Oh you know...

I can’t believe that my summer is coming to an end. Seriously where did July go? I really can’t remember it. It’s a good thing I have a blog to help me remember what I did. My summer isn’t quite over yet. In fact my summer doesn’t end until my birthday (that’s how I always see it anyway) so I’ve still got a month.

A couple things have been on my mind as of late:

1. Why does it seem like the world is spinning out of control? Between the government and economy I feel like I’m only hanging on by my fingertips.
2. Everyone wants something for free. And when they are given that something they complain or are disrespectful. That’s just rude!
3. I work hard for my job, I don’t think I’m lazy, so when others around me think that I’m slacking off that really bothers me. I work hard, I play hard. That’s my motto and I stick by it. I’m not content on just staying the same, there has got to be progress in my work / life, “Living the life you want is always an uphill battle”.
4. I HATE it when people try to tell me about history and then when I kindly explain that it actually happened another way they think I’m wrong. I didn’t spend thousands of dollars on an education in history and not learn anything, HELLO, I know what the Gettysburg Address is, PUHLEASE!
5. Brad Pitt – I’m SO over you…
6. I am generally a happy person. But I do have bad days, and sometimes I’m in a bad mood and don’t have an excuse why. So leave me alone and let me live in my misery alone.
7. Zac Efron – I love you, and I don’t care if other people think I’m weird.

Models!

So I talked my amazing friend Monica into doing some photos for me and these are the results. She’s FANTASTIC! I would highly recommend her, she’s got pure talent and a personality that will knock your socks off. I can’t wait until she becomes famous and I will say, I know her. HA HA! Anyway, here is some of her work. You can also check out her blog here.

Are you American?

I swear that I do other things within the week, not just the weekends. I just seem only to blog about my happenings in the weekends. This weekend though seemed to be pretty mellow. Friday I met up with Sarah and Clint and we went shopping (of course that’s what we do best) and then to eat at Café Rio. That place is heavenly. Sarah went home for the weekend so Clint and I decided to go to a movie, choice being GI Joe. Oh Channing Tatum so was so delish! I could stare at him ALL day. The movie was good too! We were supposed to go boating on Saturday but thanks to Eastern Idaho weather, it was a warm 68 degrees. So we postponed that trip until the 18th! I decided that I better do some laundry and clean my house up a little. Little unknown fact about me, I love, I mean love, the show COPS! I tivo it, that’s how much I love it. Everyone makes fun but I don’t care, I just love it. So I watched that and cleaned up. Melissa called me with some unfortunate news so I decided I would go back down to I.F. to see her. Clint and Tenille decided to come along so we went to the mall (again more shopping, and again more fabulousness!), we also went to Johnny Carino’s (yum!). Then off to Melissa’s where we met Alex and Bridgette. A delightful little gathering and just chatted it up. Sunday I made a pot roast and Clint, Tenille, Nellie, Alex, and Bridgette all came over. It was so good! My husband will be very lucky to have me as a cook! We then started talking about movies, you cannot be an American unless you’ve seen the following flicks:

Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Singing in the Rain
My Fair Lady
Gone with the Wind (even though I dislike this film, you’ve still gotta sit through all billion hours of it)
Casablanca (another classic, but I find it boring)
Parent Trap (the original)
Any John Wayne film
Any of the classic Disney’s (such as Little Mermaid, Lion King, etc…)

So we watched Parent Trap as that is on the list and only 3 of us had seen it! Good times! Did I miss any movies? Please feel free to add!

A Weekend with Hyrum!

Hyrum came up this weekend and what a delight that was. He’s a blessed soul. Friday we (being Sarah, Me, Hyrum) went to I.F. where Hyrum attended a reception and Sarah and I went to K-Mart. I cannot tell you the last time I was in that store, but we found some GREAT clothes that were dirt cheap. I mean I spent $35 and got 4 articles of clothing, that’s a STEAL! After we picked Hyrum back up we went to Target so Hyrum could purchase some clothes and then off to Alex’s. We decided to crash a party he was having, it was a great time!

