Denver Museum of Art

On the first Friday every month, you can get into the Denver Museum of Art for free. Lori has done this many times, because she's a lot more cultural than I am. :) (Although, I used to wander through the BYU Art Museum on occasion.)

It was really cool! So much art--7 full stories. I really liked the historical art--the ancient sculptures from Mexico and India, the lacquered decorations from Japan, the oil paintings from Europe... I was excited to see pieces by some of my favorites, like Monet and Norman Rockwell.

Turns out, I am still not a fan of contemporary art, though. I just don't get it. I guess I need an artist to explain it to me sometime.

There was one cool exhibit where you could pose for pics and look like you were in a painting:

It was really fun. And also, surprisingly relaxing. There's been some crazy stuff going on in my life this week that had me a bit stressed out, but it was really soothing wandering around and looking at pretty things for a few hours. I had flashbacks to some of my favorite field trips as a kid. :)

I may have to go back sometime. Pro tip: We were there as soon as the museum opened at 10, and we stayed for about 3 hours. It was almost empty at the beginning, but by the time we left, it was packed. Go earlier in the day if you go! 

At Last I See the Light

Ever since I've seen the movie Tangled, I've wanted to go to a floating lantern festival, and tonight I finally got my chance. Lori and I went to the Lantern Fest held at the Pikes Peak Roadway down in Fountain. It was even more magical than I thought it would be.

Lori thought she was borrowing my camera to take a picture, without realizing it was set to video mode... and caught this cool video of the underside of a lantern as it was preparing to launch.



You can skip to 2:12 to see me and Lori (and hear our excitedness when they played the song from Tangled, "At Last I See the Light". :)

Crossing that one off the bucket list! :D I realized later that was especially appropriate considering my word of the year is Light! What better year to go? Before we sent the Lanterns up, we got to decorate them with markers. I covered mine with the quotes from my word of the year post. And of course, Mormon.org. :) Probably it will just get tossed but figured it couldn't hurt!

Fortune Cookie Gift

Friendship karma: when you go to Panda Express for dinner, but they forget to give you your fortune cookie... but then your best friend goes to a different Panda later and they accidentally give her two and she brings her dinner to institute and gives one to you. :-)

My first (semi) Pro Soccer Game

Highlights of my first semi-professional soccer game:

• The look on the security guy's face when he found a full bottle of ketchup in Lori's purse. He let her through. What was she gonna do with that? He did not find the hot dog in my jacket pocket. (It was all for a girl who was too late for the tailgate but she'd asked us to please save her food.)
• Saving seats for our group and realizing I have no clue which team was ours out on the soccer field.
• Playing frisbee with the adorable toddler in front of me. He kept throwing it at me and giving me the biggest grin until his parents finally distracted him with candy. :)
• After Lori told me we were the blue team, enthusiastically cheering for them until the white team got the first point and the crowd erupted and we realized we'd been cheering for the wrong team the whole time.
• At halftime, when five lucky audience members got to run in circles for 10 seconds and then try to kick a soccer ball past the mascot... and when it was a little kid's turn, all the other contestants tackled Ziggy (who is a goat by the way) so the kid got a clear shot.
• Oh, and the soccer playing was pretty good too. :)

Girls' Trip

Meet Lori and Hayley.

The three of us have been BFFs since middle school. This summer, we decided we FINALLY needed to go on a girls' trip. I don't know why it's taken us this long. We headed out to San Diego, one of my very favorite cities in the entire world.

Everyone assumed we were college girls on vacation, which was kind of fun. :) We had a hard time convincing the rental car guy we were old enough to get a car. (Thank goodness for IDs, huh?)

Oh, and speaking of cars... I DROVE IN CALIFORNIA AND NOBODY DIED. I've been terrified of California traffic since I got stuck in rush hour traffic near Corona on a business trip (my coworker was driving). It seemed like bumper to bumper traffic with everyone still miraculously going the speed limit.

Traffic in San Diego was much calmer... Not too different from Colorado or Utah, actually... although perhaps with more courteous drivers. :) Getting over my fear of driving in California is a huge deal. Maybe that takes me one step closer to actually moving there (although I do worry a bit about the cost of living).

We ventured to as many sites as we could fit into 5 days.

Such as the San Diego Safari Park:

We went as soon as it opened and beat the crowds. We really lucked out with the animals. They were almost always out at the front of their enclosures when we came by.

Of course we had to stop and ride the zoo carousel. The ride operator gave us a hard time. "Are there children with you?" No. No, it's just us.

