Ashley Greenwood

new blog :)

2010-11-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hey friends,

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I made a new blog for me and Ki. The new web address is jensenlife.blogspot.com if you would care to blog stalk us :)

procrastination...

2010-04-27T01:25:00.002-06:00

After having a productive day, tonight we gave up on all our planned responsibilities, and made Rice Krispie treats followed by a 6 episode Leverage marathon. I knew every time that we started a new episode that Ki should be studying, and I should be packing, but I didn't resist the welcome snuggle fest with the hubby. I figure tomorrow we'll get around to the packing and the studying :) meh oh well, no regrets. I'd much rather snuggle on the couch then pack anyways

blogging has been seriously neglected in my marriage :)

2010-04-17T16:24:00.004-06:00

Sorry everyone! I keep getting a bunch of you asking why I never update my blog, when I'm going to update my blog, If I am even alive etc etc. I am very much alive! :) So worry your little heads no more. I mean obviously I am busy, who isn't these days? But I somehow find time to fit facebook into my life so I guess I am just out of the habit of blogging. Anywho, I am so behind on the details/events of my life I don't even know where to begin! I guess I will just start spurting out random details of things that are on my mind.

Ki and I will be headed on a long 18-20 hr trek to Oklahoma in 13 days! THIRTEEN! That is less then 2 weeks and we have SO much to do before then. We will be doing the same thing as last summer, Ki is managing the summer sales office, and I'm the office administrator again. But man, we both have to finish finals, get our new car registered/on our insurance, move all of our stuff except the essentials into storage, clean the apartment, put down payment on new apartment for next Fall, and have 2 birthdays before we can go! Its going to be a crazy few weeks.

I keep getting a million emails from the accounting department practically begging me to be an accounting major and inviting me to a million seminars because of my "exceptional grades" How ironic that my highest grade at BYU is probably the thing I find the least interesting... I mean sure I have found many of the things I've learned applicable to my life and even some minutely interesting, but if all my classes were accounting classes I think I would die.

I promise to TRY to be better at blogging, but in the mean time here is a story to tide you over until the next time I grace you with the presence of a new post from my blog ;)

A couple of weeks ago, Ki and I were driving down to Cedar City late Friday evening (we had to wait until 10 because I procrastinated taking a test haha) so that Ki could ordain his little brother a deacon on the coming Sunday. We made it as far as Cove Fort where we filled up with gas, and then out of nowhere it started blizzarding! We braved the storm though and got back on the freeway to complete our trek South. We had only gone like 5 minutes before the road was completely covered in snow, and we had to slow our speed to about 40 to avoid driving off the road. But before we knew what was going on we were going 35, then 30, then 25 because the snow was coming down so hard, we could only see a couple feet in front of us! I was on the verge of a panic induced breakdown! It wouldn't have been so bad perhaps if we had a car to follow, or if we could tell the difference between the road we were driving on, and the side of the road, but alas both were COMPLETELY covered with a thick blanket of snow. Ki being the sweet thoughtful husband that he is(or because he was certain he couldn't stand an extra 2 hr drive in the car with the maniac who was sitting next to him) suggested that for our safety, it might be best to pull off at the next exit with the option of a motel and spend the night there. So we drove for another 30 minutes in this crazy spring snowstorm until we reached Beaver where we exited the highway. It seemed everyone else had the same idea as us however, because when we got there of the 4 motels in town, only 1 had vacancies.. and it was of course the one I would've most preferred to NOT stay in. I mean it was the grossest looking thing ever! Our room was located on the abandoned side of the Motel and I was almost sure we were going to get mugged, or beaten to death by drug lords (I told you I was on the verge of a breakdown). In fact I was so paranoid, that I made Ki bring his gun in the room with us. Yes, I typed that correctly, I ASKED him to bring it. Now for those of you who know me, now you are convinced that I have gone insane, because I HATE guns, and I refuse to let Ki bring it anywhere except on the occasion of camping. Which is no small feat because Ki dreams of being Jack Bauer and one of his most prized posessions is his concealed weapons permit..

In order to further paint you a picture of our delightful motel room, you must know that the first things we noticed when we walked in were A) that it was just as cold inside as it was outside,and B)that there was an ash tray on the mini table just inside the door and that the room smelled a lot like SMOKE. Interesting seeing as how the owner had specifically told us he would give us one of the Non-Smoking Rooms! First thing we did was to turn on the electric heater because I was FREEZING! I hadn't packed anything very warm, because it was almost APRIL! 5 minutes with the heater on and we knew that the room wasn't going to get warm for a VERY long time. Ki took out the filter, to try and scrub the thick layer of sick stuff off in order to make the heater work a little better, but pretty soon I had to take over, because his allergies started going crazy, and when Ki's allergies go too crazy he starts having a really hard time breathing. So after I clean the vent and brush my teeth I lay in bed fully dressed in an attempt to get warm. As I laid there waiting for Ki to finish brushing his teeth, to my dismay I notice that the thin, felt blankets that are covering the bed are full of little curly black hairs! I gagged. Up until this point I had been calmly holding most my emotions inside my head, making the best of the situation, but the curly hairs that suspiciously looked a lot like pube hairs had done me in! I screamed to Ki to come look, and when he came in and saw the condition of the blankets on the bed that we would be sleeping in he just looked at me, and then we both just burst out laughing. This night just kept getting more and more ridiculous. I tried to pull the sheet over the top of the blankets so that the blankets wouldn't touch my face as I slept, but as luck would have it we found out that the sheet was a twin sheet, and it didn't even tuck into the edges of our Full size bed without pulling it up over the blankets. Ki however was thoroughly fatigued at this point and fell asleep, but between the smoke in the room, and the vent full of dust that he had attempted to clean, his asthma was pretty bad. So while he slept I listened to his wheezing to make sure he wouldn't stop breathing (I've never had experience with someone with asthma before, and his RARELY acts up so I was a bit nervous) But when I finally was too tired to worry about his breathing, or the hairs in the blankets, and the scary motel we were staying in I finally fell asleep. In the morning when we both woke up, all the snow was already melted and the sun was shining. We then got back in the car and marveled at the crazy Utah weather. The End. haha so this story is kind of anti-climatic but its the only story I got for ya right now :) I wish I had pictures from the motel to post so you would know I am not exaggerating, but in my sleep deprived state, I didn't think to take any. Love you all! And I wish all those of you who have finals this week or the next week good luck!! Not that you'll need it... just in case. ;)

alright fine. i'll update my blog :)

2009-11-16T23:08:00.006-07:00

Sorry folks that I've been gone from the blogging world so long! I've just been... busy being newly-wed! haha. So the wedding was seriously perfect. Everything went so smoothly! The weather was beautiful, the luncheon was amazing, and the reception was perfect :) Thanks to all you family and friends who came and supported us! It really meant a lot to have everyone we love come out. I would post lots of wedding pics but... I have a thousand. No I'm not kidding, and even after I sorted through and chose all the best ones I still had a couple hundred! So there is just no way I will be uploading them all lol so either be happy with these five or go check out my facebook page! These are just a few of my favorite pics/ favorite moments.

coming out of the temple :) it was such a rush to see all our family and friends! Not to mention I felt so happy!

hugging my cute little bugga boo. my little mini me

haha this picture is just hilarious! I love Andrew's and Jaxon's faces!

this is my favorite pic of us in front of the temple :)

And well this picture is just funny to me because the sun was shining so bright in our eyes that Ki seriously couldn't keep his eyes open for the life of him! It was so funny our photographer kept having us shut our eyes and then open them on the count of 3 and this is still one of the only ones taken on that bench that Ki successfully managed to keep his eyes open in.

Ever since the wedding we have just been getting settled into our new apartment here in Provo, and spending as much time as we possibly can together! I must say that being married is far better then dating! Apart from being with each other every second that we can, we're both managing to stay pretty busy. Ki is busy going to school full-time and working at Linx Satellite as a manager getting ready to go out for what we hope, if all goes as planned and he graduates with his Business Marketing degree in 3 semesters like planned, is our last summer of Summer sales! yay! As for me, I'm settling into being a little housewife, making our apartment into a home and teaching myself how to cook a whole bunch of new things (which is actually going shockingly well considering my numerous food failures in the past) in the meantime I am also looking for a job to hold me over until next summer at which time I'll be office admin again. I'm also taking a bunch of fun classes right now at 24 hr. fitness (can you say hallelujah? I love going to the pilates, yoga, cycling, zumba and kick boxing classes. These classes seriously kick my butt and I love feeling like I'm getting back into shape finally!) I'm also trying to completely enjoy what little time I have left of my break from school. Because next semester I'll start full force into my major again. I'll be taking: physiology, kinesiology/bio mechanics, accounting, Adv. First Aid, and New Testament. I'll be honest, I'm not looking forward to going back, but it'll be good for me. School is good and who knows, maybe now that I'm married and I won't be livin the late night single life, I'll be able to buckle down and get better grades. We can hope at least, right?

At the moment I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas! They are two of my most favorite holidays ever! I think the thing I love most about these holidays is the family aspect. I LOVE spending time with both my family and Ki's family and am so grateful that I'm so blessed with such amazing people in my life! The second thing I love most about these holidays is of course the plethora of amazing FOOD and holiday TREATS! Anyone who knows me, knows I really really REALLY enjoy my food. Thanksgiving is so divine. I can hardly wait for the yams, turkey, stuffing, and of course apple pie! mm mm good! But in preparation for Christmas which I am also excitedly anticipating (even though its likely to be the smallest Christmas I've ever had) we put up our Christmas tree for Family Home Evening tonight! yay :) We put on some Christmas music, courtesy of pandora.com since I somehow lost all my favorite Christmas cd's.. and put up the little tree! We would've drank hot chocolate in honor of our festive FHE as well, but we were both still stuffed from dinner haha.

putting the finishing touches on the branches!

He is a cutie :)

both of us decorating the tree thanks to our handy self-timer

putting on the last little ball.

yay! all finished :)

Welp. Thats about all for tonight. Of course there have been many more adventures since I last updated but it would be far too long to blog about them all. If any of you want to come visit us feel free! We're finally all moved in and settled with the pictures on the walls and everything!

We're Engaged!!!

2009-07-28T17:57:00.005-06:00

The rumors are true! We are engaged :) Sorry it has taken me so long to get this post on the blog, but its difficult to find time! Enough of my eager readers have bugged me about getting it up here however, so I am finally obliging :) ...speaking of people bugging me to get this post up on the blog... I never knew so many people read my blog! ya'll should think about commenting more often ;) who knows... maybe it might motivate me to update my blog more lol. So leave a comment every once and awhile you silent blog stalkers! Just so I know you're out there on the other side of cyber space. We're all friends right?

Now first off, I have to publicly repent for the many times I voiced how crazy I thought people were who got engaged quick. I have realized my error. When its right its right. It just happens different for everyone :)

Mine and Ki's first date was to a Jazz game on Feb. 24th and things since then have pretty much been a whirlwind. We hit it off from the get go. (hence... the quick engagement) After our first date we started seeing each other every single day. It SCARED me how much I liked him after the first date. I seem to remember coming home from that date and telling my roommates that I was scared to let myself date Ki because I had this feeling that I would fall in love with him (I wasn't really looking to get married at the time... who is? right?) Then I remember Holly asking me why I was freaking out. It had only been one date, and we weren't even actually "dating" yet. Well... lets just say I had this unexplainable feeling that I was going to fall for him! I had been on first dates before and they had never EVER felt like that. So I guess thats how it all started. The rest is history. We started talking about getting married at the beginning of the summer and at the end of June Ki was being so SO fishy and secretive whenever he wasn't working that I just knew he was doing research on rings and looking around. Yep you read correctly, Ki picked out my ring all by himself (he wanted it to be a complete surprise) Go ahead... be impressed :) I know I was!

Then the first week in July he unexplainably woke up a good 3 hrs before usual so he could "see if he would have more energy during the day if he woke up early" But I was a little suspicious because I know he loves sleeping in more then anything... and then I was really suspicious of his real reasons for coming in the office early when he just fell asleep on the office couch. Then when I was on the phone with one of the installers, my suspicions were confirmed when there was a knock on the door. Ki whom I had previously thought was asleep sprang off the couch and hurried outside the door. Thats when I KNEW he must've had the diamond for my ring shipped to the office. Why else would he jump up and run to the door and sneakily sneak outside when earlier he had been completely lifeless... I've never seen anyone get to a door that quick lol. But when he came back in the door I pretended as if his actions had been completely normal and that I was completely clueless of what was going on... but really from then on I was observing Ki's every move... maybe even being a titch too snoopy for my own good haha. So when he told me a few days later that we were going to take the next Saturday off I totally thought he was going to propose! In fact I told everyone I knew that it was coming lol. Ki must've sensed that I was on to him because he then told me the day before Saturday that he was having a lot of trouble picking out my wedding band, and that maybe I should help him after all so that I would like it for sure. He said we should go ring shopping on the following Monday. He also said that the reason we were taking the day off was because he wouldn't be able to take days off once he took over as Manager of the office starting the following week. I was kinda bummed that they were all such good excuses, because I had been SO sure that he was going to propose the coming weekend but I quickly got over it.

Saturday arrived, and I found out that Ki had rented a car for us and planned for us to go to Nauvoo for the day since I had never been before. I thought it was a brilliant idea because I've been wanting to go ever since I've been out here, and on the way to Nauvoo I couldn't help thinking that it was too bad he didn't have my ring yet. In Nauvoo we had the most amazing day ever! It was so cool to get tours of all the historic church sites but our favorite one by far had been when we went through the little brick yard. It was just us and the grandpa missionary on this particular little tour and he told us some amazing things! And he talked with such a strong spirit about him, it was really really neat. He told us that a brick has to be made in the right place in just the right way and at the right temperature otherwise when storms came the brick would just dissolve into mud. Then he said just like this brick your marriage and family have to be made in just the right way if they are going to last forever. I was shocked because neither Ki nor myself had even mentioned to him that we were planning on getting married, and I didn't have a ring on my hand to give anything of that sort away. It was so special and the whole time he was talking I was practically in tears. Then he gave us a brick to keep in our house to help us remember everything that he told us that day, and to constantly remind us to put our marriage and Heavenly Father first in our lives and that everything else would fall in to place if we did that. After we left the brickyard I found myself again thinking "its too bad he doesn't have my ring yet... it would be so perfect if he proposed today."

After we had gotten our touring in for the day, we went to dinner and the whole time we were eating Ki was unusually quiet and in his own little world. But I quickly attributed that to the fact that he was tired from walking around all day. After dinner we still had about 45 minutes until the Nauvoo Pageant was going to start so we decided to walk around the Nauvoo temple grounds. Then we were watching the sunset and looking at the view from the Nauvoo temple when he asked if I would remember that day forever, to which I replied yes of course I will. Then I told him I loved him and that I always would to which he turned to me and said I'm going to love you forever too... And thats what I told your dad this morning when I was talking to him on the phone.... HELLO!!! THIS IS WHEN I STARTED FREAKING OUT! He says my eyes got all big when I realized he was proposing, and then when I said are you serious? He got down on one knee and proposed :) to which I of course said YES! And then I was crying (seriously how could I not... ya'll know me... i'm such a baby) haha it was funny he was shaking so bad, and I was so caught off guard that my hand was shaking when he put the ring on my finger. Then after we were officially engaged we walked around the temple more and just talked about everything he talked to my dad about and everything my dad told him. We talked about the future and you know... all the lovey dovey stuff everyone always talks about when they get engaged :) It was the perfect moment, and so so special! I am so glad he had my ring after all! I was so freaking giddy during the Nauvoo Pageant I couldn't even concentrate for like the first half hour, but eventually I calmed down enough to focus. It was a marvelous day. And thats the story of the engaging! Sorry for the ultra long post. congratulations if you made it all the way through! And now of course the pictures :)

and so the adventure begins! We loved having a car for a day!

Illinois and I welcome you!

Ki in front of the Post Office

outside the brickyard with our special little brick!

Me in front of the temple. Ki was stalling, so we were taking pictures.. lol

now Ki in front of the temple :)

and of course a pic of the both of us in front of the Nauvoo temple! about a half hour before he proposed :)

Sorry for the lack of pictures after the engagement... unfortunately since we were too busy being ecstatic and happy that we were engaged!!! we didn't take any "we're engaged! pictures" after the fact. Plus we couldn't really take any good ones anyways since it was dark outside because he waited until sunset to pop the question.

but of course we finally got a decent one of the ring :)

oh yeah. I almost forgot to mention that we will be getting married on October 9th at 9 am in the Mt. Timpanogas Temple! yay! Be there or be square... or just somewhere else... haha we obviously won't be sending announcements out for awhile since we are in Iowa and won't be getting our engagement pics taken until after we get back on August 23rd, but be watching for the inevitable facebook group invitation if you want an announcement!

updating..

2009-07-06T09:41:00.007-06:00

Because I never update my blog it probably seems like I don't do exciting things.. but that couldn't be more false! I do cool things everyday :) like...

accidently put my frozen bread in the microwave on defrost WITH the metal twist tie still on. (that was a fun mess to clean up)

mattress surfing down the stairs of my apartment building

getting hit by a car on my bike (don't freak I walked away with nothing but a scratch. i'm superwoman)

watching movies

making no smoking signs and hanging them in the equipment garage hoping the installers will get a hint :) sidenote: i don't hate people who smoke, i hate the SMELL of cigarette smoke. just thought I should add that tidbit of information to cover my bases... you can never be too careful... I hate accidently offending people.

finally located the channel So You Think You Can Dance is on, on the office's satellite haha... and was taught how to use the DVR... for the 2nd time. hooray!! I can finally partake of SYTYCD's fabulous-ness. I was terribly distraught over missing this season.

going to movies

substituting primary classes

good indian food

did i mention movies? (we watch alot of movies here)
not so good 4th of july parades with the not so good pink bubblegum. you know the kind i'm talking about? the kind that loses its flavor after about 3 seconds... and gets so hard that it takes all the strength your jaw can muster to chew... and leaves the most horrendous after-taste that you have no choice but to keep popping in new pieces.... every 15 seconds? yeah thats the candy that they throw out in Windsor Heights Iowa. If you happened upon getting a tootsie roll it was like Christmas.

But all in all I'm having a good time. still have days when I really miss the fam though! And still definitely feel like my female girl talk time is way too limited. Mostly due to lack of female friends here in Iowa. If you'd like to fix that, feel free to move in with me :) I have an extra room in my apartment. Here are some pics from the 4th of July. Our one day off this summer haha. We went to a parade, bailed on a really lame carnival, had a barbeque, and watched some fireworks! It was a good day :) I forgot what it feels like to have a whole day other then Sunday where you don't have to work!

Jordan, Devin, and Ki waiting oh so patiently for the parade to start

me and Ki. STILL waiting for the parade to start. we were glad we didn't show up early!

yay! the parade is finally here! might I also mention that this was the only float in the entire parade... yeah it was really a sad line-up. Mostly fire trucks and cars that had company logos on them haha.

The excited little school-boy gathering the candy in his plastic sack

"here kids! I'm out of candy, but you can have all my flyers and garbage"

Ki's sad face that all they are throwing out is gross bubblegum and Windsor Heights zipcode signs.

Well that about sums up my last couple weeks :) So goodbye and goodnight... until something else blog worthy happens.

I'm MELTING!!!!

2009-06-22T16:04:00.001-06:00

Dear Mother Nature,

Was I complaining about the rain? I am deeply regretful. You can send the rain down anytime you want. It is infinitely better then 108 degrees coupled with humidity! And clearly, the fact that my air conditioner decided to break during this heat streak is bad karma for complaining about the abundant rain of the past month. I have learned my lesson. I shall never again be so ungrateful ...

