My adventures

I want to apologize for my lack of posting. I made a goal this year to have more adventures and to be busier. Little did I know that that would very much come true! I am booked almost every night of every week. Usually it's with the same things each day of the week, but even still. I have things that I should do and then other things that I choose to do. It's kinda hectic, and it's problematic when something else needs to be done (like laundry and getting a tire fixed.) So here's my usual weekly breakdown (after work, of course):

Monday: FHE
Tuesday: Neighboring Stake's Institute
Wednesday: Bowling
Thursday: My Institute
Friday: Usually some basketball game is going on, bday parties, other parties, etc.
Saturday: Also usually some basketball game going on
Sunday: Church

So although Basketball is ending next week, I'm sure my weekends will still be busy. And in the spring I'm on a softball team, so that's going to start sometime soon. I somehow never have free time to just relax. I haven't had time to watch a movie in a loooong time! And I LOVE movies! But I honestly do love constantly having something to do. It is a big difference from my last year in Provo when I felt like I never had anything to do. Anyway, this is my apology for never posting about the adventures that I've had. Mostly because I'm never home to grab the pictures of said adventures. Besides that schedule, I do make time to do some random things and have fun with friends. This last week I basically lived and Shauna and Bekah's house. That was fun! Anyway, hopefully I'll get a bit more time to write about my real adventures, but for now, this will have to do!

President's Day Birthday

So before it gets too far past my birthday (and it was a month ago... oops), I figured I'd write a little bit about my day. I am officially a quarter of a century old. Weird... Anyway, I don't know why, but I've always loved my birthday. No matter what I have on the day, it's always been fantastic. This year was no exception!

It was honestly a pretty chill day. I slept in (Yay for birthdays falling on a National Holiday!), made chocolate cake, played racquetball, ate a fantastic dinner at Benihana, and had some friends over for cake in the evening. It was just a fun day that I was able to spend with good friends!

When I lived in Utah, I had a tradition of going to Tucanos on President's day for my birthday. For those of you that don't know, Tucanos is a Brazilian meat buffet. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it... Since there isn't one out here in DC and those types of restaurants are super expensive, we went to a hibachi place instead. So we got dinner and a show! Fantastic! The only thing was that Steve wasn't able to come. He had to work... :( Oh well. That's life, right? He made it for cake later, so at least I still got to see him!

My friend April was super nice to me and spent all day with me. Seriously, she's so great! She also made my birthday cake. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake. We recreated P.F. Chang's Great Wall of Chocolate. If you haven't had it, you need to go try it because it's absolutely delicious. She was so great to do that for me!

Anyway, it really was a pretty chill day and I was able to rest and relax and just enjoy talking to some old friends. That was probably my favorite part. I talked to some of my best friends in the world, who, unfortunately for me, don't live by me. So it was good to talk to them and catch up. It was a fantastic day!

Groundhog Day

Ok, so before February ends, I need to write about one of, if not my FAVORITE unappreciated holidays. GROUNDHOG DAY! I think there are two main reasons that I like this day so much:

1) It's in February and I just love February (mostly because of my birthday, I think)
2) It's in Pennsylvania! Yay for my home state!

In case you hadn't heard, Punxsutawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter. Although seeing as how on the east, we've only had a few days here and there that have even FELT like winter, I'm still waiting for it. Here's to hoping that we'll have the snowstorm of the century in March. Anyone with me???

Anyway, back to Groundhog Day. The groundhog website says that he's always 100% correct (of course) but in all actuality, he's usually wrong. But we should still celebrate the day, right? And what better way to do that than to watch the movie that made the day a phenomenon, Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day"

And along with watching the movie, I thought I would recreate some cute and yummy groundhog cookies that my sister and I made last year. We got the idea from our friend Mandy. Sad that Sharon couldn't be here to make them with me this year though! Not the neatest things ever (when I make them at least), but super cute. And what is the best part, you may ask? Eating all the messups and scraps... Yummy!
I got kinda lazy with the "grass" this year, but you still can get the idea. Anyway, it was a fun night filled with yummy treats and good entertainment and great friends. Till next year Punxsutawney Phil!

It's a SMALL world

Most of what I post on here is going to be about the fun and random things that I do, seeing as how life is too short to not go on adventures. I will, however, occasionally post things that I've been thinking about recently. This is one of those posts. It has been amazing to me how small this world really is. It seems that everywhere I go, I find people that are connected to important people from my past. And even if they're not connected to people in my past, there's some story there from before. I know this isn't true with every single person that I meet, but it just seems to happen a lot. Here are some of the crazy connections that I've made over the last few years:

-My freshman roommate was in my older sister's ward in Boston, and we first met when we were 14.
-Another friend freshman year used to live in my stake for a few years while we were teenagers.
-My best friend's older brother and my older brother became best friends in the dorms, which is consequently where we met and became best friends as well (as well as I met all of her best friends when I was 15 at EFY).
-A good friend's great uncle (or some strange relation like that) was my grandma's good friend and I met him on several occasions.

