Crazy Week, but...

I got a letter yesterday [from BYU not Scott ;)] which made me so excited!


I got accepted into the Elementary Education Program at BYU!! :D I will officially begin taking classes for this major in the Fall! I am so excited! I have heard many different people at BYU who did not get accepted to the major of their choice, so I am very grateful that I was able to :)

Karina got her acceptance to the Early Childhood Education Program yesterday too, so tonight we will celebrate! But first I have to finish studying for this final and take it this afternoon. Bleh. Once I am officially done with my history class [the class I am taking a final in today] I will have TONS more free time, so I will finally blog about some of the fun stuff that has been going on :)

Oh- and by the way, today Scott has been on his mission for 9 months. That is such a long time that a human being could have been completely created in that time. And today he has a baptism! Happy day indeed! :D

Family time

Last weekend my cousin Scott was in town from Yale and I was able to meet up with him and have a great time with family! Sunday afternoon Katy and I drove to Nancy's house in American Fork and had a blast playing with her kids and eating a delicious meal. It was so awesome to spend that time with all my cousins :)

Nancy made us a delicious dinner and then we played some intense rounds of Apples to Apples and Zingo. After the board games went away the kids performed a few charades for us. My personal favorite was Hannah being my brother Nathan with a big blue afro wig and a fake beard/mustache combo, haha!

Then we had some fun with my camera and the kids were fascinated with Scott's mastery of Mario on Ryan's DS. It was so much fun and I am so grateful to have family out here to spend time with! Katy and I definitely need to visit American Fork more often!! :)

Katy, Ryan, and I

Ryan, Cohen, and I

Cohen mastering the games on Scott's iTouch

Morgan, Cohen, Hannah, and Ryan all crowded around Scott

This is a video Ryan recorded introducing everyone there :)

Valentine's Day

Today was really fun for me to look back on the past year and some memories of Valentine's day last year - some not so pleasant, and others absolutely amazing.

Last year: Karina and I were caught up in drama and ridiculousness, which I am still so very sorry about. It is amazing the amount you can grow up in a year, because I feel so much more mature now. The week leading up to Valentine's day Karina and I didn't really talk to each other. It was so awkward and tense, and looking back, absolutely ridiculous. Oh man... crazy times. Anywho - we were having some difficulties, which I now call the dark ages.

Then on Friday night, the night before Valentine's day I got a text from Scott asking if I knew anything fun going on that night. He and a few of his roommates ended up coming over to my apartment to watch a movie with us and that was the first time we really hung out. The next day we talked a bit and then about an hour and a half [maybe] before the big Invitational Dance started Scott and his roommate came over and asked me and my roommate Madeline to go with them. We happily agreed and at this point Karina and I were starting to thaw out.

Madeline and I were not sure which guy was asking which girl, but we were excited to go with them nonetheless. We finally figured out who was whose date when we got to the coat check of the dance and Scott offered to hold my ticket for me :) The dance was so much fun! We had a great time together, we even accidentally matched perfectly. Good times! :D

Scott and I on the dance floor

That night was amazing, but I had no idea how much this guy was going to change my life!

This year: Karina and I are best friends, without a repeat of anything near the dark ages :) In fact, she is even out of the state visiting California with her family and we have talked more so than last year, haha. This Valentine's day Scott is serving a mission in Texas and my day was pretty normal- I went to church, enjoyed the talks and the lessons, and tonight attended a fireside. The speaker was Brother Jack Christiansen and I really enjoyed his talk! He was really funny but he also had such a spiritual message that was not much of what he had prepared beforehand, but it was what we needed to hear.

One thing that he shared that really struck me was counsel that Pres. Eyring had given him. He was asked what was his plan for the future and after he responded Pres. Eyring said this: "The right answer is you don't know - you don't know what the Lord has in store for you." This is so true, especially looking back on last year, I had no idea what was ahead of me. And now I'm sure that I don't know what is ahead of me still. I love this quote I heard somewhere before, "If you want to make God laugh, plan your future." We do not know what we are in store for, we can just do our best and keep moving forward, and that is what I am doing :)

Happy Valentine's day!

This is my delicious cookie I got at the Fireside tonight :)

Mama's "inspiration"

As I was talking to my mom on the phone earlier tonight I mentioned that I should really update my blog more often and she responded by informing me that I was long overdue a remodel because I had "the same background since Summer", and I was apparently so behind on the times, haha.

