Total Eclipse

Trevor and I had an awesome weekend! First we headed up to Breckenridge with a group of his friends from Boulder. We stayed at one friend's grandma's cabin (a gorgeous three story place complete with a backyard! The women slept on the top floor, and the men slept in the basement). On Friday night we celebrated our arrival with a bonfire and s'mores. Trevor has completely mastered the art of roasting marshmallows--seriously, he can make them perfect.

Then on Saturday we got up early to drive up to Glenwood Springs. First up we hiked Hanging Lake--a beautiful hike that I think is one of my favorites. I went there once as a kid for a family reunion. It was even prettier than I remembered!

And I guess we had good timing, because I read in the news today that they are closing it soon for trail maintenance, and once it reopens, they are going to limit the number of hikers and possibly start charging a fee.

After that it was back to Glenwood Springs to wander around and check out the town. In the evening we headed back to Breckenridge. We found an amazing restaurant called Soupz On, which I give 5 stars for customer service, cost, and great food. It was about half an hour from closing when we got there. We ordered the broccoli cheddar soup and the woman working there gave us a discount because she didn't feel like there was much broccoli in it. Some bread came with our meal, and she loaded us up with lots of extra since she was about to close anyways.

On Sunday, we went to church in Frisco (such a beautiful place right up in the mountains!) and then spent our time in the cabin working on life and wedding planning. (I admit at one point I convinced Trevor to take the Myers-Briggs test--turns out he is an INFJ just like me! That explains many things.)

Then on Monday, we drove up to Wyoming to see the total eclipse. We were heading for a town called Glendo (population 200--I think they ended up with like 100,000 guests!) but we decided to pull over a little early and park along a frontage road. I think we had the perfect spot.

Totality was amazing! The sun completely disappeared behind the moon, and it was safe to look up at with our naked eyes. A few stars came out. We had a 360 view of "sunsets" on the horizon (take a look at the video to see what I mean). It felt like a once in a lifetime experience.... but I'm also determined to make it to all the solar eclipses we can in the future! (Here's looking at you, 2024!)

Once totality was over we headed back to Colorado to beat the traffic, and I think we did for the most part--we made it back by 7 or so.

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend and I'm excited for more adventures in our future!

Week of Craziness

I think it's funny I had these grand plans to relive my Europe trip here in my blog, and I only got as far as describing the plane ride over. >< Haha, well, expect more to come out in bits and pieces now and then. There have been times I haven't let myself journal/blog about more recent things until I got caught up in writing about past stuff I wanted to record.... but when I do that, the list of things I need to write just gets longer and longer and I fall so far behind that it becomes impossible to catch up. So, this time I'll just keep blogging as usual, and every once in a while when the mood strikes me, I'll write about Europe. :)

This last week was crazy busy for me. I woke up at 3 am on Monday to head out on a business trip to Jacksonville, Florida. Unfortunately I was flying Delta, and their systems went down worldwide. I made my first flight okay, but I got stuck in Atlanta for 7 hours. They tried to switch me to another flight going out the next morning, but instead I canceled the second leg of the flight and took a Southwest plane the rest of the way.

The conference lasted for 4 days. It was great connecting with my coworkers--both members of Senior Staff were there, and I got to meet Kevin, a BYU Professor we've hired as a Local Evaluator, in person for the first time. It's always good to meet other grantees too, and I met our Federal Project Specialist in person too.

It was kind of funny--at each table during the conference, they provided Play-doh, crayons, and pipe cleaners for us to play with to help us stay focused. I had a lot of fun with those things--sometime when I'm in charge of a conference, I will copy them.

I came home on Thursday night, arriving home at midnight.

At 3 pm the next day, I headed to the church to set up for the One in Christ YSA Conference, my committee's biggest event of the year. I was there until about midnight that night--we had dinner (Brazilian, in honor of the Olympics--we tied that in to our unity theme because they are about international unity!), a wonderful fireside, and a dance. The fireside was presented by Brother and Sister Chatelain, the new seminary teacher and his wife. When they were married about a year, Brother Chatelain had an accident that has left him as a quadriplegic ever since. He was very open in talking about what a challenge that was and still is. Although his life hasn't played out as he hoped, he sees the Lord's hand in it, and it's still good and worthwhile. He shared some of the lessons he's learned from the experience. It was wonderful, and I think it helped all of us put our own problems into perspective.

