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Sep 8, 2012

College... Not nearly as exciting as traveling the world, but not bad.

Now that my first 2 semesters of studying at Brigham Young University-Idaho are over, I figured I'd blog about, since that's just the was that I do things apparently. So, this will probably be another fairly long post so that I can get it over with all in one shot. And I'll really only talk about what I have pictures of... lame, I know, but it is what it is. That being said....
My room! Super exciting, I know. I like to have a little bit of everything with me... Traveling, Russia, family, and the temple. The best things there are! 

I hope they call me on a mission!
Someone was goin' on a mission.... So proud of him! He left the day after I had to go back to school, so I had about a week at home with him before he left. We went bowling and had ice cream together. It was fun :) Miss you broha!        
Everyone in the temple except for me. I can't wait until we're all there together :)

My Birthday!
 We started out the party friday night, the day before my birthday. Hilary and I had a slumber party in the living room and watched the first Lord of the Rings and got ice cream. It was wonderful. The next night we watched the last two. Staying up till 5 and then going to church? Great!
And... my roommates decorated the apartment for a birthday party! It was lots of fun.

A Weekend in Utah- Boyce Avenue and Leslie's wedding!
The first time we were reunited since Russia... Leslie's wedding! March 16, 2012. It was a good day. It was weird to actually meet Seth in person for the first time. I'd never known him outside of a computer screen, but Seth is awesome and even though he wasn't actually in Russia with us, it always felt like he was a part of the group. It was nice to finally meet him.
 Vladik the pig at the wedding!
People kept coming up to us and saying, "you're the girls from Russia! I recognized you from the pictures!" It was kinda funny. Clarie caught the bouquet. She has a boyfriend now. She also ran around a church in Russia, which is supposedly a way to get married soon. Anyone else hearing wedding bells?
The next day I went to a Secondhand Serenade/Boyce Avenue concert and it was AMAZING. I didn't take any pictures of Secondhand Serenade. He just really didn't compare to Boyce Avenue. I can honestly say that that was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. They were so incredible! And not bad looking either...
 Alejandro
 I love their acoustic stuff..
 The end of Semester 1...
Finals came and went. They really weren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be, but I have a feeling they will be someday. Along with finals came white glove clean checks and saying goodbye to roommates and friends.
 My job was to clean part of the kitchen, including the fridge. All semester long we had been shoving our grocery bags between the wall and the fridge. This is what I found when I pulled the fridge out... A wall of bags! They stayed like that for several hours. It was fun.
 Hilary was my bud during the first semester. Hyemi and Natalie got their men, our FHE brothers... that was fun. So we started hanging out more together. A couple of us went to dinner the night before, and Hilary was planning on leaving first thing in the morning. Her check out time cam and went... she wanted to go to breakfast, so we did. Then her and Natalie read The Hunger Games out loud to me while I packed, which is what I did for Hilary the night before. She ended up staying the whole afternoon, which is unheard of before. I was happy :) We tried to all take pictures together, but for some reason, we just REALLY failed at that. Every. Time.
The next day I went back to my one true love, Montana <3
Semester 2!
Hilary's birthday
This new group of roommates all (except one) had something in common.... Hilary! We had all lived with her, and now we all lived together, so naturally we were going to through her a birthday party. All she had to do was come up from Pocatello, and we took care of the rest. 
 We started the night out with pizza and margaritas, I'm sad to say, the next day we all had hangovers... even though there was no alcohol in the margaritas. Weird.
One of her presents was a puzzle. She couldn't resist.
After the food, we went to different places around Rexburg to do different things. We couldn't all fit inside the car, even semi-legally, so one of us always went in the trunk. It was a little scary, but still fun. Except for when everyone forgets about you and walks away from the car... that's not quite as much fun. 
 Celebrating for Hyemi
Our next roommate party came when Hyemi got into the super competitive nursing program at BYU-I. Naturally, we had to celebrate. We started by going to dinner at Craigo's...
 Then went to see Mirror, Mirror...
Then played with sidewalk chalk and wrote all of our super secret nicknames outside our door...
 And then we had a dance party in ridiculous clothes! It was a good night. Our neighbors yelled at us for being loud, but really I think they were just jealous cuz they're not as much fun as us.
 The next morning we got up bright and early to go to the temple... we were really tired, so don't judge us for how we look.
And later, we went to Mike's (one of Home Evening Brothers) soccer game. They won. It was pretty sweet.