Saturday we woke up and chilled that morning. Around 2 we headed out to the sand dunes for a slip-n-slide adventure. It was at Egan Lakes, and we had to take a four-wheeler to get there! The slide was so much fun, and it had a great jump at the end of it.

After that we went to the International Folk Dance Festival Opening Ceremonies at the BYUI Stadium. It was a great time, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Hyrum of course was in love with the Mexicans and Melissa was obsessed with the Russians (hard to say why!) Anyway, we laughed a lot and had tons of fun. Katie also came up so afterwards we partied it up at our house, and then off to bed. We’ve had to switch wards and so now church starts at 8:30 in the A.M.! Compared to what we had before which was 1:30 P.M.! It was a little rough but I think that it’s going to be ok, because now I’ll get my Sunday nap!

Hyrum and his Mexicans!

Team Dunbar for the Win!

Things seem to have come to a normal pace. A member of my crew (aka Team Dunbar) decided it was time he returned home (to Maryland), so this weekend was spent spending time with him and others of the Team. Saturday we spent all day at Rigby Lake, which I love so much, and then we back to Idaho Falls where we had dinner and then rented the movie Bride Wars. It was cute! We then got some ice cream and chatted until the wee hours of the morning. A day full of emotion, happy times and sad ones too! John left on Wednesday morning, and Tuesday night we had a dinner and then chatted it up. We had a good laugh at Alex, he was in fine form that’s for sure and here’s some pictures of our last time together.

Dear Team Dunbar:
You’ll never know what you did for me, and for that I’ll always love us!

On a much happier note, Hyrum is coming up this weekend and we are going to go to the dunes and bridge jumping (hopefully!). I love my brother, he’s probably my most favorite person in the whole world. I can’t wait until he comes up here for school, then I can see him a lot more! Oh and Alex and him are going to be roommates, that should also be an adventure!

This is my brother Hyrum and I (who I love so much!)

And this is a random side note – I bought tickets for David Cook, September 2 in Idaho Falls. EXCITING!

Star Valley and Island Park!

Once again I’ve found myself playing catch up! It’s been an exhausting 2 weeks, and yesterday I slept close to 12 hours because of it. I went to bed straight after work and didn’t wake up until the next morning. Ok so get ready because this is going to be the condensed version. I mostly have 2 events to share – Cabinextravaganza and my Island Park Adventures. Here we go!

Cabinextravaganza:
Our dear Lola was leaving on her mission to go to Ukraine so we packed our bags and headed to Star Valley for the night. There were going to be a lot of people at Lola’s house so we decided to rent a cabin or something because it would be easier. There happened to be 6 of us that needed accommodating, Me, Sarah, Clint, Katie, June, and her boyfriend Brenton. So I searched the internet for hotels and there really isn’t anything, so I found this cabin so named “The Silver Stream Lodge”. I called and reserved the “family” cabin which is supposedly big enough for 5 and a little squishy with 6, never mind that is costs $120. Anyway, so we pack up and make our way to Star Valley (the night before Sarah and I went camping with her family’s ward in Aberdeen so we were already lacking sleep). When we get to our cabin we see small little rundown cabin, with water fowls on a comforter. Here we have Clint posing in our humble little cabin #2

We laughed forever on how tiny it was, with all six of us in there we barely could close the door. That night we played a great game of Would you Rather and just enjoyed being in our little baby cabin. Here we are posing outside #2

Anyway, it was so good to see Lola. She’s going to be a fantastic missionary.

Here are we are, me and my two besties outside the square ice cream shop on our way to Star Valley!



Island Park Adventures:

Alright now on to this past weekend. It was so much fun, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. My old branch was having an activity up in Island Park at our old Stake President’s cabin. So we decided to crash the party! Sarah, John, Me, and Alex left Rexburg around 2ish and made our way to Island Park which is only about an hour away or so. It’s beautiful up there, and only 30 minutes away from Yellowstone! So we arrived at this huge, and I mean HUGE cabin. It’s 3 stories with 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a theater room, right on the lake with jet skis and boats. Everything you would ever want, they had it (oh and don’t forget the hot tub!)

