Oprah

I suddenly have a new obsession...Oprah. A girl here brought the best of Oprah for the past 25 years and believe me, those 8 disks have provided more entertainment than anyone could have asked for. Every spare moment we have, someone pops in Oprah and pretty soon the majority of the 17 house members are glued in front of it. Who knew? I surely did not. I dare say I have never seen an entire episode of Oprah in my life before this. The disks belong to a girl that is leaving in 3 weeks, so then I have no idea what we will do for entertainment.

Whats more is that Oprah is a great person. She may be my new hero.

Fears

So the plugs here in Ecuador are especially challenging to get things to plug into. The other day I went to plug in my alarm clock after I had unplugged it to use the blow dryer and the outlet kept sparking.

This reminded me of a huge fear I had as a child. I was deathly afraid of fire. So much so, that I thought that I was going to burn the house down by plugging things into the wall and creating sparks. Therefore, I never touched an outlet for probably two years. I remember making my brother plug in the vaccuum for me. It was like a little game we´d play, I´d stand there and wait until he came along and then I would make him do it for me. It was like our little secret too, nobody else ever knew that it was him all that time plugging in the vacuum cleaner.

Good thing I have moved on now and I fear more rational things, such as speaking Spanish to natives, getting killed in a van/bus collision, and finding my true love here and becoming a señora in Ecuador without my family here to see it.

Baños

Every Friday we have the day off, so as a group we take field trips to sites of interest around Ecuador. This morning we woke up at 5:30 am to board a bus that would take us to the tourist town of Baños. After a three and half hour bus ride, all of us were more than ready to get moving with the day´s activities.

All but two of us had decided that we wanted to go waterfall repelling while we were there. I for one love adventure. I love things that are thrilling and cause a rush. I have been repelling before, but in a waterfall...now that´s something different. After squeezing into the tightest wetsuits humanly imagineable and getting a quick lesson in Spanglish about what we were to do, we set off in a rickety blue 15 passenger van. The scenery in Ecuador is absolutely beautiful by the way, and driving up a mountain towards the waterfalls gave us a great view.

The first waterfall was 40 feet and the second was 120! The first seemed like cake when we saw the second, it was pretty much a blind drop! It was really breathtaking and quite the thrill. I like to just jump right in, so I was the first to go on both drops. It was so awesome, definitely one of the funnest things I have done. On the first one, we also took time to slide down the side and jump off. Good times, oh how I love water! The jumping was not my most successful art though, It looked as If I were about to hit the rocks and die, but luckily I did not!

Oh and by the way, I have found my new love. His name is Paulo and he was one of our guides. I´m not usually one for the latinos but, ohh wow this guy was good lookin! Hmm...too bad we are not supposed to even be looking at boys and too bad also that I will never see him again. I only wish his name was Jose.

The bus ride home was almost as fun as the day because for the entire 3 and a half hours, we sang kareoke. Talk about stepping out of the comfort zone...but by the time we were done, we were having a full on dance in the aisle of the bus and everyone was going crazy. You all know that I can´t carry a tune to save my life, but I was up there going at it more than anyone! Haha! Oh man, the things that I do when I am tired. Anyway, it was a great day and that gives you something to read about my Ecuadorian adventure since day to day activities probably aren´t too interesting to ya´ll. Anyway, have a fantastic life EVERYONE!!!

Wishes DO come true

I´d just like to take this moment to thank Rusty for wishing a South American virus upon me. After only 7 days in the country, I have the beginnings of a parasite. I have been useless for three days and finally saw a doctor today. She gave me some shots and I have a million pills to take as well as lots and lots of pedialyte to drink. However, I should make a full recovery in another 3 days or so. But, the saddest part for me is that I don´t get to go to Guayaquil tomorrow to the temple. Oh well, we win some and we lose some, right?

Top Five Reasons You Should All Be Jealous of Me

1) I am in 80 degree weather when you are freezing your little butts off
2) Ecuador has amazing fresh fruit! I am loving the mangos especially
3) this keyboard has funny little symbols... instead of AT sign I have this " and a colon is this ¨¨
4) I ate avocados today.
5) I am working in the baby orphanage tomorrow and I learned to make clothe diapers tonight!
love ya all!

