Best Week(end) Ever

This week was pretty much the best week ever. It was definitely the most drama-free week I've had since...probably August. Hollaback! In fact, I feel a lot like this:

you can't fake that kind of happiness

On Monday my roommate and I were brainstorming for what to do for FHE. We were going to go to the haunted mill, but too many in our group were against that idea, so I thought we could frost sugar cookies and ding-dong-ditch them to either our bishop or somebody else we knew. I got my great-grandma's recipe from my mom and made them in advance so when our group came we could just frost them. We took cookies to a girl next door for her birthday, and then to the Crapse brothers in our group who were unable to make it.

Other than that, I was sick all day Monday, so I enjoyed not going to work and I basically read all day.

Tuesday we had a stake activity where each ward was in charge of "minute to win it" games. I'm activities coordinator for my ward, and my partner and I set up a game where you put tights on your head with a tennis ball in the sleeve, and you try to knock water bottles over with the tennis ball. It goes a little like this:

Everyone was getting into this game. People were crowded around taking pictures and yelling, screaming, and cheering on the contenders. There was a dance going on at the opposite side of the room that we enjoyed as well. I love Mormon dance parties. Everyone is so hyper, but nobody knows how to dance, so we all just go crazy! The single most amazing part of the night was when Justin Bieber's Baby came on, followed by the We Like to Party EFY dance. There was also tons of pie for us to eat. That was such a fun night!

pumpkin pie!

part of our crew

Grace with a stuffed badger...it was part of someone's costume. 

Wednesday I went to my brother Chase's rec softball game. He's on a team with a bunch of people from Arco, and as I looked around I realized that I am pretty must the only person from Arco going to school here that isn't on that team. Funny. It was fun to catch up with a few friends that night.

Thursday morning I went to the temple. I go to the temple at least once a week, which is a little tougher now that I have work during the hours walk-ins are welcome. But you've got to make time for these things! I am really grateful that I have a temple so close to go to. It is so great to feel the holy spirit there, and when I go I am encouraged to keep myself temple worthy so one day I'll be married there to the love of my life for time and all eternity!

this picture is beautiful, but it is foreshadowing of the winter semester soon to come....brrrr

Thursday night my work had a dinner for the different companies they work with to get the developing work done in East and Central Idaho. My boss invited me to come and bring a guest, so I invited my FHE brother Chad to come with me. My bosses went all out making these fancy meats and really all the food turned out great. It was a score for me because it counted as "work" so I got paid to hang out at a business dinner thing. Sweet! I love my job. =] There was extra food that my boss insisted the poor college students take home, so Chad and I totally got hooked up!

When dinner was over, the two of us went to Pinnacle where there was a Battle of the Dance. These two Rexburg crews put on a free show that was pretty awesome! There were 10 guys total doing all sorts of hip hop. My favorite was the very end when both crews did their choreographed routines which were sweet! Sorry I don't have any pictures or videos.

When that was over we watched Captain America. *Spoiler alert (safe to read at the next *) it was pretty OK until the very end! I sometimes have a problem watching movies. It's usually just action movies...there's just too much going on! I can't focus...but anyway; this one had tons of stuff going on the whole time, so I'm sure normal people are thinking "yeah great movie" but seriously the end made us all so mad. Hello worst ending ever. My roommate Lauren is still seething over it.

*Friday was a great day! I worked until 1:30, and then I picked up a new Frisbee! That makes four for me. Yes! My roommate Lauren and I went to Idaho Falls which was such a WIN!!! We were looking forward to this outing all week, and it was so great. Lauren is one of the few people on this earth that understands my humor. I have this thing where I find certain things completely hysterical, and I am pleased to report that she gets it! We had the best time at the mall, particularly Victoria's Secret! We also ate Panda Express before heading back to Rexburg.

The Ultimate Player

That night was a big athletic night for the two of us. She had a volleyball tournament starting at 8:30, but she had to do stats at 6 for the boy's tournament. I got dressed in my Frisbee clothes and went with her. We did stats for my ex-boyfriend's best friend's team. Awkward! But he was surprisingly nice to me. So...it wasn't bad. At 7 I went and played Ultimate at the stadium. I love playing with others (particularly guys) who are experienced and just get it. We were able to make some great plays, and my handling was extra excellent that night. At 8:30 I watched my roommate play volleyball until 10:30. Her team liked me being there because I was super enthusiastic and basically their main cheerleader. I was totally the "cheerleader" on my team in high school, but here's the thing...with volleyball that is sort of necessary. After it was done, all Lauren's roommates were like, "can you come to our games all the time?" =] yes, I sure can!

