Back in action

So life in Cedar City is going full swing! I'm working my 2 jobs, playing volleyball, and in my last semester of classes (next semester I student teach- then I'm graduated!) But most importantly I'm out having fun =) This last Saturday one of my roommate's boyfriend took us rock climbing out west of town. It was probably pretty boring for him, but just the perfect amount of challenge for me.

(Two of my roommates Kestri and Haley)

Sorry this picture is crooked. I suck. But Not too bad for only my second time rock climbing! (I decided I need to invest in some real rock climbing shoes)

And of course, it wouldn't be Cedar City if we weren't going to bonfires! This one got to be pretty huge... Note to self: don't let ignorant boys put a propane tank in the bonfire. This way you won't need to put out additional fires!

More excitement to come. My roommates and I are throwing a White Trash Bash at our house next Friday =)

Labor Day Weekend

I went up to Elise and Lane's for Labor Day weekend. It was a blast! I had to puppy sit for my friend which I thought would be a problem. Turns out Danelle loves puppies =) I got to spend tons of time with the awesome McKellar fam. We went for a drive up around Logan on Sunday and had a beautiful picnic in the mountains (below)!

And I got to take Dannelle to the swimming pool and park. It was so much fun to have her all to myself! =)

In Dublin's Fair City

Alright. So I guess it's time I put some pictures of Europe up... So my friend Lindsay Heim and I backpacked trough Europe on our own in May/June. It was basically the most amazing and cultural experience ever! We started out in Dublin (after an 11 hr flight to London, then 2 hr flight to Ireland). We stayed in hostels and rode trains, ferries and the subway everywhere. Dublin was fabulous! It was everything I imagined... We had planned for one day to rent bikes, taking a train to the edge of town, and take them out into the countryside. I've always wanted to just be in those rolling green mountains. But it turns out you can't take bikes on the trains. So we switched it up and rode out to Howth- a gorgeous little seaside village.

Standing outside of our hostel, Camden Place, with all of our gear on :)

We were walking around Dublin looking at the different houses/ doors, etc. and we didn't see a cross walk around. So we asked this police officer if we were allowed to cross the street here (not wanted to get ticketed for jay walking in a foreign country) ... he laughed at us for maybe 10 seconds before saying we could. Lindsay and I felt way stupid. Apparently there's no such think as Jay walking there...

Some kegs that were just sitting on the street!

One of our many PB sandwich lunches... but the view is amazing!

On the cliffs in Howth, where we were eating our lunch

As long as you stayed on the path they really weren't that dangerous. But these signs were posted all over

I wish the camera were able to capture how gray-green the water was... and so cold!

Self explanatory... but the most beautiful stained glass windows were inside!

Oh the doors! Why can't we have doors like this here???

Temple Bar District. We went into a couple of pubs and listened to some amazing live music and met some pretty cool people!

Oh yes. And how could I leave out out last night in Dublin. The plan was to take a night ferry from Dublin to Wales and then the train to London. Well... we forgot to double check the time for our ferry and showed up an hour late for it! We calmly asked when the next ferry was thinking we could just hop on the next one. Well, surprise! It was the last on of the night and the next one isn't until 7am the next day. Of course I'm near tears at this point. We don't have a place to stay and this is going to throw us off an entire day! But the security guard was nice enough to let us sleep in the passenger waiting area. Well as you can see this isn't exactly the Ritz. We slept on skinny little metal benches with our Virgin Atlantic pillow and blanket. There was a floor to ceiling window- that looked right out to the street- which was a little disconcerting, the lights were 24hrs so they never shut off, and it kinda smelled like a bathroom. But hey! It was free and there was no way we'd miss our ferry the next morning (probably because neither of us could fall asleep for longer than 20 minute increments.) Hands down the worst nights sleep I have ever had! ... But oh so worth it in the long run! :)

A New Season

I know I know.... Ive been slackign lately. I still need to put more pictures of Hawaii up... and let's not even get into how many pictures of Europe I need to go through. But life still goes on. And I'm back up in Cedar City already. Volleyball is in full swing and I'm very excited for my fifth and final season! http://www.suutbirds.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=106902&SPID=12707&DB_OEM_ID=20100&ATCLID=1568951&Q_SEASON=2010

Oahu!