The next day I was up at 6:30 to get ready and head over to the Evergreen cemetery in town. We did a BillionGraves service project--taking pictures of tombstones for their website, for later transcription, so people around the world can find their family members who are buried there. We had a decent turnout--30-40 people for that part--and I think we did over 2,000 names, although most of the pictures we submitted are still being processed, so I'm not sure. After that, we headed to a nearby park for a picnic lunch. Then back to the church for 3 hours of workshops, an awesome closing fireside by President Brock and Sister Brock of the temple presidency, another dinner, and international unity games (because Olympics is copyrighted. :) We had a better turnout for that part.

I think people had fun. I know of a couple that hadn't been to YSA stuff before who appeared at the YSA wards on Sunday. Another guy mentioned to me that before the YSA conference, he felt like he didn't know anyone, but afterwards, he felt like he'd met everyone. :) I think we did get some unity going and some new friendships formed. I'm calling it a success. And I'm a little relieved it's off my back until next year. ;)

Anyway, so that's what I've been up to of late. It made it hard to find time to blog. :) One of these days, though, I do want to go through all my Europe pictures and try to recapture that experience.

London and Paris--the Plane Ride Over

My trip to Europe was phenomenal. We ran around every day all day to pack in as many things as we could. I loved it--but I didn't have much time to write about it, and my head is overflowing with many many posts about what I saw and experienced. We'll see if I can rein it in, or if this post turns into a series of posts!

The trip started off great. I'm one of those people who usually can't sleep before I travel, for whatever reason. Even if it's just a little business trip, I'm often awake until the wee hours of the morning the night before. It's not because I'm worried or excited, necessarily... I don't know what it is. But somehow I managed to sleep just fine the night before. It seemed like a good omen. :)

Hayley recommended that on the flight there, I watch one in flight movie, eat dinner, and then go to sleep. So, I watched the new live version of the Jungle Book (I liked it, but I'm not really hankering for a rewatch), ate my dinner, and... conked out! Again, so surprised I could sleep.

Dinner was some chicken thing that was actually pretty good! And the cheesecake dessert was a very nice touch.

Amazingly, I was able to sleep on the plane. I had one of those neck pillow things--highly recommended! Usually I have trouble getting comfortable.

Hayley and I were on a row together--she was on the aisle and I was at the window seat. She booked the seats that way hoping that no one would take the middle seat, and no one showed up... but I wonder if someone booked the spot and missed the plane, because at meal times they would bring special meals someone had ordered and we'd tell them it wasn't either of us. So I woke up to the stewardess trying to deliver a special breakfast meal. She said, "Did you preorder breakfast?" I guess she didn't realize we were sleeping? We both popped awake and I just stared at her while she repeated herself at least 6 times as my fuzzy brain tried to figure out where I was and what was happening. This was the only time on the trip I had trouble understanding a British accent. Finally I noticed the tray in her hands and assumed she was offering me breakfast, which I didn't much want at that moment, so I said, "No thanks." She looked at me like I was a crazy person and tried one last time, finally getting through to me. "Did you preorder breakfast?" "Oh... no, sorry."

At last we landed. I was so giddy. Every little British thing excited me at that point because it was all so new. Look, the elevators are called lifts! Hey, their toilets look different. Wow, listen to all the British accents!

Customs was a nightmare. We were in line for 2 hours. But I got my first stamp in my passport, much to my delight. :)

Hayley's sister-in-law Anna was sweet and came to pick us up. For our first two days, we stayed with Hayley's brother's family while we attempted to recover from our jet lag. That first day, I felt like a total zombie. I didn't do much besides sit around the Carters' house and try to stay awake. I did try to take a nap at one point, and I couldn't even sleep! Craziness. Most of that day is a complete blur to me.

Haha, wow, okay, I've barely dipped my toe in here, but it's late, and I guess I'll post this anyways just to let people know I'm still alive. ;) The actual exciting trip stuff will come soon!

Why Hiking in the Dark is a Bad Idea on Friday the 13th

So.... tonight I experienced my first time getting in trouble with the police.

