also, add um...some kind of vocal class from 3:15-4:15 WF. 

And now that I have 15 credits, here is my master plan!

If you take at least 14 credits and get a 4.0, you are eligible for what is called university scholarship, which means BYUI pays for your school the next semester. I'm going to get a 4.0 (knock on wood) which means that I won't have to earn as MUCH money as I would have to were I paying for the nest semester. After school gets out in July, I'm going to stay and be an EFY counselor ($350 a week! That's better than my current job for sure!). THEN in the fall, I'm going to move to Palmyra and do the church study abroad. I'm SO STINKING EXCITED! Also, I was just getting on the BYUI website and saw that they opened a new study abroad- IN BEIJING! EXCITING ALSO!! SO. I've got a lot of options open before me. I'll have to work hard, but I think I can do it! I'm ready to move on with life. Sort of. Okay, I know I'm ready, I'm just scared. The end. 

Ugh. I think I just had the worst experience of my entire life: registering for classes. BARF! Because I have no credits, I had to wait for the VERY last day to register! So not only are most all of the classes I want to take GONE, the few that are left are at extremely unGodly hours of the morning and night. So the class I was most nervous about getting into (Child210. It's about childhood development and the ONLY such class I could take this semester since everything else was either full or had prerequisites) had 2 classes left: one that I wanted and one that I didn't. And the one that I wanted had ONE seat left in it. So I sat at my computer with my cursor and finger poised to spring into action, when, with three minutes to go, the last seat was taken. SO I ended up with a class that doesn't get out until 6:15 on tuesdays and thursdays. Joy. Then BYU is making me take some stupid intro to college class (which will probably be a good thing but right now I just want to be grumpy about this whole situation) PLUS I get no electives. ALL the dance, sign language, and cooking classes were filled up. Oh the joys of being a freshman again! So for all you who were dying to know, here is my schedule

M-W-F: math108 9:00-10:00 RKS 215

        eng101 12:45-1:45 SMI 330

T-TH: fdrel121 9:00-10:00 HIN 257

            CollSucc 12:45-1:45 MCK 294

            Child210 4:45-6:15 CLK 317

And that is my schedule that I absolutely hate. I hated registering for it too and I'm super glad I don't have to do that again until april! I don't ever want to do it again!

Day 6

Today wasn’t too eventful as to things I think would be interesting to read about, but I’ll try to make it as exciting as possible. We woke up (but not early like we had planned) and went to the Museum of Natural History, which was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! I loved it. They had this big theater room in the planetarium that was in the middle of the room called the Hayden Sphere and the rest of the room was built in a spiral around it. It started with 10 to the 26 power and went down to 10 to the -14 power (I think) and it would say “if the hayden sphere represents such-and-such, than the model in front of you represents so-and-so” which was really really cool because when it got down into the negative powers, it would be like “if the hayden sphere represents the size of an atom, than this dot (and it would have something so small you could barely see it) represents the nucleus of a hydrogen atom” and then talk about nuclear energy. It was just really neat. Then we went to ask this one guy how to get to the meteorite exhibit and he took it like 10 steps beyond giving directions and took us there, but along the way he explained different things we saw, like this Saturn exhibit (AMAZING!) and this extinct north-coast ( I think?) indians thing about how they found exatly the same things from indians ranging from alaska all the way to asia and land bridges and stuff like that. It was just really cool because a lot of the stuff we never would have known about if he hadn’t told us because it wasn’t written anywhere. Then we finally got to the meteorites which were FANTASTIC! There was one that was 4.7 billion years old and like ½ a ton. It landed about ¼ of a mile off the coast of Greenland and he told us all about the process it took to get it to new york and into the museum and then showed us this one piece of another meteorite that was like 6 billion years old and we got to touch that, too. THEN we got to see these diamonds that they think are about 7 billion years old, but  they think it might be older than that, too, they just don’t know. Then we wandered around the museum more and saw some crazy dinosaur skeletons and whales and tigers and fun things like that. Then we went out across the street into central park and just wandered around for the rest of the day. We saw the roller skating rink that’s in lots of movies like Serendipity, and a lot of the places that they filmed the song “How Does She Know” from the movie Enchanted. Also the place where old men play chess. I was going to take a picture of two of them, but their friend was giving me the evil eye so I opted not to. It was epic though. That’s pretty much it, we just wandered around a lot. I think Central Park is amazing. Just that they set aside that whole huge beautiful park in the middle of that hustling, bustling, busy, dirty, stinky city. It was pretty fantastic.

