Party in the U.S.A.

Oh my goodness, talk about sore! I was planning on about a 16-hour day, and that is almost exactly what it was. We got to ISU (from the hotel) at 8:30am and didn't leave until 12:30am! Oh my goodness it was a long day - but totally worth it for the paycheck I'll get! :P Now I just really wish someone would give me an amazing massage because I sure need it! Running camera for 12 hours will take a toll on ya! I had to do handheld for one of the games, too and wow... that thing is like a brick! Running up and down a football field for 2-3 hours with that brick on your shoulder ... no thanks! Anyway, the day as a whole wasn't that bad. I'd done this "Rocky Mountain Rumble" thing before, so at least I knew what to expect/what I was getting myself into.

Since we didn't finish until 12:30, everyone stayed at the hotels again for one more night (it was already paid for, so why not?) and left early this morning. We got back around 11:30 or 12 and I showered, got dressed, and went to my friend Adam's ward. I had written on my facebook status "hmmm... what ward (in Provo) starts sometime after 12 tomorrow... since I won't get back from Idaho until about then! Any suggestions? :P " Adam was the only one who wrote back before I went to sleep, so I went with him. Plus, it was the other Sparks ward and I had a few friends in that ward and thought it would be fun, since I still seem to be at Sparks 3+ times a week!

After church, I came home and chatted with Karie for a while before taking a glorious nap. There was a CES fireside tonight, so she and I watched that and then chatted a bit more until it was time for ward prayer. However, I headed to Sparks for the weekly multi-language hymn singing! I think every ward should do that. It's so awesome. This week we added Japanese to the mix! And my friend had a Russian hymn book, so I took a stab at singing in Russian. Depending on the song, I could read it in time... but when we sang the more upbeat ones... yeah, I was lost! I can read it, but I can't read it fast yet! So on those ones, I would revert to my Spanish hymn book.

Also, there are randomly a LOT of people in the ward this year from random parts of my life! Last week I could have sworn I saw someone I knew from VA, but I wasn't 100% sure so I never went up to him. But this week I was certain, so before ward prayer I pointed at him with an "I know you!" face and he looked and pointed at me too. Kevin Gonzales is in my old ward! He was in one of the Centreville wards back in high school. Small world! Also, my friend Mike (different Mike) from freshman year is randomly in this ward too! AND... one of those people you KNOW you know but for the life of you can't figure out how you know each other. His name is Jake and we spent half the evening trying to figure out how we know each other. He's an animation major; I was sound recording. I never really did any projects or anything with animation people, so that can't be it. But he has been in a lot of choirs/music groups. But he was in Singers, and I definitely never was! He looked like someone from Vocal Point, so I asked if he had been in that and he had... but it could not possibly have been from that, because he was in it 03-04 and I wasn't even at BYU yet! We never did figure it out! Bah. Oh well. Eventually, right?

The rest of the evening was spent bouncing between apartments in Sparks. After hymn-singing and ward prayer, I ended up at 8 for quite some time... which, was slightly weird since that was where I lived last year! Management totally fixed up the place after I left and now it looks amazing! AND... 8 has apparently turned into the "party apartment" and everyone is always over at 8. Boo! I guess having a very PDA/engaged roommate last fall as well as two roommates who hardly spoke English kind of took our apartment out of the running for "most fun apartment to be in."

We all played Nerts at Apt 8, and Jason was there (a friend from the ward last year) and last time I played "partner Nerts" (because there were so many people) Jason and I smoked everyone! So we partnered again. And let me tell you... it is SO hard to lose on purpose! Most everyone was learning, and whenever I play with people who are just learning, I go extra slow and lose on purpose. I told Jason that we couldn't smoke everyone in the first round, so we went as slow as possible... and still won, dangit! We played slow again the 2nd round and finally cranked it up 3rd round. I usually hate playing partner Nerts, but Jason and I have a system down and it works beautifully!

After that ended, I went to Jake's apartment (different Jake than the animation one) and played games with people in his ward. It was some weird karate-ish game that actually was a lot of fun! Everyone gets into some sort of karate position and then each person takes turn trying to slap one of their neighbors' hands and if they succeed, that person is out. Minus the whole BYU-housing and 6-people-to-an-apartment thing, I almost want to live in Sparks again!

