Finish it already!

I've decided something: catching up on the blog takes EVERY SINGLE OUNCE of fun out of blogging. I like to blog on things that are happening right now, rather than things that have happened weeks/months ago. So, I've decided I'm just gonna put it all in a mini size nutshell and get on with it. :)

Pretty much, I got home, got my job back at Ingles, and I got a job at Spine Care and Pain Management in Athens. I get there at 8 AM Monday through Thursday, sit in a desk in a really dusty conference room, and scan paper patient charts all day long, until I leave at 6:30 PM. It's extremely boring and it's making me fat because I sit at a desk all day long. NICE. But, I do get a lot of hours, and I get to work with some members (Dan Bryant and Steve Weidler [Emilee's brother in law]) and we spend a little bit of time talking about missionary stuff each week. It's great fun to hear mission stories from them. It makes me excited to go.
I work at Ingles on Fridays and Saturdays, usually for a combined total of about 11 hours.

Yup. That's what I've been up to. I'm going to run out of charts sometime in the next 2 weeks though, so I'm going to have to find another job. I've got connections with another place in Athens though (Checkit Books), so I'll just mozy on over there. Also, that job would be really fun because Mom is thinking of possibly getting hired there with me to work a couple of days a week. Which would be fantastic. :)

Hooray. I'm finally done. I've been dreading this post for a loooong time. Now I can finally get back to the fun kind of blogging. Which makes me happy.

the end.

Things 2 and 3

First things first: the plane ride home from San Diego.
For some reason, the assistant band director (Art Young) got the band to pay for my ticket home. I have no idea why, but hey, I'm not complaining. So I ended up with a free direct flight to ATL from the LAX airport. Simply divine.
I ended up sitting in the very back row in between a middle aged man and an enormous black woman who smelled like cigarettes. She was really nice, and let me read her magazines she'd gotten from the airport because she was asleep (and snoring) the entire trip back down here. Then when we got off the plane she gave me and the guy next to me a piece of gum, so she could "get back in touch with her southern hospitality." Hooray!
Christmas break was a blast. It was SO nice to have a break from college. So very nice indeed. Seeing the family again, visiting the grandmas, playing basketball outside, the pavillion, jumping on the tramp... it was all just fabulous.
Then came thing 3: I decided to go on a mission!
I had a dentist appointment on the 27th of December. While I was sitting in the chair having my teeth cleaned, I was thinking about nothing in particular when all of a sudden, it hit me- I want to go on a mission. I should go on a mission. There's no reason not to, and there's nothing but good that can come of it. I can just stay home this semester and work to save up the money. Let's do it.
When I got home, I told mom my thoughts. She was really excited for me, and informed me that she had been wanting to talk to me about staying home to save up for a mission all break long, but she was too afraid. Nice.
Anyway, long story short, I started my mission papers! The only thing left if my interview with the Stake President. I've been waiting for them to call me so we can schedule an interview with President Bradley, but they're taking FOREVER. Hopefully I can get that taken care of lickity split so I can get my papers all the way submitted. Ahhh exciting! I'll be sure to keep you all updated on that process.

I don't know how to end this, so I'll just close with one of my personal favorite quotes from Phil Dunfy (from Modern Family):
"When life gives you lemonade, make lemons. Life will be all like WHAAAT?!!"
bahahahaha :)

Who has 2 thumbs and is a slacker? Beginning of catching up.

Not me! It just so happens that I've been EXTREMELY busy as of late. Since the last time I blogged was the beginning of December, this is going to take a while. You have been warned.

Thing one: The Bowl Game!!!
The San Diego State v BYU game was probably my favorite one of the entire season. The entire trip down there was awesome. The band all met in the parking lot we usually practice in at 5 AM on December 17. We loaded all our stuff, ate the breakfast they had for us, and left. I can't really remember, but we got to our hotel in San Diego pretty late that night after driving all day. It was on that bus ride that I decided that a desert sunrise is one of the most beautiful things in the entire universe. The sky was light blue on the horizon, then orangey-pink, then blue again. Gorgeous.

At some point in the bus ride IN San Diego. That boy is Daniel. He's cool and has a lemon tree in his yard.

While we were in San Diego, we did a lot of stuff. The night we got there we had to march in a parade through some of the main streets in San Diego, and that was a lot of fun. Well, as fun as a parade can be, that is.
Then we went back to our super nice hotel/bungalow things, and slept in fancy beds. I was rooming with three other girls in the trumpet section: Jessica Bollwinkle, Alynne Hendricks, and Julie Hall. It was great! We had many a late night talking about everything; from boys to the gospel to if we were going on missions to boys  to music to our families to boys... you get the idea. It was great fun.
I don't really remember the order of anything else, but we had a ton of long practices, played on a giant aircraft carrier where a Pearl Harbor Veteran (who had wanted to be a band director before he was drafted at like age 16 or something and forced to fight in WWII) conducted the fight song for us at the end of a very long, loud, and epic "Battle of the Bands" with San Diego's marching band. Awesome.
At some point we went to the beach. There were sea lions and ginormous waves. And the rocks we were walking around on were VERY slippery... I may or may not have fallen and gotten my pants covered in mud.

