6:53 PM

Nothing excited has happened to Ryan and I in the last few weeks, hence the lack of posts.  The one semi-exciting thing that happened was my stove and oven both bit the dust.  Awesome.  And they have been broken since Saturday.  Again, awesome.  I love to cook and just days before I bought a ton of fresh veggies to cook with.  That investment in our health and my wallet are now down the crapper.  Yes, you can eat some veggies raw, but not the veggies I bought.  Of course.  I have complained to maintenance since saturday morning and still nothing.  I'm trying to decided how I'm going to deduct my fast food expenses from my rent this month without them knowing.  Still working on that.

Ryan is furiously studying away for the GRE.  He is such a trooper!  I know he will do great...and he kinda has to since the test is costing $160!  That is a lot of In-N-Out Burger.  Anyway, he is a little nervous since the scores will determine a lot of where we will be next year, but I have nothing but faith that he will do great.  I also don't have to take the test...but someone has to be optimistic!   

Did you know Grad School applications are like $80 a pop?!  What the?!  Seriously colleges...do you really need all that money we are forking over for you to glance at a transcript for like 60 seconds?  Either way we will be paying the $80 for all the schools we will be applying to.  Lovely huh.  Kinda hoping this lands us a nice little gig out of school in two years when hopefully the economy is in a little better spot.  With an undergraduate degree the equal of High School now, Grad Scool it is.

I started taking some antibiotics for my acne.  It has been a long time since I was taking any meds for my face and I was loving not having to take two pills a day for the rest of my life.  Alas I have given in again.  My face sucks.  Always has, probably always will, but I'm slowly coming to grips with that fact.  Norah, being the acne angel that she is, is the only soul on the face of the planet that cleared up my acne, is now 2000 miles away and so I have given up the fight to medication.  It only has like one bajillion symptoms listed on the meds sheet, which of course I immediately think I have all of them as soon as I'm done swallowing my first pill.  Minus having headaches, diahrea, nausea, vomitting, and double vision I am great.  Oh, and I still have acne.

2:48 PM

April loves to be silly.  But we are best friends.  I'm glad it's out in the open now. 

xoxo

2:22 PM

april is my best friend  
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend
april is my best friend

my best friend.

6:59 PM

We got to pick up Ryan's parents from the airport last weekend for Leslie's Idaho reception.  We had an impromptu birthday party for Mark in the hotel with some yummy chocolate cake.

On our drive up to Idaho the next day we decided to stop at Lava Hotsprings for a little dip in the natural springs.  It was so fun!  I haven't been there in forever so it was fun to visit again.

The landscape was really beautiful.

That same night we got ready for Leslie and David's reception.  It was beautiful and fun to see all the Idaho side come out and support the newlyweds.

The reception was held in a new wing of the MC at BYU-Idaho.

We were soooo excited to run into the Baldwins!  They used to live in Florida but now live in Utah and it was such a wonderful surpise to see them there.  They knew my mom when she had just joined the church.  I am so grateful for wonderful friends...and here we are over 20 years later.  Crazy!

The whole family!

We also made our way over to Jackson Hole for a quick trip.  It was fun to play tourist for a few hours.

Our drive around Yellowstone was fun and we actually ran into a wild moose!  Ryan was stoked about seeing an animal outside of Bear World.

On Sunday I took Ryan and Mark on a tour of my old stomping grounds at BYU-Idaho.  Here they are in front of the engineering building.  Appropriate.

The gardens were beautiful this time of year.

The temple was so pretty and so peaceful to look at.  I wish the temple would have been there when I was there, but now I am pretty close with the Provo temple only being 5 minutes away.  When we go back home we will be over an hours drive away, but I know we will get to go often.  Our Rexburg adventures were so fun and I was glad Ryan was able to see where I went to school.  Thanks Leslie and David for giving us an excuse to party it up in Idaho. 

