Moab.

I finally visited the famous Delicate Arch! What a fun trip. Lendrum, Lisa, Tolson, and I drove down to Moab a few weeks ago for some great camping, hiking, and of course, lots of pictures! We ended up only camping one night, primarily due to the fact that the sleeping bag I was borrowing let me freeze all night long. I probably only got 45 minutes of total sleep. It was quite miserable. But the rest of our trip was a blast! We went to Arches National Park on Saturday and then we camped and hiked in Canyonlands that night and the next day. Our Sunday hike was awesome. I had never done a hike like that before. A major part of the trail involved climbing over slickrock, which was pretty cool. It was absolutely beautiful as well. I'm used to hiking in the mountains so it was totally sweet to hike in and out of the canyons of Southern Utah. As far as camping goes, we were definitely prepared with all the necessities: banana boats, s'mores, popcorn, foil dinners, and roasted starbursts. We were going to have roasted pineapple too, but it was left at home, much to Lendrum's dismay. The weather was perfect for hiking during the day, though I wouldn't have complained if it had been a little warmer at night. Trying to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with frozen hands is a challenging task!

Balanced Rock. Game faces. 

Catching some air underneath Delicate Arch

Great photo by Lisa

Our best sides...

Just one of the incredible views from our hike in Canyonlands

Live.

"A year from now, you will have wished you started today."

Life is fragile. In my close to perfect world, nothing has ever devastated me so much to where I question the nature of God and his purposes for our afflictions. I have always been able to somehow optimistically look past my pains and see them as opportunities for growth. That is my blessing. I have been given so much and over the past year, I have seen just how fortunate I am. Today, at the start of this new year, I am dedicated to making new goals and plans for my future life, as I'm sure everyone else is. However, I want to go deeper than the typical resolutions. Of course, I want to hit up the gym more regularly, write in my journal more frequently, and study more efficiently. But I want to focus more on enriching my life in ways I have never done before. Why? Because I can. Because I have time. This is one amazing world, and the chance I have to better my life and the lives of others should not be taken for granted. So this year, I plan on living by these precious words:

"I will live this day as if it is my last. And if it is not, I shall fall on my knees and give thanks."

Mission Inn Traditions

Taking pictures of all the random junk in an antique store hardly seems like your typical Christmas tradition. But for me, Brandi, Alyssa, and Corinne, it has become a much anticipated ritual. This was our third year of adventures in downtown Riverside. The tradition actually started four years ago when my family went to the Mission Inn with Brandi's family to look at the fabulous lights. For some unknown reason, we ended up venturing inside this huge antique store. Brandi and I decided to entertain ourselves, so we started taking pictures of random things in the store. We had so much fun, we brought Alyssa and Corinne back the next year and thus the tradition began. This year was no exception. We found lots to laugh about! After our antiquing, a trip to BJ's was obviously necessary. We were all laughing so hard in our booth; I'm sure our waiter thought were were mental. It was a great night. Miss these girls!

Ugly Sweaters: an antique must.

Mission Inn Festival of Lights 2011

Finals Week Madness

I experienced a new level of stress last week as I somehow managed to work almost 40 hours while writing two papers (one was 16 pages long!), and of course studying for and taking three final exams. I love working at the testing center, but finals week brought more craziness to my life than I planned. Thinking that three finals would be no big deal, I didn't even hesitate to sign up to work so many hours. I was actually excited about it. But once finals week hit, that excitement ended almost immediately as I realized that I had practically no time to study for my own exams! By some miracle, I manged to get through the week. Now I am home relaxing with the family and it feels just great.

The library: 2am.

Autumn Happiness

I'm convinced that God gives us the beauty of the fall season to help warm us up to the freezing temperatures, inconvenient weather conditions, and lack of sunlight that follow. Although I'm dreading having to wear a jacket more often and have all but abandoned my flip-flops, I do find this time of year to be absolutely stunning. Especially here in Utah. I love looking outside my window to see piles of leaves on the ground and vivid red and orange colors in the trees. I love all the festivities that come with the season. Decorating for Halloween, hiking the canyons, carving pumpkins, fall fashion, the start of basketball season, hot chocolate, the first snow, good food, and seeing family for the holidays. This definitely makes the drop in the temperature slightly more bearable.

Chillin on a Dirt Road

"I'm hittin easy street on mud tires"
Once again, college has a way of killing my blog. It seems like this is a busy week for everyone except me so I will take adventage of my free time and write about my trip to Idaho last month. Definitely one of the best weekends I've had since coming up to school. I took the three hour trip with Lendrum, Tolson, and Lisa up to their aunt and uncle's ranch near Preston. The ranch was beautiful! There was so much fun stuff to do: four-wheeling, fishing, swimming, shooting, horseback riding, hot springs. We even had a chef cook all our meals! But the most enjoyable part for me was just being away from my cell phone, away from facebook, and away from homework for a weekend. It was just great to get away and focus on the people and environment that surrounded me.

Lease and I on the four-wheeler

Shootin

Water slide crew!
Rhen, Kori, me, Lendrum, Tolson, Lisa, Christine, Zack

Reunion!

Best day of summer so far! Emily came to California from Arizona so I spent the say with her in San Juan Capistrano with Kellie and Bridget. I miss them so much. We had the best time.

Aliso Creek beach

Irvine Spectrum. I bought two cardigans, a new skirt, and a pair of Sperry's!

LOVE

Padres vs Braves

Ok...so we lost. By a lot. Final score: 1-10. But hey, it was a good time!

