It's the End!!!

Hello!

Well, the end of the semester is near. This week. Oh man! I have so much to do. So much studying. I can't wait for wednesday at 2 when I'll be DONE with everything!!!

Well, Thursday was the last day of classes, and so we all stayed up SUPER late just talking in Julie and Krista's room till 3:30. Actually, I was the first to leave and go to sleep at 3:30, besides Mallory and McKenzie who had both gone to sleep a lot earlier instead of talking with the rest of us. :]

And then later that morning, at 10, my mom called and my phone's volume was turned up WAY loud and it scared Somers and I awake and I literally gasped outloud and shouted "Holy crap!" and Somers just chuckled and then fell back asleep.

That whole day was pretty relaxing, which was nice. I DID go to a two hour physical science review session, which was NOT fun because there were no more seats in the BIGGEST auditorium, so I had to sit on the floor for two hours straight. My legs fell asleep several times. But other than that, the day was pretty nice. I watched Made of Honor, thanks to my parents (thank you!), and that morning I'd made a big pancake and scrambled eggs breakfast complete with orange juice, which was really nice because we don't EVER have big breakfasts where we're all sitting down together to eat.

That night around 11, Julie told me to come to her with Walmart because she really wanted a pineapple, which I thought was kinda weird... wanting a pineapple at 11 at night... but I wasn't doing anything and everyone else refused to go with her, so I went. But I thought it was weird that when she asked Alan if he wanted to come, he said no. Because... well, he never says no. Anyways, so we went to Walmart and we were there for about an hour. After getting a pineapple Julie took me to the shoe section and had me give her my opinion on different boots and then we went to the movie section and then we looked at sweaters and just kept going around the store. When we finally left a bit before midnight and I came home, all the lights were off and everyone jumped out and yelled surprise and turned on the lights and everything was all decorated. In red. Yay. And then it made sense why the night before Krista, Somers, and Alan (Miller) had gone to Walmart and hadn't asked anyone else if they needed to go because usually when someone's making a trip to Walmart, they ask everyone if they need to go because we don't go that often. And apparently it was because they were buying streamers and balloons. Anyways, so we eat Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, sent by my parents (thank you again!). Once it hit 1:30 and Alden and Alan had to leave, we all watched Sons of Provo. Here's some pictures of the kitchen. They also tore up the streamers into little pieces and threw them all over my bed to make it look like there were rose petals :]
There were balloons all over the ground too. We've decided that since we tend to celebrate people's birthdays for several days, we're just going to have like, four days of birthday for each person. So today was my second day, and we had these peanut butter fudge bars with oreo cookie crust that were DELICIOUS. I've become obsessed with peanut butter since coming here and eating the creamery's peanut butter cup ice cream, so they figured I'd love those. :]

Today it started snowing, FOR REAL this time. And it stuck and it's so pretty! I slipped three or four times, which was a lot of fun (never actually fell though, just looked like an idiot), and I threw a snowball at Julie. Twice. The first time she gave me permission to (Julie hates the snow). The second time I was actually aiming at Alan because he'd thrown one at me, and he ducked behind Julie right as I threw it and it hit her in the back/neck and she wasn't wearing a jacket and it went down the back of her shirt. :] So here are some pictures of the pretty snow. This was at about 1:30, so we got a lot more than there is in these pictures.





Today Julie, Alan, and I went to both the Provo Town Center Mall and the University Mall. We first went to the Provo Town Center because we ALWAYS go to the University Mall when we go shopping, but they didn't have anything we wanted, so we went to the University Mall, where I found a cute jacket. When we first walked into the mall, the first store we saw was Allysa's Bridals, which is a modest wedding dress store, and Julie and I just beelined it for the store. We sent Alan off to go shopping elsewhere, and Julie tried on four dresses. I only got pictures of the first two, because the second two she wasn't in for very long and she changed really quickly. Alan came back after she'd only tried on one dress because he was bored, so he got to see her all dressed up. Here's the first two dresses:
She likes this one a lot in terms of the embriodery and beading on the top because it's all white and a bit simpler. She's decided she really likes big, poofy dresses. :] Here's a close up of the top:Here's the second dress, which we both LOVE, but its got gold in the beading, and you can get it in silver, but its still not completely white, which the temple doesn't like. :] But we both just LOVED this dress. She decided after trying on this one she wants a lower, V waist. And here's a close up of the bodice:That dress was so pretty! And it was a lot cheaper than we were guessing: only 300. We started looking at all of the prices in that shop and they're all fairly cheap. We want to go back there another time when Alan won't be there to get so bored while she tries on dresses. :]

Tomorrow is the Christmas program for Sacrament meeting, which is sure to be good, because we already know what's on it since Julie's in charge of making the programs and she told us who's singing. :]

And then I will be doing some MAJOR cramming for my finals. :] On Tuesday I have a screening test scheduled for a job I applied for to be an online English tutor for students at the University of Hong Kong. Basically all I am is their TA and they send me their papers and I have to mark all of their grammatical mistakes. But I have to go in for the screening test so they can make sure I'm competent enough in my grammer to find all the mistakes. :]

And I'm working on an application for this other job/class that I want to take next semester. I'm not so sure I'll get it though, because I don't have much experience, but I thought, hey! What will it hurt just to apply? It's a screenwriting class, and we'll be writing the script for a potential BYU Broadcasting Television series. And we get paid for being in the class because we're writing the script for the series. So it sounds really cool, the only problem is that its on Wednesdays from 5-8, and my Book of Mormon class is from 6-8, so I'd need to drop that class, drop another class, and then schedule my book of mormon class for another time. Cause I already have 18 credits, which is the maximum, so I have to drop one class at least if I want to take this other one. But I don't find out if I'm in it or not until January 2nd, which is three days before classes start. Oh well. We'll see. :]

Anyways, I should probably study a bit and then go to sleep! Four days till I come home!