There was a temple trip last night. On the way home, the driver (who shall remain anonymous) asked us if we were up for an adventure. I said, "YES!", naturally, and he drove us to the trail head to hike up Castle Rock.

What we didn't know is, a) it's illegal to hike in the dark in Castle Rock, and b) it was Friday the 13th and a bunch of teenagers were up on the rock causing trouble. Thus... the police were already there. Their car was in the parking lot with lights flashing, and there was an officer speaking to a  car there. We naively assumed that she had pulled someone over and they'd driven into this parking lot.

But the police officer came right over to talk to us. Her first question: Had we been up on the rock with flashlights? No, we didn't have flashlights. Was it not okay to hike now? Nope.

She asked us a long series of questions about who we were and where we were coming from. We explained we'd come to go hiking. She said, "You're going hiking in suits, dresses, and heels?" We explained it was a spur of the moment thing, and we'd just come from a church activity in Denver. Also, that we were Mormon. (It came up because we'd been to the temple).

She asked for all of our IDs, and explained that it just seemed a bit suspicious that we'd come hiking in the dark in such ridiculous clothes. Whoops.

She went off to run our IDs. Someone in the car asked the driver if he had a perfect driving record. He did! A little conversing, and it turned out we all did!

We could hear her talking to someone (her radio? her partner?) about us, slightly baffled that we'd just drive on up when there was a police car there already, dressed in our Sunday best but wanting to do some late night hiking.

Finally she came back and said, "There are warrants out for 3 of your arrests." That brief silence as we all panicked (well played, ma'am! Make us all think the other 3 are crazy--there were four of us) and then she laughed. She told us the park was closed at sunset. If we really wanted to hike it, we could come back in the daylight in more appropriate clothes, and sent us on our way.

Except there was another police car parked to block the parking lot entrance by then, so we stayed there for a while and tried not to stare as a teenager got frisked a little ways from us. Finally the officers sent the teenagers on their way and moved the police car so we could leave. As the kids passed us, they explained to us that a bunch of people went hiking tonight in honor of Friday the 13th. Ohhhhhhhh.... Whoops! What a bad night to pick.

The whole thing was actually pretty funny. It was definitely an adventure, as promised! And we learned a few lessons: a) don't hike in the dark, b) don't hike in church clothes, and c) if you see a police car parked in a parking lot with flashing lights... maybe that means you shouldn't pull in. :)

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! 

Disneyland!

They call Disneyland the happiest place on Earth, and for me, it definitely ranks in the top 5. Going to Disneyland relaxes me like nothing else. It unlocks my inner child at her happiest and best, no cares in the world and no reasons to stress. No matter what happens, I am happy and determined to have a perfect day.

Our family is back in Disneyland this week! We landed in CA late yesterday, and we'll be spending 3 days in the park. Today was probably the busiest I've seen Disneyland. Most of our trips have been in the off-season, when we could walk on to rides as many times as we wanted, and laugh at the ridiculous size of the waiting area. Today we got to see what those waiting areas look like filled with people.

This was a big surprise, because today was forecast to be the least crowded day all year. Of course, we probably weren't the only ones to hear that, so maybe that's why it ended up pretty busy haha. And when we were here last year, it was IMMEDIATELY after last year Disneyland measles scare, which probably helped clear out the park!

The Radiator Springs Ride

We still got to ride on lots of rides. There were several open that weren't last time we were here, or even the last few times I was here. I don't think I've been on Splash Mountain since 2000. That ride used to TERRIFY me!! I was so proud to ride it again and realize I'm not scared at all anymore. Bring on the big drop!

Today I was even brave enough to check out the Tower of Terror, and miracle of miracles, I liked it! Tomorrow I want to go on California Screamin', the big roller coaster in California Adventure. If I survive that ride, I'll have conquered Disneyland--no more rides that scare me. :)

Photographic evidence that I was on Tower of Terror. :) Dad and I are in the second row, farthest to the left.

Note for Future Stargazing

Tonight for our ward activity, we drove out to a bishopric member's ranch in Larkspur for a hay ride. It was a pretty magical experience. I am a sucker for stargazing, but always disappointed because in this modern world, it's hard to find good places where you can really see the night sky.

