The Goo Goo Dolls

After Grandma & Grandpa left our little New Years Eve shindiggy, I watched the last minute or so of the Chick-fil-a bowl with dad and then he left to go check up on other bowl games online. I flipped through the guide on tv and found a Goo Goo Dolls concert... and ya know what I learned? The Goo Goo Dolls, while they make some really pretty music, are really ugly people. I'm kind of sad that I watched this. They are not attractive like Chris Carraba of Dashboard Confessional. They are just unattractive men. Just thought I would share that insight with you all.

Because I was so excited about the concert (before I realized how ugly they were) I just opened my computer and played a couple games of solitaire and listened to the concert. Maybe it would've been easier to just open iTunes and play my favorite Goo Goo Dolls songs. Hmmm, there's a thought.

Happy New Years!

I like...

-sleeping in.
-taking naps.
-eating real food without having to cook it.
-playing "my" piano.
-playing hand and foot with the grandparents.
-playing webkinz, with mom sitting right next to me, smiling and laughing as I play games... I think she loves webkinz.
-Christmas singalongs.
-watching movies on the comfy couches.
-having lots of blankets to keep me warm.
-listening to The Rocket Summer as I play games on my computer.
-wireless internet.
-family scripture study.
-nobody coming to me crying with their problems.
-nobody coming to me in the middle of the night locked out of their apartment/bedroom.
-that every time I have put my iPod on shuffle it has played Dashboard Confessional... a lot.
-reading books that are not required for class.
-ham. au gratin potatoes. confetti jello. breakfast quiche. lasagna. garlic bread. honey nut scooters. v8 splash. martinellis.
-being woken up by mom instead of an annoying alarm clock.

This is why it has been a fabulous Christmas break... all of these things happened!

Missions

You'd think that since in the last 8 months most of my good friends have left on missions I would be fine saying goodbye to Joseph. After one of the funniest RA meetings of my life (it lasted an hour and a half, and it should've been about 20 minutes) Kourtney and I were off to our boys place to wish Jacob a Merry Christmas and to say goodbye to Joseph. Now. If you remember (or maybe I never put it on here) Joseph, Kourtney and I are each others favorites, so saying goodbye to him was like tearing out part of my soul. The three of us talk all the time and about everything. When something is bothering us, the others recognize it but they don't push for the info. We always know what is going on with each other. Kourt does haven't to say goodbye here, they live like 2 hours away from each other and they are getting together with Braedon over break, but tonight was my chance to say goodbye. We were in the kitchen, Kourt left, and Jacob was there, so Joseph and I started saying goodbye. It was pretty much the dumbest thing ever, and I hated it. The killer was that I've only known him for 3 1/2 months. What the crap?

I swore to myself before I moved into my building that I was not going to hang out with the freshman boys because of this very thing- I hate becoming really good friends with someone just to have him leave for two years. I love that my friends are serving missions, but now I've got to find someone else to talk to when things are going wrong. After we left, we texted each other and decided that we are going to talk tomorrow morning, so we can actually talk before he leaves. Neither of were ready to face the reality tonight that it could be the last time we see each other (he's probably not coming back to BYU after his mish, his program isn't the greatest here). I guess tomorrow we'll see if we can face it.

The good news... is that Kourt and I get to face it together, and without the rest of our roommates here. They all left today, and they have no clue how the two of us are going to feel when Joseph is gone.

More year in review...

I decided that the past year wouldn't have been what it was without a few other important things... music, movies, and friends. So... the list that follows are friends/music/movies that I was introduced to in the last year that have been a big part of my life.

Friends:
-Janelle (in my SFL 105 class, the reason I survived, and one of my favorite people in the world)
-Amy (in 105 with us)
-Kourt (roommate)
-Jacob, Joseph, Braedon (FHE boys)
-Evan (summer friend)
-Aaron, Allison, Dustin, Melanie, MICHAEL,Mindy, Rochelle (RAs)
-Megan (my Hall Advisor)I email her daily, talk to her on the phone nearly daily, and even talk to her on Facebook sometimes. Then you also add two days a week at RA class, our weekly one-on-one meeting, our weekly staff meeting... and other random times. If you looked through my email and my cell phone, you'd think she was my best friend, or mother, from the amount of time I spend talking with her.
-All of my summer Cultural Dinner girls: Molly, Carolyn, CHRISTI, Jenna, Cydney, Micah, Rachelle, Jessica (and I hope I didn't miss any)
-My residents from apartments 2,6,7,8,9 (they're my favorites, and they love me, so they count extra)
-VIC! (he's my boss... the manager of Heritage)

Music: (either introduced to, or stuff I fell in love with all over again)
-DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL
-Ben Folds
-Metro Station
-The Rocket Summer
-Secondhand Serenade
-Relient K
-Mae
-Sherwood
-Taylor Swift
-Rascal Flatts
-High School Musical soundtracks (especially 3)

Movies:
-Enchanted
-The Notebook
-Zoolander (cannot tell you how many times I have watched this since my bday)
-Dark Knight
-Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
-Win a Date with Tad Hamilton
-High School Musical 3

(Blogging has become a great form of procrastination for me. I have a final this afternoon, and instead of studying last night, I wrote my year in review, and today I have written this... Hopefully I know the material pretty well already)

Year in Review

Marci’s Highlights from 2008!

I decided that since I've been living on my own for the last... more than a year, it was time for me to write my own Christmas letter-ish thing. It turns out that I don't remember a lot that has happened in the last year, so I resorted to pulling favorite blog posts. For more details on any of these events (minus December, and a few other choice memories), see the posts from that month. This has been a pretty crazy year for me... I've lived in three different places, with different people, and have done a bunch of crazy things. I've realized that for me, life happens in 4 month chunks, winter semester, spring/summer, fall semester. These are three totally different times in my life, and it's been really intense. Here are the highlights from my months, although I'm pretty sure that January-April were a lot cooler than I blogged about... we always had crazy things going on in good 'ole 215. Also, my summer all kind of blended together, and for some reason I didn't blog much.

January: I was living the freshman dream at BYU, living in Heritage, apartment 215 with my 5 favorite people: Christie, Kelli, Sarah, Jenny, and Allison. I attempted to eat healthier than I had been the previous semester, and in my first attempt, I burned both of my thumbs in the oven. Thankfully it was snowing, so I just went and put my hands in the snow (following the advice of Brother Parent from my bishopric). I also interviewed in January for the position of Resident Assistant. Also. Troy and I broke up (not necessarily a highlight, but it happened).

February: Looking through my blog and pictures, I’m thinking that the exciting thing from February was… Aerobics Night. Kelli and I got all dressed up (I was in neons) and went to a crazy Aerobics night. Our apartment also attempted to make a human pyramid and take a picture of it. Our self-timer was great, but Jenny struggled getting her whole body in the picture (she was the top of our pyramid). It was a great struggle, and I believe it took about 35 pictures before we got one that we decided was good enough. At the end of the month I got my letter from Housing with a job offer! I was going to become an RA!

March: With the semester halfway over, my apartment started compiling lists of our favorite memories of the year. This was a sad thing to do. More exciting, Brendan and Nickolai from 204 got their mission calls! Nickolai was the first person I ever watched open their mission call, and Brendan was a close second, like an hour later. Christie, Kelli, Sarah and I trained for and ran in the Rex Lee Run, a 5K run to raise money for cancer research. I won the “60 and older” category, since they incorrectly entered my age as 99 years old, instead of 19. That was exciting!

April: The amazing DT prank happened… someone put flyers all over campus that DT was going to be imploded (they were tearing it down, so it could’ve been legit). Christie, Kelli and I went up to General Conference, on a bus. It was amazing, and we got to watch Sarah (our roommate) and Nickolai (basically our roommate) sing in the combined BYU choir. AMAZING! Tyler got his mission call—that was a crazy/emotional day. Finals happened, and so did saying goodbye to pretty much everyone. I helped mom move into her dorm for Spring Term, that was really funny, then I headed back up to Seattle to work at Napa Auto Parts

May: I was living in Seattle, working at Napa, and hanging out with Paul’s family all the time. I bought my favorite North Face jacket, The Denali. It’s proven to be one of the best purchase of my life… right up there with my North Face backpack, The Recon II, that I bought before my freshman year. Thank you The North Face! I met Evan in May, and hung out with him and Jenna all summer, that was crazy.

June: Paige and Katie had piano recitals, and I went to those. Ryan graduated from preschool (but maybe that was in May?) and I attended that as well. I continued hanging out with Evan and Jenna all throughout June. Tyler, Nickolai, and Brendan went into the MTC. Oh, that means that I had my last date with Tyler, which involved Dairy Queen, Teriyaki, Cribbage, MASH, Frog and Toad, and a lot of talking. It was ridiculously hard to say goodbye to him, but since we have been friends for oh… 15 years or so, it was slightly understandable.

July: I was told that I am “The Best Aunt in the Universe” by Ryan, only to have him take it back like two minutes later. For whatever reason (I think he had skinned his knee while riding his scooter at the park) I was helping him with something (I think I got him juice or something) and he told me that. He’s a funny kid. Maybe July was when I babysat the kids for a weekend (apparently that event didn’t make my blog, so I don’t know when it happened).