For dinner we went to Broadway Joe’s Steakhouse, which was AMAZING! I guess it’s a pretty famous place, but we just went because it wasn’t too busy and we could just walk in and BOY am I glad we did! The food was fantastic! And it wasn’t too busy, which was really SUPER nice not to have to feel rushed and listening to some loud rap “music” blasting us from every direction. Then we walked around times square a little and…now it’s about 11 and we’re winding down and watching some old western. A western that I can’t see because I think the maid is stealing my things. And by that I mean that I haven’t seen my glasses since Wednesday, even though I’ve looked EVERYWHERE. AND my really cute hat and scarf that match that I got in china town and that I LOVE. I think I’m going to hurt the maid. But other than THAY… it’s amazing here, but I think this little mountain girl is getting a little worn out by the big apple! But I still can’t believe I’m actually here! It’s amazing! I love it here =] So…yeah. I think that’s all for tonight! 

day 5

Day 5: Saturday

Today we got up and walked up to Macey’s. That’s the biggest store in the world! And I’m not even making that up! It said so on the outside. It was two whole blocks long and couldn’t even fit inside only one store! It was a Macey’s bigger than the valley mall! IN-SANE. I found some cute stuff! One thing I bought was a dress that makes me look like Miss Honey*. Pretty darn awesome if you ask me. I spent a lot of the day helping mom pick out things to try on and hanging up everything so she didn’t have to. You all know how stinkin TALL mom is, so picking out clothes is kind of hard most of the time. She tried on some really pretty things that made her look great, but they were just too short. I think she was pretty sad, which made ME sad. I wanted her to be able to buy stuff that made her feel fantastic. But she has a better attitude than I would in her situation. She’s my hero. We spent almost the whole day there, then came back to the hotel for a few hours because we were pretty tired, and I got caught up on my “blogging”**. We weren’t super hungry, so we went across the street to TGI Friday’s for dinner. The food wasn’t great, but after 2 days of Ray’s pizza (albeit delicious pizza), that salad tasted pretty good. I was craving some chlorophyll. And now we’re back in the hotel room, pretty much winding down. We went and looked at times square from up above, which was pretty neat. I thought the streets were pretty crowded when we first got here, but that was nothing compared to today. Today was insanity. Which brings me back to our winding down- it’s pretty early (10:00) but we’ve been going pretty nonstop since Tuesday morning but sleeping until about 9:30 (well, I’VE been sleeping that late…) but tomorrow morning we’re going to BE at the Museum of Natural History right when it opens, so getting up early is on the agenda for tomorrow. And that’s the end for tonight. Buenas noches!

 

Footnotes:

*Miss Honey (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie Matilda) is Matilda’s teacher. To try and paint a picture of her, she’s a kindergarten teacher who lives in a cottage covered with flowers in the middle of the woods. Kind of granola, but my dress is really cute =]

 

**I thought I would have wireless internet in my hotel room and would be able to blog about my trip every day, but that was not the case. Then I thought I’d just write about it (journal like) every day and post it once I came home (which I’m doing now) but I missed the first couple days. But now I’m all caught up and hopefully will remain so.

 

 

Day 4

Day 4: Friday

Alright, there are some things I feel like I need to explain before I describe today.

1. We are staying in the Marriott Marquis hotel, right in the middle of Times Square!!

2. The elevators in our hotel are AWESOME!! There are like 16 (lettered A-P) of them and when you want to go on one you enter it into this number pad and it tells you which letter to go to, plus POINTS to it! That’s what I call service.

3. I think that was it. I’ll let you know if I think of something else later.

4. My whole point with the elevators is that when we’re going down, mom and I pretend like we’re on the panic plunge at silverwood. Because we are cool.

