On to Other Adventures

So I decided that I better start contributing to this blog if I want to keep my name on it. I am catching a plane early in the morning to go to Boise. I am so excited to see Meagan and her family. I am excited to marry Meagan and can't believe it is finally here! She is great. The last few months have definitely been an adventure. I am so glad that everything worked out.

Speaking of adventure, this Thanksgiving break was one of the most unique of my life, but I can't think of a better way to end my bachelor days. My good friend Garrett Justin Smith and I decided, rather impulsively, to buy tickets to Kauai and planned to hike the Napali Coast.....and that is about all we planned. Luckily, a few other buddies decided to come too. Everyone contributed to the success of the trip. Terrence packed in two steaks and found ways across so-called "uncrossable rivers", Justin saved a girl's life and Dustin provided comic relief at the end of the hike as he embraced the nudist culture of Kalalau and streaked off into nature.



But no one else can take more credit for our successful adventure than John Combs. It takes a fine man to open his time-share condo to four wet, dirty, smelly guys. His kindness turned our ill-preparedness into luxury. Nothing feels better after a long hike in the rain than to soak in a hot tub and sleep in a soft bed. He saved us and will never be forgotten. Thanks John!


Here I am at the start of the hike. So dry....but not for long. I wish I had more pictures but due to the constant rain and mud of Day Two, many photo ops were lost. Oh well.
I am so glad I went. It has been something I have always wanted to do and I am glad Meagan encouraged me to do it even though she was stuck at home with not much to do. She's a keeper. Now I am off to bigger and better adventures and I can't wait.

Jessica Tagged Me!

Jessica Transtrum Bahr my friend and old roommate from Hawaii tagged me! So I am supposed to tell you about my 8 Favs now ... 

8 Favorite TV Shows--I don't usually watch TV shows on TV ... I usually just watch them on my computer at work when there is nothing for me to do! :) and Jordan hates TV, but anyways these are the ones I like: 

1. Gossip Girl 

2. One Tree Hill 

3. The Hills 

4. Private Practice 

5. Grey's Anatomy 

6. ?

7. ?

8. ?

8 Favorite Restaurants--

1. Red Robin 

2. Cafe Ole 

3. Cheesecake Factory 

4. Chicago Connection 

5. Subway ... I love it, and I eat it more often then anything else! 

6. ? 

7. ?

8. ?

8 Things to Look Forward To--

1. Jordan & His Family coming to town Wednesday 

2. Marni coming to town Wednesday 

3. Kaitlyn getting her mission call this week

4. My family being all together for Christmas

5. My Wedding on Friday!!! 

6. Going to Lake Tahoe for a little honeymoon. 

7. Being home for Christmas 

8. Going back to Hawaii and having a week to play before work and school starts up!  

8 Things I LOVE about winter--

1. My Wedding 

2. Christmas 

3. Being with Family

4. Wearing cozy PJ's and sweatshirts around the house

5. Holiday Shopping

6. Sitting by the fireplace

7. Watching movies

8. Sippin' hot coco

8 Things on my wishlist--

1. A sweet husband! ... soon :) 

2. A wedding day with no snow 

3. A new suitcase

4. A new straighter

5. A new makeup tote

6. For Kaitlyn to get her mission call to Mesa, Arizona or Boise, Idaho .... so I can see her! :) 

7. $$ strictly for a shopping spree 

8. ? 

I wasn't very good at this 8 favs thing ... but thanks for taggin' me Jess, that was fun! 

I wanna tag these great 8: 

1. Garrett Justin Smith (go ahead make it boring) 

2. Marni Vail

3. Ted Davis

4. Tori Price

5. Jacque Skaggs

6. Matt Riding

7. Cortney Camberlango 

8. ... I guess thats all! :) 

Aloha Oie

Well, I haven't been blogging lately ... because I'M HOME, trying to prepare for our wedding on FRIDAY! but getting married means that a lot of things will be changing and when I left I said goodbye to the Quiet House and my roommates and best friends. 