August: The OLYMPICS HAPPENED and I set my new goal: marrying Michael Phelps. That goal hasn’t been reached yet, but I’ve kind of given up on it. Also in August… I packed up my things and came back to school. I had two weeks of RA training, chilled with some of the other RAs, set up my apartment, and bought my textbooks. Residents started moving in at the end of August, and then the rest of my life began

September: Highlight of September was DEFINITELY flying home to Seattle for the BYU vs UW football game! Well, the flight wasn’t the highlight, although the cheerleaders were on my flight and did cool things in the airport. The highlight was being home and going to the game. I ate breakfast with Batman, and had an overall fabulous time being back with the people I love! School also started… we had our CRAZY ward prayer incident, with our cool dance and girls being mad at us.

October: Other BYU football games happened, and if they were at home, I was there. I saw High School Musical 3, definitely a highlight to the month of October. I enjoyed nightly Homework Parties with my roommates and our FHE brothers, and spending a bunch of time with those 7 other people in general.

November: I turned 20 and went on the one date I went on all semester (minus the one I went on with Bryan when we were home for Thanksgiving). I went out to eat meals at two different restaurants in Orem, Olive Garden with Aaron (my birthday date) and Zupas with Megan, my best friend. Jenna came up to Provo and cut my hair, and I still LOVE it! I went HOME for Thanksgiving and Katie's baptism. I got to sing with Paige, Katie and Aunt Rachel, which was awesome. We forgot to have a sing-along of Christmas songs/our songs... which was sad, but a lot was happening. I saw Quantum of Solace with Bryan at Lincoln Square and freak, that theatre is nice! My birthday as a whole was pretty good (you can just go back to my November posts to read about it if you don't remember).

December: I found out I am a useful engine, I went to Temple Square twice, and did a lot more. Cleaning checks were extra not fun this month, and some of my girls had attitudes. Finals happened again (and are still happening) and I got to do check outs for everyone before they could go home. We (my apartment) had Premie Paul’s apartment over for breakfast, and went to our boys place for Brick Oven for lunch one day. It started snowing, and I realized I was so sick of snow after day one. I started learning some good snow shoveling tricks, well… tricks for my front stairs at least. I got to say goodbye to Mike (one of the RAs I work with really closely) because he is leaving us to go serve his mission. After planning Back to School Week (a Heritage weeklong activity that will be in January) I talked with Dustin (another RA) for like an hour about all sorts of random things, found out he had a car, and we went to Wendy’s with Allison. Getting off-campus has never seemed so fun… being with three RAs who all just needed a break from constant check-out questions made the trip “off” campus so much better. Wendy’s is only across the street from campus, so it wasn’t too far… but it was far enough! OH! How could I forget… three apartments in my building let me know that they had mice in their kitchens, and all three are on my floor. That leaves my apartment as the one that doesn’t have mice. I spent about 3 hours cleaning our kitchen cupboards and vacuuming under the stove and fridge, trying to get rid of any crumbs that could attract animals. So far it has proven to be successful!

That was the highlights of 2008 in a nutshell. I’m sure I missed some things, my blogging hasn’t been very good throughout 2008. I have a ton of goals for 2009…

-Increased blogging (I want to really remember what happens)
-Hang out with more RAs
-Go on more dates than I went on this semester
-Do even better in school than I did this semester (even though I got 4 A’s and 2 grades I don’t know yet)
-Procrastinate less
-Open my building BY 8:00 each morning
-Shovel the snow in front of my building before someone else does…

Hopefully 2009 proves to be a slightly better year than 2008, although some pretty dang awesome stuff happened in 2008.

Much Love,
Marci

Snow.

I had forgotten that after I went and checked each apartment and did their first redo for cleaning checks, that the next step was to have the Hall Advisor go check it. So, I called her about something else and ended up not having to go do the rest of my redos! That was happy.

On another note. When I finally woke up today, it was to a phone call from another RA, asking if we were supposed to be doing something about the snow. After I jumped out of bed and looked out the window I wanted to cry.

GO AWAY SNOW!

Some of my roommates, and a lot of my residents, are so excited about the snow. I liked it. Before it started to stick. And before it was finals week. Walking to the testing center in the snow isn't going to be fun. It also won't be fun once you get to the testing center and take of your hat, gloves, scarf, coat, and you are still wet, and cold. Shoveling the snow infront of my building won't be fun either, and neither will going out at night and sprinkling ice melt on everything.

So snow, go away. I don't want you here right now. Go snow on someone else.

I was going to go study at the library today, but now I don't want to leave my apartment. Snow requires way more time getting ready to leave. UGH! PS. I need to buy boots. I just realized that.

Cleaning Checks...

What part of "You signed up for your cleaning check on the last spot of the last day. Because you are not giving yourselves the opportunity for redos, your cleaning needs to be perfect" do you not understand?

Or... what part of "scrub the splashboards, especially behind the stove and sink" do you not get?

My ultimate favorite this month... "make sure that you scrub the bottom of the soapdish (in the shower and bathtub) to remove the soap residue".

Fail. That describes 6/10 apartments. That explains why I am unhappy. Today is technically the last day I am supposed to work until checkouts start on Monday... but now I get to do redos in 6 apartments tomorrow morning by noon so I can still turn my cleaning check paperwork in on time.

Next month... there will be incentives for cleaning. Something really cool if everybody in your apartment passes cleaning checks. If the whole building passes on the first attempt maybe some great ice cream party or something.

More Pictures

Here are more of the pictures I like!
The first picture is me and Joseph. He's my brother that is leaving on a mission in January... headed up to Washington! To everyone up there still, watch out for him in about February!

A Great Weekend

This past weekend I went up to Temple Square twice. Saturday we went for a ward activity, and Sunday my apartment and 4 of our FHE brothers went up to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and to take pictures. Here are some of my favorite pictures from Sunday. Blogger is being dumb and I'm not sure how to make it work... so sorry, you don't get captions for each picture.

The first picture is me and my FHE dad. Our mom wasn't at this family activity (we didn't invite the other girls apartment) otherwise I would've had one with "mom" and "dad".

In the second picture we have:
Top row, from left to right: Joseph, Jacob, Braedon, Callin
Front row: Me, Kourtney, Kiley, Courtney, Kelly

We're pretty much awesome. Our other brother (Tim) was missing for this activity. He's the RA in the boys building and it was his night to work, otherwise all ten of us would've been there. Pretend like these pictures say "From Our Family to Yours" and that you are getting it in the mail. It's my Christmas Card!

According to Valerie...

I am a "very useful engine." So. I want everyone else to know... that I am a useful engine. :)

Thanksgiving!

I LOVE Thanksgiving in Redmond. Probably because every Thanksgiving I've ever had has been in Redmond. That's probably why I like it so much. Even though I've been away at school for a year and a half now, I've gotten to come home for Thanksgiving. I LOVE IT! I'm so grateful for a lot of things, but especially to be able to see so much of the family this week. 5/7 of the kids, 2 of the siblings-in-law, 6/16 nieces/nephews, and Mom and Dad. It's been really fun to be with everyone.

Thanksgiving dinner was amazing, like always. And like most of Jeanne's meals, I can't decide a favorite part. The potatoes? The gravy? The salad? The rolls? The turkey? The fruit salad? I just can't decide which of those. The rolls are always amazing. But same is the salad. And well, the potatoes and gravy are always good. Oh I love fod.

I slept at Paul's tonight so that he and Jeanne could go shopping in the morning. It was great. Ryan woke up first, so I got to go climb into his bed--I think that surprised everyone and made them laugh. Normally when I sleep here I go climb into Katie's room to finish sleeping. Ryan has the coolest Transformer sheets and such. They made me laugh.

Ummm. This has been a fabulous trip so far, and will continue to be great as today and Saturday happen. I feel like getting up and dancing now, so... so long!

Crying...

I think I am going to cry. I feel like a two word explanation will do it all: Max Hall.

To laugh... I will think about the play where a Ute lost his shoe and handed it to his coach to untie. Hahah. Ute can't even untie his own shoes. Hahahahahaha.

I found this on some random blog and wanted something to do.

4 Joys:
(I'm not going to list the obvious family, church, etc.)
1- BYU Football
2- When classes are cancelled
3- Toblerone bars
4- Sleeping in
5- Bubble baths
6- Pedicures
7- Eating good teryaki
8- Pay Day
9- Getting really good test scores
10- Listing more than 4 things that bring joy to my life!

4 Songs
1- Stolen- Dashboard Confessional
2- Tell Me What to Do - Metro Station
3- Fall For You - Secondhand Seranade
4- The Chanukah Song - Adam Sandler
5- LTFP - We Shot the Moon
6- The Luckiest - Ben Folds
7- Vindicated - Dashboard Confessional
8- High School Musical 3 soundtrack as a whole
9- Dark Blue - Jack's Mannequin
10- Foreign Language - Anberlin


4 Things I Did Yesterday

1- Slept in until 11:30 :)
2- Went to two classes
3- Went to Mr. BYU
4- Went to a surprise bday party for my FHE brother, then stayed and watched Zoolander with them

4 Fears

1- Water
2- Mice... I don't want my building to get infested with them.
3- Big emergencies (because of training we just got)
4- Running out of food.