The Beauty of Freelance

I am currently sitting in an absolutely beautiful hotel room, on a king-size bed. In front of me is a couch, a coffee table, another smaller couch, a full-sized table, a 32" flat screen TV, a full fridge, microwave, dishwasher, and stove; and don't forget the cabinets full of dishes. The cost: nothing! Ahh the beauties of freelancing. :D Twice a year XXL Sports covers this huge thing up in Pocatello, Idaho. In the fall, it's the "Rocky Mountain Rumble" where 8 high school teams come up here and compete... 4 back-to-back football games. In February - at least last year - it was the Simplot Games. All I know is that I quite look forward to these two gigs each year for its myriad of perks.

Anyway, so the event is so long that we have to come a day before to set everything up. It's called a "set-day." We got here around noon, set everything up until about 6, and then had the rest of the evening to do whatever. If I actually knew people in Pocatello, I might have done something... but it actually has been kind of nice having this massive room all to myself with time to just relax and think and whatnot. :) Conveniently, one of my absolute favorite movies (The Holiday) was on TV, so I ended up watching most of it. I think I'm glad I don't have a count of how many times I have seen that movie, because it would probably be embarrassing. :P

Today also marks the first day since I have moved back to Utah that I am actually up-to-date on my blog again! It has been rather hit or miss the last few weeks due to my lack of internet, but I finally got things sorted out with that and I have internet again! I will try to continue to actively post on here for those of you who keep up with it. But no guarantees as to the level of excitement... I don't have many upcoming gigs to write about! And Olivia, thanks so much for all of the comments. :)

The Wisdom of Teeth

Okay, first things first: it's 09-09-09! I don't know why, but I love these days! I remember my senior year we were all excited because we were going to have senior skip day on 04-04-04... until we found out that it was on a Sunday. Boo! Haha or when I was about 14, I decided that I wanted to get married on 07-07-07 or 08-08-08, etc. Hey, at the time, 21+ was "so old" and it seemed like such a plausible idea! Maybe something like 04-08-12 will better suit me. :P Shoot, that's on a Sunday too! Nevermind.

In other news... I have to get my wisdom teeth taken out. I almost got them taken out when I was 20 - when the whole mission thing was going to happen - but then plans changed, a mission didn't feel right anymore, and thus the teeth never came out. They hurt from time to time, but never like today. The pain was so unbearable that I couldn't even finish my bowl of cereal! I called my mom in tears because I didn't know what to do. She told me to call a few places, find a good price, set up an appointment, and we'd worry about the rest later. In the meantime, I was to take 4 ibuprofen immediately.

I promptly obeyed my mother, downed the ibuprofen, and once I could actually move my mouth without pain again, I started making calls. I found a seemingly reputable place that only charges $950 for all 4 teeth + the anesthesia (others were estimating about $1500). I could have done it as soon as tomorrow, but I'm working in Pocatello all day Friday and Saturday and you are usually out at least a full day after the teeth are removed, so I decided not to risk it. Unfortunately, this dentist only does extractions on Thursdays (in SLC) and Fridays (in Provo). But I'm working next Saturday as well (filming the Weber State game), so I decided to go up to SLC to do it and give myself Friday as a cushion to be back to normal by Saturday.

Honestly, I am quite freaked out! I have never had any sort of mouth work done or anesthesia given to me. I've never had a cavity, never given blood or had a needle stuck into me, never been admitted to a hospital, nothing. So the idea of going to a place where they will actually knock me out and yank these teeth out kind of scares me! I just really hope that I'm not one of those horror stories...

Oh Internet, How I Miss Thee

Well, I have been without internet for nearly two weeks now! Because of that, my blogging has gone down severely. However, I am going to backdate a bunch of entries, so be on the lookout for those. As of right now, I still have no solid work - just a few sports broadcast gigs in the near future (this weekend and the weekend after next). I decided to try my hand at Avon and so later on this week I will start selling Avon. Anyone interested? :P

Before I moved back to Utah, I decided to try and include at least one picture with each of my posts, but to save time I am just going to give quick snippet updates of what has happened since I've been back. Once I get real internet in my place, my posts will go back to normal.

My new ward is a much older ward and I haven't yet decided if I like it or not. I mean, I would much rather be on the younger end of the ward, but this ward seems like the median age is about 27 or 28, with a few 23ish around as well. Also, it's about 3:1 girl/guy ratio. No thanks.