Well, add Larkspur to the list! It was a perfectly clear night, and we could see billions of stars (probably :) as well as the Milky Way. I even got to see a falling star so I could make a wish.

Add to that epic stargazing that we were on a hayride complete with old school lanterns (okay, the candles inside were electric). It was one of my favorite ward activities we've done so far. Can we make that an annual tradition?

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!

Staycation

All the McAllisters managed to get some time off this year around Labor Day weekend, so we took some time to enjoy the wonders of nature around the Springs this week.

Helen Hunt Falls

Red Rock Canyon

There's a lot of beautiful places around here that I still haven't been. I want to work on fixing that... especially before winter comes.

Balloon Glow

Finally made it to my first Balloon Glow! And I loved it. Definitely going back next year.

Balloon glow #nofilter #100happydays #day8

A video posted by @coolshelece on Sep 5, 2015 at 9:06pm PDT

Hiking in the Rain

Yesterday for FHE, we went hiking in the beautiful Red Rocks Canyon Park.

Except... we did it in a thunderstorm with rain pouring down. Believe it or not, it actually made it more fun haha. I wish I'd snapped some pics, but you know, I was trying to keep my cell phone dry. :)

A few of us decided to camp out under a tree for a while in a vain attempt to stay dry. From there we ran back and hid under the Red Rocks for a bit, before finally making a mad dash back to the parking lot.

We ended up hanging out in a car for a long time, using the heater to dry off, laughing and goofing around and waiting for everyone else to come back. It was really fun. Maybe I'll have to do rain hiking more often (although, maybe only when there's not so much lightning!).

Leaving Provo

I had started to think this day would never come.

I moved here in the fall of 2006 to start my freshman year at BYU. At first, I was crazy homesick for my friends and family. Every year this place grew on me until my degrees were complete and I realized I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

This is the place where I did my second round of growing-up. My emerging adulthood took place here--my first attempts at leaving the nest and flying solo. This is where I shifted from an anxious little college freshman to a confident professional woman.

I have so many memories here, and I know this place will ALWAYS hold a special piece of my heart.

But... it's time to go. The last couple years when it came time to sign contracts, I began to feel that... that it was time to give up my BYU glory days and move on. I didn't want to leave, and so I stayed.

Now, though, I'm finally at a place where I'm ready for a change of scenery and new adventures.

For the first time in years, I've been homesick for Colorado. I miss my family. My parents are still there, my youngest two siblings have left on missions, and Shauna has graduated--she could end up anywhere.

My two closest friends from high school have made their way back to the Springs, and I've decided they had the right idea.

So... I'm packing my bags and going back home at the end of this month. I'm super torn about it, not going to lie. I feel like it's the right thing to do, but the closer it gets to my move-out date, the more nostalgic I get for all the good times I've had here in P-Town and the list gets longer and longer of things I'm going to miss.

I know there are good things ahead, though. I'm excited to see what happens next.

Journey to the Happiest Place on Earth!!

So, my family went on a semi-spontaneous trip to Disneyland at the end of January.

If you know my family at all, you know this is very unlike us. :) But it was a good time to go. Shauna had just graduated BYU and was still job hunting, Kristie has the semester off school while she prepares for her mission in March. And we'd heard that January is a great time to go to Disneyland to avoid the crowds. With the measles outbreak going on, we had a pretty good shot at an empty park.

The first day was the absolute best. The park was almost empty. We could (and did) walk onto any ride we wanted. Didn't even need to get a fast pass. We took a bunch of pictures with characters and we didn't even have to wait in line!

I quickly succumbed to the temptation to get a mouse hat, while everyone else resisted... which resulted (as usual) in people thinking I was the youngest in our family instead of the oldest, but whatever. :)

We got to see the parades in both parks (Disneyland and California Adventure). We waited for a little bit to see the Disneyland one, but we walked right up to the California Adventure one when it was starting and managed to find an awesome spot.

Waiting for the Disneyland parade

The second day, we mostly spent in California Adventure. There were a lot more crowds than the day before, and we had to wait in lines for rides, but never for very long. The longest was half an hour (yes, I made my family wait half in hour for the Peter Pan ride... okay, I didn't make them, but they knew I wanted to, so they supported me in my choice. :) And yeah, I know the Peter Pan ride isn't in California Adventure--we did some park hopping! It was still really fun, but not quite as perfect at the day before.

