My Life: The Musical

My New Blog!!!

2012-02-04T15:20:00.004-07:00

www.ourhappilyeverafters.blogspot.com

I have a new blog! It's still a work in progress... I just made it a couple of days ago. But basically, I want to write more. I really like doing it (when it's not required), and I really need a creative outlet right now. Basically, the premise of the blog is that I'm going to share my own stories, and stories of others--whether they be friends, family, or complete strangers--mostly with the help of Cherish|Bound Story Starters. There's a better explanation of why I'm doing it and how on the blog itself. Check it out!

Want to See Where I Live?

2012-01-26T14:11:00.001-07:00

I'm warning you now...there are a lot of pictures in this post. But I want you all to get the full idea of how amazing my life is right now. :) Yes, there's a great deal of work to be done, and it's not exactly the most fun work in the world. And it is easy to get a little stir crazy being stuck up here all the time. And sometimes living with the people you work with can be a little grating. But, guess what?! I'm still in heaven! I could not have chosen a better place to live for my off-track. I live in a canyon, in the midst of huge mountains and sweeping forests, all of which is currently topped with white, perfect powder.

Emerald Dining Hall--where I spend my weekends. Sometimes I work dining hall (which is basically like my old catering job), but most of the time I'm in the kitchen with a fantastic chef, Brian, my wonderful supervisor, Auralee, and a sweet commuter named Catherine. It's tons of fun, and I am learning a lot about what is entailed in working in a commercial kitchen. The shifts go by really quickly and they are always a lot of fun. It is such a privilege to work with Brian. He is a great teacher and a very talented chef. We basically have Pine Basin-quality food to work with, but he makes it taste incredible at every meal. He once made the best guacamole I have ever had with pre-packaged, pureed avocados. He also makes delicious salsa out of canned chili sauce. He's a miracle worker. :)

The Aspen Lodge: home of the office, several conference rooms, the ski shop, and some guest rooms. Basically Aspen Grove headquarters. I love working in this building. The cleaning is pretty much the same as anywhere else, but here I get to set up conference rooms and hook up A/V equipment, which I actually have found to be extremely fun. My coworker/friend Cindy and I also happen to be really good at it. :)

Check out those sweet icicles. I've heard that eventually they'll go all the way down to the ground. Icicles are by far my favorite thing about winter.

This is one of four family lodges. These buildings are beautiful inside. They are one of my favorite places to clean just because I love being in them.

The Huish: apart from our lodge this is where we spend most of our free time. We get to use it whenever the guests aren't. There's a huge TV, three pool tables, two foosball tables, two ping pong tables, and air hockey. It's a pretty good place to hang out. This is also kind of the custodial headquarters. All the linens and a lot of cleaning supplies are stored here.

Finally: home sweet home. Snowshoe lodge is an interesting place to live. There are nine of us living here total: six girls and three guys. Yes, I have male roommates. And let me tell you, if you thought living with girls alone could create drama, you should try throwing boys into the mix. It's been interesting, that's for sure. But I can also definitively say that I am learning a lot. Just when I thought I had the roommate thing/keeping-drama-under-control thing down, Heavenly Father found a way to help me learn even more.

Something else I love about Aspen Grove is the amazing play areas they have. I would LOVE to bring my children here (*ahem* steveandrachel). We have this sweet old fire truck that kids can climb on (one of the managers, Scott, is the Fire Chief of the North Fork Fire Department)...

...fun, classic playgrounds...

...this super cute playhouse...

...a pirate ship...

...and, by far, my favorite place in camp: the cowboy village. I would have died for this place when I was little.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. We also have basketball and racquetball courts, virtual golf, disc golf, a pool complete with slides, tennis courts, a volleyball pit, a huge ball field, gorgeous hiking trails, etc, etc. Basically this place is bomb. I can't wait to come back as a guest in May for mini-camp. Even in the winter I can usually find something great to do. I am so grateful for this job, its perks, and its lessons. Being here has already helped me grow in so many ways that I couldn't have even imagined, and I'm only a little over a month in. It can be hard work, and somedays the work is long and difficult, but those things are easy to overlook when I think of all the blessings I have already received this semester. Besides, how can I complain about my job when I have views like this to enjoy every day?

Quick Wrap-up of my Pre-Summer Adventures.

2011-11-30T14:28:00.004-07:00

Can you believe I did all that in a month, before summer even technically started? I can't. What I really can't believe is that I have been home for seven months. It feels like it was all a dream, and none of it really happened. :( Luckily I have photographic evidence. So, after my journey concluded, I did some calculating of my mileage from my whirlwind month of adventure. Here are the stats:

From June 2 to June 5 (Nauvoo Student Tour), I travelled a total of 2,883 miles.

From May 2 to May 26, I traveled 13,314 miles.

For a Grand Total of:

16,197 miles
(~26,066 km)

And that doesn't even include foot travel, Tube travel, or Metro travel. If I was somehow able to calculate that the number would be much higher. Dang it! I should have worn a pedometer!

You have to admit, that's pretty impressive for a time-frame of 34 days. It was the best. It was exhausting, oftentimes miserable, but it was truly grand! I miss that month with all my heart. I miss it so much that I'm still wearing the leather bracelet I bought in Galway nearly eight months ago. I also continue to wear my silver Claddaugh/Trinity knot necklace pretty much daily. They were good times. I grew a lot, and I gained a lot. Ever since I have been home I keep thinking of things my adventures taught me. Here are some examples as quoted from my travel journal:

Other churches have some truths, and really amazing people, even if they don't have the fulness of the gospel like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The saints in other countries are incredible people, and no matter what our political and cultural differences may be, we are brought together through the truth of the gospel.
The world contains limitless beauty, and Heavenly Father is the source of all of it.
We can learn to love and be happy in any situation that we are in. God and the Savior know what is best for us, and it's important to trust in them wherever we are led.
We can find thinks we have in common with anyone, and learn to see past differences.
Every person on this earth is indeed a child of God, and each and every one of them should be treated as such.
First impressions are almost always wrong.

There you go--some of my nuggets of wisdom. ;) Not really, but these lessons have really helped me to see myself and the world in a different light. In fact, reading them again now has been a good reminder for me to look for the good in my life, and in my roommates. :)

And with that, I'm officially done with playing catch-up! Now I can get on with the present day! But, I warn you, it's not quite as interesting. :)

Really Quick: Nauvoo...

2011-11-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD AHEAD...

Not even a week after I'd gotten home from Europe, I was randomly surprised with a school trip to Nauvoo and surrounding church history sights for my birthday! So I quickly unpacked, then repacked, then got on a bus! It was a really short trip: Thursday-Sunday I believe. There was a LOT of driving. I had forgotten what an adventure it is to sleep on a tour bus. Fun times. :) But it was totally worth it! Here are the pictorial highlights:

The weird seashell "temple" of the Community of Christ church, formerly known as the RLDS church.

The ceiling of the chapel in the seashell temple. I don't get it, but for some reason it's really symbolic for them. As for me, it made me feel like I was inside the conch in Lord of the Flies.

VS.

The gorgeous Kansas City, Missouri temple under construction. This building didn't have an interior yet when I was there yet the spirit was about a million times stronger.

Liberty Jail. Not quite what i was expecting: the jail is a replica, basically cut in half, within a typical visitor center. But it was still cool. It really gave you an idea of the living conditions.

Adam-Ondi-Ahman. The picture does not do it justice. It's this huge expanse of mostly grassy plains, but the Spirit is extremely strong there. It was incredible.

At Carthage. It was exactly how I remembered it from when I was little. And it was just as amazing. I love this place. They let us stay a little longer in the room where Joseph and Hyrum was killed and sing Praise to the Man. It was a really powerful experience.

This is in Nauvoo at an art gallery. That lady in the pink cardigan is a direct descendant of Joseph Smith. She was originally a member of the Church of Christ (another offshoot of the church besides Community of Christ), but the missionaries found her about twenty years ago and now she has a whole family of little Joseph descendants who are active members of the Church. Pretty amazing. :)

The headstones of Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma from the backside. We went on the tour of church history sights owned by the Community of Christ. They don't own the park on the other side of this fence, so we didn't get to see the full view of the headstones. Sad :(

The first time I saw the Nauvoo Temple I couldn't breathe. Last time I was here it was a field with four rocks in the ground. Seeing it was like running head-on into a brick wall of amazingness. :) It was surreal. Doing baptisms for the dead there was even more surreal. You can feel the spirits of the saints who sacrificed so much to build it the first time. I would have slept on a bus for a week just for that hour in the temple. It was life-changing, and extremely testimony-building.

A statue of Joseph and Hyrum looking on towards the temple for the last time before riding on to Carthage. Favorite.

Me with a moonstone.

Again- surreal. I can't believe it's actually there. I love that building.

This statue is of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards--the second First Presidency of the Church. It is at the Kanesville Tabernacle in Iowa, where they were called and sustained as the new First Presidency at the first general conference since the martyrdom, December 25-27, 1847.

The famous statue of the Pioneer family. I think this was at Winter Quarters, but I'm not 100% positive.

The Winter Quarters temple in Nebraska

Independence Rock! I love this place. This picture was taken at the highest point of the rock, on a boulder at the top. You can't tell from the picture, but standing up there, if you ignore the rest of Independence Rock, it feels like your floating on air.

Climbing down the backside of Independence Rock, I jumped down from one rock to another, right over a bunch of rattlers in stealth mode, who evidently I startled, because they all rattled at me. I don't think I have ever moved so fast or so gracefully in my life. ADRENALINE DUMP. Here's a mug of one of the little buggers.

Martin's Cove! Love. It. 'Nuf said.

Me in the Cove. This is a really gross picture of me, but it gives you a good idea of what I look like after about thirty hours on a bus, a mini Trek up a mountain, exposure to a LOT of sunlight, and a minor case of heat exhaustion/dehydration. Good times. It was worth it. :)

Les Derniers Jours de Paris

2011-11-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

I didn't get many pictures from my last two days in Paris, so I'm combining them in to one post. Day four was AMAZING! It was pretty perfect. Why? Because it wasn't actually in Paris. :) We left the city! I didn't realize just how muggy and smelly the Parisian air was until I got some truly fresh air in the French country. It was very refreshing and relaxing and a nice break. Anyway, we left the city to see the home of Alexandre Dumas (you should read about him--he's pretty insane)! He is the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers and such. Basically, he was really cool. His house (aka le Chateau de Monte Cristo) is really kind of crazy.

There are three levels, with four rooms on each floor. The layout on each floor is the same. The most defining feature about his house is the colors. Each room is a different color. It's definitely the most colorful historical home I've been to.

Another very interesting thing about it is Dumas' "Chateau Dif."

This is where Dumas would write. No one was allowed in but him. The inside is really small. There's a dog statue guarding the entrance, and a moat around it (and by moat I mean a small stream that's a foot wide and four inches deep).

The absolutely best part about Dumas' home is his gardens! They are by far the best French gardens that I saw. I didn't get many pictures, but he had a ton of land, and most of it was like a mystical forest of wonder and beauty. :)

That's pretty much all we did on Day 4. After we got back in to the city, we were craving real food--like meat. All we'd really had in Paris is carbs. Lots of bread and pastries. Oh, and cheese. Lots of stinky yet delicious cheese. So we went to this place on the street where we were staying called Paris Istanbul. They had lots of meat, and it was delicious! And the owners were the most friendly people we'd ever met. They really like Americans, and even though we had the language barrier, we had a really pleasant and funny interaction. It was the best. :)

Our last full day in Paris was quite the adventure. It was probably my favorite day in France, even though it started out pretty crummy. That morning we went to Versailles, which is not my favorite place in Paris. I don't get it. It probably had something to due with the unpleasant nature of standing in line in direct sunlight in gravelly, dirty sand for 3 hours, to get into a place that you're really not that interested in. Luckily we had our baguettes, nutella, and French yogurt to help us bide our time. Once we finally got on the grounds. We walked around the gardens for a while discussing how unpleasant French gardens are. Then we went in to the palace and swam through a dense sea of sweaty tourists to see all the gold extravagant rooms. That place is biiiiggggg. Finally, we made it all the way through, and Kaity, Mary, Juan, and I decided to go make our last day of the trip count!

That's when the real adventure began. We decided to head to le Musee de Armeé (the Army Museum). After we got off one train to get on another train, Kaity and I were halfway across the moving sidewalk to the next train when we figured out that Juan and Mary weren't behind us. So, rather than getting to the end of the sidewalk and turning around, we naturally decided to run backwards on it. Kaity lost her hand sanitizer along the way, which was tragic (we were in Paris after all). In the meantime, Mary had just discovered that she had lost her Metro pass and was stuck at the gate. So Juan sneakily let her use his and we were back on our way. Once we finally got out of the Metro and to the Army Museum (a good half hour later, Mary realized that she hadn't just lost her Metro pass. She had also left her camera with half of her pictures from the trip on the first train (which meant it was loooonnnnggg gone. Poor Mary. :( It was really sad. We were standing outside the Museum entrance for a few minutes consoling Mary for a few minutes (she was very upset, understandably), then Juan decided to go in. I stood out there a tiny bit longer before I decided to follow. There was no use wasting our time looking for it. So I went in, and Kaity and Mary stood outside, saying they would wait for us.

The Musee de l'Armee was AMAZING! By far my favorite museum in Paris. Fine art is cool, but I've always been more into historical artifacts, and wars. :) This was my favorite thing:

If you can't tell already, that piece of armor has a huge hole blown right through the chest and out the other side. Stuff like this makes my mind reel with stories: who this man was, who his family was, did he have family, etc. I didn't get many other pictures in this museum, but it was incredible. Plus, while we were there, Juan told me a bunch about the Marines (he was a Marine for a while--he's not anymore though) and it was just really cool and interesting. He also knows a lot of French history so it was like having my own personal tour guide. It was great.

We spent probably about two hours in there, and when we headed out, Kaity and Mary were nowhere to be found. We looked absolutely everywhere around the museum, and around Napoleon's tomb, which was next door:

That's not Napoleon's tomb. We thought it was at first, but we were wrong. This is Napoleon's tomb:

It's at least three times bigger. It's pretty insane. Anyway, back to Kaity and Mary, we still couldn't find them anywhere, which was kind of frustrating- not only because Kaity had the 20 euros we were supposed to share for dinner, but also because we knew they went to look for Mary's camera, while Mary still didn't have a Metro pass. We weren't really worried about them getting lost, but we were really worried that they would get caught. Parisian police don't look too kindly on train jumpers, which is what they were doing. Mary was literally jumping over turnstiles. It stressed Juan and I out quite a bit, but we couldn't do anything about it. So we went on with our day.

