Two Weeks of Summer!

So after Darcee's Wedding... I decided to really jump two feet into my summer vacation.  I only had two weeks off with no work and no school, so it really had to be CRAZY to make up for lost time.

So.. I went zip-lining. It was pretty extreme:

This is actually Costa Rica!

(just kidding) It was fun, but definitely not extreme or super scary or very adrenaline-rush-producing.  But it was something I had never done before so I'm glad I got the chance to go!

This is the only pic you're getting, because while those cute black pants I'm wearing are comfy-- either the harness or the pants do not produce the most flattering angle of my backside!

I got to go with these lovely ladies, and I was so glad to have one final adventure with sweet Amanda before she rushes off to change some lives on her mission to L.A.

The next day we celebrated my brother Ty's birthday.  It was a wonderful celebration -- which will be detailed in my next post!

Then I got to go back to beautiful and amazing Wyoming! If you read Dawn's blog -- I had a very similar vacation to her -- if only we had been able to go at the same time! 

Sooo.. here's what we did:

My sweet parents took me on all kinds of adventures including but not limited to camping, hiking, bike-riding, and off-roading!

Cake-Pops:

My mom has been wanting to try cake-pops so we decided to get to it right away.  Turns out Powell is NOT the most cake-pop friendly town and they seriously lacked in supplies.  Also.. I'm not has good as I thought I was at cake-pops... apparently my first time (for Darcee's shower) was beginner's luck! But sweet Aubrey wanted to help, so we put her in charge of sprinkling the cake-pops... She loved this job! I'm sure you can tell why:

Sprinkled Aubrey!

Camping:

Adventure Number Two was going to the ward camp out. Todd's people were doing their last hurrah that night so it was the just the parents and I.  We had some amazing Dutch Oven Chicken, and even though it was cold and we lost my Starbursts -- it was a blast! I taught my parents the game of Nerts -- my dad did not take to it but I may have my mom converted!

Aren't they cute?

Aren't we cute?

We woke up the next morning ate some delicious breakfast with the ward then headed out to do some hiking! 

Hiking:

My parents took my sisters to Porcupine Falls and the Medicine Wheel, as I have never been to either of those I asked if they could take me too! We decided to mix things up and go to the TOP of Porcupine Falls.  My mom and I took off down the trail while my dad did some fishing and we went the completely wrong way for a while.  Our trail took us to the middle of this open meadow.  My first thought was Twilight (Bella and Edward in love in their sweet meadow anyone?).  My second and more pressing thought was wow, we are very exposed, a bear could be watching us waiting to kill us right now, or maybe a moose, or MAYBE a serial killer who kills people on trails!!! (It was irrational, but it really FREAKED me out!) You can imagine how my mood plummeted and my sweet mom had to put up with grouchy Kelli until my sweet dad came and rescued us! 

However despite the drama, the end result was worth it:

Dawn took the photo on the left from her hike. Mine is the photo on the right for my hike!

We also went and found the Medicine Wheel. It's pretty neat, even if I am a little skeptical.  I was excited to visit another piece of Wyoming history!

My sweet parents on the way up!

Far Away

Close Up

Civic Tuesday:

The next big event was Civic Tuesday! We decided to get our civic duty done, so we spent many hours on Tuesday doing so.

Civic Event #1:  VOTING!

We were able to all go and vote together, which was so fun! It's CRAZY to me that we are all old enough to vote, so it was fun to do something out of the ordinary together! 

Displaying our "I Voted" stickers!

Civic Event #2: BLOOD GIVING

 Then we did our Church and Civic duty by giving blood! It was our Church duty because one of the Boy Scouts in our ward was putting on the blood drive as his Eagle Project! (Way to Go Cody!!) It was our civic duty, because.. well you know... anyway, you guys know how I LOVE LOVE LOVE to document my blood giving experiences so here's your photo:

They decided to take my blood from the arm OPPOSITE the machine.
so my veins were sucked dry -- RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!

This time around they asked me to do a "Q" so I gave 1 unit of red blood cells and 2 units of plasma. And the machine would periodically give me back my red blood cells, so I'd watch it flow in and out of my body... Cool huh?

So happy to do our duty

Back to Provo:

Sadly enough after Civic Tuesday, the jig was up.. it was time to start my senior year.  I say that with many heavy sighs and a heart of misery.  Two weeks is NOT enough time to hang out in Wyoming.  Also senior year marks the beginning of the end of care-free college days -- and the start of the stress of job/internship hunting days...