-Cate

Christmastime!

Hello all!

We've been a bit busy around here lately. After coming back from Thanksgiving Break, none of us were in the mood to be serious and crack down on our studying... so we've goofed off a lot in the past week. Of course, now we're paying for it and have to study, but we still find it hard to find the motivation to do so when Christmas is just around the corner and classes end this Thursday.

When I'm not wasting time and avoiding doing my work by watching movies with everyone else, I'm usually procrastinating my work by looking at rings, wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, and flowers with Julie. We've found a few dresses she really likes online, and some rings. She's already showed Alan the rings she likes, and I believe he's already gotten one of them because he's formally proposing to her tonight...

This past weekend was a lot of fun because we actually got to go OUT and get off campus. Friday night... actually, we stayed on campus Friday. Friday night I went with my friend, Mitchell, to the Divine Comedy Show, and then we went to the creamery and he bought a ton of stuff to make breakfast for dinner. We came back to my apartment and we all just talked for a while, and then he went to his apartment and Somers, Mallory, and I went to a hall meeting about winter break (which was thoroughly pointless). We were planning on going over to Mitchell's to eat and I was going to watch the first season of Heroes since he owns it, but we ended up staying home and watching a movie instead cause we were too tired.

Our apartment has been decorated all up for Christmas, which is nice because it actually looks homey now. Finally. Since its the end of the semester. :]

Here's some pictures of this past week...

Krista, Alan, and Julie. Alan came because Mallory, Somers, and I have been coloring Disney princess pictures and we didn't have a black coloring pencil. So Julie went on facebook to see if Alan was on because he's ALWAYS on, and, lo and behold, he was, so we asked him if we could borrow his black colored pencil. So he came over just to drop off that. He was nice though and brought ALL of his colored pencils, not just the black one. :]
Our beautiful Christmas tree that no longer resides in our apartment... :( Dustin actually CHOPPED this tree down in a FOREST for us. He and McKenzie brought it over at like, four in the morning while we were all asleep and they set it up so it'd be all nice in the morning when we woke up. Unfortunately though, there's a rule about real trees in the apartment... Sad. Apparently they think that real trees in the apartment are a fire hazard, so they won't let us keep it, even if we take off the lights. We don't really see how it's any different than having say, a ficas or something in the apartment, because THAT'S allowed, just not Christmas trees. So we had to take it out. Now it's sitting right outside our stairwell. :]
This was... a random night that we were all trying to avoid doing any work. Somers and Mallory locked me out of my room, so in an attempt to get them to open the door, I made Krista climb in the utility closet and hide behind the ironing board and then try to get them to find her. It didn't really work... basically Krista was just shouting for someone to come find her and Somers and Mallory just laughed. But they eventually came out and then Somers decided to climb in the utility closet WITH Krista... and that is a TINY closet. So this is a picture of Somers in the closet. Krista's actually in there too, behind the ironing board sitting on top of the mopping bucket and a pack of toilet paper. :]

Saturday was a lot of fun, though, because we had a ward trip to Temple Square to see the lights and watch the Joseph Smith movie, and then right after that was the Freeze Fest that BYU was hosting at the local ice rink. So we went to Temple Square, saw the movie, walked around the grounds a bit (but it was SO crowded and we only had a half hour, so we didn't get to take our time). Here's some pictures from the temple trip:
Somers and Krista on the bus.
Julie!
Mallory and Alan (Miller) on the bus coming back from Temple Square. They stole my headrest and wouldn't give it back. :]
We were told to meet on the west side of Temple Square, and since Moroni points East, we went to the opposite side and waited there... and waited... and waited... and realized that they were probably wrong when they told us to go to the west side for the buses. In the meantime, however, we took pictures! On the far left is Paige, and on the far right is Taylor, who are both girls in our FHE group. The buses ended up being on the NORTH side, not the west. Which they never announced. Thankfully we decided to just walk around until we found them. :]
A pretty view of the temple. Its just like a castle...Julie and Krista had left the building with the Joseph Smith movie in it before us to meet one of their high school friends who was also in the area for a basketball game. We were trying to find them and stopped outside to take some pictures before we got crushed in the crowd of people around the temple.

After the Temple Trip we piled into the two Alan's cars (Alan Miller and Alan Rosenhan), and we drove over to the Freeze Fest for some ice skating, dancing, and broom hockey. Unfortunately, we got there only a HALF HOUR late and ALL of the skates were gone! The Freeze Fest was open from 9 to midnight, and we got there at 9:30, and by that time all of the skates had been checked out and they weren't letting anyone else skate. So we just left, because really, all we wanted to do was ice skate. So we're planning on going back maybe sometime this week as a stress reliever for studying. :]

So the Miller car went to Blockbuster and rented Get Smart while the Rosenhan car went back to our apartment and got our TV, and then we all went to Alan Rosenhan's house to watch the movie, since he has a house and couches and we're allowed to stay there longer than in the dorms.

That night Somers and I decorated the kitchen all up for Christmas while everyone was asleep so that it'd be a surprise in the morning for them. We put lights around the window and hung ornaments from twine around the perimeter of the room around the ceiling, and we put up all of the cool Christmas stuff mom sent to me (thanks mom :} ). We didn't get to bed until 3:30, which meant I was way tired the rest of Sunday.