After we finally stopped looking for the other two, we sat out in front of the Museum to decide where we wanted to go next. At first, Juan couldn't find his map, and I didn't have one, so for a little while we thought we were lost in the middle of Paris. But he eventually found it, and we decided to go to the Aquarium. We didn't realize how far it was from where we were though. The train ride ended up taking like and hour and a half. It wasn't all bad, though. The train was relatively empty, and it was kind of nice to just sit and relax and talk.

We finally arrived, and were both really impressed with the building. It was amazing!

The aquarium itself wasn't that impressive, but it was still fun. :) They had fish that looked like Dory, which Juan got really really excited about, and they had cute turtles and alligator babies and really really teeny sharks. While we were there we ran into a few of our comrades, Brynlee and Chellie, so we decided to get dinner together. We went to this really cute little French cafe. It was nice having Juan there, because he speaks French and was able to help us order. Oh, and because he paid for my food, which was great because my dinner money had run off. :)

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. On our way back we spotted Kaity and Mary eating dinner at Paris Istanbul- they were in one piece and they weren't in handcuffs, so that was a relief. We spent some time eating ice cream in our hotel room filling each other in about how our respective adventures went, then we headed back out for our final Brit Lit sob fest... I mean meeting. It was at the most beautiful park I have ever seen in my life, which was only two blocks away from our hotel. Kaity and I were really upset that this beautiful, non Paris-sy place had been so close to us that whole time and we never knew about it.

I was really sad that the end had come. I still am kind of sad. In my three weeks abroad, I learned more than I ever thought possible. It truly was a life-changing experience. I would definitely say that I've been bitten by the travel bug--HARD. I miss England and Ireland and Wales sooooo much! And, believe it or not, I've even caught myself missing Paris on occasion. I'll go back there someday. :)

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T23:42:00.000-06:00

I love Halloween! This halloween was the first time I dressed up since my freshman year, so it was extra fun. :) And I'm pleased to report that my stage makeup skills have not diminished. :) Everyone at our ward party tole me that my costume was too realistic. >:) It was great!

Wanna take a guess at what I was? Two words... Rexburg. Pedestrian. :)

Quick Sidebar...

2011-10-28T10:47:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wondered what happens to grass when it is watered on a freezing night? Yeah, I hadn't either. But oh man does it have a cool result! It's probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen:

EPIC.

Explorer le Musée du Louvre et D'aller Jusqu'à la Tour Eiffel

2011-10-26T13:38:00.001-06:00

K Taralyn, this is the one you've been waiting for! On day 3 of Paris it was time to see the Louvre! I could not believe how incredibly massive it was. The tour guide lady on our cruise down the Seine told us that it would take 3 months to get a good look at every piece in the Louvre. I don't think we even scratched the surface. But what we did see was pretty sweet. I love the glass pyramid. :) It's pretty epic, plus it plays an important role in the Red Pyramid (read it Mom!!!).

The teeny Mona Lisa, with a sea of people in between us.

By far my favorite piece in the Louvre. She is so beautiful!

You get the idea. The Louvre is pretty sweet. The building itself is absolutely beautiful, and all the fine art doesn't hurt, either. I don't have much else to say about the Louvre though... pictures speak 1,000 words, right?

After we left the Louvre, we went to Jardine du Luxembourg, aka Luxembourg Gardens. This is when I realized that English gardens are about a million times better than French gardens. French gardens usually consist of some grass, sandy dirt, and square trees. Sometimes some shaped hedges. Not exactly my thing. We didn't do much there besides pay a Euro to go to the bathroom and get some really poor excuses for crepes (blech! They were awful). We also watched some little French tweens race around the pond. We were rooting for the girl but she lost by a long shot. :( After we left Luxembourg, we decided to go get a closer look at le Tour Eiffel.

It's pretty cool, I guess. :) I also really liked this carousel. I have a thing for carousels. They're so cute and pretty!

We hung around the Eiffel Tower for a little while, but then we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit. Kaity, Mary, and I all had a fairly low tolerance for the unpleasant aroma of eaux usées that wafts through les rues de Paris on a constant basis. We didn't stay there long before it was time to get some dinner and head back to the Eiffel Tower so that we could go up it! Getting back there was quite the adventure. First, we got some pizza from a bar/cafe on the street our hotel was on. There was a big language barrier, but before long we were able to decipher the menu and get something. It took forever for them to get the pizza out to us. By the time it came out we had to take it and go. We were halfway down the block when we figured out that they hadn't sliced the pizza. Our solution was to rip it and eat it as we walked. I felt like a savage. And it was a really awful pizza. We didn't have a very good food day. We wanted something to get the terrible aftertaste out of our mouths, so we stopped by our favorite patisserie, wherein I ordered a Tarte aux fraises et au chocolat Eclair. We took them to go then booked it to the Jares Metro station, huge box of pastries and all. When we got on the train, it w absolutely PACKED. Rush hour in Paris is way crazier than rush hour in London. We were packed in there like sardines. The whole ride there was a big hairy French armpit in my face. It was about a million degrees, and we were trying so hard to protect our box of precious pastries. We were miserable, but for some reason we all thought it was hilarious. We lost it. We were laughing like crazy while everyone else on the train looked at us like we were crazy. It didn't help that it was so hot that Mary's mascara melted and mixed with her sweat until it smeared all over her face. It was pure madness. When we got there, we opened our box of pastries. It was so sad. It was a mess. A melty mess. We ate it anyway. :) And it was gooooood. Do you know what else is good? The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower!!!!

That little tiny building in the distance is Sacre Couer. It doesn't look so big from 1000 feet up.

The skyline of Metropolitan Paris

This is really random, but this happens to be my favorite sign in all of Paris. It was in the elevator up the tower.

Yeah we were really high up... it was epic.

Do you see the eensy teensy Notre Dame?

The sunset that day was spectacular. It was a pleasant view.

The Eiffel Tower is a lot more crowded up top than it is in the movies. But it was still quite amazing. We came down before the nightly sparkling, which I kind of regret. But it was still really beautiful from the bottom. I like it when it sparkles. Sparkly!

The train ride home was MUCH more enjoyable. The train was nearly empty, and this guy helped to make it especially great:

Sorry that the camera work is pretty bad. As awesome as this song was, the next one was even better. He started singing Numa Numa as soon as I turned my camera off. It was marvelous. There are few things as inspiring as a Frenchman singing Numa Numa. ;)

La Deuxième Partie de Paris

2011-10-23T20:27:00.001-06:00

Our second day in Paris was a Sunday. When we left our hotel that morning we (including our instructors) didn't really have any idea when or where Church was, but we left for church all the same! Brother Waddell had a general idea where the meetinghouse was, but it was a very general idea. There we were, standing in a big cluster on a sidewalk in the middle of Paris, while our directors stared at a map trying to figure out where to go. I was worried. Missing church that Sunday was the last thing I wanted to do. I needed church that day. Needed. I don't know how others felt at that time, but I was in need of some spiritual relief from the city. So there we were, standing around, with me in my own private panic attack, when a really friendly man in a suit and tie walked right up to us. "You looking for church? Follow me." So we did, and he led us right to the meetinghouse. Which was BEAUTIFUL, by the way.

When we got there, the place was absolutely packed with people. I guess that day was ward or stake conference or something. Walking through the archway from the street into the courtyard of that building, I could almost physically feel the nastiness of Paris lift and be replaced by complete and utter peace. The difference was amazing and freeing. When we got there they were already halfway through church. Which meant I was severely bummed out, but grateful just to be there. I wasn't bummed for long, because the bishopric set up a sacrament meeting just for us! It was amazing! It was conducted by Brother Romney, presided over by a member of the French bishopric, the sacrament was blessed by Brother Hartvigsen and Juan, and it was passed by Brother Holt and someone else. I don't know how to explain what I was feeling in that moment. It was a mix of joy, relief, gratitude, an overwhelming sense of the Spirit, and pure exhaustion, I think, but as soon as Juan started saying the sacrament prayer, I started sobbing. I completely lost it. I am so grateful for the gospel. I am grateful for it's truth and that it is spread throughout the world. That Sabbath day, I had an overwhelmingly powerful experience in which I received witness of its truth. I also was so so so grateful for the church members who were so open and friendly to us. This one single sacrament meeting changed my entire attitude about France and its people. It made the remaining few days of my journey more worthwhile, it expanded my view of the expanse of the church, and it made me more aware and grateful of the beauty of the organization of the church. It is absolutely, without a doubt, true.

Going to church was literally a breath of fresh air, so it was sad when we had to leave. But it renewed my spirit, and I was ready to take on the city once more! The rest of the day in Paris actually turned out to be quite amazing. First we headed to Notre Dame! It was so beautiful!

I stared at this massive rose window for about twenty minutes. It was stunning. Notre Dame felt/looked different from any other cathedral we'd been to.

After we spent some time inside, we headed up the 402 steps to the top of the towers of Notre Dame. The view was pretty incredible.

Me and the gargoyles! They were pretty stinking sweet!

The bell of Notre Dame! Quasimodo was here...

Upon our departure from Notre Dame, we crossed the courtyard to Saint-Chappelle. This building has the largest collection of 13th-century stained glass. That means I liked it.

It was so beautiful. Each pane depicted different moments of Christ's life. I loved it!

Here's a random pic of the Metro in Paris. It was pretty cool.

After Saint-Chappelle, we headed back to the hotel and got out of our church clothes. We had to be warm for our boat cruise down the Seine! It was a great way to end the Sabbath.

I've decided that Paris is a really beautiful city. That is, when I'm not actually in the city. I like seeing it from up high, or from the steps of Sacre Couer, or on a boat on the river Seine. That's when I loved it the most. Those were the moments when I felt like I was in Paris.

Paris Holds the Key...

2011-10-08T13:32:00.000-06:00

...but not to my heart! I did not like Paris--at least at first. It took a while to grow on me. It's still not my favorite city. It doesn't hold a candle to London or York or Dublin or Galway or pretty much any town in the UK :), but I grew to like it the longer I was there. We left London on Saturday morning and caught the Eurostar for a ride through the Chunnel. I never even knew we'd reached the Chunnel, until suddenly we were in France... the French countryside was really beautiful, but so very different from the English countryside (and the Irish countryside, and the Welsh countryside--wow, I feel so well-traveled!). The train ride took about three hours. It was a really nice, roomy train with huge windows, so when we weren't underground it was a really good chance to see a little bit of France outside of the city. The train ride ended pretty quickly. The moment I stepped off that train was the moment the culture shock hit, for the first time on my entire adventure. Our entire first day in Paris was like hitting a brick wall of Parisian culture. It was so overwhelming. Immediately after getting off the Chunnel we dragged our bags through a Metro station and caught a few trains to the Arc de Triomphe.

It's so big! Way bigger than I was expecting. And it was pretty. :)

As soon as we got out of the Metro we were completely immersed a mile deep in Paris. It was super duper stressful to me personally, but it was probably good because it made me more comfortable in the city the other four days we were there. We grabbed dinner at a cafeteria type place, then we headed to Mont Marte. This place is crazy! There are tons of shops, a million artists--many of whom would come up to us and tell us how beautiful we were. They were dying to paint us. :), and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people.

The very large centerpiece of the area was Sacre Couer. It's a huge basilica and the highest point in Paris.

This picture is totally random, but really funny. We're standing in front of Sacre Couer, and we're trying to get a picture in front of it. The guy who took it was the husband of one of the girls on the trip. We all thought we were getting pictures in front of the basilica, but when we looked at our cameras afterward none of them had the massive building we were standing in front of.

The view of Paris from the steps in front of Sacre Couer. I had no idea how crazy big this city is. It goes on forever.

This area was pretty cool, but I wasn't a huge fan- to many people. My favorite part about this whole day was sitting on the steps in front of the basilica and just taking in the view of Paris.

My friend Emily and I in front of the view.

Something really iconic about this area is all the illegal street performers and merchants. This guy is standing on a pillar that has like a 75 foot drop on the other side. He was really talented. He never dropped the ball and he didn't fall to his death, so I was impressed.

The illegal merchants are everywhere. None of them have permits, so they keep all their merchandise on a blanket. When policeman come around, which they do all the time, they just scoop up their stuff in a blanket and book it. These people can get pretty crazy. Their is one group of girls that stand around with clipboards and try to get you to donate money to them because their mute, but if you pay attention you can see them talking to each other all the time. Their were also these guys from Guinea selling these bracelets. Their pretty persistent. They try to grab your arm and put string around your fingers to make these bracelets, and then they try to charge you like ten Euro for them. Kaity and I were avoiding them the whole time we were there, but later we decided that we wanted one because, well, they're pretty sweet.

I got red, white, and blue because those are the colors of both the UK and France. I thought it was appropriate. :)

It was crazy! Juan, who had gotten one before us, told us that it would be fine as long as we told them up front that we'd only give them a Euro for a bracelet, and weren't pushovers. As soon as we walked up to them we were ambushed. For some reason, Kaity didn't really have anyone fighting over her. But there were like three guys fighting over me. It was intense. I picked the one who had the colors I liked the best. While the guy was making it he was asking me where I was from and when he found out I was American he decided that he wanted me to be his American girlfriend. It was really awkward and I got out of there pretty fast. But I got a really cool bracelet out of it. It fell apart like a week after I got back, but I still have it. :) The funniest thing about this whole experience was that my "boyfriend"/the guy who made my bracelet, got arrested literally two minutes after I left.

After we got our first taste of delicious baguettes and stinky, yet surprisingly tasty French cheese, we headed back to our hotel and recovered from our first day in Paris.

London, Part 2!

2011-09-27T00:31:00.001-06:00

Our second full day (and last day) in London was even more amazing than the day before! I really got into the heart of London, and saw the places I've been longing to see for ages! Our first stop was Covent Garden (home of Eliza Doolittle before Henry Higgins takes her in). Besides all the modern stores and shops, it looked exactly as I pictured it! It was absolutely loverly! I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't get a single picture! But, I did get some good shopping in. All three of my lovely sisters have a scarf from Covent Garden. I'm a good girl I am!

After we spent the morning at Covent Garden and splurged on some delectable ice cream, we took the Tube over to Trafalgar Square, so that we could eat our lunch on the steps of the National Gallery. This was the first time that I actually felt like I was in London. I'm not a huge city fan, but of all the cities I've been to, I could definitely see myself living in London. Or maybe. living in the English country-side, close enough to London to visit all the time. :)

Even though there were a LOT of tourists buzzing about, there were still many, many natives around Trafalgar square. There was a group of London schoolgirls rocking out to some music, businessmen eating their lunch on the steps, etc. It felt so very British!

The countdown to the London 2012 Olympics! I want to go so very badly... But my mean sissy pointed out that she didn't get to go to the Beijing Olympics, so I have to suffer too. :(

A very random, very big, ship in a bottle on Trafalgar Square.

