Amber's Personal Idaho

Movin' on.

2010-09-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

So, I kind of stopped using this blog. I dunno. Having two is probably too much anyway, but considering this has a bunch of stuff from my first year of college I'll keep it, just never ... use it really. Um, my other one is

sayonarasenorita.blogspot.com

It's pretty interesting. You should read it.

Catching Up Part 4

2010-04-03T18:36:00.001-07:00

The moment you've all been waiting for: My 20th birthday! Wooo!

It was actually probably one of the best days of my life! Taylor made me bran muffins, which are super delicious and in my top five favorite muffins to eat ever. So that was good! Then I went to my first class, where they sang happy birthday to me. A group was presenting that day, and they handed out a bunch of candy, so that was awesome. Also, we found out that we didn't have a legit final in that class, which is absolutely awesome! Then I went to my meeting with my English teacher which got cancelled, so I went to thank Taylor for the muffins at work (he brought them over before his first class, and I was brushing my teeth when that happened), and outside of the MC they were handing out free tickets to basketball games the following Saturday. They let me shoot three times, and for each basket I made I got a free ticket. Well I made all three shots in. It turns out the tickets were for the girls JV championships, which... well is really boring. So I didn't go, but it was still really awesome to win free stuff! Then when I was walking home I saw my FHE brother Tom, who offered to take me to Twizlberry (my favorite place in the world) later that evening. Then I got home and we went out for Chinese food for a birthday lunch. Sca-rumptious! I don't even really like Chinese food, but it sounded really good that day. Then I went to my last class, where they sang happy birthday again. Then I came home and did homework and stuff, and went to Twizlberry, which was as always, absolutely delicious! Then I came home and Hailey made me strawberry pie! My Mom (kind of mostly by my demand) makes me strawberry pie for my birthday every year. So instead of cake I had delicious pie! Also, Brandon made lemon poppyseed muffins the night before and brought them over as a pre-birthday treat, which was delightful! Hailey tried to throw me a surprise party, which mostly just meant that some people stopped by for a minute or five, said happy birthday, and left, while me and my roommates hung out and were awesome the whole night. It was so much fun! I loved turning 20!

Melissa and me at Fong's.

Strawberry pie!

Me and Katelyn!

Cory and Eliza. They're getting married. This is a sweet jumping picture of them.

My roommates from my very first semester! They came, and it was awesome!

Hooray Birthday!

Catching Up Part 3

2010-04-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we hiked R Mountain (aka North Menan Butte). It was one of the nicest days we've had so far, and even though it was super windy at the top, it was just a beautiful day!

From Left to Right (I'll do the best I can): Me, David Hall, Amber, Katelyn, Hailey, Michael Brown, Tom, and Jeremy. This was like not even half way up, and we were all basically exhausted.

Best picture ever!

Kinda missed Michael Brown's face, but me and Melissa look real cute!

Jumping picture. Hailey and Michael Brown look awesome.

So that was one of the fun adventures of the past month. Hooray!

Catching up Part 2

2010-04-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

So I had never been to Olive Garden in my whole life, and Melissa LOVES it there, so we went there to eat. I got the cheese ravioli. It was mediocre. Yikes, that was harsh. No, it was good, but not my favorite. Shoulda just gone with some delicious pasta.

Going in for the kill:

Me and Eliza

Hahaha, SO many breadsticks!

Our waiter kind of gave us a lot of take home bags for the breadsticks. Five of us went there to eat, and we each came home with a bag of delicious breadsticks. Oh my goodness, those things are to DIE for! They're so delicious!

Needless to say my first experience at the Olive Garden was a good one indeed!

Catching Up Part 1

2010-04-03T17:24:00.001-07:00

It has been SO long since I've written anything, that I've decided to break it up and write about... well, everything.

So, first things first: Crepe party. We had a crepe party sometime at the end of February or beginning of March. We used my mom's recipe (of course) and they were delish!

Exhibit A:

Everyone who came over for the crepe party:

Scrum-diddly-umptious!

Other stuff probably happened around this time, but I don't really remember. Quite the downside of forgetting to blog I suppose--you forget pretty much everything about your life!

Five Guys and Fries

2010-02-21T01:12:00.001-08:00

So what have I been doing lately? Lots of homework. Lots of socializing. Not much sleep. You know, the normal college life. Well. Minus the drinking and stuff. Thank goodness for BYU-Idaho and the honor code. Seriously, what a blessing!

Today I went to Idaho Falls with Hailey, Eliza, Ashley, and Eliza's friend from the British Literary Tour Elise. We went to Five Guys and Fries, which is seriously SO stinkin' good! I don't even like hamburgers, and I LOVE to eat here!

Before:

After:

If you know me at all, you know that it's hard for me to finish food when I go out to eat. Mostly because I'm weird and feel uncomfortable when I eat away from "home." But I ate the whole thing, AND some fries. Yeah, I know. Crazy.

After food we went to Target. I haven't been in a Target since right before we drove to Utah, and it felt awesome. I still have my nametag attached to my purse (which really I don't know if I'm still supposed to have...), and I thought about putting it on and walking around the store. I didn't, of course... But, I bought a cute new pair of shoes. They're zebra stripes, and also glittery. Super awesome, I know. I also bought starburst jelly beans, thank GOODNESS for the Easter season!

So, good day? Absolutely.

Thank you, Five Guys and Fries, for existing. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have had a delicious hamburger today, or bought a new pair of shoes.

Back in the Berg

2010-01-22T17:28:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-22T16:58:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-27T06:43:00.000-08:00

It is now OFFICIALLY okay to listen to Christmas music.

That is all.

Busy, busy, busy!

2009-11-11T06:50:00.001-08:00

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.

2009-10-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of reasons why I love fall.

Jerkwad.

2009-10-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Subbin'

2009-09-15T09:24:00.001-07:00

Today was my first day as a substitute teacher! I got a call last night and they asked me if I wanted to do a high school gym class. I didn't know if it was okay for me to do high school (because I graduated in '08 and still know people in the school), but the lady said it was... so I did it! I got dressed up in my workout gear and stood and watched kids and made sure they didn't punch each other or anything. They were actually two really good classes. The first one was a gym class, and they just kinda hung out and did a little bit of volleyball and basketball. The second was a health class, where they had to do some book work and then when everyone was finished they could go down to the gym. It was awesome. I rocked it. Some kids tried to pull some "oh we have a sub I can slack off" garbage, but I wasn't havin' any of that. I mean, really kid, I was just barely in high school, I know how all of that stuff works. Please.

Haha, just kidding! But it was fun. It was only for like 3 hours, because the teacher only does 2 classes, but hey, I'll take it!

Long Time No See...

2009-09-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, what have I been up to since July 14th? A lot, but at the same time not much at all. I came home! Woop woop! Back in the wonderful, GREEN east coast. Had a few coolattas, of course. Hailey came home with me for the first week which was wicked awesome! We went to Boston, did some stuff in the area, walked down the street into Maine, went to the beach, Six Flags New England and the Joseph Smith Memorial, and then I took her home. There was SO much more that I wanted to do, but I thought about most of them right after she left. Like, we should have gone to Portland, Maine, because she's from Portland, Oregon. Whatever, it was good.

Manchester welcomed us into New Hampshire!

We actually went to the temple on our way home from our day in Boston. We went to Boston the day after we had flown in. There was a lot more we could have done there too, but we were pretty tired.

An old cemetary in Boston.

The Freedom Trail.

Hailey licked it. She said it tasted like liberty.

Benjamin Franklin!

Unfortunately those are the only pictures I have of Hailey's trip here. I lost my camera on the Tuesday we went to Six Flags, and didn't find it until the day after she left. Turns out it had fallen out of my purse in Steph's car in a weird spot. She bought a disposable camera to take pictures of the Joseph Smith Memorial, but that's about it.

So after Hailey left I bummed around for like a week and a half, might've been two weeks, until Target put me on the schedule so I could start work. It was pretty nice actually. I got to spend a lot of time with my best friend Steph, and with Taylor running around and being awesome. Had dinner at Hillary's again, which as always was amazing. We also went to the beach in the rain one day. It was the day I brought Hailey to the airport, and the first day it had rained since I'd been home. Oh, I forgot to mention that I literally brought the sunshine home with me. Then the rain gods were mad that Hailey had to leave, and it just poured. It was pretty cool. I went to Bay Idol for like 3 or 4 Thursdays in a row because Steph's brother CJ was performing in it. He's seriously so good. They pick the winner tomorrow, and if it's not him I'm going to throw rocks at everyone there. He's by FAR the best.