4 Things on my wish list

1- my building to not have any problems
2- sleep
3- meals that I don't have to prepare for myself
4- next semester to come already... lets skip December cleaning checks, check outs and finals, k?
5- New music

4 Things I look forward to

1- GOING HOME FOR THANKSGIVING!
2- GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!
3- Going to Allison's in 2 hours for the BYU Utah game
4- Sleeping in... when, I don't know.

4 Surprising Facts

1- My room is basically spotless
2- I've done dishes pretty much everyday since I got back to school
3- I'm ahead in all of my classes
4- I have no real homework to do over Thanksgiving! Just some extra credit reading!

4 Restauarants

1- Zupas
2- The Olive Garden
3- Red Robin
4- PF Changs

4 TV shows

1- The Office: season 5 (the current season)
2- The Office: season 4
3- The Office: season 3
4- The Office: season 2
5- The Office: season 1

A note to my roommates, who will never read this....

Dear Roommates:

You're sitting in the kitchen right now complaining about how you don't know anyone except for "our boys". Well. Get off your butts and go meet people. There is no rule that you can only talk to them. Be brave, make cookies or something, and go find boys that you want to be friends with. Be bold, and go hang out in some random guys building (not the one in our ward). There are at least 10 boys buildings in Heritage. Pick one. Maesar. Shipp. Smith. Snow. Broadbent. Kimball. and a few others that I don't remember. There are a few more buildings in Helaman, boys in Wyview... and have you ever heard of off-campus housing? Meet people. Don't just sit in our kitchen complaining. Do something about it. To quote something you just said... "if it's a big enough deal to complain about it, do something about it"

There are 54 other girls in this building. Do you know them? No. Do you know our next door neighbors? Only the two that visit teach you. Maybe start there. The guys in our ward will pretty much all (minus Tim and Cory) be on missions by the end of next semester. Meet the girls. Be friends with them. You could have so much fun with them, our building is AMAZING. When I see the girls from my building last year I am embarrassed that I recognize their faces but have no clue what some of their names are. You will see them again, whether you want to believe it or not.

You're complaining that "our boys" don't give their #4 roommate a chance. You have no clue what they are going through with him. You only hear part of the story, you only see some of it. Give them a little credit. Also, what about one of our roommates. Do you give her a chance? Have you written her off?

Put aside your thoughts of what BYU would be like. Everybody doesn't know everybody. Not everyone is best friends. Not everyone is perfect. Some people are unhappy. Some are depressed. Some aren't the "good mormons" you were expecting. Move on! Accept that we're all different and that there will be people you don't agree with and like.

You complain about getting sick, and not getting good grades. Try going to sleep before 3am. I promise it works wonders when you get sleep. Don't sleep too much, but get more sleep than you have been. Staying up til 4 doing homework really doesn't help you. I've done it before, it doesn't work. Eat real food. Remember that plan to work out? Why not actually try it? It may help you too. You might just feel a little better if you're not just sitting around all day. I know it's helping me.

Don't waste time being lame. The semester is almost over. Our time here is just about halfway done. Before you know it, we'll all be going home. Make the most of our time. We say goodbye to one of "our boys" in a month. Are you ready for that? It's hard, I'll warn you. I've been through it. You won't realize until he's gone just how much you enjoyed being with him. Make the most of your freshman year here. You only get one shot at it. You don't have to be best friends with each other, don't try to be. Be friends though. Please.

Most importantly. Be yourself. You are talking about how you haven't felt like yourself here. Maybe you should start with that. Be yourself and you'll probably have an easier time making friends. People can and do see through you and know you're not being you.

Love, your roommate.

My birthday... really late

I realized I never blogged about my birthday, and since I use my blog as a journal I need to write some of the details from my birthday. Also, I need to remember that I really do love my roommates and this is a good reminder.

The night before my birthday I went home with Allison, my roommate from last year. She lives with Jenny and Sarah, also roommates from last year, so their apartment was deemed our party apartment. I have my last class on Monday's with Allison, so I went over at 4. We fingerpainted, ate dinner, did homework, and I took a nap on their couch until it was time to go to their FHE. After FHE our other roommates came over and we had cake, a dance party, and watched some really funny videos online. We did other random 215 things which was pretty much just hilarious.

I came home from that at like 10:30 and I think I watched a movie until midnight. At midnight I called Stephanie because she had sent me a package and told me I couldn't open it til my birthday. She and I talked for a while as I opened everything in the package. I was so excited for all of the makings of a typical "Marce & Steph girls night", minus the Steph part, since she's back in WA.

I got a couple texts, emails, and facebook messages around midnight. Including a movie of the Livelys and our FHE girls singing Happy Birthday to me! I was so excited to see them all! I love my friends back home!!!

Then I went to bed. That was good.

I woke up on my birthday to find streamers all over our hallway! It was fabulous. They were pink and lime green and they were amazing. I went through my morning class having a great time. My old roommate, Christie, and I met up for devotional, then she took me out to lunch at the Pendulum Court in the Science Building. It was quite tasty!!!

I went to the rest of my classes, and in my 2nd class they sang happy birthday to me. The guy I always sit by asked why I was all dressed up and I told him it was my birthday. I had signed up to pray that day (as I had done in each of my T/Th classes) so when I stood up to introduce myself he added to my intro that it was my birthday and the whole class broke into song. It was kind of awkward, but also mostly hilarious.

Soon after classes were done, I had to go to the creamery to look for moleskin because I had blisters on my feet. While I was at the creamery I missed the delivery of my cookie bouquet from Paul, Jeanne and the kids. I guess it was quite the task to figure out how to get it delivered to me because the store said it was impossible. With the assitance of Marie, I got my cookie bouquet, and man was it tasty! Then I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Jeanne until I had to go to RA class and she had to run.

RA class was the best ever... Relaxation & Stress Reduction. It was fabulous. We took pillows to class and we all got on the floor and our teacher walked us through a relaxation exercise. It was so amazing!

Then I went home where my roommates told me that we were all going out to dinner and that we needed to get ready because we were leaving like 15 minutes later. Well, this was a lie. We weren't going out as an apartment at all... They had talked to my friend Aaron who is also an RA in Heritage, and he and I were going out to dinner together. Apartment dinner my butt. I was so confused when they told me it was time to go, shoved me out the door and said "have fun" and then I saw Aaron. We laughed about it and had a great time. We went to the Olive Garden and it was quite tasty!

We had to hurry back to the dorms though because it was the kick-off fireside for Missionary Week and we had to go lead our zone conferences. My zone was amazing and we had a great time.

After zone meeting I got to talk to Paul and the girls which was way exciting, their singing over the phone just isn't quite like their singing in person... it made me kind of sad.

After that, Aaron and my FHE bros came over for dessert (Lemon bars, because they are one of my favorites) and we watched the news about the election. It was pretty fabulous. We also had a ton of helium balloons so we had a ton of fun with the helium. :)

Around 10 the boys all left and I went in my room and watched Zoolander, which was one of the things in my package from Steph.

Pretty much... one of the greatest birthdays ever!

The next day Kelli (old roommate) brought me jello-jigglers (very much a 215 thing) that spelled out "Happy Bday Marci!" They were the perfect proportion of raspberry, strawberry and lime jello packets. :)

Oh, and this week Megan took me out to dinner for my birthday-- we went to Zupas which is quite possibly one of my new favorites! YAY for Megan!

Cleaning Checks, Mission Calls, and other RAish things

This week we had cleaning checks. Not your normal cleaning checks though, deep cleaning cleaning checks. The cleaning checks where you get to take everything out of the fridge, freezer, cabinets, etc to wipe down every surface of your apartment. You get to do things like... dust the chairs in your bedroom, wipe down the shower curtain rod, and the metal supports of the shelves on the wall. Doing the cleaning isn't toooo bad, but checking the cleaning in 7 apartments and watching your supervisor check them in the 3 remaining apartment gets really old. Basically... I spent 5 hours doing cleaning checks and probably 2 hours doing my own cleaning for my cleaning check. Oh, and then probably 2 hours of redos. I really like cleaning check week ;) Or I'm really glad for it to be over.

Mission calls... the one boy RA in my associate tri-hall is going on a mission after this semester. He's been waiting for a few days for his call to get here (he figures it should've come last Wednesday, but it took a little extra time). On Friday I was sitting in biology when my associate hall advisor called. I was kind of nervous, I had worked the night before and was afraid that maybe I had done something wrong, or completely forgotten to do something. After class I checked my voicemail. I wasn't in trouble at all, Mike's mission call had come and she was inviting all of our team to come over at 4:30 when he would be opening it. The four girls that were in town (everyone but Mindy) were there, along with half of his ward basically. Melanie (an RA) totally called where he was going... Spain Madrid. We're so excited for Mike to be going on his mission. But. We're also not happy about it. He goes into the MTC on April 1st. So he'll be leaving us after Christmas, but not going into the MTC til 3 weeks before our job ends. We're kind of really really sad that he has to leave us and that we have to train a new RA and get used to a new RA. For some reason we're afraid that his replacement won't be as cool as he is, and that the new guy won't be as willing to help us with everything like Mike is. Basically: we love Mike and want him to stay with us forever.

This week in RA class we learned a little bit about Emergency Prepardness and what our roles would be as RAs if there were to be an emergency. It was probably the most depressing lesson we've ever had in class. I just hope there is no natural disaster or other emergency that makes it so I have to go through my building and find my girls injured. We talked about how our goal then is to find help as many people as we can so we can't spend much time helping each person we find, so if we come across some requiring a lot of attention (not breathing, etc) we have to write 'dead' on their forehead. Ya. The room got really sad when our teacher was teaching us how to mark different types of injuries. Next week in class we continue our lesson on Emergencies.