Saturday morning I had a Frisbee game at 11. You guys...it was one of our best games. No...it was definitely the best game we've had all season. We won 8-5 and can I just say...every single one of my players scored a point, and I assisted them all! Of the 8 assists, I had 7 of them (win win win) and I had three or four knockdowns. I didn't score a point, but I was the only person on my team who didn't and that isn't my job anyway--my job is to assist the points--so it was THE BEST GAME EVER!!! Every single one of my girls scored a point, so there was excellent teamwork going on! It was some very good handling. Love it! Admire my battle wounds:

That night I did "soups and sweaters" with my friends. I got this from my brother Gabe. He throws a party for his birthday and they call it "soups and sweaters" so I didn't coin this. I take NO CREDIT for the clever name. Turns out just a few friends and I got together and ate soup, and then we watched a scary movie! Funny enough: none of us wore sweaters...but that's for the alliteration anyway ;) We did it at Southgate lounge which is very nice. I made taco soup with nachos and Lauren made creamy potato soup with rolls. We watched The Uninvited which is such a great scary movie. It has the best twist. I highly recommend it. Don't freak out when you see the cover; it's not that bad. Just watch it. We also watched part of Arthur which was pretty funny.

the best taco soup I've made yet!

Lauren, myself, and Chad

eating elk for the first time

Today I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting on faith. I finished my visiting teaching this afternoon, and I am in the biggest baking mood! I am feeling Halloween sugar cookies. We're having friends over later to play Settlers. :Lauren and I had an awesome weekend and now we're planning to do fun things for Halloween! Oh the blessings the Lord sends into our lives in the form of friends. =] P.S...Henry B. Eyring's grandson (who is also named Henry, who is SMOKIN' HOT and SUPER RIGHTEOUS) totally winked at my roommate today in church. Win.

I feel great about this...

Drama Mama!!

Oh my...where to begin?

This week has been mayhem. Break ups are the worst no matter what side you're on. Lately I've been struggling with that situation. I want to say I've had about four MAJOR MELTDOWNS in the past couple days being upset about it. My mom tells me I need to try to stay distracted. For this post, I'm going to talk about those distractions that have worked.

First: I got registered to vote in Madison County! I'm a bit of a government nerd. I get fired up about this stuff. I love watching Bill O'Reilly, and I just find all the different issues and opinions so very interesting! So yes...November 8th you'll find me walking around with an "I voted!" sticker feeling very happy about the world. =]

Next order of business: this book! I'm reading The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball and I love it! The more I study it, the stronger my testimony grows of all the steps necessary to be forgiven of our sins. The timing of me reading this book has proven to be a tender mercy in my life.

Work has really picked up which has been great. Other people in the office are aware that there's a temp around, so they give me all sorts of "honey-do"s all day. In my free time I read or do indexing.

Friday I had a Frisbee game at 6 and it was the most overwhelming game I've ever played. Once again, I failed to take pictures, but it's not all bad I didn't document the experience. The game took two hours! I only subbed out a couple times because my team was falling apart without me! It was amazing to me how nobody was catching anything, and then our defense was just terrible.

Other than that frustration, there was a lot of tension in the game. There were a lot of fouls and heated discussion on certain rules. I held my ground on one of them because I knew I was right (haha don't we all "know" we're right?) and it really fired up another girl on the other team. The score was 8-7 and time was up, but we had to play the next point before we could end it. I used up both my time-outs and the wind was picking up. At this point I was so over the whole thing and I just told the other handler that she and I were going to work it up the field and score to end everyone's misery. If the other team scored, we'd have to do another point for a tie breaker, and so help me, that was not going to happen. We scored the last point making it 9-7 and hallelujah it was over. I had four assists and seven knockdowns. Bam!

*If you want to skip the emotional stuff, feel free to skip down to the next (*) 

After the game I called my team together and apologized for my behavior in the game. I was letting a lot of things get to me when I should've brushed them off and I let if affect my coaching and playing. So I apologized to my team, and then I apologized to the other team's coach. She apologized too, and then when I was walking away I just started bawling. All the emotions of the week plus the tension of the game all came out in racking sobs.

My assistant knew that my recent break- up was at the root of my reaction, and she followed me to my car and gave me a hug. I hadn't cried that much and that hard in forever. She encouraged me to keep my head up, and then I drove home in my distressed condition.

That was a bad idea; I almost got in two car accidents!

