Back in the Berg

I am in Idaho. I have been in Idaho since January 3rd. I have hardly taken any pictures at all, because I either forget to bring my camera to places, I forget that my camera is with me, or I don't want to be a creep.

I have 3 new roommates, and they're all seriously so awesome. Hailey and Eliza are my roommates from last year, and the new ones are Ashley, Katelyn, and Melissa. We all get along really well, and it's pretty much always a party here. For reals! We've played card games with Brandon and his friend Michael Brown, and Flint. I went to Bajio with Ben, but was feeling sick so I didn't eat much. It's okay though, because I made it up to him by making him lasagna last Sunday. Well, I made it for him and my apartment, and Hailey and Eliza's friend Taylor (from BYU Provo), and her brother Tag who goes to school here. I told everyone that if they didn't like it they should lie to me and say it was good, so I got pretty good reviews. Haha, yikes! Melissa lived in this apartment last semester, and Ashley had lived here in our complex before, so they know a few people who live here and their friends come over sometimes, just for a few hours to chill. It's so awesome! I'm pretty sure I've met more people in the past 3 weeks than I did my first two semesters combined.

So, a mini tour of the apartment? This is the living room. I didn't take a picture of the kitchen, but it's itty bitty. The bathroom has a big vanity with two sinks, and there are two separate bathrooms, each complete with a toilet and shower. Seriously, I LOVE having two bathrooms! I don't even have that luxury at home!

This is Eliza's Beatles poster from London. Every time people come over they ask who the Beatles fan is. I feel like they should just ask whose poster it is, because I like the Beatles, and Hailey likes the Beatles, and EVERYONE likes the Beatles. If they don't, I'm pretty sure that translates to not liking music. S'all I'm sayin'.

So, you ask why there's a plate tacked up on the wall with the poster? I will enlighten you. One day while Hailey was generously cooking us all food (pretty sure it was pancakes) she accidentally set one of my Target plates (shout out!) on a burner that she thought was not hot. It made a cool design on it, so we now have modern art hangin' out with the Beatles (pun intended.)

Of course I made twirly things! It makes me popular with people. I only bought one box of puff pastry though, so we ran out pretty quick. They were delicious though!

On Civil Rights' Day we made gumbo. By we I mean Hailey and Eliza. I stirred some stuff, but I don't think that really counts. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see little stringy things attached to the spoon. That comes out of okra. Gross, right? I thought someone had put mozzarella cheese in it. I was mistaken. We also had fried chicken and watermelon and grape koolaid and mashed potatoes and stuff. It sounds questionable, but being a wee bit stereotypical is NOT so bad. I hope not. Please don't judge me. It was fun, and the food was all really really good. I had never had gumbo before, and coming from someone who is ridiculously picky this is important, it was really good. I didn't eat all the chunks, but I really liked the flavors, and I dipped my bread in it. So yummy!

Our table o' food. Scrumptious!

So what else have I been doing? A lot of homework. Hangin' out with my roommates. We all had a roommate date and went to Craigo's. It was absolutely delightful.

I will try to be better about updating my blog and taking pictures. It's not that I'm not doing exciting things, because I totally am, I just forget to take my camera. How am I supposed to remember stuff or convey awesome stories without pictures?

That's right: it's practically impossible.

Dan's Wedding/Christmas

So uh...Dan got married.

I know, I know it happened in December. December 28th to be exact.

But yeah. It happened.

This was them coming out of the thing at the Salt Lake City temple. They actually had to do this twice, because it was wicked cold out, and people were all waiting in the waiting room to be warm. I think there were like 5 of us that manned up and went outside.

I would like to note here that I was wearing two jackets at this point in time. They got married at 8:20 in the morning. So this was them around like 9 AM.

(The rest of these pictures are from Sheena. I kind of forgot to take out my camera the rest of the day. Whoops!)

The Luncheon, at noon. We had Mexican food (enchiladas or something, I don't even remember. I just ate tortillas and piled stuff on 'em. And by stuff, I mean like lettuce, green peppers, cheese, and chicken...), which was delicious. True story: we cooked all the meat in Dan's little apartment, and all of our clothes smelled like onions the whole day.

Great. I always wanted to smell like onions at a wedding. Oh well.

The reception. This was the cake room. Lots of different cakes. The reception was at like 6:30.