Humbly,

Ashley Greenwood

SERIOUSLY people! If anyone has any brilliant ideas of how to stay cool, I am all ears! I think my body is completely drained of any fluid that once existed inside of me. And of course when I asked my apartment complex maintenance how long it would be before they could get out to fix my air conditioner they replied that I was the 29th person to call in this morning with a maintenance request for their air conditioner... perfect. So who knows how many days I will be without air conditioning. So in the meantime my apartment is sitting at a solid 83 degrees. Sigh.. I wont lie... I'm sitting here blogging in my swimsuit haha. Its much too hot to wear clothes today! :D

On a brighter note! Saturday night, Ki surprised me when he came home from selling for the day not only with 5 sales... but with a new bike for me! Meet Sylvester! My 9 dollar upgrade! 3 dollars for the bike... 6 dollars for the new grip tape :) He is infinitely better then ol' bessy. brakes are functional, he doesn't squeak up a storm and insist on embarrassing me everytime I pass another human being, and he's my very first road bike! It was love at first ride. Sylvester wasn't much of a looker when he was first brought home, but while I did all the paperwork that the sales reps brought home for the day, Ki scrubbed him down with water and a wire brush. Then he applied the new grip tape, and Sylvester looks good as new! almost :) When I went out to check on the progress of the bike, Luke (Ki's roommate) said to me, "Ash, the fact that Ki has put one hundred and eighty three percent more effort into your bike then his own goes to show what kind of a guy he is." How true! I feel lucky to have found him :) He is always thinking of me and things he can do for me. It almost makes a girl feel guilty to be treated so well! almost... :) But seriously he is the best. Not to mention that he works his tail off everyday in this unbearable heat (and i complain about the heat inside my apartment!) and continues to pull big numbers even though the rest of the office has pretty much plummeted in number of sales the past 2 weeks.

Also, i need all of ya'lls advice... this heat has pretty much eliminated my work out schedule... for you see, I have to be at the office from 7 am-3 pm and there is no way I could wake up early enough to exercise before I have to go to the office. But then I work again from 8:30-10 at night when its starting to kind of cool-off and then after that I just want to play with Ki and eat dinner! so you see... the problem is that my only free time is during the HOTTEST hours of the day. Anybody have any genius kick-butt workouts that can be done inside? Because I really need to be doing SOMETHING! I go crazy when I don't exercise... I just dont feel as good! And I've been eating so much ice cream lately (i crave it BAD in this weather haha) that i really need to be compensating for the amount of ice cream i'm consuming! come on ya'll share your secrets with a sista in need! I love and miss you all!

Ash

FINALLY an update from me in Iowa :)

2009-06-07T22:12:00.009-06:00

Dear readers, friends, and family,

yay! I hope you're all excited for this post! So first, I guess I should just tell ya'll about what I do? Well basically this is how it goes. I do paperwork, I print paperwork, I give the installers all their equipment everyday, I wait for shipments from the suppliers, take inventory, I do more paperwork, I listen to angry people (customers, installers, sales reps etc) vent their anger to me about misunderstandings and crazy situations, do more paperwork etc.. yada yada yada you get the idea. Its really not all that interesting. Except I am proud to say that I now know quite a bit about satellite and all the equipment so if you ever have any dishnetwork/dtv questions feel free to ask... i'd be happy to supply you with my plethora of newfound knowledge ;) ok ok... so there is actually a ton of crap I dont know so you'd probably just be better off calling dishnetwork/dtv directly.

New adjustments since coming to Iowa:

I cook for myself... every day. except for when Ki cooks (which is a fair amount). I'm getting better though! well.. I think so at least... I guess thats definitely up for debate. You might be better off asking Ki. I am definitely no chef, I don't take much pride in the meals I prepare haha. They mostly come from frozen mixes, pasta/rice boxes, breakfast meals... you get the idea. But hey, at least I am cooking that much. It is better then what I was eating in Provo.
I ride my bicycle which was purchased for me by one of the sales reps for 20 dollars EVERYWHERE. Ol' Bessy is my only form of transportation and means of getting anywhere. Her age and lack of certain necessary functions makes for interesting stories.. but i'll get to that in a second.
I wake up at 6:30 am (shocked?) every single day except for Sundays. This has definitely been a rough transition from my cushy lifestyle back at home lol
I get hit on ALL the time. Seriously girls, if you ever need a self esteem boost... move to Iowa. I've never been hit on more in my entire existance on this earth as I have in the short amount of time I've been living here. Not that its all too flattering the kinds of guys that I get hit on by lol. Delivery truck drivers, installers (every single one of them... including the old ones, and even though they know I have a boyfriend)
I'm pretty much never around girls... ever. Every single person I come in contact with every day of my life here is a male. I suddenly appreciate relief society on Sundays so much more :) lol.
Since coming here I have definitely had to develop somewhat of a tough skin. Because the nature of the people I come in contact with every day is pretty rough. I've definitely learned to stand up for myself more since being here, and not let people walk all over me as often.
profanity and smoking. (Is it possible to get lung cancer in 3 months?) The installers are always smoking when they pick up their equipment... I have to try hard to breathe normally haha. Ever since I can remember i've always held my breath whenever I pass someone smoking because A: I hate the smell and B: I always have the awful image of my lungs turning black after inhaling cigarette smoke like in the videos they show you in Elementary school.
humidity: my hair hates the humidity. Which in turn makes me dislike it.
rain. it rains ALOT in iowa. At least so far it has. The installers say something about it being because its spring time... but I always thought June was considered summer...

Things I love about Iowa:

There are cute little woodland creatures everywhere! squirrels, bunnies, ducks, birds :) I love it.
I think its beautiful. I really do.
It is definitely an adventure here. But with that said, I've definitely had my fair share of melt downs (just ask Ki) but for the most part I feel like it has been good for me. I honestly feel like I've grown in some ways because of this experience. But i've definitely missed my family and friends back home in Utah!!
Being around this really cute guy :) enough said.
And despite how much I gripe about my job... its somewhat fulfilling somehow.. to know that I've accomplished something difficult, that i've been able to find solutions to problems, and to just feel like I'm needed to make the office run smoothly. Its actually kind of fun sometimes :)
Fire-flys. Whenever we're riding our bikes back from somewhere in the dark, we will pass fields that are just sparkling like crazy! Fire-fly's are cool.

Now of course for the pics!!!

this is the view from the office window :) its beautiful and serene and I love it.

the equipment garage :) and ol' bessy. (believe me it was NOT this organized when i got here lol... kris aren't you so proud i was organized for once?)

my little duck friends. I also have a squirrel friend that always makes its way onto the back porch, but consequently every time it shows up, my camera is either nowhere to be found or the batteries are dead...
One of the hardest things i've had to deal with since getting here is grocery shopping aboard Ol' bessy.. because not only is she a bike, but she is a very old bike whose breaks do not work... its always a challenge. For example: The first time I went grocery shopping with nobody but Ol' bessy by my side we ran into a little problem. I was carrying like 2 bags in my left arm, and like 3 bags in my right arm while attempting to pedal my little tushie back to the apartment. Well I was concentrating so hard on strategically carrying the bags so that I wouldn't drop one/break the eggs/smush the bread that I completely forgot about Ol' Bessys brakes not being functional. So instead of slowing down by pedaling less as I was coming to the stoplight intersection where I had to cross the street, I just kept pedaling full force. Until I realized much to late that my options were either to go flying into the intersection where I would inevitably become road kill.... or topple off my bike into the bush at the end of the sidewalk. Given the two options I chose the lesser of two evils and went flailing into the bush. Miraculously, the eggs were not harmed. Just my ego. You should have seen the looks the people in passing cars were giving me :P

this pic is me and Ki after work one day (after work being like 10:30 pm haha) he brought me flowers and candy home just because! And once when I was having a bad morning, he made French Toast and brought it to me. He has this tendency of being super thoughtful. I think i'm kind of lucky.
by the time Saturday night comes I am EXHAUSTED. I try hard to stay awake but sometimes it just cant be done. I sleep alot on Sundays... but the 1 day weekend just doesn't seem to be enough recovery time before the next week starts

David (Ki) vs. Goliath (Brent)

one Saturday after the guys got back from selling (they get back at 5 on saturdays rather then 9:30 like the rest of the week) there was a heated discussion going and bets being taken on who would win should Brent and Ki wrestle. Most sided in favor of Brent what with him out weighing Ki by 60 lbs and having him in height, but there were a few that thought Ki, past state wrestling champion, could take him even though he isn't in as good of shape as he was in highschool. Since both Brent and Ki were confident they could win there was no way to find out except to let it play out. I couldn't decide who I was more scared for... Brent... or Ki. Because Brent is definitely a lot heavier, and really strong. But Ki has alot of experience and can definitely hold his own in muscle strength... below is the video of the event.

disclaimer: If I could mute my voice from this video I would. I can hardly bare to listen to myself. So you are warned... just try to ignore my highpitched squeals and "oh my gosh's" :D

It has become somewhat of a tradition to go out to chinese food every saturday night. Mostly because its delicious, and also because its the closest restaurant to our respective apartments.

Me and Ki feeling much better after eating the delicious orange chicken and egg rolls :)

this is a pic of us after we played in the rainstorm this past weekend. (thank heavens for self timer) We were watching a movie at my apartment when all of a sudden it started thundering and lightning (lightning striking?...) like crazy. It was down pouring! Not whimpy Utah rain, but like torrential rain. So we decided to go play out on the swingset to the side of my apartment! we were completely drenched within the first minute. So much fun. I was slightly worried that we were going to get struck by lightning, but the danger only made it that much more thrilling ;)

Well that about concludes the first entry of my Iowan Adventures! If you made it through all that congratulations! It was pretty much the longest post of my life. Then again.. maybe not. Love and miss you all!

Ash

I know, I know...

2009-05-27T15:53:00.003-06:00

I am WAY overdue for a blog update. And its coming i promise! Things have just been crazy here trying to get the office up and running since the paperwork in this place had been building up in huge amounts the 2 weeks prior to me getting here. And I would update right now, but as soon as this last installer gets here to pick up his equipment I am outta here! I gotta make it to the grocery store and into the shower before I have to come back at 8. Plus I dont have any pics yet... so we're going to have to work on that. But fear not. hopefully the update will happen within the next few days :) Just know that I survived the first week and a half (also if you're expecting a phone call from me be patient... lol. I've barely had time to call my family. but i'm finally all caught up on everything so hopefully I'll have more free-time now.) Stay tuned. I love and miss you all, but am doing fabulously here in West Des Moines.

memo to the blogging community of which i'm a part of:

2009-05-13T21:00:00.003-06:00

If there is one thing i've learned these past few months its that life is full of so many unexpected twists and turns. Its been pretty hard, but whose life isn't? And even though its one of the biggest emotional roller coasters i've ever been on, I know without a doubt that the Lord's hand is in my life. Which is why I am moving to Iowa... tomorrow. Yes it is sudden, and my dear friends, if i haven't contacted you personally please be understanding! I didn't even know until yesterday afternoon that I would be leaving. And i've pretty much been scrambling ever since to get everything done that i need to before I leave! But back up i haven't even told you why im moving... well I have been offered a job that will pay close to triple what I would've made at wingers this summer so i'm going!!! I will be the office administrater for Linx (a company that sells sattelite) in Des Moines, Iowa. Crazy i know. I trained literally all day today so hopefully i remember everything im supposed to do! I'm definitely nervous but I have no doubt it will be a grand adventure :) Mostly I'm sad that i'll be gone from my family and friends for nearly 6 months! and that I will miss family vacations. But ya'll better stay in touch :) and i'll do my best to not disappear off the face of the earth. And i'll try to keep updating this blog. But now I got to finish packing! love you all!

Happy Belated Mothers Day Mom :)

2009-05-11T12:55:00.002-06:00

Mom thank you so much for everything. There is absolutely no way I could've survived these past 2 months without you! Or the past 20 years for that matter lol. You are one of my very best friends and someone I know I can always turn to no matter what. You've always been one of my biggest supporters and #1 fan in everything I do. Thank you hardly seems sufficient for everything you've done and continue to do for me, but thank you so much. I would've been a mess (more so then I already was) the past couple days without you. I love you mom! Happy Mothers Day.

Crazy-ness!

2009-05-02T22:50:00.002-06:00

Wow. This week has been so so busy. The past 2 days alone I have used an ENTIRE tank of gas. No I am far from kidding :P And it isn't even an exaggeration. Also, goodbyes suck... thank heavens that starting tomorrow I have an entire week to spend with my girlies in California! I could definitely use a little road trip therapy right about now :D It is going to be a blast! Now if only my suitcase would pack itself...

I am 20!

2009-04-28T14:53:00.003-06:00

woot woot its true... im getting... OLD gasp! Except not really, I feel just as young as ever :) My birthday this year was pretty awesome. I got to go to lunch and shopping with my mom and Kris, and then since my Dad and brothers were at scout camp, I went with Ki up to his old mission companion Chase's cabin for a double birthday party over Friday and Saturday (since it was Chase's birthday too) We all went four wheeling, played games, tried to sleep amidst Chase's dads chainsaw snoring, and then the next morning we went shooting! I am getting better at this shooting guns thing :P Maybe one day I'll hit the bottles that I am aiming at :D I wish I had been on the ball and gotten pics from the weekend but... I was majorly slacking and didn't even get one!

opening presents with mom and kris :)
Ki leaves for summer sales on Friday :( so now I have mr. snuggles

Then last night the whole fam, went to China Lily to celebrate mine and Andrew's birthdays :) It was a lovely birthday. Thanks to everyone for the facebook messages, texts, phone calls etc. Wishing me happy birthday! I have the best friends and family a girl could ask for! :)

St. George/ Zions :)

2009-04-28T14:11:00.006-06:00

So I am finally updating about my family's spring break :) i've been dragging my feet on this whole blogging thing lately... not quite sure why lol. But I figured that the least i could do is upload some of the pics.

Because of my finals I couldn't drive down with my family on Thursday, so Ki was kind enough to be my sidekick for the weekend so I wouldn't kill myself driving down on Friday night. (I am pretty sure I would've been just fine, but it was a good excuse to request his company on the trip and it put my parents minds at ease lol) We drove down to Cedar City, and stayed the night with his family, and then met my family in Zions for some hiking on Saturday. It was pretty much the most perfect day for hiking ever! not too hot, just pleasant and sunny. I absolutely loved it.

the great outdoors :)
takin a break... well.. actually more like waiting for the parentals to catch up ;)
hiking with my family is more fun then just hiking. if you find a 20 foot arch you dont just look at it, you find a way to climb up it. Do you see what i've had to grow up with? Being the one thats afraid of heights has its down sides in these certain situations, but i almost NEVER let my little brothers and sisters show me up. i just suck it up and do whatever they are doing lol.
the fam on top of the arch.
the kids
canyoneering :)
on the way back down

Then after a long day of hiking, we head back to the hotel to do some "relaxing" in the hot tub and pool. But someone had the bright idea to have chicken wars in the pool :P which were a blast... when I wasn't busy practically drowning, but they were pretty much the opposite of relaxing :D Lets face it unless you were on Ki's team you were doomed to lose. And with competitive little andrew on my shoulders It was all I could do to keep my head above water :P Even when we would both go down in the water he refused to get off my shoulders until I struggled to stand and push him back up with my neck... I pretty much couldn't move my head the next day haha... poor little neck. But it was a blast just the same.

the beginning with a smile still on my face
towards the end... barely staying afloat :P

After spending time with my family we headed back to Cedar City to spend Sunday with Ki's family and cheer on the Jazz. The whole trip was a lot of fun, and I dont regret not studying the whole weekend... not even a little bit.

Note to Self

2009-04-21T17:49:00.002-06:00

Never. never. NEVER again, save the hardest and most important final for last.

And to those of you who read my blog, I'll update about St. George soon :) Just as soon as I find the motivation to force myself to study for this last final! Its almost over! wahoo!

I'm sick of studying... so i'll blog!

2009-04-15T20:47:00.005-06:00

Hello! So classes are officially over for 4 months woo hoo!!! The only thing still between me and my freedom is finals. Which will be over before I know it. And as this semester comes to a close. I find myself saying things to myself such as, "next semester I really ought to put more effort into that class" or "next semester i wont procrastinate studying for tests" or "next semester I will go to class EVERY day" yada yada yada. well I guess I can hope that one of these coming semesters in my education that I will do just as well as I intend to and be the "on top of it A" student that is hiding somewhere deep down inside of me.

As for my life next semester, I will be going to England! it is finally confirmed now that cougarette tryouts have passed and I have once again found myself lingering in the tryouts until the last round and then getting cut... sigh.. haha. But I did my best so I feel good about the outcome :) It was an insanely competitive audition this year. Probably the toughest yet. 77 girls fighting for the 3 open spots on the team! It was really a fun audition though :) congrats to my long-time friend Caitlyn Southwick who I danced with from the time we were little 6th graders - t0 12th grade for making the team! She is a beautiful dancer with flawless technique and I am SO excited that she made the team :) As for me... maybe next year? ;) haha or maybe i'll just take the past 3 years of auditions as a sign that maybe Cougarettes isn't for me lol. But what the heck.. no hurt comes from giving it a try anyways!

me and Caitlin on the Carousel in Central Park in 2006 after competing in NYCDA nationals

the one thing I did realize after Cougarette auditions however was.... just how MUCH I really am out of shape! I couldn't even walk the day after tryouts lol. And I think my knees were even more bruised then they were last year after auditions :) So, since I now fully realize how out of shape I've let myself get, I have recruited Ki as my personal trainer to get me back in shape. He took me to the gym on Monday and said he would "take it easy" on me since i was still sore from cougarette tryouts (yeah right, I can't believe i fell for that one) haha cause if I couldn't walk Sunday I REALLY couldn't walk yesterday! But sore is good :) even if it does make me whine a bit.
Monday after we worked out, we got to go to the Jazz game! It was a lot of fun :) I still think that I must be a good luck charm for the Jazz, because every time I go they end up winning. The only downside to the game were the guys sitting on my right. While they were pretty entertaining in a lot of the things they said throughout the game, they were a bit tipsy and each had a few too many beers to drink. In fact the guy sitting immediately to my right became so tipsy that he dropped his beer on the ground right next to my feet! It was so gross, and it got all over my shoes. So you can imagine my relief when he stood up to leave the arena for what i hoped would be a search for some paper towels to mop up the foul smelling liquid that was all over the ground in front of me. But it turns out that while I had hoped he was going to track down a mop, he really had just gone to buy yet ANOTHER beer. As if spilling beer all over my shoes wasn't enough as he went to sit down with his newly purchased beer he sloshed a good portion of his new beer all over my lap! Lol I just looked to my left at Ki and made my "wo is me frowny face" to which Ki and all the people to his left responded by just laughing and laughing (I suppose I probably would've found the situation highly amusing too if it wasn't ME getting spilled on all over the place haha)
Even though we had such good company in our regular seats (mild sarcasm) Kiley and I tried to move to what we thought were empty seats down in the lower bowl during half time. Haha turns out they weren't empty though so we ended up playing musical chairs like 7 times before the Usher spotted us and kicked us back up to our regular seats next to the.. not so graceful, loud drunks we had been sitting next to during the first half of the game... aw well. it was worth a try :D

Me and Ki in our matching Jazz Fan attire

Then we went on a walk to temple square to avoid getting stuck in the post jazz game traffic. Our photographer for this picture was awesome haha. He laid on the ground just to be able to get this shot. It was pretty awesome.

It was a beautiful spring night.... no signs of any snowstorms in sight. I can't wait to escape to St. George this weekend with my family for their Spring Break! (yes yes, I know... I am going on vacation in the middle of finals haha. sounds like me yes?) But the warm weather will be glorious! I cant wait to escape the snow!

so...

2009-04-11T00:04:00.002-06:00

I hadn't had any vaccinations up until today since i was 4 yrs old! So when I had to go get my physical (leave it to me to find out at the VERY last minute that they are requiring physicals in order to audition for cougarettes this year...) today, that meant I had to get 4 shots AND my blood drawn! Not to mention i have to go back next week to get more. Yuck. lol I was proud i didn't cry.... and then Ki pointed out that it probably would've been pretty sad if a 19 yr old cried because they had to get shots :D nah. they weren't too bad. but my arms are kinda sore haha hopefully they are functional tomorrow.

Also, I am EXHAUSTED I dont sleep enough these days. But most of all I am so so nervous for tomorrow! Which is stupid... because really it doesn't matter whether or not I make cougarettes or not. cause if i dont make it, then i dont have to choose between dancing and study abroad. But on the other hand... its kinda been a life-long dream to be on that team/ I kinda just want to finally succeed after trying out so many times lol. I hate failing. who doesn't!? But i realize its necessary, and not everyone can make the team, and maybe its just not something i am supposed to do yada yada yada. Sorry if this post doesn't make any sense, mostly i am trying to make sense of my thoughts. But earlier when I was freaking out about tryouts (remember how my confidence is pretty much shattered after last year?..) well anyways I opened my bible and this is the scripture I came across :) St John 14:27 - "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Wow. call me crazy, and emotional, and roll your eyes at my cheesiness all you want.. but after reading that i KNEW that it was exactly what I needed to read at that moment! A tender mercy, and I seriously just burst out crying because it is amazing that moments like that happen just when you need them the most. So now even though just thinking about auditioning again tomorrow makes me want to puke, I feel a certain level of peace. That no matter what happens its going to be OK. I tend to over analyze, over think, and over stress about things that aren't important in life. But I am determined that no matter what the outcome of tomorrows audition that I will be happy with myself and how i did. NO MATTER WHAT I will not beat myself up and tear away at my self-esteem like I did last year. Because even though I used to think dance defined me and who I was, now I realize that although dancing is something I love, its not what makes me important as a person. Its not WHO i am, but something I do. I think for most of high school being on Sr. Company at the studio, and on the high school dance team was a lot of what I thought was ME. That was why I mattered, because I mattered to the team, because I was good at what I did. I am glad that I danced as much as I did all growing up. Dance has ALWAYS been my passion in life, and been one of the things that has always brought me the most joy. But I am glad that I can finally see that just because I didn't make the team last year, or the year before doesn't mean I am not important. That there is more to me then just being good at dance and being on a competing team and excelling in that part of my life.