Well today we got up and took a cab to Canal Street. AKA China Town. That was INSANE! There are people whispering things to you everywhere you turn and it’s super duper sketchy. And I love it. So we’d heard all the best stuff is in the “back rooms” but that the people are hesitant to take you there. Michael told us that they will deny the presence of such rooms, but you just have to be persuasive. Mom thought she’d try to be tricky and went up to one of the ladies and asked “So…do you have a back room?” Nice try mom. No. So we went up to one of the whisperers and acted interested. Then she dragged us about three blocks to what we assumed was going to be a back room of sorts. Oh no. Back rooms are so not sketchy enough. No no, to complete our experience, we needed to climb into a gold minivan. So we did. And it was FREAKY! It was hot in the van and I think the lady had an auto-start button that she turned on for air conditioning, but when that car turned on and we were still in the back, I about had a majorly fatal heart attack. For reals. But there wasn’t really anything we liked in the van, so she took us back to her shop and we finally got to go into the coveted back room and found some bags we liked. When we were ready to come out of the back room, the lady called her friend out front and we had to wait (with the light off) for the all-clear that there were no policemen nearby and then they shoved us out. Sketchy. And once you’ve bought your bag, they put a designer label on it. The lady that was selling to me kept asking me if I wanted “dolcebaggana”. Sketchy. But fun. I got two purses, a wallet, two scarves, a hat, and a necklace that looked like one I saw at Tiffany’s (ps: that was throughout the course of the day, at several different shops. Not just the one). Then we went to Battery Park and ate outside where we could see the statue of Liberty (sort of). It was really neat. After that we went to DSW, which stands for Mecca. It was shoe lovers paradise! Then we went back to the hotel and got ready for that night’s play: Legally Blonde. Before we went to the play (which was literally RIGHT across the street from our hotel) we went to Ray’s Pizza- best pizza in New York!- and got a pepsi for Mom. The guys there thought I was cute and gave me free stuff =] it was great. Then the play was fantastic! I even got the CD, which had almost all of the same singers as the ones we saw except for Elle, which was a little disappointing because I really liked her voice. The girl from the play, Baily Hanks, won some MTV show called “The Next Elle Woods” or something like that. So then we went to Ray’s (for some pizza this time) and boy is that pizza huge! “Slices the size of Shaq’s foot” is how Michael put it. Then it was home again home again jiggety jig and time for bed.

 

day three

 

Day 3: Thursday

Today we got up and took a cab over to 5^th avenue. We went to Barney’s, Bloomingdales, Tiffany’s, etc. I felt like Audrey Hepburn standing in front of Tiffany’s. It was fantastic. So after a bunch of shopping we went and had lunch in Trump Towers, which was delicious but pricey. Then we went to FAO Schwartz, which is like the biggest toy store in the WORLD. It was crazy cool! For those of you who have seen the Tom Hanks movie Big, well I got to play on the piano he dances on. It was a little annoying because I was trying to play Fur Elise,  but there was a thousand little kids just running back and forth across it. So then mom, Phil, and I went down to the basement where all the baby stuff was and bought some things for Baby. I picked out mine and mom’s;  I can’t say what they are in case Jessy reads this, but I pretty much have awesome taste in baby gifts. Especially mine. Mine is my FAVORITE! I can’t wait until she is born and can get my present. Yeah, I’m that excited about it. I can’t wait to be an aunt! AH! After that we just walked down Madison Avenue and saw lots of fun places like Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Juicy Couture, and others. It was fun. Making our way back to the hotel, we went to the NBA store and it was like heaven!!!! I got a Manu Ginobili T-shirt that looks like his jersey. I could’ve bought an exact replica of his jersey, but it was $80 and I didn’t want it $80 worth of bad.

 We went back to the hotel and got ready and then walked to the theater to see Mary Poppins, which was excellent. We had third row mezzanine seats, which was really neat! The play was AWESOME and at the very end, Mary comes flying into the audience and we could have probably reached out and touched her. It was AMAZING! We were pretty tired from walking today, so we went right back to the hotel that night and went to bed.