Preparing for the greatness that is The Avengers
Bekah and I decided that we wanted a little refresher on our Marvel characters before we watched the Avengers, so over the course of a few weeks we watched The Hulk, both Iron Man movies, Captain America, and Thor. And sometimes, we really liked Dairy Queen with our movies... but just sometimes.
 Memorial Day Weekend in Montana
In case it's not ridiculously obvious, I really love Montana, and I want everyone to realize and understand how incredibly amazing it is. But, I don't want them to move there... just appreciate it. So for Memorial Day weekend I took 3 roommates home with me.
Of course it was snowing in May. Why wouldn't it be?

We were welcomed into the bitterroot valley with this beautiful sign... We went on a walk from my house, took a picture laying in the middle of the road and almost got run over...
The next day we went to see The Avengers... Finally! It was well worth the wait. 
 Then we went and explored Kiwanis Park. We played in some trees... it was great.
 We went to the Coffee Cup to warm up, and have some of the best hot chocolate basically ever... and we had some dessert. Just because we felt like it.
Of course we have wooden indian statutes.... why wouldn't we?
Monday came and we went over to the Seamons house to ride some horses around the arena. We had a lot of fun. Thanks Lynn for helping us! Later in the day we went up to Lake Como to do some shooting.
That's my gun! I have a horrible stance I know, but I still shoot pretty well!

 The big man helped us out a little. Thanks daddy!
 Little guns are alright too I guess...

The result? A shot up zombie. We did pretty good, if I do say so myself.
 
And this is why I love Montana... Lost Trail Pass, Bitterroot River, and Lake Como
For my Developing World class, we had to grow a garden... This is what ours looked like after just a month!
The Riddles came to Rexburg to visit! I love the Riddles! It was so nice to see them and catch up a little bit, and I'm sooo excited that they'll be going to school in Rexburg this year:)

 Bekah and I went to go see Bill Cosby... at 70 years old, he is still one funny man! I think it would've been funnier if I was married, so I could appreciate his humor a little more, but it was still super funny.
Cosby: "God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the Tree of..."
Crowd: "Life!"
Cosby: *shakes his head* "For all of you who said 'life', stay in your seat, and after the show, someone will come and read to you from the Bible..."
..........
Only with a bunch of Mormons.

 I took a trip home as a sort of surprise for Fathers' Day. And then went to Spokane for a temple trip the next day, and then drove back to Rexburg. It was great!
 Bekah had never been to the Idaho Falls temple, so we decided to go there one Saturday instead of staying in Rexburg. It was so nice and relaxing to go there.
 I went to a different temple every saturday for 3 weeks. It was wonderful :)
 Mesa Falls
Bekah's parents came up from California to visit for a weekend, so we took a day trip to Mesa Falls. We walked around and then had a picnic. It was so beautiful there!
 Bekah, Natalie, and Me. Roommates!
 4th of July, AKA 'Merica Day!
I love the 4th of July. I love doing all things American on that wonderful day and thinking about how grateful I am to be America and live in such a wonderful country. So, Bekah and I spent the day together of course. We listened to country music and 80's rock all day long. We started the day by going to Rigby lake and getting sufficiently sunburned. Then we went to Menan and had hamburgers. We followed that up by going to watch The Amazing Spiderman in Idaho Falls, and then watched the fireworks by the river next to the temple. Even though I didn't get to ride 4 wheelers up Willow Creek behind my house like my family usually does, it was still a really great day.
This is what we do on Tuesday nights...
For my Eastern Europe Culture class my group had to do a presentation on movies and TV... well, we wanted some brownie points with our teacher, so... we got a giant bag of popcorn and took it to class!
Keri! We had a class together winter and spring semester without even planning on it, and sat by each other every day. I love this girl!
 I could be African, right? We ended up having TONS of extras, so we walked around campus trying to get people to eat it.. we made some friends that way. It was lots of fun! We did the same thing a week later but with blini.

