The Holidays Begin

I had a great Thanksgiving vacation. I did lots of fun things including snowmobiling, Temple Square, swimming in hot springs, bowling, just enjoying family, lots of cards games and LOTS of food. It was a much needed break and it was so much fun.

We decided to kick off the Christmas season by making Christmas sweaters.

Camerin, Me, Shae (Cam's sister), and David

The Big Judd

Halloween!!

We went to the ward Halloween party to celebrate Halloween. Camerin and I went as a s'more.

My roommate Bonnie (whose birthday happens to be on Halloween) was a Gypsie fortune teller. She's really good at staying in character. She told me that in my future she see's a tall handsome man holding my hand, and lots of dogs as our children. I liked the part about the tall handsome man, but I don't think I'll be having tons of dogs nor will I be pretending that they are my children. Good one Bonnie...haha

David was a transformer. This was him transformed. When he was standing upright it all folded back strapped to his back.

Some photo booth photos

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know that I was really here and that I really lived.”

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Pumpkins!

We have a pumpkin carving contest, Me and Camerin vs. David and Bonnie. We posted this picture on facebook for voting.

Me and Cam won by a landslide!! I thought their's was great too. Just for the record we didn't look at each others' pumpkins until we were completely done. It was just a coincidence that we had similar ideas.

Fireball

We went to the Sand Dunes on Saturday night to play FIREBALL!! You might be wondering what fireball is....Well, you soak a ball of yarn in kerosene for long time, light it on fire and throw it around. Sound crazy? yes, but hey it's actually pretty cool. It doesn't burn at all(as long as you don't try to hold onto it for a long time). It's just like an extreme version of hot potato.

This is an open shutter picture. It captured all the light for 13 seconds, so the ball moved around pretty fast!

Catching/throwing the fireball.

Conference Weekend

I went to Grandma and Grandpa Hale's house for General Conference.

I took my roommates Megan and Bonnie with me.

Hanging out with cousins.

BAD LUCK!!!! (That didn't tickle)

WARNING: IF YOU DON'T LIKE GROSS THINGS DO NOT READ THIS POST!!! Can't say I didn't warn you.

Lately I have had a bit of bad luck. It started on my birthday. We were getting out of the Weber River after doing a 2 hour float and I stubbed my toe on a rock. I thought "wow that was the most painful part of the float" When I looked at my toe I realized that my toenail was coming off. YIKES!! It was pretty painful. After getting home and soaking it was was pretty sure that the toenail would not fall off.

I was proven wrong a few days later when I looked down and saw this. My toenail fell off shortly after. Now I have painted now painted my nail-less toe so it looks normal. As you will see in later pictures.

Just two days after the toe incident, I was cutting a watermelon for Grandma when the knife slipped. Resulting in....

David, and I were slacklining last Thursday, which we do all the time. We tried to set it up differently than we normally would using a wench. We just grabbed a wench out of the truck and the rope connected to the wench was somewhat weathered. We set up the slackline making it tighter than ever before. When I stepped on the rope the weak part of the rope snapped, which caused the wench to drive into my foot with all the force of the extremely tight rope. Let me tell you! It did not tickle!!!! Before I knew what happened there was blood everywhere. It hit me on the top of my right foot at about the first metatarsal bone. Literally blood was pulsing out of my foot. My first instinct was to put pressure on my foot. I was completely calm and told David to call Dad. After which David ran to his car to get something to wrap my foot in, and Camerin got me some water (mostly to clean the blood off of my hands...there was A LOT!!). David returned with the only thing he could find, a Hollister shirt, and didn't even hesitate to wrap it around my bloody foot (What a good brother?!). During all of this I found the time to call the mother of the boy who I was supposed to tutor for 20 minutes later. That conversation went something like this "Hi, this is Janae. I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to tutoring. Something came up, it's kind of an emergency." ( I called her later to fill her in on the details). The boys helped me to the car and David took me to the doctor where I got x-rays and stitches. Turns out I fractured a bone, and I was bleeding out bone marrow blood. That is why I was bleeding so much and it was so thick. Through the whole experience I was able to stay completely calm. I do not have to wear a boot, and I get my stitches out on Monday. It really could've been so much worse. I'm just grateful that it wasn't!

This is the day after the accident (notice it is the same foot that is missing a toenail and I have painted over so you cannot tell). Also notice that my foot is fat and swollen.

Two days after the accident.

My 21st Birthday

On my 21st birthday I was with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Beth's family. We started the day by river running down the Weber River,

And finished with birthday cake. With lots of fun moments in between.

Michigan

I was lucky enough to visit my sister Janel and her cute family in Michigan. I really enjoyed spending time with them. Brooklynn and Kate are just too cute!!