The National Gallery! We didn't have time to go in. How sad...

Me, Kaity, and Mary at Trafalgar Square! Notice Big Ben right above my head. Yeah, that's right- I've been there.

As cool as tiny Big Ben was from the Square, we decided to get a closer look:

I have to say, I am extremely proud of this picture. It contains everything I love about London: the British people, some tourists, the London Eye (that big ferris wheel), the St. Margaret Street sign, Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, AND a double-decker bus!!! (We may or may not have stood at that street corner for 15 minutes waiting for that bus to come by). The double-decker bus was extremely important. This may sound extremely silly, but do you know what gave me my first impression that I needed to go on this trip? A picture of double-decker bus on the streets of London. I know, I know, it's a little strange, but ever since that moment I have felt extremely fond of them. Aren't I a weirdo?

Anyway, after we finally got our amazing picture of London, we walked about 20 yards to Westminster Abbey!!!

It was so beautiful- inside and out. It was definitely my favorite cathedral. I'm really sad that they don't allow pictures inside, because I had an amazing experience while I was there. See, I have this really amazing mother--really, really amazing-- and before my trip she helped me (and by helped me I mean she did most of the work) go through my ancestry on Family Search and find a whole bunch of really cool people I'm related to (such as Henry VII, Richard the Lionheart, etc.). About every two seconds while we were in the Abbey, I would see another one of my ancestor's graves. I felt a connection to every one of them. While walking around that very-tightly packed building, I realized just how far-reaching the concept of family is. It was an amazing moment. Then, at the end of the walk through the Abbey, we got a chance to get a close look at Poets' Corner. I just went from one amazing moment to the next- seeing the graves of some of my ancestors to seeing the graves of some literary giants who might as well be family, I love them so much. If you go into Westminster Abbey with the right attitude and spirit, you can have a truly incredible experience there. That building is magnificent. It serves as a memorial for some truly great individuals. It also serves as a memorial to some individuals who had enough money to pretend to be great, but that's not the point. :) I love Westminster!

K... off my soapbox... after we finished in Westminster we made one last stop before dinner at the Victoria and Albert museum. It was a big huge art museum that had many different types of art: sculptures, wrought iron, blown glass, stained glass, even jewelry. This was my all-time favorite piece in the entire museum:

It's a stained glass portrayal of Mary and Jesus as a child. There is something about this stained glass that absolutely takes my breath away. The detail, the love they are showing to each other, the colors, the symbolism of the doves and the olive branches... it's just magnificent to me.

Another crazy-cool piece at V&A was this chandelier:

It's all blown glass, and it is MASSIVE. That's all.

Finally, after we had explored the sights of London sufficiently (HA! I could spend a month there and still not be fully satisfied), we grabbed some dinner (during which I tasted a small bite of fish and chips-just to be able to say that I had), and headed to the Queen's Theater by Piccadilly Circus!!!

We ended the day- and our time in England- with Les Miserables! It was soooooo good! Dare I say it, maybe even better than Wicked (*gasp!*). In fact, Kaity and I were so hyped up about finally seeing this play- and in LONDON, no less!- that when the opening music began we started hitting each other out of pure excitement. Then at the end of the first act, when they just finished "Do You Hear the People Sing", we both looked at each other and just started bawling. Don't ask me why. It was the fulfillment of a life-long dream, ok?! Yeah, we got weird looks, but there was no stopping my joy!

I was wary of leaving the English country-side at first. In fact, I was really sad when we did. But I have to say, this entire day, and especially the way it ended, was the perfect way to say goodbye to my precious England.

Coming up next... PARIS!

London Part 1

2011-09-22T16:09:00.001-06:00

London!!! My precious, beautiful, London! I have to admit, I was absolutely terrified when we first arrived. I went from the peaceful countryside to the bustling, insane city. The atmosphere was so different, but not bad. :) It was pretty scary the first time we rode the Tube. It was my first ever encounter with a subway system, which was pretty stressful. Our leaders were all stressed out to the max trying to get all 48 of us on the same train without losing anyone. It became much less stressful after we got a chance to try it out in small groups.

This was our hostel in London- the Clink 78. There are several Clink hostels in London, all of which are former prisons. Pretty cool stuff, yeah? It was definitely the creepiest of all of our hostels. I and 11 other girls were on the ground level, and there were always drunk, high people right outside our window. Luckily there were bars on all the windows. :) Ah, the good ole Clink!

Our first night in London, almost everyone went to a play but me and a few others. I think there were seven of us total, but Chellie and I couldn't find any of the others, so we decided to explore King's Cross station and find Platform 9 3/4, but we were surprised to find...

...a sticker on the wall.

See the shiny reflection under the sign? King's Cross was under construction, so they made a temporary replacement. The saddest part was that it was nowhere near platforms 9 or 10. It was sad, but you get the basic idea. I was still at King's Cross station, in LONDON, so ha!

The next day was mostly spent at the Tower of London!!! It was crazy cool. It was crazy to go from the outskirts of the city right to the heart of it in one little Tube ride. The Tower Bridge was pretty impressive the first time I saw it.

The first glimpse I got of one of the Queen's Guard! I was excited. :) This is at the Tower of London- he's guarding some royal person's apartment. We never figured out whose.

The Tower of London was pretty impressive. :) My royal ancestors used to live here. :) There's a whole exhibit about their scandals. Anyway, it was really cool being there. My favorite exhibit was crown jewels. It had scepters (one of which contained the world's largest diamond, crowns (including Victoria's teeny tiny one), the coronation robes that they've been using for the past century+, etc. SHINY! That's the best way to describe it. It was kind of sad, though. They wouldn't allow pictures, and they put you on a moving sidewalk so you have like 30 seconds to see all the cool stuff. But it was fun. They also had the swords of all the Kings of England:

and this really random, yet awesome dragon guy made out of armor:

Another cool room in the Tower was the torture chamber...mwahahahaha...

They only displayed a few torture devices, including the rack, but I'd never seen this before-

-it's called the scavenger's daughter. That thing not only forces you to stay in that position, but it can tighten so it squeezes you harder and harder and harder... it's pretty legit. The exhibit said it's the most effective and terrible method of torture.

This is what I'd look like if I was a soldier. Notice the mostly-naked man over my right shoulder that I maimed.

One of the most distinctive features of downtown London is it's crazy, very modern architecture, mixed in with ancient buildings like the Tower of London. You'll see that all over the city- old and new mixed together.

After we left the Tower of London, there were people in our group who wanted to see the Dr. Who Experience, so those of us who didn't care helped them find their fellow Dr. Who fans and the Dr. Who Experience. That took the better part of three hours. It was a wild goose chase. After a while a few of us gave up and ran off to Buckingham Palace!

It was cool. And the Queen was home, so that made me feel sufficiently stalker-like. :) After spending some time there and on Buckingham Street, it was time to go to the Globe Theater, where I saw As You Like It.

It was a really cool way to experience watching a play like this- the original Shakespearian way. All those people on the floor are standing, by the way. How would you like to sit through a three hour play like that? It was pretty packed... but amazing!

Jane Austen Land!!! But first Salisbury...

2011-08-30T01:13:00.000-06:00

I forgot to mention Salisbury as part of my Stonehenge/Wilton House day! So, real quick:

This is Salisbury Cathedral. It used to be the tallest point in England- which is not so any longer. :)

It was really pretty! And... that's about it... I don't remember anything particularly special about it. But none the less, it was cool.

Anyway, the next day we got to go to two of the places that were a big contributing factor in my decision to go on Brit Lit: Winchester Cathedral and Chawton. Why was I so excited to visit these places, you ask? What could possibly make them so special? Well, here's one reason:

Behold, the final resting place of Jane Austen: my dear friend and hero. I truly wonder sometimes if she and I were dear friends in the heavens. :) The point is, I love her! She really was one of the things that ultimately helped me decide that I was supposed to go on this trip. I don't know if you can read the eulogy on her grave, but I think that it is quite beautiful! If you can't read it, you should look it up. :)

Besides the Austen factor of Winchester, the building itself has some pretty cool history. It was built on a really poor spot for a cathedral. Half of the ground it was built on was built on normal ground, but the other half was built on really soft, marshy ground. So half of it was slowly sinking lower and lower until the crypts of the cathedral were completely underwater. So this guy:

got to go in underwater and build the foundation under the catherdral,

from the ground up...

brick by brick.

Fun job, huh? Well, it worked, and now he's the hero who saved Winchester Cathedral, which is really good news, because it a really beautiful place:

This picture was taken in the crypts of the cathedral. It still floods for about half the year down there. You can see all the moisture on the floor. The statue always has water in his cupped hands, symbolizing the beauty and blessing of water.

This was in the crypt too. I just thought it was cool. There weren't any bodies down there, though there used to be supposedly. I can't remember where the curator said they went.

After Winchester it was time for Chawton, the location of Jane Austen's home for the last eight years of her life! We were slightly delayed when one of our girls on the trip got lost and couldn't find the coach. I was so worried that we would have to skip Chawton... in fact, I may or may not have become a little infamous with some of my fellow pilgrims for saying that if Sara made me miss Jane Austen's house, I would turn her into a leprechaun... Not one of my finer moments... but it lightened the mood a little. She was lost wandering around Winchester for the better part of an hour- I felt pretty guilty after that. But all was well, because I did not have to miss out on seeing this much anticipated, yet understated, building of such importance!

I thought this was funny. That's all. :)

Behold, the simple, tiny table that served as Jane's home as she finished Pride and Prejudice, and wrote such wonders as Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey. Such a small little home for such marvelous works!

The collection in the rest of the house was small, but impressive- first edition copies of Sense and Sensibility, locks of Jane's hair, and couple of manuscripts in her hand, etc. It was amazing! I came out of my adventures at Jane's house with two bookmarks that contained pressed flowers from her garden. I am pleased. :)

Thus concludes my adventures in the English countryside. I must say, I thought it an extremely unfortunate thing to have to depart from all the splendors and gaieties of such sensational lands. But, despite my great hesitancy and sorrow, it was time to embark upon a great journey, through the perilous lands of London and Paris...

Lyme Regis, Thomas Hardy, Stonehenge, Wilton House

2011-08-25T21:34:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's take me so long to post another update! I've been super busy. But here goes some more awesomeness! :)

One of our next stops in the following days was Lyme Regis. If you're familiar with Persuasion by Jane Austen (which happens to be my favorite Austen book ever), Lyme Regis is a pretty prominent location in the story. As is the Cobb, which is located at Lyme. It was AMAZING!!! We were there on a beautiful day. It was pretty perfect. And it was amazing to get so close to the ocean. Besides Inishmore, this is the only opportunity we got to explore a beach.

Isn't is cute?

This boat harbor fills up with the tide, but when the tide is out it looks like a boat graveyard. It thought it was cool. :)

The Cobb!

Those things jutting out of the side of the cobb are called granny's teeth. They're really scary to walk down.

The home where Jane Austen supposedly lived during her stay at Lyme Regis.

After we spent the morning at Lyme Regis, we explored Thomas Hardy country. He wrote such books as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree, and Jude the Obscure. His books are really depressing, and not very many people on our trip liked him. In fact, I don't think anyone was very excited to go to these sights, but there was still some cools stuff, like his grave- well half of it. This is where his heart was buried, with his first wife. His ashes are in Poets' Corner at Westminster.

This is the D'urberville window, in a church in Bere Regis, which is part of Thomas Hardy country. If you've read or heard of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, this window is featured in the story.

We went to three of four places in Thomas Hardy country, but like I said, no one really cared. :) So my buds and I spent our time at one stop playing at a music store. It was fun to compare it to the Piano Gallery. :)

The next day was fantastic! We started off at Stonehenge... no biggie...

...except that it was AMAZING!!!!

I couldn't believe I was there. It is much more impressive in person than it is in the pictures. It was incredibly windy, but the lighting was perfect. It made all the colors stand out more.

No, Juan is not on a cell phone. Those are the audio guides that teach you about Stonehenge. They were pretty boring after the first 20 markers...

I loved Loved LOVED this place!

We were all kind of bummed to leave Stonehenge. Especially since we were going somewhere that none of us had heard of or cared about: Wilton House. We were expecting it to be like Blenheim Palace, the least enjoyable place we visited. But we were all very mistaken...

This place was incredible! It's occupied by the Earl of Pembroke. He's only 31 years old and his wife is like 27, and you could tell that they actually welcomed visitors. This place had amazing, and huge gardens. A lot of movies were filmed there, most notably Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley version), Sense and Sensibility, Young Victoria and Johnny English. There's a big long list. Kaity, Mary, and I toured the house together, and at the end of the tour this really friendly curator started giving us all this information about the house, including what had been filmed there. She let us go beck through the house backwards to see it all again, and she pointed out all the amazing things we had missed the first time. You know the scene in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth is touring Pemberley and she peeks in on Georgiana playing the piano, then Mr. Darcy shows up? They showed us that door and let us walk through it. It may seem kind of dumb, but I was excited. :) The lady in that room told us a lot about how they filmed that scene and everything, and even offered to send us pictures of the shoot (we never got them, but that's ok). We felt like VIP's. No one else got our extended tour. It was great!

Everything else about this place was amazing, too. As I said, there were lots of beautiful gardens, and some really big beautiful dollhouses on display. Plus, the Earl's personal car collection, which is quite extensive. One of my favorite things on the grounds was the whispering bench, pictured above. It's a bench shaped like a big semi-circle. The way it's shaped and the height of the walls create amazing acoustics, so if there is a person sitting on both ends of the bench, one can whisper into the wall and the other person can hear it is if the person who said it was right next to them. It was a useful tool in many secret courtships. :)

As amazing as everything was, the absolute best part of the Wilton House was the adult playground. SOOOO fun. It had ziplines, as you can see below, which were addicting, these huge boat swings, monkey bars, and MASSIVE tree houses with rope bridges and slides. It was pretty legit, and pretty dang fun.

They also had a big trampoline, which Kaity and I used to practice our King Fu (and ballet) skills.

...I won... :D

Benbow Farm, Gadfield Elm Chapel, Tintern Abbey, and Double Rainbows :)

2011-07-25T21:38:00.001-06:00

I was really sad to leave Stratford-Upon-Avon. I didn't want to leave the Hollies! But there were many more amazing adventures to be had. :) For the next two nights we were to spend the night in Bath, which I was super excited for. It's one of the main places in my favorite Jane Austen novel, Persuasion, so I was really looking forward to it! But we made some pretty great stops along the way. The first of which was Benbow farm in Herefordshire.

It was a really amazing place. Here, Wilford Woodruff preached to hundreds of people. The pond above is where he baptized over 300 of them. On top of that, he and other missionaries helped to convert over 1200 other people in the area. There was a really special spirit there. This is one of the original homes of the gospel in Europe! I loved being there.