Going Home Soon!

HOORAY! It is almost Thanksgiving, which means it is almost time to hop on a plane and fly home for 5 days! Unfortunately, there is a lot to be done between now and the time I jump on my plane and fly away from Provo.

-A learning activity for my home & family living intro class... probably about 3-4 pages. about my experience increasing my daily worship habits.
-A topic paper essay for Teachings of the Living prophets... 8-10 pages about the church's position on mothers working outside of the home
-An activity paper for strengthening marriages and families... 6-7 pages about mom's parenting style and other stuff about parenting
-A research project for lds marriage and family... no page limit/requirement, I just have to find atleast 15 quotes about a certain topic and create this document with all of them and justify each quote
-A paper for biology about human poverty, ecological considerations and consequences... 3 pages
-A quiz for home and family living
-Two quizzes for lds marriage and family... one on temporal preparation and management, the other on the uniqueness of men and women
-A midterm for Biology

Then I've got my three assignments due the first day back after Thanksgiving break.
-A quiz for LDS marriage and family about adjusting and building love
-Some paper about the book Al Capone Does My Shirts and different elements we have studied in class found in the novel
-My big project for bio that is related to my major. I think I'm going to make a lesson plan on how to teach photosynthesis to children and include the lyrics to the Photosynthesis song we taught at the preschool, a page to color, and how to explain the process of photosynthesis in a way that children could understand some of it.

But... I get to go home in almost a week and it will be fabulous to get away for a few days. I'm really excited to see family again and to leave behind the wonderful world of the dorms for almost a whole week! YAY!!!!

Why I am Sad

Today was BYU's last home football game of the season. While the season isn't completely done now, I won't be there to watch the rest of the games, so I'm in mourning now. Now I have to wait many months to watch my favorite players continue in their quest for perfection. Max Hall. Harvey Unga. Austin Collie. Dennis Pitta. I'm sad to see one of my favorite players, Fui Vakapuna, graduating. It'll never quite be the same without him... chanting FUUUUUUIII whenever he gets the ball.

On a sidenote... Harvey Unga's fiance is in my Biology class. That's kind of cool. She's on the women's basketball team. Go figure.

And this is me, being sad, and avoiding my homework. I love BYU football. A lot.

Why technology is dumb

My printer doesn't work right now. Not only is it out of black ink (easy enough to fix) but it won't scan. I'm kind of angry about that.

Today I turned my computer on and it told me that my battery was dying and that I need to buy a replacement battery or leave it plugged in forever. I've had this computer for almost exactly 18 months and now it's crapping out on me. Replacement batteries aren't cheap, and apparently they don't work so well either, atleast according to every review I found at dell.com. Dad, if you are reading this I want to talk to you about it. Or Mom, if you are reading this, tell Dad that I need to talk to him about this. I want to talk things through with him first and make sure I get the right replacement, because that would make me more mad if I bought the wrong replacement. Dell's customer support wasn't working either so I couldn't talk to someone on there and tell them all the woes of my life.

Someone dropped my cell phone when they were trying to help me carry a bunch of things in from a hall activity so now it has a scratch on it which makes me really sad, this phone was looking really good still.

My iPod doesn't hold its charge for long, so I pretty much don't use it anymore unless it is in its docking station. I should give it some credit though, I got it in 10th grade, so it's been through a lot.

Wow. I love technology. Thank you world for fabulous creations that don't work long.

Maybe you'll get a happier post from me soon.

Oh. I got a haircut. And I love it. Pictures to come (once I have money on my meal plan again and can buy batteries so I can put batteries back in my camera and take pictures)

My last week...

Next Tuesday is my birthday. This means..... that today is the beginning of my last week as a teenager. Just a weird and random thought.

On other news...

Ya, I don't really have any. I'm dominating school and rocking my job. I don't get off campus much, which kind of bites.

I've been kind of sick since Friday, I guess that's exciting.

BYU won the football game on Saturday against UNLV. That was good.

I saw High School Musical 3 on Friday night and then Saturday night when I wasn't feeling well I watched HSM 1 and HSM2. It was a very HSM weekend. I should've watched Hairspray also, just to keep it a Zac Efron weekend. I felt a bit ridiculous with all of this HSM time in one weekend.

And... now I need to get ready for my weekly meeting with my Hall Advisor. :)

How Random...

This is a short post that I'm writing from a computer lab between classes. I just ran into John Hilton on campus, super random, right? I saw him walking and said "Hey John Hilton" and he shook my hand and asked my name... That's pretty much how it went down, but I figured that since the majority of you all know him, I thought I'd include it.

Classes are going crazy right now. I'm totally dominating like 3 of my classes. I'm super ahead in two of my classes which is amazingly nice. I'm a little behind in one class, it's ridiculous. I didn't picture being Home and Family Living 105 being as difficult as it is. It's mostly just hard to pay attention because my teacher is less than amazing.

I'm starting to look into classes for next semester. I want to take D&C. Did any of you have a fabulous D&C teacher here that I should want to have, if they're still here? I'm not sure who to take it from!

Why Ward Prayer ROCKED, then the night turned downhill, and then got really good again!

If you read my last post, you know all about our choreographed dance. Yes, it ROCKED. The ward LOVED it, Bishop loved it, and we have no clue how the next FHE group will come up with anything as creative. Most importantly, we had a bunch of fun working on it, and we got really close to our brothers. When I say we, I mean me and my roommates, which is why the night turned downhill.

The other girls apartment could sense that we had bonded and they hadn't, so they got kinda mad at us and ended up ticking a BUNCH of us all off. I was mostly mad because they made one of my roommates cry, and because while they may have had valid points, they were so tactless when they brought them up.

But then, I talked to some of my FHE brothers (Callin and Joseph) and we ended up having really good conversations, and our two apartments are so much tighter now than we were before. Even after we spent 2 1/2 hours Saturday night just our two apartments, we had so much room to get tighter, and the other apartment's attempt at unifying us blew up in their face and just brought us and the boys closer, and alienated themselves.

Sorry my puncuation is so off in this post, I'm writing just like I'm talking, and I'm not going to reread this to make sure it makes sense.

I know I left out a ton of details (what the other girls said, how they tried unifying us and such) but I can't rant too much at this point. Joseph and I let it all out in our lovely conversation, and the other girls have cooled down too.

I'm not too stoked for FHE tomorrow night, except that my apartment and the boys will all be there, so it should be somewhat of a decent night, even if the other girls are still bitter towards us and we're all hostile towards them. These boys are super cool, and I'm glad my roommates took time to get to know them and have them over so I got to know them too.

I love my FHE brothers! Yay for Braedon, Callin, Jacob, Joseph, and even Tim!

Why ward prayer will be amazing tomorrow

I've noticed a new trend... if I think of why something is a certain way, it gets me to blog, and normally I'm really passionate about things once I think about them for a while. So.. this post is about why ward prayer is going to be the best ever tomorrow.

I've already explained in a previous post that for ward prayer we rotate through which FHE group is in charge, and their first time in charge they have to do a skit to introduce themselves. Our skit, a choreographed dance from a compilation of Hairspray songs, is going to be the best ever.

As of tonight, the entire thing is choreographed, and taught to 2/3 of the group. The other girls didn't really want to do the whole thing anyway, so they didn't come to dance practice tonight. Because there were only 6 of us there tonight (others already knew it), the 6 of us get to have a bigger part. Luckily, it was 3 boys and 3girls. Four of us (Braedon, Kelly, Callin & I) get to do some cool swing move (called the octopus?) and then a cool dip while Joesph and Kourtney do some other really cool flips and then they join us in the dip. It's so freaking sweet. Neither Callin or I are really dances though, so it took us a few extra run throughs, but now we've not only got it down, but we've got it in sync (not like nsync... but in sync, hahah) with Braedon & Kelly, both of which already knew how to dance.

I am SO excited for ward prayer. It will be oh, the best ever. I can't even imagine what the group after us will do. I'm pretty sure they won't be able to top our choreographed dance and amazing live production. So much better than the recorded music video last week (although it was really cool). Basically, this is why ward prayer will be amazing tomorrow.

I'm not sure that I'll be able to get it up on blogger (I'm not sure how) but the guys are going to get it on youtube and then I'll email the link if anybody wants to see our dance :)

Why working Friday's is not cool....

You've got to be joking me. I just wrote this huge long post all about my night working, and when I posted it, I was given an error message.

Lets just say... work was dumb tonight. People do really ridiculous things (like throwing balls at windows from the ground to the 3rd floor) or argue when they're so wrong (you can NOT watch movies in the lobbies of the halls,I don't care what they think). It was really long.

I'm missing a textbook, and it's driving me nuts. I have a test next week and I went to start studying for it today and I can't find one of my 3 books for this one class. I know I had it last Friday when I went to the library to study, and I'm afraid I might have left it there. I guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning... yay for the HBLL!

Why I Hate Group Projects....

This week we found out groups for a group project in my LDS Marriage and Family class. There are 7 kids in my group, and in the next two weeks we have to meet on at least two separate occasions. All 7 of us have jobs, are full time students, and have other obligations already. When I went to sleep last night, my inbox on my email was empty. This morning when I woke up, like 7 hours later, I had 14 emails just from my group members, trying to figure out when this week we can get together.