One cool and kind of funny experience. We wanted to try this Toy Story ride called Midway Mania, but Shauna and Mom get a little bit motion sick, and there was a sign out front warning that this ride could cause motion sickness. There was also a 30 minute wait to get on to the ride. There was much debating whether or not Mom and Shauna wanted to try it. Mom finally asked an employee about it, and when he couldn't quite convince us that the ride was good for everyone in our family, he offered to let me, Dad, and Kristie skip the line to ride it to see if it was something Mom and Shauna could handle.  Just like that, he whisked us through to the handicap access point and let us on the ride, no waiting. And once we were done, we collected Mom and Shauna, and he let us skip the line again to go through together.

Excellent customer service. Who knew motion sickness could come so in handy? :)

At the end of the day, we watched the Fantasmic show. We got fastpasses in the morning so we had a great place to watch. It's quite an impressive show--I liked it a lot. When it was over, we had five minutes left before Disneyland closed, so we frantically ran into Pirates of the Caribbean for one last ride. Pirates has always been one of our favorites, because it's awesome, and because it's high capacity so the line is always short. We probably rode it 5 or 6 times in those 2 days. It was a great way to finish things up.

On our last day in California, we headed to Huntington Beach. Dad grew up in California, and when he was a kid, his family brought visiting relatives to Huntington because it has fire pits there, so they could roast hot dogs when people got hungry. We had a great time just chilling at the beach.  I was too much of a coward to go into the cold water, but Shauna and Kristie had a ball wading in and looking for shells.

The whole trip was amazing and so relaxing. Disneyland really is one of the happiest places on Earth. The little kids that come there are so happy and so excited! For them it is a dream come true.

I've made some happy memories there myself over the years and I intend to keep going back. :) I miss it a lot already!

Saving Sherlock: A Night at the Escape Key

Guys, tonight I helped save Sherlock Holmes' life!!!

Best Saturday night ever.

Tonight I got to check out a new Salt Lake attraction called the Escape Key (in honor of my awesome roommate's birthday--Happy birthday Melissa!!). Apparently, this sort of thing is very popular out east and overseas. Basically you are locked into a room with a deadline, and you have to solve a series of puzzles in order to escape.

We were in the "Anything But Elementary Room" based off Sherlock Holmes. It's designed to look like Sherlock Holmes' study. After you enter, a screen lights up with an incoming phone call from Inspector LaStrade. It seems Sherlock is on a case, and he desperately requires something from his study. He's trusted you, his good friends, to locate what he needs. But being Sherlock, it's not so easy as plucking something out of a desk drawer.

It soon becomes clear that the stakes are very high--you have an hour to act, or Sherlock will be dead.

I don't want to give too much away. :) But it was really fun, very cleverly done and challenging. You can't beat the thrill you get when you're the one to solve the next piece of the puzzle. Or the mounting pressure as the clock ticks away Sherlock's life. In the end, we solved the puzzle with 9 seconds to spare. NINE SECONDS!

Seriously, I felt like I was in the BBC version of Sherlock. One touch I really liked was helpful texts from "Watson." The proprietors monitor the room through cameras, and so occasionally they'll "text" you helpful hints (which appear on the screen) based on what they can see you doing. For me, that just made it more real. If I were in BBC Sherlock land and Sherlock had sent me on a mission, it seems totally legit that Watson would be my backup over the phone. I'd read him off clues and stuff I found or things that were stumped me, and he give back his insight. (We didn't text Watson back, he was just observant to what we were doing--and he was pretty hands off. He only stepped in when we really needed it, and his hints were small). I totally read all the Watson texts in Martin Freeman's voice.

I had a great time. The Escape Key is still pretty new, so not a lot of people have heard about it yet--consider this my attempt to spread the word!! If you live anywhere near the Salt Lake area, you should give it a try--way more fun and creative than your basic dinner and a movie night. Right now they only have the Sherlock room, but they are working on building CSI and Mission: Impossible rooms too. Check out their website for more info: http://www.theescapekeyutah.com/

Watch out... the Robots are coming for us

So you may have heard Stephen Hawking predict that artificial intelligence would destroy the world.

