A Solo Soirée: iPod Dance Party

Maybe you've heard of these:

Maybe you haven't... The basic concept is that everyone downloads the same playlist to their iPods (its usually all put together so you download one 'song,' but it's 30 minutes long and has a billion songs!).  Then you press play at the exact same time.  So it's a lot like a dance.. but anyone watching you would have no idea what was going on. 

I've heard of them, but this week I had a chance to go to one! It's a busy week on campus, and I couldn't find anyone to go with me, but I really wanted to go.  This seems to be something that happens to me quite a bit, and I'm always disappointed that I'm not confident to go solo.  So.. this time I took a step in the right direction and KIND OF went by myself.  

There was the huge group of people all ready to start dancing when Stacey (who was headed to the library) walked by.  I totally chickened out and went into the library with Stacey.  Stacey, bless her heart, took pity on me and walked me back to the party.  She got out her headphones, and helped me settle in.  We took the opportunity to meet some people, Hannah and Rae, and then I told Stacey she could leave me--now that I had a friend.  Turns out Hannah and Rae had people to meet, so I just kind of stood there, sadly. (I should say that we ended the dance together and they would check in on me every now and again)

Then the music started.

First ten minutes: TERRIBLE.  I was concerned because everyone was dancing to their iPods in groups and I was dancing solo.   

THEN... I opened my eyes: one random hipster girl was just jamming on her lonesome -- having the best night every.  The girl who put the whole thing on was also just doing her own thing too...  Then my eyes opened even wider: this party was divided in two: part one was the 'group' half -- part two was the solo crowd.  The ones who felt the music and let loose and had the best night ever! Obviously I knew which crowd I belonged to!

Last 20 minutes: GREAT!!!!! I had so much fun! I just jammed my way around campus and really felt the music.  It was super empowering: one of the moments where you look around and realize that everything you thought everyone else was thing was wrong and your whole life changes just for a minute.  

Anyway.. now that I'm a pro.. I thought I'd give you all you need to know in one easy picture:

p.s. Do you like my infographic? The girl who writes one of the blogs I LOVE uses infographics, so I thought I'd give it a go!

Kayaking

I'm a (soon-to-be) Rec Therapist and I've got the Teva's to show it! My sister thinks these shoes are a little granola, which had me a little worried.  Then a Rec Therapist came to one of my classes in Chaco's and she said that every Rec Therapist needed at least one pair of Chaco's, so I didn't feel too bad.  I would seriously recommend these shoes to you so comfy... BUT I digress, this is not a post about shoes, but rather about me doing this:

Last winter when I was signing up for fall classes I signed up for a required recreation class.  The class is called RECM 223R, and it's called Outdoor Leadership Skills. I had no idea what it was so I signed up for a section where the time worked for me.  Then fall semester rolls around and I notice that instead of Outdoor Leadership Skills on my schedule it says: Sea Kayaking.  Um.. what? That was my first reaction.. then I frantically looked up my schedule. Turns out the every section of RECM 223 is actually a different outdoor skill. I could have had mountain biking or canyoneering or something, but I got kayaking... 

Now you may remember from a previous post that Kayaking is part of my before-I-get-married goals, so although I was hesitant and although it sort of interfered with this great service opportunity I wanted to try, I STAYED IN THE CLASS.

This is why every Tuesday afternoon I was driving out to Utah Lake, which smells gross and has dead fish in it and tons of ducks, to learn some kayaking skills.  The Tuesdays all worked towards the final goal: a overnight trip ACROSS THE 8-MILE-WIDE LAKE.  This was supposed to happen Friday night, but unfortunately, it was raining and windy on Friday night, so we just met up on Saturday morning to go for a 6-mile paddle.  That's right ... six miles propelled by my upper-body alone.  3 of which was into the wind and the waves. 