I told her that I was too lazy and didn't have time... but then all I was doing tonight was watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, so I decided to check through my digital scrapbooking collection - and viola! I have a new blog that my mom can [hopefully] appreciate! :)

...but don't expect another new one any time soon. I figure I've got at least another 7 months before I'm due again ;)




ps. I loved the coverage of the Olympics! It surprisingly made me cry as well. What did you think?

PB&?

When we had a three-day weekend because of MLK Day, Karina and I decided to have a waffle breakfast and invite a group of friends over. We provided the waffles and assigned other parts to our friends like fruit, syrup, whipped cream, and juice. It turned out great and we had a ton of fun eating and chatting. My new personal favorite way to eat a waffle is to spread peanut butter over it and then drizzle on the syrup - Ah-mazing! :D

I am a huge peanut butter fan. Huge. I buy what I call the "industrial size" peanut butter jar at Walmart because I know that I will use it all. Here are some of my favorite peanut-butter-included snacks:

-toasted PB&J sandwiches [or not toasted if I am lazy]
-peanut butter and shredded wheat. I thought this sounded crazy at first when Karina tried it, but it is SO GOOD. You take a mini shredded wheat (the cereal) and spread a little dollop of peanut butter, then make it a mini sandwich by adding another shredded wheat piece. yum.
-Muddy-Buddies [aka Puppy Chow]. You just can't go wrong with peanut butter AND chocolate
-"Stroke of Genius" a yummy snack I came up with about a month ago. You toast some bread, spread some peanut butter all over it, and then sprinkle chocolate chips across it. [mini marshmallows also work well when you run out of chocolate chips]
-apple and peanut butter, simple and semi-healthy :)

Do you have any yummy peanut butter snacks? Or other yummy snacks you'd like to share?

a night of epic adventures

My ward had an awesome activity on Thursday night where we went to Soldier's Hollow in Midway, UT for some tubing. The resort has a tow cable that pulls you up the hill on your tube, which was amazing and relaxing. Climbing the hill is the worst part of tubing. The line was way long at one point for the towing so a few of us actually walked up... I do not recommend it! We were so tired when we finally reached the top, plus they kindly asked us to wait for the tow rope next time, oops.

We had a great time forming groups to ride down together and trying to go as fast as possible. We had some great runs and had an awesome time overall. It even started snowing while we were there, which was so pretty!


Afterward, I drove with Karina to this place my friend Steven showed me a few weeks ago that was really close by. Some friends followed us in their car to see it too and so we caravan-ed to the resort where the ice castles are. They are so amazing!

These are the ice castles when I went with Steven

They were gorgeous covered in snow too!

We took some fun pictures and wandered around before starting to head home to Provo. By this time it was still snowing pretty steadily and I was following behind Tyler's car. We were driving through the Provo Canyon when the night truly hit epic proportions. I was a little behind Tyler and all of a sudden I notice he is going towards the side of the road like he is going to pull over, but then I saw his car bounce off the side of the road where the snow/ice has piled up around the guard rail.
By the time I fully realized what was going on I had hit the ice too and was heading right for the wall myself. The brakes did nothing and steering made no difference. It was like everything was in slow motion and I had no control. I braced myself to either get stuck in the snow or to hear a crunch. After the right front part of my car hit the ice/snow my car bounced back and I ended up sideways across a few lanes in the canyon.

I was frozen there for a minute as my roommate suggested we go out to look at my car. I then composed myself to move my car to the side of the road in case a car came from behind me. Karina was closer to the part that hit so she saw it before me and as I crossed the front of my car this is what I heard her say, "Holls, your car is totalled." I freaked out before I realized that what she really said was, "Holls, your car is totally fine." BIG difference. And a horrible choice of words if I do say so myself.

I was SO BLESSED!!
1. There is not a single scratch or dent on my car.
2. We were far enough behind Tyler's car that we did not come close to hitting his car as well.
3. Following Tyler kept me at a good speed so that the impact wasn't much worse than it could have been.
4. No car came up behind me and side-swiped me.
5. We hit the side of the road that had a wall of snow/ice instead of an exposed rail or worse yet an open drop.
6. We were not on the part of the road that was a 2-lane highway.
7. Karina was there to comfort me as shock settled in.
and the list can go on....

Karina told me that she had the thought that maybe we could get in an accident so she said a silent prayer literally seconds before we hit the ice. I am so grateful for that. And for the tender mercies of the Lord who protected us all that night.

I was in shock for a few hours after that. It was such a scary experience! The only things wrong with our cars is a tiny scratch above Tyler's tire and my alignment got a little bit tweaked; but I can accept that!

It was definitely an epic night.

Fun collage

I just realized that I never posted this. It is from when Karina and I hiked the Y