Sunday there was the broadcasted Christmas fireside, and our ward all got together in the central building with pillows and blankets and the popcorn in the tin things that have the three flavors and we had a big Christmas party. Well, it wasn't really a party... everyone was just wrapped up in their blankets and laying all over the floor. But it was fun.

At midnight Julie, Alan (Rosenhan), and I went to Walmart because I needed to do some last minute shopping for the enrichment activity and Julie wanted to get a new DVD player. I've made two big trips to Walmart already for food, and it's ridiculous how much I have to get. I have to make spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad for 130 people. The salad alone costs $124 for 130 people. Ridiculous. So I ended up getting less salad than we needed, and everyone can just have a little scoop. :]

Anyways, so this morning I ended up buying a bunch of salad, thirteen loaves of french bread, and a bunch of salad dressing. Plus a cable for our TV since ours broke and some batteries, since I ran out. :] The only thing that makes me feel better about spending THAT much money on all the food is that I'm being reimbursed, so I'll get it back. :]

Today was my third to last day of classes! Yay! I actually have one less day of class than everyone else because my anthropology class was SUPPOSED to end LAST week. But we didn't finish discussing everything the professor wanted to on Thursday, so we have class tomorrow, but not Thursday. And Friday classes are cancelled as a "reading day" for studying. So technically I'm done with classes on Wednesday! Tonight for FHE we're making it quick and we're just doing a little hot chocolate night thing, and then tomorrow is our big enrichment activity and I can finally get rid of all this food in my room and around the kitchen. I have nowhere to store all the food, so there's bags all around the end of my bed and in the kitchen. :]

Here's a video of Somers and Krista in the closet... I thought it was pretty funny, so I'll just put it up here for the heck of it. :]



-Cate

Home

Well, I've definitely had a busy week!!! I got up early Sunday morning and got all ready to go to the airport at 8... and my ride slept through his alarm clock. It didn't matter though, because even though we left 40 minutes late, there was NO ONE at the airport and I ended up sitting at my gate reading Twilight again for about an hour and a half. The plane ride home was pretty uneventful--I had an old guy snoring next to me. I tried to drown him out with my ipod, but I could still hear him even though I had cranked the volume up as loud as it would go. :]

Sunday was probably the most relaxing day, since I didn't go out. Rayne came to visit that night which was awesome! Monday after a dentist appointment, I took Aubrie, Dani, and Rayne to the movies and we saw Twilight. I definitely liked it a LOT better the second time since I was prepared for the cheesiness of it. Later I took the BART to Berkely, missed my stop, made it all the way to Richmond, hopped on the Fremont bound train, and then finally got off in Berkely. SiSi took me around Berkely and we got some asian food that I'd been craving forever. :]

I got to meet all the people on SiSi's floor and Shalika came over later to see me. We got to talk for a few hours before SiSi had to leave for a marching band initiation, so Shalika took me to the bus and dropped me off at the BART station. Thankfully I didn't miss my stop on the way back--it would be kind of hard, though, since Fremont is the last stop. :]

Tuesday I had yet another dentist appointment, and after that Aubrie, Dani, my mom, and I went to see Twilight AGAIN. I have to admit... it was even better the third time. :] My dad took Lauren and Ryan to see Bolt, which was all Lauren could talk about afterwards.

After the movie, my mom and I went shopping in Pleasanton for several hours, and then we met up with my dad at Fuddruckers, and Rayne joined us a little later. After eating, Rayne, my dad, and I went to the movies AGAIN and we saw Quantum of Solace, which I liked, but found rather plotless... Oh well. I still liked it.

Wednesday I had ANOTHER dentist appointment, and then we went out to Asian Pearl, this new dim sum place in Pacific Commons that was quite good. I've been craving dim sum for a while now. We then went to Walmart for a bit, came home, did some cleaning and cooking, and then later that night Rayne and I went to see Austrailia, which I REALLY liked. However, we didn't realize it was a THREE HOUR MOVIE. And we were seeing an 11 o'clock showing, so we didn't get out until 2. I was definitely tired. Every night I went to bed around 1:30 or 2, and I didn't get any of my naps while home. :]

Thursday of course was Turkey Day, and that was fun. Yummy food. I think my stomach has shrunk since going to school though, because I definitely can't eat as much as I could before. Not that that's a bad thing, but I had to take really small portions for Thanksgiving dinner :]

On Friday SiSi, Shalika, Jason, and I all got together. We hung out for a bit at SiSi's just talking and then we went to the theaters and I saw Twilight AGAIN. Yeah... I saw it quite a bit. It was better and better with each showing, I have to admit, but I saw it four times. In a little over a week. That's a bit much. Oh well. I still liked it. :]

After the movie we went to some asian place in Pacific Commons and SiSi and I got udon. Jason had to leave to go to dinner with his family, and Shalika, SiSi, and I went back to SiSi's house. We watched Baby Mama, which was hilarious, and then we went home. I think I was home for about fifteen minutes and then I left again to pick up Malcolm, and we went to James Blizel's house to stop in and say hi to Baugher. There were a bunch of Irvington kids there though, so we ended up staying for about twenty minutes talking to everyone, and then Malcolm and I went to Panda Express. After grabbing our food we went to Bay Street Cafe because there was some acoustic show there, and I met some of his friends who went to Irvington a few years ago. I left Bay Street at about 11 and went home to pick up Aubrie and Dani and Rayne to go see Twilight yet AGAIN for a fifth time, but once we got to the theaters, Rayne and I decided to see Austrailia again instead. We ended up laying down across the row and we fell asleep about a half hour into the movie. Oh well. But we woke up for the last 45 minutes, which is the really good part of the movie anyways, so it was all good. :]

Once I came home I just crashed immediately. I was so tired all week from barely sleeping. Saturday I went shopping with my mom for about four hours... :] And then later that night I picked up Malcolm, Baugher, and Hannah, and we drove around trying to decide where to go. We couldn't think of anything to do. I stopped by Jason's for a minute just to drop off a cd and say goodbye before I left, and then we picked up Rayne. Even though we didn't really do anything, it was a lot of fun just talking with all of them again.