Christmas Traditions

Although every year the details are different, my family pretty much sticks to tradition when it comes to the holidays. As a youngster, I remember always being preoccupied about what I was going to get for Christmas. But as time passes, its the memories and time with my family that I really remember, not the gifts I got. There are usually some pretty funny stories and adventures as we go and this year was no exception.

Dec 24: Christmas Eve is always spent with my dad's side at our family cabin in Island Park. My dad has a huge family-most usually come for Christmas so we have a really full house at the cabin. Thats what I love about it though, there is always a big fire going, games to play, movies to watch, and tons of food to eat. We spend the day snowmobiling around the cabin area.

This year, my cousin Sarah and I spent most of the day together. We have found common ground in that we have both hit the age of 20 and are unmarried (a big shocker for our family). Sarah is hysterical and really adventurous (watch out everyone, she is coming to BYU next semester!) Sarah and I decided to take a little trip on the snowmachine and I was kind enough to let her drive. That turned out to be a mistake. She hit the gas full throttle before I had hardly situated myself and we were off. I was clinging on for dear life. The whole time I was thinking of the headline that would appear in the paper the next day when someone finally found our bodies..."Death By Snowmobile!" or something of the like. No, really I returned safe and sound except for the huge goose egg that I have on my forehead from when we came to an un-known pit and caught some major air, subsequently causing me to land on top of Sarah and jam my helmet into my head when we returned to the ground again.

After the cabin, we head to my grandma's house were we have the traditional nativity scene with the kids all dressed up in elaborate costumes followed by the "state of the family address" by my grandfather. He is quite the rambler and his speeches can be quite lengthy, but this year we got off early with just a 20-30 min talk. Everyone then moves downstairs to open our presents. Ever since I can remember, they have always been arranged in a snake around the room with the youngest opening their presents first, all the way up to the oldest.

Dec 25: We spend the day at my Grandma's on my mom's side of the family. Even though she is currently on a mission, we still use her house as a gathering spot. We typically start with a HUGE meal that is easily consumed in 10 minutes. Everyone's favorite part of the meal is that we absolutely have to have candy canes in our diet 7up. Although everyone really hates it, we do it anyway just to keep the tradition alive. For presents, my uncle acts as Santa and some of the littler kids are his elves, delivering all the gifts under the tree.

This year we were in for a real surprise. My grandma had shipped all of our gifts from Nauvoo and they all arrived looking like they had been run over by an 18-wheeler. However, they all had written on them "Homemade by Grandma with love". The anticipation was killing us of what they could possibly be. My grandma is not crafty, nor is she domestic in any way. So as everyone opened their gifts from Grandma, we discovered that they were hand-knitted scarves and hats. No one can figure out how she made them, but she did... The funniest part was that they were all completely un-matching, really quite ugly combinations. Everyone was laughing so hard by the time we were done opening them, a few people were even crying. My brother, aunt, and I were quickly voted to have received the ugliest of the scarves. Mine looks like it was a piece of carpet from the 70's. Its blue and my hat is yellow and green. Go figure! My brother's scarve changes color in the middle. It goes from a brown kind of scheme to a purple scheme. We figured that they must have run out of yarn and not known the difference. Pretty funny. My aunt insists that her neon blue scarve coupled with a gray and black hat is the worst. Its a toss-up. The gifts were definitely made with love though, and thats what counts!

I love the holidays!

You Know You're Back in Idaho When...

* The big news on the front page of the paper reads, "Salmon Residents Fed Up With Deer in City"
*There are three obituaries in the paper instead of three pages (which is unfortunate for me, since I like to read them)
*Choices for the day's activities include hookey-bobbing and/or spinning cookies
*A radio contest asks for caller number 5 instead of caller number 93 or 107 or 200
*A visit to the mall to finish (or start in my case) your Christmas shopping that is supposed to last one hour lasts three because you see so many people you know that you have to stop and talk to
*Drivers are still going 10 mph over the speed limit even though the roads are snowy, icy, and wet
*The only person you can find to hang out with is your brother
*There is a store in the mall dedicated to John Deere and multiple cowboy apparel stores
*You see liscense plates with numbers such as 3 (that's my grandma's-really) or 77 (saw that one today) instead of the long letter-number combos.