The farm is privately owned and working farm, and the people who live there aren't members of the church, but they let us see the barn where Wilford Woodruff and his fellow servants of the Lord preached to the people. It was really nice of them to welcome us into their home! They even let some of my fellow pilgrims use their bathroom.

After we left Hill Farm, we headed to Gadfield Elm Chapel. It was equally cool. The chapel was originally built and owned by a group of Methodists called the United Brethren. In 1840 Wilford Woodruff came along and met with some of its members. A few months later almost all 600 members of the United Brethren were baptized. So they gave it to the church to use as a meetinghouse. Later the church sold it to pay for the members' emigration to America. I think it was also the first LDS meetinghouse in England. I'm glad that we made a few stops at church sites. I learned some really cool church history that I didn't know, and I learned that Wilford Woodruff was really amazing. One of the girls on the tour with me was his direct descendant, and she didn't know about any of this stuff either. It was really cool to see her connect to her grandpa even further.

The little tree on the right of this picture was planted by Gordon B. Hinckley in 2004 when he rededicated the chapel. It's so cute!

After going to the two amazing church history sites, we dipped back into Wales for a couple of hours to see Tintern Abbey, one of the churches that Henry VIII had destroyed.

It's pretty impressive right? I don't know what it is about me and old ruins. For some reason I really really like seeing these places. Tintern Abbey was no exception. There is just something magical about it. Seeing the old gothic architecture against the sky with grass growing in the middle- it's blends the creations of God and the creations of man. The result is just... gah. Places like this are truly awesome to me.

There are those funny illustrations again.

How could anyone not be in love with this place?!

We had the coolest experience ever at Tintern Abbey. There was this room, called the warming room, that had a curved ceiling. It was the only place there that still had a roof. The acoustics were crazy! So, being the little Mormons that we are, we went into the warming room and started singing hymns. In all my years singing and being in choir, I don't think any of my amazing experiences in choir could live up to this moment. Not only did we sound amazing together without countless hours of rehearsal, but the acoustics were so amazing that you could evidently hear it everywhere in the Abbey. Other tourists who were there came and filmed us singing, and some even said it was like bringing the Abbey back to life again. Others said it sounded like a heavenly chorus descending down on it. It was the best. It's moments like that that makes me love music so much.

Before leaving Wales for the very last time, we made one final stop in Cheddar Gorge. It was a really impressive canyon complete with mountain goats. Unfortunately I was half asleep on the coach when we stopped there, and I didn't think to take any pictures. But I pulled a picture off the internet so you could get the idea of how amazing it is:

And thus ended my adventures in Wales. I hope to go back someday, but I feel really grateful for the very little time I had there. Besides, it was time to go to Bath! Yay! When we got there we checked right into the Bath YMCA, aaaaaand no, it is NOT fun to stay at the YMCA. But, that being said we did have a rather incredible view from our room! A lot of people went out to see the city a little that night, but a few girls and I opted to stay in and catch up in our journal writing. We were really glad we did! It had been raining a little on and off all day, but when it stopped for good, I saw the most beautiful rainbow of my entire life. There were little breaks in the cloud, so there were sun rays coming down on the steeple of a church and not one, but two full rainbows lighting up the sky.

The brighter rainbow had way more layers than the typical ROY G. BIV, which, hopefully, you can see in this picture. It was seriously the best rainbow ever. Anyway, I guess a lot of people who went out totally missed it. I felt really blessed to see it. It made me happy. :)

Stratford-upon-Avon and The Merchant of Venice

2011-07-11T13:50:00.000-06:00

I have been kicking myself ever since I got home for not taking more pictures in Stratford! It was an absolutely beautiful town! There were houseboats lined up on the river and swans all over the place and cute little shops and this amazing open market. It was so incredible. But, I did get a few pictures. Even though we spent four nights in Stratford, we didn't really get a chance to enjoy it until our last full day there and the night before after we got home from Kenilworth. That night Kaity, Emily, Becca, Juan, and I took a nice little walk around town. No agendas or plans to see anything, just a nice leisurely walk. Later some other girls, Brooke and Haley, joined us, and it was a ton of fun. After our walk we went back to the Hollies and watched some British television. :) It's pretty crazy. Very different from American TV. Anyway, the next day is when we really got to explore Stratford. The first thing we did that morning was walk about a mile to Anne Hathaway's (the wife of Shakespeare) childhood home.

It was really cool! The inside of the house was crazy old. But the best part, as usual, was the gardens. Sooo beautiful. There was a cool willow hut and flowers everywhere and wisteria (of course). But the best part of these gardens was the Woodland Walk. It is what it says it is- a walk through the woods- and it was absolutely amazing. It was whimsical and amazing.

Something I really liked about it was all these cool art projects from a local grade school.

Especially these wire fairies. :) There were dozens of them around. I thought they were really cute.

After we finished up at Anne Hathaway's Cottage, we walked back into town and went to the open market. I bought a sweet pestle and mortar made out of olive wood- it's really pretty and supposedly way better than marble or stone. We also went to Thornton's, a popular British gourmet chocolate company where I got the most delicious chocolates of my life. Sooooooooo yummy. We spent the rest of the day seeing the other Shakespeare properties around Stratford. We saw the house where he was born and the house of his son-in-law and daughter's medical practice. We also got to go to the church where Shakespeare is buried. It's really pretty.

I'm kind of obsessed with stained glass. The stuff in this church was particularly amazing. But just wait until I get to Paris...

The crowded room where Shakespeare is buried.

That's him! I almost didn't get to see Shakespeare's grave. They were charging a "donation" of £2 to see it, which Kaity and I were not willing to pay. It was the principle of the thing. :) We almost left but Kaity decided to ask if it was a donation or an entrance fee. They said it was a donation, so we got in for free... sneaky sneaky. I felt kind of bad, but why would I pay the equivalent of $4 to see the grave of a person I have never been a huge fan of?

That night we added the perfect frosting to our Shakespeare cake by seeing the Merchant of Venice at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Normally, I would not be excited to see this play. It is definitely not one of few Shakespeare plays I love. But, I was willing to overlook my own opinions and become excited when I found out (that morning) who was playing Antonio and Shylock:

That's right! Scott Handy and PATRICK STEWART, respecitively (see IMDB for Scott Handy. He's big in the British world- you've probably seen him in movies like A Knight's Tale). I was seriously SO excited for Patrick Stewart. I grew up watching him as Jean Luke Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, thanks to my Pappa Stu, and love him in the X-Men movies! I have always loved him. And let me tell you, he did NOT disappoint. He was the best part of the entire play. He played the bad guy, but at the end I caught myself rooting for him... oops. In fact I was pretty mad at the end of that play because of how everything turned out for his character.

www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/merchant/

It took the whole show for me to get used to him with hair.

Besides the amazingness of Patrick Stewart being in the show, the play was pretty enjoyable. They actually turned it into "The Merchant of Vegas" and set it in, well, Vegas in modern times. The whole time they made fun of American pop culture and accents, which was pretty hilarious at first, but it got a little old :). They also completely butchered the ending, in my opinion. They pretty much made all of the main characters go crazy and hate each other in the last scene, which is not how it's supposed to go. But it was still cool. How many people can say they've seen not one, but TWO plays by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, Shakespeare's home town! I feel pretty special. :)

Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle

2011-07-11T11:31:00.000-06:00

So, back to my amazing adventures abroad, in the midst of our stay in Stratford-upon-Avon we took a little day trip to two different castles! It was a pretty fun day. :) You know how I love my castles!!! The two places we went were polar opposites of each other. The first was Warwick Castle.

Warwick has a pretty interesting history. It was built in 1068 by William the Conqueror (who, by the way, I am a direct descendant of) on a bend of the River Avon and was used as a fortification until the early 1600s. At that point Sir Fulke Greville turned it into a country home. It has been involved in a lot of important events of British History. It held some prisoners from the Battle of Poitier, Then during the 15th century, it was used to imprison King Edward IV.

As I said, Warwick has a cool history- lots of wars and stuff. :) But in the 17th century it's focused turned from war fortifications to a tourist location. It was still occupied by the different Earls of Warwick, most of whom allowed visitors, until 1978. At that point, it was purchased by the Tussauds, of the Madame Tussauds wax museum, and it was turned into the ultimate tourist trap. It was a really fun place to visit. One of the coolest things about it was its peacock garden:

There were two female peacocks and a LOT of male peacocks. The whole time we were there the boys were fighting over and trying to woo the females. It was pretty interesting to watch. Plus, they're pretty.

Inside the different towers of the museum, you can definitely tell that it's owned by the Tussauds. First of all, because of the insane admission prices. All the cool stuff costs extra. The atmosphere of the place kind of feels like Disneyland without the rides. Like, if Disney had a land centered around the Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood. Oooh that would be cool. :)

Here I am with Queen Elizabeth. She and I are pretty tight. She offered to make me a Duchess, but I turned it down. Too much responsibility...

Ah yes, and here we are with our buddy Henry VIII. I didn't like him as much as Queen Elizabeth. In fact, it was kind of weird and creepy to see him life-sized. I wouldn't want to be around him when this museum comes to life at night.

Yeah, so Kaity, Juan, and Becca gave good ole King Henry VIII the lip and this was their punishment. Tsk tsk tsk. They almost didn't make it out alive.

Anyway, I've discovered that I'm pretty creeped out by wax figures. They're so lifelike. Maybe it's because of that one old episode of Twilight Zone where all the mannequins in a department store come alive at night and turn some of the customers into mannequins too. But man, they were creepy. This tower was called the Kingmaker, and you go down into the basement at the beginning. When we first walked down the stairs, he was just sitting there at the end of the hallway. I wasn't expecting him to be there, so I may have jumped ever so slightly. :)

This horse made noises and flicked its tail around. He was creepy too.

My night in shining armor. I had to share him. >:( I think he kind of looks like Keanu Reeves...

This lady was creepiest of all...

As much fun as seeing the creepy demon wax figures was... my favorite activities at Warwick Castle took place outdoors- surprise, surprise.

That little dark line in the sky is a bald eagle. They have like five American bald eagles that they use to breed and show in the bird show. They were really cute. My favorite part was when they flew about 5 inches over my head. Yeah!

This was my absolute favorite part about all of Warwick! This thing is the world's largest working trebuchet. It's 59 feet tall and weighs 22 metric tons. It takes 8 men and a half hour to load and release. See that little wheel in the center? It's used like a hamster wheel for humans to pull back the lever. Then, once it's cocked and loaded, they had to run on it the opposite direction to unwind the rope from the wheel. It was a LOT of work for one shot. But it was really cool to see how it worked. It was a little more complicated and impressive than the one I made in 9th grade out of bamboo skewers.

The weather on this day made me feel like I was in Idaho. There would be torrential downpour for like two minutes, then out of nowhere it would be totally sunny and like a million degrees. It was pretty confusing.

After spending most of the day at Warwick, we spent some time at Kenilworth Castle, which I absolutely loved! It was probably one of my favorite castles that we went to. Up to this point the only time I was ever alone on this trip was in the shower- so, about 5 minutes a day. :) But at Kenilworth I got to spend the entire time by myself. It was a beautiful place. I wandered around the dungeons alone and found a lot of secret passageways, then I went and stood on the tallest towers and felt like I was at the top of the world. There was also this really cool tree trunk. It was absolutely HUGE, and it was cut in a way that gave it the basic shape of a bench. I think I probably lied there for about twenty minutes just watching the clouds. It was really peaceful and amazing.

Kenilworth had some pretty amazing history, too. It was built as a stronghold in the 1120s. The walls are up to 20 feet thick to serve as an "unconquerable fortress." There were streams around it, but they were dammed to create a big lake that surrounded it. It's the largest manmade lake in England. The fortress became a royal castle under Henry II. Over the years it was expanded more and more, even the lake was made bigger until the castle was on an island. In 1279 it became one of 5 licensed Knight tournament grounds, after the Round Table of Knights and their ladies first assembled there to celebrate and compete. Another thing about it that I think is really cool is that in the 1560s, Robert Dudley (the Earl of Leicester) took over. He was one of Queen Elizabeth's (the "virgin queen") many suitors, and he built her a huge residential block that overlooked the lake, including a dancing chamber that was specifically for her use.

Something that I loved about Europe was it's hilarious signage. Warning signs like this always had hilarious illustrations.

Another thing I loved about Kenilworth was its completely random works of art all over the grounds. This thing is made of plastic toys and tupperware. There was also a giant chess board and a Scrabble board that said, "The fairies did it." It was really random.

Pretty...

Before I end this post, I need to add a little appendix to my post about the previous day. In addition to Blenheim Palace and Hidcote Manor and such, we also made a quick stop at Bourton-on-the-Water, which was a really cute little town. But the best part was this sign, located on the building where I bought the most delicious ice cream cone of my life:

Hee hee, it's so funny! I love British humor! Especially when they make fun of themselves.

ATTENTION!!! ATTENTION!!! ATTENTION!!!

2011-06-30T23:33:00.003-06:00

WE INTERRUPT THE PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING FOR THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

NOW BACK TO YOUR PROGRAM...

Stratford Part 1, Oxford, Blenheim Palace, and Hidcote Garden

2011-06-30T12:49:00.004-06:00

Alright, so I'm not a huge fan of Shakespeare. I like a few of his plays, like the Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, and maybe Macbeth, but the rest of it is just- meh. Because of my lifelong indifference to Shakespeare, I wasn't nearly as excited to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare's primary home) as the rest of the Brit Lit Pilgrims. But, oh my goodness, it was AMAZING! It is an adorable and beautiful town. We also stayed in the best place in the entire universe:

I officially love B&B's. This one was run by this really awesome Tunisian man named Imed. The house was beautiful, the food was delicious, and our room was absolutely beautiful! The bast part of it was that I was in the same room with the three girls I was close with on the tour- Kaity, Becca, and Emily. Even better than that- we were the only people in our group staying in the Hollies. It was like a vacation from our vacation. Being with 47 other people all the time was getting a little tiresome. I'm pretty sure that Brother Waddell has us spend so much time in Stratford to help all of us get a little jump start.

The food really was amazing. I wish I would have gotten a picture of some of it. The only meals we ate here was breakfast. YUM. Every morning we were served a Full English Breakfast- a fried egg, english sausage, english bacon (more like ham that bacon, but it tastes 10 times better than normal ham), baked beans, a broiled tomato (a magical creation that single-handedly cured my hatred for tomatoes), and LOTS of toast. I know it sounds a little unconventional, but it's very traditional in England. Imed also got us a few surprises some mornings- like grapes and bananas and prune yogurt, which is way more delicious than it sounds. We ate our dinner every night at a neighboring B&B, and the food was just as incredible. We had spaghetti and meatballs, quiche, yummy chicken, etc. They also gave us the most incredible desserts of my life, including trifle. YUM. Peaches, some sort of cake, and cream. Soooooo good.