I decided that maybe I should have just lived off of 450 N again this year because I seem to spend half my time at one of the complexes on or near that street! I have quite a few friends in Belmont this year, surprisingly; and I am still good friends with a lot of people in my old ward at Sparks and Arcadia, as well as the other Sparks ward from this past summer; I have quite a few friends from previous wards in Roman Gardens and Centennial II (also on 450 N) and so in the past week, I think I spent more time at one or more of those complexes than at my own place! However, not living in BYU housing is worth it for me to live 2 miles away. I can't tell you how much I LOVE not living in BYU housing!!

I still feel like I made the right choice in moving back to Provo, so we'll see what happens in the coming months. As strange as it seems, it's actually good to be back. I forgot how many really good friends I have out here and how much I missed them all! This is definitely going to be a fun year. :)

(PS, Alyssa Johnson and I went to Seven Peaks tonight for the dual stake activity. Oh my goodness it was so much fun! There were SO many people there and the best part was that everything was free!!! Afterwards, I ran into Verdon and Klark and the three of us ended up having a 2+ hour long conversation about various things. Let me just say... it was quite entertaining!!)

Here's to the Night

Oh my goodness today was so much fun!!! It consisted pretty much of a full day of catching up with old friends! First, I went to lunch with James. We did Fuente Ovejuna (a play) together back in '05, he got me through some pretty rough times the year of crappy roommates, and was one of my best guy friends til he left for his mission. It was so fun to see him, because I hadn't seen him since he'd gotten back!!

Next, I went to Beau's and chatted with him for an hour or so and then we went and washed his car! It may not sound like it was that exciting, but I actually had never gone to one of those "wash it yourself" places and it was really fun! Afterward, we went back to his place and watched part of a movie before I headed out.

I ate a quick dinner and then headed to Jake's... and got there for the last 5 minutes of their FHE. haha hey, it's always good to make new friends! :P Afterward, we caught up on our summers and the latest events in our lives and then went to a friend's apartment and watched the FSU/Miami game. Yes, I am a strange girl and actually enjoy watching football. I found it amusing at one point, when I noticed that there were 10 people in the room watching the game, and I was the only girl. This is exactly why all of my friends are usually guys! I would SO much rather watch a football game than something like "America's Next Top Model." And I'd rather go throw a football than paint my nails!

Anyway, a friend of mine needed to drop a CD off to me, so I just had him drop it at Sparks, since that's where I was, and on my way to the front of Sparks, I ran into Verdon, Ian, and all the guys in Apt 10. They were about to start a movie, so after I picked up my CD, I went back to 10 and watched a movie with them. After the movie, everyone disappeared except for Verdon and their new roommate Patrick. The three of us chatted for a long time, and at some point Patrick happened to mention that his mom is a massage therapist and thus learned how to give really good backrubs. I jokingly-but-seriously said "Hmm... now I'm curious to see how good..." So I got one, and he is actually very good!!

I told him I had a sister about his age (he's only 19; Rachel is 17) and he quickly asked "does she live here??" Haha. The funny thing though, is that to me, he totally seems like the type my sister would go for. I told her about him and she said "Can I come live with you??" However, she should probably finish high school first. ;)

Anyway, all in all it is good to be back in Provo. I found it somewhat difficult to be social in L.A. because most of the friends I met weren't LDS and always wanted to go to bars for social outings. I like the cliche - but fun - pool parties, bonfires, game nights, and regular 'ol movie nights. There's always something to do!! :D And everyone is within a 2-mile radius of one another! I love it!

Songs of the Sabbath

One of my best friends and I have this tradition - each time we see each other, we sing hymns together - a cappella. She takes soprano, I take alto, and each verse we switch. It has just been something really fun and relaxing to do each time we get together. However, this friend (I love you Mary!) has gotten married and moved across the country and I never see her anymore! :( Sunday night I was with another good friend, Mimi, and she sings as well. I told her about this tradition Mary and I had and she got super excited and said "Let's do it!!!" So she jumped up, grabbed her hymn book, brought it over, opened it up and said "Alright, how about this one?" And so it began.
We only sang 3 or 4 songs, but it was awesome. I missed so much doing that with Mary! Mimi seemed to love it too, so maybe I found a new hymn-singing friend! :P

Speaking of hymn-singing... my old ward (in Sparks) also has a tradition. Every Sunday night at 8:30 everyone gathers together, bringing hymn books of all languages and we all sing together in the language of our choice! Oh my goodness it is so much fun. I really wanted to go last week (my first Sunday back) but had other plans so I missed it! Tonight we had English (of course), Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Dutch, Norwegian, and possibly one or two others. That is definitely one thing that is so cool about Provo - 70% of the population is bilingual or multilingual! I love it!!!