Don't let my smile fool you -- I'm dying inside...

In Provo:

I don't have enough pictures to truly document my parents 4 days in Provo, although I wish I could! The best parts of it was taking my parent to the Provo City Library (my happy place) and taking them to all the good eats in Provo!

I called all the good eats: "The Food Tour of Provo" and here's where we went:

So Happy about FRO YO!

• Kneaders
• Awful Waffle
• Fro-Yo (Yogurtland)
• The Chocolate
• In and Out
• Zupas
• Cafe Rio
• Nicolitalia 
• Cafe Kelli (my house!)

Overall it was super fun, and my sweet parents were great two-weeks of summer companions for little old me!

A Marriage: Being Old Part Deux

Last Friday one of my very best friends in the world got married!

It was so exciting, and it means that I have officially started a new phase in my life -- 

the one where my CLOSE friends start getting married and having babies. 

WOOO--EEEE! That's huge!

That's the being-old-part of this post, but to tell the truth there was so much anticipation for the day and so much pure joy on the day that the being old part quickly lost importance!

So here's a look at the festivities:

MANICURES AND PEDICURES:

In preparation for Darcee's big day/her bridals -- Darc and I went to get our nails done.

This marks the second time I've ever got my nails done -- both times were with Darcee -- what a blessing to have her in my life! :)

Getting her nails shellaced!

My pedicure!

DARCEE'S LAST DAY IN THE SINGLE'S WARD!

Darcee and I took this picture because it was High-Heels-Sunday and we were rocking our heels, but also because Darcee had forever graduated from the Single's Wards! - She's an old married lady now!

Please note the rocking heels!

FINALS WEEK/WEDDING PREP:

Darcee's family showed up and moved her out of our humble abode, and that's when things started getting really, really real! It was so crazy! We also had a huge baking party to make the treats for the reception. Darcee's awesome family did all the food and decorations for her reception, so we as her friends and roommates helped out with the desserts.

Unfortunately, the week leading up to her wedding was also finals week for me -- so I was super focused on memorizing a sonnet from Shakespeare and getting ready for my oral exam in my parenting class. Both went pretty well, but I was sad that I couldn't be more help!

Thursday night Alexa and Matt showed up on my door and it was fun to catch up with those two love-birds!

THE WEDDING DAY!

 Darcee's family recruited us as babysitters so we woke up early -- got all dolled up and headed off to the temple in our purple attire.  We ended up with about 15 kids! Chelsea handled the bathroom trips and changing a few of the kids, while Lex and I played with the kiddies.  We played red light green light, went on a reverent walk, colored, and had a talent show! They were so sweet and they were all super match-y, so it was fun to be associated with them for the duration of the sealing!

Then we waited for FOREVER for sweet Darcee to come on out. While we waited we did some impromptu photo-shoots:

If only Darcee could have been in this with us!

These two are next!

When Darcee came out of the temple -- she looked lovely! I was so excited to see Stephen and Darcee looking so happy. You could just tell how much they loved each other!

I was privileged enough to get to live with Darcee this summer, and living with her gave me the opportunity to again realize why Darcee's amazing! While Chelsea and I were helping making cookies for the reception, we started playing "Why We Love Darcee..."

Here are just a few of the reasons I love that girl:

1. She is the most generous person EVER. Darcee is always willing to help you out and sacrifice a little herself to help you do what you need to do! 
2. She is also very encouraging, by making you feel like you're good at things! Darcee always makes it seems like you're doing a fantastic job.  I really enjoyed feeling like I was equal with her in whatever we were doing - even though we both in knew our hearts that she could blow me out the water at it! 
3. She is very tactful and good at listening. In our YEARS and YEARS of friendship, we had to talk about some tough stuff or some awkward stuff, and Darcee is really good at doing that.  She can listen for hours and then give a really good opinion/new point of view to help you see the problem in a new way.

These are just my top 3 but there a billion more -- trust me. If I didn't get to know Stephen this summer, and see how happy those two are together, I almost wouldn't believe that someone was good enough for my sweet, sweet friend/roommate/soul sister, but I did get to know Stephen and I did get to see how happy they are, so instead I just feel ecstatic that Darcee gets to be so happy! :)