Our beautiful room at the Hollies. You know those moments in movies where some underprivileged person goes into this fancy suite that they'll be staying in and get all excited and hyper and happy? We totally had this moment. The pictures don't do it justice. We felt like Victorian nobility. :)

http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/city-madam/

Our first night in Stratford, we got to see our first production by the Royal Shakespeare Company! Huzzah! The play we went to, the city Madam, was very interesting and a little uncomfortable in places, but it was really really funny!

These two were the best part of the whole show. They had hilarious expressions. The old guy was like the Jack Sparrow of RSC.

The next morning, we went on a little field trip away from Stratford. Maybe "little" is the wrong word. This day was super cram-packed. It was kinda crazy and a pretty overwhelming. Our first stop of the day was in Oxford. We only had an hour there. An HOUR to see OXFORD. I was so excited for this and we kind of just blew over it. The problem with Oxford is that it doesn't have a campus. There are different colleges of the university all over the city. So basically, we had time to see the center courtyard of the library and the outer gate of the gardens. It was definitely cool to be there, but I felt pretty gipped. I didn't even have time to get an Oxford sweatshirt. :(

As you can see, the architecture in Oxford is absolutely beautiful. I'd love to tell you more about it but that's all I had time to see. I don't know if you can tell yet, but this was my token bad attitude day. Pretty much the only time I had a bad attitude the entire time. It was a lot of other people's bad day too, so that didn't help anything. Especially after we went to Blenheim Palace... EEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLL! I hated this place. At first glance, it's really beautiful. The grounds are really beautiful. There are gardens everywhere with a train connecting them. We had about 3 hours here to give us time to see both the palace and the grounds. Unfortunately, about 2 1/2 of those hours were spent on a forced tour of the house with a tour guide that had the softest voice ever and so many rules that pretty much ensured that if we breathed wrong we'd be kicked out. I think this palace had the most oppressive and controlling atmosphere of any place that I have ever been. By the time we got out of that wretched tour (which Kaity and I managed to do a little earlier than we were supposed to >:), it was too late to see any of the awesome grounds. We still had to prepare and eat lunch, which took up the remainder of our alloted time at Blenheim Palace.

This little guy was the best part of Blenheim. He hung out with us while we ate our sandwiches we fed him. :) He liked to jump up at our hands for bites. It was cute, in a creepy sort of way.

Hidcote Manor was our last stop of the day, and it was by far the best. It was kind of like the gardens at Thanksgiving Point, except more English, and older, and better. :) The problem was that we only got 45 minutes here. We barely got in before they closed. It was so beautiful though.

This moment was the happiest I felt all day. It's amazing what a good hug from a tree will do for me! :) You can ask anyone who was on this trip- I love the English countryside and it's AMAZING gardens. It's definitely where I enjoyed myself the most in England.

That's all for now! Coming up next, The Many Adventures at Warwick Castle and Our Stay at Stratford, Part II.

The Lake District and York

2011-06-23T12:38:00.000-06:00

My Brit Lit shoes! This is what they looked like early on in the trip. When we started they were brand new and pure white. Later I'll have to post a picture of what they looked like by the end of the trip.

Our last day in Yorkshire was amazing! We drove through the Lake District, a National Park named for it's many lakes, and got to see a lot of really cool sights along the way- some of my favorites, actually. Our first stop was Rydal Mount, the place William Wordsworth called home for the later part of his life. He had great taste! The house was cool to see, but what really got to me was the property the house was sitting on. His garden was HUGE.

It had several wandering pathways like this one, some low and a few really high up that gave you an excellent view of the entire property. There were flowers EVERYWHERE! And the smell...mmmmmm.

It was absolutely breathtaking!

This little hut, the Summer House, was awesome. It sat on a hill and overlooked all of the amazing gardens. In the summer Wordsworth would write his poetry there. His surroundings provided a lot of inspiration. I'm not a huge poetry fan, but I have always loved Wordsworth. Now I understand why. He was so influenced by and dependent on the beauty of nature!

Rydal Mount was also amazing because it is where I had my first taste of British ice cream. It is SOOO much better! YUM-MY.

After we left Rydal Mount we made a quick stop at Wordsworth's grave in Grasmere, where we stood under the "church-yard tree" and read my favorite poem of his, "We are Seven." I highly recommend that anyone who has never read it reads it post-haste. It's adorable. :) It was also near his grave that I tasted real ginger bread for the first time, which was a very pleasant experience! British (well, European) sweets- especially chocolate- are about a gazillion times better than the processed nasty crap we have here. I'm having Cadbury withdrawals.

Anyway, from there we went to the other side of the Lake District to Hill Top Farm, the home of Beatrix Potter (the author and illustrator of Peter Rabbit- the most famous children's story of all time- and the tales of his friends). It was pretty amazing as well. Here the house was much more interesting than the grounds. The majority of Miss Potter's stories take place on Hill Top. I saw the doll house that Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca broke into in search of a meal! With the original plastic food in place. :) I also saw Peter Rabbit out in the garden. It was a good day!

Pardon the sideways nature of a couple of these pictures. I'm a little too lazy today to fix it. ;) Anyway, something I loved about British cottages and houses was the Wisteria growing off everything. It smells amazing and is really beautiful.

We did some really cool stuff on our way from Bradford to Stratford the next day. We got visit the original York, which was amazing. I've never been to New York, but I have a feeling that when I do get there I'll definitely prefer the old to the new. The coolest thing about York is its history. It is OLD- thousands of years old. It was originally the military capitol of Roman Britain. All the architecture is medieval, which gave the city a really cool atmosphere.

That's me standing on York Bridge

I love this place! There's York Minster in the back.

The Shambles were my favorite part of the city. It's this really skinny street/alley crammed FULL of shops. Fun trivia of the day: the Shambles were J.K. Rowlings inspiration for Diagon Alley, which makes complete sense. I halfway expected to see little British children gawking at a Nimbus 2000 through a store window. It was pretty sweet. :)

Yes, those are graves -- randomly on the side of a building. I <3 York.

Me and my buddies on York Wall.

The York Wall surrounds the city. It pretty much looks like a mini Great Wall.

York is where I partook of my first Cornish pasty and British eclair. Sooooo delicious.

We only got to spend like an hour and a half in York, and we were all really sad to leave it. We didn't have enough time to see any of the historical stuff. :( But, after that we went to the Sherwood Forest, so we were still pretty excited.

Up to this point, all of the places we had visited had more of a serious tone to them- almost spiritual to me. But Sherwood had a very different vibe- much lighter and more playful. Which is appropriate for Robin Hood and the Merry Men. :) It was an absolutely beautiful forest, but it was pretty silly at the same time.

I don't know why, but for some reason I feel as though Tiffany will appreciate this picture.

The Major Oak!!! How I loved this tree! It's actually like four oak trees that grew together. The branches are so big and heavy that they have to be held up with stilts, as you can see. The scaffolding system has been there since Victorian times, and the tree itself is somewhere around 800-1000 years old, which is MUCH older than that tree I loved at Skipton. It was like visiting the Great Grandpa of all trees. He was really cute. I wish I could have hugged him, darn it!

There was also a little museum off the gift shop that was pretty sweet. I didn't get many good pictures of it, but it was legit.

Phase 2: Wales, Liverpool, and Bradford

2011-06-20T19:44:00.001-06:00

Hello, loves! Sorry it's taken me so long to do another post. I don't really have any excuse other than I'm lazy and was overwhelmed by all the pictures I have to go through. But, I'm doing it now, and will try to keep staying on top of it. :) So, unfortunately, we had to leave Ireland, and I was really sad about it. But, that being said, going to Wales was pretty darn exciting. :)

This picture was taken on the Stena Ferry that we took from Dublin to the port in Holyhead (pronounced holly head), Wales. It was by far the biggest boat I have ever been on. It had seven decks and a restaurant and a movie theater and everything. It was kind of trippy. On smaller ferries I have taken, I've usually been up on deck enjoying the sea breeze and mist. But this boat just felt like a tipsy building. We couldn't see out of the windows because it was night time while we were on it. It was really weird feeling. I don't think many of us were really sea sick, but we got a little loopy and disoriented, especially when we tried to walk. I think we were probably acting kind of drunk. :)

It felt good to get on dry land again, which was good because we had to walk pretty far with our luggage from the port to our hotel. We only got to spend one night in Wales, but I couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. It was about as green as Ireland, but it had a completely different feel to it. My favorite part of that day was while we were on the bus. We were all watching the scenery from the windows of our coach, and we randomly all started singing Hymns. It was really cool, because I guess Wales is widely known for its music. Brother Waddell said the exact same thing happened last year.

This picture isn't of anything special, it's just very Welsh. I would LOVE to live in that house.

This is a pic of Conwy (con-way) Castle, which is really the only thing we visited on our day in Wales. I LOVED it! I found that these types of places were my favorite thing to visit. Each castle we went to had its own personality. It was fun to imagine what life would have been like in its glory days.

After our brief stint in Wales, we crossed over into England! The first place we visited was Liverpool. I was super excited when we got there. I was really happy to finally see the homeland. It really did kind of feel like I was actually returning home. I have so many ancestors who were English, and some that had left from Liverpool to emigrate to America. It was a really cool feeling.

This was the first thing we saw getting off the coach in Liverpool. It's some weird vehicle that drives on land but can also float on water. Brother Waddell described it as "a strange amphibious duck." It made me miss Taralyn.

I've always had a weird fascination with these zig-zag lines on British streets. I was excited to see some in person, so I had to take a picture of them. :)

The people who owned this ship tried to convince me and my friend Kaity to join their crew. Hmmmm... tempting.

This shirt reminded me of my brother, Steve. He's started calling me T-Maxx, so I think I'm going to start calling him this. :P

That night we drove to Bradford, where we stayed for a couple of nights. The next morning we headed over to Skipton, a town in the Bradford area. I saw signs like this all over the place:

The name Craven, which is Grandma Boyer's maiden name, was all over the place in Skipton. Craven Arcade, Craven Museum, Craven Bowling Alley, Craven Swimming Pool, etc., etc. I was really really excited, because I knew we were close to Clayton, where my Great Grandpa Gerald Craven grew up. While we were there we went to Skipton Castle, which was pretty amazing, but more on that in a minute. I asked one of the castle's curators why the name of Craven was all over town, and he told me some really interesting stuff. I guess Skipton and the surrounding area was overrun by Cravens way back in the day. When William the Conqueror conquered this area of England, Yorkshire county had three prominent family names in different areas of the district. The Nordsmen, or those to the North, were the Cravens, so he named the entire area Craven Dale. Those are my ancestors, people! I just thought that was really cool. :)

Back to Skipton Castle, it was pretty amazing. It's the most well-preserved castle in all of England. And it was 100% different from Conwy. My favorite part of the castle was the courtyard in the center, which contained this tree...

...planted in 1692. It was really beautiful. I also enjoyed these trash cans that were all around the grounds:

And this massively huge archway in the castle wall. That's me hugging a thousand-year-old pillar. :)

It truly was a beautiful place. I love picturing the stories that took place there, whether they be truth or the stuff I make up in my head. :) Later that day, we went to the town of Haworth, where the Bronte sisters, Emily, Anne, and Charlotte, lived. If you've read anything Bronte, you know that their works are pretty dark and depressing, and in a lot of cases, just creepy. The entire city of Haworth pretty much feels like that. Back when the Bronte family lived there, the water supply was basically poison. Thousands of people died within a few years of each other. The cemetery at the Bronte Parsonage (pictured below) was so full of people who died during this epidemic that before long they had to start cramming people in wherever they'd fit. Some of the headstones are inches away from eachother, and the flat headstones are crammed in so tightly that some of the ledges overlap. It is incredibly sad, but, being my mother's daughter, I could not believe how beautiful it was. I have grown to love the works of the Bronte sisters, so it was cool to see what made their stories. It gave me deeper insight into the minds and their writings.

The home of the Bronte family.

The Bronte Parsonage

In Haworth, we also got a chance to hike up the Moors, which are of huge significance in Wuthering Heights, so I was pretty excited about it. They were exactly as I pictured them, and they were amazing.

They also had a pretty amazing view. You could see all of Haworth from up there. Besides the crazy wind, it was kinda perfect.

My token phone booth pic for my visit to England. All the booths in London looked like crap, so I settled for this cute one in Haworth. :)

Since dinner took so long in Haworth, we didn't have time to do anything else in the Bradford area. We were leaving the next morning for York and Stratford-Upon-Avon. I was pretty bummed out about it, because Brother Waddell had promised a stop in Clayton, the town were my Craven ancestors lived, just for me. But it didn't work out, because it would have taken too much time. I was really sad. But, evidently Bro. W felt really bad about it. When we got back to our hotel he offered to pay for a cab to take me there with a friend. I can't tell you how amazing it was. I not only got to see a little of Clayton, but I got to go to Holt's Lane and see the house where Sam and Annie Craven raised their family, including my grandpa Gerald.

This is the first view I got of Holt's Lane. I got so excited that I literally leaped out of the taxi. I LOVE that it still looks so old.

That is the door of the house where Gerald grew up. :)

The British Literary Pilgrimage!!! Phase 1: SLC - Ireland

2011-06-01T23:04:00.000-06:00

I hope you all are ready for some picture overload! Because all of these are only a fraction of the pictures I have from the first 4 days. Sorry it's taken me so long to get started on blogging all of my crazy adventures. I have a lot of pictures to get through!

Anyway, my grand adventure commenced on May the 2nd, 2011. And Oh, was it grand! We had a little bit of a rocky start, though. We all arrived at the airport at 6:30 AM ready to get on a plane, but were disappointed to find out that our flight to Dallas was cancelled, which meant we would miss our connecting flight to Chicago, which meant we would miss that flight to Dublin. We waited on the floor of the SLC airport for 6 hours before we even heard anything! Finally, American Airlines started figuring stuff out, but it meant splitting us all into three groups. Some would be able to get to Ireland on time. Another group would be sent to New York City, where they would spend the night before flying out to Dublin, the last, and largest, group would spend the night in Salt Lake, then fly to Chicago and then to Dublin the next day. Guess what group I was in...

This is what happens when your stuck in a queue line for 6 hours- you start going a little crazy.