I am sure that I just classified myself as a super music nerd, but oh well! What can I say... I am! What is cooler than combining music with languages! Music is the same in every language! How awesome is that! Yay for music. :D

Promontory Summit, Bear Lake, and Wakeboarding, Oh My!

This weekend consisted of a lot of 'firsts.' It was my first time to Promontory Summit, which is commonly mistaken to be Promontory Point. We however were corrected upon arrival that we were actually at Promontory Summit. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's where the first Transcontinental Railroad of the U.S. was officially completed (1869). Again, I have no pictures from that - they're on Mike's camera and I haven't gotten a copy of them yet... so those will be forthcoming. It was really fun, though! They have exact replicas of the 2 trains and we took a ton of pictures as close to them as possible (we couldn't actually get on either of them because they are both fully functioning trains). It was about an hour (round trip) detour so we figured, why not? We spent maybe 45 minutes to an hour there and then headed to Bear Lake.

That is another first: Bear Lake! I had never been there before. I feel like I have quite a few friends whose families have cabins up there, but I've just never managed to make it out there! We stayed with the Johnson's at their cabin - Mike's family and the Johnsons are very close friends. They're from Agoura as well, and I had actually met most of the family this summer while living with the Womacks. It was fun to see them again! We got there around 5ish and shortly thereafter, everyone went to this local pizza place for dinner. Afterwards was just chilling and/or playing games for the evening.

Saturday morning we all got suited up and went to the actual lake for some wakeboarding! Keep in mind, this was my first time ever trying to wakeboard! Minus the fact that I never fully got up, it was really fun! I got SO close! But my hands were too raw to keep going until I got all the way up. Oh well. There's always next time! :) It took Keri a few times to get up, but she finally got it; Ben has done it who knows how many times and had no problem at all. Next was Mike and he got up once or twice, and then was Brother Johnson and he has definitely done it a lot as well! Oh yeah - there were 9 of us, so we split up onto 2 boats, and Casey, his wife Erin, the other Mike, and Juliet were on the other boat. (Sister Johnson stayed at the cabin because her parents were coming into town within the hour).

We got back and had some AMAZING home cooked food and then watched an AWESOME football game! #20 BYU played #3 Oklahoma, and WE WON! Woohoo!! It was such a great game. If you didn't see it, you really missed out! 14-13 was the final score and this is going to shoot us so far up in the rankings! This is going to be a good year for football...!

Early Winter

We finally got to see the kittens again today! Well, the ones that were left. Mike's cousin has already found homes for 4 of the 7 that we rescued! (we found a 7th one the day after we found the 6 - the 7th was a big larger but only a week or two older, so we rescued that one as well). The only ones left were two of the orange ones and the black one. But my favorite orange one was still there. I wish I could keep it!! They are all so cute. And they were a LOT more active than that first day we found them! The black one was crawling up me and almost behind my neck and up my hair! And one of the orange ones kept batting at my finger. I want a kitten!!

Afterwards, we went back to Mike's and since Mimi lives a minute away, I went and chatted with her for a while. I always forget how much fun I have with Mimi! We definitely need to hang out more often. She brings out the crazy in me. :P I got back to Mike's place about an hour later and then we went to my place and ate dinner and watched part of a movie. Around 9:45 we met up with some of his friends and drove up to Sundance and rode the ski lift. It may sound weird or random, and I had definitely never heard of just riding the ski lift, but it was actually really fun! And it is apparently a very popular thing to do before ski season starts up, because there were a ton of people there! I would post pictures, but all the pictures we took are on Mike's camera, so once I get a copy of them, I'll try to remember to include them on here.

Post title: song title by Gwen Stefani

Come Dance With Me

Okay, a sum up of the last few days, because nothing exciting enough has happened to deserve a separate post. On Monday I went to campus to use the internet and ended up meeting up with Mike for a bit in between his classes. Seeing everyone on campus really made me want to take more classes... crazy, huh? Anyway, later on that day Karie and I finally started up our old work-out routine that we did last summer. We did arms and it definitely had been a while! We both had to use smaller weights and had a harder time with the repetitions too. But it felt good to finally start that back up!

