so...

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 :)

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....

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!

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..

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

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 :)

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?

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

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!)

1. I got to sleep in! even if it was accidental cause I slept through my alarm
2. I got to hold a brain today in my anatomy lab and it was... amazing :) brains are so cool.
3. 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

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.