So I've just been working lately. Went to the beach the other day with Taylor. We bought frozen berries, Voss water (from Norway. It's supposed to be a big deal, but it tastes the same as all other water...), Ben and Jerry's, some cheese Munchies, and fruit snacks. Unhealthy picnics at the beach at night are seriously the cure to everything wrong in your life.

Delicious Target frozen berries.

So, since Hailey and Eliza (my roommates out at school) have like the best fashion sense I've ever seen, I decided that I wanted to learn to sew/have my mom sew some new clothes for me. I'm hoping to have a new and better wardrobe for when I go back to school, at a relatively low cost. So my Mom made me a vest. She bought a pattern that was a few sizes too big for me, and she spent hours adjusting and readjusting to make sure it fit me perfect. She's seriously so amazing I can't even stand it. We started making a dress for me two days ago, and it would have been done yesterday, but we found a few glitches that she's gunna fix up either today or tomorrow. Ugh. I wish I was as talented as she is. It's just gunna take work and some time, but eventually I'll get there.

The vest. Woop!

So I think that's about it. I'll start doing more exciting things and taking more pictures so I have something real cool to put on here. Little things like "Oh I worked every day this week" and "Strawberry peanut butter m&m's are delicious" don't make for the most interesting updates (although that second one is true just the same).

Too long . . .

2009-07-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

So, I'm finally making a new post. The last time I tried to do this I wrote up this big long amazing thing, and my computer crapped out on me. So this entry will not be as long, and will not be quite as awesome as the last one, but I've had quite the awesome few weeks.

I went to Mudd's for the Fourth of July, which was pretty awesome. We ate chicken outside and played with noisemakers and little poppers and baby little fireworks for the rest of the day-- and I know you were worried about it, so I'll just tell you now: we did not forget to play guitar hero. Yes, yes you can sit back in your chair now and relax.

Well when I got back I had a bunch of studying to do for my Spanish final, which I took on Thursday . . . and PASSED! Oh my gosh, what a glorious glorious thing! I was really surprised! I didn't actually pass with flying colors or anything, but I got above a 60, which is really all I could have asked of myself. Oh, PS I'm changing my minor to history education. I decided that I love Spanish, but I only love it because in my brain it's associated with some pretty fantastic people, some amazingly delicious food, and the country of Spain. I can communicate, and that's good enough for me.

Anywho, so I passed my Spanish final. On Wednesday, me Hailey and Eliza went to Porter Park to go play (after watching Wipeout and I Survived a Japanese Game Show of course). Well, we decided to do our own kind of yoga/interpretive dance just in a little grove of trees, and we were being awesome and stuff when Hailey decided she wanted to climb a tree. She picked a tree that didn't have really anything to grab onto to get up. There were some little nubs to put your feet on and stuff, but there were no low branches to help you up. Well, she couldn't do it on one side, so she tried to do it on the other. I told her that you could totally do it, and then proceeded to show her it was true. Well I did it. I got up in the tree as high as I could (which was maybe five or 6 feet above the ground), and totally won (because she had gotten up on the other side, but I had still gotten higher than she did).

Well, getting down was pretty hard, because there was essentially nothing for me to put my feet on. I tried to put my foot on one of the little nubs, because I didn't want to just jump backwards out of the tree. As I did this, my foot kind of slipped, and in order to not smash my face off the tree I kind of pushed myself away from the tree/jumped backwards. Well when I landed I got the weird shock thing up both my legs and didn't really think anything of it.

The next morning was not so good. I woke up and could barely walk. My ankle was so sore I couldn't think about anything else (this was the day I took my Spanish final, mind you), and I called my Mom at least four times to complain about it to her. I got the brilliant idea to show her what it looked like, so I took a picture and sent it to her. She said I should probably get it checked out . . . so I went to the ER because no doctor's offices takes my insurance out here . . . and they said I sprained it pretty bad and gave me an air cast to wear.

So I've been wearing that since Thursday. Luckily it's been getting really hot lately so it's not uncomfortable at all. Not.

Friday I went on a field trip for my natural disasters class, and went to Montana for the first time in my whole life! It was pretty awesome. Well, I got sunburned on only half of my face because we were on the bus pretty much the whole time, and I was sitting on the sunny side. It was the worst. But I'm alive, so that's all that matters.

Last night for FHE we joined with another group to play ultimate frisbee, and we ended up playing capture the flag, duck duck goose, and link tag. It was really really fun. I liked having FHE with more than 5 other people.

I can't really think of anything else that happened.

Oh! On Saturday we went to Big Judd's, and on the way back found an abandoned elementary school and had a photo shoot in it. It was kind of creepy, but still pretty awesome.

I'll add more stuff as I think about it.

I have to go grab my laundry right now.

Last time I do laundry before I come home.

Oh, did I not tell you?

I'm coming home July 24th.

Which, I'll have you know is in 10 days.

One week from Friday.

Yeah, I know you're excited.

I'M EXCITED!!!!

Real Quick

2009-06-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, if you wanna see the movie bigger you can youtube "The Office Bride." It's the first one in the search results.

Woop woop, enjoy!

Double Awesome

2009-06-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

So, I'm proud of my Mom for finally getting a blog! She's been talking about making one for a while now, and I'm excited that she finally did it! Now let's see if she sticks to it... hahaha just kidding!

On another awesome note, we're having the coolest ward activity! Each FHE group had to make a parody of some big movie (ours was The Princess Bride), and then tomorrow we're all getting together and watching each groups movies. It's gunna be so awesome!

No one from the activities committee came by to pick up our video, so I'm a little nervous about it. I burned it onto a DVD, and I'm currently uploading it onto youtube in case for some reason the DVD doesn't work.

So, I'm letting you guys see our movie first!

It's called "The Office Bride," with a clever blend of The Princess Bride and The Office.

I'm going to tell you how what we did is related to the Princess Bride.

But make sure you watch the movie before you read this.

Really.

Watch the movie first.

Stop reading this and watch it.

Kay, ready?

So it starts out with the older person reading a book to a child. The point of the whole thing is that they're all competing for a date with Pam (Princess Buttercup). Then it goes to a rolly chair race between Andy (Inigo Montoya) and Jim (Wesley). That's supposed to take place of the sword fight. Then it goes to an arm wrestle between Darrell (Andre the Giant) and Jim. Then it goes to a battle of wits between Dwight (the "inconceivable" guy) and Jim. Then Michael (Prince Humperdink) comes in and makes Pam come out to lunch (a date), and sends Jim to the copier (the "machine") to make millions of copies. Jim has to make so many, he's standing by the machine "mostly dead" when Andy comes in and is like "come on man, you gotta go do this!" so they go get Pam. It turns out that the "date" Michael is on with Pam doesn't count (like their marriage doesn't count in the movie) because it's a client meeting. So Jim takes Pam and they skip into the sunset.

You better have watched it first. Maybe you can watch it again so you can see what goes where.

We're so clever I can't even stand it.

Of course after we finished filming and I was putting it together I thought of a bunch of different things to do that would have made it more awesome, but it was too late. (Like Kelly could have said like, "Boo Pam! The queen of garbage and slime and filth..." like the gross old lady in her dream, or something about Andy saying something obnoxious to a waitress in place of "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." but whatever...)

Ropes Course

2009-06-21T13:14:00.001-07:00

So, for a Relief Society Enrichment activity we did a ropes course. Me and my roommates kind of missed the spiritual aspect of it because we skipped out on the breakfast and devotional aspect of it, but... I got a greater meaning out of actually doing the ropes course, so that's all that really matters anyway.

So Hailey found a hook, and hooked us together. We kind of had a tug-of-war game for a little bit. Needless to say, it was awesome and hilarious.

Eliza- my belayer - bidding me farewell as I begin my climb.

2/3rds of the way up, being hesitant and scared.

Almost there!!!

Woop woop! Victory!