A Really Rainy Day in Rexburg
Let me just start by saying that Rexburg storms are SUPER lame. But, we had one day where we had a really good one, for a solid amount of time. I, of course wanted to go play in it IMMEDIATELY, but it took some convincing to get Bekah and McKenna to loosen up enough to go out there. It finally worked, and before too long we were SOAKED with water from the rain, and from the giant puddles in the parking lot. Those were kinda gross...
 The End of Semester 2
That semester went by way too quick, and way too slow all at the same time. I had things I couldn't wait to get away from (mostly people and classes), people I really didn't want to leave, and adventures I couldn't wait to begin! The day before I left was crazy. I stayed up until 3:00 am to finish packing and white glove cleaning, then got up at 5:30 to go to the temple, went to breakfast, and then had check-outs at 9, and then was out of there by 10:30, or 11. Then drove home by myself, and then got home and immediately went camping. It was a busy weekend, and I beyond exhausted.
I think breakfast at Frontier Pies with the favorite roommates on the day that we all start leaving might just become a tradition....
Camping and a Sunday drive with the Parentals
The dogs aren't big fans of the ground... wimps.
One of the best places to sleep
i hate morning.
 I ALWAYS play in the water, no matter how cold it is. and i love it!
We went home from camping on Saturday so that we could make it to church, but Sunday we took a drive up... lost horse? I think. Somewhere awesome in Montana, which is pretty much anywhere...
 BEAUTIFUL!!
Mom hates us being by the edge of a cliff, so naturally that's exactly where Dad and I want to go
me y mi mama 
 and the padre
 mi papa y mi mama
2 weeks in Utah with Nicole and Steven!
I'm sad to say that I spent 2 weeks in Utah and have pretty much no pictures to show for it... It started out with Steven being out of town, so Nicole and I could get some nice girl time in :) of course we went shopping, we watched Samantha Who?, baked, lounged, and just did whatever we felt like. I went down because I had 4 days of training for ILP, so that was a party... We went camping with the Bakers (Steven's sisters' family) and had a ton of fun! We fished, and ate, and lounged, and just do things that you do while you're camping!
There is a very sad story behind this canoe... it fell off Steven's truck while we were driving down the freeway and got taken out by a semi... it was really cool to watch, but so sad! so we never actually got to use it...
 sisters!
 Ezra trying to feed Gibbs a stick. I can't believe the last time I saw him was at Nicole and Steven's wedding!
 Me and Eliza! The last time I saw this girl was also at the wedding... she was just a baby then. It makes me feel old. But she loved me right away again, so we're meant to be friends.
Steven threw Chalco into the lake to see if he could swim... he learned quick! But he was ticked off for at least 2 hours. at least.
I got some vinyl to decorate my computer! 

We had a mini Russia reunion! I love seeing these girls and reminiscing anytime we get the chance. It doesn't happen often, and we have yet to reunite the entire group, which I seriously wonder if that will ever happen, but something is better than nothing, and I love every minute I get to spend with these amazing girls :) Leslie, me, Allison, Jessica, and Jodi- just in case you forgot.

I also helped teach Nicole's summer school class for 3 days. She's trying to convince me that I'm meant to be a teacher... I still can't decide what to do with my life. But the kids were super sweet and I had tons of fun!

Well, that's pretty much all that happened that was important after I got back from Russia... and now I can go back to blogging about Mexico! Hopefully I never have blog posts as long as these last two ever again.

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