Almost the whole section!

Our little bungalow things were BEAUTIFUL, but I didn't take a picture. However, there were ducks EVERYWHERE who woke up at around 4:30 every single morning and felt it necessary to scream at the top of their lungs until around 8:00. Every single day. Sometimes they would walk up our door and hit it with their beaks. Me and Jess were eating pizza by the pond one day and 6 ducks walked up and started trying to eat it! Right out of our hands! After a long and loud fight, we FINALLY got them to stop eating it. But they stayed there and stared at us the whole time we ate. What pumps.

We went to Sea World! We saw this AWESOME show with whales and dolphins and really cool acrobats. Then we saw Shamu, (I have no idea how to spell that) which was also incredible. I sat in the soak zone for each show, but I only got soaked at the dolphin one, lucky for me. It was freezing cold. They actually had these giant dryer things there where if you paid a dollar you could just stand in it and be warm. Crazy.

I don't really remember anything else. In fact, I don't even remember if we won the game. I just remember it was REALLY intense and fun and loud. 

Trumpet girls! I'm not really that much taller than everyone. We were on a hill.

After these cool kids went to lunch at Subway. In our white pants. We're so awesome. :D

Before the bowl game:

After the game, Clif threw his shoes up into the tunnel in celebration of his last ever game:

<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10151368033213428" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0"></iframe>

(I think that link'll work...)

Anyway, it was a fun time. I've got to go to work soon, so I'll finish this up later.

Last Sunday!

Today was the last Sunday of this semester!!! (Next week we're all gonna be partying with Shell and Nate and Meg and Sam and the like.) YAY! It was a really good Sunday. After we did the sacrament, the choir did this whole Christmas program instead of having speakers. We sang 6 songs. The last one was called Carol of Joy. It was so awesome! We've been having a little bit of trouble getting that song up to par, just because it's kind of long and there's lots of harder parts and we'd only worked on it like 4 times. But when we performed, we sounded SO AWESOME. It was incredible. We really sounded incredible. It was some powerful stuff.
The choir program ended up being a little short, and so when we finished we still had like 15 minutes left. The bishop got up and bore a brief but extremely wonderful testimony and then said that since he likes Christmas hymns so much, he wanted us to sing a bunch of them together as a congregation for the last little bit. So we did! It was one of those moments where I just got this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I could come out to BYU and get to see all these people who have the same beliefs as me. It was great. :)

So this week is finals week. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. I'm sort of freaking out. Finals are extremely important. I'm mostly worried about Physical Science-that's what I've focused most of my studying on thus far. Wish me luck!

I'm going to be home in less than 2 weeks! Hooray!

Also, I'm extremely stoked for this party at Shell and Nate's this weekend. It's gonna be a shindig to remember.

In 8 days I'm going to be on my merry way to San Diego. It's going to be a blast. We're going to sea world! And the beach! And we're doing a bunch of other fun things that I will be sure to fill you all in on.

Jenna- THANK YOU FOR YOUR LETTER. It was truly awesome. Also, I can't wait to come home and be with your hilariousness again.

EVERYONE at home - Dad, Mom, Jenna, Ryan, Kaylyn, Shauna, Doug, Juliann, Jackson, Russell, Emilee... I seriously can not wait to see you all again. I miss you all SO much. (Also- Amber, you should totally move down closer so I can see you on breaks like these. Just sayin.)

Love you all! Wish me luck on finals! Thanks for all the prayers!

Exciting and Happy Things

1. I AM GOING HOME THIS MONTH!!!!! i am SO stinkin excited about this. Me and Emma have a paper chain in our room counting down the days, and it's getting really short! Brother Young (Asst. Marching band director) hooked me up with a FREE plane ticket home after the bowl game. I leave on the 21st at 11:00 am from the LAX airport. I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

2. I've been on two dates! Both with the same guy, John Christiansen. I've started to blog about them like a billion times, but I never finish. Anyway, the first date we went on was 2 weeks ago. We went geocaching. It was really fun, and we actually found 2 treasure things! Then we went to the Brick Oven for supper and ate a TON of salad and pizza and their specially made root beer, which is the best root beer in the universe. It's even better than Barq's. He was a real gentleman the whole time, and he opened doors for me, walked on the side of the sidewalk closest to the road, and was just really nice.
The other date was just last night. We went to a divine comedy show. When he picked me up he had a giant yellow gerber daisy for me. It's so pretty, and it's in a cup of water in the kitchen right now.
Divine Comedy was great! They are so hilarious! It was a party. They take little breaks in between skits they do and turn off all the lights and shower everyone with glow sticks. It was seriously like the funniest thing I've ever seen.
We swung by John's house afterwards to grab a quick California roll, because I'd never had one. It's some kind of american-ized sushi. It was actually pretty darn good, surprisingly.
There's a ton of other stuff I should probably say about those dates but I really don't want to make this a novel. If you want deets, give me a call! Or a letter! Or an email! Or something!