SO.. with that said. Even though I am nervous, I am going to try and look at tomorrow not as an audition, but as an opportunity to take an AMAZING class from amazing teachers. To have fun doing what I love to do. Not a dreaded audition in front of judges who are picking apart all of my flaws and comparing me to the rest of the dancers that go to the audition. Because I finally realize that nobody's opinion of me matters as much as my opinion of me, and my heavenly fathers opinion of me, and the opinions of the people I love. Welp. Now that I am done being all serious and such I really ought to get to bed :P tomorrow is a big day thats going to start early!

oh yeah! hello!!!! April Fools Day :)

2009-04-05T23:20:00.002-06:00

So I forgot all about april fools. And wow. Well lets just say, Holly and Chels got me GOOD this year! First of all, I got home late/early in the morning on April Fools and when I went to start brushing my teeth all of a sudden I started gagging :P lol they had put salt all over and inside my toothbrush bristles! It was so gross. Salt and toothpaste aren't a good combination together! Then I went to get inside my bed after I finally got my teeth brushed and my mouth unsalted and my sheets were put the wrong way! so that my sheets were tucked in at the top of the bed, then my blankets were under the sheet, tucked in at the bottom of the bed. Now normally this wouldn't be too hard to fix but since Chels was asleep and I couldn't really turn on the light to see what was going on I was quite confused and it took me forever to figure out what was wrong with my bed.
THEN since my first class that day had been canceled I was still asleep when Chels and Holly left for school. So when I woke up at 11:30 instead of 10:30 like i had wanted to i was really confused! Cause I could've sworn I had set my alarm for the right time! But nope. Chels and Holly had changed all the clocks in the house to be an hour ahead! They even managed to change my cell phone clock while i was asleep facing towards them! (luckily for them I am a deep sleeper) For atleast 3 hrs I was all sorts of confused, going to classes at the wrong times, wondering how in the world I woke up so late, and then finally it clicked when I went over to Ki's house to use his printer (since ours was out of ink) and his clock said 1:30 when i thought it was 2:30. lol good one guys! i'll have to get you back next year. you better watch your backs! Anyways that was Aprils Fools day in a nutshell. The day I missed 2 classes, because of the mass confusion they caused me. (haha as if i dont miss class enough as it is!)

so much going on and so little time to blog about it....

2009-04-05T22:15:00.004-06:00

but this post is my attempt to inform my curious readers of my life lately. Last week, or was it two weeks ago.... hm. well either way awhile back I had my very first experience ever shooting a gun! Ki and Luke got new guns so we all went to a shooting range to shoot them. It was fun :) surprisingly... haha I haven't ever been a huge fan for guns because the loud explosive noise scares me every time lol. I blame my dad for passing me his super jumpy genes. I only shot the gun 3 times, but I hit my target paper every single time! I was quite proud. So i took a pic to prove to my future posterity that I really did hit the target :)
Then my cousin Lisa came to town, so all the girl cousins got together for a girls night out! It was a blast. So fun to be all together again! It isn't very often that all 5 of us are able to be together all at once since Amy and Lisa have lived in far away states/countries for our entire lives haha. The night of course started out with dinner, because we were all starving! Well I was at least, but I find that I eat more then the average human being... ask anyone i've ever lived with haha. It was delicious. then we tried to go hot tubbing again. It wasn't very successful because we had only been in the hot tub for a couple minutes after taking a good 10 to climb the fence, when we got kicked out :( so... we improvised. And tried to cram ourselves all into my bathtub lol. It made for a lot of good laughs. Then we just watched a movie... kinda lol. More like I watched the movie by myself after everyone else fell asleep. Then they all came to church with me the next day :) they were a big hit! haha and many of the boys in my ward were disappointed to find out that half of them were still in highschool. But probably the most monumental thing that occured that Sunday was..... I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting! For the first time since I was like 13 or something. I hate public speaking, but if there is one thing i hate more then public speaking, it speaking AND crying in public haha. But I just felt like I should so I did. It was probably long past due since I dont have anymore girls camp testimony meetings to take advantage of.

The fabulous 5 (aka: the 5 oldest grandchildren, best friends for life)
Left to Right: Lisa, Amy, me, Kris, and Lauren

kris, lisa, and lauren at pizza factory. so many good inside jokes were formed! :D

me and amy at pizza factory :)

our make shift hot tub

haha another awesome self timer pic. lol you can see all the way to the back of their throats they were laughing so hard :P

I am trying to think If i forgot to mention anything else blog worthy that I did... just lots of school, and lots of playing :) Hopefully I make it through this next week. I am really nervous for my anatomy lab final and for my last, longest speech for public speaking. But what I am nervous for most of all, is that on saturday I will be trying out for cougarettes... AGAIN. yes again. Maybe 3rd time is a charm, and if not well whatev cause I'll just go on my study abroad :) I decided to try out again this year really last minute. really really last minute. Like i'm not even in good enough shape to be trying out, but we'll see how it goes! It seems I'm just not quite ready to give up trying yet.

Spring Break!

2009-03-25T19:59:00.008-06:00

ok ok... i admit it. I've been holding out on all ya'll. I have a confession to make. The past month I have been dating this pretty cool guy named Ki (well technically Kiley Martin Jensen but I call him Ki). Why have I been hesitant to share this piece of information with you all? Well because I know that most, if not ALL of the readers of my blog are quite attached to Wes. My family, his family, all our friends... but I promise you'd all like Ki too. And just so everyone isn't all worried that I'm leading boys on or anything. Wes knows about Ki, and has no choice but to accept the fact that I am dating other people (since he told me to/we both knew I would eventually) and Ki knows about Wes. But anyways I just had to spill the beans because, this is after all my only form of a journal, and I am thinking by the end of this blog post it was going to be pretty obvious anyways. But now that my confession is out in the air and all the technicalities are taken care of I can now move on to the actual blog post :)

Last week when Ki called me inviting me along on a spontaneous camping trip, I didn't have to think about it very long before I consented to go. Even though now I am quite behind in most my classes, my self proclaimed spring break trip was AMAZING. We (and by we i mean... Me, Ki, Ki's roommate Luke, and Luke's fiance Sarah) all left Tuesday night for Yuba lake where we were planning on camping. However when we finally made it to Yuba Lake at 9:50 the gate to the campground was locked even though it was supposed to be open until 10:00 (slacker ranger) so we drove around for at least a good hour trying to figure a way to get to the campground without actually going through the gate. Thanks to Luke's offroading capable subaru and his navigation thing, and after driving past many large herds of cows we finally made our way to one of the campsites on the other side of the lake that was closed. It was great! we were out there all alone, just us and the lake (and the tent and our plethora of food of course). It was good to get away, I had forgotten how fun camping can be! And now for the pics... (of course!)

The campsite

just sitting around the campfire waiting for the best hotdogs i've ever eaten in my life to be done :)
Sarah and Luke

Then on Wednesday morning when we woke up we went on a little hike to supposedly see painted rocks. We were hoping there was hieroglyphics but apparently it was just a metaphor of some sort. But it turned out all right, we just hiked up a mountain like indians instead. We all agreed (except for Ki) that being an indian would be way cooler then being a cowboy. After the hike we then drove to Meadow to swim in the hot springs. The deepest part of the hot springs went down 28 feet and opened up into like an underground cavern. Their was a 50 yr old man that swam all the way down to the bottom to show us how it was done and then we all gave it a million shots. In the end Ki was the only other person besides the 50 yr old man that could swim to the bottom and pick up a rock. The rest of us only made it about maybe 18 ft. Even though me and Luke are both lifeguards there is just something really freaky about swimming through an enclosed space, with volcanic rock on either side of you. It was painful! we all got some pretty good cuts from accidently kicking or hitting the rock with our arms and legs as we tried to swim down. not to mention if you dont release the preasure from your ears several times on the way down it KILLS your ears :P

Luke being a "ninja gangsta" at the top of our little hike at painted rocks

Me and Ki trying to keep our eyes open long enough to take a picture haha

In Ki's words, I had it easy on the hike haha.

The hot spring. the water was so so clear!

Me after my hundreth attempt to successfully swim to the bottom

Sarah, Luke, Ki, and Me after swimming in the hot spring forever and turning into prunes.

then we took a walk on the beach to look for fire wood :)

Luke and Sarah are cute together :)

luke's firewood

breaking the firewood so we can have a "man fire" not a fashion fire according to Luke and Ki.

the sunset was beautiful :) But unfortunately all good things must come to an end. I had class on Thursday so we had to leave Thursday morning. and that is the end of my self proclaimed spring break haha.

crap..

2009-03-12T17:21:00.002-06:00

Is it just me or is everyone having trouble getting themselves to focus! I know I am lacking motivation when my online stats homework auto saves 3 times.... BEFORE I've even answered one question. Why doesn't BYU have spring break!? I am feeling a little burned out here! 42 more days until finals are OVER! I can hardly wait... except that I think I'll miss anatomy... still cant wait though. I'm also ready for the warm weather! woot woot. i am so over winter, and the freezing coldness. I want to break out my flip flops!

Mawiage is what bwings us togevaaaah today

2009-03-10T13:35:00.007-06:00

I can hardly believe that one of my very best friends is MARRIED! I mean there is no way we are old enough for this yet! I grew up with tiff. We made lists in young womens together about the qualities we wanted in our future husbands. we used to talk about the day when we would both get married and then live next door to each other so we could always be best friends. I remember that day like it was yesterday and now all of a sudden she is married! I remember when I was little I used to feel like the future was so far away and that i would never turn 13 and be an "official" teenager, or that i'd never turn 16 and finally get my drivers license. And now here I am nearly 20 tiff is married and more and more people i know get engaged every day i swear :P It is the weirdest thing. looking back it just all went so quickly! I just cant believe it. But life is good :) and tiff's wedding day was just like we always dreamed it would be when we were little. Seeing her and jake together was so cute. She is SO happy.. I have never seen her cry so much as i did on Saturday, which doesn't give me very much hope for me on my wedding day! I mean tiff never cries :P if she cried on her wedding day i am most certainly doomed. but for those of you who couldn't make it here are a few photos from the eventful day.

waiting oh so anxiously for the newly married couple to come out of the temple :)

yay! they're so cute

being good little bridesmaids and holding her freaking huge train :)

tiff and jake with tiff's family who are long time family friends/lake powell trippers with my fam

the best friends at the wedding luncheon

I caught the bouquet lol. it was quite the catch. but no im not getting married anytime soon! :)

Well that about does the quick recap on tiff's wedding :) I could go on forever longer about it, but im lazy. I have been lacking much needed motivation lately... im really hoping it comes back PRONTO! I have lots that needs to be accomplished by the end of this week lol.

Girls Night Out :)

2009-02-21T21:58:00.005-07:00

Since I just got home from working a double, and dont really feel up to meeting up with my partying (partying in the lds sense of the word haha) roommates, I will write about last night lol. Last night, in celebration of my beautiful sister Kristin's 18th birthday we had a pretty awesome GNO. It all started off with my dad taking the fam out to dinner to La Dulce Vita! yum! which is always exciting since I dont cook for myself... AT ALL haha. I usually eat a lot of cereal, sandwiches, soup etc.
Then Me, Chels, Holly, Kris, and my cousin Lauren all headed to the byu gymnastics meet! :) we all have at one point in our lives done gymnastics, so we love watching that sort of thing. Even though none of us ever got good at gymnastics (except for kristin).

chels, holly, kris, lauren, and me at the marriot center :) Wow.. how'd i get all the tall genes, im like bending my legs, and sticking my hip out trying to be on the same level as them, and im still taller!

Then we went to the movie, New in Town :) Aw man, i love chick flicks haha. We all loved this movie! which is surprising a little bit, because i hated Harry Connick Jr. in p.s. I love you, but he is lots cuter in this movie! It was funny, and different, and I loved it. Which is good, cause the last movie I went to, He's just not that into you, was a complete disappointment. I didn't really like it all that much. So go see New in Town!

After the Movie, we were all starving, so in order to complete our GNO, we chowed down on ice cream, cinnamon sugar toast and other unhealthy but delicious foods. Because what GNO is complete without ice cream!

Then at like 1 am, we decided to be rebellious and jump the fence to the hot tub, because that sounded like fun. (they close at 10... so lame)

climbing the dangerous fence! I had to document the struggles of the short legged ones haha. But man, those spike things aren't comfortable even for me, and i have long legs! Look at chels's face, i'm pretty sure she was in the process of saying OUCH!

lauren moments before she got stuck. Our breaking and entering wasn't very discreet! It took us atleast 10 minutes to get over the fence :D

our, "I can't believe we're so rebellious faces"

And then conveniently, some guys decided to jump the fence too, so we made them take our picture haha. Sheesh so unfair though! it took them like 5 seconds each to get over the fence!
lauren, me, kris, chels

Then we got hot, so we decided to be brave and dive in the unheated pool.. it was FREEZING!
the toe test did not prepare me..
i'll admit it... I definitely screamed haha

By the time we left the hot tub, lots of other people had shown up so apparently the 10 pm rule isn't very enforced at Branbury :P

our "mission successfully completed" faces
love self timer :) and this is officially my fav. pic of the night. and I really did accidently kick lauren in the face... woops! haha i love that her face was caught on camera

then we were off to walmart, to buy cereal and milk! so i dont starve next week :) me and kris took a pic cause we realized we were matching, but opposite

And that concludes the GNO. It was a good one, one that will be remembered forever. Happy Birthday sis! Thanks for giving us all an excuse to party together! I love you :)

What have you done?

2009-02-15T23:26:00.002-07:00

I was tagged! Thanks heather haha im actually really bored right now.

Bold the items you have done:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (if rock band counts lol)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a Praying Mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris .... almost! in a few more months haha.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (do rain storms in hawaii count? cause it rained in Kauai like everyday!)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (what does this even mean?)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Been to the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa at the Louvre
20. Slept on a train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (only if gibberish counts :P)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing - (on a rock wall.)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie (for those of you who care it was in Church Ball! lol i didn't even know i was in it until i was watching it with my brother and there i was doing a halftime with sr. company at the delta center in the opening credits! i felt so famous for that 2 seconds lol.)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving .... again.. almost!
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar (it was gross. good ol' Mr. Hodges biology though)
72. Tied a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a Bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life (only if my lifeguarding counts)
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Visited Italy

45/100... good thing i still have a long life ahead of me! maybe i can get a few more things checked off that list haha. I tag: Holly, Chelsea, and i dunno... haha whoever wants to do it too! :)

3 things

2009-02-11T19:41:00.002-07:00

There are three things that absolutely made my day today even though I feel like crap. (Thanks whoever/whatever got me sick..) and even though I bombed my lab quiz... (In my defense it was cause I was studying for the LECTURE test! meh. if they didn't overlap so inconveniently. Oh well at least I did good on the test!)

I got to sleep in! even if it was accidental cause I slept through my alarm
I got to hold a brain today in my anatomy lab and it was... amazing :) brains are so cool.
Drumroll please...... I got accepted into the London, Fall STUDY ABROAD!!! I am so excited. beyond belief!

Today wasn't such a bad day after all

Tiff's Bridal Shower

2009-02-08T20:56:00.004-07:00

Yesterday was my long time BFF's bridal shower! Me and tiff have literally grown up together! First in our ward in Orem from the time we were infants, to the time her family moved to England and I moved to Lindon. But 3 yrs later she moved back to the USA and into my ward in Lindon! So basically we know each other REALLY well :) But anyways, me and ash savage one of my other bf.f's along with one of Tiff's roommates from last year, Kaitie, just HAD to throw her a shower. Isn't that pretty much like best friend code or something? I dunno haha but thank you to everyone who came! It was so good to see all of you again! Many of you I haven't seen since high school! It really was so good to catch up, and i know it meant alot to tiff to have you guys there. :) Here are some pics from the big event...

sarah, tiff, and vanessa :)

tiff during the "how well do you know jake game!" haha.
If she got any of the questions wrong, we threw gum at her and she had to chew it :) lol.
I may or may not have thrown in some really unfair questions just to make it funnier...

sarah, vanessa, megan, alyssa, jody, and austi during the game

one of her gifts haha.... oh gosh gotta love bridal showers. I love the VanDeMerwe est. 2009 sign though! it was so cute! :)

ash, me, and kaitie :) the hosts.

yum... look at all that gum haha

most of the girls that made it to the shower :)
top row: Sarah, Alyssa, Jody, Tiff, Ash, Mandy, Kaitie, and Vanessa
bottom row: me, austi, megan, and megan :)

the younguns :) brooke, megan, and kris

the sistas! Me tiff and Ash are best friends, and so are kris, brooke, and megan :)
apparently black was the color of choice for the bridal shower... haha
Ash & Brooke. . . Tiff & Megan. . . Kris & Me!

The shower seemed to be a success although we definitely over shot on food :P And our slideshow didn't go as planned but oh well! Thanks again to those who came, and thank you to the Savage's for letting us use your house :)

oh and here is a pic of tiff and jake just cause i think they're cute together :) and because she doesn't have a blog... much to my dismay.

WARNING: venting to follow

2009-02-07T00:04:00.004-07:00

After weeks like this one, I am SO ready to call it quits. I am quitting my job, dropping out of school, and moving to Hawaii! (I have come to the conclusion that one has to be insanely smart to get a 4.0 while working 25 hours a week at BYU i shall never understand how people do it) Once I move to Hawaii I will make shell necklaces and sell them on the beach for a living. Like the beach bum that I want to be. Cause after weeks like this one has been, I feel like I'll never make it through school alive. And just thinking about everything in store for next week I wanna cry. sigh... clearly I need to go to bed. Its been a long night at the wing shack. maybe I'll feel more bright and cheerful in the morning. Lets hope! since me, ash, and katie are throwing tiff's bridal shower tomorrow... (fingers crossed that all somehow comes together in the wee hours of tomorrow morning) pictures are bound to follow. sorry about the vent session folks. im off to bed.

So....

2009-01-27T23:04:00.003-07:00

Friday I have an interview with one of the study abroad head honchos to determine whether or not I get accepted.... Everything happens for a reason right?

According to one friend I just need to be my charming self. According to a second friend (who thinks he is hilarious) I need to learn how to be charming as quickly as possible. haha. well I guess we'll find out whether or not I'm charming enough to get in soon enough! Until then I'll probably have nightmares about being rejected from the program, instead of the recurring wingers nightmares which i have been getting lately :P (which usually involve me being permanently stuck in wingers serving a billion tables all at once with a million people yelling at me) I think it is a pretty good indicator that I should maybe get a different job when I have NIGHTMARES about wingers. don't ya'll think so? well. stay tuned!

birthday shout-out :)

2009-01-25T19:44:00.004-07:00

Two of my most favorite people had birthdays this week woot woot! On Tuesday Chels turned 20 leaving her teen years behind her! and on Wednesday my lil baby shay shay turned 10! entering into the double digits of life haha. For Chels's birthday bash, we dined at Applebee's and then feasted on cake! (store bought of course. we dont get out of school until 6:30 on Tuesdays which doesn't leave much time for cake baking :P)

the three of us :)

the beautiful birthday girl

the trusty self timer haha. me, hol, chels, and brad

chels says this picture perfectly displays each of our personalities.
brad: has no idea what is going on
me: well i'm just being crazy like usual..
chels: is making things awkward
and holly is the one feeling awkward!

this picture is borderline scary. wait a sec.. what am i talking about? it IS scary lol.
I'm trying to be manly, and brad is trying to be feminine...
needless to say neither of us pulled it off.

Happy Birthday Chels! Your the bestest roommate ever :) You're sweet, scarcastic, crazy, and have more patience with me then anyone! not to mention you keep track of the locations of both my phone AND my keys! you're indispensable and i love you mucho!