I dropped off Baugher and Hannah, and then Malcolm, Rayne, and I went to Walmart to buy Leatherheads. Then I dropped off Malcolm, went to Rayne's house, and she packed up her stuff to stay the night at my house. It was almost 2 I believe when we finally got back to my house, and we both fell asleep 15 minutes into Leatherheads. :]

Sunday I rushed to get ready before church, went to sacrament meeting, and then went straight to the airport... and I forgot to eat before church. Since it was Sunday I didn't want to buy anything to eat at the airport, so I just waited for my flight because I figured I wouldn't have to wait to eat for THAT long... except that my flight got delayed for an hour because the plane was coming from Denver and, go figure, there was a storm in Denver. Once on the plane we got delayed even MORE because the whole time they were checking the plane and cleaning it up, no one filled it with fuel. So we had to sit and wait for them to refill it, and then we finally left.

It wasn't a bad plane ride, but I like window seats because I can lean against the side when I fall asleep and not have to worry about falling over on the person next to me... but I was the last one in my row to get on, and the guy in the aisle seat got up to let me in, but the lady in the middle seat didn't want to get up, so she moved into my window seat and I had to sit in the middle. I kept falling asleep because I was so tired, but then I'd jerk awake because I'd start falling to the side. It wasn't a very restful nap, that was for sure. :]

Once I got to the airport it was 5 o'clock, and I was REALLY hungry. But Jackson was still 45 minutes away, which wasn't that bad, so I just did some homework in the airport while I waited. Once he came it was another hour ride home, so we got back to the apartment around 7. So I'd gone about 24 hours without eating anything, and I was STARVING. Of course, I didn't really have any food, because I'd made sure to eat a lot of it before I left so it wouldn't go bad. :]

The rest of Sunday was pretty relaxing... I just unpacked and watched Corpse Bride. :]

I was surprised yesterday to find that I was actually kind of glad to be going to class again. My routine had been so out of whack at home that it was kind of nice to settle back into my routine. I definitely liked being home, but I also like having my routine here. :] And it was nice when I came back because Julie and Alan had already come back, so I didn't come back to an empty apartment. Mallory came a bit later, and then Somers. McKenzie didn't come back until early the next morning, and Dustin chopped us down an actual Christmas Tree!!! So when he dropped McKenzie off here, he brought the Christmas tree for us, so now we have a real tree and the apartmet smells like pine! We've got lights on it now, and Somers brought some ornaments from home, but we still need a lot more decorations to make the apartment look lively. :]

We also rearranged out living room/kitchen last night because we were tired of the previous arrangement. It looks pretty nice now. It's a lot more open, but the walls also look really bare with the new arrangement, so we're going to have to find some posters and stuff to put up. :]

And today I just found out that I may be done with my Anthropology class THIS week. My professor hasn't decided if he wants to have class next Tuesday or not... he said he'll see if we cover everything he wants to on Thursday, and if not then we'll only have class Tuesday. It'd be nice if we just had our last class this Thursday because then I would have no classes at all next Tuesday or Thursday and I could use that time to study for finals. We'll see. :]

Two weeks from tomorrow I go home again!

-Cate

Pictures

Here's the pictures from this week!

These were taken at Mr. BYU. In the bottom picture, you can kind of see them dressed in their sportswear... the Harry Potter guy is the sixth from the right. One guy had a little basketball hoop taped to his head, and another dressed up as Hansel from Zoolander, and he had a little scooter. :]
This was outside the theater, waiting for them to let us in to see Twilight. Julie was doing her Calculus homework while we were waiting. :]
Krista wasn't too happy that it was so cold. :]
Somers practically froze to death, so we had to huddle together for warmth.
I had leftoever whipped cream when I was making the blueberry surprise, so Mallory made a little boat with sailors out of a frozen mango slice, frozen blueberries, and a frozen grape. :}
This is Dejango, Dustin's toy poodle. He's fully grown. :]
Oh, he's so cute!!!
Our Thanksgiving dinner table!
This was taken after Julie came back from a date with Alan... and he kissed her for the first time. She was so excited, she couldn't stop smiling.
She is just too cute! She kept laughing and jumping up and down, she was so excited.

That's all of the pictures I have from this weekend!

-Cate

Exciting Stuff

Hello!

