happy holidays

preston and i spent christmas apart, him with his family and me with mine.

i had a wonderful christmas, but nothing makes me happy quite like he does.

he came back last night,

and i was a happy girl.

the past few days, i have spent lots of time with the family-- seeing movies (don't see "how do you know?"), playing games with cousins, watching grey's anatomy with my mom, and painting nails.

in the next few days, i hope to do some ice skating, skiing, and sleeping-in before returning back to p-town.

my parents say they have a "christmas hangover". we all just laughed when they said that! but how true is that? i'm sure most parents do.

i am loving the holidays. hope you are too!

xmas cheer

kristen and i were quite cheery this morning. can't you tell?

we woke up early to open presents (9am to be exact. my parents were just happy it wasn't 6 am like all our neighbors)

but really, the pictures don't do it justice...we really were excited! we opened half of our presents, made abelskivers, and we are now "resting" while brandon and aj go to her parents house. we will open the other half when they return. it's like two christmases! what fun.

it couldn't be christmas without the sappy part too...so here it is. this is one of my favorite xmas hymns.

"How silently, how silently

The wondrous gift is given !

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of His heaven.

No ear may hear His coming;

But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive Him still,

The dear Christ enters in."

I'm trying to let Christ into my heart so I can have a heart like His. I'm thankful for the wondrous gift He gives to me and you, and I'm not going to take that for granted this next year. I hope everyone has a peaceful and warm christmas with their family!

merry christmas!

winter wonderland wedding

the week before christmas, most people are frantically strolling the mall to buy last minute christmas presents.

Normally, I would admit to this, but this year I had something much more important on my agenda...

A wedding!

I finished up finals and then jetted off to California with my family for my cousin Jennie's wedding. They got married in the LA temple and had their reception in the Music Hall in down town LA. The biggest rain storm in 10 years also decided to come the day before the wedding. Thankfully the photographer was able to snap a few pictures in between the gusts of rain. We danced the night away at the beautiful dinner reception and caught up with cousins. My aunt tina decorated the whole reception hall with her martha stewart skills.

It was lovely!

Congratulations Jennie and Aaron!

Two things that I love:

Morning Glory (the movie)

and the Weepies (a band)

check them out here (this is their christmas song... it's delightful)

imagine my excitement when i realized the weepies did a song for the movie

here's the music video.

enjoy!

meet me under the mistletoe

Last weekend, we had our ugly christmas sweater party!

There were lots of fun activities including hot cocoa drinking, christmas cookie eating, dancing to become "christmas king", learning the dougie, and kissing under the mistletoe ;)

We also had a special visitor come......

Everyone got to take pictures with santa and tell him what they wanted for christmas. Preston's boss let him borrow this enormous santa. He had to bring santa home in his very small car, having to decapitate santa for the ride home.

King of Christmas

(Josh and Tiffany under the mistletoe!)

dance off for King of Christmas

Thanks to everyone who came and spread christmas cheer!

sweater preview

christmas party tomorrow at 9.

come get your christmas cheer on

be there or be square

don't forget a rockin sweater!

(more sweater previews at my roommate's blog here)

thanksgiving ode

on thanksgiving, I was able to experience some things off my 100 list. I was a happy girl!

ate maple butter twists for a nutritious breakfast

(made by yours truly)

went to Sundance with entire Dyer side of family

and ate unhealthy amounts of pie

(I made these two-- oatmeal maple and chocolate pecan)

yum

I hope you all were able to enjoy some of the things you are grateful for

:)

not for the weak in stomach

this one time, a piece of metal did this to my foot....

my friends drew a smiley face on it to cheer me up

My flip flop caught on a piece of metal while I was walking to the first BYU football game of the season. I went to the ER and got 13 stitches instead of being at the game.

a few months later...

I went to the last BYU football game. I walked home through the very site the accident scene, and the piece of metal was still there! I'm not lying, it's at least three inches of rusty metal sticking out of the ground.

beware of this jagged piece of metal

but on the upside, BYU won!

it was a killer game, even in the cold

(don't mind the guy creepin in the background)

100 things

In my women's health class, our teacher gave an extra credit assignment.
To earn extra credit, all we had to do was.....

make a list of 100 things we are grateful for

a girl in my class raised her had and commented on the assignment.
she said she had told people about it and challenged them to do it.
She mentioned that after she had told her sister, her sister gave a

talk in church and challenged everyone in the congregation to do it as well .

it has turned into a "pay-it-forward" kind of a deal.

I challenged the girls I visit teach to do it,

and you should do it too!

(Pass this on)

here are a few of my favorites from my list:

wonderful memories with family and friends

my grandparents who have started an amazing family legacy

the future and everything that is yet to come

peace, hope, faith

God's love

my mom's coconut bread

my grandma's abelskivers

my favorite jeans

Clinique make up

mountains, snow, beautiful autumn leaves

my mom and her wisdom and love

my dad and everything he does for me

my journal

the plan of salvation

Preston and his sweet and tender heart

my best friends who have always been there

"I believe in pink.

I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.

I believe in kissing, kissing a lot.

I believe in being strong

when everything seems to be going wrong.

I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.

I believe that tomorrow is another day

and I believe in miracles."

I found a part of this quote yesterday while browsing through a

Martha Stewart wedding magazine

(yes, I'm a typical girl and I anything weddings...blogs, magazines, billboards, you name it).

don't you just love those?!

she believes in kissing a lot. and that happy girls are the prettiest.

what girl can disagree with that????

not me! she's a pretty smart lady if you ask me.

Adventure Race for Africa

July 10 2010

we survived the race!

all proceeds went to children in africa.

check out this website for more info www.adventureraceforafrica.com

throughout the race, we had to do small relays with our teams. in one the the relays, we learned how 1 out of 8 kids in africa dies from bad water. the average american uses around 70 gallons of water per day. if each american cut back in one small way, it would make a huge difference.

also with this month being july, I've been thinking about how grateful I am for my country.

we have many privileges that other countries do not

we have clean water

we have plenty of food

we can sleep peacefully at night

we can get an education

we can worship

we can love openly

we can dream the american dream

June Bug

Birthday Shout Outs:

the lovely Raquel Berrett

She turned 20! What an old girl. She had a little get together to celebrate. There was....

BBQ

hot tubbing

swimming

ice cream cake

bonfire

star gazing

It was a perfect summer night.

(what a sweetie. we've been friends since forever)

(I made her these abelskivers that morning!)

I love Raquel because she loves people and she's passionate.

Next up:

Preston Reese

He turned 22! He's very old. We had a picnic up the canyon, and I made him

butterfinger (his favorite candybar) cupcakes.

Preston is awesome because he's hilarious and loves to be around people.

last birthday shout out:

preston's roommates (and my friends now too) paul and kris

I think you two are pretty great as well!

I hope you all had wonderful june bug birthdays!

About two weeks ago, I took a little road trip up north to visit Kailey.

Raquel decided to join me for the fun filled weekend.

we had a girls night with pizza, chick flicks, and nail painting

ate delicious tacos from a bus

swam in the freezing/nasty rigby lake

had a BBQ and bonfire with friends

sang taylor swift for hours

talked and laughed

(successful weekend!)