Now for my baby Shay shay's shout out! What can I say, i can't believe she is already 10! thats how old i almost was when she was born :) she was my real life doll and i loved being her second mom! Shay is always my partner in crime when it comes to dancin, singin, or being crazy around the house. she is full of sass and spunk, but has one of the biggest hearts out there :) and she is ALWAYS good for a hug or a snuggle lol. Happy Birthday bugga boo!

me and my buggaboo back when i was still tan haha.

me and my baby sis!

The Crisis!

2009-01-18T16:32:00.003-07:00

This morning, ok well i guess this afternoon haha, at about 12:40 chels, holly, and I were all standing in holly's bathroom commenting on how this would be the first sunday in a long time that we all drove together and were on time for church. Well, we should've knocked on wood honestly... because it wasn't long after that when we noticed that her shower was dripping alot worse then usual (for some reason her shower never really turns all the way off, but this morning it was exceptionally bad) As I am tying the bow on the back of Holly's dress, i comment that maybe its time for us to put in a maintenance request to get the drip fixed. Holly and Chels mumble their agreements, and then the unexpected happens! The faucet turny knob thingy bursts off! and water is shooting our of where the knob once was! We all started screaming! ok well, me and holly start screaming, but seriously what are we supposed to do in a situation like this! Chels is trying to put the faucet thing back on and all that she is really accomplishing is soaking the front of her church dress. In order for ya'll to get a better visual of what was going on, I remembered even in the face of this crisis, to take pictures in order to enhance the story on my blog. ( you know you blog too much when your first instincts in a situation like this are to grab your camera :P ) But oh well, aren't you grateful? this is what was happening...
I know. You are thinking, really? does this happen for reals? Well let me tell you, when i woke up this morning i never would have guessed something like this was going to happen. But of course it would happen to us, of course. I have never ever heard of a shower knob thing popping off and a spurting waterfall occurring before today, but with my accident/crisis prone history I guess i'm really not at all that surprised.

But anyways, back to the crisis. So we are all screaming and running around freaking out and have absolutely no idea what to do, when chels demands that me and holly calm down! We do for about 2 seconds before we realize, that the water isn't draining nearly fast enough and that the water level is like an inch below the top of the tub! so we resume screaming, run to the kitchen to grab bowls and start bailing water into the bathroom and kitchen sinks. Well... it doesn't take me and Holly long to realize that our bowls just aren't going to cut it! So we take the liners out of our bathroom trash cans and start using our trash cans! Meanwhile, chels has called Allen our friend from the ward who is a plumber and is asking him how and the heck to turn off the water. Well turns out the only access to turning off the water is in the LOCKED water heater closet! So luckily chels is prepared and has the Branbury office # saved in her phone. Of course nobody was there, since its sunday, but the recording had a number to call for "maintenance emergencies". She called it, because we figured Niagra Falls occuring in the shower of our apartment constituted as an emergency. The lady who answers when she calls just doesn't understand our crisis. She thinks we have a "leak" in our shower and says that she'll send one of the guys over to take a look at it. She then asks if it would be ok, if he came in even if we were gone, to which chels responded "Um.. our bathroom is flooding! we're not going to leave! we'll be bailing water when he gets here" Meanwhile back in the bathroom, (10 minutes later) me and Holly are still bailing trash cans full of water to the kitchen. At this point we're all much calmer because we've discovered that with the 3 of us bailing water into the kitchen in our trash cans we can keep up with the flow of water coming out of the (i really dont know what its called, shower knob attachment place, insert whatever word makes sense to you) . So we start laughing about how we just seem to get into these ridiculous situations that never happen to anyone else, and then more photos of our predicament were taken.

holly bailing water

lol Holly finally ditched her nylons. The floor was soaking wet!

me and my frowny face :D lol but really at this point we could hardly contain our laughter.

you can see that the water is almost to the top of the tub, if we hadn't been bailing our bathroom would've turned into a swimming pool! :P

Well, 20 minutes later, as we're still bailing water (good arm workout by the way) the Maintenance guy FINALLY gets to our apartment, and as i lead him to the bathroom this is his response. "Oh!" apparently he was expecting a minor leak, not a full on shooting stream of water! But he turned off the water, and then was like, "uh.. so where are the parts?" haha. well we gave him the parts and then went about trying to salvage what was left of our "cuteness" factor, before heading off to church. So much for being on time to church :P we ended up being almost a half hour late... aw well. maybe next week :D

And that concludes the Crisis of Apt. 114 on this day, Sunday January 18th.

hecticness of life :)

2009-01-07T18:50:00.003-07:00

Wow. Life has been really crazy lately. And I am exhausted. haha and to prove my point.. me chels and holly have all been to bed before 12 the last 3 nights! that is UNHEARD of in our apartment lol.

School has been good so far. We did have an incident in actually getting to school on Tuesday though :P my car was seriously SO stuck in the snow! it took me and chels a half hour (ok maybe im exaggerating, but it felt like that long cause of the cold. it was probably only 20 minutes) to dig my car out of the snow! we seriously would've been doomed if the maintenance guy hadn't seen us struggling and come over with his shovel to help us. Our hands were getting nowhere fast in the 3 ft of snow that buried the tires of my car haha. But I learned my lesson. never park in the lot closest to our building even if it is closest.. they dont plow it and my car can by no means "rough" it enough to go off roading in the snow. Actually in any conditions for that matter haha.
Anyways, back to school. Anatomy is gonna be hard, but atleast it'll be interesting enough to make me want to put forth the effort :D im a little bit worried about Statistics but.. well.. i'll be fine. Stress Management should be a breeze, D&C i have the same teacher as last semester whom i loved. Then there is public speaking... what can i say. The first class was last night, and me and chels are terrified! ah! wes predicts it'll be my favorite class by the end of the semester, i have a hunch he'll be wrong :D I was also able to get into the advanced jazz class even though its super full (cause i know the teacher) I wasn't able to get into Ballroom though :( . oh well. maybe next year?

Well. Although it has been busy it has been good. Good to be reunited. Even though chels's plane got delayed and she didn't get in until 1 am that didn't stop her from throwing open her suitcase in our front room and giving us the 411 on all her new christmas clothes!

its christmas morning all over again!

I shall now post my unfortunate "Tredmill Story of the Year". So over christmas break, i had great intentions to go running every day, but well.. the snow wasn't exactly cooperating. Some suggested driving to the smith fieldhouse, some said to brave the cold, Jon said to go tredmill style. I said that I hated tredmills, and that i always felt like i was going to trip and fall to my death. he said "but ash, only 1 in 100 times does someone trip on a tredmill." I guess i was the chosen one. But for the record. It was the remote controls fault. If it hadn't fallen off the top of the tredmill, I wouldn't have had to attempt to save it. Of course it didn't occur to me, that it'd be fine if i didn't save it... these things just happen so fast. next thing you know BAM! I'm half on the ground, half on the tredmill, and my knees hurt haha. Well if any of you are wondering what happens when you fall on a treadmill, this is what happens...

ouch.

And now for some items of business. some people have gotten in the habit of calling Me, Chels, And Holly things such as the trio. or the three musketeers. And we are now requesting, due to the recent weather, that you call us the 3 eskimos. We think its more suiting at the moment because this is how we look any time we go outside...

our hoods are a little big haha.

the 3 eskimos.

oh yeah. and i locked my keys in my car today. now THAT was a lot of fun.. haha oh geez.

The Christmas Festivities

2008-12-29T23:10:00.005-07:00

Well this post will probably be mostly a picture post. Because well, I am too lazy to try and write a synopsis of everything that has happened over christmas :P I'll add little details as I see the pictures and remember them lol.

this is me and my cute little cousin emma at the Greenwood christmas party
that was Dec. 19th it was full of festive fun...

But the most exciting present of the night, was uncle keiths perfect push up thing a ma bobs :D only because then i was thoroughly entertained watching the greenwood men/boy push up contest. below is Andrew trying them out.

Tuesday December 22nd brought LOTS of snow! So me and heather and kristin took the opportunity to build a huge snowman! this is the only pic we got before me and heather accidently knocked it over... its way taller then us! (we had to enlist Tristan's help in lifting the center of the snowman onto the bottom, it was SO heavy!)

Christmas Eve Grandma Zackrison usually comes down and stays the night with us, but because she was sick this year, we made dinner and went up to her place in salt lake for dinner and games, and of COURSE the christmas story. this is the kids before opening the annual christmas pj's.

but this is the best picture from christmas eve... me and kristin are still opening our pajamas, while everyone else has already finished and are looking anxiously on! ... well except for andrew who was so excited about his pajamas that he is already stripped down and putting them on! :D (way to catch that with the camera dad! all of us are oblivious haha)

Here is the traditional picture at the top of the stairs of the kids waiting to see if santa's come! I know by the look on shay's face that it seems like santa must've skipped our house this year, but he didn't! haha shay just woke up sick and wasn't too happy about it :P

Me opening the present i was most anticipating! (wesley's) Not that santa didn't get me awesome stuff, but Santa usually enlists my help in buying for me so wesley's package was my biggest surprise :D I was dying to know what was inside.

on top was the first 6 months worth of letters that he got and had no more room to keep! Talk about a lot of mail :P

Then was the blanket! haha when i first pulled it out i thought it was just my face, and i was gonna kill him for putting my face on a blanket! but then i saw his face too and I immediately forgave him :D the best present i got though was being able to talk to him on christmas! (big thanks to his fam for inviting me over! thank you, thank you, thank you!)

Yay! Shay's advil kicked in and she ended christmas morning in much better spirits :) Us among the disaster that our front room inevitably turns into each year :P

Well thats it for my christmas break! My fav things i got this year: talk to wes, new ipod (i can finally run with music again!), scrapbook paper, and books! The rest of the time i've been working, but I guess thats a good thing! I hope everyone had a marvelous christmas! And that ya'll have a happy new year! Feel free to stop by the wing shack if you're bored new years eve and visit me. because thats where i'll be... haha lame i know. but hopefully i'll get out of there fast enough to join in the celebrations! :)

home for the holidays!

2008-12-19T16:38:00.004-07:00

Well folks i am officially back in lindon :) YAY! And I seem to have made it through finals alive! woot woot, not quite sure yet how my grades survived this term but i guess we will see... As for now I am going to not think one school related thought until after new years!

chels, me, and holly before finals on Tuesday. They were both already 1/3 of the way done with their finals but I was just about to take my first. My body decided that the perfect week to be sick was the week of finals... so i was in bed all day on monday :P My favorite part about being sick was how holly would follow me around the house and clorox everything i touched :P so funny! It almost made being sick worth it lol.

But we all survived the long days in the library and the hours in the testing center and now its christmas break! Last night was mine and chels's last night together for 3 weeks! well... 2 and 1/2, but thats a long time! so we decided to make the most of it. Holly and Mandy had already headed back to Salt Lake for the break, so they had to miss out on the festivities :( but they were with us in spirit lol. I finished finals late last night and chels's flight didn't leave until today so last night we got to party together! First things first we had to use up all the eggs :P cause they were bound to go bad before we return in january. We thought we only had 4 eggs left, but it turns out that because the phantom egg giver (holly, or better known to some as mama duck) had bestowed us with her 3 left over eggs, we now had 7! So we ate a plethora of eggs and chocolate chip pancakes! I dont think i'll have eggs again anytime soon :P

I was in charge of the chocolate chip pancakes

chels was in charge of the eggs!

Then after our midnight snack of eggs and pancakes we watched 13 going on 30! Nothing like snugglin during a chick flick ;) haha ok so we didn't really snuggle much. In fact I am not sure why me, chels, and holly watch so many chick flicks in the first place! Half the time we just look at each other and burst into tears cause we miss our boys lol. its really quite pathetic haha but we L-O-V-E our chick flicks :D Then this morning, me and chels cleaned the house and got all packed and ready to go! Then we stood in the cold for like 30 minutes waiting for chels's shuttle ride to the airport to pick her up. After 5 minutes in the cold, we quickly resorted to taking pictures to keep us distracted! I HATE the cold! especially when im all snuffleupagused :P

chels waitin for the shuttle with her 2 super heavy and large bags :D she is like me. we're not very good at traveling light. I feel like i moved all of my stuff home for only 3 weeks :P

Then a nice stranger walked past and offered to take a picture of the both of us!

me and chels chels!

I will miss my roomies!! They really have become my family this year :) See you in 3 weeks girls! or until our super fabulous sleepover Mama Duck ;)

I heart Saturdays :)

2008-12-13T12:23:00.003-07:00

So today me and chels didn't get to sleep in because we went to our friend Karen's bridal shower. yeah you heard me right, a BRIDAL SHOWER!!!! We all lived together in David John hall 3100 our freshman year. I cant believe how many of my friends are getting married these days :P weird.. anyways that was all fun and games but THEN just as we were leaving the bridal shower, it started snowing!!! I am usually not the biggest fan of snow, but its been cold lately anyways so it might as well snow :) that way lake powell wont be empty this summer, and that way me and the roommies can have snowball fights! So when we got home the first thing we did was check the mail because us girls are always expecting mail :P and i got a letter from my most favorite missionary :) haha today is a good day :D And then me and chels decided to do our most unfavorite activity together and take out the trash!

we were practicing our santa clause skills for the future :D

funny story about chels's "santa bag". lol well it was a REALLY heavy bag of trash and we both tried to throw it over the gate to the big dumpster twice! but the bag fell apart after the 2nd time and we gave up all hope. It was really heavy haha i just wish i had a video of us trying to throw it over :P

me jumping. chels is a great photographer

It took me like 10 times to catch her jumping and this was the best i got lol

roommate love! :D

Anyways I gotta get some studying done before i head off to work, have a great day everyone!!

The Sub for Santa Auction

2008-12-10T20:38:00.004-07:00

So I have been meaning to write about my weekend but due to it being the week before finals, i haven't really had much time for such things BUT... well i am so sick of doing homework and studying right now, that im taking a well deserved break!

This last Friday and Saturday was our ward christmas party/sleepover at Timp Lodge in Sundance. One of the main events before we partied all night long was the sub for santa auction. Which is basically everyone auctioned off their services and all the money earned went to the sub for santa program. These services ranged from making dinner for someone else, to cleaning someone's bathroom, to drum lessons, to a date with a certain person and so on and so forth. The 2 things that were auctioned that made the most money were, a snowmobiling trip for 3 girls and 3 guys with our first counselor in the bishopbric and his wife. (The girls auctioned off at 195$, and the guys spots were auctioned off at $465!) and Tandem skydiving with this guy in my ward (went for $45 dollars) Me and my roommate chels, and our friend from the ward kara were bidding for the 3 girls spots on the snowmobiling trip, but well... we're not made of money! since we're all saving for things like cars and study abroads we stopped bidding once it got to 195 so the other 3 girls that were bidding won. But thats alright because i started bidding on tandem skydiving and won at $45 dollars! I was not expecting to win at all! but it turns out nobody wants to jump out of a plane and the other 2 people that were bidding were just trying to bid me up to raise money for sub for santa :P so this next spring when it gets warm, this is what im going to be doing!!!!!

Isn't that so exciting! I figure I have to do these things while i am young! And skydiving is definitely on my "bucket list" so i am so excited! Now some of you might be thinking... "but ash? i thought you were afraid of heights.." well yes, i am! But ya know im not gonna let that stop me from jumping out of a plane! :D Woo hoo! i am so excited! you have no idea haha.

The rest of the night we had a huge karaoke/dance party which you know im bound to love that sorta thing.. haha and there was a lot of ping pong tables, and fooz ball tables so it was actually a ton of fun :) It was a nice little escape before this week which has already been VERY long.
The only pic taken of the whole weekend though was this one...
I climbed into the back of Jon's car saturday morning because i couldn't find my keys and i gave up cause i was too tired to search my brain for where i put them haha. luckily chels looks after me, found my keys and then documented my temporary napping spot. anyways that is all. I am going skydiving! but now i better get back to the never ending list of studying i need to do :P

Me and Holly have way too much fun at 3 in the morning! We almost peed our pants watching these! hope you enjoy :)

2008-12-09T02:55:00.001-07:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A Country Christmas

2008-12-09T02:47:00.001-07:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Cabin

2008-11-29T21:49:00.003-07:00

So as is tradition around Thanksgiving time, the whole greenwood crew heads up to the cabin for a few days full of crazy greenwood fun. This year there were still only 3 of the greenwood families but that didn't make it any less eventful, although it certainly made the noise level more bearable haha :D Probably the most memorable thing that happened this cabin trip is when the boys had the grand idea to become fat pillow people! it was hilarious! but maybe thats because it was late.. and at the cabin... but thats besides the point. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the occasion for you all to hopefully enjoy.

Austin and Nate. haha they got nice little head rests there to take naps on.

me and lauren! we're on the biggest losers! we've lost 50 lbs and we're proud of it! ;)

haha me and nate. the fat sis and brother

austin, lauren, me, and nate.
or maybe a more appropriate name for me would be helga the great... just a thought

the new charlies angels!
haha austin is the best! i love his fat rolls! lol his worked the best cause he had a body pillow instead of just a regular pillow lol. you should've seen his sit ups! i was in hysterics, tears in my eyes, i was laughing so hard!

And that is us. as fat pillow people. Kudos to nate and austin for providing us with atleast a good half hour of pure delight, laughter, and entertainment :D

Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T23:50:00.006-07:00

This year's greenwood Thanksgiving was kinda small since everyone decided to travel! but 3 of the 9 greenwood families all got together at Ron & Jill's house (uncle and aunt) for this years Thanksgiving dinner! It was DELICIOUS! as always, but I am sad to admit that not only has my brother Nate outgrown me this year, but he also out ate me this year! But I proudly admit that I still ate the most out of all the girls there! ;) Here are a few pics from the occasion

it was only me and lauren this year! love ya cuz!

my "i think my pant button is about to explode!" pic :D

looks like nelson and andrew are feelin the after effects of the turkey! or way full... or both

my daddy puttin on his cheesy grin!
haha my camera has this awesome setting where it automatically takes a pic when the subject smiles. the next few pics are from that game :P its oh so entertaining.

haha aunt jill and my mom! aunt jill trying to hide from the camera by covering her smile!

lauren! my gorgeous cuz

my uncle keith! I guess the cheesy smile runs in the greenwood side! (notice how alike he and my dad look. all the greenwood brothers are often mistaken for one another from behind)

even though Nate has outgrown me he still cant escape my hugs! But he sure tries... believe me!

my baby sis shay is always up for a snuggle though! :)

Well that is all, and I guess now it is time to list a few of the things i am grateful for!

1. my amazing family! I love them so much! They are the best and i wouldn't trade them for anything. Each and every one of them is so special to me! I am glad that we can strive to live with each other forever! which brings me to number dos!
2. the gospel! I dont know what I would do without it. I am grateful for my testimony, for a loving heavenly father, for the atonement! For parents who raised me right, for the holy ghost, for the plan of salvation, and for hope in the future!
3. all my amazing friends, you know who you are! Thanks for always being there for me! I think friends can often make or break a person and mine have always been the greatest! Thanks for helping me become the person I am today!
4. my amazing roommates! I know i can always count on you! You've been there through thick and thin. the tears, stress, laughter! I love you guys dearly! You are my home away from home.
5. life and health. I feel so blessed! I look at what some people go through and feel truly grateful for all the things i've been given. I am lucky to have grown up in this country in such an awesome family. to always have more then enough to eat, to be able to go to school (even though i complain plenty about it), to be able to run, walk, hear, see! everything!

Thank you everyone for everything you all do for me! I have the greatest family and friends a girl could ask for! I hope you all had a fabulous thanksgiving and that you're waist lines grew as much as mine did! :D

Mini Me!