Yep. Salt Lake City. I was pretty bummed out about it- I'm not gonna lie. But, it actually turned out to be a really beautiful day, and I had a lot of fun! Plus, I got a chance to get to know these girls a little better:

That's Brooke, Chelsea, Haley, Emily, me, and Liz (from left to right). They are all pretty amazing girls. We started off our afternoon in SLC at the Gateway mall, which honestly isn't the greatest if you're trying to save all your money for Europe. But it was still pretty fun and we managed to entertain ourselves, as you can see. :)

Like I said before, it really was a beautiful day. It was warm, the sun was shining, and the flowers and trees on Temple Square were in full bloom. It had been a long time since I could visit Temple Square just for the sake of visiting Temple Square, and I must say it was rather refreshing after the stressful morning we had all experienced. Plus, I finally got a chance to go to the roof of the Conference Center, which I have always wanted to do. It was worth the wait. :) I didn't think to get any pics of that though.

The next day we finally got to get out of Utah! This is in the Chicago O'Hare Airport during our 6 hour layover. That airport is massive, and has a lot to do, but by the time our flight left we were all pretty ready to get to IRELAND!!!

Ireland is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. It was so green! Except in the places covered with rock. The picture above is an example. All the gray stuff on the hill is rock. It looks way cooler in person, but you get the idea.

This is Corcomroe Abbey, our first stop once we finally made it to Ireland. This is the moment when the trip actually felt real, and when I realized how fantastic it was going to be. It was in ruins, and had graves everywhere, the entire inside is covered with headstones. It was absolutely beautiful

The first picture of me taken in a foreign land. :)

The whole group at Corcomroe. All the slabs of rock in front of us are graves.

After we left the Abbey we headed to the Cliffs of Moher, aka the Cliffs of Insanity!!!! I'm pretty proud of this picture because I think it actually captures how breathtaking and stunning Ireland actually is. Oh man, I LOVED it here! It was rain and a little foggy, but I think it just made the Cliffs even more amazing. They're huge, and they're beautiful. In fact, they're in the running to be on of the new 7 Wonders of the World. You should all go vote for them. :)

Kaity Lewis (she was pretty much my best friend through the whole tour. I love her!) and I in front of the Cliffs. As you can see, we got pretty wet.

Some of my other good buds on the trip: Juan (yes his name really is Juan), Becca, Kaity, me, and Sara (the leprechaun).

Another cool place we saw in Ireland was this really cool rock thing. :) I can't remember what it was called, but it's an ancient burial ground. A lot of people are buried there.

These rocks cover the ground everywhere around the stone structure. Everywhere. They're called grikes.

My token Chaco pic for the trip. Every adventure needs one!

The next day we got on a ferry and went to the Isle of Inishmore, on of the three Aran Islands of the coast of Ireland. This was easily one of my favorite parts about the whole trip.

Me, Becca, Emily, attractive Irishman, Kaity, and Chelsea on the Ferry.

This pic pretty much sums up how I felt the entire time I was in Ireland.

On Inishmore, we took the most amazing bike ride EVER! We started at one end of the island, biked about 3 miles along the coast, then hiked about a mile up a hill to the cliffs of Dun Aengus.

A small taste of some of the scenery on my bike ride.

A rocky beach along the way. It was full of sweet tide pools. The rocks were like staggered steps all the way down to the water.

I don't know why I love this picture so much, but I do. It reminds me of the amazingness of Ireland I guess. This was taken at Dun Aengus, and I was kind of overwhelmed with how beautiful everything was.

That's me lying on the edge of a cliff. No biggie. It was so cool! This was at Dun Aenghus, and below us there was a sheer drop. There was nothing below me, and the wind was blowing like crazy. It kind of felt like I was flying.

On our way back from Dun Aengus to our ferry, we rode through sheets of rain. It was very wet, but between that, the gorgeous sky, and the beautiful ocean to my left, it was kind of like a dream. That day was pretty perfect.

On our last day in Ireland :( we spent our time exploring Dublin. We started at Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells and the most extraordinary library I have ever seen. After that we just shopped around the city. Dublin is pretty great. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it. My favorite part of the city was its parks. The picture below was taken at the most beautiful park I have ever seen. The rock wall behind us is a fountain with a big gorgeous pond. It was pretty great.

That night we left Ireland, and my heart broke a little. It felt a little like home. But, the rest of my trip was pretty incredible too. :) Coming up: Wales!

Me Souhaiter Un Bon Voyage!!!!

2011-04-30T17:57:00.000-06:00

I'm off, and I can hardly believe it! 48 hours from now, I will be walking the streets of Dublin. Never in a thousand years did I ever think that I would get this opportunity. Ever since I started thinking about going on this trip, I have felt that I was supposed to go, and have said that if I was supposed to go it would work out. Well, it did work out and I am more sure that ever that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Over the past two weeks, I have been going to class after class after class preparing for this trip, and I have met 45 other girls and a guy who I already feel that I know really well. It has been physically and mentally exhausting, and emotionally draining. But even more than all of that, I have an even deeper testimony in my need to be a part of this trip. I am SOOOOO excited. :) And I wish I could take you all with me. When I get back, I promise to post the dozens and dozens and dozens of pictures that I will have taken. Wish me luck!

Finally!!!

2011-01-18T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have a very important announcement to make! After over a year of searching, praying, applying, interviewing, and getting rejected... I GOT A JOB!!! I cannot tell you how relieved and happy and excited I am. My unemployment was the one thing that could have possibly stood in the way of the Brit Lit tour this coming May. But, thanks to my amazing and incredible sister-in-law, Rachel, I have finally left the irritating class of unemployment.

The job is at the Piano Gallery in Idaho Falls, working with Rachel's former piano teacher, Lisa (that's how I was so lucky as to happen upon this opening- through Rach's awesomeness). The job will deal with some customer service, but for the most part I'll be organizing and stocking and pricing. She does the ordering and I get it out on the floor. I'll kind of be like her own personal assistant: getting the things done that she hasn't really had the time to. It's only 15-20 hours a week and minimum wage, but that is WAY better than nothing. Way better. I am really nervous, because I've never worked in any kind of retail before, so I will have a lot to learn, but it will be dealing with the stuff that I have a great deal of passion for: music. It will probably be a good lesson in self-restraint as well. I'll want to buy everything I touch, but I can't. I have to save my big spending for Europe. :)

In other news, today also served to be very beneficial in that I was finally able to go apply for my passport! Huzzah! The Brit Lit tour is pretty official, but in 4-6 weeks when my passport comes in the mail, then it will be REALLY official! Before I know it, there will be four new stamps in it from four different countries. Ahhhh... happy times! :D

Call Me Crazy...

2010-11-09T22:36:00.002-07:00

But I LOVE snow! It may be cold and slippery and wet, but it's beautiful. When it falls from the sky it's like little fluffy pieces of Heaven coming down to earth. It places a layer of magic on everything, and makes everything beautiful and pure, even if only for a little while. That's all. :)

Anyway, I have failed to post anything about my semester really, so I decided I should at least post something, so here you go:

That's me with 60% of my roommates, Breanna, Tia, and Erica, from left to right. We're great buds, and we have crazy fun all the time! Maybe too much... My other two great roomies are Jules and Caitlin, but somehow I don't have any pics with them yet. Hmmm...

i have an obsession with cheese... aka queso. ^.^ ME GUSTA MUCHO! (*My roommate is psycho...)

My Special News... :)

2010-11-02T09:26:00.000-06:00

*Ahem* I have an announcement to make!!! I have made a very important decision, one that I am very excited about and that may change my perception of the world forever! It is something could fulfill many of my deepest life-long desires and dreams! Any ideas of what it could be? Anyone? Here, I'll give you a hint:

It involves this...

And a little (or maybe a lot) of this...

Add a dash of this...

And we'll throw in each of these...

Does anyone have it yet? Probably, but just to be clear, these photos are of (respectively) Jane Austen's house, the cliffs on the Isle of Inishmore, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, and Stonehenge. I think it's time for me to just come out and say it...

I'm going to Europe!!!

...probably. I have been accepted to the British Literary Pilgrimage, a travel study program offered through Brigham Young University-Idaho. The tour goes through most of May, with a few weeks of intensive study on campus the last two weeks of April. It begins with a few days in Ireland, jumps over to England, where we will spend the majority of our trip, and ends up in Paris! Sites include those in the aforementioned photos, the Globe Theater, Chateau de Monte Cristo :), a ride across the Irish Sea, a walk through Sherwood Forest, the Bronte home, etc., etc. That's barely skimming the surface of all the places I'm going to see. Needless to say I'm a little excited!

The problem (and it's a big problem) comes in when one considers the cost of the tour. I have enough financial aid to cover the actual program fees, but that doesn't include other expenses like tuition, books, passport, and some souvenir money (let's face it- we all know it's a necessity!). It would also be nice not to have to use all of my financial aid, which I probably will. Oh, and I have to come up with a $500 deposit by the end of the semester (Dec. 18) or it's adieu to the entire fantasy. So what am I do about it? First, praying for help. A lot. I've also been job searching like crazy. I spent four hours last night trying to find online job applications. The next step is phone calls and going to some businesses personally. The problem with the job hunt is that I am in the midst of my busiest semester ever, and that I don't have a car. So, I either need to wait until this semester ends before I get a job, or find some miraculous position somewhere that fits into my insanely weird class schedule and allows me to get all my homework done. Then I'd need to engineer some ingenious way to find transportation to and from my workplace. In the time being it would be great if I found a job within walking distance of my apartment, but (unless I can come up with an extra thousand dollars for rent in Rexburg) that will prove to be difficult next semester, which is when my break is. Money is so complicated and challenging and really kind of mean.

I have no idea how I'm going to do this, but in the meantime, I'm very open to suggestions of where I can find work. I would also be really thankful if prayers were given on my behalf. I don't know how this is going to happen financially and if I can make it work. But I do know one thing. I have spent a lot of time on my knees and in the temple asking if this is the right thing for me to do. With the answers I have received, I have come to know that, even if this Brit Lit tour doesn't become a reality for me in the end, Heavenly Father want me to work towards it, and to try as hard as I can to achieve this goal. Wish me luck!

My Drug...

2010-07-02T02:03:00.000-06:00

Can I just say, that there is no feeling in the entire world better than the one you get being a part of good music. I think that I literally get a buzz off of it. My arms start tingling and I get chills down my spine, then my heart starts beating faster and faster until I get so pumped that I just want to sing out more, but I can't, so instead the Spirit overflows out of me and my eyes get all watery and I can't help but smile and wish that I could give more. I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of something so magical, and to be part of such a conduit for the Holy Ghost. After I finish a good, successful performance like the one I experienced tonight, I feel like I am on a cloud all night. It helps to make me a better person, and it makes me feel so close to Heavenly Father. I only hope, and wish, that the audience is able to feel what I feel. "A song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" are some of the truest words ever spoken! I hope all of you have something in your lives that gives you this feeling, because it is the best feeling in the entire universe!!!

Also, I am officially convinced that my Grandma Clark is there to help me when I perform. I have felt her every single time that I have performed since singing at her funeral. At the funeral, I shouldn't have been able to get through that song. I almost didn't. In fact, the second I finished singing and sat down, I started bawling. She is the reason I got through it, because she was helping me. I am fairly certain that she is frequently with me when I perform. In fact, sometimes I feel like she takes over. Anyway, I'm not bragging about my voice by any means whatsoever, it's just how it feels. Just a side note... :)

It's Official!!!

2010-06-29T09:01:00.001-06:00

I'm in my twenties!!!! Happy Birthday to ME! :D

I finally posted again!

2010-06-28T10:26:00.001-06:00

I know! I'm terrible! Only four weeks left in the Spring Semester and I've only updated twice. Oopsy... But it's okay, because I'm back now! This semester has been crazy busy, with its high points and low points. But to sum it all up, I guess the best word to use would be CRAFTY! Goodness, between my Home Decor class and my cooking class, I feel like the queen of Relief Society. :) Plus I've been doing a little crafty on my own. Anyway, the stuff I'm most excited about is my Home Decor class. My very first project of the semester was this-

And I'm kind of really proud of it. It's not only the first quilting project I've done by myself, but it's also...

...the first project I have ever machine quilted! See all those little curvy lines? Those were all done by me on the schools ridiculously amazing sewing machines. I didn't use a pattern or anything, I just did it! It was terrifying, and... it was at that point that I sacrificed a small chunk of my fingertip to the sewing machine, but I think it turned out great!!! I'm really happy with it, and it is now sitting comfortably on top of the Steinway upright grand piano that my dad inherited from my Grandma Clark. I wish I had a pic, because it looks great! Anyway this is what I'm working on in Home Decor now:

This is the finished product of the first piece of a nursery set that I'm making! You can't really see it very well, but the center fabric is little smiling suns. My mom and I found this pattern for a nursery set and I immediately fell in love with it. Now I'm working on a baby quilt that matches this pillow. It will be exactly the same, just bigger and flatter, AND... it will be backed with yellow barbizon satin (sp?)!!! For those of you who don't know, barbizon is this amazing silky fabric that my grandma used to put on the back of most of the quilts she made, and I have been in love with it since I was a little girl. I'm really excited about it! Anyway, before the semester is over I will also be making a matching valance at the very least. I also have the materials for bumper pads and a crib dust ruffle, but we'll see how fast I get this other stuff done. Those may be a project for the break in August. In case anyone is wondering, I love my major so far. I think I made the right choice. My cooking class is still going great. It's fun and relaxing and I'll be coming out of it with some delicious new recipes, which I will soon be posting on my and my sisters' recipe blog, For the Love of Cooking! Yum yum! Speaking of cooking, this is the first cake I've ever decorated, and it was really fun! Am I good at it? No. But I think it turned out ok. Next semester I'm taking a baking class, then I will finally get to take Cake Decorating in the spring. I can't wait!

Also, this is totally off topic and completely old news, but I think it's cool. I got to meet Kirby Heyborne and Corbin Allred (comedic stars of the Mormon media world) with my friend/old roomie Charlotte. I'd met Kirby once before when he taught the young men and young women of my cousin's ward way back when I was a Mia Maid, but yeah. I guess it's kind of lame, but I think it's fun, so there! :P

Finally, I would just like to say goodbye. Why? Because this is the last time you will hear from me as my teenager self. That's right! Tomorrow I am finally turning 20 and leaving the teenage world behind forever. And it's about time!

New Recipe Blog!!!

2010-05-13T19:02:00.001-06:00

So, my sisters and I all love to cook. And we're pretty good at it. ;) Plus Tiffany had a recipe blog, so we decided it would be fun to have a sister recipe blog!!! It's called For the Love of Cooking, at allfortheloveofcooking.blogspot.com. You should all check it out!!!

Spring so far...

