Another Rexburg Summer

Well, I am back in Rexburg for the summer semester. Classes are in full swing now, and the weather is just warming up. The first week here we had a couple of snow storms but now we average about 72 each day. It’s nice. Last weekend my roommates and I threw a huge Cinco de Mayo Fiesta. We moved all of our furniture to the back hall of our apartment and had a huge dance party. Strobe lights, fog machines, Piñatas, and streamers. We went all out. I even ended up renting a dress from the Kirkham Auditorium for the party. Prizes went to the best Female and Male costumes of the night. My apartment this semester is fun. We’re on the top floor this time, so throwing water balloons from the windows is much more fun then it was when I was on the first floor. I live with 5 girls (6 including me) it’s a pretty full apartment for the summer semester. Rexburg is said to be “The Next Provo”, I’ll believe it when I see it. I live with Paige, Keali, Mary, Danielle, and Kristalyn. Paige and Danielle are from Southern California, Mary’s from Tampa, Florida, Keali’s from my Stake in Georgia, and Kristalyn is from Mesa. I’ve got a bike this semester, and Paige and I ride them around everywhere. I’ll be posting more often now, hopefully, so I hope to see some more recent post from a lot of you. The summer is full of news and events, so the blogging should be out of control!

Ok, so Mary is in the white dress, Keali is in the green one. Paige has her eyes closed hahaha, and Danielle has the flower in her hair. Kristalyn was taking the picture.

I want Aaron to know I'm in full support of May being Beard month.
(Actually making Cinco De Mayo invitations got out of hand...)

Third Times a Charm

It is almost time for me to go back to school, and I have just realized that the last few months I haven’t made a single post. Well as most of you know I got my second cast on, four weeks later it was removed, and after a quick x-ray it was determined that a third one was needed. This one is MAROON. So, now I have my third cast on till March 22. Dad received a mandoline for his birthday, from Lisa and Matt and was so excited about the gift that I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots. When Sunday rolled around the attempt to slice tomatoes for some hamburgers failed the mandoline was sadly returned to its cardboard box. He is currently anxiously awaiting the return of a much better mandoline. In febuary G-Lo (Mom), Lisa, and I had a 4 day weekend. We spent four hours on Friday driving to Savannah, GA. It was nice weather at the coast. High 60’s, low 70’s. After checking into our hotel we headed down to River Street. River Street is the strip of shops and stores right on the Savannah River. Among these shops is some very good Seafood restaurants as well. After looking over many menus we chose to dine at the Oyster Club. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS RESTAURANT TO SEAFOOD LOVERS. They have everything from mahi mahi and grouper to crab and oysters. G-Lo and I enjoyed some shrimp and Snow Crab, along with a lovely calamari appetizer. Lisa, an avid seafood hater, enjoyed a chicken Caesar salad. After dinner we gathered in line for our ‘Ghosts and Gravestones’ trolley tour of Savannah. Apparently Savannah is one of the most if not THE most haunted city in the US. (or so they say) One of the mansions we went in was featured on Discovery Channels “Ghost Hunters”. I think the show should be called “Orb Hunters” the whole night our tour guide was blabbing about Orb’s and all the different colors and meanings. Just an FYI- the “Red Orbs” are VERY dangerous and vicious. I’m not trying to rag on the tour, it was fun just some of the stories shared were rather farfetched. Savannah is such a pretty city. It is very old so some of the roads are cobblestone, the houses are all very unique, and the trees are all covered in Spanish Moss. In other news, I am now 19. This is officially my last year of being a teenager, but besides that I think that’s it for the age 19 being special. (Let me know if there is anything I can do now that I am 19) I had been craving crab since we went to Savannah, so we ended up going to dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. I should have known it wasn’t going to be as good as fresh from the ocean crab. It was still nice though. My cast just smells like seafood now :(. Anyway, I’ll be expecting, I mean, accepting gifts delivered to my home address, let me know if you need it. Muhahaha.

Now you see it...Now you see it again.

I was hoping to be able to say “Now you see it… now you don’t…” but instead you STILL see it. My cast that is. I went to the doctors today to get it taken off (permanently, I thought). They x-rayed it, I washed the smelly appendage and then THEY PUT ANOTHER ONE ON! So yes, it is still BrOkEn. The black cast (cast number 1) was on for only 3 weeks, this blue one (cast number 2- hence the picture) needs to be on for 4 more weeks- and hopefully after that everything will be completely healed. Apparently the scaphoid bone can take up to three months to heal!!! Eeeeks- hopefully that is not the case!

Work vs. School

Well, when I was at school it was work. And now that I am at work it is school. So I really understand the concept now of always wanting what you don’t have or the grass is always greener on the other side. Packing up at the end of the semester was sad; saying goodbye to people that I may not see till fall semester 2007. Sometimes that BYU-I track system can be really annoying. After our rooms were completely packed up we had room and empty cabinets to play hide-n-go-seek in. As for academics and school work- finals went alright. I had the job of cleaning the griddle in our cooking class for my final assignment so I took care of that just before I left Rexburg. Work however is good it is practically all I do so I don’t really know much else. It could be the worst thing ever but I wouldn’t even know what something better tastes like. Christmas flew by. I had trouble in the Denver airport, as did thousands of other passengers but once I was on a flight it was smooth flying all the way to Atlanta. Christmas break wasn’t much of a break. I started working the first day we were open after the regular holiday closing. If it wasn’t for HIPPA policies I would have a lot of funny stories to tell regarding working at the Dermatologist but I rather like my job so I have regretfully declined from sharing events on the WORLD WIDE WEB. It was fun to have all the family here for a few weeks though. We went to the aquarium, went bowling, did plenty of shopping and got some family pictures taken as well. We saw baby Anya (John and Lindy Salmon’s baby girl), played lots of video games (namely Dr. Mario and Tetris), saw some movies, and ate PLENTY of food. Mike and I ended up wrestling one day over a game of Dr. Mario and he ultimately ended up breaking my wrist. Ok well not really. I broke it back in October (trying to Longboard) when I was in Rexburg, but I had never got it checked out till I got home and it was in pain again. So now I have had a cast on for a little over 3 weeks which I hopefully get off tomorrow. I am now attending the singles ward at the chapel that shares the parking lot with the temple. It’s about 15 minutes from our house and is in a REAL chapel. I was just getting use to going to church in my American Heritage classroom with members of the ward as young as 17 and others who thought 23 was old compared to my NEW singles ward that has a REAL chapel with many of the members pushing the age of 30. Although I miss a lot of my friends that I left in the freezing cold -20 degrees Fahrenheit weather in Idaho, I do however love having a full fridge, a FREE washer and dryer and a TV that I don’t have to share. Like I said before —you always want what you don't have.

