All My Bags Are Unpacked... I'm Ready to Go

After spending an eventful weekend in Salt Lake before school started this week, I returned home and discovered I still couldn't move into my place. Because I feel much more anxiety ever since I met Alison this summer (she introduced me to the word), I was having severe anxiety about the fact that I was going to have to continue living out of suitcases for the first couple of days of school. A fabulous start to the year. The good news is that I had a bed. So, could be worse.

But tonight, I had space to finally move my stuff into, and I worked hard to get it all organized so that I could rest easy from now on. So, here are some pics of the room for you (including a lovely pic of my roommate Alex). I feel so much better now that I'm all settled and organized again.

You might want to be a real friend and come visit me so you can see the place in person if you didn't come see it last year. We love visitors!

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLL(s)!!

A new year. A new beginning. New goals. And because it's my last year here in Provo (hopefully), there are lots of things I need to do before I leave! I've decided to share some of them with everyone because they're things that you all can help me out with!!

#1: Attend a Real Salt Lake game.
#2: Visit Temple Square to see the Christmas lights because I haven't been since I came to BYU. What's up with that?
#3: Read at least one book a month to keep myself sane and to give myself some "me-time."
#4: Attend Sundance Film Festival.
#5: Drink more water. I re-discovered how much I like it at EFY.
#6: Keep on keepin' on trying some new things.
#7: Frequently blog to document the exciting tales of my life. (I'm counting on you, Paul, to help me with this one.)

I think that's all of them. I mean, seven goals is a pretty solid amount of goals to set for yourself right? So, help me out friends! I really want to be able to report that I accomplished all of them at the end of the year!

And the song to put an end to this post... doesn't really have much to do with goal-setting, but if I accomplish all of these I know feel like this year could be "Wonderful." (By Gary Go)

The End of Summer

The time has come for me to leave Texas behind once again and make the trek to Utah to begin another (and my last) year at school. It's been a great summer full of new experiences, new friends, and life-changing moments. I'm glad that this was the summer I'll remember as my last real summer at home. It's weird to think I'm heading into my final year of college. I don't feel like I was in high school that long ago. But the time has come to grow up and move on with my life and while I'm somewhat terrified, I'm excited for what the real world has to offer me!



And no, this picture has nothing really to do with this summer, but we took no pictures of us all together so I searched through stuff from when we liked to take pictures with each other.

So, here's to a great Texas summer and to what will hopefully be an awesome year!

And to bid farewell to Texas, the song to wrap up this post is "She's Like Texas" by the Josh Abbott Band. Because I like to think that I'm a lot like Texas.

Adventures in Paradise

Today I was chastised for not updating my blog so I decided I should probably write about what's new in my life. Last Monday my family and I returned from paradise (aka Hawaii). While there we decided to try doing some things that are pretty well out of our comfort zones.

Por ejemplo, the Tuesday we were there, we decided to go on a four-mile, open-ocean kayaking trip. In the pictures on the brochure, the water was smooth and beautiful. The day we went there were huge waves and we kept getting nailed by some fairly gnarly squalls. So, that was fun. Oh, and did I mention we kayaked out to an island where we proceeded to go rock-climbing... in flip flops?


On Thursday, my mom and I took a surfing lesson from surf legend (not really, but in his mind he is) Doug Deal. He was a 56-year-old, pot-bellied rocker who teaches surfing in the morning and golf in the afternoon. And he was chatty! He knew everything about everything. He knew just about everyone. And he could do just about anything. I was pretty sore from kayaking still so I only made it out to catch waves twice but I did stand up on one of those ventures! And then wiped out about two seconds later. But hey, I did it ok?

Then Doug took us to this place to get the best poke on the island. Those of you who know me know that I don't do raw fish or sushi. Poke is cubes of raw fish. It's seasoned with all kinds of delicious stuff and served over steamed rice. And I have to say, I really liked it!

And on Saturday we decided to spend our day hiking Manoa Falls which was GORGEOUS! We hiked through a beautiful rainforest and then made it to the 150-foot falls and it was an incredible sight to see. You don't see that in Texas, that's for sure!

Of course we mixed some of our typical activities in between all this fun stuff, such as shopping, eating at some of our favorite spots, and lounging on the beach and by the pool. But I was impressed that I was brave enough to expand my comfort zone some and that I found I actually really liked the things we tried! It's all a part of my journey to the "New Me." And there really is no way to have a bad time in Hawaii anyway right?

And the song to end this fabulous post? One of my favorite songs to listen to as I lay out. "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. Obsessed.