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. :)

Sticking Around

Well, after much debate and dreaming and exploring potential options... I've decided to stay in P-town for another year.

Arizona sounds great and fun, but... I like it here. I'm not quite ready to leave. One of my good friends, Melissa, contacted me about the possibility of us rooming together next year, and that was just too good to pass up. Another year of life in a place I love, with at least one awesome roommate guaranteed! :) We did some apartment shopping last week, and today we signed a contract at a nice place in south Provo.

I have to say, it's a relief to have that decision off my chest. :) One of these days, I will leave Provo... but not yet. Maybe next year.

Peace on Earth

Well, so far this holiday season hasn't shaped up to be quite what I expected, but it's been a good one! :) I think, when I came back from Thanksgiving, I had dreams of lazy evenings watching ABC Family Christmas movies, like when I was a kid. That hasn't quite happened. Most nights I'm busy with my calling or with my PREP instructor training or catching up on housekeeping tasks.

But life has been good. This last weekend especially! Melissa and I went to see BYU's annual Christmas Around the World. It's the Folk Dance team's annual show. It was beautiful! I'm so impressed by all the talented dancers at BYU... wish I could move like that! Seeing all the different cultures represented really makes me want to travel the world... although I suspect folk dance is a dying art in most places. Guys, our ancestors really knew how to groove! Why have we let that slip away??

Then, on Sunday night, Shauna and I headed up to Salt Lake for the Church's First Presidency Christmas Devotional... along with half our ward. :) My Relief Society president found out you can get tickets for free, without having to participate in a lottery or anything (like for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert). So she let us know, and everyone scrambled to get tickets. We must have gotten them around the same time, because most of us sat together in the same section. I will admit to being a bit hyper and excited to be there... I had a lot of fun goofing around with my friends beforehand.

And then of course the Devotional itself was amazing! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang like angels. My favorite talk was by Elder Nelson. His message was about finding peace through the Prince of Peace, the Savior.

So... things have been a little more hectic than I anticipated, but it's still been a great month so far! Here's to keeping that up! :)

The Hills are Alive...

Tonight Melissa and I went to see a local theater production of the Sound of Music. It was very well done... I was impressed! The musical is quite a bit different from the movie... I feel like politics were emphasized a lot more (or maybe that's because as a child, WWII references went over my head). Rolf was nicer (even though he sided with the Nazis, he still cared about Liesel and wanted to protect her) and Liesel was a bit of a ditz (sadly). Elsa (the other woman that Captain Von Trapp almost marries) had a much bigger part. It was interesting to see.

At the end, we got to the scene where the Von Trapps sing at a festival while the Nazis wait to take them away. During that portion, cast members dressed as Nazis started patrolling the audience, walking around and scanning the crowd with cold cold eyes. Nazi banners were hung up everywhere. It freaked me out a little... Looking up at the swastika, and knowing that a few decades ago, within my grandparents' lifetimes, the Nazis were a very real threat. There were indeed public gatherings with this very symbol in places of high honor, and Nazi soldiers patrolling the crowds.

It brought to mind a movie I watched recently, Hotel Rwanda. Another terrible instance of genocide...

I am no expert on genocide. But it seems to me that it relies on two things: people who join in and people who passively let it happen. These stories brought some interesting questions to my mind: what would I do if I were faced with such a situation? What if I had lived in Nazi-occupied Europe? I don't think I would have jumped aboard the Nazi bandwagon... I hope I am right about that. But what I wonder is, would I have been brave enough to risk my life to do the right thing? To try to save my fellow men? Or, would I have ducked my head and not rocked the boat, sat passively by and let the Nazis do their thing in the hopes that if I did they would leave me alone? In the musical, Elsa and Max point out that Captain Von Trapp is endangering his entire family by standing up to the Nazis. Did that scare many into silence? The thought of their children paying for their bravery?

I don't know what I would be like in that sort of situation. I've never experienced it and I hope I never will. Of course I hope that I would be the hero, but I can't know for sure what would happen.

All I know is that I want to live my life in such a way that I'm always ready and willing to stand up for what's right. I probably won't be called upon to give my life in such a situation... but I want to live so I am prepared to stand up for what's right no matter what.

BFFs

This week my BFF Hayley came to visit me during her spring break. (She works as a speech therapist in a school district). We've been friends since I was 11 years old... More than half of our lives, now!

I wanted to give her the grant "Utah is awesome" tour, so we fit as many things in as we possibly could!

Wednesday:

• Dinner at the Brick Oven

Thursday:

• Golf cart tour of BYU
• Exhibits at the BYU Museum of Art
• At least an hour of watching Youtube videos (mostly Twilight parodies...)
• COMPLETE 4 hour BBC miniseries of Jane Austen's Emma

Friday (our marathon day!):

• A walk through the Provo Downtown
• Lunch at the Cannon Center
• A trip to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point (a dinosaur museum!)
• BYU's Easter Conference
• A late night trip to see the Host movie (we both enjoyed it, but there were definitely points where the whole audience cracked up at how ridiculous the plot/dialogue were).

Today:

• City Creek Center
• Temple Square!

It was a quick visit but we packed a lot of fun in. I'm so glad Hayley came to visit! Come back again now, you hear? :)

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