So we get there and decide to get our swimming suits on. I was downstairs waiting for Alex when he came up looking this, he called it his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang outfit. I was laughing pretty hard!

We make our way down to the dock to jump on a boat and go on this banana thing, which is probably the hardest thing EVER to stay on. Then we transitioned to the tube finally and Alex was so funny. I think deep inside he wants to be a race car driver or something because he just kept yelling FASTER! We then hopped on the Jet Skis, which are hard to drive at first, and zoomed across the water. John and Sarah went together and he dumped her going at 45 mph. So because of that accident she will have bruised ribs for another 4 weeks, SICK! Alex and I managed to stay on our and it was quite delightful, we had a great time and boated until it got dark.

Once again we played our favorite game of Would You Rather and sat by the campfire. We had a good chat until it was time to go to bed (we’ve got curfew around these parts, no shenanigans for us!)

The next morning people were boating by 6 in the a.m! So we went down got some breakfast and then got back on the boats. Now let me tell you, I’m sort of a boat snob, I only trust certain individuals. So we were on a tube when this boat (a member of our Branch Presidency I might add) was not even 10 feet from us, if we would have fallen off we would have been chopped up in a million pieces. We wanted land and STAT! So we got back to shore and decided to play on the slippin slide that was set up on the hill. It was a great time, and we played until our hearts content. Then on to another boat where Clint and I both wakeboarded. That’s right, I stood up, I might have crashed right after but I stood up and I was so proud of myself.

It was time to leave so we headed back to shore were we packed up and headed up the road a little to a place called Big Springs where the water comes straight out of the mountain. The water was SO clear and cold. But we enjoyed it because we were all sun burnt. After that we made our way up to West Yellowstone to go to the Playmill. Which is a little theater that puts on some great musicals. One of them being Footloose. I loved it! By then we were so exhausted we headed home and straight to bed.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, I had to jam pack everything in! I’m so blessed to have great friends and great adventures! I don’t want my summer to end, I can’t believe it’s already almost August!

July 4th Discoveries

Sorry I forgot to post this on the 4th! Now I'm way behind, but have a look anyway!

Wow what a weekend I had. I’ve discovered (ok so not discovered but realized) how much I really do love the following things:

Parma, Idaho – The place I was born and raised. No one has senioritis as bad as I did. I wanted to leave so bad. Now it seems like I never want to leave it. What a great community it is, and there is always some sort of drama because it’s a small town, but I love it all the same. The familiarity of it, and how it will ALWAYS be my home no matter where my family or I am. The quirks that it has just make it all the more special.

Summer – I forget how hot it is back home, when I left Rexburg it was like 70 degrees, by the time I rolled into Parma it was 95 degrees. GAH! So hot! I love it all the same though, especially summer nights, they are just delightful. I love riding in the back of the truck on summer nights. Also playing out in the yard, or sitting on the deck. Love it! I love the sun and the warmth.

4th of July – The past two years I haven’t gotten really to ever enjoy it because I’ve been selling fireworks. I have missed it. What a great American holiday. You BBQ, play some games, enjoy the summer evening, and then blow things up. I love America, and the great freedoms I enjoy! This year my dad made some hamburgers, some families came over, we played volleyball and with some water balloons. It was then on the fireworks. After selling them I’m pretty much an expert as to what I like. Good thing we had some good stuff! There were some poppers that were really good, and those ended up being some of my favorites. I only got to light one sparker this year though. Darn it!

Family – Whether it be my blood family or my friends who I consider family. I often wonder the person I would be without them. I enjoy every second I am with them, and this weekend I just realized how each person has their unique role and we each accept it. That’s just who we are, I will always be the boss / opinionated one (outside my mother of course), and that’s just how we roll. I love my siblings, and parents. Together we have the best time and make the best team.

I didn’t mean for my blog to be so sentimental. It was supposed to be a blog about my weekend. HA! I have every weekend in July booked for fun activities, so keep coming back to see the fun adventures of ME!