 

Day 2

DAY 2: Wednesday

Well today we slept in because we had gone to bed so late, and then when we got up we just took our time getting ready and stuff. So we were finally ready to go at about 10:30-11 ish and went right across the street to this diner called Joey’s for breakfast. Except for the fact that they weren’t serving breakfast anymore so we ate lunch. FYI, at Joey’s they don’t give you chips while you’re waiting for your food. They don’t give you bread either. They give you PICKLES. Yep. Big fatty ones. Well then after that we went SHOPPING! Right up the street is the fashion district! We saw Parsons School of Design, which is where they film all of Project Runway, which is one of my and mom’s favorite shows =] But there was some pretty good shopping! One of my favorite stores that we went to all week was H&M and I really liked it. Then later we went to the top of the empire state building, which was amazing! You can see all of the world from up there, I think. It was way wicked awesome. But then that night we went back to the hotel and got ready for the play. WICKED was on the agenda for the night!! AH! Our seats were CC so we figured that was the third row-but no-SECOND ROW SEATS! To WICKED. On BROADWAY! Yeah and it was better than I could have ever imagined! One not so great thing though- about five minutes into the play there was kind of shouting on stage, but there was something that didn’t sound quite right, and after about 20 seconds, we realized it was shouting, but not coming from the stage. Back towards the back of the first section there was this lady screaming and I her husband was having a heart attack. So it took the people onstage a minute to realize what was happening, but they stopped eventually and put the curtain down while the few doctors in the audience made sure the guy was alive and as comfortable as they could make him while someone ELSE called an ambulance. It was a pretty scary experience and made the atmosphere VERY intense. The guy sitting behind us was one of the doctors that were making sure the guy was stable and told us that he (the man who’d had the heart attack) had come all the way from Australia! What a great thing to happen on a trip to NYC, right? Yeah but they got the play going again and, like I said, it was F A N T A S T I C ! ! Just better than anything I had ever imagined just listening to the music. One thing about Broadway that I didn’t expect was…well, what I thought broadway was, was one big theater that they rotated plays on. I didn’t realize that there are a LOT of theaters all over and each one specializes in one play for a while. Another thing I thought was that the theater would be HUGE but they were all about less than half the size of the  Spokane Opera House. On the way home we went to the hershey’s store, where I was extremely tempted by a 10 pound bar of chocolate, but somehow was able to resist. And from then on it was back to the hotel and on to sleep! The End of day two

 

The NYC Chronicles

Day 1: TUESDAY

Day one, being Tuesday, was not too eventful. We left for the airport at about 8:30 in the morning, but had a few stops to make before we left for the airport (this is relevant and necessary to know). When we were at Medicine Man picking up a prescription, I got a call from Aunt Kelly. She said that Shelby, Jackie, and Donny had a present to give me before I left. When I told her we were already on our way, she expressed her disappointment: the kids had picked out a stuffed animal that they wanted me to take with me and take pictures with it all the places I went. SO she agreed to meet us in a parking lot and we quickly drove to pick up this (what I assumed to be) small, non-offensive teddy bear. What we found was definitely not small and by no means un-offensive. It was a larger than life, bright green, singing Kermit the Frog.  Mom wanted to leave it in CDA, but I, not wanting to disappoint the kids, agreed to let it take up the room I had left for some cute boots or a knock-off designer bag.

            SO. With Kermit safely stuffed away, we began our journey to the Big Apple. We had about a two hour layover in LA, then a six hour flight to Islip. Mom had arranged for a sort of private cab service to pick us up in Islip, then drive us into the City, a drive of about an hour and a half. So there we were, standing at the curb at about eleven thirty at night, with the understanding that our driver would be there shortly. Every time a likely looking car would drive up, we would get ready to put our bags (which were PLENTIFUL) into the trunk, but apparently none of the first cars we saw were ours. THEN a limo appeared. I poked mom in the side and said ‘Hey, maybe that’s ours!’ She told me that it wasn’t: that she had reserved what would probably be a shuttle-like van. So imagine our surprise when the limo stops right in front of us! AH! A limo!! Yeah, it was ours. So our driver, Michael, got out and packed our bags away while we climbed in. Michael later told us that it was brand new, and we were on her maiden voyage. Michael was HILARIOUS! And Italian. I told him he should try out for that show ‘Last Comic Standing’. He said he had before and was going to keep on trying. I really hope he makes it. But he told us some good jokes, good places to eat, and tips about how to get the best knock off purses on Canal Street. He did a REALLY good Chinese accent. Well we got to our room at about 1:00 in the morning, but what person on this earth who is a) in NYC b) staying at a hotel SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE of times square, and c) on a schedule 3 hours behind anyway wants to go to bed at one in the morning? NOT US!  So we went and walked around Times Square, which was (relatively) empty, but still about as crowded as downtown CDA on a regular day. And then eventually (and by eventually, I mean about two in the morning) our wanderings lead us back to our hotel room where we crashed on our beds, exhausted from a full day of travel and the hustle and bustle of the city that never sleeps.