So, it took me about 20 minutes to climb up this. It was kind of like the last ropes course I did. I would get stuck for a second, and I wasn't able to see where to go next, so I would stand there and scream, "I CAN'T DO IT!!"

Well guess what kids!? ANYTHING, absolutely ANYTHING is possible.

Whoops!

2009-06-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

So I realized I didn't add any pictures!

Me and Hailey and a creepy-looking rest stop at like midnight

Natural lighting. Yeah. It looked really cool. Hooray Oregon!

A little bit later after we had driven through the storm. Pretty sunset.

The Portland Temple is my new favorite. It's seriously SO gorgeous. If you ever get the chance to go there, just do it. It'll seriously take your breath away.

Me and Hailey being adorable in front of the temple.

The Original Hotcake House pancakes! Seriously-- this place is SCRUMPTIOUS! I don't even really like pancakes (unless they have chocolate chips) and they were seriously super good!

Touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time! Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you how excited I was! And the dry sand on the beach squeaks when you walk on it and it was just really cool. Yeah. Loved it!

Okay, there are 2 things going on in this picture. A) This is candid. I didn't know it was happening. And it looks awesome. B) Haystack Rock is behind me. That's right-- that's where The Goonies was filmed. AND Twilight. But now, that doesn't seem as cool as it would have been last year.

Pretty Pacific Ocean.

The Duck Store! Portland State University or the University of Portland (whichever one it is) is the Ducks. So we went there so I could buy duck stuff because well, I'm a little bit obsessed with ducks. I don't even know where it came from either. Strange. Bery bery strange. I bought a yellow shirt that just says "Ducks" on it, a keychain, a cup, and a duck call thing. LOVE it!

Oregon!

2009-06-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

So last week (Friday-Tuesday) I was in Oregon for Hailey's brother's graduation. She's coming home with me, so she thought it would be cool to invite me to come to her house so I could see her homeland. I have to tell you, I love everything about Oregon (minus the volcanoes). It's so hilly, and SUPER green! When you go to the beach you basically drive through a mountain, and then you're randomly on the coast! It was warm and sunshiney, AND it's tax-free! I thought New Hampshire was the only place like that!

So, time out for a cool story: Like an hour after we had crossed the Oregon/Idaho border, we were driving down a hill a little faster than we should have been. We got pulled over by a sheriff's car, and he came and asked for license and registration and stuff. He asked for my ID too! Which had never happened to me before. So he asked Hailey to get out of the car, and I just sat there while he talked to her. He came back and forth between me and her like 2 more times and then asked me to get out of the car. He said that he had asked Hailey if it was okay that he searched her car, and then had her sign a thing. So he asked me which bags were mine so he wouldn't look through them. He pulled a bag out of the front seat and laughed and said, "They're red goldfish!" Apparently he thought we had a big bag of ibuprofin or something in the front seat (because they were in a big plastic bag). So he kept searching the car, and then he pulled out her backpack, and said, "I'm going to ask you a personal question. Do you have any marijuana?" We laughed and said no. Then he laughed and said, "Any heroin? Cocaine? Large sums of money?" His partner, who was standing by me and Hailey said, "I bet you wish you had large sums of money." And Hailey said, "Yeah. I've been donating plasma to get money." And then she showed the guy her arms (she had just given that day, and had a bruise from the time before because they messed up). She looked kind of like a heroin junkie, but we kept saying plasma over and over again, and the guy believed us. We told them we were from BYU-Idaho and everything too.

Moral of the story: I got drug searched.

Pahahaha!

But Oregon was really fun, and I'm really glad I got to go!

I was pulled back to reality real fast when I got home though, with four tests, an analytical essay, and a book review to write about a book I still haven't read. I'm so grateful it's the weekend though-- I've got time to relax and... well, not worry about time.

Tearin' Up YOUR Heart!

2009-05-21T09:06:00.001-07:00

So last night I had finished all of my homework by 8:30, after spending about 2 1/2 hours in the library and coming home to finish my Spanish. Seriously, the library makes ALL the difference.

Anywho, so me and Hailey were sitting in the kitchen, and I had just finished making our quote fish when "Tearin' Up My Heart" by N'sync came on her computer, and we were both like "AHH we wanna make a music video SO BAD!" So we decided to do it right then. We had a quick costume change, and then made our first legitimate music video.

I tried to upload it on Facebook, and it said that it had a copyright infringement or whatever, and I'm scared it might do the same thing if I try to upload it here. So I did what anyone else would do, and popped it right up on youtube, saying straight up I didn't want to infringe on anything.

Our stage names are The Jackhammer and Mighty Thunder.

We = pure awesome.

Enjoy!

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iMjjrtazcM

Yikes!

2009-05-21T08:43:00.001-07:00

There's so much to catch up on I don't even know what to do! This semester has been super crazy, and mostly I've just been doing a lot of homework. There have been a few awesome excursions though. For example:

I've finally been to Big Jud's! And seriously, it was delicious! I forgot to take a picture of the burger before we all dug in, but oh my gosh. So big, and so good! The little boys are Tessie's brothers, and they're basically adorable. Tessie is taking the picture... so... she's not in it. But alas! I've been to big Jud's.

I'm also now the FHE Mom. Yeah, crazy, I know! I've got a lot of fun and exciting things planned (although I think I might need some exciting ideas. I'm thinking about doing a Fun Factor with another FHE group, and I need ideas for fun little things to do)! I'm gunna be gone for the next two Mondays though, so that kind of ruins things a little bit. Oh well! Yeah, I'm going to visit Mudd this weekend, and then next week I'm going to Portland, Oregon with Hailey! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I'm finally gunna see the West Coast!!

So this past Monday we had a cake decorating competition! It was Jungle-Safari themed, and my cake totally won! Well... no one's ACTUALLY won... but ours really did.

It was inspired by Madagascar 2. Notice Gloria and Moto Moto in the watering hole, Melman in the dying pit, and Alex the Lion's Mom in our African Hut. We made a banana throne, but we didn't have a monkey to put on it. Upsetting, I know. There's also a tiger on top of the African hut, just for fun.

And you know how practically every female in college has a quote wall? Well, we thought that idea was super lame and unoriginal (sometimes we don't have the best of attitudes), so we decided to make a quote FISH! Yup! Every time you say something worthy of being placed on it, you write it down on a scale, color it, and tape it up there. When we run out of room on the fish, we're going to make other sea creatures and make a Quote Ocean.

We don't have very many quotes yet, so it just looks like a fish with a little bit of a skin disorder, but in the upcoming weeks I feel that he will turn into a beautiful Rainbow Trout. It looks kind of trout-ish, right?

I've also seen a lot of movies lately. Wolverine, which I LOVED! Seriously. When it gets to the $3.00 theater, I'm seeing it again. Same with 17 Again. Oh my gosh, who knew that Zach Efron could REALLY act, huh? Amazing. And Ghosts of Girlfriends Past? Eh. If you want to see it, I'd say wait 'til you can rent it. It was okay, but wicked predictable, and it talked about sex kind of a lot. And STAR TREK!!!!! Oh my gosh, can I just tell you how nerdy I feel not only that I went to see that movie, but that I was really excited about it!? And even more nerdy, I absolutely loved it! It's way cooler than anyone thinks, and if you have prejudices about it get over them, because seriously, it's wicked worth seeing!

Other than that I really have just been doing homework. My Spanish class is kicking my butt right now, so I've been putting a lot of extra focus on that. Oh, and I've decided to change my major/minor from English Education with a Spanish Education minor, to English with an emphasis in creative writing, with a journalism minor. I need to go talk to someone about that and see if they can tell me what I should do for exactly what I'm thinking of, but I think being a journalist would be pretty cool.

Oh, and for the first time ever I studied in the library yesterday, by myself, of my own free will. I've found that I'm a lot more productive when I'm not sitting in the kitchen being continually distracted by food.

Also, I'm really sad that I won't be home for Heidi's wedding. Seriously, I'm so excited for her I can't even stand it! I'm expecting a big, huge, fantastic, amazing blog about it with all the juicy deets (which are "details" for people who think I'm talking about bug repellent).