I feel kind of bad about all the trouble in coordinating schedules for a meeting this week. This week in on-campus housing is Safety Week. This means I have extra things Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday night. Tuesday night it's a Fire Drill, then my normal Staff Meeting, followed by a Hall Council Training Meeting. Wednesday night it's a Safety Seminar. Friday it's working at the Safety Store where residents will come in and redeem the points they earn throughout the week by practicing safe behaviors (we check the blinds at night to see if they're closed, I do random door checks 3 times a day to see who is locking their door.. stuff like that). Thursday night is my hall activity, followed by the season premiere of The Office, which is kind of like our hall activity part two.

We've basically resorted to meeting after 9pm on Wednesday because between now and Saturday that was the only time we could all meet. Go figure.

Luckily, next week I only have stuff Tuesday night (staff meeting) and then working one other day. My schedule will be much nicer to share with them.

I don't know if this post should be more why I hate group projects, or why I hate safety week... but neither are very fun, and if I had my way, I would get rid of both.

On a different note. My apartment had a fiesta on Sunday to celebrate Kourtney's birthday. We had a pinata (a donkey named Paco), tacos, and some funny gifts for her. Our FHE group came over which was crazy, 15 people in our kitchen was a little much. It was a great fiesta though.

We also had a stake fireside where President Wilcox (as in Brad Wilcox, the EFY speaker and such) who is in the stake presidency spoke. It was fabulous. Our Stake President, President Ward challenged everyone to read The Book of Mormon by March 1st (or was it March 31st?) and to participate in Indexing. Then he said that when we finish The Book of Mormon we'll have another fireside, in which our stake will also perform From Cumorah's Hill (which everyone I know of who reads this blog should know about). I'm excited at the thought of Cumorah's Hill for a 3rd time. While I'm not sure if I'm going to participate, or let all the freshman do it and just sit in the audience, I'm super excited to be able to atleast see it and hear the music again!

ALSO... in our ward for ward prayer, we rotate which FHE group is in charge. The first time your group is in charge you have to do a skit or something to introduce everyone. We've seen groups that have made family slideshows, a group that made a music video, and a group that just kind of showed up and said their names. Our group is in charge next week, and we decided we had to do something really cool. We had already wanted to choreograph a dance to a medley of songs from Hairspray (my roommate used Garage Band-possibly the coolest program I've ever seen- to get the parts from each of the songs we used). We decided that rather than make a movie and have the ward watch the movie of us dancing... we're going to perform the dance live. Last night we started working on it, and I am SOOOO excited! It's pretty intense.

I'll post a picture of my roommates once I can steal the picture we took together at our Fiesta. Hopefully I can get that soon. Also, I'll see if I can get someone to record our dance and I'll post that on here too if I get the chance.

Breakfast with Batman

While I was at Paul's house for the weekend, Tyler was sporting his new (I think) Batman pajamas... I got to eat breakfast with BATMAN! Also funny from his mouth on this trip, was him arguing that HE is the baby. I guess Jeanne was telling Paige a story about when Ryan was a baby, and Tyler got all upset and said "no I (or was it me?) the baby". Funny, funny boy! I want to remember this one when he's older :)

Biology

Extra Credit is worth 50 points. Ideas for extra credit include:
A picture, if you are an art major;
A song, if you are a music major;
A short film, if you are a film major;
or something like this...use your imagination. The sky is the limit. If you are worried it won't warrent 50 points talk to Dr. Robinson.

These are the directions for my extra credit project for biology. So... it has to be based on biology, but we can do anything relating biology to our major. My major is home and family living... any suggestions on what I should do for my extra credit project?

Pictures!

I promised pictures would come as soon as one of my co-RAs passed them on to us. So these pictures are of me and the 5 other RAs I work with the most.
Above: Mike, Mindy, Allison, Kristina, Me, Melanie. This is at Spring Haven where we received our first day of training. I'm sitting between the the girls that are in my tri-hall. So... pretty much I work with them the most.

Here we all are (Melanie, Mindy, Me, Allison, Mike, Kristina) at Camp Williams. It's some Army training camp, or boot camp or something like that. We went through some team-building experiences at Camp Williams. The first step though was working together the night before to make our group shirts. They say DANGER: Extreme Chaos. It's in reference to part of the Community-Progression Model which is something that we learn about to teach our residents. Our associate group is constantly in chaos, hence the warning. It's actually funny if you know about the model, which at this point, everyone else at Camp Williams knew exactly what it meant.

The past few days have been incredibly hectic. Almost all of the residents (in my tri-hall atleast) are checked in. Last time I was on duty (almost 4 hours ago) I was only missing 7 from my building, so that wasn't too bad at all. Hopefully when I go on duty again (in 1 hour) I won't have too many people to check in. Between these two shifts I've spent 3 1/2 hours working on publicity for the opening social for all of Heritage. It's been a very full day. I cut out 300 "Y"s with a diecut machine. It was pretty intense. All I've got left to do now for publicity is put things on the doors (they're already made though, so this shouldn't take too long), and make a poster for my hall. Holler!

Meeting Residents...

Some of my residents checked in today. Today is early early check-in day. Check-ins start Wednesday. Early check-ins start Monday, and early early check-ins were 2 hours ago. I've met 4 of my residents now. I knew all along that they would be close in age to me, but it's funny to watch/help them move in and have it really hit me that we are pretty much the same age. We're just peers. One of my residents that has moved in already is one of my roommates. She told me that she liked me and that she could tell we would get along and be friends. Hopefully this is a consistant comment from my residents.

On another note. I'm about to fall over and fall asleep. The bad thing, it's only 7:00pm. Conference guests FINALLY moved out today. I got my building to myself for a whole like 5 hours. In that time I ran around frantically making sure everything was clean, I left things in the apartments, and I made sure they were all locked and had the blinds closed. I was supposed to be done at 5 because that was when early early check-ins started. I finished at 4:59. Ya. My lobby is bare, and my window is not painted, but I have until Tuesday night to do that. I can only imagine what my Monday will look like... after I have 2 4 hour shifts checking early check-ins in.

CRAZY! My residents are coming in the next week, and classes start soon. Who would've thought this day would come?!?!?!?!

Training: Day 1

Saturday I loaded all my stuff into my suitcases and flew back to school. I spent a day and a half running around with Stephanie & her family, since they are here for education week. We went to walmart and costco, and I had many meals with her family. Steph & Alexa even helped me move everything into my dorm, and then helped me unpack (thanks, Steph). I'm mostly unpacked now, but I still have 1 box that is only halfway unpacked. I also haven't put any of my kitchen stuff into the kitchen. I want to wait til the roommates get here so we can decide what to do about kitchen cupboards and such.

Today was the first day of RA Training. We went down to the new Cannon Center for breakfast and an intro meeting, then headed to the employment office to get officially hired by the school. Then we got into vans and headed to this HUGE house. This was where we had our super cool 1st day of RA training. I already LOVE my hall advisor, the other RAs in my tri-hall, as well as the hall advisor and RAs of our associate tri-halls (that would make up the 6 RAs that I rotate working with). We have quite the group, it is hilarious. With my tri-hall and our associate tri-halls, we only have 1 boys building. It's hilarious, that RA, Michael, makes me laugh.

After I get pictures from my co-worker/friend Kristina, I'll post them so you can see the 7 people that I get to work with a bunch.

After about a 12 hour day of work, I'm super tired. I'm so glad that tomorrow doesn't start until 9:40. Tomorrow we're going on a tour of the resources on campus (counseling center, international offices, center for conflict resolution and such...). And then we have a cool sounding meeting about FERPA, the Honor Code, ad Freshman Academy. Should be done by about 5. AND we have a 2 hour break for lunch. It will make up for the amount of time we spent being trained today. Hopefully it will be a low key day. In the morning, 2 of my new RA friends (Kristina and Allison) and I are having a waffle party for breakfast! I'm super excited.

It's kind of really crazy not having roommates right now. There is a Conference Assistant living next door to me, and I've got some people staying in my building for Education Week, so I'm not alone, but nobody else is in my apartment. It's also kind of lame because after training ended, we all pretty much went to our own buildings instead of doing something together. We were just all too pooped. It takes too much effort to make a phone call or walk a few buildings over. Once school starts and the doors aren't locked until later at night, maybe I'll hang out with Kristina more often, but walking up to her building (the building I lived in last year) and knocking on her door hoping she hears the tapping on the front door, just doesn't sound too appealing.

Well, I think I'm outta here. I'll blog more soon.

And, Paul/Jeanne. I tried to call on Sunday, but your phone was busy, and when I called your cell phones nobody answered. So, I'll try calling Tuesday night so I can talk to the kids.

My new goal in life:

Marry Michael Phelps. Yup... haha! Watching the olympics, haven't we all fallen in love with Michael Phelps? Is he not amazing? So I pretty much love that his daily routine is wake up, eat, swim, watch tv, go to sleep. That sounds like a fabulous routine. In discussing this plan of mine with my good friend Brendan, I realized a potential problem though. I'm afraid of swimming. Remember when I was a young child and almost died in the Springgay's pool? Ya... I don't swim. Maybe marrying an olympic swimmer isn't REALLY the best option for me. But hey, for a few minutes, it was a great lifetime goal. Was it not?