2008-11-22T22:19:00.003-07:00

Tonight I went to Studio One's benefit Concert to see my baby sis shay! I had to pay someone 20 dollars to take my shift at wingers, but it was so worth it! My shay shay was adorable :) She really is a mini me and thats something im proud of :D she is adorable, but definitely is her own person. She has a lot more sass and personality in her dancing then i probably ever did :D she is definitely a little performer! I always was more the person who focused on perfect technique then on performing. But man, after going I miss dancing even more than i already did before! The concert was AMAZING! as always haha, and it was a benefit concert for Stephanie and Christian, and their family. Stephanie and Christian were in a plane accident a few months ago and are both still getting surgeries, and skin grafts (mostly stephanie who had 3rd degree burns over 85% of her body) so its always touching to be able to try and help someone who is in need of help, by doing something that we love to do. dance. But after crying multiple times during the concert (which has become routine the last few concerts since i quit dancing) and realizing I still want to dance so bad! it brings up the big question... do i try and get back into dancing or do i just give it up? Dancing just means so much to me its been so hard to give up... ugh. Anyways, i guess we'll see if i get accepted into study abroad or not.. if not maybe i'll try and whip myself back into shape for cougarette auditions... again. Well. we'll see. haha my life is full of so many question marks these days! lol. But anyways here are a few pics of me and shay over the last couple years at our concerts together :)

me and shay during intermission tonight :)

me and shay during intermission last year: look how much she has grown in a year!

me and shay after my very last concert in 2007

me and shay in 2006 :)

me and shay in 2005 :)

Well thats all for tonight. I miss dance. story of my life! Any advice anyone? Hm... we will see what happens i guess!

all blogged out

2008-11-12T23:11:00.007-07:00

I haven't updated my blog in ages! The weird thing is, i just haven't really felt like it. I never thought the day would come when i'd be sick of blogging... but I am sick of blogging lol. But here is a quick update on my life for those of you who care :)

I registered for next semester and now officially have declared my major. I will be majoring in exercise science fitness and wellness emphasis if everything goes according to plans :D lol we'll see how well i like it and whether or not i stick to it! Next semester as of right now I am taking PdBio 220(human anatomy), ExSc 387(a nutrition class), D&C, Stat 221, and dun dun dun.... PUBLIC SPEAKING! aaaaaaaaaaah! that one I am most definitely not excited for! Those of you who know me know i'd rather die then give a talk in church! lol I dont know why I hate standing in front of people and talking so bad, but I do! I feel like people judge you or something, which i shouldn't care even if they do, but I care! So the fact that this class is required for my major almost made me want to not major in it (im dead serious haha. thats how much i hate public speaking) But now after much thought, i have decided that it'll probably be good for me and that maybe i can get over some of my fears and reservations about public speaking by taking this class... only time will tell! but atleast my roommate chels has to take it too as a prereq for dental hygiene school so i'll have a friend! I am also going to try and add a Latin ballroom class so fingers crossed they let me add :) I am also in the process of applying for a study abroad next fall so we will see whether or not i get accepted!

Thats all i really feel like saying at the moment, but here are a few pics from the time of my blogging leave of absence :)

my backyard :)

chels, me, and mandy on our little hike!

chels, hol, and mandy :)

chels and me at an ice hockey game!

bonfire with friends!
left to right: ash, allen, chels, dan, rob, holly, and kara

me and chels at the last home football game of the season

mandy, holly, johnny, and chels at his going away party :(

johnny and chels on our shopping trip! :) we miss our australian friend!

well thats all folks!

my Ashley-esque moment

2008-10-21T23:51:00.003-06:00

Hello everyone! Its me ashley :) so... remember how im only 19? That is such a young age, much too young to be going senile one would think, but i swear my brain doesn't function the way a 19 yr olds should.

For example: tonight after scavenging through the fridge and realizing i have absolutely NOTHING to eat, and after eating the scraps off my roommates plates, i decided enough was enough. I needed to make a trek to walmart. So i walk my tooshie out to the car when I suddenly remember that my keys are still in my apartment. So i walk back to my apartment grab my keys, get in the car and go! I get to walmart and am greeted by a very nice man who compliments me on my shirt. (remember this tidbit of info. it is key to the story later on)

I go about walmart finding all the various things on my very lengthy grocery list. And I have finally checked every item off the list and headed to the front of the store to be checked out, when it suddenly dawns on me. My wallet is in my OTHER purse! at this point this is what my head is thinking, "SERIOUSLY, seriously ash! really!? you did not just come clear the heck out to walmart, find everything in the huge monstrosity of a place that walmart is, only to realize your wallet is in your OTHER purse!? please say its a mistake!" but alas, it was the truth. my wallet really was in my other purse. I kinda felt like crying, but really the situation was so hilarious i couldn't help but to laugh hysterically! As i'm wandering around the store laughing like a fool (people probably thought i was losing it) I racked my brains trying to come up with a genius solution to my somewhat amusing dilemma. But there wasn't one. All my roommates were gone, and my mom was too far away to come to my rescue. So I go back around the whole store, returning every item in my cart, walk back out of the store, get in my car, and head home.

Walmart trip #2
Nice walmart greeter man: "Hey! your back already?" (i guess he remembered the shirt)
Me: "uh.... yeah. I sorta forgot my wallet the last time"
Nice walmart greeter man: with a dumbfounded expression on his face. "oh. I dont hear that one very often"
Me: "yeah im sort of forgetful that way" (as i rush on in to avoid further humiliation)

Well anyways thats the story of the day. But I must say that getting my groceries the 2nd time around took like 1/4 of the time :P haha i knew EXACTLY where everything i needed was by then.

Oh. And i somehow managed to hurl a jar of salsa onto the floor like... 2 hrs ago when i was eating dinner. the roomies and I all watched it happen, and none of us are exactly sure how i managed it :P oh dear... i struggle. But on a brighter side there were two really awesome things that happened today

* First, I miraculously got a 75 on my calc test (above the average). When out of 20 questions, on 10 of them I had no idea if i was doing it right. so that was really exciting because I seriously thought I was going to get a D on the test. In fact I was so happy that I gave 20 dollars to some guy that said his niece needed a heart transplant.. I hope his niece really did. haha I didn't even really stop to think about what i was doing.

*Second, on my way back from walmart the 2nd time there was this poor little old homeless guy sitting on the corner. As I was turning a guy around my age walked up to him and handed him some money, and a bag of food from McDonalds. I wont lie. It melted my heart. The world might be a crazy awful place at times, but there are still good people in it :)

Anyways that is all for tonight folks, Im off to bed! before 1 am. You should all be impressed lol. goodnight!

Mesa Verde!

2008-10-20T01:15:00.006-06:00

So this weekend I decided to be rebellious and skip school on Friday so that I could spend the weekend in Mesa Verde with the fam :) and to those of you that i told Mesa Verde was in Arizona I lied. accidentally of course! apparently Mesa Verde is really in Colorado. sorry my bad! But anyways it was a nice little get away from everything! and when i say everything I mean EVERYTHING :D haha no cell service, no internet service etc etc. Well I cant really remember any truly amusing stories to tell ya'll at this hour but I promise it really was so much fun! My family is pretty much the bestest :) my brothers make me laugh like there is no tomorrow! Shay is just the sweetest little thing! and Kris, well kris is just Kris! my bestest friend ha. the one i call when there is a picture of my brother with a girl up on facebook! (give us a break, it took him forever to come out of the cooties phase!) haha anyways I love my family. you get the point. I'll shut up now and post some pictures. Well... the few that i actually took with my camera that is lol.

the beginning of the 100 ft ladder to get to Balcony House. I am pretty sure the brochure exaggerated though, it couldn't have been more then 5o ft...

me and kristin on our 1st tour of the day to the ruins called "Balcony House"

the view from Balcony House

Andrew scaring me half to death by standing on a ledge at Balcony House!

Coming into Cliff Palace. the 2nd tour

Kris getting really excited about crawling through the tunnel lol

Cliff Palace: Is that amazing or what!? So cool, and so pretty!

Well That wasn't even a fraction of all the ruins or Cliff Dwelling remains that we saw, but I got tired of taking my camera to all the places :P But that pretty much concluded the trip. We just played alot of games in the hotel room that night and got to bed to prepare for the long heinous car trip back.

Sunday Morning rolls around and we all hop into the car at 10 am expecting to get back mid-afternoon. Well boy were we wrong. The drive to Mesa Verde took about 7 hours. We didn't get back from Mesa Verde until 9 pm! making 11 hrs of travel time! My dad decided to take the "more scenic route" aw... gotta love my dad :D haha he is awesome like that. I guess it did make for some more greenwood adventures! I mean really, I am pretty impressed we didn't kill each other after 11 hrs in the car :P I am pretty sure its safe to say that my parents owe their sanity to the fact that we all have a new found hobby of making thread bracelets.

We're pretty dang good after that super sized car ride lol! Who knows, maybe I should drop out of school and start a business ;) one of the things we did get to see on the way back was four corners :) it was 3 dollars a person though which was insane! I cant believe they make money off of suckers like us who just want to take a picture in four states lol, but apparently it works... we fell for it!

the fam minus dad (who was taking the pic) and plus tristan at Four Corners!

This picture is worth a million words! and... 3 dollars per person :D

Well that concludes the trip! I guess I better get back to studying... or maybe I should just go to bed. Well 39 more days till thanksgiving break!

oh dear...

2008-10-20T00:21:00.004-06:00

Well on Thursday this last week after I returned from work; Chels, Holly, and I were all just sitting on our living room couches goofing off like usual when me and holly got in a straw blowing fight. hm. that sounds weird. what i mean by straw blowing fight is you tear off one end of the paper cover on the straw and blow it at the other person :D you all know what im talking about right?! It's what everyone did to their brothers and sisters when they were little... or not so little :P either way, we were doing that. haha when we decided to have a sword fight and for some reason it ended up getting filmed :P So due to popular demand (Johnny) I have decided to post this somewhat humiliating video on my blog. This is so us. We get a little crazy at times, but that makes for some very fun and entertaining nights so im not complaining! enjoy the clip if you wish! or not. I dont really care, its up to you! but for those of you who do choose to watch, beware. the beginning is kinda pointless and fluff. it gets better! well... as much better as a sword fight between 3 giddy school girls can get that is :D

My family :)

2008-10-09T16:48:00.006-06:00

Wow! I went longer then a week without posting again! :) Im so proud of myself haha now if only I could get rid of my facebook addiction.. well one addiction at a time I suppose!

Anyways, a few weeks ago my family all gathered to take the dreaded "official" family photo :D It has been at least 3 years since our last official family photo. So my mom decided it was time for an upgrade since especially shay, andrew, and nate look completely different then they did 3 years ago. Family photos are only dreaded because it is the one that goes on the WALL. Which translated means, if you don't like how you look in the picture, too bad so sad cause its going on the wall anyways! Haha but for the first time in the history of "official" family photos, I actually approve of the one that was chosen to hang on the wall for the next 3 years! yipee! here are some of the ones that were taken.

the children :) Nate sure loved kneeling forever on the wooden bridge :D

the fam! :) and this is how she got all of us to smile...
photographer: "say, andrew farted."
family: "andrew farted!" haha what a knee slapper ;) aw man...

the kids in the greenery :P

the boys! :)

the fam. if we happened to choose this one we'd replace shay's face with a better one!

my favorite sisters in the whole world.

well thats all folks. tune in for more awesome "official" greenwood family photos in about 3 years!

The Girls of Apt. 114

2008-09-28T17:06:00.008-06:00

This week has been good :) my roommates become more and more my 2nd little family every day. haha here are a few photos of us from the last few days.

holly, me and chels snuggling on the couch watching a movie! haha

On Saturday night, we went to the stake relief society dinner and then the relief society broadcast :) It was a fun night, and Elder Uchtdorf (spelling?) spoke and it was amazing! I loved his talk, it was really good and a nice reminder to cut myself some slack because i am my harshest critic. Here are a few photos from after the dinner when we were waiting outside the marriott center for the broadcast to start :)

our family portrait outside the marriott center :D ash, mandy, chels, holly.
look! because of the slant of the sidewalk i look the same height as everyone! Also forgive me and holly for wearing flip flops... we didn't have any church shoes that matched our outfits.. i think that sounds like a good excuse for a shoe shopping trip soon! :)

chels took the camera and was catching our candid moments :P clearly we miss our missionaries or something haha.

that is what mandy thinks of candid photos :D

I was uncharacteristically willing to smile

and holly was taken by surprise.

Afterwards we all went to the Yoasis for dessert! it was delish! and is our newest healthy addiction! yay for healthy addictions :) we even have the yoasis calender of events and discounts

I heart my 2nd family :) they are all great girls and huge examples to me of strength, courage, and kindness and who are constantly there for me! I am glad that i get to live with them! every day is a new adventure for sure haha we're all nuts its a blast everyone feel free to come play!

Blur

2008-09-24T19:36:00.003-06:00

Has it really only been 3 days since my last blog post? it pretty much feels like its been a week! If this post doesn't make sense i apologize sincerely. i'm running off about 3 hrs of sleep right now and my roommates keep mocking my incoherent sentences :D well lets see where to start? i think i'll just hit the hi-lights.. Sunday night we made friends at ward prayer! miracles can happen ;) haha jk but now the only problem is that we are playing perhaps a little too much... so then we have to stay up all night getting our homework done.. awesome. oh well :) thats college right? Cleaning checks were today and in preparation for them we pretty much cleaned everything... well in the process of cleaning our sick nasty couches this is what we found...

ew sick gross ah! ew!!! We happened upon that sick disgusting little object when we were innocently taking the couch cushions off the couches, to try and vacuum the fur balls that kept coming up every time we reached into the deep dark abyss, to retrieve our runaway cell phones. Well when we told the front desk (by we i really mean my 2 roommates mandy and chelsea.. im kinda wimpy when it comes to confronting people and complaining) about the cigarette in our couch, they didn't even react and basically told us to clean up our own messes! Chels and Mandy were like uh... its not ours!!! it must've been there before we got there... but yay! now we're getting new couches :) i hope they look like our neighbors! they got lucky and got the nice couches :P

Besides finding gross things in our couches nothing that is really story worthy has happened the last few days... lots of homework, lots of cleaning, lots of playing (yay!) and not quite as much sleeping... but im pretty much planning on going to bed at 9 tonight so lets hope that i actually do :) haha.

oh! i got my blood drawn today too :) for the first time! i was pretty nervous, but it wasn't even bad at all. Pretty much i freaked out way too much about it and most the population of this earth freak out too much about it as well. Anyways that is all for now, have a great night everyone!

The Weekend

2008-09-21T18:03:00.006-06:00

Wow another weekend has come and gone.. how does it always go like that? i swear time goes 3 times as fast from friday to sunday as it does the rest of the week :P Friday wasn't too eventful, just did homework and went to work but Saturday was a blast. we of course started off the day with the Byu game in order to witness another shut out woot woot! except as exciting as that is... i would kinda like to see a close game one of these times.. haha then we crashed at home for a few hours because the sun seriously takes it out of you! we were all very sun burnt and very sweaty :D

chels and mandy at the game

me and holly at half time

later saturday night we went to classic skating with some guys chels knew from oregon (yeah we still dont have any friends that are actually in the ward... haha) but it was a total blast from the past! so much fun! We definitely were some of the worst skaters there though! holy cow i swear some of the people there must go ALL THE TIME because they were doing all these cool tricks! I was definitely jealous. Then this guy that had been doing tricks all night came up and asked if I wanted to do a trick with him and i said yes so i sat down on the ground with my arms underneath my legs and he grabbed my hands and was spinning me in a circle!! it was insane! i am pretty sure i was screaming. i cant believe he didn't drop me. haha so much fun. then we went home around midnight, made chocolate chip pancakes and watched how to lose a guy in 10 days which is one of my all time favorite movies! it was an awesome night. I heart my roommates they're the greatest.

mandy, holly, me, and chels at classic skating! ... and Alejandro in the background haha he looks so out of it.

Sunday morning none of us were in a hurry to wake up.. at first we were sad our church changed from 11 am to 1pm but now im thinking its probably a good thing. Seeing how we sleep till like 11:30 every sunday morning haha :P After church we went on a really long walk along the provo river parkway trail which is right behind our apartment. Seriously it is! Walk out our door and like 50 ft forward and you are on the trail :P It was so pretty :) The conversation wasn't bad either

cute little duck pond and cute little couple feeding the ducks :) if i knew them i'd send them this picture. i think its precious.

holly, chels, and me on our walk :) notice i have to stick my butt out all weird to be at the same height as the 2 little ones hehe.

now one with Mandy, holly, and chels!

now we are just about to have our Sunday dinner YUM! im starved. like usual haha. then we are going to ward prayer. to attempt to make friends :D attempt being the keyword lol. anyways that was my weekend in a nutshell. the end.

If only.

2008-09-18T21:42:00.002-06:00

In my short lifetime of 19 years, I've learned a few things. Although i had my fair share of really awkward years I feel like I've mostly come to terms with the person that I am, and my body type etc. BUT there are 2 things that i still just absolutely cant stand about myself. (I guess I have the rest of my life to work on them along with a million other things, but still.. these 2 issues are the ones I find myself wishing I could change the most at this time in my life.)

Frustrating Issue #1:
My whole life after I have gotten to know people i work with, or even some of my best friends, they usually say something along the lines of.. "Ash you are so much fun/cute/crazy, but when i first met you I thought you hated me!" or "Ashley you are so nice, i cant believe i used to think you were stuck up." or finally "I am glad we're friends now, but when you first started working here i thought you hated me and were such a snob" :(
Dear world, once I get to know a person, very seldom is there someone i absolutely CANT get along with or hate. I really am a nice person I promise! It just takes me a while to open up around people I don't know. I am not a snob, I don't think I am better then you, I'm simply really really SHY!! So please give me a chance! If i don't talk to you at first or have a hard time making eye contact it is simply because: I am a shy person, I don't know what to say around you, and you scare me. People are scary at first to me.. I know its stupid, but yet I still cant get over this

Issue I cant stand #2:
This problem can be summed up nicely in 5 words. I am a scaredy cat. I really am. There are so many things in life I haven't tried to do or done because I am too scared. I don't go after my dreams and what I really want because I am afraid that I wont be able to make it happen. If I am not positive that I can do something, I don't usually try. It is just sad, I know I shouldn't be scared, but telling myself doesn't usually do much to help. It drives me nuts.

Anyways this post doesn't really have a point. But these are the things I am working hardest to change about myself this year, and since this is my journal of sorts I decided maybe I should record these thoughts. That is all. the end.

Cougar Shutout!!!

2008-09-13T18:23:00.006-06:00

poor poor UCLA. This just wasn't their game! I ALMOST feel bad for them haha. oh how i love football games! it was just me and chels this saturday though since mandy and holly were both up in salt lake again. but it was a blast! good thing im always here on saturdays or else chels would be all by her lonesome! since she is the only one of us not from Utah and all. anyways here are a few pics from the game!

me and chels before we headed to the game!

the view from our fabulous seats :)

I even got sunburned! it was a beautiful day for a football game! Not nearly as miserable as it was at BYU vs. Northern Iowa :P I seriously thought I was going to get heat stroke that game.

just seconds before another cougar touchdown!!

final score!

Dear Mom,

2008-09-11T22:19:00.002-06:00

I'm coming home. I just realized im not ready to spread my wings and fly from the nest yet. growing up is hard! can i just be your little girl forever? I miss my mommy hugs and my daddy hugs... and i even miss my loud crazy and smelly brothers who somehow always managed to tease ME even though im the oldest. I miss fights over clothes, who gets to shower first and who messed up the bathroom with my best friend kris (ok maybe not.. but i miss our sisterly chats and keeping her up all night talking) I miss shays touchy feely adoring nature and even her fits of i want my way NOW spoiledness :P haha

ok... so im not really coming home. but SERIOUSLY how many different kinds of 40 watt type B light bulbs are there! my lamp is retarded and i've now bought 3 different kinds of lightbulbs that are the WRONG types of light bulbs! and laundry... dont even get me started on laundry! you should see my room lol there is stuff hanging EVERYWHERE because i ran out of quarters and couldn't finish drying all my clothes. oh what a mess i am. your cooking is simply divine compared to my hurried meals of sandwiches, soup, burritos, and cereal :p I may not be coming home to live, but you can count on me for sunday dinner! plus like i said, i just miss the fam :)

love, ash.

p.s. did i mention your the best mom ever? :) i love you!

Utah State Fair

2008-09-09T23:44:00.006-06:00

So today after class me and my roommates and a bunch of friends all decided to go up to the Utah State Fair! None of us had ever been and didn't really know what to expect, but it ended up being lots of fun :) minus the fact that they totally con you into buying things! they had like a gazillion signs up advertising frozen lemonade, and lemonade, ice cold water, and coke... sheesh! they sure know how to make a thirsty person cave. dont worry that there wasn't a drinking fountain in sight! so i ended up having to buy the smallest water bottle i've ever seen for 2.50! what a rip off. dont they know im a poor college student? but anyways we decided that this is what the state fair is.. you go spend 8 dollars to get in.. so that you can spend more money on rides.... hm... we were hoping to be able to do stuff for FREE once we paid 8 dollars to get in, but whatever, i guess that was an unrealistic expectation and it was still a blast. afterwards we went to village inn and stuffed our faces. All in all a great night. I really hope my knee quits giving me so much grief though so i can get back to running! otherwise i might gain another 10 lbs this year! meh. anyways here are a bunch of pics from the night :)

holly, mandy, chels, me being ridiculous as always :D

just admit it. we're the cutest apples you've ever seen ;)

holly and mandy being fat apples..? haha so cute.

the. best. ride. ever.

im scared of the 13 foot, 12oo lb alligator :P

alex and mandy. waiting for us to get off the big yellow slide! they were too cheap to fork up the 2 dollars.

the gals: mandy, chels, holly, me!

the guys: alex, saular, spencer, abe, bailey

abe lifting holly up so she could see the tiger show :D haha awww..

the tigers were so cute!!! i couldn't get a good picture though because my camera decided it wanted to be retarded.