*But anyway...when I got home I changed my clothes and then it was time to get over myself because four of my friends and I were going to Texas Road House to celebrate my friend Thea's birthday! Crying it out made me feel better anyway, so I was able to thoroughly enjoy the rest of my evening. We went to the restaurant and one of our good friends was our server. He was a lot of fun! =] I recommend the "Chicken Critters" the next time you eat there...they were awesome!

We all pretended that we wanted to get home and chill out in our sweats and watch a movie when really we had a huge group of friends waiting at her apartment to surprise her! When she opened the door everyone got her with silly string and there were signs and balloons everywhere wishing her a happy birthday. That was a really fun night. Happy 19th birthday Thea!

yes I cried all my makeup off =] I feel fine about it

Bryson (left), Lauren (middle), and Thea in the chair. Bryson and Lauren did a Brittany Spears dance all over her it was hilarious

Bryson romancing Thea

Trent shaking his sexy booty!

19 cupcakes for 19 years old =]

Me, Lauren, and Thea

Grace, Lauren, and Thea

This is the "better than sex" cake that we devoured! I about died it was so good

Eric and Winston

So as you can see, it was a very fun night. =]

Next order of business! My best friend Kelsey Montgomery drove from Utah to Rexburg Friday night to spend the weekend with me! She left at 10 PM and got here at about 2:30 AM. We stayed up until 4 catching up on everything, and then slept in Saturday. We went to the gym, drank protein shakes, watched the first half of The Notebook, and went to a Relief Society enrichment activity out to the dunes. When we got back we watched the best movie ever How to Train Your Dragon with four other friends that were on a double date.

But! Exciting news! Last night Kelsey and I went to get a movie but ended up not getting one, and we saw two guys walking headed "somewhere" so we asked them if they wanted a ride and they agreed. So we took them home and they totally wanted our numbers while they were getting out...they kept postponing the "getting out of the car" part. I could tell Jared really wanted Kelsey Montgomery's number, so I said, "Why don't you just ask for her number already?" =] He got it and Shane got mine and it was just a win. =]

hot chocolate at The Cocoa Bean

Today has been a great day. Before church this morning I threw all sorts of nonsense in my crock pot and it cooked into deliciousness while we were at church. We had taco soup for lunch and it was awesome! In the afternoon we finished The Notebook, fixed up lasagna in the crock pot and peach dessert in the oven, and while Kelsey took a nap I started working on my blog.

Tonight has been the best. I invited friends over for dinner. I wanted to make lasagna because it's Kelsey's favorite, but to make lasagna for two people is impossible so I invited friends over and there ended up being ten of us: five girls and five boys!! I didn't even plan that! Shane and Jared came, along with Chad, Justin, and Travis. It was so fun! We ate dinner and then Kelsey and I fixed up the dessert (it was peach filling on the bottom, yellow cake mix on top of that with chunks of butter and crunched up Heath bars on top baked for 45 minutes ...win). After that I was delighted that everyone wanted to stick around and just chit-chat. They stayed and just hung out; it was great!

Dinner!

In other news: I came down with a cold Friday night and it's been getting progressively worse. I'm sure playing two hours of Frisbee in the cold wind plus all the stress of everything didn't help with that. Thank goodness for this:

Neti pot! If you have no idea what this is and you think I'm crazy, let me just say...don't judge until you try. Once you try, you are instantly converted and there's no going back! =]

Tonight we are watching Tangled...and I'll probably go to bed soon and not wake up until noon tomorrow. Meanwhile...what were some fun things you guys did in college for Halloween? It's the funnest holiday, and I'm in the funnest time of my life, so I need some epic ideas! Until next time...

It's been another great week here at BYU-Idaho. =] Last Tuesday for devotional Sister Elaine S. Dalton was the speaker, and I was so excited to have her come to Rexburg! She is RADIANT. The light of Christ shines so brightly in her face. She talked about her experiences running marathons and encouraged us to dream big, move out of our comfort zones, and to go forward with faith. The dream big part really made me think about Ultimate Frisbee; I want a championship this semester!  She is a hard core lady and ever since I came to know who she is, I've grown to love her. Her strong conviction and testimony of the gospel make me want to be a better person. She also threw in a few jokes about dating and encouraged us girls to play hard to get!

I had Frisbee practice after devotional that day, and that night I had a rec game. We are "Team Snugly Ducklings and Friends" (name derives from the pub on the movie Tangled) and we played "The Lawn Gnomes." A while back, Preston and I bought yellow jerseys from D.I. to play our rec games in since our coach thought it'd be fun if we all wore yellow. His jersey looks fine, but everyone thinks I look like a referee when I wear mine, so I think I need something different! We won (I can't remember the score: 13 - 5 or something like that) and I had two points and one assist. I took my camera to take pictures, but I didn't sub out once the whole game so I couldn't take pics!