That's all I could think of/noticed today...I'm sure more will come to me later...

The Countdown Begins

I have finished all my classes and actually wish I could take some finals today. I started cleaning out my room and de-junking my stuff in the apartment. I went to the post office and had my address forwarded to home. I talked to my cell phone provider and put my plan on a three month hiatus. I gave away a truckload of clothes to the DI. I think this means I am really leaving.

As excited as I am to go to Ecuador, I have actually been putting off doing all these little things because as soon as I start, my departure is reality.

Ecuador... here I come in 21 days!

Frankenstein vs. The Horse

Within a matter of 15 seconds tonight I was told that I look like Frankenstine and then a horse. I can't decide which is worse.

Neil Diamond

"There are two types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't." (What About Bob)


Ok, I admit it...I am a fan.

I haven't always been though. I have had a love-hate relationship with Neil since day one. My mom and her three sisters are what we like to call OBSESSED. When they get together, undoubtedly one of them will bring up how good his butt looks in leather pants, how hot they think his chest hair is (gag!), or how he captured their young hearts back in the 70's. Family parties would not be family parties without blasting a little Neil. My cousins and I grew up with Neil, but we spent our younger years rolling our eyes and making sure our mothers knew how much we hated him.

This past summer, the tables turned a little bit. My extended family caravanned out to Nauvoo to visit my grandma on her mission there. As we traveled, our car load (my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and two cousins) insisted upon listening to Neil Diamond almost the entire way. "Coming to America", "Sweet Caroline" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" became our staples and we practiced them over and over again until we had every word just right. The funny thing was that we had to keep rotating drivers of the vehicle. As my mom got sick of our crazy singing, one of her sisters would substitute in and take her turn until she couldn't stand it anymore either. Upon arrival in Nauvoo, the "sensational six" jumped out of the car and insisted upon performing our Neil concert for Grandma very first thing.

Needless to say, the entire fam is converted to Neil. Yesterday, my cousins and I surprised our moms with Neil Diamond concert tickets for Dec 16, complete with t-shirts, glow-sticks, and the whole bit. I have never seen such excitement in my whole life. The four of them cried, laughed, sang, danced, and reminisced all night long.

I think the only thing missing for their concert experience is a poster that says "Welcome to the family Neil."

And the "biggest dork" award goes to...

Well, I have had a most interesting evening. I sometimes wonder how I make it through life without more damage than I already have. I worked in Draper tonight from 5-7 before getting on the road to come home for Thanksgiving. Obviously because I don't work there very often, I don't know the clients there like I know the ones that I have seen 3,345 times each in Provo. So a man comes in for a visit and in the middle his wife comes in and hands him an infant child. Now, I am just going to be honest here for a moment, this man was probably not in the prime of his 20's (or 30's or 40's for that matter). In other words, he was kind of old. (And I know what some of you are thinking....that he is probably NOT old at all since I supposedly have no ability to judge people's ages. But trust me on this one, he was no youngster!). So our conversation went like this:
K: Oh how cute! Is this your grandson?
(LONG....awkward....pause)
Man: No. This is my SON.
K: Oh...umm...of course...so...cute....(mumbling off)
Not only am I ready to die at this time, but I am kicking myself because this exact experience has happened to me before and at that time, I swore I would never EVER be the cause of such an uncomfortable conversation again. Yeah, right.



I think I am officially the biggest dork alive.

Ode to Kylee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLEE!!! Welcome to the 20 and over club! For those of you that don't know Kylee, here is your chance to get to know her because she will soon be taking over my bed.

I love you girl!

My favorite Slaw

This post is dedicated to Ronnie:

I hate to admit it, but I despise coleslaw. Actually, I don't have a problem admitting that at all. I have really only had one decent coleslaw in my life and that was last weekend when I was in Boston. It was at this place called "Legal Seafood" and it was the only coleslaw I have ever tasted that didn't make me want to throw it right back up. But it still wasn't my favorite.