An update on my life =]

Well let's see...what's been up with me lately? I've taken a big long fatty break from work and have spent the last few weeks (and weeks to come) traipsing about the world. And by world I mean Utah and Idaho. Plus Warshington. I went to my dad's in Boise for my birthday, then to Lagoon with my uncle Pat, aunt Karen, their kids Hunter and Meggie (she's 5 and my new best friend!), and of course laurie, the boys, and my dear old pappy. Then it was on to Logan for a few days, then up to Sexy Rexy. I was stressed out of my mind with Brian and Juli's wedding video, had to remake it twice, but with about an hour of their luncheon left, finally finished it. People seemed to like it and even wanted copies, so hopefully that'll be good advertising and I can start to get my name out and get more customers! The wedding was so much fun! Brian and Juli were so happy and cute together- it was precious :) Lunch in Idaho Falls afterwards was fun and delicious after it was stressful (for me, i mean).  Bri's best man helped him sing a song to Juli, and I discovered that I am in love with the best man. Haha okay so dramatic? Yep, but he had the best voice I've ever heard! I was in awe and I hope he sings at the CDA reception. We stayed at Phil's cousin Vickie and Wayne's house, I made some more best friends (of the 5 and 6 year old variety- I'm good at that) named Sky (6) and Jace (5) and I can't wait to go to college there and know that I have good family that will love me and be there for me when I get homesick. So now I'm home for the next two days and then I'm off to see Brooklyn in Provo! Caley is going to be there and I'm SO SO excited because I haven't seen her for maybe...two years? Yeah, so with the three of us together again...I can't even imagine the mischief we will get in to, but I can't wait. THEN after THAT (aka the day I get home) I'm off to the Perkes Plus reunion in Pend Orielle. And then I will be home and with my nose back to the grind stone as I work and save for college in january!

Christian the Lion

This is the most awesome thing I've ever seen!

4th of July (my first blog-precious)

This 4th of July was  LOT of fun! Probably the best yet! The whole family rented a cabin up on the Pend Orielle river and just had a blast. There was a floating trampoline to play on and we brought our jetskis, but one wasn't running, so we used the working one to pull each other around on the tube. The current in the river was REALLY swift, so we couldn't get out and swim, but Me, Madi, Hillary, Angie, and Austin would float two docks down (the neighbors were very nice at that cabin) and get out at that dock. Once we walked down the road looking for a cabin that would let us use their dock (up river of ours) to jump off and float down. We didn't see anyone outside, so we walked 1/2 way into someone's back yard, then made a beeline for their dock!  We ran the whole way and dove off, and their dogs started following us! We did that a couple times but it was never as fun as that first time. 

The night of the 3rd/morning of the 4th there was a HUGE thunder/lightning storm! All of the girl cousins were sleeping in a tent-trailer in the front yard, so I think we heard it the loudest. I'm trying to think of an adequate description for the thunder-loudest i've ever heard doesn't quite do it justice. Think of someone firing a cannon-right by your ear. Erin and I unzipped our window to watch the lightning, and at about 4 in the morning Chris came and told us to join the family. So we ran through the  P O U R I N G  rain to the porch where the whole family was and we all watched it together. 

Now for the fireworks! We probably had...5 or 6 hundred dollars worth of fireworks? Maybe? We had a lot of fun lighting the littler ones (flowers, airplanes, bottle rockets, roman candles) into the water. And then Mark and Wayne lit off the BIG ones and they were SO much fun to watch, because we were RIGHT underneath them! We had SO many! One of them backfired (or something) ad split the 2-by-6 we were lighting them off in half. 

So those are the highlights! It was such a fun reunion! I love being with my family and can't wat to see them again!