Well, I think it may have begun already. Tonight Melissa and I tried to watch a movie. She'd just set up my DVD player this weekend. She watched I Robot on Saturday, and it worked fine. She tested a few other DVDs, and they worked fine. We put Bride Wars in on Sunday just long enough for me to see that it was working.

Tonight, we put in about 20 DVDs before we got one to work. Melissa has a lot of burned ones, so we thought that was the problem. Nope! We tried an official DVD, no luck. We tried a million more movies, we tried to clean out the inside of the DVD player, nothing. Finally, Melissa stuck I Robot in since that's the only full movie she'd watched on it.

It worked.

And for the next 45 minutes, nothing else would, no matter how many disks we tried.

It was clear that the DVD player had taken on a life of its own and was going to kill us in our sleep.

Although, we did come up with an alternate theory eventually. We finally got it to play the first half an hour of Kate and Leopold. Have you seen it? Basic premise--guy from modern era time travels back to 1876, and accidentally gets followed home by the guy who invented the elevator. As soon as Elevator Guy gets to our time, all elevators in the present stop working.

So we're watching. Elevator Guy goes to our time. The movie switches to Meg Ryan, innocently waiting in an elevator, not realizing it's about to freeze...

and the movie dies.

So... hypothesis number two: Somewhere in the past, something has happened to the inventor of the DVD player.

On a completely unrelated note... can anyone recommend a good DVD Player?

Mitt Romney

So, Mitt Romney came to speak at BYU today.

Melissa and I headed up early to get good seats, and I snagged a couple for Shauna and Kristie too. We ended up about 6 rows back in the middle section.

It was crazy to see Mitt for real, after seeing him on TV so many times. Before he came, Melissa and I wondered what to do when he entered the room. For general authorities and dignitaries, we stand up quietly and wait until they are seated. But when Mitt came in, everyone erupted into applause, and soon almost everyone was on their feet.

BYU was super jazzed to have Mitt there. When the Dean got up to announce him as our speaker, people couldn't contain their excitement. "We are pleased to have as today's devotional speaker, former Governor of Massachusetts and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney." Applause and cheers so loud the Dean had to pause. Mitt smiled at all of us in return. "We are also pleased to be joined today by our special guest, Ann Romney, Mitt's wife." More enthusiastic cheering and applause. Mitt joined in and said something to his wife, which in my mind must have been very sweet, about how he appreciates her. "The Romneys also have many friends and family who have joined us in the audience." Again with the applause, just as loud and enthusiastic as the first round. Mitt cracked up. I did too. Yay, Mitt's friends and family!

The Dean commented that at this rate, they might have to cancel afternoon classes. That got the loudest cheers and applause of all.

And then of course, he also thanked the people who played the organ and lead the music for the opening hymn. Same thunderous applause for them. I thought it was hilarious.

Mitt shared a great message. You can read it in full here or even watch the video.

My Secret Spy Mission

And so, the birthday festivities continue!

Last night, Melissa and I went to Tucanos for my free birthday meal. If you haven't been and you love meat, you should try it... in your birthday month. Register for their birthday club. They are very pricey normally (we're talking $24/plate!), but if you are in their birthday club, you get a free meal... provided you have at least one other person paying full price. Melissa and I have a tradition of going for each other's birthdays and splitting the cost of the full price meal.

Tucanos is fun. You sit at your table, and servers bring around endless selections of meat. You take as much as you like. You have this little totem on your table that's red on one side and green on the other. When you want more meat, you leave the green side up. When you want it to stop coming, you flip it to red. Plan on not being hungry for like, three days after you go (gotta eat your money's worth, right? :)

Tonight, Melissa came downstairs before institute to invite me to go Geocaching. As this is my new favorite hobby, I was jazzed by this. First, we located a Geocache at UVU (we go to UVU for Institute). After Institute, Melissa drove us to a park in Provo where she'd heard that there was a good one. She wasn't quite sure where the park was, so we drove around for a bit to find it. We read through the clues carefully--it was hidden under a capstone. We weren't quite sure what that meant, and I couldn't see any stones around. But we set off across the park, until we came upon a stone wall, and we realized the top stones were stacked so there were gaps underneath them, and the top stones could be lifted off.