So this week has been pretty fun. Other than the two tests I studied like crazy for and took (and passed with a fairly good grade, if I do say so myself :} ), we've been having a blast here. On Wednesday we had our Thanksgiving dinner which was delicious! I made the cranberry sauce, cheesy potatoes, and blueberry surprise, which was a huge hit. We didn't actually have a turkey, which we were planning on, because when Somers, Julie, and I went to Walmart to get it, we passed by the deli and saw the precooked and flavored turkey breast.... so we just bought some mesquite smoked turkey breast. :]

Thursday night we went to go see Twilight... which... I refuse to form an opinion on until I see it again. We stood outside in the freezing cold for a half hour before they let us in. We didn't know we'd be standing outside, nor did we think it would get that cold, because it's been pretty warm lately. So we didn't bundle up and it was about 25 degrees outside, and we were freezing to death. When they finally let us in, we found out that you had to redeem your online tickets at the concession stand, but they'd had the building LOCKED before, so we lost our place in line because we had to get out and redeem our tickets since they hadn't let us do it before, and we ended up having to sit in the second row. So we weren't too happy about that--I mean, we'd gotten there two and a half hours early to get a good spot, and then we'd had to get out of line to redeem our tickets. So we were really close, and we were all really tired, and there were some little junior high girls screaming their heads off like, an HOUR before the movie even started, which, you know... after hearing them scream for about two hours, it gets really, really old. So we weren't in the best of moods when the movie finally STARTED... so I'm refusing to form an opinion on the movie until I see it again when I'm not standing in the cold, I'm awake, and when there aren't a bunch of girls screaming and giving me a headache. :]

Anyways, then Friday was a lot of fun. I actually woke up EARLY... and was wide awake. It was... really weird, since I'd gone to bed at 3 because of the movie, and then I was awake ALL day. Really weird. I didn't even take my daily nap. :}

In the evening we walked off campus to Papa John's and got some pizza, since Julie owed us. We have a rule in our apartment that if a guy holds your hand, you owe everyone skittles or M&Ms. If you kiss, then you owe pizza or ice cream, and if you get engaged, you owe a steak dinner. So Julie owed us m&ms AND pizza in the same week... so we'd already gotten m&ms and we just had our pizza party yesterday. :] But we ate it really quickly while walking back to campus because last night was also Mr. BYU, and so we wanted to get there early and get good seats.

Mr. BYU was hilarious. It was a mock pageant, and there were 12 guys that had to perform a talent, pose in their sportswear, and then answer a question. It was HILARIOUS. There was one guy who, for his talent, did the dance that Napolean Dynamite does in the talent show, and then he sang a song. And for his sportswear, he dressed up as Harry Potter and had a snitch attached to his hand on a wire so it looked like he was reaching for it. He was the second runner up. The first place winner was this really dorky guy who was SOOO funny. For his talent, he pretty much did a stand up comedy act, and sang a song (but the song wasn't serious--he'd changed the words to another song and made it funny). And his sportswear was a cross between karate and tennis, because, as he explained, he needed both cardio and weight training... so the karate was for cardio and the tennis for weight training. :] He ended up winning $150 dollars, a $60 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse, and two tickets to the big game today against U of U.

Afterwards we met up with Alan Miller (from our ward) and one of his roommates, Brendon, and we took a bunch of blankets out to the DT fields and watched Ferris Bueler's Day Off. It was REALLY cold... we were all bundled up in jackets and hats and gloves and blankets, but we were still freezing. Julie was out with Alan (Rosenhan), and so she didn't come with us, and Mallory has been in Salt Lake City since early Thursday, and we'll be meeting up with her tonight at the Coldplay concert in Salt Lake. So we had Somers, Krista, me, Alden, Jackson, Brendon, and Alan watching the movie. After the movie I made some hot chocolate and Jackson, Alan, and I sat outside my building just talking until about 3, at which time I decided that since I'd stayed up till 3 the previous morning, I should probably go to bed... yet strangely, I was STILL fully awake after only getting 5 hours of sleep and missing my nap... odd.

Of course, I made up for that by sleeping in till 11 today... :] It's been a pretty relaxing day so far... I dyed my hair, took my time getting ready, did some laundry... I need to start packing as soon as my laundry is done. I think this is the first time I'm excited for PACKING. :]

Dustin just dropped by to pick up McKenzie for the football game, and he brought his ADORABLE little toy poodle, Dejango, and we got to play with him. He's so CUTE!!!

I'll have to upload the pictures from this weekend later because they're loading REALLY slowly at the moment.

I can't wait to go home tomorrow!!!

-Cate

Oh How Pretty Are The Mountains!!!

Hello!!!

Well, I just uploaded photos from my phone yesterday and realized I had a bunch of really old ones... and some new. So here they are. :]This is what the mountains look like right now... They used to be completely covered, because it used to be in the mid-twenties, but it's gotten a LOT hotter these past two weeks, which I'm not liking so much. It averages about mid-forties now, but this week is supposed to get all the way up to 60! Blech! :]
This past fast Sunday, Scott invited us to his ward's break-the-fast, because they were having a chili cook off. His chili got first place, and it was definitely the best!
This is at Brother McQuarrie's house, the week of Halloween when we went over and watched When A Stranger Calls. This is just his entertainment room.
The other side of the entertainment room... Eric and Julie were having a lot of fun on the workout machines. :]
And this is the giant screen we got to use to watch the movie. It was amazing.
There was also a little bar, that Brother McQuarrie stocked up with ice cream, fudge, caramel, bananas, whipped cream, and soda. That's Alan and Mallory doing.... who knows what. :]
This was at our homecoming kickoff. Yay marching band!!!

Well, this past week/weekend has been... interesting. The whole week, I was pretty much in the library again... I think I managed to get about 8 hours of studying in the library this week, which is less than last week... When I wasn't in the library studying, I was in my room studying, or at the lab for my physics class, or at a review session, or something like that. I've pretty much been a recluse these past two weeks due to studying. :]

And this weekend, I was just so relieved that it was the weekend that I vegged. Friday I spent most of the day studying so I could take my physics test that night, but I wasn't ready to take the test by then, so I decided to put it off till today. Mallory and I stayed up Friday night watching movies, and then Saturday... was slightly disappointing. Krista's ballroom class was having a show, and so we all woke up early to go see it. However, Krista and Somers forgot to tell Mallory and I that it cost MONEY to see it, and so we went to go meet them (mind you, this is at 8:30 in the morning on a SATURDAY), and discovered we couldn't see the show because we didn't have money... so we went back to the apartment, dead tired, and pretty much... the rest of the day I just slept/watched movies. :] It was just one of those days that I needed to do absolutely nothing so I could relax....