Mail!

I love getting mail. Luckily for me, I'm at the age where half of my friends are gone (or will be soon) on their missions. That said, I have about 5 that I write letters to. It's great. I write them a letter, they write me back... you know how that all goes. I've decided I did something REALLY stupid though. I let their letters pile up. And then, I wrote 3 of them on the same day. Now, that's not really a problem. Until... I get letters back from the three of them, within just a few days of each other. Now I find myself with 4 letters to write to people who already wrote me, as well as the address of another who told one of the other guys to tell me to write to him. I guess I'll just be spending my evenings writing letters for the next few days, and maybe this time I'll space them out a little when I send them.

Also, not only do I get letters from some of the missionaries... but when they email their families each week, I get emails forwarded from the parents of 5 of my friends. It's fun to check my email on Monday's & Tuesday's and find emails from my friends moms. Kinda weird, but also very fun!

But... I do love getting mail! I even requested catalogs to be sent to my new dorm starting in the middle of August so that I'll get more mail, isn't that great?

Also... this summer I have gotten 2 wedding annoucements. For people that I actually know. My RA, Danica got married in May, and Uncle Russ & Auntie Adri are getting married August 16th. It's crazy to see my friends getting married while other of my friends are going on missions. WeIrD!

I've also decided that it will be so weird to go back to school and not have very many guys my age there. Weird, weird, weird. But I guess that's the way things roll at the Y.

Hmmmm!

In exactly 3 weeks and 25 minutes, my plane is scheduled to land back in my happy other home. That means I have only 3 weeks and 25 minutes to endure! Only 13 days left to work, only 2 more Friday nights babysitting, or maybe only one... depending on when we're going camping. Only 2 more Saturday's to do chores. Only 3 more Thursdays to be my "dinner/dishes night", although this Thursday is Mexican Night (I'll explain) so I won't be the only one cooking, and I imagine we'll all pitch in and help with dishes too. Only 36 days til my <3 215 reunion <3 with my loverly roommates from last year.

So Mexican Night... to explain Mexican Night, I need to explain Italian Night. Last week at church, a girl originally from 3rd ward, but who is attending SV with us (Carolyn C) invited me and Jenna for "Italian Night". We had no clue what this was going to be, but later in the week, Jenna and Carolyn talked about what we should bring. Anywho, we went over to Carolyn's house on Wednesday night with the makings for Italian Sodas. She and her sister Molly had made a pizza (more like, they cooked a pizza that they picked up at Costco) and it was amazing. Christi W brought pasta (pasta roni mind you, and man was I happy to see that stuff again :D) and the 5 of us had a fabulous time laughing and eating. Rachelle D showed up a little later and joined in on the laughter, oh... and I guess Carolyn's brother, Spencer, ate with us as well. We had a fabulous feast with our pizza, salad, pasta and italian sodas. Add a fabulous dessert and probably a good 4 hours of hearty laughter, and Italian Night was a success. We decided we wanted to make this a weekly thing til we all leave again in a few weeks, and decided that next week would be Mexican. Jenna & I decided to host it at our house, and boy, are we excited. We want to get costumes and decorations and have it be a full blown party. Pretty much, it's going to be hilarious. I'm way looking forward to it.

Last night Jenna & I crashed a 1st ward ward activity. More like, we went... I ate a few bites of a burnt hamburger, we both ate some chips and we talked to some people. Mom, Brenda says hi. And so do Michelle & Stephen Beecroft. Oh, and Rachel R does as well. Then, we sat with Claire A (she's 16) and decided to kidnap her for the night. We went down to downtown Kirkland and saw The Dark Knight. And man, it's a good thing Christian Bale is so attractive. We were all freaking out. Also, that movie theatre is dumb. They have something like reversed stadium seating... it was messed up. It was cheaper than Bella, and the movie started at a time we could actually handle, so I guess we can't complain too much. It was fun hanging out with Claire & Jenna. Next time, we're kidnapping Claire's brother, Charlie, as well. He was just too young for Dark Knight (he's like 11).

Today I went to the dentist to get 2 fillings. My appointment was at 8, and when I left his office at like 8:45 he told me to go home and go to sleep. So, I did. And when I would wake up randomly, I would check to see if my face was numb still, and if it was I would go back to bed. It got to the point that a little after noon I just woke up and walked into Jenna's room. Then we went and got Jamba Juice. Oh man, I love Pink Star Jamba's. Probably my favoritest ever!

I should probably do my laundry, and take a shower. And maybe find something to do.

Why I Like Sundays

Sundays like yesterday are some of my favoritests ever. Here's how it went down... I slept in until 10:45. Took a shower, ate breakfast, got all ready for church. We got to church, sat with our friends and chatted for a little bit. After church we (of course that means me and Jenna) went to choir. THEN I went to Paul's. I don't know who to give credit to (Paul or Jeanne), but we had some amazing Veal Parmesan (sp?) and garlic bread (which I think they said Bryan made?). After dinner we all went outside. The kids ran around playing, and then decided they wanted wedgies (these kids are kind of odd... they ask for wedgies). After a while, Bryan had to leave, it was fun eating dinner with Bryan again. Eventually Jeanne took Tyler on a drive to get him to go to sleep, and after that she and I sat at the piano. She played a bunch of songs (from the hymn book, the primary book, some purple book, and music not from a book) and we sang them together. I LOVE sing-a-longs. It wasn't quite like the sing-a-longs we had growing up, as our music supply was slightly smaller than mom's music collection. BUT, we sang songs that now always me think of Jeanne and the girls. I love when we sing this particular song that Jeanne's sister rearranged. Paige always comes in when we sing, and she comes and stands by me. It's super cute, and we always end up with our arms around eachother in some way. I love the memories of it.

Pretty much, Sunday was pretty laid back, and we were at the piano for more than an hour. It was fabulous. I can't wait for the first week back at school when my building is empty. I'll have the piano to myself. We'll just have to see if I can find my piano music. Hopefully my Ben Folds book comes in really soon so I can start working on those songs before I get back to school.

So, I suppose this post is to help me remember how much I love Sunday afternoon's at Pauls house, and to remind me of our sing-a-longs. Also, it is to help me remember how badly I need to work on my writing skills. My grammar and punctuation is pretty much awful, I guess I've been out of school a few too many days.

26 days til I go back!

Countdowns

Traci's post made me chuckle a little. All this time I've been counting down til the day I fly away (28.5 days, fyi) and there is something a little sooner that I have to look forward to! How on earth did I forget about Stephenie Meyer's new book coming out? The bookstore at school had signs up in April before I left announcing the arrival of it (Mom, do you remember seeing these signs, and did you think it was ridiculous?). I'll have to work something out to go and get this book as quickly as possible. Probably won't stay up all night reading it like I did with Harry Potter 7, but I'll read it before I go back to school, that's for sure!

I have something else to look forward to. I have 18 days of work left. Three full weeks, and then the Monday-Wed of the week that I leave. I've got two days to run errands and pack and make sure I've got everything taken care of. That gives me 3 weeks to sub for people and to get the sales area of the store all finished. I'm making new price labels for ALL of our products and changing out the hooks that the products hang off of so that the plastic price tag holders are slightly more modern and sturdy. Unfortunately the process of making new labels and replacing the old ones takes long enough without replacing the hooks. Lets just say I get a lot of quality time with my iPod while I'm at work.

One of my favorite things about not being at school right now is that I don't have to pay a dollar to wash and dry each load of laundry. Call me crazy, but free laundry is AMAZING. Also, I don't have to lug my laundry, my quarters, my laundry detergent and my fabric softener down to the basement. I carry my clothes down, and everything else is there waiting for me. I also don't have to set a timer so that I get my clothes before the stupid people who steal clothes from the laundry room do. Christie was a victim of that a few times. Silly girls stealing modbe and shade shirts and camis. Who would've thought?

Another thing I love about being here, not at school, is teryaki. I just haven't found decent teryaki at school yet. Here I go to Yummy Teryaki, or Joy Wok often to get my teryaki chicken fix. I LOVE teryaki. Probably my favoritest ever. I'll be so sad when I go back to a place with no good teryaki. If anyone knows of good terytaki in P-town, let me know. This is really important for my well-being.

A question... and the last post I'll post tonight.

As I wrote the post about me being the best aunt in the universe, I realized I had no clue how to spell the name Kami. What are the most popular ways to spell Kami? Kami? Cami? Camie? I have no clue, and now it's really starting to bug me. I might have to call the office tomorrow and ask them how said massage therapist spells her name.

Also, spelling the name Kami has nothing to do with me being the best aunt in the universe, just to clarify. My lack of spelling ability does not change the fact that I am the best aunt in the universe.

And, while I'm thinking of aunts, tomorrow is Auntie Adri's birthday. So, although Auntie Adri pretty much has no way of accessing my blog (that I know of)... Happy Birthday Auntie Adri!

*for those of you who don't know Auntie Adri... Auntie Adri is marrying Uncle Russ next month. Uncle Russ was the uncle of one of my roommates, Allison. Russ was an RA in Helaman, and he came over for dinner a lot. After he and Adri started dating (oh, and Adri was an RA in Helaman also), Adri came over too. My whole apartment called Russ "Uncle Russ" because that was what Allison called him. When they were starting to plan their wedding (officially engaged or not) Adri said we should call her Auntie Adri. I jumped on that one as fast as I could, although Allison just BARELY started calling her Auntie Adri. I thought it was really cool. I love my Uncle Russ and Auntie Adri!

