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! :) 

You Are What You Read

     Anyone that knows me knows that I love to read. Like the annoying kind of love to read. Like stop-talking-to-everyone-put-off my-homework-stay-up-all-night-and-skip-meals-to-finish-a-book-love to read. I also have the most annoying habit of finishing a book and then re-reading all of my favorite parts, repeatedly. I can't help it. I've always been this way, and while I do have a little bit more self-control these college days, some books get the best of me.

Pure Bliss

    Another weird thing that happens -- I'm VERY easily influenced.  I really do become what I read.  

I read about some girl who does/is __________, and suddenly I want to do/be that too. This can be a bad thing or a good thing depending on what I'm reading.  Recently I've been reading some summer chick-lit (insert groans/eye-rolls here -- it's not really "summer" chick-lit as much as "all seasons" chick-lit.... my family is always teasing me about my chick-lit addiction, but I just love it so much even though I KNOW it's cheesy and stupid) about some really cool characters, so it's been a very good thing!

   One book that I really LOVED was called "The List" by Melanie Jacobson. It's about a girl who made a list of things to do before she got married. She was very committed to not getting married until after her list was complete. Of course some Romeo sweeps her off her feet -- she questions her list -- throws it out the window -- and her and Prince Charming get together!

 

  After reading this book, my friend Chelsea (who also read the book) and I decided to do the same, except the part about refusing to get married until after all the goals are all done.  More like I want to have things to do and goals to accomplish to keep my life upbeat, fun and adventurous.  So here's the list to date, but I want to get it up to 25 (suggestions are encouraged):  

1. Get a passport. 
2. Leave the country
3. Learn a foreign language
4. Road trip 200+ miles (with friends)
5. Stop at a U-Pick Farm
6. Go Camping!  (accomplished -- see last post!)
7. Read all of the standard works
8. Try internet dating
9. Go kayaking
10. Complete a race (harder than you've done before)
11. Redevelop a musical talent
12. Try a (new-crazy) diet for a week
13. Learn to eat with chopsticks
14. Learn to tango (I'm pretty positive I want to replace this one!)
15. Eat an authentic Chicago Deep Dish Pizza/Boston Cheesecake/Philly Cheese-Steak (pick one)
16. Go hot air ballooning. 
17. Go slack-lining
18. Buy myself some nice jewelry
19. Read a (foreign) classic 
20.   
21.  
22.  
23.  
24.  
25.  

To calm my sweet mother's heart and redeem myself in your eyes-- I have also been keeping a steady diet of the textbooks, Shakespeare (for my Shakespeare class), and the scriptures these past few months so not everything I'm reading is totally pointless.. just most of it! :)

What Happens in the Summer

WARNING: This is an epically long post to make up for lost months! The only promise is that there are lots and lots of pictures! :)

KELLI'S DAY!!

As always.. Kelli's Day was celebrated in style with spaghetti and meatballs, a ladybug cake, confetti, and a movie to watch.  We chose "We Bought Zoo" for this year's movie. So inspiring.. Chelsea left ready for her 20 seconds of courage! I ended up falling asleep for the middle of the movie, but the beginnings and end were fantastic!! 

Ready to get our party on!

 

Sweet Alexa and her mother sweet Holly sent me a package for Kelli's Day which included some sweet tatoos. So the Kienlen's were definitely there in spirit! 

In the end, it was a fantastic holiday, and I'm glad I have so many friends that remember my day to make it special! Hopefully the tradition will continue! :)

A CARE PACKAGE!

New wards are always a challenge for me. My social nature fights with my natural inhibitions,

 and so I hate it.  So my mother aware that I was having a rough month sent me a mixer! I now have two kitchen appliances to my name! Woohooo!! What a sweet mother I have!

ROOMMATE LOVE!!

Stacey and I did some twinner hair one Sunday.

And we thought we looked fantastic so we took pictures!

The month of June was Carl's Jr. month, because we had so many coupons.

This meant a lot of roommate dates, which were super fun!!

 THE 4th of JULY!!