Kaitlyn has been so much fun to live with. She just graduated from BYU-Hawaii and won't be back to the island for a long time. She put in her mission papers just a week ago and is waiting for her call. I can't wait to see where she goes, I am so excited for her to go out and serve she will do a great job! But I'll miss her very much.  Kate, You are beautiful, I love you and I am looking forward to getting your letters.... and especially for the reunion cruise 2010! :) 

Marni and I have been roommates for 2 years, she was my roommate my very first semester in Hawaii and ever since. Marni has a special way of making everyone around her happy. She is very fun to be around and has made my experience in Hawaii so much fun! Marni and I are actually polar opposites in many ways, but we have some how managed to become the best of friends. Marni will still be in the Quiet House next semester ... I am so grateful that she will only be a quick bike ride away! 

Here are some of our memories over the past two years! I love you girls ... 

.... But I couldn't be more excited to get married and have a new roommate! :) 

Card Catalog

I remember when I was in elementary school and a whole afternoon was dedicated to library time. This is when I would get to go to the library and the librarian would take me to the card catalog (before computers were everywhere) and help me find a book.  

Well there are two points to this story is: 1. Justin wanted to start a contest for who could have the most boring blog, so I wrote about Card Catalogs and 2. I for some reason really want one. It looks like such a fun way to organize on this blog that I stumbled upon while I was at work ... 

And, in the spirit of card catalogs ... if you visit this website you can personalize your own catalog card (like the one below!) 

DIY: Grocery Bag Pom Poms

Looking for a fun, different, cute, cheap way to wrap all of your christmas presents? ... Check out these grocery bag pom poms ... go here for step by step directions! 

disclaimer: I will gladly accept any gifts you are willing to give me with or with out these pom pom toppers :) 

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?

I don't know how many of you heard about this ... but its ridiculous. In a Long Island, New York Walmart a 34-year old store worker was trampled to death and a woman, 9-months pregnant was also seriously injured by people holiday shopping. Read the full story here.

Here are my thoughts after reading about this:

• So, are we really in a recession? ...People are so excited to spend the money (they probably don't have) that they trampled someone.
• No sale or great deal is worth someones life
• I love online shopping .... no savages trampling people, no long lines, no fighting for parking spaces, etc.
• And for those of you who do decide to go out in the crazy crowds, be careful!
  

FYI

...just twenty days 'til our wedding!  & only ten days 'til I go home! 

Not a whole lot is going on in Hawaii (for me at least!) We had a Happy Thanksgiving. We ate dinner with our ward and then Jordan headed to the airport ... he is off in Kauai, hiking the Napali Coast with his friends. Its beautiful ... check out the pics, below. 

 This is us, with the Coast as our backdrop! We got to go on a zodiac raft tour of the Napali Coast when my family came out to Hawaii for my graduation this summer.

Sweet Talkers ...

Rachel Ray has created some super fun party favors (I love the "Oh, Baby!" ones). All you do is customize and print these candy bar wrappers, wrap them around some candy bars, and apply a little tape or glue ... TaDa... You have adorable party favors! You can find the pdf here! ... Now I just need a reason to make some 

Do you know what today is? ....

Only 1 Month 'til our Wedding Day! 

I took a spill ...

We have the luxury of taking a lunch break together everyday. We usually ride our bikes down the street to Jordan's house and grab something quick to eat and then head back to work and school. 

Monday was no different. We headed to Jordan's house and made some bagel sandwiches. Then we were on our way back to campus. While we were riding,  Jordan convinced me to try to do a "bike trick." ... Just steering the bike with one hand, but on the opposite handle. I thought sure it can't be that hard... so I let go with my right hand and I brought my left hand across to the right handle. Next thing I knew I was struggling for balance and found my self skidding across the asphalt & I some how managed to get the handle bars rammed into my neck. 

Moral of the story: Don't try Jordan's bike tricks or you will have injuries like these: 

This My neck--This is actually quite painful, cause it is in such an awkward place. I have never realized how much I move around my neck in a day until I had this little scratch to remind me. 

and here is my hip... she is quite colorful now!  & unfortunately on the side I like to sleep on. 

There are a few other minor bumps and bruises. No big deal ... I just thought that I would share my stupid moment from the week. Really ... How many 22 year olds do you know that fall off of their bikes? 