My Favorite Flaw

One of my earliest vivid memories happened when I was in kindergarten. I was dressed in a pink and white striped dress, a matching bow in my perfectly curled hair, and white tights to go over my buckled shoes. If appearances were any indication, one would think that I was a delightful, well-behaved little girl. But as we all know, appearances can be deceiving. This particular day, my class was lining up to go to gym. I straggled behind and ended up near the end of the line. Mrs. Sanford urged us all to stand in a straight line and keep our voices down, but I was only vaguely listening to her. Instead, I was thinking about how thrilling it would be to pick up the kid in front of me and throw him to the ground. Jeff, as he was named, was the runt of the class. He seemed half my size, so that made the temptation more than I could handle. Before I could think any further, I had grabbed him around the middle and pitched him to the floor.

From age five on, I think that I have developed as a trademark the inability to see the end result before I say or do something. When I was 12 years old my aunt informed me that my new motto was going to be, "When in doubt, don't shout it out" after I told her friend's son (who I had known for approximately 30 seconds) that he was ugly and that he needed to change his clothes. That motto has served me well for quite a few years now, but I still frequently find myself saying or doing dumb things that I should know better than to do. You'd think that by a certain age, one would not be so dumb. Unfortunately for me (and for you) I still have that problem quite often.

I guess I will just have to pass it off as a characteristic flaw.

"Beverly" II ??

I publicy declare here and now that we need to take another trip to Atlanta. This one should be in, oh, say a year and a half or so. While I was traveling home from Boston today via airplane, about 30 minutes into the five hour flight I had already finished playing two rounds of card Clue, colored 6 pictures, had a snack, and been to the bathroom twice. So while I waited for the movie to start, I decided to take a look at the SKY magazine. Much to my surprise, there was an article that took up half the magazine about one of my favorite places ever, Atlanta.

Partway into the article was a little blurb about the Coke Museum. Now, I know that those of us who were in Atlanta before all pledged our alliance to Coke once and for all after visiting the wonderful world of Coke during our stay. Well, in 2007 they are opening a NEW coke museum that will be twice as large and offer the tour in ten languages! Well, that caught my attention, but after reading the next part, my mind was made up. " Visitors will be able to sample more than 100 international variations of the beverage..." !!!! 100??!?!? Think of the challenge....last time we all thought we were going to die when there were maybe 25 varieties?

Therefore, I am giving you all a year and half to prep yourself for the ultimate challenge of taking on "Beverly" again (Remember Beverly?) and all the other disgusting varieties that they can come up with. Everyone in favor, say 'Aye'!

PS.... I am officially addicted to Biscoff, a delightful cookie that Delta provides in their sky rooms. I ate a whole basket myself and stashed some away in my purse for later. Oh so yummy.

Ironic...

So I have worked for the same company for 18 months and I just got my first raise today. I find this to be frustratingly ironic since I will only be working there for 6 more weeks. Oh well, I guess I should take whatever I can get, huh?

A Fab Color Wheel

It has been a while since I was last home, so this weekend seemed the perfect time for a random visit. I was wondering why I was coming while I was making the trek over the mountain, but now I am really glad that I came. I have had a fun, though slightly nostalgic, weekend. It can be summed up by four colors.
ORANGE! On Friday night, Camille and I (along with our friends Annie and Kyah) went to what is a huge local event known as the Emotion Bowl. It seems like the entire town looks forward to this annual event because it gives us something to do other than milk the cows or race the tractors. (Ok, so its not really that bad and I shouldn't be making fun of a place I love so much, but it IS Idaho, so...). Anyway, the Emotion Bowl is a football game played between Idaho Falls high school (where I went to school) and Skyline high school. While there are actually four high schools in town, this game seems to matter to everyone. The town is split in half and it becomes quite the big deal. The week is spent with the students playing all sorts of pranks on one another. There are signs of either the orange or the blue all over town, on the streets, on houses, business signs, ect. I'm not joking, literally everyone gets involved. Whoever wins the game has the right to paint the goalposts of the shared football field (yeah, I know, that's pretty ghetto) their color. Since the field sits on IF's campus, I personally think they look best orange.

ANYWAY, I went to the game feeling slightly out of place since its been a year and a half since gradation. But, there was no need to worry, cause like I mentioned, the whole town turned out. We ran into parents of kids our age who are now on missions, my grandma's sister who drove in from the neighboring town, old co-workers, the local missionaries, IF's very own "superfan", junior high kids awaiting their turn to be in high school, three of my aunts and uncles, bored residents who had nothing better to do, and many many others. You name it and they were there! After the initial shock of seeing so many familiar faces that I thought I had forgotten, I really enjoyed the night and I am happy to report that the goalposts are orange for the next year.