We started lifting stones to look, but they were so heavy it took two of us to do it (granted, Melissa was only using one hand, and I am a total weakling). We picked up a few with no luck. Then Melissa decided we should go systemically, one at a time, and the very next one happened to be where it was!

There was a coded message hidden inside along with the cache log. I didn't want to take it, since you're not supposed to take things like that out of the cache. I tried to take a picture of it with my phone so we could decode it later, but my phone was at 6% battery so it shut down right after I snapped it. I wasn't sure it saved.

But it did save and here it is!

Melissa's phone was at 17%, and we needed to conserve that to work the Geocaching app. She suggested we just take the cipher with us and bring it back later. "Is that allowed?" I asked. "Sure," she said, "I mean, no one else is going to come looking for this tonight."

So we took it and went on our merry way, to a third geocache hidden in a roundabout island. This is not your standard boring roundabout island--it had a tall rock wall, trees and bushes, 6 American flags, a "Provo Welcomes the World" Sign.... and it built up to a tall hill, but there were a few dips in it where someone could easily hide out of sight. We knew the cache was between two specific flags, so we were digging around looking for it when we heard rocks shifting, and all of a sudden a man appeared from behind a tree. We all stared at each other awkwardly. "Hi," Melissa said finally. "Hi," the man said, and then he disappeared. We could hear voices talking faintly, though, so we knew he wasn't alone. I figured he must be a geocacher too. Why else would he be in the roundabout median??? I thought it was weird he didn't approach, though. You have to be careful not to be caught by "Muggles"--non-geocachers. But we were clearly geocachers (still need to work on that whole stealth thing.....). Did he just want to find it himself?

We could hear voices the whole time we were there. I assumed they were just waiting for us to leave. Once we'd found the cache, we walked around so Melissa could photograph the "Provo Welcomes the World" sign. And... based on what we heard, I'm pretty sure that couple was watching a movie on a laptop in one of the dips. A strange (but definitely unique and private!) location for a date, but whatever... I wonder if they knew there was a geocache there or if they were really startled when someone else approached the median.

Anyway, we went back home, and I pulled out the cipher from the second geocache. I tried to solve it in the car, but I did the translation backwards at first, which resulted in unbearable gibberish. Melissa showed me the right way to translate it. We went back to the apartment, where Melissa sat next to me while I painstakingly deciphered it. I felt kind of bad that I was hogging it, so I tried to slow down a little a couple times and let her find the next letter, but mostly I just plugged along. I decoded most of it okay: "The upcoming year will rock! Just like you..." One word left. I thought this was a clever play on words, since we'd found it in a rock. I also thought it was an odd cipher. Melissa had said people hid this kind of thing sometimes, to lead you to another cache. But this just seemed like a generic positive phrase... I guess we can all use a little inspiration though! I wondered how long it had been there. Probably it was hidden in December, right before a new year rolled around.

There was one word left. It started with "Sh" and I could see it had three E's. "It's going to be my name," I joked. Yes, joked, because I am an idiot. I kept going and realized it was my name. But... what? That didn't make sense. Why would my name be in a random geocache cipher? "Wait... it is my name... That can't be right!" I did it again. My mind was racing (in a million wrong directions). There are other Sheleces in the world. Had we really stumbled upon a message written for another Shelece? What were the chances? Crazy.

I asked Melissa, "Will you please help me decode this last word? I keep getting my name... I guess that's just what's in my head..." Somehow she kept a completely straight face as she started helping. Meanwhile, in my head I pondered the possibility that somehow, one of my friends had hidden this for me. But how would they know we were going to that geocache? At this point I took a minute to read through the message again.

And that's when I burst out laughing. "The upcoming year will rock! Just like you Shelece."

The upcoming year... because it's almost my birthday! And Melissa knew we were going to that cache! I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. I blame my denseness and her awesome acting. I really never suspected anything (clearly)--I believed her when she wasn't quite sure where the park was. I thought it was really good luck when she started systemically searching the rocks, and stumbled across the cache on her first try. I worried a bit about taking the cipher out of the cache, but she was right that we could just bring it back later...

Hahaha... the whole thing cracks me up. :) Melissa knows I love geocaching and that I loved playing spies as a kid, so she set up my very own geocaching spy cipher adventure. It was the perfect chance to channel my inner child. I had a blast, and I'm very excited to see what else she's come up with for my birthday celebrations. She's promised me more surprises tomorrow night, and I have a feeling they'll be amazing.