Chinaman's Hat. We actually were able to walk the entire way out there! And the hike to the top had such an incredible view!

My very first rope swing. And this little secluded paradise is better than anywhere to do it!

At the top of the volcano looking out at Waikiki


At Pearl Harbor

My favorite beach of all time! (Waimae Bay) North Shore

Shooting from the hip

So while Breanne was visiting me for her Spring Break I had one of my friends and his brother take us out shooting. Neither Breanne nor I had ever shot a gun before, so it was really fun! Breanne is a natural. She was hitting almost all of the clay pigeons they put in front of her... I, on the other hand needed a little more practice. Breanne was able to hit a flying clay pigeon on almost her first try.... I, on the other hand failed miserably. So although it was a little chilly out and I basically wasn't very good at it, we still had a ton of fun and can't wait to go again!

Anyone with a gun who's willing to take me, let me know ;)

Fantastic Four

Jensa and Ryan came down to Salt Lake to go to an Elite Eight game of the NCAA tournament. Since they came down- Breanne and Nathan and I made a trip up. We had the usual meeting place of grandma and grandpa's aka Hotel Raiser. It was so great to be with them- even if it was only for a day.
I started messing around with Jensa's camera and began having Chase do action shots jumping off the step. That quickly evolved into a full blown photo shoot where over 70 pictures were taken of these three doing various jumping poses off of the steps. It was quite a fun 30 minutes =)
And finally, a fort was built. Forts have become a regular occurrence when the four of us (Nathan, Me, Chase and Ava) get together. I have to say this is one of the better forts I've constructed. It had plenty of room for kids and aunts and uncles! We just HAD to take a picture in front of it.

Although it was a short visit on my end, it was so much fun! I love family!!!!!

Texas

I went out to visit Elise in Texas for part of my spring break a few weeks ago. She lives in Buda which is just outside of Austin. I got to do a lot of sight seeing along with getting in a lot of quality time with Elise, Lane, and Danelle. We went to San Antonio and walk along the River Walk.
We also got to see the Alamo... and remember it =)
We went to the zoo where Danelle had a great time watching all the people and pointing to the animals. Most of the ones she recognized she knew from the Disney movie Madagascar.
And what's a trip to Texas without have some BBQ? We went to a place called Salt Lick which has some of the best meat I've ever eaten.... Danelle enjoyed licking off the tasty sauce.

All in all it was a fun and relaxing trip! The weather was perfect... I couldn't spend enough time out in the sun. It almost made me forget that I had to wait 9 hours in the Denver airport on standby on my way back home. But it was all worth it to get to see family and visit all of those great places!

College Math?

This semester I am in a math for elementary educators class. It is meant to break down math to its simplest form so that we understand it at a deeper level in order to better teach the kids. Yes, this is what we did one class...
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And can I tell you that there are people failing?????

Quick Sand

So this picture is from a few months ago but I figured I should let everyone have a laugh with me. A few friends of mine came down to visit from up north and brought down a boat. We were gonna go wake boarding/ tubing down in St. George at Sand Hallow. Well I had work in the morning so my roommate Marli and I left late to meet them down there. Well, I didn't know where they had parked, so I accidentally passed the lot where they had parked and had to make a U turn... So since the road was so narrow I figured rather than make a three point turn I'd take in wide and go a little bit onto the sand...How was I to know that if you try to drive on sand, well, you can't drive??

So naturally my car gets stuck. And I have no idea what to do. A bunch of people who were quadding stopped to help us damsel's in distress. Well pushing didn't work. And neither did trying to tow it out with the quads. I was in pretty deep! So finally my friends saw where I was and they went to get their truck... they hitched my up to their truck and towed me out no problem.