Pink: I went to see my cousin's new baby in a little hick-town up the road. I have never seen anything so tiny in my life. She was born at just barely 5 pounds but is healthy as can be so she got to come home right on time. She is so incredibly precious, but she was so miniature she didn't seem real!

Brown: Tonight, I went with my cousin Annie and my best friend in the whole world to the 5 Browns concert at BYU-Idaho. It was just us three. Haylee is married and Anneka is engaged, so I was overly overly excited to have some bonding time with them. I think that we had more fun than anyone in the building, but it was not because we were caught up in enjoying the amazing piano skills of the 5 Browns. I think we were rather annoying, bordering on obnoxiousness. I think we all just bring out the craziness in each other. It was so good to be with them. We'll have to write letters of apology to the 5 Browns later, but I think it's worth it!

and BLACK! I was mortified to find out that in order to get into any event at BYU-Idaho, you have to follow their extremely strict rules, including the dress code. (I won't get into what I think about some of their rules, but suffice it to say that its a little bit over the top!). This was bad news for me because I typically only wear flip-flops. Flip-flops aren't allowed on campus, so without thinking, I tried to go with my flip-flops on. That was a no-no. The only thing I had to replace them with was my black Sunday shoes thats are rather dressy. Luckily, they were in my car, so I had no other choice but to wear them. The most horrifying part is that I was wearing BROWN pants. Horrible, I know. And of course I had to see everyone and their dog that I haven't seen forever. I have single handedly re-invented the fashion rules at BYU-Idaho! Yay me!

Aaron- Mr. Fashionista

Here is an exciting photo to break up the monotany of your day! The other night, my pants were sitting on the coffee table and somehow Aaron decided to try them on. You are probably thinking what I am thinking....that its a little scary that he can fit into my clothes and that they look better on him than they do on me, but what can we do? He is also wearing Stefani's jacket-- is that enough to classify him as a cross-dresser?

Responsibility

Responsibility...what's that? I feel like crap today. In fact, I slept through all three of my classes this morning. I haven't felt this sick since moving to school at all and now I just want to lay in bed and have my mom come take care of me.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I do know that my mind is not functioning right. Here are the thoughts that I can remember from this morning as proof. You know when you are in that state where you are kind of awake and kind of dreaming/sleeping? Well, while I was there, I had this thought that I was late for my junior high geography class. I was panicking because I knew that the teacher would ask me for an excuse signed by my parents for missing class and I was trying to come up with the right words to explain that I was a college student and no longer living with my parents. I somehow knew that it wasn't going to fly because afterall it was a junior high class. Ahhh...so weird.

Then, my next thought process/dream/whatever, was that I sold an $89 cheesecake to one of my favorite clients at work. (For those of you that don't know, I work at a weight loss place, so that makes the thought even more out of control). She bought the cheesecake, and then when I came out of my office, she was giving away the cheesecake and writing a sign to let other clients know how pushy and rude I had been.

Just barely I noticed that I had left my toothbrush in my mouth. I think its been there for like 20 minutes because my mouth is now feeling rather numb. I wish I could sit around and do nothing all day, but having already skipped class, I feel guilty. I have to go to work from 11:30-7:30. If this morning is any indication, I think I will need all the luck I can get.

I'm so happy

It has just been one of those days that is full of surprises. Funny how little things can make you so happy. So first of all, I came home from class this morning to a new bathroom sink! We weren't even expecting a new sink, nor did we really need a new sink, but there was a brand spankin' new sink!! Who doesn't like surprises?? I love them! Then, I found out that my step-brother is coming to SLC this weekend and that he can bring my best friend Kylee for my birthday! YAY!! Next, I stopped in at work to pickup my paycheck on the way home from a meeting in Murray and it was bigger than expected! Gotta love that. Finally, I checked the mail and there was a happy birthday postcard waiting from Devin. I am impressed that he remembered my birthday at all, and the fact that he sent a postcard in TIME is especially impressive. What a fabulous day!
Here are some extra exclamation points for good measure. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight is our first flag football game. Wish us luck!