Frozen eggs?

2008-09-07T23:40:00.003-06:00

So my roommates and I just made brownies and we went to use my eggs to mix in and the first 4 that we cracked open were frozen! I have never ever seen that happen before so i was quite confused :P haha our fridge tends to freeze everything.. grapes, lettuce.. too bad it has a mind of its own and wont let us turn down the temperature.

look the egg is frozen! pay no attention to my hair... i've been crazy and hyper all night and that is what happens haha.

our delicious brownies before we put them into the oven! dont they look so yummy :) chocolate and carmel!

And can I just say how much fun it is to live with 3 other girls? Cause holy cow I love my roommates dearly :) they are so much fun and so amazing! I look up to them all so much and it is so much fun to be able to spend so much time with them every day its just so much fun :) haha anyways... im being redundant here, but i really just love my roommates! but now for seriously im done posting on my blog for awhile :D

Summary of the week :)

2008-09-07T18:50:00.008-06:00

wow! i went longer then a week without updating my blog! i think i deserve a gold star :D that hasn't happened in forever :P Anyways the reason i have been MIA this week is probably mostly due to school and other things. I dont really know.. and sorry in advance if this post is all over the place I am extremely tired for reasons I am sure you'll find out by the time you are done reading this post :D

School has actually been kinda fun? yeah shocker I really do like school for the most part. I dont have any science classes this semester (which i abhor with a passion) so maybe thats why :) i LOVE LOVE LOVE my D&C class. I love the professor and already feel inspired to be a better person ha as corny as that sounds. The class i'm the least excited for is English just because it is not one of my better subjects.. which you've all probably figured out by now after reading my blog posts :P Calculus has actually been kinda fun thus far because it comes easier since i already took AP Calc in highschool so the assignments have been kinda fun :P music 201 the teacher has an awesome accent. And Nutrition 201 im pretty excited for just cause im weird and like learning about that kinda stuff :P haha anyways thats the synopsis of my classes for this semester.

Lets see... well... pretty much i cant even remember what happened monday through wednesday this week haha. ugh i bought a lamp. and 2 of the wrong types of lightbulbs for it. So i still dont have a functioning lamp in my room which desperately needs another light source.

Thursday my friend Joshy Petersen from last year at byu was in town from Boise with his friend Spencer Bowen for one last little visit before he leaves on his mish. the whole day was a blast! After i got out of class at 3 i met joshy, spenc, and ali at the cougareat and then we decided we had to go bridge jumping for old times sake. Last year the very first week of school we went bridge jumping twice in one week so we decided to come full circle and do it again! :) it was crazy haha only last year we always went at night and so i had no idea how disgusting the water we were jumping in was! so gross lol. Oh and i did a back flip off the bridge that was exciting. It took me forever to get up the guts but i finally did it! Afterwards we rushed back and all got showered and ready in a half hour so we could meet up with a bunch of friends at Tucanos for dinner. mm mmm good! I ate SO MUCH but i had to get my moneys worth! :D then we headed to Progressive Power Tumbling cause Josh and all the guys pretty much lived there last year, so they all wanted to go one last time. Probably not the best idea we ever had to go to Tucanos before jumping and flipping on all the trampolines but whatev :D it was worth the tummy ache haha. THEN josh, ali, me and spenc went eighties dancing in Salt Lake! yeah it was a freaking jam packed day and i didn't get home until 3 but it was so good to see Joshy one last time before he left for Mexico City.

me and joshy

spenc in his eighties outfit haha

ali and joshy in their eighties outfits! You cant see ali's spandex but they were sweet lol very silver and shiny :P I didn't get a picture of mine but just picture this in your head... keds, yellow leggins, zebra mini skirt, tie die shirt, big earrings, big hair. it was awesome.

Friday i worked, that was pretty uneventful, saturday day i worked... and then after i got out of work I received a call from Spenc saying that me and my roommates should come up to bear lake! Well Mandy and holly were gone, which left me and chels. We were feeling adventuresome so we packed up our stuff and were on our way to bear lake an hour later. the drive ended up being 4 hrs long instead of 3 since we missed the turn off in logan and kept driving but.... we eventually made it :P haha i forgot how fun road trips can be with girls :D I'm so glad we went even though it was a butt load of money for gas. It ended up being one heck of a night haha that lasted ALL night long. We didn't sleep for even 5 minutes! we just played games, and watched movies, all night long. That made it interesting in the morning when we all had to drive back :P holy cow im so grateful i made it home ok! It is so hard to drive for 3 hrs when you haven't slept in 24 hrs! It took all my brainpower to keep my eyes open and to keep from swerving. But we're home safe and sound! here are a few pics from the night..

(me, spenc, kade, chels)
Ok, i HAVE to explain this photo before ya'll go assuming things and getting the wrong idea! We had driven out to this place with a huge heated pool, and hot tub, and only been there for 10 minutes when we got kicked out because it was closing.. SO, someone had the brilliant idea to go hot tubbing in the bath tub! It was pretty much the funniest most uncomfortable thing i've ever done shoving us all into that tiny little bath tub. but for the record, we're all wearing swimsuits and nothing inappropriate happened! :)

(back:ash, spenc, kade, chels. front: shay)
"shay! set the timer and jump in!" I was pretty much in hysterics at this point.

and this pretty much summarizes my mood the entire night. extremely loopy and slap happy :D Thanks to Spencer's grandma for letting us invade her home :)

all the pics from the ride up are on chelsea's camera and i am too lazy to try and steal them from her but we got some pretty good ones :P here are some not so important, random details of the drive.

miles traveled
*165 miles one way
time it took to get to bear lake
*3.5 hrs
time it took to get back to provo
*2.5 hrs
times we were lost
*once
times we questioned our direction following skills
*a zillion
road kill
*2 cats
*4 skunks/raccoons
*1 bird
*1 deer
cd's listened to
*Jack's Mannequin
*Road trip Mix
*Red Hot Chili Peppers
*Something Coroporate
*KT Tunstall
# of gas stations we went to during one bathroom stop to find a working bathroom
*3

well pretty much this week was great, but i cant procrastinate my homework any longer. ta ta for now :)

The First Supper :)

2008-08-29T22:46:00.003-06:00

So we're mostly all moved in and unpacked now! well i am atleast... haha some of us have been slower then others :D but tonight we officially made our first meal! A few phone calls had to be made to parents asking questions like how do you cook chicken and how long do you do this etc... but wa la! we had angel hair pasta with alfredo sauce and chicken! and toast! hey thats a pretty well balanced meal right? ok ok. I fess up. The pasta was made from a box. But hey, we are on our way to being homemakers one baby step at a time :) Here are a few pics from the occasion for your enjoyment. The bright light at the table in the pictures is the lamp we have to use for light... apparently its okay for half the light bulbs in your apartment to be burned out before they let you live in it. hm... so anyways its our temporary fix.

holly getting her yummy dinner :)

chelsea, mandy, and holly enjoying our first meal :)

holly said there had to be one with me in it... i could've done without but here it is! it looks light in the room, but dont be deceived. its only because of the flash that it is light :P but minus our "list of concerns" ie: broken closet door, missing bed frame, broken screen door, burned out lights. we actually love our little home :)

My poor little molly :(

2008-08-27T23:54:00.000-06:00

After MUCH procrastination including:
*1 movie
*1 trip to Wal-Mart
* atleast 15 trips to the kitchen
*1 nap
*4 chapters in "The Host"
*3 hair do's
*2 suitcases
*2 giant boxes
*2 laundry baskets
*1 very full back pack
* and about 6 stubbed toes later...
I'm FINALLY done packing!!! well... pretty much done. One problem remains though... what to do with my poor poor gerbil Molly! she isn't allowed in the apartment, and my family, ESPECIALLY my mother want nothing to do with her :( so....

*IMPORTANT NOTICE*
does anyone want a free gerbil or know anyone that would want her? or know of any alternatives to releasing her into the wild (thats what my mother plans to do, but even though molly is somewhat of a demon i just dont feel right about letting the birds eat her alive!) Anyways if you have any great ideas about who to give her to, or what to do with her i'd love to know! goodnight blogdom

another great summer day :)

2008-08-26T23:19:00.000-06:00

the fab day started out rather early for my particular liking (i've never been a morning person.) but even though my family all started laughing hysterically when they saw my lions mane for hair as i came up for scripture study this morning i was in a surprisingly good mood all day!

it continued to get better when all the aunts, me, and BFF cousin amy went to lunch at chili's! I'm so excited! Amy is the only cousin my age on both sides of the family and we've never seen each other more then once a year if that, but now that she is going to be down at byu our kindred spirits can finally be rekindled!

BFF Amy and me at lunch :)

After talking at my house for hours with Amzee I was off for one last carefree summer boating trip with friends before school starts and we all move etc. Thanks to Jody for inviting us all out on her boat it was a blast!

Alyssa and Kylie!

Heather and myself chillin in the front of the boat

miss jody, the perfect host and awesome wakeboarder teacher :D helped alyssa (pictured above) and heather to get up woot woot!

katie and her freaking long gorgeous ballroom dancin legs!

allysa, justin, and me. last tube run of the night :)

heather, kylie, and jody beautiful boatin girls

mikey, justin, alyssa, and katie on the way back to the launch ramp

Thanks everyone for the awesome day! It was a perfect last summer fling before I pack my whole life away tomorrow! meh... i hate packing.

frustration!

2008-08-25T00:03:00.001-06:00

Hello world of fellow bloggers, ashley here. So i have this really really REALLY aggravating problem called i cant sleep! for the past month or two i lay in bed for at LEAST an hour if not longer before falling asleep. Does anyone else have this problem? I mean im exhausted! so what is the deal! why cant i sleep! gr. so. annoying. Take today for instance. I've been exhausted all day long but refused to let myself take a nap so i would sleep good tonight!! but no! i've been tossing and turning in bed since 10:30 :S Why is it that i cant fall asleep for the life of me at night, but during the day anytime i sit down im out almost instantly? i must be nocturnal or something there is simply no other answer :( anyways sorry for this somewhat angry post im just frustrated that it is 12:05, that im exhausted, and yet i cant fall asleep. does anyone have any good theories/ things that help them sleep at night!? come on folks im desperate!

Absence Seizure

2008-08-23T22:52:00.000-06:00

One day nearly a year ago in our Freshman year of college when Mandy and I were so excited about all the new things we were learning, Mandy learned in ... sociology? i think?.. that absence seizures are a real thing that people have! what is an absence seizure you may be asking? well it is when you just like blank and its like your brain just shuts down for a few seconds! well ok so thats probably not the real definition but I dont really remember what it was exactly. But i remember Mandy telling me about them for reals! (ignore my sentence structure/grammar. its getting worse and worse i swear. maybe its a good thing im going back to school) Anyways! Today on the way home from work i TOTALLY had an absence seizure! I was about half way home when all of a sudden im just stopped at a stop sign and I vaguely hear honking in the background but it seems so far off... and then a few seconds later my brain like snapped back on and i realized that i was stopped at a stop sign and had been for who knows how long and cars behind me were honking and some were even proceeding to drive around me through the stop sign! It was the weirdest thing! I seriously have no clue what happened... maybe i fell asleep? i really have no idea. how embarrassing. good thing i didn't get myself killed :P haha im sure this is what my face looked like...

I know. I know... its homer. You may be saying, "but ashley! you claim to not like the simpsons!" Well it was the first image that popped up on google and I didn't want to search harder. besides its a pretty good drool face if i do say so myself. And after watching the simpsons so much with wes it is hard to not admit that it is funny... I still dont agree with everything that is on the show though! and that is the story of my absence seizure.

The Screenplay

2008-08-20T23:40:00.000-06:00

Tonight as I was reading through some of the old emails Wes sent me.. i know i know. Dont say it. Reading old emails is kinda pathetic but sometimes it helps me miss him less to read old emails/blog posts that he wrote :P he is such a dork i love it! Anyways, tonight I found this old email that I had completely forgotten about! He sent it to me one night after we had watched the office episode where Pam and Jim find the screenplay in Michael's office that Michael had written about himself with the stupid side kick that ends up being dwight.. anyways this is what Wes sent me. It is SO him! haha enjoy the following email is the opening scene to his screenplay.

Tomahawk, Starring: Wesley Moss Co-Starring: Ashley Greenwood‏

Hacking through the thick foliage with a machete, Mr. Kyle D. Tomahawk makes his way through the merciless jungle. He pushes back his shaggy brown hair, drenched from sweat, out of his blue eyes. With a swing of his machete, the thick trees in front of him unveil a clearing, in which, a lone concrete bunker sits in the middle. Next to the bunker sits a large hum-vee. Tomahawk squints at the rush of light into his eyes. He sets down his burdensome backpack as he studies the bunker from afar. He sees a soldier walk out from the bunker and grab something from the vehicle. Slowly, Tomahawk reaches for his Uzi which dangles from his belt just to assure him it is still there. Quietly, he walks out into the clearing, making sure not to catch the soldiers attention. Tomahawk gets within steps of the soldier when he steps on a branch, getting the guard's attention. He picks up his AK-47, but it's too late, a fatal blow to the head with the machete silences the soldier forever.

Tomahawk stealthily walks towards the metal door of the bunker which is slightly cracked open. He crouches down next to the door and listens to two men talking.

Pablo: Where is Carlos with that equipment? I sent him out there almost 5 minutes ago. Richetti, go check up on him.

Richetti: Yes, sir.

Tomahawk looks around for cover, but there is none close enough. The cold metal door opens up. A large, burly Colombian man looks down on Tomahawk.

Richetti: Pablo! We have an intruder!

Richetti pulls out a dagger and begins to swing at Tomahawk, but Tomahawk is too quick and rolls out of the way. Tomahawk lifts his Uzi and blasts Richetti several times. Richetti drops to the ground. Tomahawk quickly gets up and runs to the entrance of the bunker, but quickly stops because Pablo has a pistol pointed at him from across the room.

Pablo: I did not expect you to find us so fast, my amigo.

Tomahawk: Where is the girl?

Pablo moves out of the way to reveal a girl gagged and tied to a chair.

Pablo: Now drop your gun, or you die.

Tomahawk stares into the woman's eyes from across the room and she stares back.

Pablo: Drop your gun, Senor!

Tomahawk begins to set the gun down, but quickly raises and shoots a volley of bullets towards some fuel tanks on the side of the room. A massive explosion ensues, knocking Pablo to the ground as his gun slides just out of his reach. Pablo looks up and reaches for his gun, but Tomahawk steps on his arm.

Tomahawk: Nobody can defeat me, Kyle D. Tomahawk.

Tomahawk raises his Uzi up to Pablo's head. His index finger begins to pull on the trigger.

Pablo: Wait, I must know before I die! What does the 'D' in your name stand for?

Tomahawk: (Zoom in on Tomahawk's lips, with scruff around it)…Death…(You then hear the Uzi firing.)

Tomahawk places his gun back on his belt and majestically pulls out his machete. He pulls off the gag and cuts off the thick rope with his machete. She stands up and looks lustfully up into Tomahawk's eyes.

Girl: Thank you, kind sir.

They both move in to kiss each other, but before they do, the girl goes limp. Tomahawk looks down at her neck to see a poison dart sticking out of it. He turns his head back to the door and sees a native Indian dressed in nothing but a loincloth, holding a blowgun. Saying nothing, the Indian runs out of the bunker. Tomahawk sets down the girl, and runs out after him, but he has disappeared back into the jungle. Tomahawk falls on his knees.

Tomahawk: (veins pulsing through neck) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Fade to black)
--
Wesley Moss

I love how my only line is Thank you kind sir :P lol boy I miss him like crazy! I know that he is supposed to be on a mission though and I'm so grateful for the example he sets for me! anyways i hope you all got a kick out of the screenplay lol.

Annual Mt. Timpanogas Sunrise Hike!!

2008-08-16T11:20:00.000-06:00

So it has become somewhat of a tradition for me and Heather to hike up Timp during the night so we can be on top for the sunrise! Thursday Night we decided was going to be the day that we continued the tradition for this year :) we started hiking around 1:40 am. friday morning and got to the saddle (too much wind on the very very top) where we watch the sunrise around 5:30 am :) I was a little nervous since last year half way through the hike i got sick! But my stomach was fine this year and it made the experience much more pleasant! It is always so fun to have all those catch up hours to talk with heather during the hike! not to mention that because we are so tired by the end that we get super hyper and slap happy lol. its the best. Another thing we are very proud of is that 3 boys started hiking like 5 minutes before us and we ended up beating them to the top by a half hour! woot woot! go us haha we were shocked we thought when we passed them that they would probably end up passing us back but i guess we were faster then we usually are or something! anyways here are some pictures from the hike :) oh! minor story real fast though! so when we were on our way to our tree that we always go to the bathroom under we ran into a deer! it was 3 ft away from us and it just stared at us! i was terrified it was going to attack us or something because it just kept looking at us! we were talking and everything and it didn't run away! what happened to deer being afraid of people!? if we were hunters it would've been so dead. anyways haha it was kinda cool but me and heather were like uh... what do we do? should we turn around and walk back or stand here and hope it eventually goes away? I think it was confused by our head lamps or something.. maybe thats why it didn't run away haha.. but we eventually made it to our tree in safety :D

heather and I before we started the hike!

us when we got to the saddle and were waiting for the sunrise! it was super cold so this is our "Brr" faces! haha we're dorks i love it. we laughed for like 10 minutes about heathers face in this picture! i was dying! my stomach hurt so bad from laughing so hard :P

here comes the sun!!!

the beautiful sunrise! it was so bright!

before heading back down :) heather in her ninja head band and me in my fiesta jacket! (aka my dad's super snazzy windbreaker)

me by the stream that goes through the trail several times towards the bottom of the hike

the after hike snapshot

yay! we FINALLY made it to the bathrooms at the bottom of the hike!
haha the whole last hour of the hike was kinda slow goin because i had to pee SOOO bad! every step was pure agony for the bladder! but i'd already gone to the bathroom several times in the wilderness and didn't want to squat again!

It was a way fun hike :) and very entertaining. because when you haven't slept in 24 hrs everything is entertaining! also I haven't been sleeping well at ALL the last few weeks ugh... so frustrating! but yesterday when we got back from the hike around 10 i slept the best that i've slept in weeks!!! like a rock! until 4 when i had to wake up and get ready for work haha so if you're ever not sleeping well stay up all night hiking timp and your body will be begging for a bed :D

Woo Hoo!!

2008-08-10T23:03:00.000-06:00

phelps after the times come up on the scoreboard and he realized the Americans won gold!

Go U.S.A!! holy cow!!! i love the olympics! the 400-meter freestyle relay was amazing!! i was dying! I can't believe Lezak pulled out a 46 second split in his 100 m. leg to out touch Alain Bernard at the wall by 8 tenths of a second to take the gold! it was amazing! serves Alain Bernard the Frenchman right for saying "We will smash them. (in reference to the americans) that is what we came here to do." smash probably wasn't a word he wanted to throw at them.. haha haven't they watched enough sports movies? the underdog when told they wont win always wins :D oh man... it was amazing i'm still in shock if you missed it you HAVE to go here to get the recap. i couldn't find a video but oh man. i hope everyone saw it! it was glorious :P

the US 400 meter relay team!

my other favorite things to watch during the olympics include, gymnastics, diving, ok who am i fooling i pretty much will watch any of it :D lol

dun dun dun..!!!

2008-08-08T14:18:00.000-06:00

I know all my faithful readers are waiting in anxious anticipation to hear all about my first car accident so hear it goes.