I couldn't help but laugh! I mean, who thinks they can drive on the sand??

Lesson learned! =)

Busted

So as you can see my phone split in half... It had come apart a few weeks ago and I used my professional super gluing skills to put it back together. On top of that it wouldn't charge on its own- I would have to force the cord in and wrap it around twice counterclockwise and keep it tilted at in angle in order to give it any power (so naturally for the last few weeks that battery hasn't been charged past half power!) It held for quite a while, but it finally came completely apart to the point of no repair. And I don't think it could have happened at a more convenient time! I had ordered a free upgrade phone online 2 days before and it got delivered while I was in class, so I only had to go a few hours without a phone! =)

My new phone is a Rival. I don't love it as much as my last phone, but it's in one piece and makes calls- so I'm not complaining!

Fire Alarm!

So this is my most recent culinary masterpiece. I decided one night to make a quesadilla for dinner. The way I usually do it is to put my oven on broil and then it only takes about a minute and a half to get all melty and toasty- instead of having it kind of soggy from the microwave. Well time saver that I am, I decided I would attempt to make nachos the same way at the same time. Not even 30 seconds goes by after putting the pan in the oven and smoke is billowing out of the door! I ran over to turn off the oven and pull out the pan and my nachos are literally on fire! Then the fire alarm starts blaring and is making it so I can't even think straight (whose idea was it to make them so piercingly loud??) So I'm sitting there holding the flaming food and stupidly blowing at the fire like its a birthday cake or something while simultaneously yelling "Oh Crap! Oh Crap!" ... my roommates came out just in time to watch me panicking and blowing out the fire. Then after the fire is blown out for some reason I took the pan outside to let it cool...? Don't ask. I wasn't in my right mind. I was able to salvage my quesadilla, but as you can see the nachos were lost in this tragic incident.
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I promise I'm a better cook than this photo indicates (1-my ability to misjudge necessary temperature and 2) my choice in food) How was I to know that processed cheese was so flamable???

Yet another injury on my right leg...

So I have decided that my right leg is cursed. After having an ACL surgery on this leg over a year ago I have yet another injury. Although this one is NO WHERE near as bad as that. When my volleyball team was in the weight room one morning at 7am we were jumping over hurdles and I landed wrong. My ankle immediately swelled up! (as seen in the last picture) It turned out to only be a sprain but it sure looks worse than that! I went to practice later that day and played on it (I don't wanna be a baby... and when you've experienced that pain of a torn ACL and everything that entails a sprained ankle doesn't seem bad at all) I've been keeping it wrapped with this special thing called a horseshoe that pushes the swelling away from the ankle- but what happens because of that is that bruising gets pushed to weird spots too, hence the weird shapes of bruises.

I'm fine. Currently slightly hobbling like an idiot yet again. I've been getting treatment, icing my ankle, and keeping it elevated as often as possible- even as I write this... So I'll just have to get it taped for extra support during practice on top of wearing my normal ankle braces for a while.

Mustaches

So when I was out with a couple of my roommates we found these really random gumball type vending machines that had stick on mustaches. Naturally we each bought one and put them on for fun... Here are a couple of the ridiculous pictures. I for one am sure glad I don't hav a real one! ;)

The Last Three Months

I've done a lot these last few months. So much in fact that I haven't really had time to blog about it. I had my volleyball banquet, went to a couple of parties, made cookies for all of our neighbors, went home for Christmas and spent time with the family, went Bungee jumping with friends while home, played in the snow with roommates, went 4 wheeling on one of my dates, went on a game show, and went hiking in Saint George.

It has definately been an eventful three months! Some of the stuff I did was life changing... some of it fun... and some of it just adding more stress (like getting a second job at Hertz car rental)

Hopefully the next 3 months will bring just as much excitement!