But I was prepared: 

What you see there is my Kayak -- the one filled with CANDY and treats.  Yep. I follow after my mother -- every trip you go on is about the food. ALWAYS. No matter where you are headed or how you get there (kayaking, hiking, or driving) you have to bring the treats.  I already super splurged on the snacks BEFORE the trip was cancelled and I was not going to waste it all... SO I packed it in my kayak. This turned out to be a good thing, because I was able to share with my whole class during the break! Good times.

So here's the gear:

I always choose the ones that look like the one above because I think they are the cutest.  I call the design Sunset Shimmer.

Speaking of equipment, I found out for one of the papers for this class (every class has a least one down side), that I'm a kayaking purist.  Most of my classmates couldn't wait to release their rudders and take the easy route to steering.. I myself learned that there are quite a few kayaking purists that don't believe in rudders, so I learned to master the "lean and paddle." If you just lean over the way you want to go, and paddle on the opposite side you can maneuver pretty well, and I never ever had to use the rudder once!

Below is my spray skirt:

That sucker keeps out most of the wet, which is a GREAT BLESSING, because the wet can get everywhere.  It gets in your mouth, your eyes, your hair, and all over your hands and arms so keeping your legs dry is wonderful!

On the trip, I took some pictures of the scenery:

We kayak RIGHT next to the airport, so planes are always flying pretty low over us.  On Saturday we had a huge-o Army plane land right over us -- so cool! (Speaking of the sky: check out this video of a man breaking the sound barrier -- OUTSIDE OF A PLANE. to jump to the cool part go to about 1:00 minute in. The guy is 24 MILES up in the air -- so psycho!)

And this great vista was also visible:

It snowed the night before on the mountains so it was beautiful! The reason the sky takes up most of the shot is that I had to crop out a guy in my class or a man fishing (I can't remember which), but I thought it was still pretty!

And this view is pretty common for me:

Yep. I'm kind of a back of the pack type of kayaker. I think that's mostly because I'm a class with a lot guys and a girl that is on the track team for throwing.  There are a few girls that join me here in the back though, so that's kind of fun!

And that my friends is the story of my kayaking class! I hope you are all inspired to try something new today, because sometimes it turns out to be a blast! So until next time as we say in the kayaking world,

Paddle On!!!

(We don't actually say that in the paddling world)

My Sweet Niece

I recently had two opportunities to baby-sit sweet Camilla for Dawn.  Because I don't have much time, and because I'm doing this solely because I don't think either of my sisters post enough pictures of their  children, I'm just going to do some photos and a bonus video!

Thursday: I needed to return a book to the library so I thought I'd walk with this sweet girl there, and although Dawn offered the stroller, I refused.  Turns out Camilla can be pretty heavy after a 1.5 mile-round-trip walk, but she was so excited to see all the stacks of books she could pull out -- so it was worth it!

First Trip to the Library!

Happy Aunt -- Happy Niece! 

 Friday Night: Bryan and Dawn went out to eat for Dawn's upcoming birthday (WOOHOO!), so Ty, Todd, and I went to babysit.  Camilla used her cuteness and her tears against us and REFUSED to go to bed! I took pictures of her refusal.. this girl is quite the model and knows EXACTLY the right time to pose! 

Dazed -- two hours past bed-time!

Modeling! 

Such a sweet smile!

Uncle Todd trying his hand at baby-taming...

Camilla was so tired!

 Bonus Video:

Ty has some sure fire steps to get the child in bed... with commentary by Todd and me of course!

First Day of School!

Recently I celebrated my last first day of school, and I'd thought I'd take trip into fashion blogger land for a quick minute and show you the ever important first day of school outfit:

Just Kidding! There was a fashion photo shoot, but the above photo was just an accident before we started our real photo shoot! Anyway, here's the rest of Stacey and I's

  First Day of School Photo Shoot:

Our Last First Day of School Together!

We're all at BYU now! Woohoo!

I just thought Todd's photo-bomb made this funny. :)

I'm still working out my schedule, but I'm sure looking forward to this semester!

Ty's Birthday!!