This is an Ode to Michael Salmon. He had a 50's day (If that's what you call it). the Fro, the rolled up jeans, white socks, he even tried to get Dahl to do it too.

Lots of pictures, little words and little time.

I just thought I would post this really fast. A lot happened this weekend, I just don't have a lot of time to write about all the events. We had our ward Christmas party, it was really nice. Spur of the moment I was asked to read a Christmas book and tell everyone how it was one of my favorites… the problem was, I had never read or even seen the book. Friday night me and some of the girls went up to the biggest, prettiest, and nicest cabin ever. We went to Island Park for Jenn’s bachlorette party. We made an awesome dinner and had sundaes for dessert. The cabin had 9 beds! And all these cool crawl spaces and lofts. It was our high councilmen’s cabin, so it was FREE too! Saturday morning we left he cabin early and drove the hour ride to Targhee where we snowboarded the day away until it closed. I haven’t been snowboarding since I lived in Calgary, probably 6 years ago! But I actually didn’t do too badly and I almost wish I was staying for winter semester! It’s an expensive hobby though. (Aaron, I want to go when I come to Provo on Wednesday). Sunday I gave a talk in church about a Christmas topic of my choice. I went with Mary and her Sacrifices made to give birth to the Savior. Sunday night we had a roommate dinner of about 100 different dishes. We were trying to use all of our food up before we all head out. My roommate Jill even bought some Crab Legs (it wasn’t something we exactly had “laying around” but they were nice to eat anyway). We did our Secret Santa gift exchange as well and Jacquie got me some nice earrings and a gift card to American Eagle. The semester has flown by! I have 2 finals today, and then I just have to clean and pack up.

(P.S. the picture of me playing nintendo was Courtney going around taking pictures of all of us in our "Natural Habitat" and the picture of the bomb pops has a lot of significance. For those of you that know... I have found that they are the cure to my intestine problem… )

The Final Stretch...

Time is flying! I can’t believe Thanksgiving was already a few weeks ago. It was a fun trip too. I was in Provo for a few days where I got to spend some time with Mike, and Jordan before he heads off on his mission. The weather was really nice too. Carol and I drove up to Logan Wednesday afternoon. Upon arriving Erin, Russell, Alison and I went rock climbing at some indoor place. We laughed a lot, especially when Russell found a dead mouse in his rock-climbing shoes. Thanksgiving Day was spent indulge on all of Aunt Diane’s finest creations. That Friday we attended the Nutcracker Ballet. It’s a Lee family tradition. I had never seen the Nutcracker or a ballet for that matter so it was fun to get dressed up and go to the theater. I wish I had some pictures of the night. Saturday we played some kickball down at the park, did a little shopping, and ate at a Chinese Buffet. My roommate, Courtney, picked me up in Logan on her way up from Bountiful and stayed for dinner on Sunday. It was such a fun trip; I said if I had a car I would visit Logan more often. December has flown by. This is my last week of regular class, a few finals next week, and then I’ll be catching a flight to Atlanta. We had been shocked with how nice the weather has been in Rexburg lately. We’ve had no snow at all until late last night. I walked home from the testing center on Saturday in just a t-shirt. I just looked at the weather and it’s scheduled to snow for the next 10 days, so our good luck has been cut off. School work has been rather time consuming lately, but we have made a bit of time for a few social events. I went on a date about two weeks ago. We went up to Kelly Canyon and rode snowmobiles. It was a full moon so you could see everything perfectly. There were plenty of deer out there too. A week ago we attended an 80’s party. A large group of us were completely decked out, but when we got to the party there was barely anyone dressed up. Thursday night we went down to Pocatello for a concert (The Format, for anyone that cared). It was really good except the singer got hit in the face with a shoe and almost left. The best part of the night was when he said “HOW YOU DOIN’ BOISE STATE?!” and it was dead silent. Little did he know he was at ISU. Hahahaha. In other news, I ate a meal worm in my Biology Lab class. It was for 5 points extra credit. I could have eaten 20 of them if he hadn’t of put a 1 per person limit on it. They tasted like little french-fries. My roommate Nicole just got engaged on Wednesday. She hopes to have the wedding February 16, so there has been a mad scramble on making wedding plans and decisions. I have a few more finals and a talk to give on Sunday and then I am home free. I’ve been sending packages back to Georgia to myself, because I don’t think I will have room to fly out with all my belongings. Main street in Rexburg is completely covered with lights. It looks really pretty. Last night I ate my first dinner at the Galley. During this time of the semester everyone is trying to use up meal passes as fast as they can. Lucky for me I have a few guy friends in that situation. Anyway, I better get back to studying…