More Birthday fun!

As I've mentioned in a previous post, Alyssa Jessica and I have been friends for quite a while and we all have birthdays in just over a month's time (September 22-October 23). The friendship that I have with these girls has been such a blessing to me in my life and I don't know what I would have done without them all these years. To celebrate all of our birthdays and so that we could spend some time with just the three of us we went out for Fro-yo. I just love having such amazing friends who help make me a better person by being the great people they are.

For Jess's birthday her roommates threw a party for her which took us to her apartment for cake and ice cream and then to the skating rink for some serious fun!

The birthday girl! I just love her; she's only been gone on her mission for like ten days and I miss her already!

Because Jess is going on her mission to Texas her roommates made her a Texas cake which was pretty sweet!

It's hard to believe that we already have this many candles on our birthday cakes!

I'm so lucky to have them in my life and I think our friendship will last a long time!

I especially love them with faces like this!

Kisses for the birthday girl!

Roomies

I have some pretty fun roommates this year! We have some great fun together, and we love taking crazy pictures together when we are bored driving home, or when we are just bored at home! I just love these girls!!

My 21st!

So this year I turned 21 which still seems a bit crazy to me, but I'm getting used to it! Because turning 21 is traditionally kind of a big deal, I decided to throw myself a party because I like parties, and I like birthdays especially when it is mine, so I threw a party for myself! I invited a bunch of friends, a few from my Idaho years, some from my freshman year, some from last year and a few new friends from this year. I made a few cakes, some corn dip, and some mocktails. Nothing too exciting occurred at my party, but it was so fun to see so many of my friends all gathered in one place! I am pretty lucky to have the amazing friends that I have!

A lot of candles on my birthday cake!

Blowing out the candles

Two of my oldest and dearest friends, Alyssa and Jessica, I've been friends with Alyssa since 6th grade when we were in Mrs. Williams 6th grade class together and we sat at the same table. Her 21st birthday was just a few weeks after mine. Jessica and I have been friends since 7th grade when we were in the same PE class together and discovered that we had a lot of the same friends. Her birthday is about 2 weeks after Alyssa's. When I moved away from Idaho these two were the hardest to say goodbye too and it was so much fun to be reunited with them when we all came to BYU two years and a half years ago. Sadly Jess is leaving us next month to go on a mission to Dallas, TX. It is sad for us but the people of Dallas are so very lucky to have her coming their way!

Serena, Kelsey, Jeni, Jessica, and Amy. These girls were all in my freshman ward two years ago. Jessica and Amy were my FHE sisters, and I love them to pieces, Jess is now married which is crazy. Jeni was my roommate last year and I just love her! I'm so glad that we got to be roommates last year, if she wasn't so set on living in a certain place this year, we probably would have lived together again. Serena and Kelsey were just in my ward my first year, but we had a lot of fun times together! It was so much fun to get to see some of my good friends from that year!

Matt, Bridgit, Kelly, Joshua, JD, Dallin (and Jeni who somehow got cut out of this picture) were all friends from my freshman summer/sophomore year of college which I spent at Bountiful Court. Bridgit and I became friends after we discovered we knew some of the same people, we also made many trips from Provo to Mesa together since she is from Flagstaff. Bridg got married this summer to Matt which is how I met Matt, I met him just before he and Bridgit started dating. Joshua and I became friends last summer and many of us knew since early that summer that he and Kelly were a great couple, it just took them a little longer to figure it out, but as of last month they are now married! Jeni, as mentioned before was my friend freshman year, but we really got close when we decided to live together last summer, and which then continued into the next year. We had some really wonderful times together! Dallin was just another friend from that ward.
Rach came after the party was over because he had some meetings she had to go to before she could come, but I was so glad to get to see her! Rach was in my freshman ward, she was another one of my FHE sisters, and this summer as I've mentioned before Rachel and I both ended up in Texas nannying for our sisters so we had some fun there too! She is pretty amazing!

Overall it was a really great birthday! I love birthdays so much, I know there are some who don't enjoy their birthdays at all, but I have always looked forward to my birthday with great anticipation!