Last week I was running rather late (like a half hour late) to work after the family had been floating the river due to some problems the boy tube trip had in the form of; popping tubes, boys shoes being lost, and some not getting out of the river in the right place and so on and so forth. So i get home and see my sister's boyfriend? friend? whatever they call themselves- car on our driveway in between mine and my sisters. I was confused at first because Kristin and Nathan weren't home from youth conference yet but my confusion was remedied when i saw him asleep in kristin's bed. he is a family friend so he let himself in and was now napping haha. yeah after being on vacation with us in lake powell so much, he's practically family. Anyways so im hurrying frantically trying to get dressed, throw my hair up etc. when my mom comes down with a letter from wes! this was saturday so i was ecstatic since i though i wasn't going to get a letter that week since usually they come thursday or friday. Moral of the story is im so thrilled i cant think straight im so rushed that im REALLY not thinking straight as i run out to my car. I get in my car shove the letter in my purse praying for a non-busy moment to read it at work since im dying to know what it says plus there are pictures!!! i LOVE pictures :D haha wow... i take lots of tangents in stories.. sorry.. back to the story.. i shove the letter in my purse, jam the keys into the ignition and throw my car into reverse and thats when it happened... CRUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dang it! i had totally forgotten that josh's car was parked up top instead of at the bottom of the driveway! I had just flown into auto pilot reverse without even looking! so i SLAM on my brakes not daring to move and feeling very tempted to curse under my breath. My dad who happened to be in the garage comes out calm as ever (seriously HOW is he always so calm?) and tells me to pull back forward and then says its ok i'll fix it go to work. so i leave all shaken up and when i get to wingers i get out to examine my car there wasn't any damage. i was amazed it sure hadn't sounded good!

When i got home and asked my dad about josh's car he said that me and josh must be living right cause he had been able to fix it before josh even woke up. apparently (my dad said this in much more eloquent terms and i dont even know if i have the facts straight but to my best understanding..) the crash had been mostly tire to tire impact, and the only damage was alot of rubber on his rims from my tire, and the whole bumper had been peeled away breaking the points of attachment. miraculously according to my dad the bumper hadn't bent at all otherwise it would've cost alot to replace but since it hadn't been bent he was able to make new places of attachment and just basically pin it back down. how lucky!

Anyways that is the story of my pathetic first car accident that happened in my driveway. jeez. But both cars survived the ordeal and my ego is only slightly marred but i think i'll survive :D looks like me and suzy (my car) still have many fun filled adventures to live through together!

me and suzy! shes a cutie and very nice. (and yes cars can be cute, friendly or mean! haven't you seen the movie cars?)

on another note i have been a bookworm this week! So far this week i've read; hazardous duty by Betsy Brannon Green, Fablehaven by Brandon Mull (kellie you can finally have your favorite book back!!! yay! haha took me long enough) and now I am almost done with Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer the newest twilight book! i've loved them all haha i love reading. next on my list are The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and The Host by Stephanie Meyer. not exactly great timing since i should be studying for my A. Heritage final thats next week but meh, oh well i could be wasting my time doing worse things i suppose :D

come and gone

2008-08-06T13:09:00.000-06:00

well the family from out of town have come and gone now. well ok so they technically all left between saturday and monday, but i was waiting on posting to see if auntie jill would post before me, so i could link to her page, but alas she hasn't so im going to post anyways :D

I love when family comes into town! its the perfect excuse for everyone to get together :) we probably set a new family record for the amount of family gatherings/barbeques in one week. yum. To avoid boring my readers completely i wont go through the entire week's activities just mention a few.

on Thursday my parents, grandparents, Lyle and his wife to be Zaret and her family came and visited me at wingers. My dad had just barely gotten his new camera and was a little picture happy haha so he got me "in action" as well as one of everyone at the table :)

"in action" taking shay's order ha with the very bright new uniform.

everyone at the table (since they were my only table at the time i was eating too hehe)
left side: me, Zaret's mom Dina, Zaret, Lyle, Mom
right side: Grandpa, Grandma, Teancum, cousins you cant see that well

Then Friday was the wedding!!! Lets see... hi-lights of the day include wedding breakfast at magelby's! yum! it was delish. setting up the entire reception in my aunt's backyard. (seriously my aunt jennifer, and tamara are pro they should start a business) But the best part of the set up was watching my dad and uncles all work together to pick up the trampoline and put it on the other side of their fence in no man's land! haha it was hilarious i so wish i had a picture. they were all like school boys again jumping over the fence to grab it before it took down the fence. maybe you just had to be there. Of course the dessert at the reception made the list of hi-lights (you know me im never one to turn down dessert) The traditional mexican dollar dance that i might have to carry on at my wedding even though im not really of mexican descent... and of course the going crazy with the aunts and cousins (even though half the cousins didn't make it :( sad day. we missed you at the wedding kris, amy, and lisa!)

here is one of the many videos taken of us goin crazy ha ha we love this song and we love tim mcgraw! this brought back memories from the tim and faith concert we all went to last year!

all the cousins and aunts after the tim and faith concert last summer :)
left to right: aunt risa, aunt paige, lauren, me, amy, my mom, kristin, aunt tamra, lisa, and aunt pattie!
bottom row: aunt jill

anyways here are just a few of my favorite photos from the wedding.

me and lauren watching their video. i love it just because we're both holding probably about our 5th glass of rasberry yuminess :P

me and my mommy! :)

2 of the cutest little girls ever! Kelsie and Emma
Kelsie was my little pal after i had to babysit everyone while the parents were in the temple :) she would only put on her underwear under her dress cause my aunt told her i might be wearing princess underwear too! haha she is so cute

3 generations. my mom's mom, me, and my mom!
all the single available men waiting to catch the garter.
because my uncle Lyle is 30, the youngest of all his brothers and has no single friends the oldest one was 14 :D

my cousin Nelson age 11? or 12, wins the prize. haha kinda young to be getting married next :D

more of the craziness! haha i especially love my face and aunt jill's exuberant dance move :D

we're all slap happy at this point its been a long day

On Saturday, the whole fam met up at South Fork Park to relax, have a picnic, and finish off all the extra desserts from the wedding reception :) then the kids got to float the provo river! I went to be one of the "adult supervisors" in the girl group (we only had a certain # of tubes so there was the girl group and the boy group)

the "girl group" ready to brave the ice cold water

nothing can stop us we're crazy greenwoods!

the girls i was in charge of. hiedi, candace, erin, shaylyn, kimberly, and marta! We were fine up until the point where we were supposed to get out of the river :P I was the only one standing trying to move towards the side of the river and holding onto 5 other tubes wasn't making it easy! they were pulling me down river awfully quick! luckily there were big strong guys who had just gotten out before us and they jumped in to help me! phew!

Anyways that about covers all the hi-lights congratulations if you made it through the long post.

coming soon: Ashley's First Car accident, and boating with the scouts. stay tuned.

Boating

2008-07-30T22:09:00.000-06:00

So today my family woke up at 5:30 am to hit the lake for some early morning skiing and wakeboarding!!! We get up so early because thats the only time you can find good water now that so many people in the world have boats :D its actually kind of funny because we usually leave the lake around 8 (since my dad has work and he is the only one who can back the trailer) and that is when the rest of the boats usually GET there! they all look at us like we're crazy as if to say " you're getting off already?" we are early birds i guess.. although we do wish we could stay longer some days which brings me to the point of my blog post. my parents have just decided that they should teach me how to back the trailer into the water so we can go without my dad :P Wow. last week on the 24th of july was my first experience backing the trailer down and it was hilarious to say the least haha my whole family got a kick out of it. And the worse part was that it was the 24th so a lot of boats were trying to get on the lake so there was a huge line watching me struggle and waiting so THEY could get on the lake! my family laughed pretty hard, looking back it was kinda funny but i was just stressed! (wes and family remember when my parents tried to teach me to drive the boat on the trailer and i pushed the gas too much and lifted the prop to fast which then caused a huge fountain spray of water to get everyone on the deck soaking wet? :P haha yeah. it was ALMOST as funny as that time) so anyways we decided to get a video of me backing it in this week. its not nearly as bad as last week. nearly. but its still pretty bad and i got a kick out of my family and josh's commentary throughout the whole video so tuh duh! my first video blog post. we'll see how it turns out.

*disclaimer*
Kristin was being the videographer, and lets just say she has no future as a professional... its a wee bit shaky. hang in there, its gonna be a bumpy ride.

well that was about the hi light of my day. the rest of the day was spent reading and reading and reading more american heritage stuff. (why do i never learn my lesson about procrastination?!) anyways, congratulations to those of you who have made it through the whole movie clip! i hope it brought as much amusement into your lives as the lives of my fam :D

Family Day :)

2008-07-27T16:33:00.001-06:00

I love Sundays. There is nothing better then sunday naps and family time!!! Our newest sunday tradition is that after church the whole fam makes pancakes :D yum! my personal favorite is banana wheat pancakes (we have the best recipe so good! credit to aunt jennifer) we usually add blueberries/chocolate chips or put cut up strawberries and bananas on top its delish. Then everyone usually crashes into bed for an hour or two of nap time! then the rest of the day is spent playing games together or just whatever spontaneous thing we do :) last sunday shay nate and andrew built a fort. it was a pretty intense fort with cords and a balance beam holding it up and everything! wes would've been impressed haha i must admit it was probably better then any of the forts he built when i was around :D

me, kris, shay, andrew, and nate

Shay and Andrew even slept in the fort that night, pretty impressive! me and kristin tried to drop in on the party around 11 but we were much too late. Andrew and Shay were both sound asleep. Neither me nor Kristin dared to try and enter the fort in the dark to poke them awake. We figured it would be a security risk to the fort since my butt barely fit through the entrance under the yellow armchair foot stool :P haha

Then today my family went on a family bike ride :) in the rain! it was a blast. Andrew and Nate called it the tour de Lindon since the Tour de France is going on right now and we had a little family race at times. lol we're dorks but it was a lot of fun. Even shay is getting better at keeping up with us which is hard since her bike is smaller and doesn't have that great of gears. :) Then it was family home evening time (since our family is never home the same time on monday) and let me tell ya, our family home evening is probably different then most :D haha we start out singing songs which is normal enough... but ever since i was little and had lots of energy i made up moves to all the songs (being the dancer i am) such as Wise man built his house upon a rock, Im a VIP, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, and more so our songs get pretty wild... one of these days im going to have to video tape it or something :P haha im sure it'd be hilarious to watch in 20 yrs when im old and have wild kids and wish they'd sit still for 10 seconds then i'll remember what i put my parents through hehe.

the fam after the bike ride in the rain. you cant see very well but we were all pretty wet.

On another topic of interest, my grandparents arrive home from Thailand tomorrow (where they are on a mission) in order to be in attendance at my Uncle Lyle's wedding to Zaret this Friday :) They will be staying with us at my house for an entire week before they fly back to Thailand. My sister Shay is especially excited and since they will be staying in her room she has already put up this sign on her door:
My aunt and uncle, Roger and Marci, and their 4 kids will also be staying at my house this week but wont arrive until wednesday or thursday. Like usual, my mom had us frantically cleaning the house yesterday in preparation for all of our house guests. haha it should be an interesting and exciting week :P

4 wheelin baby!

2008-07-25T12:32:00.000-06:00

So this week I was lucky enough to get to go four wheelin with heather dear! it was such a blast! we went at night with her parents, and it was gorgeous to be up in the mountains while the sun set. We saw a ton of deer and a couple squirrels. She also re-taught me how to drive the manual 4 wheeler haha and after awhile i got the hang of it and am now fearless!! ;) well mostly :D i came home without a scratch in sight! which is a rare occasion for someone of my accident prone nature lol. I always love spending time with heather she is a friend any girl would be lucky to have! thanks again heather for the awesome night!

the before shot :D haha dirt free so far!
heather showin off her sexy dragon helmet!
me ready to rumble!
the sunset from the squaw peak mtn. im hot really sure where we were :D oh and this photo doesn't do it justice.
i love the mountains!
heather and our sweet ride.
after our adventure had ended and nightfall had come! we didn't get nearly as dirty as the time we went 3 yrs ago at fish lake.. and just to prove it..
here is us 3 yrs. ago after four wheeling in fish lake! woot woot! so fun :) good times haha

new loves of my life!

2008-07-25T12:08:00.000-06:00

While my mom and kristin were in Macey's looking for a tie for josh, i couldn't help but steal away to the shoe department where i found these beauties...

at 40% off they were irresistible! aren't they so cute! I wanted them in red, but they only had size 6 and 9 1/2 so i went with metallic gray! They are the first shopping purchase I have made since wes went on his mission. it is also the first time i've been shopping since wes left.. haha maybe thats a good thing. But of course when I got home I had to have a mini fashion show with my sis. she took pics of me in the last 2 outfits i tried on...

first, the shoes made me feel wild and mischievous! (skirt is an old dance costume.. not something i normally wear haha)
and sassy!
and very excited to go to church this week!

The Molly Experiment

2008-07-19T16:08:00.000-06:00

So my little gerbil molly that i got just before wes left on his mission is nuts!! seriously! I swear she is controlled by an evil spirit or something! she is the HARDEST thing to catch ever and once you do catch her she'll either pee on you or try to escape as fast as she can :P sheesh. and the pet store guy said that gerbils were friendlier then hamsters... well let me tell yall that it isn't true! so dont believe it! I mean all i wanted was a little mans best friend (well ok... so the parentals dont allow dogs or cats which pretty much left hamster or gerbil) and i have had 2 hamsters before that i loved, but he convinced me that i would like the gerbil alot more, so i trusted him. Well have any of you had gerbils? were they nuts like molly or is molly just insane? haha cause seriously she trys to eat through her metal bars and dig through the plastic bottom of her cage. Nate and I decided we had to take matters into our own hands. We are so desperate that we now have molly listening to classical and piano music to try and tame her wild spirit :D so far it seems to be working? only who really knows? maybe the noise just scares her which is why she quietly sits inside her little wood house instead of eating the metal bars :P aw well better then the awful sound of gerbil teeth scraping metal bar!

Secondly, I will post a few of the pics that my sister Kristin took of the family in lake powell last week so that you can all better understand my pain and agony of having to stay behind.

while at home i missed...

the beautiful sunsets of lake powell!!!
(josh and christie)

crazy tubing
(josh, shay, and andrew)

naps up in the front of the boat :)
(josh and kristin, aww..)

6 am ski runs on the glass water while the sun rises!
(mom skiing)

watching my brothers and josh attempt tricks on the wakeboard.
(josh back flipping)

being goofy with the fam!
(shay and nate the super heros!)

man sometimes growing up and having responsibilities is no fun at all :D haha have a great day everyone!!!

A Proud Moment

2008-07-16T14:22:00.000-06:00

I do not know what makes me prouder. the fact that my brother is growing up, or the fact that i get to inflict pain on him with his permission! (after all those scars he gave me when we were little i can say this without guilt ;) haha) Who did he turn to a few months ago when he found his uni-brow must go? none other then mewah! and now once a week, or every other week, he comes to me tweezers in hand ready for his next session with me as the pain inflicter :D all joking aside though its amazing to see him grow up :) I cant believe he is finally past the "cooties" phase. it seems like just yesterday that if we even brought up the subject of girls the discussion usually ended on his part in tears :P but none of that anymore! from what i can tell my brother is going to be even more popular then kris (which is saying something) and kris was already oodles more popular then me :D haha i was the nerd all growing up, kristin is the popular cheerleader with millions of friends, and according to a girl nate's age that i used to babysit, he is well liked by everyone, girls and boys alike... I am not sure how this trend happened (it must be the awkward first pancake in me haha for all those of you blogger friends who know what that is! go first pancake club!) and those of you who dont know i will post the definition right... about.. now...
*first pancake
[fûrst pān'kāk'] noun

The oldest child who usually lacks social skills that their younger siblings have. Taken from saying that the first pancake cooked generally doesn't turn out because the griddle is still heating up. A first pancake doesn't have an older sibling to watch go through the basic firsts of life and instead must figure them out for his or herself, leaving him or her in many awkward, scary situations.

props to katie for the definition of a first pancake, and now you have all been enlightened on its meaning :)

On another note, just a heads up to all of you single ladies out there that are still under the impression (like i was) that if you are sitting alone in the Cougareat, but are studying or reading out of a textbook, that you will be safe from being approached, it turns out we were wrong. Last week im eating before going to the library to study after class, reading and going over all my notes for my midterm when i hear, is it alright if i sit here? I look up with a VERY full mouth, at a guy, and cant help thinking to myself, are you serious? there are at least 40 empty tables and you have to sit here? when im studying? but what with the mouth full and all, i opted that it might probably just be easier to nod. So he sits down... way nice guy, down to earth, just got off his mission like 2 months ago, and as awkward as they come. ok maybe that isn't fair. I usually am not the easiest person to talk to when i dont know someone. so you can imagine my surprise when he asks me my last name as he is leaving and tells me he'll look me up... to which i was so shocked i dont think i even replied... i just watched as he walked away.... 5 hrs later when i get home and get on the computer, he has added me onto facebook. 4 days later i get on facebook to check the usual, when he messages me on facebook chat (don't even get me started on how much i HATE facebook chat) but for some reason still not known to me, i reply. he then asks me to lunch ON facebook chat! wow.. our stupid technical gadgetry world is ruining human communication skills. I mean what was i supposed to say? so today after class i went to lunch with a nearly complete stranger.. I recognized him when i saw him though, which was a WAY good thing since i wasn't quite sure whether or not i would. it actually went over pretty well, considering, he is way nice and all... it was still just a tad bit awkward. probably because im a first pancake. meh. long story short if you thought you were safe sitting alone in the cougareat as long as you were studying, think again.

:)

2008-07-10T14:51:00.000-06:00

forgive me my ultra lame post from yesterday.. sometimes you just have bad days :D haha I feel much more like myself today and am in a much better mood! Maybe its cause yesterday i skipped running? guess i need my happy endorphins from exercising :P but yesterday i was too sore!!! im still sore from going to a ballet class with heather on tuesday night! I mean hello! whoever thinks dance isn't hard/a workout/ hard hasn't ever taken a real dance class! I mean i am not by any means "out of shape" ya know! i go running almost every day and swimming and occasionally biking and i was SORE!!! like cant sit on the toilet, almost fall down the stairs sore :P its been way too long since i've taken a dance class obviously. haha but anyways I promise i am not on the brink of depression or anything so no worries!! have a great day everyone!

