Be honest. Does this sweater make me look fat?

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party 2008

My Home and Native Land...

I think I've been living in Utah too long. I've forgotten what green really looks like. I love BC!

Nope. No Thanksgiving photos yet. Actually, we really didn't take very many. Here's a photo from a few weeks ago, though. Happier memories of BYU football. My friend hooked us up with tickets in the geriatic section. We got free hot chocolate, one raised arm was sufficient to continue the wave, and we didn't have to stand until they say "Rise and Shout." Dad, you would probably prefer the student section where they stand the whole time.

Mustache Bash 2008

Like most single's wards in our area, the Elder's quorum has Manrichment activities. However, unlike most other wards, our Manrichment activities include the women (what does it take to get men to attend the Elder's Quorum activities? Women, duh!) So here we have our second annual Mustache Bash Manrichment. In order to attend the party at all you had to have some kind of mustache on. There were some pretty creative ones including the milk mustache, the mexi-stache and one girl who pretty much just cleaned out her hair brush and taped it to her upper lip (shudder). You know me, though. Any kind of costume party and I'm there!

That's the classic party game "pin the mustache on Tom Selleck".

The problem with caller ID...

Last week while stopped at a light on my way to work, my phone rang. I grabbed it and checked the caller ID. "egh, I don't really want to talk to him," I may or may not have audibly muttered as I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat. A few seconds later, my phone received the message and I picked it up to see what my friend had wanted. "Hey Amy, I just noticed you in the car next to me, so I thought I'd say hello, but I can see you're clearly too busy to answer. That felt wonderful. You have a great day too."

The moral of the Story: Check your surroundings before you check your caller ID.

So domestic

Tonight was our pie making enrichment. Don't we all look so cute with our little pies. I even wore my apron to trick myself into feeling domestic. It was such an awesome enrichment. We had record-breaking attendance (for our RS) and everyone seemed to have a great time. Plus everyone went home with their own mini apple pie. For dessert we had... pie (nope, not the ones we just made, Costco pie. Go figure.)

4 Wheeling

Bryan is one of my closest friends and he's moving away. (I know, what's new?) So in honor of our last weekend together, we took his 4 wheeler out on a trail that goes behind Y Mountain. Every once in a while we would come to a canyon that revealed life in the Valley. The weather was perfect and with the exciting BYU football game that followed, it made for a pretty awesome day.

Welcome Halloween!

Yep, some slight improvements and this costume was ready to go again. I didn't officially get to wear it last year, so I was pleased to debut the Walmart Greeter at both my work party and the huge Stake dance party last night.
It definitely elicited the desired response from both events. I went around with happy face stickers welcoming everyone I met. Anyone who already knew me, thought it was hilarious. Picking up on new guys at the dance was a little trickier. I was constantly turning around to find people laughing and pointing. On any other day, this is would be upsetting, but on Halloween it's met with a mirror-cracking smile.

There were some pretty impressive costumes at work this year. Nacho Libre obviously took guts (no pun intended). The 70s cop was a hit too, especially when he arrested Nacho with a set of handcuffs that he didn't have a key to. The Burger King King kept sneaking fake cash into people's pockets, and Obama (who painted himself black) kept talking about change and taking money from the doctor and giving it to me. A little later Darick showed up as a Never-Nude (to anyone who has seen any Arrested Development, that's pretty darn funny. He was just wearing jean cut-offs and a bathrobe over top.) We had a great time and hardly got any work done. Happy Halloween!

hors d'oeuvres

I was pretty proud of my little pumpkin hors d'oeuvres this morning. They are just sun dried tomato wraps, cream cheese and cilantro, but they are so yummy. (I can't say yummy without thinking of Lisa. That one's for you, Lisa!)

Molly

I met Scott and Elisha at a pumpkin patch in Sandy yesterday. None of us have ever looked for a good pumpkin patch/Autumn farm thing before, so this was definitely a trial run. It was a little bit ghetto. I'm sure there are better farms in Utah, but Molly didn't seem to notice the pathetic pumkins or sorry excuse for a red barn. She ran all over the place rediscovering things again and again. (Scott and Elisha were there too, but they didn't really make it into any of my pictures.)

Rainbow Wars

I was at a dinner party this evening when one of the girls mentioned something about Expo 86. Being only 5 years old at the time, I have very few memories of the world fair, but we bonded immediately over two things. "Do you remember the grey motorcycles?" she asked. Do I ever! "...and Rainbow Wars?" We screamed like girlfriends that haven't seen each other in years. The rest of the group was a little hesitant, but we found Rainbow Wars online and watched it together bonding Kallie and I as friends for life. We were both five years old the last time we saw it. The special effects aren't quite as good as I remembered but I think it just adds to the charm. I have included the link in case you want to reminice with me.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1a3e8_rainbow-war_shortfilms

After we watched Rainbow Wars, someone was reminded of the is Sony commercial. I don't know if you have seen it, but it's amazing. It's all real footage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A08HQP_SlOA

Karaoke Night

Sorry for the low quality picture, I didn't actually take my camera to this event. I should have though. It was so fun. After a long week up in Park City at our retailer event, I didn't think I'd have the energy to sing one song. It didn't take long, though before we were all picking the funniest songs and sending each other up to perform. Everyone was willing to do whatever embarrassing song they had been selected for. I sang a good five or six songs, Barbie Girl being the most embarrassing. The karaoke place was small venue in Pleasant Grove. Five bucks to get in and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Here we are singing Summer Love. We took the whole group on stage for this one (four guys and four girls) so we didn't have much of an audience, but we had a blast. My old roommate Brooke even came. It was so fun to see her again.

Lupita and Amy

We had to take some pictures together too! Not the best lighting for these kind of pictures, but we had fun.

Portraiture

Lupita graciously consented to be my model for the portraiture assignment. She's one of my best friends and she's just too cute, so it was really fun taking pictures this afternoon. I have to submit two of these tomorrow. Which ones should I choose?

Photo Assignment #2

Slow Shutterspeed:
Fast Action:
This was the first BYU touchdown on Saturday. Wyoming fumbled the ball and Scott Johnson picked up sprinted right past me.

Photography

I'm in a six week photography class and I just had my second class tonight. Our assignment was to submit three photos. Two of them had to be using "unique lighting" and one needed to be black and white. At the beginning of each class, the photos we emailed him and going on a slide show and we vote for our favorites. The winner gets a free 11x14 print of whatever photo they want (my teacher owns a few camera stores). This first one with the trees won popular vote and the free 11X14. I don't think the audience could see that it's not totally in focus. The black and white photo won teacher's choice for that category.

Wakeboarding

It's still about 85 degrees in the afternoon, but no one is on the lake on a weekday evening, so the conditions were perfect. We didn't get any pictures of my sweet jumps, but I did better yesterday than I ever have. If I could go a few more times, I bet I could clear the wake.

Isn't that water so inviting! I love Utah Lake.

Dave is the boat-owning friend that invited me.

Yeah, he didn't land that one.

Neither did she.

All grown up and going to College (or University as we say in Canada)

Yep, that's probably the same nervous/excited face we all had on our first day. It was so fun to be there in Rexburg with Brian. So many memories of my first days at Ricks!

Proud parents at the free Freshman Orientation lunch.

Signing up for iTeam activites.

Unpacking.

Yes, I was the embarrassing sister that demanded a new roommate picture. (That was for your benefit, older siblings.)

The Rexburg Temple is breath-taking inside. It was neat to go with family.