Now, these are definitely from awhile ago. These friends and I put the stories together years and years ago and it's something that we always seem to come back to. I wonder why small world stories are so fascinating? Maybe because it really shows that everyone is interconnected and it helps us know that we aren't alone here. I don't know, it's just a thought.

The reason that I've been thinking about this lately is because the last few days I have had my mind blown with small world stories. And that really doesn't happen to me often. But it just happens to be that these particular stories hit closer to home than usual. It's been good friends that I have now are telling me of crazy connections with other really good friends, or people that I was really close to in the past.

There was one recently where a really good friend of mine served her mission with this boy that I sort of dated a few years ago. I had even told her about this boy awhile ago, but didn't bother using names because what were the chances that she knew him, right?? She's in DC and he was part of my Provo life. But we were talking about another random mutual friend that we had and she asked about this particular guy. And I had actually run into his old roommate a few weeks ago too. Talk about coincidence, right?

And the night before we put that together, I had my mind blown with a crazy connection that is just a little too hard to explain without saying names, but I'm going to try anyway. Basically, I had heard about this random boy from one friend and he ended up being really, really good friends with another one of my best friend's fiancee. This boy was planning on coming out for their wedding, but is unable to make it. Just the fact that I heard about this boy previously and knew that he was thinking of coming out for a wedding that I am going to attend was just a crazy connection to me. There are a few more details to it, but that's the basic jist. It doesn't sound as crazy written down as it really is, trust me.

I have definitely made a few others in the last few months that have been so ridiculous. It really is amazing to me how small this world is. I absolutely LOVE it though! I love finding these random connections between people and realizing that I have connections with people that I've never even met before. Or finding out that someone that I am good friends with NOW used to be close to someone that I was close to years ago. Or my favorite is when I find out that one of my friends now is someone that I used to hear about years ago.

It's great, isn't it? What are some of YOUR small world stories??

Martin Luther King, Jr. Present Day

No, that is not a typo. I didn't randomly put the word "present" in there by accident. It is MOST DEFINITELY on purpose. Let me explain. Over Christmas vacation, my brother, Steve, and I were sitting around watching basketball (that's a lot of what we did that week. It was FANTASTIC!) Some commercial for a really expensive car came on or something like that, and here's basically what our conversation went like:

Steve: "You should get that for me for Martin Luther King Present Day"

Me: "Excuse me?"

Steve: "It's the perfect gift to show how much you love me."

Me: "I don't love you that much..."

So a little bit later, towards the end of the game, Martineau came out and played. We were, of course, watching a BYU basketball game, and Martineau is one of the deep bench players. He pretty much only plays when we're up by so much and even then it's usually only for the last few minutes.

So because I refused get Steve a car, he decided to ask me for something more practical:

Steve: "I now want a Martineau jersey for Martin Luther King Present Day."

Me: "Done."

Steve: "Wait, I don't ACTUALLY want one..."

Me: "You should be more careful what you ask for."

So, I got him a Martineau jersey. Of course I couldn't buy one (he's a really deep bench player), so I made one. And we couldn't find a basketball jersey that was his size, so it's a soccer jersey. But it's the thought that counts, right??

Look how happy he is with his jersey! I've gotta be one of the coolest sisters EVER!

We actually ended up having a Martin Luther King Present Day triangle. Steve was telling our friend Bekah about what I was doing, so she decided to get me a shirt. I'm now officially a "Langley Ward Girlfriend."

And so consequently, Steve completed the triangle and got Bekah a Jimmer shirt. Because no one should be without a Jimmer shirt...

Bowling Shoes

Ok, so I LOVE bowling. I'm not great or anything, but it's just so FUN! A little over a year ago, I started bowling almost once a week with a few friends out in Utah, and it continued with different people all through the summer. Once I moved out here to DC, I kinda stopped going. I just got so busy trying to figure out life that I forgot about bowling. Anyway, I've started bowling again, so I finally broke down and bought bowling shoes. I figured it would save me money in the long run.

Nerdy?? Yes. Do I care? Not at all.