Ty was sweet enough to come down to Provo to hang out with his lowly, pathetic sister! I was so grateful to have some family to hang out with.  We started the day off at the parade!

We sat with a rowdy bunch of people who were heckling all the parade people.  It was all in good fun which made it all the better.  Ty and I were right behind them and we thought the whole thing was hilarious. They often shout things like "turn the banner" at the people and most people were willing to comply.  One time a banner or something was coming up and one in the heckler group said to his family: "You know what to do!" And the whole group started up. 

Here's an example:

We were supposed to go to my Uncle's house for dinner, but since he had just moved we got very lost. So there was no All-American picnic for us chumps.  So instead, Ty and I really got in touch with the melting pot idea and had some Cafe Rio.  

We then headed up to the temple for some fireworks.  We moved a billion times. People in Provo are intense about their 4th of July rituals and they had already been camped out for hours by the time we go there.  Ty and I are pretty unassuming people so we didn't know where to go -- so we ended up in some pretty random places, trying not to infringe on anybody.

At the temple area...

 Ty and I then thought the Stadium of Fire was lamer than ever and it was getting late so Ty dropped me off and headed back up to Salt Lake.  20 minutes later the show started. 

So I booked it up to campus by myself and watched the show.  Stacey joined me for the last little bit of the show.

Blurry picture, but that's all the smoke from the fireworks!

 A ROOFTOP CONCERT!!

Provo does some pretty cool things, and one of those things is the Rooftop Concert Series. They usually have local artists put on a show for everyone, and it's super fun! This time they did a Tom Petty song night and had a bunch of different local artists do some songs.  

Me, Stacey and Christy!!

One of the local artists they had come to the show was the Neon Trees band. They are not so local anymore, but they remembered the little town they got their start in! It was just the drummer (who is pregnant and an amazing singer as well!), the bassist, and the lead singer.

The Neon Trees guy is crazy intense! Way fun to watch! I'd love to go to a concert! 

A BRIDAL SHOWER!!

Sweet Darcee is getting married in 19 days!! So we threw her a bridal shower. She requested no games, which I'm fine with because.. really bridal shower games can be pretty lame. So instead Chelsea and I threw together a fantastic fiesta! Just a bunch of taco stuff, but it was delicious! I would call the evening a success! 

The spread -- minus the chips, tortillas, and meat, which were still heating up.

These were a Pinterest find but I thought they turned out really well,
and they taste super good!! 

Cake Pop Favors! 

We only played the "How well does Darcee know Stephen" game.  Turns out she knows him pretty darn well! :)

Darcee in her natural state!

The LAST HOORAH/weekend get away!

With Darcee getting married so soon we decided we needed one more time just the three of us! 

So last Friday, we headed up to Salt Lake for a vacation!

Trax ride!

Darcee got her dress fitted, and then we did some shopping for friend of the bride clothes, 

because of course we need to look great for her wedding too! :) After finding nothing worth buying, we camped out at the KOA in SLC, which felt really more exotic than it was. So it was worth it!

Home Sweet Home

 After a quick swim that morning, we were on our way to a great hike!

Before we started for reals...

In true Wyoming fashion, we headed up the mountain without much information. We just trusted that we were fit enough, and awesome enough to finish it all.  We got to the top of the mountain, only to realize that we were really low on water.  We weren't aware of the time since we left our cell-phones behind.  So even though the trail continued up to the next peak we decided to feel really good about what we had already accomplished, and go back down.

The view!

Playing in the stream!

We finished!!!

Chelsea looked up the trail after we got back and found out that rattlesnakes are supposedly very common on that trail, and we thought the lizards were bad!

Last night, after we got back, Chelsea came with Darcee and I to our ward activity and it was just like old times in the Powell 2nd Ward, except more fun (no offense P2 people, it's just different when your Bishop has a giant pool and a basketball court in his backyard. And when there are so many new people to get to know and enjoy.)  It's been a great summer so far, and hopefully I'll post again before the end! :)

ALSO... This is my
100th
Post!
so thanks for staying interested, reading, and commenting all the way up to this huge milestone!!