Victory!

Well, I didn't get blocked out of California, I narrowly escaped Utah!

I woke up early Thursday morning after packing the night before and checking road conditions about every 15 minutes. In the morning we thought that maybe we should just wait it out and leave for home Friday morning instead, but we got some information that the 15 south was going to open at noon and a burst of adventurousness went through me and we decided to go for it!

I picked up the girls I was driving and we finally headed out of Provo around 11:15. It was no longer snowing at our destination, but it was snowing in Provo at that time. I scraped a good 5 or 6 inches of snow and ice off of my entire car and traversed the dangerous roads. It was my first encounter with driving on snow and going over ice. There was a few times when I kind of freaked out, but Adrienne helped calm me and I managed it well.

The freeway was pretty clear for the majority of our trip, but the slushy dirty snow on the road kept covering my car and making my windshield nearly impossible to see through. That, with the combination of ice blocking my windshield wiper fluid, caused a little distress, but nothing water spray from driving behind huge semi-trucks couldn't fix. They sprayed my car and then I could use my wipers to clear it off, thankfully.

We did hit some traffic after crossing State Line, which made us go pretty slow for a while, then the pointless agricultural checkpoint made us go about 15 MPH for an hour, until they just waved us past them and I sped out of there to finally be free from semi-trucks and get HOME. We hit another little snag when nearing the 138, but this time we were only stopped for 15 minutes. They only plowed one lane of the 138, so it took us a good 45 minutes to an hour to finally get to Palmdale. It was pretty late at night- Oh man was I glad to be home!

I finally got to see Cody, who arrived home from his mission on the 9th and to enjoy the company of family and friends :)

It has been nice to sleep in a comfy bed, do my laundry for free, and be with those I love.

Im trapped!

All of my finals are done, but the big storm in Southern California/Nevada has caused the I-15 to close down. They don't know if it'll be open until Friday! :(

I want to come HOME! I think we [me and the 3 girls im driving] are going to try to leave in the morning, see the conditions, and maybe detours to try and get home. Wish us luck, say a prayer for us, and hopefully we'll be home soon! :/

:(

wide awake in 30 seconds

It is the dreaded week of finals so I've been pretty busy or burnt out from studying, so blogging hasn't really been possible but I had to take this opportunity to let you all know how I woke up this morning! I went to bed really late because I had a bad headache, but this morning my friend texted be at like 7:45 saying "3 inches baby!" So I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and this is what I saw!

I don't know if you can tell very well, but it is still falling, at a pretty good rate- so I am very excited! We got an inch or 2 on Saturday, but now it is supposed to snow a lot this week. It's just kind of sad I am stuck inside studying or testing today :( I'll try to finish fast and still enjoy the day [but no, I will not let my studies suffer because of it :D]

I'm gonna live it up with my first REAL winter, finish rocking my finals, drive home on Thursday, and enjoy the Christmas season. I know it doesn't look like this in California, so I'm gonna enjoy it now!



ps - Wade, now this counts as REAL Utah snow, right? :)

Its halfway through December already?!

School has been kind of crazy these past couple weeks. I had a big paper due the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, an online class that I procrastinated until the final due dates at the beginning of December, lots of service hours to be made up for another paper after Thanksgiving [because Head Start did not work out, so the procrastination was not by choice], and now because of the preparation for Finals!

I am greatly looking forward to going Home For The Holidays! :D classes ended on Thursday so now its just cram time. I'm going to be taking 4 finals in three days, so it shouldn't be too bad, and then I'm driving home Thursday morning with a couple other girls from Palmdale so I am very excited. This vacation will be different than my last trip home I think - well, I KNOW it will be.

This time I am really looking forward to it and I know more of what to expect. Also I want to be with my family and avoid some of this drama going on up here with roommates and friends [I did not expect drama in college, I thought that as over with in High School, but alas...]. PLUS- Cody is home! I was so excited for Heather this week when he arrived and was grateful for the pictures and video that was sent to me so I could feel like part of the welcoming committee for him :) I got to talk to him on the phone as well that night, so I was really happy about that!

This vacation I'll have no assignments to worry about, or procrastinate. I'll just enjoy my family, the food, see some friends, and relish in the Christmas spirit. I'm starting to get into the feeling of Christmas- my roommates Dani and Karina and I just watched Elf and it is supposed to snow tonight and the next two days here in Provo, so I'm preparing myself!

So the next few days will be spent studying, reviewing, and taking fun breaks to enjoy the snow and my last few days in 2008 with my roommates and BYU friends. Wish me luck on my finals and I'll be back in Cali in a few days!