Jamba Juice had a "buy 1 get 1 free" deal going on through the 15th. My roommate Lauren and I along with our neighbors went there Wednesday night, and I went again with Chase Friday afternoon. We never see each other anymore, and I thought we needed some bonding time. =] His new truck is sweet! He'll be married soon for sure. Girls don't like boys; girls like cars and money!

Thursday morning all competitive players had to attend a morning-side at 6:30 in the Taylor Chapel. These people are seriously Nazis! I had to go to this "first response" training about a month ago, and they failed me! Good thing my assistant passed, or else I couldn't be coaching and my team couldn't even be playing right now. They've also lost tons of my team's paper work and I've had to re-do it like 50 times. IDIOTS! But anyway, that was a big pain in the neck. Here is a picture of the sunrise after the meeting.

Work has been just fine and dandy. My boss told me to set the schedule I want, so that is pretty awesome. All the surveys are tallied, so now I'm writing different components of the application for a Block Grant that will go to the Idaho Department of Commerce. I'm writing different parts in the Arco and Salmon application, and they are due November 18th. They want me to work until the middle of December though...so I have no idea what I'll be doing when the application process is done. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I took a couple pictures of the office so you can see what it looks like.

my little office

Friday night Preston took me out and we went to Idaho Falls. We went to the mall and then met Benji and his wife Becca at Olive Garden. Benji used to work there, so we got hooked up with tons of bread and mints to take home. After dinner we went to Benji and Becca's apartment and played marbles. Benji's grandfather made the board for this game, and I want it! It's basically like sorry, but it is way more fun. We played with teams which made it fun for Preston and me to try to beat the other two!


Saturday morning Preston had his game at 10 and my game was at 11 so I got to watch him play for a little but then I had to start getting ready for my game. My parents, my brother Chase, and my cousin Conrad came to watch me play which was so fun! I could tell my dad, Chase, and Conrad were itching to watch the baseball game just down the hill, but they resorted to tossing the football while they watched us.

We played the Vikings and lost 10-5. I was excited about this score because the last team that played them lost 2-13 so we at least scored more and held them from scoring too many points. My girls played hard, and I didn't feel too bad about the loss. That team is very good and they will be tough to beat, but it is so doable. My old coach is the coach of the Vikings, and after the game she texted me and told me she was impressed with my coaching. She said we ran them harder than she had ever been run before, and that we were the right kind of competitive with the right kind of nice at the same time. =] That was so kind of her, and it makes me excited for my team. Once we get our offense down, we will be tough to beat. I had 1 assist and 1 point, but I had like 6 knockdowns so that is sweet. My goal is to get 20 assists and 20 knockdowns this semester, so I'm getting there.

Today the weather has been gloomy, but my partner and I got 1/2 of our visiting teaching done and I've been reading Spencer W. Kimball's book "The Miracle of Forgiveness." I also had the opportunity to go sing to the residents at the rest home with a bunch of people from my ward. That was a great opportunity for service. The first hymn we sung was How Great Thou Art which really touched me because we sang that at my grandpa's funeral several years ago, and now my grandma is in a rest home so it just made me think about my grandparents and how much love I have for them. I am making a goal to go every week and to also go visit my grandma in Idaho Falls at her rest home. We ended our ensemble with Have I Done Any Good? which I felt was very appropriate!

I'm setting a goal to do more service. I've been struggling with a few things lately, and I can honestly say that singing to those folks at the rest home today was the best I've felt all week. It was seriously healing for me. If I can immerse myself in service to others, I'll stop thinking about myself so much and my own problems. It will help me feel better and I can be an active disciple of Christ by serving others. In the book I'm reading, President Kimball said that this life is all about our performance. Part of our performance is definitely how we treat each other, and I believe Christ will judge us heavily in this category. A wise friend once said to me that you can tell how close someone is to Heavenly Father by the way they treat other people.

I love the gospel with all my heart. I know that it's true and it is the only thing that will bring us happiness. My boyfriend told me that I'm the happiest person he knows, and I know that that happiness comes from living the gospel. I feel very close to my savior, and like President Monson, I've developed a strong relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer and faith in His time and His will. I know that when we choose the right we will be blessed...especially when choosing the right is very hard to do.

Well that's my story. See you next week. Here are some pictures of King Mountain and our yard/farm just because I'm feeling nostalgic.

Good Boy Duke!