Modeling

2009-04-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Haha, okay, here's the deal. I've seen some people putting up some modeling pictures, and watching a little bit of America's Next Top Model/hearing about America's Next Top Model. Hailey and I were sitting around this afternoon watching episodes of Arrested Development for like 3 1/2 hours and decided there HAD to be a better way to spend our Friday night. I was suddenly struck with the inspiration to run around and take modeling pictures. You know, put Tyra's "fierce eyes" and "fierce lips" and just plain "fierceness" into use. These are the best of the best pictures that we took.

So. Be jealous of our fierceness and amazing skills at modeling.

Pretty sure if someone who was a big deal saw these they'd try to sign us in .2 seconds.

(Notice how our backdrop doesn't even cover the entire wall.

So tacky it's AMAZING!)

RIP Shoes

2009-04-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

So, this week Mudd and I went to her friend Anna's house. Well, what she has of a house. Her and her husband bought an old house, and are redoing it and building onto it. We went to help her tear down a wall and take out some insulation. Well, we were beasts at it and totally defeated the wall. The messy part was taking all the boards and stuff outside through the mud (it was raining) and dumping it all in the dumpster. I wore my fave shoes- my super old ones that I've had since 7th grade that I bought for a dollar off a store that was closing in New York. Well, they got a little dirty. And by a little I mean a lot.

They used to be just a light tan. Now they're brown and covered in nasty mucky muck.

Close-up of the nasty.

So, we (by that I mostly mean my sister) decided it was time to put them to rest. Yes, my Mom tried to talk me into pitching them. Yes, Mike and Ariane bought me a new pair of shoes for my birthday to try to ease me into getting rid of them. But it was finally time. So we made a movie.

I'm thinking that now is the time for a new pair of shoes. You know, to fill the empty space in my heart where my old shoes used to be.

Or maybe it's just time for a big bowl of ice cream.

Hrmm...

La la laaaaaa

2009-04-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

SO, lets see...

Got my grades back! My lowest grade was a B (in math), which was seriously phenomenal because I thought I crapped out of my science class (which was a B+ by the way!).

Been hangin' out with Mudd over the break, doing sister things.

You know, shopping, buying extra Easter candy, playing tetris and guitar hero for hours.

(By the way, I can officially play three songs on expert, and most other songs on hard. Yeah. So awesome, I know!)

Went with Mudd to her after school thing yesterday, and I decided I really like elementary school kids. They just say what they think, and are wicked cute!

Anywho, tonight we're going to see Dan's bands perform at some thingy. I'm wicked excited about it because I haven't seen Dan since January!

Um, probably pictures and a better post later tonight.

Fun fun fun

2009-04-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, so we went to Cory's on Friday night.

Cory is like the one boy in our FHE group who even comes to FHE.

And he's hilarious, so Hailey, Eliza and me like to go there to hang out.

It also helps that his apartment has a TV that's pretty much the size of me.

Tessie, Jennie, and Jenna came with us too.

We watched Transformers.

It was awesome.

By the way, we don't ALWAYS look like this when we walk to Cory's.

We just decided that leaping and prancing was fun.

Especially swimming through the Hart building.

Three Days Left!

2009-04-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yikes! My first semester of college is almost over!

Thursday is my last day! It's so hard to believe!

Kind of makes me feel all grown up and stuff.

College was a LOT different than I thought it would be.

People (won't say any names) kept talking about "BYU-I do" and stuff,

and I was kind of expecting millions of boys to fall in love with me.

Well that was pretty false.

Not that it broke my heart or anything. I'm actually pretty glad.

Being single isn't as lame as I had thought.

Well in high school I felt like because I was single I wasn't having the full high school experience.

Well I got cheated on in high school... that's a part of it, right?

Ew yuck. So glad I'm not in high school anymore.

I've made friends out here who are REAL friends.

Not just people trying to keep tabs on me, and pretending to be nice to me or whatever.

I mean, yeah there's some of that, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

I guess you could say I've done some growing up.

I make phone calls for myself when I really need stuff done.

I talk to my teachers when I have a problem.

I do my own grocery shopping.

I clean because stuff needs to be cleaned, not because my parents make me.

I do my own cooking. Usually...

I've realized that growing up is scary.

It's kind of fun sometimes, taking the baby steps toward independence, but there's SO much responsibility! As scary as it feels, it's kind of invigorating at the same time! It's still weird sometimes that people kind of treat me like an adult and not like the youngest Chaston.

Oh, side note.

Can I just say how awesome it is that no one out here knows what it means to be a Chaston?

Seriously. No one automatically assumes that I can play piano because my Mom does.

No one even knows my Mom PLAYS piano.

No one expects me to go to every single church activity or function because that's what the Chastons do. I usually go anyway, but heck, a habit's a habit. (Unfortunately complaining about going is also a nasty little habit.)

So my thoughts are kind of jumpy.

Whatevs.

It's just... I don't even know how to feel right now.

I kind of thought finishing my first semester would feel like some big monumental thing.

Like, "Oh I made it!"

But really, it just feels like another week. With lots of tests.

I'm excited for next semester. I kind of know what to expect now.

Not expecting boys to fall all over me.

Not expecting my classes to be the hardest things in the universe.

(Maybe that one's bad... but I'm really not at all)

Not expecting every day to be a party.

Not expecting every day to be a nerd fest.

Expecting to have a lot more fun. (Mostly because it will be WARM outside).

Expecting to do lots of awesome random things.

Expecting to do better in my classes.

Hoping to have a better attitude about a lot of things.

Hoping to love my new roommate.

(Me, Hailey, and Tessie are going to be roommates, but we have a stranger moving in.)

Hoping to be nicer to people. Sometimes I just have a real problem with sarcasm.

Hoping to procrastinate less... like I'm doing right now with studying...

Seriously, studying? Over rated.

Notice how that word is a mixture of "student" and "dying."

Interesting...

Birthday Birthday Birthday!

2009-03-26T12:37:00.001-07:00

So, I seriously had a super awesome birthday! Not only had I been getting birthday presents like 3 weeks in advance (which isn't really the best part of a birthday, but it's in the top two), but I've met some pretty amazing people who made it amazing. If you're a girl, turning 19 doesn't really mean much because you can't go on a mission then. I mean, I guess you could look at it as it's a little less weird if you get married because you're not 18... but it's still weird to me. So I wasn't like super excited for this birthday, because honestly, nothing cool happens!

I started my day off with a large bowl of Hannah Montana cereal! It was whole grain secret-identity cereal, so I couldn't resist getting it! How can you have a bad day if you start it out with that kind of super-awesomeness!?

So, for my birthday I requested that Tessie learn the song Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson on guitar and play it for me. Well, Jennie sang while Tessie played, AND they made me banana pancakes to eat while being serenaded. Then they surprised me with playing the song from Juno, but putting their own words to it. The put the lyrics on a page with a picture of me and Milo Ventimiglia, who is Peter Petrelli from Heroes and is seriously going to be my husband someday. The song has a bunch of inside jokes in it, but it's wicked awesome, so I'm going to share it:

This is a song that we wrote for you

we hope you really enjoy it too

we didn't write for anyone else, 'cause nobody's chill

like you

You're part-time demon and a full-time friend

you like to bang Tessie on the floor or den

don't see what anyone can see in anyone else,

but you

What can you do when you turn 19?

For Amber you just get really really mean

don't see what anyone can see in anyone else,

but you

Make today special for someone like you

your Happy Birthday wishes we hope come true

A happy happy birthday to Amber and nobody else,

but you.

How nice is that!?

(and to explain the "bang Tessie on the floor" part, one time we put the couches all together so there was a hole in the middle, and Tessie was laying over it, but she fell through and I was in the room. Lisa heard a "BANG" and asked what happened and Tessie just yelled, "Amber banged me on the floor. So get your mind out of the gutter!)

So these are our shirts we made on Monday for FHE! Turned out wicked good, huh? Me and Jennie made hats too. She looks hip in hers, but I look like a painter in mine. I'm too white to look hip. Well, we wore our hats and tie dye shirts to Red Robin! I had never been, and we decided that when we could find a car we had to go, and what better time to go than to celebrate me!? Tessie's Dad lives just outside of Rexburg, so we borrowed his ginormous van/bus and went to Idaho Falls!