After church on Sunday, I immediately went back to sleep and didn't wake up till 5:30, which was perfect because that's when I needed to get up to start making dinner, since I was making lasagna rolls for our Sunday dinner.

We also went over to our basement buddies' apartment and helped them crumple up newspaper for a prank. They're having a prank war with two of the boys' apartments in our ward, and they've been using us as spies since the guys don't know we're in on it and we can easily just walk around and listen in on them. So the girls, to get back at the guys for A. throwing anchovies in their apartment and B. pouring soup in basically everything and C. filling their stairwell with leaves so that they couldn't get inside, have been collecting newspapers for about two weeks now, and they are going to crumple them all up, and then fill their apartments with newspaper about waist high. Not only are they going to fill it up with newspaper, they're also going to put water balloons all over the ground in the apartment, and the guys won't be able to see them because its covered with newspaper, and so they'll step all over the water balloons, pop them, and then get the newspaper all soggy. I think they might also be planning to put raspberry jello in their shampoo so that it turns their hair red when they wash it... :]

Anyways, so we went over last night to help crumple up newspapers because they're doing it tonight. They have so much! Their entire kitchen is full, as well as one of the girl's rooms, and they've bagged a bunch of the newspaper up so that they can actually move around THEIR apartment. We're planning on helping them take everything over and dump it today, but we found out last night that for FHE, we're supposed to be going to Brother McQuarrie's house at 7... and the prank is at 7:30, which can't be changed because the guys will be going to the Bishop's storehouse at 7:20, so the apartment will be empty. So... we'll see what happens. :]

And now I have to get back to studying for my tests... blech!

Only six more days until I come home!!!

-Cate

Weekend Fun/FHE

Hello!

So I don't have any pictures from this weekend... sorry! It was a slower weekend, which was relaxing. Saturday we watched the football game, and then that night Somers, Mallory, and I joined Alan and Eric, and a bunch of other people from our ward to watch Superstar out in the Deseret Towers field. There was Eric, Alan, Eric Thayne, Megan (who is from Lodi, where we always have a band review each year :] ), Jesse Dean, Spencer, Nathan, and one other guy I don't know... I don't know if he's in our ward. Anyways, we all brought a bunch of blankets and pillows, and Spencer brought a big carpet that we laid out on the grass (which was REALLY wet after it snowed and rained this week!) and then we all just bundled up in our blankets and laid down on the grass and used a random wooden crate we found on the field as a table for the laptop. Krista and Callee decided to stay home and watch Intolerable Cruelty cause they were too tired to go out, even though all we were doing was laying down on the field. :]

Anyways, it got REALLY cold, so we all had to huddle together for warmth, and when the movie was over, we all just laid there for about two hours talking and goofing around. It was too cold to get up and leave the warmth of the group huddle, and we were too tired to get up. But once it hit 2 AM and we realized we had to get up for church in the morning, we all grudgingly got up and went back home. When we got back, Mallory and I made up some hot chocolate and watched some TV for a bit.

Sunday we had two of Julie's friends over for dinner. Joe and Patrick. Joe met Julie because he was in the same ROTC program here as her brother, Nathan, and then Joe went on his mission to Siberia, and then Nathan got called to the same mission and Joe was Nathan's district leader. Small world. :] And Patrick is Joe's roommate... Julie had never met him before, actually. Anyways, they were a lot of fun... total goofballs. We had twice baked potatoes that were HEAVENLY. They were SOOOO good!!! After they left I started working on my three papers for Book of Mormon that were due the next day... :] I am SUCH a procrastinator! But they were easy papers and didn't take that long to write. It was all based on your own experience, so it's not like I had to research anything.

And Sunday night/Monday morning I signed up for my classes for next semester! Yay! I think I like my schedule... I think. :] I'm not entirely sure because I have two night classes, and I'm not so sure how I'll like that, but I think my schedule will be nice. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I don't have class until 10, which will be nice, since I've discovered I absolutely LOATHE 8 AM classes. :] And I'll be starting those days with Social/Cultural Anthropology, which should be really interesting. After that class I have American Heritage at 11 on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then at 10 on Thursdays, and then Biology at 12 MWF. And then on Wednesdays I have one of my night classes, which is Book of Mormon at 5. By taking the night class, I only have it once a week. And even though its a two hour class, I'd rather have it once a week for two hours than twice a week for one hour. And I'm taking it with Mallory, so we'll have each other's company for those two hours :] Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be hard for me, I think. My Empirical Methods in English Linguistics class is only offered at 8 AM TTH. Yuck... I got the second to last spot in the class, which was a huge relief! But I can come home after that class and go to sleep, cause I don't have any other classes besides my night class that day. Except Thursday, when I have American Heritage at 10. So I can take a half hour nap in the library :] And TTH at 4 I have my Basic Humanities Computing Skills class, which I'm really looking forward to. So it SHOULD be fun. The more I look at it, it doesn't look that bad. I mean, I was worried that it was 17 credits, but I only have one more class next semester than I do this one, and I've been told that my BofM professor is really easy, and so is Anthropology. We'll see. :]

Anyways, last night for FHE we went over to the boys' apartment and played games. Most people went to the lobby to play some game, but I was really tired and the game involved running around, so I just stayed in the living room with Mitch, Whitney, and Whitney's boyfriend and we played Super Smash Brothers Brawl, cause Mitch brought his Wii with him. :] And then we watched Heroes at 8, which was AMAZING!