I have a sweet brother named Ty.  He's awesome! He also doesn't really like being the center of attention.  So when I decided that he needed a birthday party.... he was not such a HUGE fan of the idea.  In fact, he was very against the idea.  So we decided to change things up a little bit -- we'd throw a birthday party... but not tell anyone that it was Ty's birthday! Great idea right? All the happiness of a party without the center of attention part!

It was super fun to plan this thing because it was like an inside joke for Ty and I.  The only problem was: I have a big mouth, Chelsea (my friend from home) has a great memory, and some of my sweet roommates are really good at overhearing things, meaning: I accidentally told Stacey what was going on.  Chelsea remembered Ty's birthday all on her own (you all need sweet friends like her!), and when I was telling Chelsea not to tell anyone about it my roommate Amy overheard us...

But just because half the guests knew what was going on -- it was still fun!

So.. after Church Chelsea and I made Lasagna, which I've discovered isn't actually that hard.  But when I told my home teachers that what I was making for dinner one of my home teachers was really impressed!
Home teacher: "From scratch?"
Me: "Yes!"
Home teacher: "Like with cottage cheese?"
Me: "Yep!"
Home teacher: ! (exclamation and look of astonishment)...

After dinner was made we did some final preparations.  Stacey made some place cards and we carefully planned where all (NINE) of our guests would sit around our smallish table.  Then we waited as our guests slowly filed in.

The super-packed table!

The Place Cards

Once mostly everyone arrived at our house, we found out that one of our guests would be fifteen minutes late.  I had everyone take a vote about if we should wait or not -- the majority voted to wait. So 15 minutes later our guest had still not arrived, so after voting again we decided to eat with out the final guest.  He showed up three minutes into dinner so it wasn't too terrible of us!

The Grub!

I believe my meal was smashing success! I received compliments and people were taking seconds! I've found that I really do enjoying having people over for dinner -- there's always such a sense of accomplishment at the end!

After everyone had eaten their fill, there was still quite a bit of food left over, but I was leaving the next day to go back to Wyoming for two weeks of summer -- so I was not going to have rotting left-overs in my fridge while I was away. So I re-instated the voting system -- and I had everyone vote about who was going to finish what food. BEST PART OF THE WHOLE NIGHT. I didn't think anyone would go along with it and then slowly all the food disappeared. SO FUNNY. I laughed so hard I cried. Ask Ty -- he kept telling me to calm down. So funny.

Anyway we voted again about what do next -- eat dessert or play a game.  We opted for game then dessert. We cleaned up dinner first and just as were loading the dishwasher we noticed we wouldn't have enough forks for dessert ... so we told everyone to spit wash their forks and leave them on their place cards.. SO FUNNY again.  After a few rounds of boys versus girls Catch Phrase (girls won 2-1), we came back to the kitchen for some peach cobbler (Ty's favorite!).

We all sang happy birthday to the person to our left and everyone made a wish and blew out a candle! Then Amy had everyone go around and tell everyone when their birthdays were -- the cat was out the bag. EVERYONE KNEW. Ty and I played it off well though and it was still super fun!

Here's the group:

The group with Stacey.

The group with Chelsea -- please notice our super awesome place cards! :)

Even though Ty will hate this part of the post -- I'd like to include a few reasons why I love celebrating my super cool brother.

1. He helps me a better person. Whether he's telling me to be nicer, or helping me make better goals this kid has a good head on his shoulders and often steers me the right direction.
2. He gives good advice. He's great at listening and telling me things that matter. I super trust his opinion!
3. He's funny. After Ty left for college, I think Todd and I really tried to model Ty's sense of humor.  He's just so funny it's hard not to try to copy him.  He makes some really good jokes.
4. He is super nice to everyone and tries hard to find the good in all of us. Even if I'm not as good at that, it's still nice to have his charitable perspective.
5. He's a really good older brother! He's always patient with Todd and I and I really appreciate it!

You all should be lucky enough to get know Ty sometime -- he's a really great guy! I feel blessed to be able to celebrate such a great dude! 

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! :)