comes to the door holding the big bowl of candy and just smiles at us and looks at me expectantly. I'm a little confused at this point, because Brad didn't scare her like I thought he was going to. Still puzzled, I look down at the bowl of candy and become even more confused. Sitting on top of the pile of candy was a rectangular piece of white-ish paper with writing on it: a ticket. I picked it up, knowing that Brad and Amber were watching me very closely. I vaguely remember reading the name David Archuleta, followed by some other not-quite-as-important stuff like 'November 24th', 'Abravanel Hall', and 'Christmas From the Heart Concert'. I remember letting out a girlish scream and jumping around a bit and smiling like an idiot. I got a treat this Halloween. What did you get?

Don't Let It Snow!!!

So a few days ago (seriously, like on Monday) it looked something like this outside.
Beautiful bright blue sky, crisp air, and gold-orange leaves falling everywhere. Basically, the perfect fall weather. I loved it.

Then yesterday, this happened.
Yep. That fluffy lookin' white stuff? It's snow. And it is everywhere. People warned me about moving up to Logan. They really did. But did I listen? No, I did not, apparently. Because this morning walking to class, all bundled up and feeling like my nose and/or ears were about to fall off simply from the cold, I found myself thinking, why, oh why, did I move here? Fall, please come back! I'm not ready for winter yet!!!

There's a First for Everything

So, last Saturday I went with my awesome boyfriend and some of his family to get the you-know-what scared outta me. Yeah. That's right; we went to a couple haunted houses. First stop: Nightmare Mansion.This creepy guy walks around outside, basically just giving me the chills and making me want to run. He's just... Well, you get the picture. He's gross and scary. Ew.

This is me, Brad's sis Amber, and his Aunt Holly and Uncle Phil, wearing our 3-D glasses for the first part of the haunted house.
This girl (above) looks like me screaming because I do not like these (below). Clowns are NOT o.k.
I think the only reason I even survived this place (and did not end up curled in a ball on the floor sobbing) was that Brad held me the entire time and did not let go. Once we reached the end, we hung around for a few minutes, waiting for the rest of our group. Some nasty guy with a chainsaw was hanging out there, too. The last few people emerged and one of Brad's cousins saw chainsaw-nasty-guy and immediately dove between her boyfriend's legs, doing figure eights around them in order to keep the chainsaw-nasty-guy away. We all started to leave but unfortunately, chainsaw-nasty-guy followed us. Well, Brad's cousin had had it. She took off running into the parking lot, with chainsaw-nasty-guy following with his chainsaw roaring. I was freaked out, but could not help but laugh at the sight.

Our next destination was The Haunted Forest, in American Fork.


To put it simply, I feel like Nightmare Mansion was just the preview and the Haunted Forest was the full-blown-scare-me-to-tears horror movie. At one point, I seriously did almost cry. The tears were in my eyes. But then we encountered a possessed pig hanging upside down from the ceiling and all I could think about was screaming and getting OUT of there.

There was one part, however, where I did manage to laugh. Have you seen The Ring?
Well, there is a little girl who looks like this.
And she crawls out of a well that looks like this. Basically, once you watch her movie, your phone rings and someone says you will die in seven days. The Haunted Forest had their very own version of this little terror. Scary, no? No. This is the part I laughed because once I saw this, and the horrid girl walked right up to my face and whispered (probably in her scariest voice), "Seven days", all I could think of was a Vampire Diaries post on a blog my friend introduced me to: busybeelauren.blogspot.com. She does a review of every episode of The Vampire Diaries (one of my fave TV shows) and one of them went something like this:

Stefan prank calls Damon... Stefan says, "Seven daaaays"!

And Damon goes, "Oh shiiiiz"!
See the humor? Yeah. So I survived my very first experience with haunted houses. But no way would I ever go again unless I have Brad there with me, to protect me from all those creepy, gross, scary people!

Once Upon a Picture

Me & Brad + Kira + a Camera + the Gardens=


I think this is where I accidentally licked a leaf and Brad was all, "Wah! You licked a leaf"!

Gosh, these Japanese Maple Trees are just the prettiest, no?
Brad took this. He says he's a 'random picture' kinda guy.

Playing on the Merry-Go-Round!









Quite possibly the cutest picture...





It was cold and it was windy, but it was oh-so-worth-it.