Yesterday Mike and I ran a bunch of errands, did a small amount of job hunting, and I helped him with part of his calling - typing up all of the ward member information sheets each person fills out at the beginning of the year. I offered to help because I could tell that it was going to take him a long time, and I type 115 wpm so he was ecstatic that I offered to help. We did a ton yesterday, finished the rest today and then went to institute.

I honestly can't even remember the last time I'd been to institute. I feel like each time I have gone in the past, it has lasted nearly 2 hours, and I just can't sit still that long! This one was hardly like that though - the teacher didn't even show up! So this guy basically babbled about random meaningless stuff for 40 minutes, waiting for the food to come (apparently BYU wards have full meals after institute now). It was crazy how many people I actually knew in Mike's stake! I already knew about Jamie Lang (a girl I met in my CA ward this summer), and Mimi and stuff, but Chris Crabb (Martin's old roommate) lives in that stake now, as well as Ty Trejo (we had music classes together) and a few others. Random! But then again, at BYU, it's always a small world!

I was very productive today! I got everything finally situated and set up in my new place, found a 3-person couch that will actually fit downstairs ($20!), found some awesome friends to help me transport it (thanks Dave and Jacob!), bought a birthday card for my little sister and sent it out, got some groceries, did some laundry, and finished off the night by going swing dancing again! Oh my goodness it was so much fun!

I hadn't even been there a full minute before I got asked to dance! And the moment that song was done, I was asked for the next, and the next. Three in a row and I definitely needed a break! But I decided at that point, that it would be fun to create a crazy goal - get asked to dance 10 times within the hour. I was at 9 and literally had less than a minute left before it had been I reached that hour mark... and then with the clock ticking, I got #10 in the nick of time! I didn't stay much longer because I had been dancing for nearly an hour straight at that point (minus the 4 stupid line dance songs), and one of the guys I'd already danced with started to ask for 2nd dances, and I definitely didn't come looking for potentials or future dates. I just wanted to dance to dance! So I left shortly after, but I definitely got my exercise for the evening!

Post title: song by Frank Sinatra

Food, Friends, and Fun

Well, I am definitely NOT used to having early church! I realized that this is the first time in ages that I have had early morning church! This summer it was at 1, last year it was at 12:45 or 1 (haha it's sad that I can't actually remember, when that was only a few months ago), the year before that was 1:15, the year before that was 12:45... yep, it has been a while. And it drives me nuts because it's in the basement of the JFSB (I thought I was free of having church on campus, but I guess not!) and there is absolutely no reception down there - not even enough just to give me the TIME! I don't ever really use my phone during church, but I do use the clock feature to keep track of what time it is! And there is no clock in the room that we have Sacrament Meeting (last hour). Bah, it was so annoying not be able to know what time it was! Oh well.

After church, Karie, Chalyce (my other roommate) and I had a little 'roommate meeting' since today was the first day all three of us were there at the same time. Just to discuss basic stuff - utilities, parking, internet, etc. Afterwards, I went to Mike's and we went upstairs to his neighbor Ricky's apartment and joined them in barbecuing chicken and steak, as well as making really good tamales and pico de gallo. Oh my gosh I was so full by the end, but it was all so good! They had these sweet corn tamales that I had actually never even heard of, and they were absolutely amazing! Oh man, I want to learn how to make those. Soon after that, there was even more food... dessert this time. Their ward has this dessert night thing every Sunday night. But I was so full from all of the other stuff that I only had maybe half a brownie.

Afterwards, I went to Sparks to say hi to old friends. They had just finished ward prayer and so I chatted with a bunch of people and then went back to apartment 10 (Verdon, Ian, Martin, Jason, McKay, and their new roommate Patrick who wasn't here last year) because I had to get a box of stuff Ian let me store there over the summer. But the old tradition was "Sunday Disney Movie Night" that Tara held for 3 or more years... and we were all in SDMN withdrawal, so we had one anyway at 10 and watched Toy Story. :P And the tradition I started last year (backrub trade-offs) has stayed alive too, and I traded off with both Martin and Verdon. Man, I have missed Sunday nights in Sparks!! haha. Again, glad to be back. :)