All I Want for Christmas is You

I'm sorry I've been such a poor blogger. I promise it's not because I don't care, but because I just never have the time. Sad thing is I don't have much to update and I have even less pictures.

I must say that this holiday season has made me miss my favorite GFs. I think about all the fun things we did together around this time last year - our classy Christmas party, our roommate gift exchange, Saint Nicholas Day presents in our shoes, watching movies every night, going up to Temple Square, etc. So many good times shared. I had trouble topping it all this year and didn't even come close. I thought I'd share with you a little bit of the fun holiday things I've done though.

We hosted our ward's Christmas Party at our house. And guess who came? Santa Claus. This is me sitting on his lap.


I also had the opportunity to check out the lights at the DC temple. Here's a pic of the temple in all its glory (which I didn't take myself). It was so magical though with the music, lights, and nativity scenes.


And finally, I got to see the National Tree, which is one big sucker.


And here's a close-up of the White House decorated for the holidays.


I hope everyone is loving life right now because I am. And I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas in four days. I look forward to seeing Dantzel and Brynne (and maybe Jos) in February. Grace, we'll have to do something when you come back to the east coast. I love you all!

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Now playing: Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas Is You
via FoxyTunes

This is Christmas

I want to tell Cindy Lou Who the good news that I found where Christmas is.  It is right here in the vestige of the yellowhouse.  Such good videos.  Love you girfs.  Happy first birthday to our deceased baby Treevor.  Happy anniversary of our friendship and the commencement of a great year of love and girfs.  

Gap Makes Christmas Great

I love this and know you all will too!

GO To gap.com/merrymixit

oh and i bet Dantzel will like this one best.



i like this one too...



Oh and this is what it made me think of. I love how 90s these outfits look.

Grocery Stores and Doors

Girls. My girls. How is everyone??? Guess who gets to see Beth this weekend! Me. So be jealous.

I realized a few things on Tuesday. Grocery shopping in New York sucks. It's not liking going to Smith's, roaming through the aisles for an hour and checking out. It's crowded. It's expensive. And WAY way way way too small. Trader Joe's is pretty cheap but the line takes at least 20 minute and goes back to the beginning of the store. I guess it takes real strategy to get what you need and not make everyone else mad by leaving your cart in the middle of the aisle or using a cart at all. So that is one beef I have with New York. No Smith's. No Macy's. I may even be missing Albertson's! Which is saying a lot because I don't like Albertson's.

BUT! this is the great news. My doorman dream has come true, at least for a day. I babysat for this lady that roommate babysits for and she has a doorman. On Tuesday, I went in and out all day. Walking children, picking them up from school, going grocery shopping, getting icecream, etc. I had this friend that opened the door for me! Not only that (because I dont' care about that), we discussed the weather! We discussed how he felt about his job and life. There is something so comforting and beautiful about having this someone waiting for you to come home. Ready to discuss just about anything. Our friend Brigham has a doorman. I'm so jealous.


Well I guess I should post a picture. This is me, going behind the stove to get a spatula hillary dropped off the hook. I almost got stuck and I almost wanted to yell DANTZEL!! Just like I did when I got my arm stuck behind the desk freshman year. I think I've told the story to at least 5 people since I've been here.

Love all you girls!!!!!


P.S. I think we should have a reunion in January. Beth wants to learn how to ski and Jos will have to drive out because we want her too.

A lake of fire and brimstone

Here is some of the local California news.  People and Earth are getting all fired up.

The Tea conflagration started up last night in Montecito, one of the wealthier regions of California and has burned many luxurious homes on the mountain side where I went hiking Veteran's Day.  Orpah Winfrey's home has not burned yet however.  I could see the flames light up the sky from my house even under the full moon.  I went to the beach for a better view and try to take a good photo.  It looked crazy.

People are aflame as well.  Prop 8 passed!  However, it is met with ever increasing opposition.  There are protests scheduled at the Santa Barbara church building this sunday and the LA Temple already, rallies, and boycotts!  Protesters are specifically targeting the church.   I'll let you read about it.  It is really terrible.

Boycotts-this is the saddest

Protests at temple

White, powdery substance

Anyway, that is mostly what is happening here, along with The Office, Twilight anticipation (I don't know why I get so excited about things that I don't necessarily love), and my favorite of places so far, Solvang, something I do love.  Here's me in Solvang.  I miss you girfriends!  What is everybody doing? Libraries? Barbeques?  Missions?  Let's go to Jamaica together? $450 tickets round trip! Or Frankfurt, Germany? $650 roundtrip ( I have somewhere to stay here.).  Mexico City? $250 round trip.  I'm not paying rent right now as you can see.  I can fly somewhere every month.