The Hike of Death...as affectionately referred to in our apartment

So the Friday after Labor day, I got roped into going on a hike with two of my roommates and a few guys in our ward. For those of you who know me, you know I am really not an outdoorsy person and by that I mean I very rarely choose to do anything in the dirt and heat if I can avoid it, especially hiking. But the guys told us it would just be a simple hike up to the Y and back down, maybe a little higher...they lied. Blake, the fearless leader of our little hiking group is basically under the impression that he is Bear Grylls from Man vs Wild and when we got to the bottom of the trail he decided that we should blaze our own trail. After a few protests we gave in convinced that he knew where he was taking us...he didn't. We started making our own trail convinced by Blake that it would save us 15 minutes...slowly we all began losing our confidence in Blake as a trail guide, but it was basically too late to turn back at that point so we kept going figuring that at some point we would make it to the Y and then we could easily make it back down from there. At one point we came to a rocky area where the rocks were really loose and we were basically having to flatten ourselves to the side of the mountain and that was about where I wanted to give up and find another way, and it was a good time to get out of the way but I wasn't quite fast enough! There was a rock rolling down the mountain right at me, luckily it wasn't too big but it did manage to catch my leg still. Basically there was a person on each side of me so I couldn't really move too much so instead I just spread my legs apart and braced myself and I managed to get my leg far enough apart for it to just scrape my leg rather than break it or something like that...after that I decided that I wanted to find another way to go so one of the guys was nice enough to go with me a slightly safer way. My roommate also got a nice cut on the back of her leg, which is why we call this the "hike of death"! Luckily, and probably because we had some angels watching over us, we all survived and made it home that night to tell the story to everyone else!

The sunset from the Y.

This is Jenae's pretty face!

Marissa, Me and Kyle relaxing for a little bit before heading back down the mountain

The view from the top

Our group for the hike

My battle wound!

I can't believe I'm a Junior already!!!

After leaving Texas I flew back to Utah to get ready for the new school year. I stayed with Ellen and Steve and the kids for a few days until I could move into my apartment and just had some fun spending time with them...It felt like it had been ages since I'd last seen them even though it had only been the summer, but I couldn't believe how much each of them had grown up since I'd left! It was so much fun to get to spend time with them without having to worry about school or anything else for a little bit. I moved into my new apartment the Monday after I got back, and it is basically the cutest apartment ever! I just love it...I have yet to take pictures of it because I have yet to catch it when it looks nice and clean enough for a good picture...but we're working on that! I got all moved in that night and then the next day Steve picked me up and I went back up with him to Pleasant Grove so I could stay a few more days and get some observation hours in at Lo's school before classes started for me. I had to get 25 hours of observation done by the 15th of September so that I could get my application for my program all finished and turned in, so I was grateful for any hours that I could get in, plus it was much more fun to go to Lo's class than to a class with no one familiar. I got close to halfway through my hours that week which was a big help since I didn't have a car to easily get around here in Provo. El was also nice enough to take me grocery shopping so that I could fill up my cupboards before school started! When I came back to Provo I met all of my new roommates (I thought) and I was pretty excited because it seemed like we would get along well. Kalli was up at the Hale's house that Saturday, just getting back from Lake Powell so Kiersty and I drove up to Centerville to see her for a little bit which was so fun, and always fun to see the Hale clan! School started and the first weekend was Labor day weekend and I had been talking to one of my best friends Becky about that weekend and how she and her brother were planning on making the drive down to Mesa for the weekend and how there would totally be enough room for me so I was excited because it meant that I got to go home and see this amazing lady...

Basically I think my mom is pretty amazing and it was so great to get to see her even if it was for just a short trip!

I also got to see this lady cause she decided that if I was going home she could not miss that!

Mom didn't like the first picture because she said she looked squished, so this was Megan's solution to that problem!

Finally we got a good one!

And another great one...don't you think!?!?

And one good one with dad...of like 6...he just can't seem to smile no matter how hard we try to get him to! So this was a major improvement over the others!

One of Dad's many funny faces...basically I think this is more his normal face than a smile is!

Me and Becks! I just love her and it was so fun to get to see her for a while!

Another great thing about this weekend, other than the of course wonderful part of seeing my fam and friends and everything was that I got to read the Hunger Games! Kalli had read it on the way from Boston to Utah, and while at Lake Powell so she gave me her copy to read...AMAZING!! Unfortunately I had to wait until I got the 2nd and 3rd books to read them...well and til I had another break cause I knew if they were as great as the first (which they so were) that I would not be able to put them down and focus on school so I forced myself to wait until Thanksgiving break cause I knew that I would have enough time to read both then. It was a smart move to wait as hard as it was because I seriously didn't want to stop reading until I absolutely had to because there was no more light (on the drive), or because I was too exhausted! If you haven't yet, I would suggest reading them over Christmas or something, just be warned they aren't really happy books, they are pretty intense, but completely amazing and well written!