I don't think I've ever explained about Mitch. Mitch just recently transferred into our ward. I'd actually met him randomly one weekend, and then about two weeks ago he switched rooms and moved in with Greg, our FHE dad. Apparently he and his roommate were having issues, so Mitch moved. Anyways, as a result of Mitch moving into their apartment, they now have another couch, a TV, a Wii, and surround sound. :] And now we have four boys in our FHE group again. We have the smallest FHE group in the ward. I have no idea why their apartment only has 4 people, because they're supposed to have 6. Whatever. It's a mystery. :]

-Cate

Glad THAT'S Over!!!

Hello!

Well, this week has been VERY stressful. I had three exams and a paper due in anthropology, plus two homework assignments for anthropology on the same day as the paper... yuck. It also didn't help that I had the attention span of a fly this week, and so studying and doing my work was definitely a struggle. I did get it done though! :]

I discovered the wonderful world of the library this week... yeah. I don't like libraries, since of course, I don't like to be quiet. :]

But I couldn't focus at home, and so I grudgingly packed up all my stuff and trudged through the cold to the library to study. Tuesday I spent about three hours there...Wednesday I spent four hours there... and Thursday I spent another four hours... and I am definitely not wanting to go back after spending 11 hours in the library. Just saying that makes me shudder :]

Of course, there IS the no silent zone, where I COULD talk... but I like to go to the periodicals section where they have comfy lounge chairs and just listen to my ipod while I work. I've also discovered how amusing the periodicals section can be... Alden introduced the amazing technology of the sliding bookcases to me, and so we all had a lot of fun trying to trick the system into believing no one was standing inbetween the bookcases, and see if they would start moving. We managed to get it to work once... but as soon as Alden moved to run down the aisle, it stopped. So... no Indiana Jones moments in the periodicals. :]

When it hit Friday, it didn't even feel like the weekend because I still had to take my ELANG test after classes, and I studied for a few hours beforehand... so my weekend didn't start until about 5... But as soon as I finished my exam, I was SO relieved that I finally had a break!

Of course, this break isn't going to last for very long, seeing as I have three papers due in ONE class on Monday, as well as a physics exam next week. Yuck..... I'll be spending more time in the library, that's for sure.

Oh, but it WAS amusing on Wednesday night in the library because Krista, Julie, and I stayed until the library closed at midnight, and at 11:45 this announcement came on telling us to leave or else if we tried to hide in the library, we'd be fined. And then they started playing this AWFUL music to make everyone leave. :]

Anyways, after my exam on Friday, Krista and Julie's friend, Callee, who is attending UofU came to visit, and she's staying with us this weekend. So Callee came and then a big group of us went to see Wall-E since they're playing it in the Varsity Theatre for a dollar :] Afterwards we all came back to our apartment and talked for a while, until some guys from UofU that Krista and Julie grew up with came over and took Krista, Callee, and Somers back to the Marriott hotel to go swimming. Mallory, Jackson, and I didn't feel like swimming, so we stayed behind, and Julie went out to dinner with Alan. So Jackson took Mallory and I to Taco Bell (gourmet dining, I know :] ), and then we went to his apartment and watched The Princess Bride cause he's never seen it. And... then we just came back to our apartment and sat outside talking for a few hours, since it was past curfew. After sufficiently freezing outside in the cold (we didn't bundle up as usual cause yesterday was pretty warm... and I'm being dead serious when I say that it was warm when it was 45 degrees outside... I've adjusted pretty quickly to the weather, surprisingly enough, and so it's a warm day when it's in the 40s. No need for a scarf or gloves, unless its really windy. :] )

Anyways, so Mallory and I hadn't bundled up cause it was warm earlier, but it got down to about 35 while we were standing out there, so we froze just a bit :] We made up a bunch of hot chocolate once we got inside and bundled up in blankets and watched a few episodes of Avatar... our guilty pleasure. I think we ended up going to bed at about 4:30... Didn't wake up till 11 today. :] And basically all that's happened today is I've gotten dressed and watched the football game. :] I'm sad I don't have tickets to the game because Cameron, Mallory's friend, said that the field show is supposed to be spectacular today (he plays french horn for marching band). And they don't show the halftime show on TV... boo.... oh well.

Oh, and I have also discovered the wonderful world of hot curlers this week. :] Julie brought hers back from Idaho when she went home, and I used them and they're AMAZING! :] I don't have to do my hair in the morning if I use them at night, which cuts out a whole ten minutes of my getting ready time before class. And they curl my hair so nicely, its just wonderful. :]

Anyways, so I have no idea what's in store for tonight... TOmorrow I know we're having some people over from dinner... I think Julie said that one of them was her brother's roommate when he was a freshman here... I don't think I ever mentioned it, but Julie's brother is on his mission in SIBERIA. Yeah. Currently he's in Russia, and he's sent her some pretty cool stuff from Russia. But anyways, so I DO believe that the guy coming over tomorrow is his roommate from before he left on his mission, and the guys current roommates. But I'm not entirely sure... All I know for sure is that they're Julie's friends, and they're coming over for dinner. :]

Well, I can't wait to come home!!! It's going to be so weird, hearing babies cry in church and being in a HOME again and seeing little kids... :] Only 14 more days!!!

-Cate

Halloween/Military Ball

Hello!