Ohh la laaaa! Red Robin is seriously DELICIOUS! I don't love it more than Uno's, but it's my number 2 favorite restaurant ever! I wicked wish there was an Uno's out here. I miss those peanut butter cups almost as much as I miss my strawberry fruit coolattas from Dunkin Donuts.

Eliza, myself, and Hailey, looking beautimous as always!

Taking my first bite of the Red Robin experience!

Seriously. Best thing ever!

Moral of the story: I had an amazing 19th birthday!

One more day, ohh la laaaa!

2009-03-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

So, this past weekend I went to visit Mudd to celebrate my birthday a little early! "Luckily" we didn't actually end up taking any pictures, so you'll just have to imagine all the awesomeness that exists when I get to spend time with my sister. She picked me up on Friday, which by the way was a super nice day and Hailey and Eliza took one of their couches outside to soak up the rays of the glorious sun... which was apparently against the rules... whatev! So we got to her house and just kind of bummed around because she was feeling kind of sick. So on Saturday, which was like 70 degrees!, we made lasagna, strawberry pie, and dinner rolls for my birthday dinner! I made the rolls for the first time, without assistance from Mudd (mostly), and they were delish! Then I got presents and stuff, and that was awesome. (We'll do a "birthday presents for Amber" post later...). Oh, my birthday dinner was at the White's, who are like Mudd's favorite people in Utah... and probably mine too! So then we got home and played the guitar hero world tour thing, and the drums are so hard! But I love them because they have like cymbals on them! Even if the yellow one is the stupidest one to try and hit because... it doesn't want to be hit... lame. So then she drove me home on Sunday, and I was surprised at how much I missed "home" (the dorms). But it was still super lame to leave Mudd. I feel like we didn't even really have enough time to be super awesome.

The lonely road back to Idaho.

So yesterday for FHE we made tie-dye t-shirts! Me and Jennie went to Porter's to find the dye, and we found this box that came with a free DVD...so we OBVIOUSLY had to watch it. Oh my gosh, so awesome. It was this hippie lady tie-dying shirts in front of a tie-dye sheet backdrop. Again: awesome.

This was my favorite picture of the day. We were just hangin' out before we started tie-dying, eating cheetos and arguing about how we should start the process.

Magical tie-dying deliciousness.

I seriously love candid pictures so much! We were talking about if you had an extra finger where you would put it... me and Jennie were trying to decide where it would go. Turns out I'd put mine between my thumb and pointer finger... just for fun.

Cory, one of the two boys that even comes to FHE, said that he would put it in the palm of his hand just to freak people out when he shook their hand. Awesome.

We pretty much live in the upper lounge, and since we wanted to watch Mr. Deeds (one of my birthday presents) but me and Hailey had some homework to do, we made stadium seating so we could sit up top and do work on our computers while other folks could sit in front and not be distracted by our homework. Well, this is the last picture in like a series of five... as I was trying to get on it felt like the couch was going to tip over backwards. My computer was on it, and I seriously almost had a heart attack! But no worries, baby is safe and sound. Haha, weird!

So my birthday is tomorrow, and I don't even think we're doing anything for it. Maybe we'll go get some custard or something. It's really hard to do something super awesome when you don't have a car and your birthday is on a Wednesday. I'm actually not even that worried about it, because I already got my boxes and stuff from Mudd.

I'm thinking about making a birthday crown and wearing it to all my classes though... just for fun!

Palmeras!

2009-03-17T20:09:00.001-07:00

Look at me, I'm SUCH a grown up! I made palmeras ALL by myself for our etiquette dinner for FHE last night. They were a huge hit, and it was fantastic!

I'm trying to think of other exciting things I've done in the past little bit, but not much comes to mind.

Actually, we saw Australia, and it was actually really good!

I'd recommend it! Just make sure you cover your eyes at the one part that they're in love and are covered in sheets.

Uh, so that might be a little weird... oh well.

Good flick!

Yikes!

2009-03-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

I visited an aquarium today!

Just kidding. I only wish I did.

I finished my powerpoint presentation for my English 252 class and got bored because my roommates aren't here. Well actually that might be a lie...I think Lisa might be here, but if she is she's in her room with her door closed, which is close enough to being gone that it counts.

Sorry. That's the boredom talking.

So, What have I been up to lately?

Homework. And staying up past 10 on school nights.

I met an Irish potato farmer with red hair. Yes. Stereotypical... and legit!

He stopped by our dorm for a Wii guitar for guitar hero.

We of course don't have one, but he invited us over to play guitar hero when he found one.

Which he did. So we went. I love guitar hero!

No worries--no date interest there.

I took half of my math test today in the testing center. Didn't do so well.

I have the take-home part to finish, and that should bring that grade right up!

I've been taking lots of naps lately.

The last time I went grocery shopping I used a bunch of coupons.

I guess you could count that as being exciting.

Been going to the gym. I actually haven't gone since Saturday? Well, we played volleyball for FHE on Monday, if that counts. We were supposed to go every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Well... that hasn't happened yet this week.

So. Um.

That's pretty much all I got right now.

Best Week Ever!

2009-02-20T10:30:00.001-08:00

This week has been awesome! Monday Night Hailey, Tessie, and I ran around and played in the snow!

We had been walking around for maybe 3 minutes before Tessie threw a snowball at me.

Lame.

We found a snowball, and decided it would be fun for Hailey to jump over me.

We had to take like eight pictures to finally get one where she's in the air.

And this picture is awesome.

We thought that was a real guitar, and we were thinking about maybe taking it

until we realized that it's a part of the statue.

We saw a hill, and HAD to roll down it.

...and we felt really tough.

So, I had some midterms this week. I got a 98 on my American Foundations one! YEAH! He curved it, and added as many points as were needed to make the highest grade a 100. He added 14 points. I was only 2 points behind the top score! Rock on!

I took my English 101 midterm today, and it only took me 15 minutes. My English 252 class was cancelled today, and I've been bummin' around the dorm since 8. I did a bunch of math homework. Lame.

My Book of Mormon class is DONE! I loved that class, but it was 2 hours long and I had to bring lifesavers to class to suck on to keep myself awake. It wasn't boring...just between the hours of 3:15 and 5:15... which aren't so good for staying awake.

Last night I went to Taco Bell for the first time. Got myself a danged quesadilla!

The Office needs to stop showing re-runs, and keep showing new episodes.

For reals.

Oh, and the BEST part of yesterday was lunch with Jen! It had been cloudy all morning, and she literally brought sunshine with her! It was pretty much the highlight of my week. And Luke is SO cute! We ate at Craigo's, (yeah, be jealous). We also went to a car wash that sprayed out rainbow soap that smelled like bubblegum. It was delightful!

Craigo's is DELISH! Luke didn't really think so. Every time we'd try to get him to eat something he'd just say, "No no no no no no no!"

We played in my dorm for a little bit, and ended up getting the cutest picture in the whole wide world! Can't wait to do lunch again!

What is a Blog Without Pictures?

2009-02-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

So this weekend was pretty good! Friday night Hailey and I went grocery shopping because we were bored. Then we went to see Bride Wars, which I seriously LOVED! They could have done without the bachelorette party thing, but other than that it was fantastic! I thought I was going to like Anne Hathaway's character better, just because as much as I like Kate Hudson I like Anne better, and I ended up liking Kate. Her character changes and becomes less crazy, while Anne just goes from a pushover to a jerkface. Except for in the very very end when she's normal. Anywho, it made me want to go try on prom dresses (which unfortunately never happened).

After the movie (can I just take this time to say how much I adore $3 movies!?), we went to the stadium. I walked up (more like slipped up with the amount of snow) the stairs, and slid back down. I felt like a snowboarder, and it was awesome.

Saturday I watched a bunch of movies. I Am Legend, Spaceballs, Star Wars the Phantom Menace, and then like a half hour of Star Wars Clone Wars or whatever that one's called...then I hung out with Lisa and Hailey for a while, and we decided to watch Across the Universe. I actually really liked what they did with the songs. Like, I'd totally listen to the soundtrack, but I'm not sure I'd actually watch it again.

Yesterday we got a new bishop, who is actually my dad's sister's husband's brother. Weird, I know!