PS its okay if you are laughing at me, I was laughing pretty hard too

DIY Project: Put a Cork In It

At work I have had lots of time to peruse blogs. I have stumbled upon a lot of blogs made by crafty people, who I don't know, but have great ideas. (find them under inspiration ... on the side bar). I am trying to be prepared for married life, by looking for cheap ways that I could jazz up our future TVA studio :) 

Anyways I am going to start trying to follow their artsy examples by making these embroidery hoop bulletin boards. You can find the tutorial here, on sweet jesse. 

Dear Santa,

Last Saturday we went to Kailua with friends .... hung out at the beach and then cruised around the shops. We went into Macy's and they had a big station set up where children could write letters to Santa. So I am going to give it a try... 

Dear Santa, 
I have been a good girl this year, and I only want 3 things for Christmas....

1. A new straighter, mine is no longer functioning. I have been borrowing from Kaitlyn & Marni for a long time. When December comes ... I'll be missing my wonderful roommates and their straighters. 

2. One LARGE piece of luggage, the handle on mine broke :( ... and last time I used it, Jordan cut his hand on the broken handle, but the medium and carry-on sized pieces are in great working order! Plus it needs to be large in size so I can pack all my stuff in one bag ... so I don't have to pay a million dollars for my luggage when we fly here and there ...

 3. Last but not least, I wanna get married! ... Only 35 more days

Humor is the Key to Endurance

Currently there is a Business Conference taking place at BYU-Hawaii which is awesome for us, because Jordan's business classes are cancelled so they can attend the sessions & My boss has given us permission to attend the sessions.... so we get to spend some more time together which is always good! Today we went to a session with Barbara Barrington Jones called "She Who Laughs...Lasts" She is hillarious ... I love her. (I am turning into my mom who loves going to Education Week speakers). Anyways it was awesome. President Monson recently counseled to "Find Joy in the Journey" and Sister Jones explained that the way to find joy in the journey is through humor and laughing. She said that 75% of what we say is in any given day is Negative. Thats crazy ... There are so many reasons to smile, laugh, and be happy. As we get older we find more and more things to stress us out or make us mad, and we forget to laugh and smile. She said that a child will laugh about 400 times per day where adults only laugh about 50 times a day. So I am making it a goal of mine to look for chances to smile.

Sister Jones shared 3 rules for Humor:
1. Look for the Humor in your life
2. Laugh at yourself
3. Find the Humor in Un-pleasant situations & MAKE THE MOST OF IT!

I am not always the best at finding the humor in my life, but I am going to work on it! President Eyring said, "Humor is the key to endurance"

Zombie Bride

Halloween: Not too much happened for Halloween, except the day before Halloween me and one of my student workers were looking at all of the creative Halloween treats. We found a recipe for eye balls ... so I went home and tried to re-create them. They are not even close to as good as the ones online but ... Here is what I came up with. I brought them into work on Halloween with a sign that said "Eye" hope you have a Happy Halloween ... (They were a hit)
Halloween night there were lots of events going on... we decided to go out to gunstock ranch and ride on the haunted hay ride. It wasn't too scary, actually it was sort of hilarious ... but we had a lot of fun.

Bridal Shower: On Saturday my sweet roommate threw a bridal shower for me. We went down the the strip, broke into teams and had a photo scavenger hunt. The whole time they made me wear a crown, a sash that said 'Miss Bachlorette", and a garter. Sort of embarrasing ... but here are some of the photos from the Savenger hunt. I only have my teams, I'll try to get some of the other girls photos and add them later.

Shelley & Lianne "Kiss a man on the cheek"

This man LOVED it, he asked if there was anything else he could do for us, which sounds creepy ... but it was kind of nice because they were rejected by a little asian man just moments before.

Kaitlyn & Me "Give a man a piggy back"
"Chest Bump in Front of the Cheesecake Factory"

*Notice the awesome accessories that I have on!

After the scavenger hunt we all met up and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. It was so nice of Kaitlyn to put a shower together for me. She has been a great roommate and an amazing friend over the past two years. I am going to miss her lot when she graduates in December.