I got there at about midnight. In the morning Janel brought the girls in my room to wake me up, and Brooklynn ran straight into my arms. I love that she did that. Normally it takes at least a little bit of warming up.

Brooklynn loved playing with my "Repunzel" hair aka long hair.

Katers keeps busy, she is at a really fun and playful age.

We took a bus ride to the University of Michigan Campus. It is a beautiful campus.
At the museum
Paddling the canoe
The bell tower at U of M
Brooklynn not only loved playing with my hair,
But she also loved it when I do her hair. She loves wearing her hair down, but when she saw me french braid my own hair she wanted me to do her hair to match.

We celebrated my birthday the last night I was there.

The girls wanted to help me blow out the candles.

I got to sleep with Brooklynn in her bed. She's so cute. She would cuddle up with me. Sometimes she would reach over and rub my back, or play with my hair in her sleep. Other times I would reach over to find her foot on the pillow. I miss those cute little girls.

Janel and I made circle skirts while I was there. I'll post picture of them as soon as Janel sends me the pictures.

7 Week Break

The break from school has proven to be eventful. The last 7 weeks of my life have been nothing short of fantastic.

I couldn't find my camera charger so I didn't have a camera for the whole break, but it was eventful. I wanted to blog about it anyways just so I would have it documented somewhere.

In short I went on a lot of adventures including going up to the Jones family property on Cedar Mountain, swimming in Kolob Reservoir, camping, watching the sunrise at the Grand Canyon, working at Jacob Lake for a week, St. George, Going to Zions National Park with family, giving Ammon and his kids hair cuts (including a temporary mullet for Jack...Ammon's request), BYU Education Week, making a quilt, driving my sister to her mission conference, visiting my sister Janel in Michigan, river running, my birthday, much needed rest and relaxation, and lots of time with people I love. A PERFECT break if you ask me :)

Kolob Reservoir

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon
After a swim in our clothes, during FHE with my cousin Kristine.

Nothing Quite Like It!

I finished one more semester. There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that you are done, and for at least a short period of time you can live your life free of academic stress! It is weird to think that I have spent my last summer in Rexburg. It will be bitter sweet when I leave at the end of the Fall semester never to return to Rexburg.

In my humble opinion the moving part is the worst part of finishing a semester. I'm not sure why I have chosen to move into a new apartment each semester, but I would do it again given the opportunity. However, I feel good about the fact that the next apartment I move into will be the last of my Rexburg apartments (I hope I'm not jinxing myself to marry a freshmen right when I graduate. That would be my luck! 4 more Rexburg winters....YIKES)

I was helping some of my roommates for next semester move their stuff using my truck. This was actually the only fun part of moving. I got to ride in the bed of the truck on a love sac while Megan drove :).....See how happy and exhausted I look? That's the look of a freshly finished semester at it's finest. It's a beautiful thing. The next 7 weeks will be full of fun, work, rest, and relaxation.

Indepence Day at Bear Lake

We went to my roommates house at Bear Lake for the holiday weekend. We started the weekend with a stop at Lava Hot Springs. This is the tower at Lava. Stephen, Taylor, Derek, and I are on the top level, and Paige and Aleena are on the second level.

We spent all day Saturday on the beach. Everyone except for me got burned to a crisp. Whats my secret? Sunscreen. Imagine that. It was a nice relaxing day on the beach. Just the right amount of swimming, sleeping, and reading. For the rest of the weekend if I so much as bumped into anyone they would cringe because of their severe sunburns.

We went to the local ward in Bear Lake on Sunday morning and it was PACKED!! They estimated there were about 1,500 people there for sacrament meeting. It was insane.

Sunday afternoon we just relaxed at Paige's house. This is a group picture from Sunday afternoon.

We did a lot of napping, reading, boondoggling, and playing games.

Just a deer that passed through Paige's back yard.
Paige's house is at the top of a mountain over looking all of Bear Lake and the entire valley. It is beautiful!! This picture really does it no justice, but it's really the only one I have of the view. Just imagine you can see a huge lake and the entire valley.

Campfire and roasting marshmallows.

Note: The giant marshmallows look like they will be super fun, but they are too big! They will most likely make you feel sick from a sugar rush.
We spent Monday on the beach again. We brought a tent this time for everyone who couldn't handle being in the sun.
I was all for soaking up more sun! I was re-reading the Hunger Games. I love those books!!!

We finished the trip with a giant pizza from some famous place in Bear Lake (so famous I can't remember the name). Before heading to Idaho Falls for fireworks.

This has nothing to do Bear Lake. I went to Big 5 sporting goods on Tuesday, and found this.