Yeah. This wedding was an all day event. Which was fun! (We watched GI Joe between the luncheon and the reception..awesome!)

They cut the cake! And then they ate it. Because they're married, and in love.

So, we got pretty bored. We didn't have to stand in the line, and since we are unlike our parents in the sense that we don't talk to strangers if we don't have to, we Chastons sat at a table the whole time and talked with each other. Well, that's not true. We hung out with the Wintertons and the Kanes. And Sister Perry (Steven Kapp Perry's wife... she's the sweetest woman ever!) And a Neuffer cousin! And my Uncle Dale. But I guess they're family... anyway, I hadn't seen the Wintertons since they moved the summer after 8th grade, and I was so happy to see them I almost cried. A lot of my childhood was in their house in Northwood. Chellsea didn't come with them, but seeing them both was so amazing!

Anyway, so in this picture we're interpretive dancing to "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. It was pretty much amazing. There are a lot more pictures that Sheena took, but Johnny only put some of them on Mom's flash drive. I someday would like to see ALL the pictures, because there were some pretty phenomenal ones.

(For example: the spoons used at the luncheon looked like metal spoons, but they were plastic. Sheena found out that we could see through them, and I made Spoon Glasses out of them...like sunglasses.... basically it was awesome.)

Uh. So yes. Dan got married, and McKenna is perfect for him.

'Tis the Season!

It is now OFFICIALLY okay to listen to Christmas music.

That is all.

Busy, busy, busy!

As we all know, I spend most of my time at the magnificent

Since I've been home basically all I've done is work, bum around the house, and spend my Wednesday nights with Jess, Mike, and Ariane. This past week has been pretty nuts though!

Last Thursday I watched

with Brandon. (The tagline thing in the picture is in Portuguese or something, don't worry about it.) So that was real fun. We also played with his dog Cienna, who is seriously adorable, even though she bites a lot.

On Friday I got a text from Katie and she asked me if I wanted to go see Tom and his band play in the MUB at UNH. Of course I wanted to go! So I did. Turns out that Nicky went too, and completely surprised us!

Nicky, Katie, and myself. We actually have a picture almost identical to this one from the Exeter Battle of the Bands in 2008, when we went to watch Pure Decibels (Tom's band).

[[PS, they won.]]

So this is me and Tom. He looks wicked like a rock star, right? I know!

Saturday I worked in the morning. I was supposed to work from 10-4, but Adam (the Guest Services Team Lead... aka the guy in charge of the cashiers) let me go home at 1:30, which was great because it gave me time to get presentable. I went to Hibachi with the Young Single Adults, which was seriously SO much fun! I had never been to a place like that before (I have a tendency to be extremely picky, so I don't usually eat at restaurants too often), and I loved absolutely everything about it! The cook was hilarious and sang us a million different songs, and he made fun of me a little (apparently when I get real excited I turn into kind of a ditz. Oh well...), gave me a little bit of extra fried rice, and squirted me in the face with his little water bottle thing. The food was really good! I'm not adventurous so I just got chicken teriyaki, but it was delish! Then I went to the Harvest Ball, which was actually kind of a bust. I forgot how uncomfortable I get at dances, so I was pretty lame the whole time. It's ok though, it gave me an excuse to wear my giraffe dress.

Sunday we had a bunch of people over for crepes, which, as always, were delicious.

Monday I went to Planet Fitness for the first time with Hillary. It felt really really good! I should probably go more often. I didn't even start feeling sore until last night! Which was kind of weird, because usually I'll wake up the next morning completely immobile... but I don't mind!

So anyway, right after the gym I went to Garrison Hill Tower with Dan Pontoh and Taylor to take Pontoh's senior pictures. Taylor was the one who actually took them, I just went for the social opportunity and to tell Pontoh jokes to make his smile look more natural. All in all, it was a pretty good photoshoot. It helps that Pontoh has a wicked awesome camera.

This picture kind of captures our relationship. Haha, I love it!

This was one of the better ones. It looks real pensive, and awesome. There was another one that was better, but quite frankly I don't wanna go and upload it. Takes too long. (Ah, yes, the lazy blogger.)

This was another good one!