2010-04-30T09:55:00.002-06:00

Well, I have successfully completed two full weeks of Spring semester 2010! And so far, I am basically loving it! At first I was really nervous about my schedule. I'm taking 17 credits, and my schedule is different every single day, which is REALLY unusual for BYU-Idaho. I didn't know what I was actually getting myself into- thus, I was very very nervous. But so far, I'm having a blast! I have a nice balance of hard and fun classes, and it feels amazing to get back into the swing of college life. My favorite classes thus far are Home Decor Sewing, Intro to Foods, choir, and New Testament. I have a great feeling about the first one. I get to make curtains and quilts and table linens and pillows, but the greatest part is that I can make things that I like. In Clothing Construction, she made us make what she wanted, and I didn't always necessarily think they were the cutest things. I'm really excited to be able to sew something that I will actually want to put to use someday. My Intro to Foods class is equally amazing. It's only once a week, but I get to spend a huge part of that day learning how to make new things and learning a lot of cool cooking techniques. Our lab manual is full of really delicious recipes including this quiche and fruit pizza:

...which, may I say, were delicious!!! I have never been the biggest fan of quiche, but this recipe is really yummy. If you want the recipes let me know. Anyway, this semester's great!

Back in the Burg...

2010-04-18T17:11:00.003-06:00

First of all, I would just like to note that it has officially been over a year since I have seen this...

Or this...

Or this!!!

And I have only seen TWO of my amazing Disney friends within this past year (yay Abby and Eleisha!), but it was literally only for a couple minutes with each of them! So so so sad. And I have yet to see my amazing roommate/buddy Chelsea since we parted ways in the Orlando airport one year ago. LAME! I miss my Disney buds so much! Somebody needs to take me back to Disney, as I have been over the past few months going through HUGE withdrawals. I couldn't care less if it's Disneyland or Disney World... just take me! Anyway... end Disney rant...

Now I am finally back in Rexburg!!! Yes! I moved back in the to the good ole Pines this past Thursday, April 15. I wish I had something more interesting to report so far... but to be honest this has honestly been one of the most boring weekends of my entire life. But it has had its good points! Like the fact that I'm already completely unpacked and ready to jump right back in to school. I have eliminated any possible distractions. And on Friday night I went to a wedding reception... Gracie Lou's!!! It was really really really weird... but it was also beautiful and Grace looked absolutely amazing! I'm so happy for her. Later that night Steve, Rachel, and Hallie visited me for a couple minutes, which I loved! I miss my brother and sis-in-law so much! I'm glad I had a chance to see them before the reunion in July. Can I just say though, that all four of my nieces are the most adorable, lovable, most genius little girls in the entire world?! I feel really lucky to have seen all of them (and my amazing sisters Tiff and Taralyn and bro-in-law Bryan, whom I also love, by the way) before school starts on Tuesday. Just look at these girls! ADORABLE!!!

I have also met two of my five roommates, Caitlin and Melissa, and reunited with two old ones! These lovely ladies...

...and I met up last night and had great fun! Charlotte and I went on a nice walk and discovered a super cute new boutique on Main Street that sells cute shirts and accessories and baby hair bows and stuff for pretty decent prices. It's adorable. Then Charlotte, Marina, their roommate Devi, and I went up to Nauvoo to visit our old friend Jeremy and ended up staying there until about 11:30. The boys in that apartment are HILARIOUS and we had great fun. I think it was a good way to kick off the semester. So now today is Sunday and I went to church in the BYU-ID 83rd ward once again. We have a new bishopric, which was interesting, but further than that it was rather uneventful. Singles wards at school tend to be kind of boring the first couple weeks. We had a couple of really good lessons though! Hmmmm... now that I think about it, I guess this weekend could have been a lot worse! Yeah- I've had a great weekend! I guess that's all for now. I would post pics of the apartment, but it's exactly the same as my other two apartments, so... most of you know what it looks like! I'll let you know how my classes go! My first one is my cooking class! Woohoo!

Spirit of Elijah!!!

2010-04-05T00:46:00.001-06:00

Ok, so as most of you know, this weekend has been LDS General Conference, which is one of the best weekends of the entire year! I loved every second of it. But I have a confession to make... my mom and I really enjoyed Elder Russell M. Nelson's address (the one on family heritage) in the Sunday afternoon session, that we sort of... got distracted and ignored the rest of the session. I guess you could say that we were inspired. Anyway, following his address, we both immediately got on familysearch.org, the church's genealogy site, and started randomly looking up family lines. It honestly was one of the coolest experiences of my life! We learned so much about our family that we never knew about before. Most of our amazing discoveries began with my great great grandmother, Julia Ann Crandall (born 1841), who is my Grandpa Boyer's grandmother. First, we followed her family line back to the 17th century to John and Priscilla (Mullens) Alden, my twelve great grandparents. We started to do a little bit of internet research on this couple, and it was like opening a treasure chest! It didn't take long for us to discover that John and Priscilla were not only on the Mayflower, but John Alden was supposedly the first person to step off the Mayflower onto Plymouth Rock in 1620. He was also the roommate of Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth. We thought this by itself was amazing, but then we kept finding more and more AMAZING facts about these ancestors. It turns out that John and Priscilla Alden were involved in the first, and one of the most famous, love triangles in the New World. Priscilla had two suitors once they reached Plymouth- John Alden and Miles Standish. Miles had sent John to Pricilla to tell her that Miles wanted to marry her. But Priscilla saw that John loved her too, and she said what is considered to be one of the most famous lines in history, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" He left, but came back to tell her that he loved her. He obviously won, and here I am twelve generations and nearly 400 years later! Another descendent of John and Priscilla is the famous poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who happened to write an epic poem about their courtship, "The Courtship of Miles Standish." John Alden also went on to become the assistant to the governor of Plymouth and served on the jury of one of the two witch trials held in Plymouth. Incidentally, their son, John Jr. was one accused in the witch trials, but he escaped days before his execution. So basically... my family is awesome! Anyway, my mom and I actually went on to find 9, possibly 10, direct ancestors who rode over on the Mayflower's first trip to the New World. We also discovered a LOT of different nationalities that are in my blood that we hadn't known before. I'm mostly English and Norwegian, but we also found a lot of German, IRISH (on both sides! I've always wanted to be Irish), French, etc. But it's when my family line goes REALLY far back, say... to the first century... that you find the really good stuff! It turns out, if you look back far enough from Julia Ann Crandall's line, I am directly descended from royalty! Scottish royalty, English kings, Italian kings, A king, queen, and princess from Spain, LOUIS I ('The Pious')- Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 799, Louis VIII ('The Lion') of France, Louis VIII, CHARLEMAGNE of the Holy Roman Empire (who is known as not only the father of all French and German monarchies, but all monarchies of Europe), and "Ole King Coel" (you know from the song?). It literally goes all the way back to the year 6 AD. Anyway, a lot of you probably won't care, but I am really really excited. It's so cool and fun to find out that you are directly descended from people who played important roles in not only American history, but world history! So you all better start treating us Clark and Boyer people better, cause we're direct descendants of some of the most famous royals in World History!!! I'm a princess! And don't you forget it!!!

Carol Jeanne Loveridge Clark

2010-02-08T21:40:00.001-07:00

(September 8, 1930 - February 6, 2010)

Carol Jeanne Loveridge Clark, our precious and loving mother and grandmother, age 79, of Springville, Utah, died at home on February 6, 2010, after a valiant battle with cancer. Born September 8, 1930 in Springville, Utah, to Joseph LeRoy and Mary Grace Fullmer Loveridge, Carol was the youngest of five children. She married her high school sweetheart, C. LaMar Clark, on May 9, 1949 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. They were married for 49 years, inseparable until LaMar’s passing in 1998.

Carol loved music and was blessed with an exceptional singing voice, sharing her talent as a soloist and in various choirs. She was active in her community, including as President of the high school PTA, where her innovations and leadership led to the establishment of the overnight senior graduation party. Carol served as a voting registrar for many years, as an EMT, and in other community service endeavors. Active in the LDS Church, she fulfilled many callings, including in the Primary Presidency while in her 70s.

After raising her children, Carol returned to school, earning her degree from Utah Valley University to become a licensed practical nurse. She worked for Utah Valley Hospital with its blood drives until her retirement.

All were welcome in Carol’s home, drawn to her generous heart, wise counsel, and delightful sense of humor. Whatever the need, Carol had an innate gift for identifying and meeting it. Her love for others was limitless, evidenced by the steady stream of friends and family who traveled great distances to visit her in her final days.

Carol’s most powerful love was saved for her husband and children. She was diligent in giving her time, talents, and efforts for her family, providing them with many cultural and educational opportunities. Blessed with a legacy of tough pioneer resiliency, she never complained about her own tribulations.

Carol was preceded in death by her son, Richard Dale, and beloved husband, LaMar. She is survived by her children, John LaMar (Cheryl), Russell Ray (Daina), Kathleen Muir, Stuart Lynn (Teresa), Kelly Jay (Wendy), and Michael Ryan (Elsa), 18 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, her sister Leslie Francis (Reed), and numerous other loved ones. Her greatest legacy was her ability to make each of them feel that she loved them the “mostest”.

Funeral services will be at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 13, 2010, at the Spring Creek 1st Ward LDS chapel, 860 East 200 North, Springville, Utah. A public viewing will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at Wheeler Mortuary, 211 E. 200 S., Springville, Utah, on Friday, February 12, 2010, and one hour prior to the funeral service at the 1st Ward chapel. Interment at Springville Evergreen Cemetery. The family encourages donations in Carol’s name to the LDS Church Humanitarian Fund.

Where does it go?

2010-02-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been thinking a lot about time. It's crazy! You spend your entire life gearing up for a single event- your birthdays, baptism, going to high school, graduating, getting married, etc. Then all of a sudden the day is past, and you are years ahead, looking back trying desperately to remember the details of the day. I remember being so excited to finally get in high school. The day couldn't come soon enough. I know this is a corny cliche, but it really feels like a week ago when I started my life BHS, but I am happy to say that I have changed a LOT since then, and I wouldn't trade my experiences since then for anything in the world. The thing that has brought this on the most is thinking about my amazing Grandma Clark.

As I have grown up, I've always considered her to be invincible. I had my first major dose of reality in regards to Grandma about a year ago when she tripped over a high chair in California and injured her pelvis and shoulder. Since that time, she has been diagnosed with and treated for ovarian cancer (which included both surgery and radiation), received shoulder surgery (which had some pretty serious complications, resulting in her admittance into the ICU), diagnosed with lung cancer, which then turned out to be in her brain, and ultimately was given just weeks to live. Every day she is getting weaker and weaker and she has only days left- if that. Now, I know I shouldn't be sad. Once she dies she'll be free from her pain and will finally be reunited with her husband and her little boy. But I can't help but be a little stunned. Back in January of last year, I had come to accept the idea of her passing. I was in Florida at the time and I even told my managers at Disney that I may have to take temporary, possibly even permanent, leave for her funeral. But then she pulled through in California and went home to Springville, and, in spite of the oxygen she was now constantly wearing, I allowed myself to believe again that she was invincible. Then came her diagnosis with cancer, and she seemingly pulled through again! Then her stay in the ICU, where once again, she pulled through.

All year long I have had to keep preparing myself for the possibility of her death, but then pulled back into an imaginary dream world where it looked like Grandma would be around for a while. But this time, she's not going to recover. And it, for whatever reason, is so hard for me to accept. I can't imagine a world without Carol in it. It's crazy to me to think that next time I'm in her house, she won't be upstairs at the crack of dawn making Belgian waffles. I am never going to have another opportunity to hear her read the Polar Express on Christmas Eve. I just can't imagine being without her. I love her so much and I am greatly going to miss her, and the love that she gives everyone she comes in contact with. But I know I'll see her again, and personally believe that she will always be present when her loved ones need her. Her spirit may be leaving this earth, but there is something that is NEVER going to change. It's something that has always been, and something that my mom and I promised her when we said goodbye for the last time- to love her the mostest forever and ever! And I know that she will continue to love her family the mostest forever, too!

Why???

2010-01-29T18:27:00.001-07:00

I know it's hard to believe- I'm leaving Facebook. The world is coming to an end!!! ;) Honestly I'm sort of surprised it's such a big deal to everyone, but that is a big part of why I'm ending it. First of all, while I feel the Facebook is an excellent tool in keeping in touch with friends and family, it has become far too overused in my personal life. It distracts me from homework, family, and the people that I am with in reality. If I'm bored, I always turn to Facebook rather than finding a productive use of my time. The other thing that drives me CRAZY is that I'm friends with so many people online, but in real life, we don't even say hi when we see each other. If I'm not really a friend with that person in reality, why should I humor them by giving them a higher friend tally? Basically it comes down to this: I spend WAY too much time online, and Facebook has gotten me into some pretty sticky situations in the past. This is more of a self-control move than anything else. This doesn't mean that I love anybody less, it certainly doesn't mean I want to lose contact with anyone, and it is not a personal attack on any of my Facebook friends. I simply want to reunite with reality. :) Now that I am leaving Facebook, I will do my best to update my blog more often, just in case anyone cares to know what's going on with my life. AND I still have an email address and a cell phone number! Just let me know if you don't have it. Basically, my point is that I'm not completely dropping off the face of the earth just because my Facebook account is. :) Love ya guys!

2009-11-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my choir went on BYU-Idaho's sacred music tour. It was AMAZING!!! We sang in Twin Falls and met some awesome members, but the highlight of the weekend was definitely our performance at the Tabernacle on temple square. I have always dreamed of singing at the tabernacle (so much!), and it was everything I ever imagined. The spirit in that room is absolutely incredible, and the acoustics are every performer's dream! :) It was an amazing experience. I wish you all could have experienced it with me. But I'll be getting a DVD of the performance later in the semester if anyone wants to watch it.

Thumper and Satanic Shirts...

2009-11-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

So I realized to day that many of you haven't met Thumper yet. He is one of my best friends in the entire world and has been serving me in stress reduction and anger management. I love him!!! Here he is...

Isn't he beautiful? I love him! :) Playing the guitar really is a big help in getting me through this semester. Especially with stuff like this:

This is what I lovingly refer to as "the wall of death." Yes, that is all Dr. Pepper, excluding of course the four cans of Red Bull perched on top. Three of my roommates have become flat out addicted to Dr. Pepper. Which is fine for them if they want to do it, but it's kind of a huge pain. One wrong move in the living room results in all 144 cans falling down! Then you have to rebuild it, and it takes forever... sigh. And now my yoga ball can't have nearly as much fun out there as it used to. Poor ball...

This is the other thing that's forcing me to overplay the guitar. A wretched fitted shirt. I love my sewing class- I really do, but I have learned that fashion design and tailoring are NOT the careers for me. It's not even really halfway done yet. I still have to build and attach the sleeves and hem the sides and finish the collar and sew in buttons and button holes and hem... It's great!