Thanks Melissa!! You're the best! :D

Birthday Festivities to last a whole week long

The plan: Celebrate my birthday all week long. :)

The execution: I guess you could say things started last week, when I went home for Jason's endowment and Kristie's mission call. It was great to be with my family for a few days.

On Sunday, Granny has us over for a birthday lunch (Kristie's birthday is the day after mine). We had pork chops and cherry chocolate cake. It was an excellent way to start the week.

Then, today, my ward went to Cornbelly's! It's a corn maze/mini-amusement park that only opens for the month of October. It's become a sort of yearly tradition for me. This was my fourth time going.

Obligatory roommate picture in the Cornbelly's chair! Melissa is on the left and Macie is in the middle.

Hopefully I can keep this stuff up all week! We'll see how it goes. :)

5 Year Old Wisdom

So I flew home yesterday night, so I could be here today when Jason went through the temple in preparation for his mission.

I sat next to an adorable five year old and his mom. He started talking right away and kept me entertained all the way through the flight. His mom tried to get him to watch the old Hanna Barbara Godzilla cartoon on her Ipad (did you know that was a thing? I didn't know that was a thing) to quiet him down, I think, but he invited me to watch with him, and then he narrated every single thing that happened. The volume was turned down low, so it was hard to hear the dialogue, but fortunately he's watched it enough that he could quote most of it! It was adorable, and it made for one of my favorite flights ever.

Favorite quotes:

"I can lift two bags over my head! I can even lift a brick!"
"Look, I am tough. I can pinch myself with no ows!"
"You like me, huh?" (said adorable unassumingly big brown eyes... ah, the innocent of youth! Yes, of course I liked him)
"I can count! *successfully counts to 30, then* 45, 200, 200 million..."
"Did you know my teeth go down into my gums? Look at how sharp they are!"
"I'm going to lick your arm Mom! (to me) Sometimes I lick everything. I won't lick you, though."
"This is my man voice! I'm a real man!"
"I'm going to miss you!"

Little boy: "We live in Utah Murray! Where do you live?"
Me: "I live in Utah Provo."
Little boy: "What is that?"
Me: "It's.... uh, it's a city. It's where BYU is..."
Little boy: "B...Y...U? What's that?"
Me: "It's a school I used to go to."
Little boy: "Oh. It's like kindergarten!"
Little boy's mom: "No, honey, it's a long time after kindergarten. It's a college. College is somewhere you go when you are very smart."
Little boy: "I'm very smart!"
Little boy's mom: "Yes, you are. You're going to go to college, right?"
Little boy: "I should be in college already!"

He was great. Little kids are the best!

Geocaching

So.... embarrassing flashback story number #5,314...

When I was a kid, I loved playing spies.

I don't know why, but I particularly loved playing this game at my grandparents' house, often with my sister Shauna and my cousin Natalie. I came up with all these ridiculous missions that involved sneaking around trying to be stealthy.

Well, I think I've found the grown-up version of Spies. This last weekend, my roommate Melissa and I went Geocaching! It was my first time.

If you're like me, you might have heard of Geocaching, but you don't know quite what it is. It's basically like a never ending treasure hunt that requires GPS. Once you sign up on their website (it's free!) and download their app, you have access to all this treasure. Your map lights up with circles representing caches people have stashed all over the place. Here in Provo, Geocaching is fairly popular, so there are TONS.

You pick a dot, follow the map until you're in range, and then you can read the hints for what you are looking for and where it is. Then you commence searching the area to find it, being as stealthy as possible--you don't want Muggles (non-Geocachers) to see you.

Here's me with one of the three caches we tracked down Friday night:
(slight spoiler alert for Geocachers in Provo....)



Uber spoiler alert: It was hidden inside a fence post that turned out to be hollow with a removable top. How cool is that?!?

I still need to work on the stealthy part. :) But I had a blast trying this out. I love that you can do it anywhere. And I like the whole "secret club" aspect of it too... I don't wanna be a Muggle!

Right now I'm trying to convince all my friends and family to give it a try too. If you haven't, you really should!