A to-do list

At school I found that I got a lot more done if I talked through my to-do list. That in mind, Christie and I regularly told each other all of the things we needed to do. If Christie wasn't around, Kelli and I would talk about our lists. Sometimes as I explained the tasks to one of them, it helped me figure out if it was a top priority or not. I also figured out that if I told somebody what I needed to do, they would sometimes ask me how a particular task had gone. It was like when you go on a diet with a friend and you check in with each other regularly to see how you are progressing.

After I would talk them through, I would number them on whatever paper I had written them down on, and then rewrite them in order. It was kind of a long process. I found that if I spent some good time making my list, it motivated me more. That and I figured I wasted 30 minutes figuring out what to do, so that was 30 minute less time I had to accomplish everything. Also, I really just like writing down lists of things I need to do. In a notebook that I hope is in a box in Provo (I only hope that because I can't find it, I really wish it was here) I have this huge long list of all sorts of things I need to do. However, that might have to be another post for another day, like a day that I actually have that list in front of me. It has a bunch of good lifetime goals, goals for the summer (whoops!), goals for next year, goals I want to accomplish before I get married... just a bunch of goals. Well, I suppose that the things on my to-do list are my goals. I don't really know why I started typing goals instead of 'things to do'. Actually, I probably did that because goals is significantly shorter than 'things to do'.

I decided that if I post my list of things I need to get done, I might actually do them... for fear that you all will laugh at me if I don't get them done. Also, I have a bad habit of losing my list of things to do.

I need to...
-vacuum my bedroom
-do my laundry
-pick up my piano book at the music store (yay for ben folds!)
-pay my tuition
-pay my $1 fee at the library... woops
-do my 4th RA Assignment (it's already a week late...)
-do my 5th RA assignment (it's due in a week... and it's the last one)
-work harder on my Geography class (independent study is a beautiful thing)
-figure out what to make for dinner on thursday, or find out if i'm really in charge of cooking since there are 5 extra people here
-call the two girls i'm supposed to call for my church calling
-schedule my visiting teaching, which shouldn't be so hard since i live with my companion, and 2 of the 3 girls we visit are girls i talk to on a regular basis
-think about writing letters to my friends that are still in the mtc (namely: brendan c and chris)

that should about do it for now. oh. i decided that simple things like getting sleep, eating, showering... didn't need to make that list, although those are things I do as well.

also, the other night when I talked to Allison on IM for a while, she told me that she could hear my voice as she read some of the phrases I said, like when I said "go for it" or "holler" and similar phrases that frequently come out of my mouth. I'm finding that this post is pretty much just typed exactly how I would've said it. If it's kind of hard to follow sometimes, or just has really bad english I apologize. On my blog atleast I write the way I talk, and sometimes I just talk funny.

"aunt marci, you're the best aunt in the universe..."

This week I've been subbing for the lady that replaced me in the office. Not only do I get to spend a few hours in the office each day filing and billing, I get to drive for 6 hours a day (minus a few short little breaks between runs). I've noticed in the two days that I've driven so far that my left arm is already getting a nice (nice for me atleast) tan! This happened last summer too... hopefully we can get Jenna's car back (Laura is in town and using it because her van broke) soon and I can be a passenger with my right arm out the window so my arms are kind of close in color.

30 days! That's all that's left til I fly out. Is it sad that I am counting down? Do I feel bad about counting down? There are two things keeping me here for the next 30 days. Work, and Paul. Not just Paul, but his wife and their adorable 4 kids. It's a good thing I've already got a few plans to be back here in the near future.

Things are getting to be frustrating here. Sometimes all that can keep me from crying is the thought that I almost get to go back to school!

OH! Today at work! In the afternoon when I was working in the office, I grabbed the keys to the Green Machine (the ancient cavalier that I drive at work) and walked out the door, turning around to say "hey, I'm going to 7-11. I'll be back." Once I got to 7-11 and got my Orange Carrot Sobe drink I got in line (it was a kind of long line too, everyone wanted a slurpee today). And then... mom, guess who walked in! Kami (my massage therapist from last summer). She asked me when I was going back to school, and what I'm doing next Wednesday at a certain time. I told her I would be at work, but that I could take a long lunch if she had an opening. SO! I get to go visit Kami again and have her fix my back, neck and shoulders. I thought to myself "self, that was the best trip to 7-11 I've ever had!" and then I went back to work. Next Wednesday will be a good day.

On yesterday I went to Paul's after work. We didn't have FHE at the Lively's, so I figured I'd go to FHE with real family. After work and before dinner, Jeanne, the kids and I went to the park. Ryan had a scooter accident and skinned his knee. After dinner, everyone was outside except me and Ryan, and he asked me if I would carry him outside so he could be where everyone else was. As we sat on the front step, and he asked me to get him water, he told me I was the best aunt in the universe. That made me smile, until like 2 minutes later when he told me that he was just kidding. Either way, Ryguy doesn't normally say things like that, so I had to blog it as proof later in his life. I felt pretty good about it, even if he was just kidding.

That's my life for ya...

I wish I had more to say...

Like the title says, I wish I had some cool story to tell, or some great explanation as to why I haven't blogged in more than a month. Well... I don't have a good excuse. My excuse is that I really haven't done anything. I work everyday, babysit on Fridays, often babysit on Saturdays... and I go to church on Sundays. Sometimes during the week I hang out with my two friends (Jenna and Evan). I go to Paul's regularly and hang out with the kids/Paul/Jeanne.

The 4th was pretty cool. I went to Paul's house around 4 and at 5:30 we went to Shane & Shannon's for a BBQ with a few other families from their ward. There was a ton of REALLY GOOD food there, I loved it. After the BBQ was over, we went to the Elenbaas house for their fireworks show. I heard it lasted like 23 minutes, and boy, was it fantastic!

As much as I love being "home" again and having Paul and the kids so close, I'm SOOOOO ready to go back to Provo. I can wait for school to start again, but I miss all of the people and everything that went on there. There were always things to do, and everything was in walking distance pretty much. It gets kind of lonely here... and I feel like I do the same things every time I hang out with people (probably because we really do do the same things every time). In about a month I'll be back, living in those amazing cinderblock buildings. Man, I'm excited!

Wow...

It was brought to my attention that I haven't blogged in about a month. So, here you go. Me, blogging once again. In a nutshell, I work Monday-Friday for 8 hours. The past two days after work I've gone straight to babysit (or had less than 30 minutes at home between). Tonight, the kids I babysat had quite a few difficulties. Malik (2 years old) hadn't taken a nap for the first time in a long time, he had a slight fever, and he's just not used to babysitters. Zia (8 months?) is teething, hadn't taken a nap, slept poorly through the night, had a fever, was congested, and she has an ear infection. Ya... it was a rough night.

I go to Paul's house a bunch and play with the kids. I've watched Blue's Clues a bunch this summer, including the birthday party one... twice. Last week we went to the zoo and saw the new flamingo exhibit. That was pretty cool. A while ago (maybe it was just last week?) I went to Paige's piano recital, and tomorrow I'm going to Katie's. I went to Ryan's preschool graduation a few weeks ago too! If only Tyler had some cool events that I could go to. Poor kid. ;)

It's hard not having a car. I can't just run errands when I think about them, I've got to develop a long list and then convince Jenna that we need to go get ice cream and stop at 10 places on the way. Last Saturday though Paul let me borrow his car to go run errands, that was fabulous. I actually got to go to the bank, and target, and other very important places like that. I still haven't gone to the post office to get 1 cent stamps which is my excuse for not writing to all my fhe bros and uncles who are out on missions now. Thank heavens that postage went up. Once I no longer have a lack of proper postage as my excuse I'll have to come up with something else. Or just bite the bullet and write a few letters every once in a while.

Yep, that's my life in a nutshell. If anything exciting happens, I'll be sure to blog about it.

Mothers Day

Today has been probably one of my most favoritest Mothers Days in the history of all Mothers Days. Woke up, got ready for church, went to the family ward for the first time, and got to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in 8 months. I thought a ton about how much Mom really did/does for me. Being away from home for 8 months, and living in 5 strangers really helped me realize... dinner, laundry, dishes, and realizing when the bathroom needed to be cleaned are all things that I never had to think much about until mom wasn't there doing it for me anymore. And then I felt like the mom when I would make dinner for others, or do dishes every night for roommates, or clean the bathroom even when it wasn't the day of cleaning checks. It kind of made me laugh hearing this 16 year old boy (Tyler Black, for those who know) talk about his mom and what she does for him... he'll be more thankful when he actually gets away from home and really starts to realize. Also, our ward gives a chocolate bar out to all the 18+ women... so I got a tasty candy bar.

After Sacrament Meeting, I went on to Sunday School. I sat by myself, which was great. Part way through I checked my phone (don't know why) but I had a message from Paul. I went out to call him, and ended up finding him and his family in the hallway. I stayed with them from a little before 11, til a little after 11 tonight. I went to their Sacrament meeting, and went to nursery with Paul & Jeanne instead of going to the singles ward with Jenna. I went home with them and played Apples to Apples with the kids and them, read books to Tyler, watched Finding Nemo, ate dinner, watched the Survivor Finale, ate Key Lime Pie, and talked to Mom. It was a great Sunday overall, and it was really fun spending a little over 12 hours with family.