This is the lovely collar that is being so nice to me. I has literally taken me about 4 hours of pinning, sewing, unpicking, and re-sewing to get it to look this good. And it's still nowhere close to perfect. I think that shirt collars are a creation of the devil... :) Anyway, other than the evil shirt and the suicidal Dr. Pepper pyramid, life is pretty good right now! My classes are getting pretty intense now, but luckily it is mostly stuff I love! And this Friday marks the beginning of our choir tour called "God's Everlasting Love." It's a beautiful oratorio based off of poems that Elder Bednar wrote. So I have the premiere concert this Friday (which Elder Bednar is coming to!), then the following weekend we are performing in Twin Falls and Salt Lake City (in the tabernacle!!!), then we have the closing concert the next Friday. The preparation is really time consuming. I never realized how much work Women's Choir would be. In addition to class time this week, we have two additional 3 hour rehearsals. But the music is gorgeous and I love to sing, so naturally I love all the rehearsals.

Pics of Fall 2009

2009-10-25T17:38:00.000-06:00

So here are some pictures of my amazing pictures of this semester. I stole them all off of facebook, so they aren't the best, but my camera is still out of service. Tiffany, this is for you! So you better help me out. :P

These pictures are the product of pure boredom. Charlotte (left), Marina, and I spent probably two hours trying to get jumping pictures. Most of them turned out like this one, but this is my favorite because we're all in different stages of a jump, but no one is actually off the ground. :)

This is our first successful shot. Unfortunately my face isn't very cute when I'm in the air. :)

That extra roomie is Heather. She got home like an hour into our jumping and decided to join in on the fun.

This is my least favorite, but my roomies think it's funny, so whatever. :)

This picture is taken at the Rexburg temple. It's one of the first weekends of the semester. Marina and I try to go together because we're room roommates and we both are class free on Fridays!

It's pretty!

This is a picture of me ironing my pillowcase for sewing class. I want to post pictures of my other sewing projects eventually.

This is our lovely front door. Marina, Charlotte, and I got bored with our apartment, so we decorated! It was actually the same night that we took the jumping pictures. Why were we so bored? I bet we had tons of homework to do.

Semester #3

2009-09-19T20:11:00.000-06:00

I don't have any pictures or anything, but I just want everyone to know that I'm having a super fun semester! This semester, I volunteered to work for the new student orientation, Get Connected, and had TONS of fun- I made lots of new friends and had amazing spiritual experiences. It's changed my entire outlook on BYU-I and I'm actually enjoying it again! My roommates are awesome this semester. No personality clashing so far, and that's a record compared to my past apartments. This semester I'm taking awesome classes (except for science), my favorite of which is Women's Choir! I can't describe how amazing it feels to be in an auditioned choir again. We're singing in devotional on Sep. 29, which is always fun. I also get to go on choir tour to Twin Falls and Salt Lake, which I'm also super excited about. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures soon, but my camera is poop. :(

I'm BAAaaaaaack!

2009-08-30T18:21:00.000-06:00

Hi peoples! :) I don't have anything exciting to say right now, except that once school starts up again next week I'll be blogging more, so you should start paying attention again! Oh yeah, and I'm auditioning for Women's Choir this semester, so I would LOVE it if you'd all pray for me to make it. Thanks, I love you all, and peace out!

I LOVE to see the temple!

2009-03-11T12:35:00.001-06:00

The temple is a BEAUTIFUL gift. Living in the Mormon bubble of Iona, ID, I have very rarely been exposed to a lot of the stuff that I'm experiencing here. It is a rare occasion when I can get through an entire day without hearing the F-word or the Lord's name being taken in vain. My coworkers consistently come into work hung over, and some of them stoned. For a few of my coworkers, it is literally impossible for them to function without the influence of a cigarette. Growing up in Idaho, I was around fellow members almost all the time, and if they were participating in any of these activities, I never knew it. I think I had become a little desensitized to the spirit. Now I am in Orlando, Florida, where there are much fewer places for the Holy Ghost to dwell. But I didn't really notice all that much. That is, until I stepped into the Orlando Temple last night. The shift in the atmosphere was instant, and I immediately felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. I felt closer to God in those few hours than I have in a very long time, and it reminded me why I love this gospel so much. It was so refreshing to feel at peace. The air was clean, my thoughts were clean, and I was serving God. I cannot express in words how grateful I am for the Lord's house. It has served me as a very bright light in the midst of darkness, and I will never, EVER, forget the importance of temples again.

STUPIDITY!!!

2009-03-11T12:22:00.000-06:00

'High School Musical 4' Set to Debut in 2010!

East meets West in a classic love triangle set against the cross-town school rivalry between the East High Wildcats and West High Knights, in High School Musical 4, the fourth story in the celebrated franchise that became a cultural sensation, fueled unprecedented digital music downloads and underscored the strength of Disney Channel and Radio Disney's connection to kids, tweens and families.

High School Musical 4 brings the franchise back to television in a music and dance-filled Disney Channel Original Movie that will introduce a new cast of characters. It is scheduled to begin production later this year for premiere on Disney Channel in 2010.

"The High School Musical trilogy introduced a new generation to the celebrated genre of movie musicals," Gary Marsh, president, Entertainment, Disney Channels Worldwide, says. "In crafting this next iteration, we've challenged the entire creative team to raise the bar again — and create something truly worthy of this extraordinary global phenomenon."

The screenwriter of High School Musical 4 is Peter Barsocchini who wrote each of the three movies in the franchise. Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush return as the executive producers.

The above article was posted on The Hub, a College Program website, so this is an official, and factual, article. It looks like we have the next generation of "The Land Before Time" on our hands. Why does Disney have to ruin a good thing by milking it? Cinderella 2 and 3, Pocahontas 2, Little Mermaid 2 and 3, Brother Bear 2, Fox and the Hound 2, Lady and the Tramp 2, etc. Where has all the creative thinking gone? Think of something new people! Imagination is dying, and that makes me sad. >:(

Happy Day!

2009-02-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today was awesome, as far as meeting characters go. The pictures speak for themselves. Oh yeah, and Steve? Can you do anything about the redness of the Incredibles picture? :)

Just wait... tomorrow I plan on getting Woody and Buzz Lightyear, and maybe even some playhouse Disney characters... :)

My New Love!!!

2009-02-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have officially found my new coping mechanism. It's called Mickey's Retreat, and it's AMAZING. It's for Disney World cast members and their families. It is definitely the most beautiful place I've seen in Florida. There's a beach with a moderately sized, gorgeous lake, two spacious, clean swimming pools, a playground, and tons of awesome sports equipment. It's gorgeous, relaxing, and the best part? I can rent a canoe for $2. Jealous, anyone?

Some Recent Pics and STDs

2009-02-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I don't really have anything to write about. Basically I go to work, come home, sleep, wake up, and go to work again. Oh yeah, and on my two days off I go to Walmart and the parks. Basically I'm in one giant Disney prison... :) Oh yeah, except for my little trip to Celebration ER. My blood test came back negative- no STD's so far. If you don't know what happened yet, I got stuck with a mystery insulin needle at work. I had to get my blood drawn, but, of course, the Cast Health Services clinic was closed. So I was driven by my male manager (awkward) to the emergency room, where I had spent the next five hours waiting, talking to an "exposure hotline" about how I should avoid sexual activity and donating blood for six months, waiting some more, and getting jabbed mercilessly for 20 minutes by two incompetent nurses whose phlebotomy skills were SERIOUSLY lacking, waiting yet again, and finally getting to go home at the beautiful hour of 3 AM. Fun day! Since that wonderful experience, I have gotten three shots, and will get at least two more. I have gotten tested for HIV and Hepatitis B, both of which came back negative. But I have to get three more tests within the next six months, and they all have to be negative before I can donate blood again. It also means that I can't get married to anyone until... August. Darn it. Anyway, that's all the exciting stuff that's going on! Here are some of my latest Disney pictures.

Ooh pretty! The castle changes colors at night- green, blue, purple, orange, and pink. It's pretty.

This is one of the murals inside of Cinderella's castle. They're so pretty! You can't see very well in this pic, but they're made out of teeny tiles.

This is how the characters dress in Animal Kingdom. It's totally my favorite park!

Today, I...

2009-01-18T14:55:00.001-07:00

-Got to take the sacrament for the first time since I've been here.

-Got to work only to find out that I was surplus.

-Pan and broomed all over the park for two hours.

-Met a little boy who didn't like the Magic Kingdom. (what?!)

-Got asked 3 times where the nearest smoking area was.

-Was sent home from work six hours and fifteen minutes early.

-Saw Cinderella and Jasmine walking around backstage in their old-fashioned princess underwear.

-And, saw Goofy's head- no body, just the head... :(

Oh yeah, Toon Town!

2009-01-15T22:18:00.001-07:00

Donald's

Mickey's

Minnie's

Minnie's Gazebo

I really liked this picture because it's a mouse pioneer family! So cute! It made me think of mommy.

Costumes and Characters...

2009-01-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Magic Kingdom for the first time!!! Most of my pictures are from the parade, and the rest are from Toon Town! More will come I'm sure, but this is what I've got for now. Tiff, I want you to know that through the whole parade all I could think about was how much I wished that your girls could have seen it. They would have LOVED it. But before you see those pictures, I'm sure you all are wondering what I look like in my glamorous costume...

Ta Da!!! Aren't I so cute!!!! Blah- Now let's get to the good stuff!!!

Here's Grumpy moping at the piano...

Bernard and Miss Bianca- I love the Rescuers!!!

I think this is the mean fox from Pinnochio, but I haven't seen that show since I was REALLY little...

And here's the annoying little puppet himself!!!

Awww! Eeyore is cute!

I didn't get a great shot of Aladdin, but he wasn't the greatest Aladdin anyway.

Yes! The Villians' float... this was by far my favorite!

Ursela has a BIG head in real life!

There's my Beast!!!

And of course, Mickey was the grand finale!

One Day Down...

2009-01-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

I just finished my first day of real, solo, work. It's scary! Today I had bathrooms, so I bounced back and forth between two bathrooms all day long... for eight hours. It's gonna take some getting used to. The first thing I did when my shift started was get lost. I finally found everything I needed, and went to work. I think I know a little more about what I'm doing. I should be more confident at work from now on- that is until I do streets by myself for the first time... But experience is definitely what's going to get me started. I still am pretty homesick, and miss you all TONS, but hopefully I get used to this soon. :)

The Adventures of a Custodian-in-Training

2009-01-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

Today was my first ever day of on the job training- woot woot. It really wasn't too bad, besides the fact that I had to wake up at 2:30 in the morning and got stuck with a crazy lady from Oklahoma as my trainer. We started our journey with a quest- to find a vacuum cleaner. After journeying through all of Future World, we finally found one in Spaceship Earth (that's the sphere at Epcot if you don't know). After our long, arduous search was over, we vacuumed the Character Spot and emptied the garbage. What was our next big adventure, you ask? Sitting. In the break room- for an HOUR AND A HALF. Don't ask me why, because I simply don't know. She was talking about semi-important stuff for about twenty minutes though. But hey, it is okay, because I got a little nap in on the job! Oy. Now, if you're waiting for a climax... it's not coming. Our trainer occupied the rest of the day with walking around the park. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and interesting, but I still have no idea what I'm supposed to do with myself after training is over. Yeah, she showed us all the areas that need to be cleaned, but she neglected to show us how. It's going to be pretty interesting for a while! Oh yeah, she also decided to give us Science lessons all day. For example, today I learned about the various types of clown fish, what sea horses look like when they mate, that Florida is like a crumbling sponge underneath and someday the entire state (she used the word 'continent') is going to fall into the sea, and that the little river thing in Future World is a natural spring, and if you step into it to collect all the money out of it, the quicksand will suck you in until there is a bottom. However, according to her, there probably is no bottom. Now you know!!! That really was the extent of my eight hour work shift. It was so fun. Woohoo. I hear from other people that training always sucks, though, and that I'll have more fun when I am on my own. Hopefully it's true! Right now I am completely lost. By the way, I miss you all SO MUCH!!! Anytime I see something cool, I am always wishing that you guys were there to see it with me. Today I actually got more homesick than I think I ever have. But don't worry, I'll get over it and have fun, I promise! I'm sure it will all be worth it come Thursday, when I can finally see the Magic Kingdom! I really do love and miss you all!!!

My First Few Days at Disney!!!!

2009-01-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't been to the parks yet. :( But, I'm going soon, dang it!!! So far, there's not much to the story of my life in Florida, but it has definitely been a scary adventure so far!!! Sunday morning, our plane had a gas problem. We were scheduled to leave at 12:50 am, but didn't board until 1:00, and three trucks and a frozen gas line later, we finally took off at 2:00. Did you guys know that travelers are super grumpy in the morning? Anyway, 3 hours later I landed in Atlanta, and had to run across the airport to catch my connecting flight. I got there just before they finished boarding, then I flew to Florida!!! I have to admit that the first day I was pretty discouraged and scared- I knew no one, was in a strange state 2400 miles from home, got a HUGE, boring apartment (which, of course, we can't decorate. It almost feels like a prison), and quite frankly, I had no idea what I was thinking when I came here. But, don't worry, I'm warming up to everything ok.

On Tuesday, we had routine check in stuff, where I found out that I'll be working in Epcot at Future World! This is when I started getting a little more excited. That was about all that happened on Tuesday. Wednesday we had a big long class called Traditions, where we learned all about the history of Disney, what's going on now and what's to come in the company, then we talked about safety and courtesy and "keeping the show alive." We also learned some Disney-ese, the cast member language. We have a special point- never with your index finger!!!, ambulance= alpha unit, puke= protein spill (haha I think that one's funny!), etc., etc. This is also the day that I received my name tag and id card (which gets me into the parks for free and gets me discounts like all over Orlando) , and a cute little eeyore, which I won for being team leader (woot woot).

Today (Thurs.) was TERRIBLE!!! I went to my custodial core class, where I spent 4 hours listening to a poor, little man from Haiti read slides at 2 words per hour (he didn't know english very well) and babble forever about pans and brooms. After that we went 2 hours at a computer watching lessons about disabled people, chemicals, and blood pathogens (I got 100% on the test, by the way, so you should be proud Dad). It was all SOOOOOOOO boring, and I'm having a kind of hard time feeling the Disney magic. But, tomorrow I get a tour of Epcot, so I know that I'll start feeling more enthusiastic soon!!! I'm not sure yet when I will be able to go to the parks, but worst case, I have Thursday and Friday of next week off. Also, I know you've all been worried that I have to go in at 5 am this weekend, but no worries. It's only for two days... just two. After that I work from 1:30-10 pm (as far as I know). But yeah, I'll update again soon and hopefully will get more pictures! I love you all!