K bye. I must get back to studying. 

Veteran's Day My Dear Veterans.

Hi Dearest girls!! I miss you all so much. Tonight we were looking at Google Earth and we looked at our house!! 490 N 200 E. My car was even in the driveway. I've been real bad about this whole blog thing and I'm determined to be 50x better. So here goes.

So I live in NYC. Specifically the Flatiron. When I wake up in the morning, I look at the window at a really pretty church and I love it. We all sleep together-Hillary, Jacinta, and I on three mattresses right next to each other on our loft above the living room. Beth has been here and soon Dantzel will be here too! So. We need the other girls out here, although Megan may get to pass on this one.

I have some pictures.And apparently I uploaded them in wrong order and it takes a lot of effort to switch them-s-o-r-r-y. (I tried to only include pics that aren't on facebook. They are some duplicates)

Here we are hugging in the leaves haha

This Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was so beautiful. Loved it.

On the drive.
My personal favorite. Tarrytown. I love the idea of living in a stars hollow copycat. We ate greek food here and dum dums and it was great.
We had a great dance party where we staked out a corner and just owned it the whole night. Seriously, after dancing at the stake halloween party the night before, my legs gave up. I had to lay on the couch for a few songs. Brigham has some good pictures here. We love Brigham he's great.
This is in the cab. Nick was doing a 1 for my first new york cab ride. (at least for this trip)

This is our outfit. Three blind mice. Cool huh
This is like my second or third day here. Visit teaching. I love their way of doing. You get together as a group, go out to lunch and chat about the lesson and/or boys.
I love this church, right by Rockefellar Center
Oh and this was my most favoritest place ever. Mode Fabrics I think it was called. There were millions of aisles and like 5 floors. All the design school kids shop here..we saw some pretty hip outfits.
On to the real favorite. The New York Public Library. Don't worry Dantzel you will be coming here. I love this place and dragged Beth through it.

First day here. Central Park.
Oh and this is right before I left. I love snow/leaves and I love the mountains. I haven't seen stars in weeks!! Wow. I don't know why this is underlined. I love my girls! I hope to see you all soon!!

A blog.

Becky, Kaity, and I on halloween.  Happy election day tomorrow girfs!  Don't forget to vote. There was a bit of a pre-election day demonstration on a bridge by house today-a gunman in desert camo waving a flag.  He made quite the scene, fulfilling his purposes I'm sure. 

Doing some Yoga at a beach in Ventura.  Thought you'd be proud. 

This is me riding a bike, in case you forgot what I look like.  Hi! Love the girfs.

All Hallow's Eve

How's my best girlfriends??  So, what is the 411?  What is everyone going to be for Halloween?

Giovanni- Captain Hook

Ezekiel- Peter Pan

Joslin (and a few friends I've collected)-Kissin' Kate Barlow (a favorite character from the imaginative and refreshing Children's novel, Holes) and her band of bandits.  (Or simply cowgirls and boys with a slightly less cliche twist.)

What are yal gonna be?  What are yals doin these days? 

Look, I know I've not been the best poster but let's not let Grace's efforts go to waste, LET'S KEEP THE YELLOW HOUSE FOREVER! Keep posting I want to hear what everybody is doing. 

Oh, me.  I am thoroughly enjoying living in Santa Barbara.  I am now substitute teaching semi regularly, for various high schools around town.  Downtown is too fun and too fun.  This is the closest I've come to living in a city of any appreciable size, Santa Barbara is still only 86,000, but there are so many good stores.  Never knew what city life could offer me.  So it's fun going into town, to the beach, or into the scenic hills on a bike.  Everything is beautiful.  I'm running a half marathon on Saturday, Nov 1.  That's in 2 days.  Hm.  Other personal information I guess I'll have to give out over the phone.  So, Grace is in New York.  Crazy huh!  Love you all. You're all my hump days.  Talk soon!

Love the tramp.

Hey hey hey, how's my best girlfriends?  Please tell me you all remember that part from mean girls, if you don't it's way less funny.  I'm just sitting in our front room right now trying to study for a quiz but actually I'm bored of that, so I'm going to post instead.  Time for an update on the house.  

