Festival of Colors

Finally, all my dreams of attending the Hare Krishna festival of Colors have come to life. I have been trying to go to this festival for years and every year, my plans are thwarted. Every year, it gets bigger and bigger too. This year, they split the festival into two parts with the throwing of colors at noon and again at 4pm. They are looking for new ways to accommodate their 15,000+ guests. Apparently, the Spanish Fork Hare Krishna temple hosts the largest festival of colors in North America. Seriously, Spanish Fork? I guess that's believable with a campus full of crazy BYU students eager to welcome in spring with a massive dance party and bags full of dyed flour.

First of all, I want you to appreciate how squeaky clean we are in the above photo (and how excited we are to go to the festival), because the cleanliness didn't last long. Seconds after purchasing our colors, we tore open our bags and started hurling fistfuls of flour in each other's faces. (Note for next time. Wear sun glasses and try not to smile so much. Color in the eyes burns a little, and rose scented dye makes you gag when it's caked on your teeth.)

Sufficiently splattered, we boogied on down to the dance floor to celebrate. Fortunately, Hare Krishna hymns or mantras have only three words, so singing along is simple (see dancing clip below). At 5PM, they started the count down... from 20! Who starts a count down at 20? Somewhere around 10, a third of the people got too antsy holding bags of color in their hot little hands and smoke started to rise, but the festival veterans (not us, obviously, we used our color in the first 15 minutes) held strong till zero when a mushroom cloud of pink dust erupted into the air visible from 10 miles away. Inside the crowd, the sun was blocked out and everyone stumbled into one another breathing color into their lungs. Also at the final count down they burned an effigy of the demoness, Holika, who tried to burn babies (15,000 people boo together. Burn the demoness!) ... and then the band starts playing the dance party continues. Good times at the Hare Krishna temple!

This picture still doesn't do it justice. There were a LOT of people there.

Vegas Baby!

I was most definitely in need of a good ol’ roadtrip with friends. It’s been needed for a while, so at that point, I could have picked any small Utah town and still been happy to be out of Provo for a weekend. We picked Vegas, though. Bryan, Amy, Chris and I drove down Saturday night listening to 90s pop songs and singing at the top of our lungs for a good majority. We rolled in around 10, checked into the Stratosphere and then headed up the tower for a thrill ride, dance party, and a random couch photoshoot.

The next morning we found an IHOP for breakfast and then wandered through a few casinos. Honestly, my favorite parts are all the silly things. Throwing coins into the fountain from three stories up, riding the escalators over and over while waiting for Amy, snapping hip shots of mullets, racing Chris down the stairs, and of course, holding Chris’ hand where ever we went. Did I seriously just get that cheesy? Yep, I think I did.

Actually, possibly my favorite part came when we went to the pool. Pool time! It was the first pool time of the season and it felt SO good to be laying out in the sun. Spring is a funny time. I never really realize that I was miserable all winter until spring comes around and I’m SO excited for summer. We played some great games of beanbag toss and then a little pool volleyball. It was fun, but the water was FREEZING. I was happy to enter the hot tub, but even that wasn’t hot enough to restore my core body temperature. My shower did the trick though, and soon we were off to dinner and the BYU March Madness Basketball game. Bad news: BYU lost. Good news: My orange chicken from the Cheesecake factory was AMAZING. I get a little teary eyed just remembering it. I almost ate the whole thing! Consequently, I felt a little plump as we explored the Bellagio conservatory and then ended the evening in front of the water fountains. I LOVE the Bellagio water shows. They are the only truly beautiful thing in down town Vegas. We sat on the wall and watched several shows before we headed home. One day in Vegas is more that enough. It doesn’t take very long before the filth of the city wears on you and you’re done. I think we checked out just in time.

Seriously, Chris has the best facial expressions in every photo. I love it.

You might get sick of all our jumping pictures, but we never get tired of taking them. In fact, Amy put this little montage together of some of our best moves and it makes me smile every time I see it.

I am...

At the Relief Society meeting formerly known as Enrichment last week, we started our personal histories. My favorite part was when we had exactly 5 minutes to define ourselves in 20 "I am..." statements. You're supposed to just write the first things you think about. Here are mine:

I am picky about writing utensils. (I had a pencil crayon to write with. I hate that! Pens only please.)

I am Canadian. (Yeah, I was totally thinking about the Joe Canadian Molson comercial)

I am cold right now and most of the time.

I am happy.

I am a daughter of God.

I am easily distracted. (Written after I noticed that the girl next to me hadn't eaten all of her Swedish Meatballs and started wondering if Swedish Meatballs really are Swedish or are they as French as French fries?)

I am afraid of spiders.

I am usually confident.

I am selfish. (I wish I wasn't... I'm working on it.)

I am lucky to have such an amazing family.

I am 28.

I am creative.

I am addicted to sugar.

I am a blue.

I am organized.

I am a yes person.

I am so very blessed.

I am a big fan of road trips. (Seriously, anywhere.)

I am learning patience.

I am unusually hard to hold on to. (...in the words of Sara Bareilles)

Well, there you have it. Me, wrapped up in a neat little 20 sentence package.