:(

2008-07-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

I have come to the conclusion that i am an extrovert! only I am not the most outgoing person so maybe I am not an extrovert, but im not an introvert either! because i HATE being all by myself and not having anyone to talk too!!! I miss my family like crazy. why oh why did they have to go to lake powell!?! and why oh why did i have a stupid American Heritage mid term this week so i couldn't go with? :( gr. I can hardly wait until saturday when they get home... dang that is still 3 days away :( lame. seriously I haven't had any human contact today.. well actually I went to school, but i didn't talk to anyone so that hardly counts. looking on the bright side i've gotten some quality study time in this week and I somehow pulled off a 79% on my midterm. shocked would not even begin to describe how i feel about my score.. i mean is this not the same class that everyone tells horror stories about? i remember all of my roommates and fellow DJ 3100 girls saying that they'd gotten in the 40's, 50's and 60's on those tests so im feelin pretty good about a 79 :) i guess thats an ok thing thats come out of this crappy week. But still I would rather have my noisy, loud, and rambunctious family back! I cant wait until tomorrow cause I atleast have work to look forward too. woot woot i get to see and talk to HUMAN BEINGS!! i cant wait. anyways sorry for the lame-o blog everyone... but its my journal too ya know and sheesh like i have anything better to do at the moment.

the 4th of July :)

2008-07-06T15:28:00.000-06:00

Well the day started early with the whole family rollin out of bed and heading down to provo for the hot air balloons at 6 :) this is my family's little 4th of july tradition that i haven't been able to do for many years because of dance nationals so it was fun to be able to go again! We go to the hot air balloons because well. the parade is hot, and crowded, and none of us like it haha guess we inherited that from our parents :P after the hot air balloons we went to breakfast at kneaders for all you can eat french toast!!! mmm! so good! here are a few pics of the fam at the hot air balloons be kind I meant what i said about rolling out of bed :P no make up for ashley! haha

this picture is a classic :P haha our family in action. im just in my own little world, kris ... well i dunno what she is doing. shay is hiding from the camera, nate and andrew are obviously in a little conflict and my mom is laughing while trying to play the mediator in their fight :D yup classic

after we pulled it together :)

hot air balloon in the background

The rest of the day was kind of a disappointment seeing how i had to work a double so i was at wingers all day, but we tried to have our own little fun since it was SO SLOW! seriously i probably ate like 17 times that day just because we were so bored we had nothing else to do but take pictures and eat. :P we all got to dress up in red white and blue though! i guess that is a plus here are a few of the billions we took that night out of boredom :)

me, makenzie, and mercedes

kenz and me! haha and mitch in the background looking extremely bored

mercedes bein cool, kenz lookin adorable and me laughing hysterically

our sad faces cause nobody is coming to wingers :P haha so ugly. holding back laughter and frowning is not a good combination for my face :D

what mitch dubs my "natural environment" whatever thats supposed to mean. and kenz trying to get now and laters out of her teeth :P

manager Luis. he looks thrilled to be stuck there with us

kenz and cedes had too much sugar!!!

our freakin sweet candy machine. as if we hadn't already had enough sugar

once the sugar high wore off..

what an exciting day at wingers

now even though my 4th of july wasn't the greatest I am very grateful for this country and for the freedoms that we have!!! The events leading to the founding of this country were amazing and undoubtedly helped along by God's plan so that we would be able to have the restored gospel on this earth again! I am definitely not the most knowledgeable when it comes to politics and things of that nature but i do love this country. I am not a lover of war or conflict, but I am so grateful for all those who fight and work to keep our country free and who fight for those who cant fight for themselves. Happy be-lated independance day everyone! :)

triathlon = run, bike, (SWIM :S)

2008-07-01T23:59:00.000-06:00

So today, me and kris went to the pool to swim laps.. yeah my favorite thing in the world, NOT! this has undoubtedly been the hardest part of trying to get ready to do a triathlon. I abhor swimming.. kinda sad since i was like a lifeguard for however many years and such but i really, really don't like swimming. I would so rather do a run bike run, then do a run bike swim :P haha even when me and kris were little though i didn't love swimming much. (i loved swimming at the pool tons! just not swim lessons) I remember we took swim lessons together ever since we were little and especially in our last year when we were in the top level we were the best in our class! the fastest and they told us we should do swim team the next year. well I will let you all in on a little secret. I wasn't the best because i was a good swimmer, i was one of the best because my sister was and since she was my "little" sister i was determined to not let her be better then me! :D haha. im serious! I worked so hard to try and keep up with her because I am competitive and was SO relieved when i couldn't do swim team the next summer with her because I had just moved onto Jr. Company at studio one which meant dance in the mornings during the summer! (not all the teams at the studio go during the summer only the jr. teen. and sr.) but now.. well let just say that i've given up on competing with her now. it is a known FACT that kris could out-swim me any day :P every time we go swim laps she totally kicks my butt haha although im getting better :) i just have like this underlying fear of drowning. I dont know why! i've been swimming like my whole life! swim lessons were a priority growing up so i shouldn't be afraid of drowning because i know how to swim but i still am. i think i overthink everything. meh oh well she'll just have to keep dragging me to the pool! maybe one day i'll be good at swimming again :D *for those of you who are now fearing for the lives of their children after reading this blog about how i hate swimming, know that they make sure lifeguards can swim well enough to save drowning children. but swimming well enough to do that and swimming well enough to continually swim lots and lots of laps consecutively is a lot different so fear not. the lives of your children are in good hands ;) *

i wish i had a picture of us swimming when we were little but all those pictures are on my dad's computer and im too lazy to try and locate them, so this is a pic of me and kris after swimming in cancun. basically the ocean destroyed our hair thats what MONSTER waves tend to do. but we love swimming and playing together! (as long as it doesn't involve laps)

Sunday

2008-06-29T23:39:00.000-06:00

I was really excited for today to come because one of my friends Chelsea from BYU was going to be here for her cousin's homecoming and so me and mandy would be able to see her! we decided to meet at 3:30 at the temple because it was close to where her grandparents lived so she would be able to walk over and meet us there if she wasn't able to get use of a car. The thing we stupidly failed to realize is that there would be MILLIONS, ok.. not millions.. but plenty of missionaries roaming the grounds to make us feel maybe a tiny bit out of place :P but we eventually got over it and found a tree far away from everyone to sit under and just talk for the few hours we could until she had to leave to go to her family barbeque and i had to go to my cousins baptism :) Well we are just chatting away like old times (seriously mandy, chels, i cant WAIT until we all are livin together!) when all of a sudden we see a group of probably 20 elders walking straight for us! haha we immediately start freaking out wondering if we aren't allowed to be here or something when they all come up to us and suddenly blurt out... "will you take a picture with elder evans? he is kinda a nerd and wants to take a picture with you beautiful girls before he leaves to San Juan on wednesday!" we were stunned... uh, sure... then one elder as if it'll help motivate us to take the photo says "I'll even bear (bare?) my testimony for you in spanish!" haha so we agreed and 20 or so (im not exaggerating) elders most with cameras start snapping away getting their photos and laughing UNCONTROLLABLY at elder evans who at this point im sure felt quite awkward :P and then as promised, the one bore his testimony to us in spanish :) i dont understand much spanish seeing as jose only taught me restaurant words the other day but it seemed like he knew what he was talking about :D anyways here are a few pics from the whole ordeal lol

mandy, me, and chels :)

our view of the provo temple from the comfort of our shady tree :)

wow. haha you can just tell how awkward this was by just looking at this picture! lol it looks like he has takin a liking to mandy though ;)

we finally recovered from our shyness in front of all those missionaries in order to take a decent picture.
chelsea, me, elder evans, and mandy :)

after we finally said goodbye i sped home (im in a bad habit of speeding as of late) in order to change into some church clothes to be able to make it to my cousin Cullan's baptism! it was good to see family as always!! and we of course had the most delicious desserts ever afterwards (what is a baptism without "light" refreshments?) all in all it was a great day despite the combined priesthood/relief society lesson on living within your means. not that it was a bad lesson its just a scary thought that someday i wont be able to rely on my parents for money, insurance, food, housing, etc. haha but im sure i will survive :) anyways here is a pic of me, my sister kris, and lauren (one of my fav cousins) at cullan's baptism

another crazy weekend :)

2008-06-28T23:17:00.000-06:00

two double shifts in the past 2 days. to say im tired puts it mildly lol. Im sure it only gets worse from here (at least that seems to be what people feel inclined to share with me. point and case my 19th birthday out with my friends at olive garden and waiter asks, "how old are you this year?" i say 19. and he says.. "it only gets harder, good luck") wow. I am not gonna lie to myself and say that he is wrong, but as it gets harder it gets more worth it right? growing up isn't easy but there are a lot of great things about going to school, getting married, having kids ya know? i dunno but it seems like the things you have to work the hardest at and for are the most worth it to me. but sheesh pessimism on my birthday was unacceptable!! ;) haha
anyways, so me and tava started out our weekend on friday by waking up at 5:30 and going to do baptisms which is quickly becoming the thing i look forward to every week! It is good to be able to do that with her and talk to someone about everything :) everyone is just so busy working (or getting married, cough.. ha jk i love you tiff, beth, kylee and marissa!) so when i do get to see my friends it is so much fun. then after i went running! also becoming one of my favorite things. haha you can run any emotions you have out of your system happy, mad, sad ya know? after running 5 miles i literally sprint to the shower and get to work in time to open all in like 40 minutes! i know. be shocked! this is me we're talking about, i am slow at everything! especially getting ready in the morning :P im at work and time goes on.. and on.. and on. and next thing you know im closing at wingers and get home at 12:15 am at which time i COLLAPSE into bed. I wish i could say that as a good girl trying to train for a triathlon i made it out for a run or to the pool, but alas i barely woke up in time to shower before making it back to wingers at 12:00 pm. sad i know! I tried to console myself by telling me that it was ok and that i could run after i got home from work but once again i end up getting home WAY later then expected and now what do ya know? I am not running but writing on my blog. meh oh well. It was so fun though!! today during the dead time between like 2:30 and 4:30 at wingers Jose and Nacho (two of the cooks) were teaching me and Aysia spanish!!! Pollo means chicken! my name is ashley is me llamo ashley! me encanta bailar means i love to dance or something like that, and Losiento? i dunno how to spell it means sorry and yeah..., i forgot most of what he taught us :P it was so funny we would be like Jose! como se dice... such and such and he would tell us real fast and we'd be like.. uh say it slower!!! man i wish i could speak another language so bad! I think it is so cool that people know more then one language! anyways me and Aysia have a long way to come before we can even say one sentence right in spanish! Jose was quizzing us on the restaurant terminology and we didn't know anything! :P I said Jose! I am a gringo (cause he was laughing cause i cant roll my R's) haha and he goes I not gringo im a browno! haha he was so funny today :) I think its amazing that missionaries can learn languages so fast!! definitely because its the Lords work i guess! anyways then it got super super super busy! so me and aysia were first and second off and i didn't get home until 10:00 pm! wow well what a day/ weekend! good thing i dont have a social life or i might feel like im missing out working the weekend away :D ah well i am happy and loving life for the most part!

so happy :)

2008-06-26T21:49:00.000-06:00

so, yesterday was a great day! :) A) wes called me from the airport and we got to talk for about 25 minutes!!!! it was seriously the best I cant even explain in words. haha i dunno it felt so good to talk to him again! i had told him about something i've really been struggling with in my life in the last letter i sent him and he like.. studied all about it and talked to one of his teachers about it and really gave me some amazing advice and yeah.. it was so so cool! I love missionaries :) its so neat to see how wes and danny and brandon and everyone on missions has already changed!! its so incredible really :P when he first called me though (it was 5 am) and i was so out of it that i hit the side button that turns off the sound and like threw it on the ground like i always do in the mornings and then.... it HIT ME! oh my heck!!! this is the day wes is leaving. maybe that was him calling from the airport, not my alarm! sure enough it had been a no number phone call and he left a message which totally made it sound like he wasn't going to call again and i was freaking out! oh my gosh this sounds so stupid but i seriously prayed so hard that he would try to call me one more time!!! it took 10 minutes(he had to buy a new phone card or something) but he called again and i was on cloud 9!! seriously it was the shortest 25 minutes of my life though :P haha im so glad i got to talk to him and im so glad he chose to go on a mission! i know he is going to be so awesome :) anyways... wow... sorry so long but this is my only form of journal so i want to be able to remember everything ya know? so keep that in mind as i ramble on like every post i ever write everybody haha :D from the lack of comments it would seem nobody reads it anyways which is fine and means i can ramble as much as my heart desires! :P anyways.. back on track... my day was so great B) because we got to watch my neighbors dog for a little while!!! anyone who knows me knows that i have desperately wanted a dog my whole life!! ah! but my mommy doesn't like them so i have to wait until im the mom lol. We even let him run and play with us in the house (since my mom is gone at girls camp and my dad was gone on business which left me in charge :D) mom if you read this sorry! i couldn't help it! you know me :P anyways here are some pics of me and the most cute adorable dog ever! i want to adopt him! oh and the funny thing on his collar is something that shocks him when he barks. they are trying to train him to bark less cause he is a loud little one :D

isn't he so cute!! ah! i want him.

me and little catcher :)

movies!!

2008-06-24T11:58:00.001-06:00

So on Saturday after my little brother Andrew got home from scout camp we decided that since neither of us were doing anything we were going to go to a movie!!! Actually, it was all his idea. I was shocked really that he would want to go to a movie with me instead of hangin with his friends or passing out on the couch after scout camp! But he asked if i wanted to go to Ironman so... we did! :) He was my first hot date since wes left and it was a blast :D lol oh wait. he told me i wasn't allowed to call it a date. well it was my first time out to the movies with a boy since wes left haha but still... not a date!! :D He also informed me ahead of time on the way out to the car that if I got scared and "jumped on him" like i did to wes that he would move 5 seats away from me! lol so I contained myself from jumping the whole movie like a good girl :P The sad thing is that for just the two of us we got the big tub of popcorn and yes... we ate the whole thing!!! well minus like an inch on the bottom but still.. it was extra buttery and everything! heart attack in a tub really :P why are all the things in life that are bad for you taste so darn good :P but thats why i go running.

there were only a few other people in the theater besides us :P and when we first got there as you can see we were the ONLY people in the theater!

Andrew and me waitin for the show to start!

Then last night an old friend Coulson Goodwin and I went to Get Smart. It was hilarious!! we thought at least :P ok maybe just I thought it was because I tend to be easily amused, but I love Steve Carell he is hilarious and I quite enjoyed this movie :) Me and Coulson go way back to the ALL program in elementary! yay for "all lindon losers" (that is what the rest of the school called us cause we were the nerds lol. it really stood for accelerated learning lab) haha I haven't seen him much though since we went to seperate high schools up until I started working at Wingers where he and his friend are regulars :) It was lots of fun to hang out with him again. and apparently he doesn't live very far away. He somehow still remembered where my house was and "claimed" we rode the same bus in the 6th grade... how the heck does somebody remember that? but it turns out he was right we did ride the same bus my little sister vouches for him. I must be gettin too old im having memory loss problems ;) haha jk have a great day everyone!

summer fun! :)

2008-06-21T10:40:00.000-06:00

this week i have been able to get out of the house and do some fun things! yay! I went to seven peaks with some of my family (those of us who were home this week) and it was lots of fun :) I haven't been getting out enough lately so it felt awesome to have stuff to do this week! The sad thing is the new ride at seven peaks that they got last year was closed... lame.. so i still haven't been on it, but my brother, Nate, said it isn't that fun anyways haha :P Also me and kristin swear that the waves in the wave pool are way wimpy compared to what they used to be like? anyone else notice that lately? maybe its just us :D haha they seemed way bigger and lots more fun when we were little.

Nate lounging in the sun :)

kristin, nate, mommy, and shay shay!

shaylyn in her tube lair.

I also got to go to the Rodeo with Heather!!! woot woot! it was so much fun :) and bein there with pleasant grove royalty has its perks ;) haha free food and more importantly... strawberries and cream! which is the best part about Strawberry Days :D We had so much fun watching the rodeo too although we didn't understand any of the scoring and technical things about it haha :P although i didnt like the calve roping it looked so cruel! their was also a moto cross show in between the wild cow milking and bull riding and it was... ridiculous! holy cow i was scared for their lives! my question is how they practice all those ridiculous tricks without killing themselves! i mean, they cant possibly do them all perfect the first time! they are ridiculous tricks! flips, handstands, no hands, swervy swerves ... haha ok i dont know the real names of the tricks but me and heather seriously screamed on the first trick lol scared for their lives for them i guess. after the Rodeo we went to her house and watched the results of SYTYCD and i am pleased with the 2 that got voted off. I didn't like Susie and Marquis was AMAZING technically so he should go dance on some professional company but i didn't really like his personality and agreed with the judges that his solo was all tricks. So far all 4 Utah dancers remain!

me and heather in the stands! its a small world! the girl behind me to the right, was in my ballet class at byu. apparently one of her roommates is from pleasant grove who i coincidentally used to lifeguard with at pg pool :D

me and heather in front of the arena! it was so cute all the little girls waved at heather and wanted to talk to heather haha she was like real royalty to them :) so cute!

Then Yesterday after all the rodeo excitement i got to go with another friend, Tava to do baptisms at the temple :) We have decided to go every friday and atleast try to keep up with all of our friends out on missions in the spiritual growth department :P I am so grateful that my friends are such a good example and positive influence on me! I love them dearly! Because we were the only two at the time doing confirmations, one of the cute little temple workers told us about the people that we were confirming. They were from Belgium, born in the 1750's, what was going on during their lifetime etc. I thought that was really cool nobody has every told either of us about the people we were doing work for before, and it was cool :) it made it more personal somehow haha.. i hope he is there every friday! he was so cute :) he also winked at us when he told us that in 110 yrs when we die we'll get to meet them in heaven :D haha i hope im not still alive in a hundred and ten yrs!!!

since i haven't introduced tava to the blog here are some pics
me, casey, caitlyn, starlee, kayla, and tava at the manti pageant last summer :)

me and tava showing off our colorful teeth after we ate Popsicles at the zoo last summer :D mine are red, hers are blue. haha i love this girl :D

Happy Fathers Day!!!

2008-06-15T23:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Fathers day Dad! and to all fathers and future fathers out there :D i hope you had a great day! Thanks dad for all your hard work!!! I love you so much and seriously think you are the best dad in the world... unrealistic i realize since everyone thinks that, but you really are!! You have been the best example to me and even though all my guy friends in highschool thought you were scary (ok not all) and all my girlfriends thought you were shy, oh boy do i know different!!!!! you are the funniest, nicest, wouldn't hurt a fly kinda dad in the whole world. I love it when you wear your "stylish racing stripes" sweats that we got you after we made you retire your 100 yr old sweats. and i love when you dance around the kitchen like me and shay. i love it when you wear your safari hat whenever you are out in the sun. I love when you wake me up in the mornings and you're the only one who successfully gets me up with out making me grouchy hehe. I love that you keep the family from killing each other haha the ultimate peace maker :P and thanks for paying for my schooling!! you dont know how relieving it is to not have to worry about if i can afford it or not. I still remember when i was little and i lost my friends giga pet and mom got super mad at me and i was really upset in my room you told me it would be ok but that i would have to help buy my friend a new one :) you have always been good at making me feel better after i've gotten down on myself. or the time i lost yet ANOTHER pair of earrings when i was 12 and you told me it was ok and that you lost a lot of things too that i just had to try harder to put them in the same place so i didn't lose them haha. not to mention you've been the perfect example of how to honor your priesthood to me and i hope someday i can marry someone as awesome as you! LONG STORY short, thanks for everything you do for me and our family we all LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

things i got from my dad:
*love for being active!
*my awful jump reflexes
*my habit of losing things
*i hate conflict and fighting
*try to be honest and nice to everyone
*his bushy eyebrows
*his big bubble bum haha (he says its good for biking :D)
*im better at sinking then swimming
*im stubborn and competitive

things i didn't get from my dad
*his HUGE brain
*probably alot of other things... i just didn't get his smarts... ok and he probably tried alot harder in school then me. im still working on fixing that one :P

pics of my daddy!

me and my amazing parents after graduation

dad bein goofy! this was right after i got my camera and he was testing the automatic picture taker setting. apparently it takes when the subject smiles so he put on his goofy grin :D

my mom and dad in front of the st. george temple :)

dad and all us kids on his birthday last year! haha im not sure what face nate is making in this picture lol.

Euphoria!

2008-06-13T15:07:00.000-06:00

4 words. I got a letter!!!! I cant even explain my excitement! It wasn't very long as he is busy. but he always knows how to cheer me up and make me smile! it was amazing. and i can already tell that he is lovin his mission. i dont care which rude people come into wingers tonight and treat me like crap i am in a permanently FABULOUS mood! :) for today atleast haha. hope all of you are doing well! have a great night!

love love LOVE this show!!!

2008-06-11T23:06:00.000-06:00

which show you're probably asking yourselves well none other then... SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!!!!!! I absolutely love this show i cant even say it enough :P and the fact that their are 4 dancers on the show from utah out of 200 that made it to vegas week proves that there is an amazing amount of talent for dance in utah!!! tonight after i got off work i sped home (the first time i've been this excited in awhile) cause my parents (whom i adore :D) taped the entire show for me since i had to work through the whole thing. thanks thanks thanks! anyways, it was amazing and it really does get better every year!! usually it takes a while to get to the point where every dance is really good but this year i honestly think they were all good! obviously some better then others but still! last year i had people that i REALLY didn't like and this year i dont know who i want kicked off yet!
my favorite dance tonight was definitely Katie and Joshua's hip hop to "no air" by jordin sparks and chris brown though... im embarrassed to admit that i cried but i did. haha not unheard i know, and some of you are thinking duh ash you always cry. and it is true i am often touched by dancing and have cried countless times at dance events, competitions, etc. but seriously!! i dont think i have EVER cried in a hip hop dance!!! but seriously it was amazing if ANYONE didn't see it you should seriously You Tube it or something... or borrow the tape from me :D (only if you give it back!) ah! it was amazing i cant explain it but the whole story line (he was going away to war) and idea behind it was amazing and definitely hit home to what i am kinda feeling right now and yeah... ok i'll stop blabbing on and on but seriously it was amazing!!! heather if you didn't see it you are borrowing the tape!!! (and i miss our SYTYCD sessions we used to have at your house. we should start those up again) seriously everyone look it up it was a great dance. ok fine i'll make it easy on you all go to this site http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Katie+and+Joshua+SYTYCD&search_type=&aq=f
nextly my new claim to fame is this... i danced for 2 years with contestant Chelsie Hightower from orem utah!!! woot woot! no im not claiming to be as good as her because im not :) she is freaking awesome and i hope she makes it far!! she actually quit at studio one when we were about 14 in order to keep on with ballroom. she was doing both at the time haha i seriously dont know how she did it but yeah she is gorgeous and amazing and everyone should vote for her!!