Well, this week has definitely been a blast. A scary movie per night and lots of Halloween fun! For Halloween we were planning on having little kids come trick-or-treat at our apartment, but we stayed out shopping (for our last minute costumes) too long and missed the time. So we hurried to get into costume and then went to the Halloween Hollywood party at the Heritage central building. Here's some pictures of our costumes...
Mr. Green with a wrench...Colonel Mustard with a HUGE neon colored revolver... :] You can see me in the back as Miss Scarlet... I don't have any pictures of just me, so I'll have to wait until I can get them from the others.And I just loved this close up of Mallory as Colonel Mustard... she is SO creative with her costumes. None of us could have pulled off Colonel Mustard like she did. Of course, none of us would have wanted to glue cotton balls to our face, either. Mallory didn't think about how painful it would be to take off the cotton balls glued to her eyebrows... :]
Mrs. White, cleaning the kitchen... her lead pipe is somewhere...
Mrs. Peacock with a rope...
Professor Plum with a candlestick.

I had the knife tied to my calf... but it kept falling off, even though we looped it through my fishnet stockings, so I ended up tying it to my wrist, which STILL didn't work that well.
And here is the whole Clue gang :]

Anyways, the party looked like fun, but a lot of people in our group were tired and didn't want to stay, so we ended up inviting over a bunch of people and recreated our movie/sleepover setup in the kitchen, complete with three mattresses and the couch on top of the table again. We watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and a little over half of Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Wererabbit. Here's some pictures of the people there...This is Alan (Julie's friend Alan, not the Alan who drove us to watch the movie).
This is Cameron, a guy from our ward, and one of Mallory's friends.
Here's most of the people who came over... There's Waldo (from Where's Waldo?), a baby, a fairy, a guy who didn't dress up (Matt), and Pepper Potts (from Iron Man).
Julie on top of the couch on top of the table... :]

Unfortunately, curfew rolled around before the Wallace and Grommit movie was over, and so we had to kick out the guys and some of the girls left with them... and then we just never started the movie again. But we had two other friends come over to visit, Eric and Alan, and we just sat in the doorway of our apartment to talk to them. After about an hour we decided we really wanted to watch a scary movie on Halloween of all nights--but it was past curfew, so they couldn't come inside, and we aren't allowed to watch movies in the lobby because there's legal issues involved. So we piled a bunch of us into Alan's tiny car and drove to the park just a little off campus where there is a picnic area with an overhang and a little stage. We made ourselves cozy with a bunch of blankets on the stage and watched Prom Night (which really wasn't scary at all--Somers, Mallory, and I have yet to see a scary movie since coming here that actually scares us).

We ended up coming home at about 3:30 in the morning, and then us girlies piled onto our mattresses in the kitchen for a sleepover. Of course we talked forever, and so we didn't get to bed till about 4/4:30. Julie woke us up at 11:40 yelling "Holy cow we slept in till almost noon! We have to get ready!" because Alan (Julie's friend, not the one who took us to see the movie) was going to take Julie and I to the mall to find her a black satin bolero to go with her GORGEOUS dress I helped her find for the Military Ball that Scott was taking her to that night. So we hurried to get ready and Alan picked us up. We found the PERFECT one--but it was only available in a size two sizes too big for her, and so we settled on another one that still looked good, just not as good as the other one. :]

As soon as we came back we were frantically hurrying to get her ready because we'd spent too much time at the mall. Scott came when I was still finishing her makeup, so we made Somers, Krista, and Mallory run out and distract him while I hurried to finish getting her all ready. And when she opened the door to go out, his jaw literally fell open and he gasped, and it was the cutest thing we'd seen! He couldn't stop smiling, which of course means that SHE couldn't stop smiling. She looked so pretty!!! Here's some pictures...

Once she left, Somers, Krista, and I went over to Eric and Alan's to watch the second half of the football game (which was MAJORLY frustrating). And later Somers and I went over to a party in A. Richards hall in one of the girl's rooms, where they'd taken out the lights and replaced them with blacklights, and they'd decorated the place up for Halloween and had a huge stereo system. So there was a big party going on in their kitchen from about 9 to midnight, and that was a LOT of fun--although cramming about fifty people into a tiny kitchen and then having them all DANCE equals a really really hot room. They cranked the AC way up to try to keep the room cooler, but all that happened from that was people would crowd around the little vents on the sides of the rooms in an attempt to get cooler. :]

Anyways, this weekend has been a LOT of fun. Today on our way back from church it started pouring, and we all got soaked to the bone, but it was fun. We're all glad that it rained, cause we just LOVE the rain and when the sky is all overcast. Of course, running over to Scott's ward's break-the-fast in the rain wasn't too fun since my shoes got soaked through and were uncomfortable, but whatever. His chili won in their chili contest, and there was a LOT of cornbread and yummy chili to eat. And later at our OWN break-the-fast (which was just dinner for us, since we'd already broken it) we had a lot of fun getting to know our new FHE brother, Mitchell a bit. We've actually met him before, randomly when we were sitting in our stairwell and he was coming down and introduced himself and we talked for a bit. But apparently he's switched rooms for some reason, and is now in our ward. Greg, our FHE dad, had a roommate, but he ended up dropping out for this semester and so Greg had no roommate... and we only had three FHE brothers. For some reason their apartment has less people than others... they only had 4, whereas most have 6. Anyways, so Mitchell has moved in with Greg, and is now in our ward and our FHE group. We had a yummy dinner over at their apartment and watched a couple episodes of The Office. :]

Anyways, so I've been having a blast. But I can't wait to go home, as well! Only 21 days left!!!

-Cate