After church we pretty much just bummed around. We went to the upper lounge so Lisa could play piano, and I could sing along obnoxiously. Then we went over to Amber's (a girl from Taiwan whose name isn't actually Amber, that's just her American name) house for Chinese food that she made. It was delicious! It was the first time I ever used chopsticks, and I was SO good at it!

Then I went over to Hailey's, and I showed her pictures of my friends and my life and everything. It was pretty awesome. Then we went to the upper lounge to have an Office marathon (because she has the seasons on DVD) and have a sleepover. It's kind of against the rules, which is pretty much the only reason we did it. Yeah. I guess that makes us the bad seeds of BYU-Idaho. Shucks.

On to the pictures!

The bat car! It parks outside our dorm ALL the time. I want to meet the owner.

I'd give them a hug.

Snow angels? Heck YES! The snow looked all glittery and smooth and pretty, and we had to spice it up a little bit.

Chopsticks champion of the world!

Me and Hailey, with our Office extravaganza!

The inspiration for our badness.

I should probably do my homework now. Tessie's gone and Lisa went to a study group, so it's probably the most opportune time. Shucks.

Millions of Groceries, Groceries for me!

2009-02-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

So, pretty much just been hangin' out and doin' homework. Last weekend I saw Bedtime Stories at the $3 theater. We also all went out for Thai food (we all being me, Tessie, Lisa, Eliza, and Hailey). I only got Wonton's because I don't like foreign food that much. Yes, I am a lameface.

On Saturday we watched a few episodes of the first season of Heroes, because... well I love that show. Then some girls came into the lounge (where we were) and asked if they could watch a movie in there. We told them they could if we could watch with them. So we watched Signs. There are two couches in the upper lounge, and we decided to make stadium seating. We got a bunch of kitchen chairs, and put one of the couches on them. It was a little shakey, but we didn't die, so it's okay.

I don't feel like I've done that much lately... just been hangin' out, bein' awesome.

Here's a photo shoot of our latest grocery excursion:

Before: We're looking pretty optimistic, I'd say.

After: We had to stop on a bench like 1/4th of the way home because our groceries were so heavy. Sad. At our second stop (about halfway home) a lady stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride. We said, "HECK YES!" and she brought us back to our dorm.

I really love people like that. So nice.

When we got home we made Chicken Helper, which was sooooo good!

Then I did my History homework. I had to rename each article and amendment in the Constitution. I thought we had to rename each individual section... so it took me a really really long time...

Obrigaderu!

2009-02-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Last week was actually really awesome! Monday there was a ward social, breakfast for dinner, and people played this game called fruit basket... like musical chairs, but dangerous. Someone was trying to get to a chair, and he jumped over a table and basically tackled a girl! Luckily he's in my family home evening group, so every time I see him I think about it and laugh to myself. So awesome.

Then on Thursday I got invited to watch The Office at Justin's apartment. Justin is a boy I met at the ward social, who actually ended up being my FHE Dad. Weird.. haha! (Yesterday was the first time we had a legit FHE so I hadn't met him before then) But I went over on Thursday to watch The Office, went over on Friday to watch Hot Rod, Blades of Glory, and Anchorman... so funny! He came over here on Saturday and we played Egyptian Rat Screw with two decks of cards so it took a really really long time. Lisa, Hailey, and Eliza were here and playing with us. So that was fun. Sunday I went to his apartment near the end of the superbowl (I watched them win... yay Steelers? Although I have to admit, that 100 yard touchdown by that huge fat guy was pretty impressive!) so that I could watch The Office... but we ended up missing it because he got the time wrong, even though I had it right.

Moral of the story: people should listen to me all the time.

Yesterday, after FHE, he came over (...FHE was in the "dorm room" right next to mine) and then we ended up going to his apartment and doing homework. I missed Heroes because someone was in the downstairs lounge, and boys aren't allowed in the upstairs lounge.

Can I just tell you how mad I was? By the time we got to his apartment, it was already over. And he has a ginormous TV, so it would have been awesome.

Oh well. Basically I've been spending a lot of time with him. He reminds me a lot of some of my friends from home, and it's really fun to hang out!

Oh, and on Sunday Lisa invited some people over for dinner. She made enchiladas, and the boys (of course they were boys... who else do you invite over ever?... hahaha!) brought dessert. One of them went to Brazil on his mission, so he made obrigaderu (I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, but that's how you say it...) and I was SO excited! I love anything Portugese/Brazilian, because Portugese is my favorite lanugage, and Mudd took a class in college and had to make obrigaderu for it. Oh my gosh, SO yummy!

Anyway, here are some pictures from Saturday/Sunday

Tessie always thinks she wants to fight me. I don't think she understands how tough I am in real life.

Lisa wanted a picture of her with hairspray. It took a minute for my camera to decide it wanted to take a picture, and she just stood there spraying until the picture was taken.

I'm pretty sure she made herself a pretty big hole in the ozone layer, if you know what I'm sayin'.

And here is the DELICIOUS obrigaderu. So it looks kind of like fecal matter, but it tastes like tootsie rolls kind of, and they're super good! I was literally jumping up and down with excitement when I saw he had brought them!

Video!

2009-01-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

I forgot that we had taken a video "for the memories."

Enjoy! =)

Weekend Recap

2009-01-26T12:08:00.000-08:00

So, this past weekend was actually wicked fun! On Friday night Lisa had invited over this guy that we had met on our first Sunday, out here (Aaron), and he brought one of his roommates (Eric). We played Skip-bo which Aaron had never played, and was the entire reason he was invited over, and he won. We all kept helping him out, telling him what cards to put down and stuff. And I was annoyed because I knew the help we were giving him would help him win. So then we played Phase 10. Everyone kept skipping me because apparently it's wicked funny to watch me freak out. I was stuck on the same doggoned phase (2 sets of 4) for like 4 or 5 rounds! Yarrrg, SO annoying!

This was at the point in time that I was winning. Hooray run of 8!

From left to right, Tessie, Eric, Aaron, and Lisa. This picture was taken during one of the millions of times I got skipped. What the heck!

So on Saturday we went grocery shopping. It snowed. We got to carry our groceries home in the snow. It was awesome... We walked down to Broulim's (is that how you spell it?) and bought all our stuff. I bought chicken because I've been wanting parmesean chicken for about forever! And I bought potatoes because I want to make Au Gratin potatoes, completely forgetting that I had to carry them home. My arms are still sore!

Tessie got chocolate frosting, because she's been wanting to make cake for like 2 or 3 weeks now, and you can't really have cake without frosting. We realized we don't actually have a cake pan, so we made cupcakes! They were wicked good! I decided I wanted to try to make a tower of them, and use the frosting as glue. I stopped at four cupcakes, only because I didn't want to waste them all. As fun as making cupcake towers is, they don't actually look appealing enough to ingest.

The amazing tower o' cupcake.

So I fit a whole cupcake, frosting and all, in my mouth. Very ladylike, I know. Us ladies in 215 are essentially the definition of classy. Because I fit one, Tessie stuck two cupcakes together (where the idea blossomed for a cupcake tower), with frosting. I dared her to put both of them in her mouth at once, and this is what happened:

Basically she couldn't do it. It was really funny to watch, actually.

Then Lisa did her Psychology homework, and me and Tessie watched Kung Fu Panda. I know, someone was missing out on fun because they were doing homework, and it WASN'T me. Crazy!

Sunday we went next door to Hailey and Eliza's for breakfast--waffles! They were so good!

Then we went to church. When we got home I showed off my pictures of Spain, because I really really miss it right now. Looking at the pictures only made me miss it more...but that's okay! Oh my gosh, I would do anything for a Palmera right now!

But that's beside the point. I made Parmesean chicken and invited Chelsie Whitney and her best friend/roommate Symone, and for dessert we had root beer floats! So yummy!

Then afterwards Lisa went to ward prayer with Hailey and Eliza, while me and Tessie were bums and stayed with Chelsie and Symone.

Get this: when Lisa got back, she reported that she has a DATE this Saturday with Aaron (skip-bo boy). YUP! I laughed so hard when she told us, because the whole time I've been here she's been like, "Amber, you're gunna be the first one to go on a date, I just know it!" And there she goes, bein' the first little dater! I'm tempted to take pictures when he comes to pick her up on Saturday. Be the annoying Mom at prom, you know? Pahaha!