School owns my life, so that, along with lacrosse, pretty much take up all of my time.  But no worries girls I love what I'm learning about so it's fine that I still have a bajillion years of school left.  Brynne and me have recently taken to the trampoline whenever we have some minutes so that we can be soaking up the last few days of warm weather and bright sunshine, so I decided you should all be aware of the greatest events on the tramp as of late.

#1--It decided to cut someone's eye open.

This is Mike, my sister Allie's boyfriend.  He was doing a trick off the tramp, when one of the springs decided it was fine to actually fly off of the tramp and hit him in the eye, cutting it open.  The whole thing was actually a lot more funny than it was stressful, but kinda scary anyway.  I wish you could see from this picture, but he actually has bruises in the shape of the spring across his face.  Pretty funny.  Anyway, Allie laughed a lot, I made a makeshift bandage, and we were all on our way to a successful break the fast in our front yard after that.

#2--Picnic Picnic Picnic!

So since Brynne and I don't see a lot of each other between school, work, lacrosse, and Trevor time, we recently decided to have picnics on Fridays when she skips school and I don't have class until 12:30.  It's worked out really well, especially since our neighbors walk by at great times to take pictures for us.  Thanks Kyle.  The pictures from last week are better, when we decided to just eat chips and salsa for lunch.  We ate an entire container of salsa in 20 minutes and watched a girl back her car into the ditches outside of our house.  Maybe I'll steal them from B soon and post them later.  

#3--Sleepover time

The rugby boys decided that after months of talking about it, the time had come to make the sleepover on our tramp happen.  Problem I had with that was that it was freezing that night, and so I refused to participate past tucking them in and making up a goodnight story.  They kept telling me I was crazy, that it wouldn't be cold, but let's be honest, I was right.  Here's the highlight of the sleepover:

Guess the guy walking by in the morning either couldn't figure out what was going on, or couldn't get enough of it.  Either way, I'm so glad Brynne is a grade A creep and took a picture of the guy creepin the rugby boys through our window.  So proud of her right now.

Okay girls I have to actually go study for my quiz before class happens, but I love you all.  Hope your lives are going well.  Jos, I want to hear about NY.  Beth, it's been like a month since I talked to you so you have a lot to update me on.  Grace, I was with you all weekend, but you should think of something nice to say anyway.  Megan is exempt.  Love you love you love you.

Tisk on myself for not posting

Oh my gosh I need to post. I'm way past due. It's 1:13 am and I don't really have any good pictures or stories of myself at the moment, but I know one thing: I must make a post. How are all my girfriends!??? We are all in different parts of the country and Megan in another county, but I feel this blog brings us together.

I'm in Santa Barbara right now living with my brother and familia. Soooo fun. It is so beautiful here that it is really hard to not be happy. I start substituting in 1 week and fly to New York in 4 days!! I can't wait to see our beautiful friend David Poulsen there and visit various New York sites with him. He is so nice. Oh yeah, some news. Maybe Grace and I will move to NYC soon and start our young professional lives out there together!

Mostly my life lately consists of housekeeping duties such as laundry, cooking, and cleaning, and things like driving around looking for a beach or park I like and reading, drawing, or writing on a bench there.

I will post more special stories and pictures when I have more of them. But for now, hello! I hope everyone is in excellent health and spirits! Please, let me know how you each are. I mean everybody. I love you guys!!! Picture: Joslin and nephew Ezekiel walking along the beach north of Santa Barbara.

Miss my hump days

Okay girlfriends, you should all be honored because I have finally decided to make a post.  First of all I think you should just know from the start there's not going to be many pictures because lets face it, once meg left that job just doesn't get done as well.  Love you girl.  Anyway, I've decided that I should let you all know how much I love and miss you, since the house is in no way the same without you.  

Item number one, we officially have new roomies.  We had to go through the worst cleaning check ever to get the house ready enough for them to move in.  People weren't kidding when they said that Aspen Ridge had one lady who was a cleaning nazi.  I hope she never comes here again.  Back to the roomies though.  They're all real nice, we get along with them surprisingly well.  One of them even loves football, and you all know how happy that makes me.  Buuuuuut they wanted to clean out the house.  Fine idea since there's so much stuff here, but they actually decided to give away everything.  Including stuff that belongs to B and me.  So that's a tiny bit frustrating.  One good thing though is that one of the girl's dad offered to pay for us to paint the house, so now every room but the kitchen and bathroom have been painted.  The house has a more mature feel/look which I can't decide if I love or not yet.  But i'm sure I will.  Here's a pic of us working on the front room, with the help of the ward of course.  I loved FHE that night, right up until I fell off a stool while trying to edge above the window.  My bad.