So after doing this, I spent my evening with Tom Boisse. We went down to Portsmouth and just walked around, because Monday was such a beautiful and freakishly warm day. We just walked around and talked about absolutely everything. It's really nice to know that even though we don't talk every day or see each other all the time, that he will always be my best friend. Sometimes I forget that.

Yesterday was when everything started to wind back down into normalcy. Bummed around all morning and went to work last night. I have today off, so it's lookin' like a bit more bummin' around. (My Mom'll read this and be like, "Please, I've got LOADS of work for you to do.)

For some reason work sounds real unappealing.

THIS is the most wonderful time of the year.

Here are a couple of reasons why I love fall.

Jerkwad.

So, on Friday whilst working some sick disgusting person came through my line and coughed directly into my face. Yeah. It wasn't a small "oh excuse me I'm beginning to choke on my own spit" cough. It was a "I WANT YOU TO HAVE MY DISEASE" cough. I could practically see all of their sickness traveling the maybe 2 1/2 foot gap from their face to mine and thought, "Aw crap, I'm gunna be sick in 3 days."

It's three days later. No cough yet, but my throat is real scratchy and I just feel like garbage.

Seriously. How hard is it for you to cover your blasted mouth?

Becoming domestic!

So, last week I only worked 3 days (and technically it was only 2 and a third because one of the days was a 2 hour and 45 minute shift. Nuts!) and I had more than a little spare time. I decided that instead of being a bum I should learn how to cook, or at the very least do something remotely productive.

So on Tuesday evening I told my Mom I wanted to learn how to make 5-minute bread. Turns out it actually takes like 4 hours to make! You've gotta make it all up, then let it rise, then shape it, then let it rise some more . . . convenient my behind!

This was shaping the loaf. I kept making the most perfect faces for pictures, but of the many things my mother is good at, photography is not on the list.

The finished loaf. (Side-note: I shaped another loaf the other day, and it turned out all weird-lookin'. This loaf pictured is the most perfectly-shaped one I ever could have made.)

On Wednesday I watched the movies Spanglish and No Reservations, which both involve cooking. So I was inspired to make something else--cupcakes. Baking is a little more my forte if you know what I'm sayin' (I can't help it, I just make a delicious chocolate chip cookie!). We have this awesome Martha Stewart cupcake book, and the minute I saw the dinosaur cupcake I knew it was fate. It had to be baked by me!

Chocolate cupcake, peanut butter frosting, candy rocks, gummy candies, and molasses cookie. Best idea Martha ever had, I'm tellin' ya!

I also had a lot of time for scrapbooking. I've made a couple of video scrapbooks, but I like to have the physical book too. The one I'm working on right now is of my senior year band trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto. Band Geek to the max, and I don't care!

I ran out of adhesive, so I haven't done anything since last week, but these are the pages I'm most proud of! (Mind you, they're only pages 4 and 5)

I don't really have any stickers, so I just drew the letters in.

And there's the 2-page spread! Just lovely!

Monday when I got home from work, after telling my Mom all last week I was going to lay out the fabric and pin stuff down, I started work on my new masterpiece: a giraffe-print dress. At first I was determined to make it completely on my own, but after laying down the pattern pieces and cutting out the fabric my patience was tried and I said no more. It's also a pretty tricky pattern, and since I want a really cute dress instead of a sad-looking poorly made one I decided it was okay to let my Mom help. I wanted to get some pictures of me actually working on it, but we'll just have to settle for some pictures of me looking cute in it! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll be finished by Sunday, but my Mom's a pretty busy lady and I don't want to push that on her. We'll see how it goes . . .

Also, today at work there was a lady who came through the register next to mine and she made a balloon animal and gave it to the cashier. Oh, how I wished (and still wish) she had come through my line! OH! And the power went out today for like 4 minutes and everyone was in a panic. Lucky for me the only things that worked in the store were the front registers. It was awesome though! Then everyone who came through my line for the next 20 minutes was like, "What happened? Did the power go out everywhere? What's going on? Is Target falling to pieces?" I just kind of smiled and laughed and was like "Oh, haha, I don't know, that was so crazy!" But what I REALLY wanted to say was, "How the crap am I supposed to know what happened? Sure, I work here, but that doesn't mean that I've got a reason for every single little thing that goes on here! I've been standing behind this register all day."

But alas, I would get scolded for that.