With the Bassett's during the game

Free beach towels baby!

James and I after the game

Neon Trees. Backstage.

Oh, the joys of the San Diego County Fair. Nothing says "expensive" like fried food and stomach-sickening rides! This year I had the chance to go backstage with Neon Trees. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome. They needed someone to sell merchandise after the show, so I put my cashier skills to work. It was crazy how long the merch line was. We sold out of everything except for two shirts and a few CDs. I thought I was just selling everything as volunteer work, so when the manager handed me fifty bucks I was pretty excited haha. Bradley helped sell too, so I split the money with him, but it was still a sweet deal. After the show (which rocked, as always) we met up with Chris and his girlfriend Danielle and explored the fair for a little while. I was not in the mood to throw up my entire meal, so I didn't go on anything crazy, just this scary ride called "The Zombie." It was kind of a joke haha. The worker actually had to push Chris and Danielle's cart for the first little while because it wouldn't move on the track on its own. We did a few other little games, all very expensive! At the end of the night, it was nice just driving right out of the fair, since we got to park backstage.

Backstage with Bradley and Branden after the show

"THE ZOMBIE"

Guns!

Parrrty in LA!

I have to thank my friend Andrew Glenn and my cousin Aaron for introducing me to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. And I have to thank Travis Tan for going with me to their show last week at Paramount Studios in LA! What a fun concert! The band played for the Billabong Design for Humanity event, which was pretty sweet. It took about 10 seconds for me to realize that I was wearing too many clothes though...I guess I missed the "wear absolutely nothing" memo haha. I guess I just felt out of place in my pair of ripped jeans and T-shirt, while ninety-five percent of the other girls there were wearing dresses that were cut off mid-buttox. Oh well. Before the event, Travis and I explored The Grove and then ate some French crepes at the Farmer's Market. Then we ate some cupcakes at Crum's...which probably added up to be more calories than both our dinners combined. Once we arrived at the studio backlot where the party was, we unknowingly stood in line for a while to get "over 21" wristbands. Whoops. We checked out the art shows, the surf board carving demonstration, and some other cool stuff that was there. They had a fashion show too, with real life models modeling real life swimwear. It was cool, except that we were standing right in front of a ginormous speaker and practically become deaf. Bad decision haha. The concert itself was awesome. And the crowd was way into the music (or just drunk) so that was fun. After the show, we waited around to see if we could talk to anyone in the band. Our patience paid off and we got to talk to Nora, the accordion/piano player AND Alex Ebert, the lead singer! I was pretty dang excited. I love live shows. I wish I could go to more haha. But oh what a wonderful night!

Julia's Graduation!

Has it really been TWO YEARS since I graduated high school? I can't believe it. I have to admit, my own graduation seemed a little more exciting. But it was a great day for Julia. The day was busy and hectic, but we got through it. My schedule went a little like this: 7:30am work...12:45 lunch at BJs...pick up flowers at Stater Bros...met at the school at 3:00...Ceremony started at 5:00...Dinner at the Cook's afterward. Buba and Papa and Robin came down from Utah and of course grandma and grandpa were there. I am so proud of Julia and I can't believe she is already graduated!!

All the family at lunch at BJs

Graduated Sta!

The whole family :)

Memorial Day Weekend

Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday and Sunday. But on the bright side, I got Friday and Monday off and spent both days at the beach. The weather? Beautiful.

On Friday I learned to surf! I can finally call myself a true Californian. I went out in the water with Brittany and she taught be how to get up. I even caught a few waves myself! They were quite small, of course, but I was still excited to be standing up on a board in the ocean.

After surfing for the first time

Our crew!

Monday-Memorial Day-My beautiful twin and I spent the day at Torrey Pines and La Jolla. We didn't surf, but put our boogie board skills to the test, which proved unsuccessful since the waves were awful. The beach was crowded! I've never seen it that packed before. We ate dinner at Jose's (apparently that's where all the "young folk" go to hang out) and ate outside overlooking the stunning view of La Jolla's magnificent ocean. We had a few moments at the restaurant where we definitely made complete fools of ourselves-making a mess with the napkins, thinking the pepper was powdered alcohol, asking for silverware when it was right there on the table-but it was a great time. We watched the sun set down by the cove and chatted with an old lady who was livin up the retired life. We couldn't go home empty-handed, so we grabbed a few real estate magazines for the road. Maybe someday we'll be able to afford a closet in one of those beautiful homes!

Twins at the beach :)

A stunning sunset at sea

"Strikingly similar"

Two Decades Old!

My birthday came just as it does every year, but this time I turned 20. Wait, what? TWENTY? That just sounds so...old. Of course nobody else seems to think so, except for kids I babysit who have this idea in their heads, like me, that "twenty" means mature and grown up. It's kind of sad: I will never be a teenager again. But, moving on...my "twenties" will be fantastic!

I was fortunate to get some nice Ed Hardy perfume and a good guitar case from my parents, a new pair of sweeet sunglasses from Sta, and a guitar stand from James. The stand came in three pieces, so James wrapped each one separately and hid them, making me read through riddles to find them. It was so cute. Sis. Rasmussen, Moose, and Sara came over for dessert and were joined by Travis and Mandy Speed a little later. Corinne was there for dinner (corned beef, as always!) and she brought be back an awesome bracelet from Vietnam and some strange Vietnamese candy haha. I had to work that day, which was kind of a bummer, but I guess that's just what twenty-year-olds do!

James hid my present in a tree!

Blowing out my candles