Anywho, this is me with my chicken! Yum yum yum!

So, after Lisa told us about her upcoming date, we played phase 10 again! Oh my gosh, I love that game! After Chelsie and Symone left, me, Tessie, Eliza, and Hailey played skip-bo and then watched random youtube videos for who knows how long. There's this one that's like "library games" or something, and it's like a Japanese game show where you go to libraries and flip cards over, and whoever gets the X has something harmful or yucky happen to them. The trick is you can't laugh too loud or yelp in pain because you can't make noises in the library. One had a nose hair plucked, one ate a wasabi roll, one got hit in the butt with a baseball bat... and it was so funny! We're gunna make our own version and try it out in the library. Pahaha!

Too Studious...

2009-01-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

So I've found that I'm too studious for my own good. I'm so ahead of my homework that I have nothing to do during my 2 hour break between classes because I don't know what the next homework assignment is. And when my roommates are both in class, and I'm by myself, it makes me feel like an uber-nerd.

Oh well. Homework is good for you I guess. I'm just really bored.

So this past weekend I went to Mudd's, and we played guitar hero. I can play 7 songs on hard! Party! And we went to watch a Utah State girl's basketball game. Mudd's friend Anna grew up with on of the girls on the team, so we got to talk to people, and I have a signed poster now. So that's pretty cool. Uhhm, we also did some grocery shopping... it was mostly just a chillax and spend time with eachother kind of weekend. And it was super nice!

Other than that I've just been doing homework and hangin' out with my roommates.

Tomorrow night we're having boys over to play skip-bo? Lisa invited someone over, and I guess she called him/is going to call him to have him bring his roommates.

And since I haven't really done anything but be a nerd, I don't really have much to report.

I better get A's, that's all I'm sayin'.

Lame

2009-01-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting to update this until something awesome happened, and seeing as to how I've basically been a hermit, doing my homework instead of going outside, nothing that awesome has happened. Me and my roommates have a lot of fun, and Eliza and Hailey have been coming over to hang out... but other than that, I really have been just doing my homework.

Like, I'm ahead of all my classes until Tuesday. (Well we have Monday off, so it's not THAT much of an accomplishment...) But... yeah, homework is "fun."

I'm SO excited for The Office tonight! We're going over to the boys' dorm to watch that, and then Dan in Real Life afterward. Apparently it's some kind of big deal or something, and they always invite girls over for a big extravaganza! I really don't care where I watch it, as long as I get to see it, ya know?

Well this weekend Mudd is coming up to get me, and I'll be there 'til Monday with her. I'm so excited! Being out here is so nice, just because I can basically go see her whenever I want to...minus when I'm in class...

Too funny

2009-01-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

So, this is my sandwich cutter. It magically takes off the crust AND makes my sandwiches into dinosaurs! I kind of wish I had an excuse to bring a bag lunch somewhere so I could bust out my dinosaur sandwiches so that everyone could be jealous of me.

Anywho, funny thing happened last night. My roommates, our neighbors Eliza and Hayley (I think that's how you spell it) and I were all in our dorm playing Phase 10 when we heard very loud screams outside our door. We all jumped up and ran to the door to see what was happening, and a girl who is our other neighbor had gotten engaged and apparently had just told all of her friends who were very very excited about it.

Less than a week into the semester?

For sure!

Well, she's a second semester Freshman, but STILL! That is insane.

Oh well.

So, we basically just did homework and bummed around all day yesterday. Around 7:30 Eliza and Hayley came over and we played Phase 10, were interrupted by an engagement, watched random youtube videos while making and eating s'mores, and then watched Hot Rod, which is probably one of my new favorite movies.

Okay, so it's pretty dumb, and a little inappropriate, but it's hilarious!

Then this morning we had them over again for breakfast! We made French Toast, and it was delicious.

We decided it's going to be a Sunday morning tradition to make and eat breakfast together, and just switch dorms every other week.

Woo hoo! Look at me making friends!

Who'da thunk THAT could happen, right?

Laundry Day!

2009-01-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

Laundry Day!!

I got your (Ariane) text today and remembered that I haven't done this since Sunday, and since I'm just hangin' out in the Laundry room, what better time do I have to do it than now?

Here's a summary of my week:

Orientation was lame.

My roommates are both really really nice (I met the other one. Her name is Tessie, and she's hilarious!) We still don't have a fourth, but somebody dropped by yesterday apparently and asked us about it, so I guess they're thinking about adding someone else? Which stinks because I'm the one with my own room, and I'm already in the swing of things... but oh well!

My classes are actually really fun!

Two English classes, and one of my teachers Brother Brugger (pronounced like 'cougar') is hilarious! HIs cell phone policy is that you can only answer your phone during class if it's a member of the opposite sex calling you, BECAUSE it takes so much courage for the guy to finally take the jump to make that first call, and the teacher doesn't want to get in the way of somebody's first date.

Too funny.

My math teacher is funny. A little eccentric, but funny.

And she seems pretty nice, so I feel like it should be an okay class.

My science teacher is crazy and scatterbrained. But he's got a really good sense of humor, so I feel like it should be a fun class.

My history teacher is strict, and serious about his class. But he's also passionate about it and knows what he's talking about. I don't think I'll ever get bored.

And my Book of Mormon teacher is the COOLEST! Not only because he's funny, but because he basically doesn't believe in giving tests. And because most of us already know the basic story line of the Book of Mormon, he said we're going to pick apart things like the Isaiah chapters, and pick certain doctrines and learn about those, rather than just read through Nephi to the middle of Alma. It's also only a block class, so it's 2 hours long instead of 1, and it ends in February. It's pretty cool.

Chelsie Whitney is here, and I had dinner at her dorm last night. She made a taco ring, and it was delicious! I'm so glad she's here!! It makes being here a little easier because she's someone I know from home.

I'm pretty much over the homesickness now. It was hard the first few days, but everything is going really good. I'm eating and sleeping just fine, and I'm realizing that I'm capable of being a lot more independant than I thought. Hooray!

Bottom line: I got really lucky with all of my classes, and my roommates. Everything, as of right now, seems like it couldn't have been set up better for me.

*Haaalelujia*

2009-01-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

So, I'm in Idaho! But before I talk about Idaho, here's a picture of a pot-bellied dwarf goat we saw in Hyrum, just hangin' out on the side of the road.

Well, it's not actually called that, but I decided it was a pretty good name.

So we moved me into my dorm yesterday, and I did everything but get my ID card.. which stinks that I actually have to do on my own, instead of just follow my Mom or Randy to where I need to go, and let them baby me through it. But I think the whole point of going to college is to stop being babied.

Sometimes independence stinks.

So here I am, on my freshly-made bed, courtesy of Mudd.

The nicely decorated desk, courtesy of Mudd.

Living room, part 1. Notice the hard, school-like chairs around the table.

Living room part 2. I'm diggin the green and purple combo here.

Some seriously nice interior design goin' on.

Nice white kitchen, which is going to be impossible to keep clean.

That's okay, we'll do our best.

El bano

My lovely side of the room.

My actual roommate isn't here yet. I'm hoping she comes tomorrow.

Haha, my nice chocolate and coconut covered marshmellow, courtesy of my suitemate Lisa.

She's the only roommate I actually know. I know another one's name is Tessie, but I only saw her for like 5 minutes. She has family that lives in Rexburg, and is spending the weekend there.

And speaking of Lisa, here she is! We met yesterday, trying to find our orientation group. We're in 37, and have yet to actually find our group. We doubt it even exists. Kind of like our ward today. We were supposed to have church in the West Ballroom of the MC (yeah.. I'm shortening the names of the buildings already.. look at this college kid go!), but the lights were off in the rooms we were supposed to be in. So we went back to our dorm and tried again an hour later with no luck. So we went to another building and talked to these two guys named Nick and Joe for like an hour and a half. Joe reminded me a lot of Steve, and Nick was an RM from Southern California. He was really funny, and I was pretty patient with Joe. I know that he's not Steven, but he just has a lot of the same little quirks that kind of annoy me. Anyways, so we sat in the Taylor building long enough that another ward came in, so we just did church that way.