So, Happy Mother's Day everybody! To my mom, to my sisters, to my sister-in-law... and to the future mothers of the world!

Newest Addition to my family...

Mom asked for a picture of what I bought today... so here it is! The North Face Denali... will keep me much warmer than the Windwall I bought last summer.

http://www.rei.com/product/738405

There is the link... so you can read the description, Mom!

It's been a great week here, I was sick for a few days, but I'm better now. Also, thanks Dad for having an REI membership so I could get a sweeeet deal today on my jacket!

I'm Home!

So... I'm home. I got here last Sunday, spent the day at Paul's house, and then went "home" to my house for the summer. We had a blast doing oh, I don't remember anymore what we did that night. Monday I unpacked, did some laundry, slept, and went to FHE at Tyler's house. (I was recruited to go to FHE there all summer with the girls that used to come to our house for FHE).

Tuesday I started working. I'm not delivery driving yet, that will start in a few weeks after Darryl goes away for the summer. I've been doing inventory projects, helped with statement day, and doing all sorts of tasks that used to be mine. I guess when they found their 3rd person to replace me in the office, they found someone who doesn't have as flexible hours. She comes in early in the morning, and works until like 8 or so when she has to go up to 'the school' (i'm not sure what school that means, but I guess she's a teacher or something????). So I've been helping her out with her job by emptying her basket in the afternoons so she has less work to do in the limited amount of time she has in the office each morning. It's fun to see what things I remember from last summer.

I hung out at Paul's house the other day too, the kids and I talked about our Webkinz (which I am finding is a great topic with all sorts of little kids here). I sat down at Stake Conference today, and the kid next to me had a webkinz with her, so we talked about the 11 other webkinz she has, and how big her webkinz house is, and what her favorite game is, and favorite job... it was kind of silly i guess, but hey, we were an hour early to stake conference, we had time to talk.

I already have gone babysitting once since getting home, and I was so excited about it! I hope there is more babysitting to be done this summer. I could use something to do on the weekends since not all my friends are home from school yet, and some aren't coming home at all!

Anywho... I'm home, I'm safe, and I'm loving it here! I'm glad school is done for a little while, but I think pretty soon I'll be ready to go back to Provo and be around all sorts of people. I've found myself talking to some of my roommates on a very regular basis. It's kind of funny. I didn't think I would miss them all this much.

It's Done!

Good news! Finals are done. Packing is done. Cleaning is done. I moved out. I'm chillin at Megan's apartment, getting ready to sleep on her amazing couch. It's been a fabulous day. I got to say goodbye to everybody, and see what my apartment looks like when it's empty. Christie left yesterday, Kelli left today at 2 and I left around 6. The boys all came over each time one of us was leaving to say their goodbyes. It was most excellent. I've decided that we had the BEST FHE bros in the world. Chris, Andrew, Kevin, Troy, Ee... and before Taylor & Trevor. I don't think it could've gotten much better than this group. We had most excellent goodbyes, laughing and coming up with a bajillion new great jokes.

The other day I was told that Brendan (C), Nickolai, Troy & either Andrew or Chris are going to get an apartment together when they get home from their missions. They also told me that when they get home I have to come visit them, and I'm to bring my husband and three children. Then I was told that the 3 kids would be triplets. I was even given names for them (minus the last name). So... if I get married and have triplets before the boys get home in 2 years... they will be named:

Brendan George Coutu (insert last name here)
Troy Linwood Fox (insert last name here)
Nickolai David Mullen (insert last name here)

if they end up being girls, the first names will change to Brenda, Trina & Nicole.

Isn't this fabulous news? So when I have triplets in the next 2 years and 2 months, there are their names. Just to clear things up though... I'm not planning on having triplets anytime soon. Or ever.

There you go, the random things that come up after finals are done and everybody is avoiding packing.

It's Almost Over!

Next Tuesday is the last day of class. I'm so excited for this semester to be over. Unfortunately, this means that finals start next Friday, so I've found myself in the library even more than normal. I probably won't get another good post up here til after I get back home... between going to class, doing homework, studying for finals, taking finals, packing my apartment up, and doing some last fun activities with the boys before they leave for two years, I don't have much time for blogging.

It's crazy watching my things get thrown away, packed in a box, or left so I can use it for the next two weeks. It reminds me of moving last summer. Packing things, labeling the boxes "Marci --> Nauvoo" or "Marci --> BYU" oh man. crazy times. This time... it's "DI" or "Marci's". Those are my options for stuff. It's interesting packing everything up... who knew that my stuff was all over the apartment the way that it is.

My goal for tonight is to memorize Amendments 11-16 for my quiz on Friday (I need to know 11-27). Also, I want to have the bottom two drawers of my dresser packed, as well as the top shelf in my closet. It would be fabulous to have Steph come grab this stuff soon so I don't have to even look at my stuff anymore.

Anywho... you can expect some good blogging again once Final's are done. Maybe I'll blog while I stay at Steph's til mom gets here :D

Tyler's Call!

Tyler's mission call came today! He has been called to gather Israel in the Ecuador Guayaguil South mission. He enters the MTC June 18th and is so excited to be able to use the Spanish he learned in High School/Spain. Paul & Jeanne won the "where is he going" with their guess of Ecuador Quito.

April Fools...

I hate April Fools Day... this year I know of a few really dumb pranks, one AMAZING prank, and one that makes me really upset. I'd like to share the amazing prank, and the one that makes me way upset.

Amazing prank:

DT is currently being knocked down, the last building of DT that is. Fliers were hung up and distributed all around campus that said that it would be imploded between 5-6 pm, Tuesday. We knew this was going to be quite the prank, that many people would be coming to watch. Luckily, we didn't have to go anywhere to see the crowd of almost 200 people that came to watch nothing, as this building of DT is right in front of our kitchen window. We pulled open the blinds and laughed to see how many people came. Like they would implode DT after they had already knocked half of it down with a wrecking ball. People are so dumb, they make me laugh so hard though.

Prank that makes me upset:

Some guy from my ward (we all assume) took a picture of this other guy in our ward and photo-shopped his head onto a picture of Paris Hilton. In this picture, Paris was wearing a bikini. This picture was then put on Facebook, with a group created and all of the victims friends invited to join. Also it was printed and put up on the doors of my building. They were all taken down before I woke up (I forgot to set my alarm last night) but I've heard about them. We all have suspicions of who did it, and although he claims he didn't do it... I have seen him photo-shop 2 other pictures of the same kid. All of my roommates and a bunch of other girls in my building and I are all really disappointed in the guys of our ward. I'm glad I don't know for certain who did it otherwise I would be incredibly disappointed in him.

April fools day is probably the dumbest "holiday" in the world. Things like DT being imploded are hilarious, but the other prank is one gone WAY too far.

I had to write this on here, I have to vent it somewhere.

Because everyone keeps asking...

I didn't realize that everybody was going to read that post and not know what my new major is. Sorry to everyone who was left in the dark. My new major *drum roll please...* is Home & Family Living, emphasising in Family Finance. There is a story behind it that involves Sister Beck's CES Fireside from the beginning of March. If you really want to hear the story, email me and I'll fill you in on the whole story, including the 2 majors I had in the middle.

Also... my siblings that know Tyler... he sent in his papers yesterday and now we begin guessing where the boy is going. I need to create my guess, so if you have any good suggestions, let me know! I need a good guess for this one.

American Heritage Service Project

For American Heritage you have to do 10 hours of community service. I chose to volunteer at this place called Friday's Kids Respite. It's a place that families with special needs kids can drop their special need kid off on Friday's (and Thursday's I heard) for a few hours so they can go out, or spent time focusing on their other kids. I went last week and spent 4 hours there playing with the cutest little girl. Tonight I went and spent 3 hours with this hilarious boy that kept telling me that he hated me, but that he wanted to play with me anyway. We were pirates, digging in a sand box for buried treasure (an easter egg from some easter egg hunt from earlier in the week). We probably played in the sand box for 1 1/2 hours, which was hilarious. However, I will admit that this service project has made me realize how glad I am that I changed my major. Although I wouldn't have been teaching elementary special ed, it still would have been really really difficult.

Mission Calls!

Today... Brendan C & Nickolai from 204 got their mission calls. Nickolai's parents came up from Payson with his call at 4:50, and Nickolai got home at 5. We all congregated in the kitchen to learn that he's going to the New Jersey Cherry Hill Mission, English speaking. He enters the MTC on June 4th. My guess of Finland was a BIT off...

We all gathered again at 6 in the lobby for Brendan's call, he had to wait for his mom to get off an airplane. He was called to serve in the Texas Houston South Mission, Vietnamese speaking. He enters the MTC June 25th. I was kinda close with Brendan... I guessed Washington Everett, Cambodian Speaking.

This is super exciting, I'm pretty sure that Nickolai was the first person I've ever watched open a mission call. And apparently in the next few weeks the first of my FHE bros will get their call. I'm excited for that day too!

It's so crazy to think that Brendan and Nickolai have their calls. They'll be awesome missionaries, I can't wait to hear about their experiences.