I rode the deer, of course, since Lori's nickname for me is Bambi. After snapping pictures of my friends, I spent the rest of my ride trying to take selfies and laughing hysterically at the poor results. I kept up a running commentary so my friends knew what I was doing... and of course the ride operator overheard me and gave me a hard time. What can I say? Sometimes I'm a dork.

Best shot!

On our way out of the zoo at the end of the day, we ran into a cheetah on a leash! (which really makes me want to keep one as a pet. Although his eyes creeped me out a little.)

Hayley got a great shot of the zookeeper warning us to stay back as they walked past.

We spent a lot of our trip hanging out at various beaches.

La Jolla Beach! Complete with sea lions (don't worry, this one was asleep)

Silver Strand Beach! (Great for shell collecting)

Mission Beach! Where we went boogie boarding.

Ocean Beach! (Does that name crack anyone else up?) Features its very own pier. AND we got to see the tail end of a surfing competition.

On our last day (well, my last day... the girls got to stay for one more), we started off by traveling to Balboa Park.

It's gigantic and features lots of museums and gardens. We paid a visit to the lovely Botanical Gardens there.

After that, it was off to Little Italy for lunch.

Then to Point Loma to check out the historic lighthouse there, and to take a look at the Cabrillo tide pools. While that area was beautiful, unfortunately we arrived at high tide and so no tide pools were visible.

We finished the day by visiting Sunset Cliffs in the hopes of seeing a gorgeous sunset. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but we did come across a sailor's beach wedding right there on the cliff! We slipped up closer to listen in (although I wasn't quite brave enough to snap a picture of their special moment... That seemed too creepy.)

And of course, what better way to finish off a California trip than dinner at In N' Out?

All in all, it was a spectacular trip, and it left me feeling a little more in love with California. Maybe I  will end up there someday.

Roomie Reunion!

Two years ago I lived with these lovely ladies:

We were pretty much BFFs and we enjoyed many adventures together.

Eventually, we all went our separate ways. Ashley got married, and Lauren headed off to an internship out of state (and scored an awesome job when she was done.)

But we all came back together for an important occasion last year:

Last night, we all got together for the first time in over a year!!! 

It was amazing to see these girls. They were really sweet to drive all the way down to Provo to visit. We enjoyed dinner at California Pizza Kitchen (and we had the world's most awesome server too!) Then we wandered around the mall and did the whole girl shopping thing. I found this gem (isn't it cute?):

Hahaha, okay, no, I didn't buy it. I admit it, I like pink fluffy things, but even I could recognize that this was a bit much (although, it is kinda cute, isn't it?) I knew Lori would freak out if she thought I'd bought it-she tries to steer me away from pink fluffy things in my fashion choices-so naturally I sent her this pic. Sad thing is, though, my phone wouldn't let me text it, and she doesn't have internet access until Monday. Hopefully she'll get to see it soon so she can fully appreciate its beauty! :D

General Conference

On the first weekends of April and October, my Church gathers together to listen to the prophet, apostles, and other Church leaders as they speak to us and give us counsel. The meeting happens in Salt Lake, but it is broadcast to meeting houses and television stations around the world, as well as broadcast live on our website (http://www.lds.org). General Conference weekends are my favorite weekends of the year. The counsel we receive always gives me strength and peace.

There were many many good talks, but one which really struck me was by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency.  He used a couple analogies for life. If we look at the rings of a tree, we can see that when growth seasons aren't optimal, the tree doesn't grow normally-it cuts back and focuses on survival. When planes hit turbulence, how should they handle it? A novice pilot might speed up, thinking that if he goes faster, he will get out of the turbulence sooner. But this only makes it worse. Good pilots know that you slow down when you hit turbulence. "When experiencing adverse conditions," President Uchtdorf said, "slow down and focus on the essentials!" We shouldn't unnecessarily complicate our lives. That just leads to decreased joy and sense of meaning. Sometimes we need to forego good things for better things. To become great, we need to start by mastering the essentials. So what are the essentials? President Uchtdorf mentioned four relationships:
1. Our relationship with God-this brings us joy and fulfillment.
2. Our relationship with our family
3. Our relationship with our fellow men-Build this one person at a time.
4. Our relationship with ourselves-we shouldn't belittle and hate ourselves! We should try to remember how Heavenly Father sees us.

One of my best friends, Lori, always catches a ride here for Conference weekend. It was fun to see her and get to hang out for a few days. We went bowling during the Priesthood session and... I got a 120 score on our first game!!!! That's the highest I've ever gotten in my life! For our second game I got 103... and breaking 100 is a pretty big deal for me! :)

This weekend has definitely been amazing and I am sad to see it end!