3. I FINALLY cut Jamie's hair! Yesterday! And it was soooo fun! It's inspired me to start my own salon. I can't believe I've never cut hair before.
So he came over to my house with all of his hair cutting stuff and we watched the SEC championship while I chopped it. I can't remember if I already said that I was GOING to shave it, because he has a family member starting chemo soon. But apparently they found out his nice plan and got a little angry about it and told him not to shave his head after all. So I just gave him a normal buzz cut. It was nice that he could meet my roommates and that we got to know each other a little better. Plus, he gave me some junior mints that he got at the creamery. And ANYONE  that gives me free junior mints is automatically my favorite.
His new hairdo looks awesome. I messed up around his right ear just a little bit. But only a little and you couldn't even really tell unless you really looked at it real hard for a long time. Also, I forgot to take pictures. Heh. Whoops. Next time.

4. Jamie's totally into me. Actually that's probably a little bit of a lie. However, after I got home from my date with John he sent me a text saying that he's gotten a compliment on his haircut. :D Which is mostly what has inspired me to open my salon. We talked for a while via texts and he asked me if I was doing pep band. (Which I'm not. ) I told him I'd probably be working all the time anyway, but I wasn't sure where. AND THEN HE SAID THAT THE MTC IS ALWAYS HIRING AND THAT I SHOULD GET A JOB AS A SECURITY GUARD, WHICH IS WHAT HE DOES. Holy smokes. It  makes me happy that he thinks I should work with him. Even though I'm apparently not cool enough to get asked on a date by him. Pomp.

5. This is the last week of classes! And we don't even have class on Friday!

6. Delaney's family got a new Christmas tree this year, and they are letting us use their old one. It's a huge one! She said it's like 7 feet tall. I have NO CLUE where we are going to put it though. There's really no room in our whole apartment. Also, they're also going to let us use ornaments they're not using. Score!

7. Christmas music has started! and it makes me happy.

8. I got a compliment on my sweater! From Delaney. It still counts.

9. Emma made pork chops for supper tonight. She baked them in the oven with ketchup and a lemon slice on each one. And they were delicious.

10. The bishop gave me sweet tarts today after tithing settlement. Also, we had cupcakes after choir.

11. I finally saw the Dark Knight Rises! At Beck and Ben's house! It was soooo good. Highly recommended by me.

12. I'm reading books for fun! Preparation precedes power, and The Screwtape Letters. Both of which are also highly recommended by me.

13. It's not even that cold outside anymore!

14. Testimony meeting was SO good today. It was definitely the best one so far in this ward.

15. Delaney and her bf Rich made toffee the other day on a date because they're cute. And it's really really really really reallllllllllllly amazing. It has walnuts on it. And chocolate.

16. We're watching Home Alone this week sometime! Neither Delaney nor Emma have ever seen it! So sad, these deprived children.

17. The other day after Marching band, I walked home with a nice boy I met on the bus named David. That boy can sang. And he's super duper nice. And it was fun not to walk all the way home by myself.

18. I live really close to Beck and Ben and Trevor. And also kind of close to Shell and Nate and Addison and Bryn and Leah. And that is possibly the best thing about being at BYU. I don't know how we got such a stellar family guys. We seriously lucked out in that department.

19. I've never paid to do laundry. Every time I think about this it just makes me feel extremely happy and also a little bit spoiled. It's just so fantastic. 

20. And D, I haven't gotten sick even once this whole semester. I've had a bunch of days where I was feeling like I was getting sick, but it hasn't actually happened. Which is just MARVELOUS.

On a different note, finals are the week after this week. Prayers much appreciated. Also letters. Also chocolate. Love you all!

Rocky Mountain

Rocky Mountain is this thing in Utah that's pretty much like festival in GA. A bunch of high school bands come and perform, compete, and the like. Then at the end, the BYU Cougar Marching Band performs and shows em all how it's done! It's supposed to get high schoolers really excited to join the band after they graduate. It happened kind of a long time ago- I might have posted something about it. Since then we've learned a whole new show that we performed this past Friday.

This is the show we did at Rocky Mountain. It's the second show we learned this year. I don't think this is our best performance, but it's pretty awesome if I do say so myself. A million bucks says you can't find me! Also, keep an ear out for first trumpet. That's what I played. The screaming (super high trumpet notes) is all coming from Clif.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47NIf9mAvbo&feature=share

Choir

I just want you all to know that we are singing this song in choir. Except we won't have string accompaniment. Feel free to come and watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iRxZMudrAY&feature=youtu.be