I'm excited about my shoes. They're cute, huh? :)

BYU vs VT

One of the saddest things about living on the east coast is that I can no longer easily attend BYU sporting events. I was able to go to one of the football games against Idaho when I was in Utah for the weekend in November. That was super fun! The game was ok, but it was just so fun to be back in LaVell Edwards Stadium and soak in the atmosphere of BYU sports. But that was just a wonderful coincidence that there was a home game the weekend that I was there.

So when my brother Steve and I saw that there was a BYU basketball game against Virginia Tech AT Virginia Tech, we decided that we just HAD to be there. Although I love BYU football, I love BYU basketball even more. It's my team, and I feel so invested in their success... or failures, as it has been more than I'd like to admit this season.

Anyway, our sister Sharon and her husband Johnn moved to Blacksburg in August so that he could start a PhD program there. So we even had a free place to stay! So we each took 2 half days off of work, and headed down! It was a pretty easy drive, and everything went smoothly (it was a good thing Steve was there, I'm useless when I'm tired.) Our Mom decided to join us as well, since 3 of her children were going, so it ended up as a family event.

The game was kinda messy, but we got the win, against an ACC team, which looks good. And there were a bunch of BYU fans there, which is always great! There wasn't a BYU section, but there was definitely little pockets spread everywhere around the arena. I just loved seeing the Blue interspersed with the Orange and Maroon.

Steve and I do a lot together, so you'll probably see him in most of my posts... That's what family's for, right?
It was fun to be able to see a BYU basketball game in person. I've definitely missed the Marriott Center this year. I hope something like this can happen more often in the future!

Farm Show

There is this AWESOME tradition in Pennsylvania called the Farm Show. The easiest way to describe it is that it is basically a state fair, except that it's inside and it's in January. Except it's waaaaaaay cooler than any normal state fair.

So naturally I had to go.

It is always the second week in January. I had been home for Christmas, came back to Virginia for New Years, and then went back home the next weekend. Good thing it's only a few hours away, right?!

Since this isn't the type of thing that you usually do by yourself,

I decided to bring some friends up with me! We spent two nights at home, took a tour of Hershey Saturday morning and then headed off to the Farm Show!! Seriously, it is probably the biggest building I know of. It's HUGE! I should've gotten a picture. Oh well. I did get

a few other pictures from the eventful day though!

The whole group that went. Although I think we only spent this time, and maybe 5 other minutes total together the entire afternoon... I told you it was a big building. Lots of places to get lost.

My brother and I are sooo cool, huh? (Mom, sorry we weren't more dignified)

I spent the majority of the day saying that I wanted a John Deere t-shirt. Did I get one??? No. But I did see this awesome hat.

This is a sculpture made out of 1000 lbs. of real dairy butter. It took over 10 days of sculpting. Don't worry, it'll be put to good use. I thought using it for rolls would've been awesome, but they power a local farm with it. That works too I guess...

Can you guess what kind of animal this is? If you guessed a rabbit, you'd be right.

This was my favorite sign of the entire day. And let me tell you, there were some other pretty awesome ones.

Anyway, it was a great day full of milkshakes, funnel cakes, pulled pork, lots of animals, and plenty of other things to look at. It brought me back to my childhood. I'm glad we were able to go this year!

A little bit of History

Alright, I figured since it's been so long since I've posted, I should fill everyone in on what's been going on in my life for the last two years. I'm going to backtrack just a little bit though, because it's easier for me to do it that way. I graduated from BYU in April of 2010 (Go Cougars!) I had an internship that summer and had every intention of moving out to the DC area at the end of the summer.

BUT...

that just didn't feel right, so I stayed in Provo for an extra year. I can't believe that I ended up doing that, but it was definitely the right thing for me. The fall of 2010 was really hard for me, as EVERYTHING changed in my life, and so it was good to be around my best friends and people that I knew and loved. I just wasn't quite ready for an entirely new adventure yet. I learned a lot about myself in the next year and had many adventures, some of which I may mention, most of which I probably won't.

I finally moved out to DC in August of 2011. I didn't have a job, and didn't know anyone other than my two brothers and sister-in-law. It's been a grand adventure so far, and I've done some pretty fun things already. It'll be fun to see what happens in this new stage of life!

New and Improved

Ok. So it's been a loooooooooooooooong time since I've updated this thing. Well, this lack of updating is (hopefully) going to change with this new year!

I've decided that my life is just too boring, so I'm going to go on adventures so that I will actually have things to write about. And maybe I'll post things about the happenings in my life over the last year and a half.... just maybe though.

Anyway, start looking for an updated look and hopefully more posts more often. Although, if I write again in the next year and a half it's more often than it has been, right???

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and let's get on to enjoying the new year!!