Tomorrow we do more orientation stuff, and it's supposed to snow like 6 inches or something. Prettyyyy exciting! I'm already over this orientation junk though. Just take me on a campus tour and be done with it, I say!

Classes start on Wednesday, and I can already feel myself not wanting to do schoolwork.

That's probably not a good sign...

Holy Moly!

2009-01-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

I move into my dorm tomorrow! HOLY MOLY that is crazy!

SO, I s'pose I'll update you from the plane ride.

We left wicked early in the morning, and Jon, Steph, and Tom came down to the airport with my Mom and me to drop us off. It was really fun, minus all of us being tired from waking up at like 3, to leave by 4, to be at the airport early enough to do security by 5:45. Supah-fun!

So we flew to JFK, and then left there at 9 for Utah!

I was sitting in the aisle seat, and my mom was sitting in the middle, and a stranger was sitting at the window. Behind me was a Dad, next to him was a Mom, and next to her was their 9 year old son. This information is crucial for the story I'm about to tell:

The kid was kicking the back of the guy's seat at the very beginning of the flight, and he called the flight attendant over to ask him to stop. 2/3rds of the way through the flight, the guy starts jamming his elbow into his seat, because apparently the kid was kicking his seat again. Nobody knows how hitting his seat would make the kid stop, but it happened anyway. So the Dad, sitting behind me, leans over me and puts his hand in the guy's face and starts screaming at him like "Don't bleepin' hit my 9-year old kid! Are you bleepin' crazy? I'm gunna beat your bleepin' face in!" e.t.c... (what an example to set for your kid, huh?). Anyway, so they're fighting and yelling back and forth, so the flight attendant comes over and talks to them like they're 2-year-olds fighting over candy. Then the guy apparently was exhausted from fighting, and put his ipod in and went to sleep.

Basically it was a pretty entertaining flight.

So I've been spending my whole week with Mudd and Randy. Randy's been sick, but he's feeling better today so that's okay.

On Tuesday we went to Amy's (my Mom's best friend's) parents house and ate dinner with them. I kept asking for "some butta please" and Amy's kids all LOVED it!

Then we played this game Curses, which might be the funnest game I've ever played in my life! (Yes, even better than Guitar Hero). You have a pile of cards that tells you to do weird things like, "Show what you would do if you were being attacked by a raccoon" or "Demonstrate how you would call the police to tell them everything was being eaten by giant frogs" and stuff. And then you have a pile of curses like "Before every turn you have to make an animal sound" or "Whenever you speak, add R's to the front of the words to talk like Scooby Doo". If you dont' do your 'curse" when it's your turn, somebody rings the bell and says "Cursebreaker!" and if you break your curse 3 times you're out.

It was seriously hilarious!

I learned how to play Tripoly, which is like poker and hearts all in one, at Randy's parent's house, and it was SO fun! I've discovered that i just really like to play games!

Anywho, we've done a lot of shopping for my dorm and stuff, and I'm really excited to put my new cool kitchen gadgets to use. My new favorite thing is this sandwich cutter, that takes off the crust AND cuts your sandwich in half. Not ONLY does it cut in in half, but it shapes each half into a dinosaur! Best investment of the whole trip I'd say.

(I'll put pictures up later... I'm having a bit of trouble finding my connection cord for my camera...)

The Chaston Christmas Experience

2008-12-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

Last night we went down to Lawrence to the Lembert's for Christmas Eve Dinner, Dominican style!

They had SO much good food!

RIP Porky Pig ='(

I hate eating new foods, but they had lasagna so I was safe even if I hated all the rest of the food there.. which I didn't! Yummm!

On the drive home, I sat in the way back of X-tera (seriously, they should think about putting padding back there.. bumpy roads were not pleasant for my badonky!), and made sure that we were planning on keeping my childhood Christmas traditions. Putting out stockings out the night before to set our places for opening Christmas presents; all the kids sleeping in one room watching movies until we fall asleep (we watched Kung Fu Panda, and I fell asleep 15 minutes into it), while "Santa" and apparently German Chocolate Cake brings us presents. (Yes, my Mom labeled a present 'German Chocolate Cake' for me. Who knew they give you more than just delicious chocolatey goodness!?). Then the kids all get up at 5 and play with their stocking stuffers, and wake Mom and Dad up at 6. We all ended up getting up at 6, because I'm not little anymore, and Christmas morning isn't as magical as it was when I was little.

So when we woke up, after Steven updating us all night: "Guys, it's 3!" "Hey, it's 4:30!" "Holy cow it's only 5!" "It's 5:30 guys!" "Listen, it's 5:40, can't we go down early?" "Get up everyone it's 6!" we go down the stairs to find:

that all the presents had disappeared. All that was there was the tree, a big red empty bag, a Dr. Seuss anthology opened to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and a piece of paper with a poem lying across it that said:

"Oh no! A Christmas mystery!

We hope this lack brings you no tears.

If you were wise you'd check the place

where other stockings disappear!"

So we sent Steven down to the basement, to check the laundry room and the dryer for the next clue.

The inside of the big red empty bag.

The poems were just too cute not to share, so here are the rest of them

(try to see if you can figure out where we were sent on our Christmas present scavenger hunt):

"You found the first of your holiday loot

good for you! Away with dread!

If you want the rest you'll work up a sweat

why don't you clean off first instead?"

"I think you're on to how these clues work

So let me riddle you another:

You want your gifts; don't chill your buns

Why don't you heat them up, my brother

s (and sisters)?"

"If you hadn't been so anxious

When you had first beguns

You might have looked a little closer

'hind where you seat your buns"

"By now it isn't quite so chilly

you're probably quite warm.

But if you want the next set of gifts

You might have to brave the storm"

"Okay--you're doing pretty well,

why don't you take a break?

You could sit down and eat some food

So you don't lose a lot of energy and get really tired, whiny, and weak"

"Two more to go, but where's the next?

I'm sure you want no flab in it

If you want to collect the next set of gifts

Why don't you check a ___________?"

"Come on folks, you've recieved quite a lot

It's clear that in that each of you has won

Instead I think you should do something else --

Go and get some studying done"

So if you didn't catch it, we went to:

-the laundry room

-the shower

-the oven

-behind the red chair in the living room

-the front porch

-the dining room

-a cabinet

-the office upstairs.

I have to tell you, my stocking is my favorite part of Christmas morning, and when I got downstairs to find a box of cereal and a lunchable, and NOT my stocking I was pretty sad.

It was a pretty cute idea though, and it brought in some of that lost Christmas magic.

And here are some of my favorite presents! I'm getting a big shopping trip out in Utah, but my parents thought I should open SOMETHING on Christmas morning.

A Mighty Mouse! Seriously, I love this thing! My computer is really only on so that i CAN use it! This is what I got from German Chocolate Cake! It really does give good gifts!

Sleeping Beauty I knew I was getting because I made my Mom buy it for me. She's my favorite Disney Princess. Anastasia is another one of my favorite movies of all time, and it was really my only Christmas surprise!

High School Musical gummies? Yeah: best stocking stuffer of all time!

I asked my parents for a Red Sox shirt so I could represent New England out in Idaho. I didn't think they'd actually do it! Hooray!

Bottom line: one of the best Christmases ever!

Stinkin' Snow

2008-12-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving for Idaho in a week from today.

It's crazy to think that this is my last week in New Hampshire.

Luckily, the weather decided it would be a good idea to give me 3 feet of snow for a going away present.

So thoughtful.

It's actually really pretty, but I'd probably enjoy it more without the wind.

From the stories I've heard though, I better start getting used to wind.

Oh bother.

I don't know what to feel right now.

Nervous: yes.

Scared: yes.

Excited: yes.

Sad: yes.

Ready: that's debatable.

I keep saying that I'm ready to go, but really I have no idea what's going to happen.

The last time I went somewhere where I didn't have an older sibling paving the way for me was Utah in 8th grade. And since everyone is gross in 8th grade and I was only there for a semester, it wasn't that big of a deal.

It's just weird to know that things are never going to be the same again.

I'm scared that I'll come home next summer and not be satisfied with what I come home to.

At least I'll be able to look forward to a finished kitchen.

...well, we hope it'll be finished by then.