6:29 PM

*BEAR WORLD*
I was not a huge Bear World advocate this weekend, but we all got into the car and drove to Rigby to look at the bears. I had lived in Idaho for almost 3 years and I left before I ever stepped foot into Bear World and now that I traveled 4 hours to get to ID I go to Bear World.  Sigh.  I almost didn't think that there were any bears there at all, but I was for sure wrong.  The first 10 minutes you drive around looking at deer and sheep and some other animals I can't remember, then they pull a Jurassic Park on you and allow you to enter this gated area with the bears.  Rules were: #1:Do not roll down your windows.  #2:Do not stray from the maps course and #3:Do not feed the bears.  All rules were officially out the window as we of course rolled down our windows as soon as we saw the bears, then a person who will remain unnamed threw M&Ms at the bears from the window and then we had to go the wrong way through the park to go straight to the bear action.  And guess what...we are still alive!

I thought this one was cute

This duck really tried to chomp on Ryan's foot.  He got a little nibble but Ryan managed to leave unscathed.

We decided to go around one more time in the park and sure enough two bears started fighting right by our car!  It was crazy!  They were so close to us and were just about as tall as the SUV we were in.  The freaking Bear World Police were there in a few minutes to try to ruin our fun and they broke up the fight, but not before I got a good picture of the action.  Totally worth the time and money.

I never thought I would be all for Bear World, but all in all it was a pretty fun experience.  The bears were cute and they gave us a great show.  Rexburg doesn't have too much in the entertainment department, but Bear World is a highlight I wouldn't miss out on again. 

12:36 PM

My sister and her husband, a few weeks back, hiked Timp.  Yep, you know that crazy steep mountain here in Utah?  Well, apparently they were told it was a pretty mellow hike and that it would only take a few hours max to get to the top.  (I'm no genius but I've seen Timp...it doesn't exactly look like a light hike to me.)  Well, after hiking from 9 pm-2:30 am and still not having reached the top and then after a crazy 8 hour decent down the mountain my exhausted sister layed on the ground somewhere in the middle of mount Timp and said, "I quit."  Her sweet husband then did what every good parent knows never to do, but does anyway, he bribed her.  And he bribed her good.  He looked down at my sister and said, "If you can just get down this mountian I will buy you an iPod Touch."  And he did.  I actually went over and saw my sister and her beautiful iPod Touch yesterday in person and I got to thinking, what could I do so that Ryan would feel so bad for me that he would have to buy me something amazing?  Maybe raft the Grand Canyon...or run a marathon (if you know me at all you know how much I HATE running)...or maybe someone could drop me off in the middle of nowhere and let me hike my way back to civilization.  Just know that if I ever find myself just wanting to give up, a vision of a Chanel purse might just be the ticket to get me through.           

8:43 AM

I'm sure you all have heard this story before, but I thought I would pass it on anyway.  I'm reeeeally not into politics at all and I try to stay away from political debates but even I, the political dummy, see some humor and a lot of truth to this story.  
What is happening in the world?! 

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.


MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant 's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper' s sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to make a statement, just thought this story was an interesting read.

2:20 PM

Ok so normally I don't really mess too much with blogger...I just upload my pictures and say my peace but since I have some free time at work today I stumbled upon the stats tab and started looking at how many people have looked at my blog.  Did you know it tells you who is looking at your blog based upon who you are logged in as?  One of my favorite part of blogging is blog-stalking other people and the whole part of STALKING is for those people to not know that you are looking at their blog!  Am I right?  I'm a little bummed because I love looking at blogs, but now that I know people can see how lame I am by seeing that I look at their blog like 500 times a day, I'm a little less inclined to log on and stalk.  Maybe that is a good thing in theory, but I can't help it...I'm a little bit of a stalker...well blog-stalker anyways.  I don't want to mock you or make fun of your spelling mistakes, but I just want to know what up with your life and see how things are going, you know?  After you check your stats when you are done reading this, if I am on there as a frequent reader, just know that though I may not have a life, at least I like ya! 

4:42 PM

Friday night we went to Terra Mia and the Nicklecade with Leslie, David, Catherine and Brad.  Here are a few pictures to document the evening.
The night was super fun...I kinda felt like a kid again to be honest.  I ate pizza for dinner and played games all night.  The guys were totally into the games and were trying to get as many tickets as possible.  I swear the games are totally rigged but of course you just keep putting in your nickles in hoping to get the big jackpot.  We have decided never to gamble because we would for sure lose all of our money.  Either way we had a blast and were happy to welcome in the weekend together.

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