The room is a nice shade of sage green, like I said, much more mature.  Miss the bright blue, I'm not going to lie.  It does help the house out though, makes it a bit classier which is what I think we all would like for it anyway.  But as long as I don't end up with a baby pink kitchen like they would like to do, I'm a happy camper.  Plus me and B painted our room a nice bright teal to keep the spirit of the yellow house alive.  Here's me in the middle of all our stuff.

The most exciting part of the whole renovation is that as we were painting the front room, brother Cox decided he didn't feel okay about leaving the wallpaper that was bubbling off of the wall by the radiator there.  You all know what wall I'm talking about.  So he peeled it off to find black mold.  Everywhere.  Guess we've all been putting our health at risk.  Whoopsies.  Anyway, we scrubbed it all off and have left that wall unpainted so that the management company can actually help us out and take care of it.  Here's a little vid of the wall and mold, along with Brynne's thoughts and feelings.

Anyway I have missed my hump days in the little time I've spent at the Yellow house this summer.  I will post later about all my trips that took me away from the house, but I've pretty much been more or less gone since July.  Good thing I'm really rich and the fact that I pay close to 300 dollars a month in rent doesn't matter....or I don't have any money or a job.  You pick.  Back to the point, its going to be a weird year without my girls here in the big yellow joint.  Hopefully it will turn out close to how great last year was, but I actually can't lie about how hard it will be to beat last year.  I'll keep you all posted though on the haps of the house and those in it, especially B and me.  And you guys have to post about your lives because you never talk to me anymore.  And I'm just not okay with that.

1+1=3

..thats how my brother-in-law explained to me what synergy is. and boy was he right.

d is in a singing group as an artistic outlet to all that great talent she has. being the modest girl that she is, she usually doesn't like us to come see her perform but luckily we were invited to the "synergy 2008" facebook group and which gave us access to all the synergy info. we felt like july 4th, the day of our country's independence, would be a great day to go support our girl. here are some shots we captured from the great day.

the gang.

our girl.

nate had to leave because he was hot.

but here we are with adoration and love in our eyes for our little princess.

same pose. same girl. different outf.

and these would be my boyfriends i picked up.

i knew i would have luck at murray park, i always do.

..and i know dantzel didnt want this vid to happen, but come on.

we all know it had to.

I take you with me

I want you to know that I'm sitting in my room, watching Step Up and Center Stage videos on YouTube. I love you all and think of you all the time!

Beth is COMING!!

Can't wait to see my Baltimore Girl.


I'm SOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

30 days...

...until I come out to Utah! (I imagine this is where Europe's The Final Countdown would come in) Anyway, I know everyone is as excited as I am to be coming to Utah, or at least you should be. So the planner that I am has started to make plans for our reunion. First we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle. If you don't know what that's from, then we're not friends.

Anyway the real plan is to be outside 85% of the time and with my girls 100% of the time and sleep 5% of the time. Unfortunately Dantzel has to leave us for some little Taiwan trip thing, but we will enjoy all the time we have with her on Thursday. (I am actually really happy for Dantz Pants and her Synergistic endeavors, but she will definitely be missed)

So back to the agenda. Things I want to do while I'm in UT (which you can choose to join me in or not):

-Go to Seven Peaks


-Have a BBQ on our lawn (like we did so many times before I left)


-Eat at J-Dawgs or Bajios, or both (I'm sorry that a similar picture is already on this blog, but I didn't have any other pictures to illustrate this)


-Have a sleepover (probably not the best illustration of what I picture the sleepover to be, but it was the best I could find. I, however, imagine the sleepover to be just the girls and at the Yellow House)


-Go swimming (I have no pictures of us swimming and I found this somewhat humorous, so I made the executive decision to put it in)


-Jump on the trampoline (if it's still there)


-Picnic (it doesn't necessarily have to be with the Colonel this time because of the disaster we had last time), but I think it could be fun


-Dance (sorry; this was such a great pic of Tree, I couldn't resist)


-And of course, go to Megan's farewell.


So this is just a short list I came up with. Feel free to offer any suggestions. I'd also be up for boating on Utah lake, hiking, and much much more. I love everyone and can't wait to see my favorite people.