Turkey Day

The day before I left for Thanksgiving I had a long and fun night :) My roommates and I had tickets to go see the A Capella group Vocal Point sing in the De Jong Concert Hall and they were amazing! They have such amazing talent as they sing some classics and favorites and are able to replicate all the sounds and instruments. We had a great time at that concert, but that was only the beginning. Right after the concert we headed straight to the movie theater to get in line for the midnight showing of Twilight!
We got to the theater and our showing had already been seated even though it was only like 9 o'clock or so, so we sat in the second row. The screen was quite HUGE from that small distance, but it was still so great. We had a couple hours to kill so Dani, Karina, and I had some fun playing with Uno cards and taking funny pictures until it started. We screamed and giggled and oohed and awwed all in unison with the packed theater and thorughly enjoyed the whole thing! I'm so glad I have roommates that love the Twilight series as much as I do :D
After the movie I drove all my roommates back home and had to pack for my flight which was only a few short hours away. I finally got to bed at 4, woke up at like 6:30, drove to Salt Lake with Dani and Karina [making great time because I thought I was going to be late] and my flight left at 8:30. I got to fly to San Francisco and then directly into the Palmdale Regional Airport on a small little propeller plane. That was an adventure! But it was great to land right at home and then stop at In-N-Out with my dad a few minutes later :)

I flew home for Thanksgiving break the Friday before Thanksgiving, so I got to spend about 10 days in California with my family and some friends. It felt really weird at first because it was my first time really leaving home and returning. I felt like a visitor of sorts and just kind of out of place for the first couple days, but once I got to spend a day out in Simi with Aunts and Cousins I felt more at home.
6 of us squeezed in a car and drove out to Simi to spend the day with the Wrights, our visiting Murdock cousins, and even a dose of the Mordues the day before Thanksgiving. We ate yummy In-N-Out [i miss it up in Utah :(], played Guitar Hero, Cranium, Apples to Apples, and just relaxed together. That night we also found out that Stephanie had her baby so we were very excited about that! I love my family and enjoy all the time that groups of us can get together :)

Thanksgiving was great too. Lots of food preparation, delicious devouring, spills, and also The Great Pie Debacle of '08 which Heather Blogged about. I ate so much yummy food that day, it was amazing. The next day I did some shopping with my mom and sister, my very first experience with Black Friday. It wasn't too bad since we didn't leave the house til around 11:30 and only went to a few stores for some select items. I got some great boots and a good winter coat, so I am ready for the snow here in Provo already!!


Saturday my nephews came home from Nevada where Naomi and the boys stayed with her parents while Derek was in Japan. I was SO excited to see them! Oh man I missed those boys! They are talking to much now and are just adorable! They also came to church with us the next day so that I could spend some more time with them before I drove back up to Utah with some friends. The drive was long, but not too bad. I was glad to be back in my dorm with my roommates and freedom. But yes, I did miss my family too :)

Halloween

Better late than never, right? :)

Halloween this year was a lot of fun! My roommates and I collectively were the Rainbow. I was yellow :) And no we were not gay pride, we were the rainbow- thats it. This could only be pulled off in the bubble of BYU in Utah...

We went to Deseret Industries and Walmart together where we all searched for anything we could find for our respective colors and so all of our outfits were unique and fun. Halloween night we made little pizzas for dinner and then went to my RHA sponsored Heritage Halls Haunted Hollywood Halloween Party [talk about alliteration!] I had to help decorate, take a shift at the refreshment table, and clean up because I'm in RHA, so whenever I was alone and people asked what I was I told them that with my roommates I was the rainbow, but alone I was the sun. Some people loved that because I always talk about being optimistic, so they said that my costume fit me perfectly :)

A couple days before Halloween my roommate Karina and I ran a few errands and decided to pick up some pumpkins. So the pictures of us taking them home [safely in seat belts :) ] and of our apartment carving pumpkins are in the collage above. Mine was named Pumpernickel and Karina's was named Olive. So much fun... I hadn't carved a pumpkin in YEARS, and I don't recall ever having before carved one all on my own before, so this was great! Karina carved Mike Wazowski from Monster's Inc, Madeline carved a ghost, and mine is a smiling sun setting behind some waves [sorry- its kind of hard to see]

Since Halloween was on a Friday and I have no Friday classes I was just hanging out at home when my friend Matt called me up and asked to help him with his costume. He came over and I helped him twist his hair all crazily, purchase eye-liner, and then put make-up all over his face. That was a first for me too and it was quite an adventure... but he did very well with the eye-liner for a first-timer :)

Halloween was awesome, I had a great time with friends and roommates and was able to enjoy the holiday even without trick-or-treating ;)

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

One of my friends Aaron was in the play Sweeney Todd so I got to go see it on a triple date with some of his roommates. The play was interesting because they didn't have sets and a true stage, it was more of the vocals and characters standing in different areas that you learned represented different "sets" and scenes. I really enjoyed it though because I only know of Sweeney Todd from the previews of the Johnny Depp movie, so I now know the whole story and got to enjoy the talents of my friend.

The play went on for two weeks before Halloween with Halloween night being their last show. Me and my friends went the night before Halloween and had a great time :)


In the collage you can see the three couples on the date: Me and Andrew on the top left, then Kylie and Nathan to our right, and Matt and Dani are on the middle right.
Top center is my friend Aaron who was part of the chorus, and bottom center is a shot of the stage.
the other pictures are of everyone having fun and being crazy - like Andrew, Kylie, and Nathan dancing in the parking lot of Wendy's after the play.