conquering the world and getting mauled by bears in the process

I realized that this summer has become a summer for me to step out of my comfort zone. There are a lot of things I've done this summer that I never would have done in the past. Mostly because in the past, I am pretty positive I'll get hurt in the process of said activity so I'd rather just avoid it altogether. This attitude makes life less fun and so my summer experiences have made for some great times and thus, I encourage you to step out of your comfort box and go conquer the world. Let me give you some ways you can do this:
1. Even if you're afraid of falling to your death when you're up high, go anyways. There are a lot of activities that you're missing out on if you're too afraid of heights. Last Saturday, my roommates and I went to the local water park. The first ride they wanted to ride was the Boomerange which is essentially a giant water half pipe. Kind of like this:

So naturally I'm yelling in my head "No way. Please don't make me go on that. I will die or at the very least break my head open." But I don't say it out loud. I just climb up the stairs and do it. Twice. And it was the bomb.

2. When your friends want you to go shoot the tube, say yes. Even if you can picture yourself breaking your leg in the process. Listen to the nice man who tells you exactly how to not get hurt, climb up the tunnel with your water tube, sit down in your water tube in the tunnel and enjoy the ride back down. You won't die but you will laugh! (P.S. We didn't actually dam up the water like the article says, because there was already a ton of water going through the tunnel. We're suspecting this is because of how long it took for all the snow to melt but it's very likely we're making things up.)

3. When your friends want you to go slid down a natural rock slid/water fall and then afterwards hike to the top of the waterfall, do it! Yesterday, after shooting the tube, we went to the Alpine rock slide with a bunch of people. It's pretty cool and really pretty. The part I wasn't so much a fan of was the hike to the top. The boys we were with told us it was only a 15 minute or so hike and it wasn't really that bad. They lied. It was more of a 30 minute hike through the middle of the woods with no trail. Thus, we were walking through trees, through water, over rocks etc. And 5 minutes in, one of my flip flops (because I wasn't prepared for hiking when we started this adventure) fell off and rushed down the waterfall, never to be seen again. So now I'm hiking barefoot. It really wasn't that bad and I wasn't being a complainer. But you also should understand that sometimes I'm pretty uncoordinated, especially when it comes to climbing things. So the whole climbing through rock filled water wasn't working so well for me. I decided to try stepping it up a little bit and not being such a baby and instead of that plan working out really well for me, I slipped on the rock and slammed/skidded both of my legs down the rock. Needless to say, it hurt pretty bad but I wasn't going to let anyone else know that. The waterfall was really pretty though and despite my injury and the fact that today every single part of my body feels like I got in a fight with a bear, it was worth it.

4. When the entire school tells you that you have to eat at the local hot dog joint that is literally a 2 minute walk from your apartment, do it, even though you think hot dogs are disgusting. Because maybe they're right and it doesn't really taste like a hot dog. Maybe it is actually pretty good (though not good enough to eat every day...) My roommate convinced me last week to go with her for dinner and I was a bit sceptical, but did enjoy it. I've definitely been more open to trying new foods this summer and so far it hasn't worked out to horribly.

So basically, the moral is that you should try new things. And your life will be fabulous.

Also, I have another exciting story to tell that just doesn't exactly fit into the rest of the post. So it's going here. It's Friday night and it's in between apartment contracts so there aren't a whole lot of people to hang out with. My roommates and I are trying to decide what to do when we hear a knock at the door. Some boys from our ward are there and they invite us to go to the dollar theater with them. Naturally we shout hooray and run out the door with them. On the way to the theater, the driver is at a unprotected left hand turn. The light turns yellow but there are still cars going so he can't turn. Then it turns red and we're in the middle of the intersection so he has to turn so we can get out of the way. So he starts to turn when all of us look over and realize that there is a car that is about to run the red light and t-bone us. And it was terrifying. The car tries to slow down, our driver is in shock and it trying to move but has also semi stopped the car, and all of us in the car are bracing for impact. I've got my eyes squeezed tightly shut at this point and I'm bracing myself against the front seats. I sit that way for a minute and realize that we should have been hit by now. Why was there no impact? I look around sort of confused and see that the other car swerved around the back of us and we all lived. But it was freaking crazy. And I really did think we were about to be in a serious accident and possibly die...Also we saw Green Lantern once we made it to the dollar theater and I'm not entirely sure it was worth the near death experience. Except that Ryan Reynolds was in it and he's basically a hottie.

fame

You'll never guess who the next big T.V. star is...


Let me backtrack a little before jumping into that bit of information though. Last week I was able to go home and visit my family. It was some fabulous times. I also went to Girl's Camp as a leader with my sisters and dad. We hiked mountains, peed in the woods and took minimal showers. Sounds great huh?


So after camp, we were relaxing at home and going through the recording of the Royal Wedding since I didn't actually see the wedding part as I was standing outside of Buckingham Palace that morning experience my own little part of the wedding. We're going through all of the pre-wedding stuff and we get to the part where Pippa and the other bridesmaids and page boys drive past Buckingham on their way to Westminster. Well folks, guess what happens that that part? The cars drive right past where my friends and I were standing and you can freaking see my face in the crowd. No lie. I have become an international televison star. Now if only people knew my name...

literally freezing my butt off

Saturday night some friends and I went ice blocking. As my dad informed me, his "generation invented ice blocking" so I shouldn't need to explain what it is, but just in case, you take a block of ice, sit on it, and slid down a hill. Pretty simple. It was tons of fun and a great little adventure since most of us hadn't done it before, myself included. I thought I might give those of you who want to ice block a few tips:


1. Use a towel in between you and the ice. Otherwise you're cold and your butt gets stuck to the ice.
2. Accept the fact that you may crash. Every time. I only made it all the way down the hill on the ice once. The rest of the time, I rolled half way down the hill while the ice slid down without me...
3. Be a little risky. But not too risky. We did some pretty sweet things like going down as a train (until my ice block came out from underneath me and we all ran into each other) or going down backwards (too risky in my book) but it makes it all the more enjoyable.
4. Choose your hill wisely. Our hill was big. And scary.
5. If the park your at has a sign warning you that ice blocking is dangerous, do it anyways. I only walked away with a bruise and I crashed more than anyone else. And according to Wikipedia "hazards include falls, bruises, bug bites and getting covered in mud." We all know that Wikipedia can be trusted completely, which means your hazards are minimal. =]
6. If you're a girl, go with boys. They do dumb things and you can laugh at them.


So once everything is said and done, you should experience this recreational activity at least once in your life time. That way you can tell your kids that your generation invented ice blocking. And they'll never even know who really invented it.

tis the season

I have a slight obsession with textbooks. Only at the very beginning of the semester when they're all new and I get to see what I'm learning about. I get beyond excited about it. So excited in fact, that I may have gone to the BYU bookstore this afternoon to see what textbooks were available for me to buy. Yes, I know, Fall semester doesn't start for another month. But I just couldn't contain myself.

I came away with two packets for my Living Prophets class, a hymn book in Spanish for my Spanish class, computer exercises for my Spanish class (which I have to return because I'm dumb and didn't realize that they are for Mac's only...unless my parents go out on a whim and decide they love me enough to buy me a Mac), and flashcards for my Spanish class, which was the most exciting purchase. Why? Because next to text books, flashcards are my second obsession. I have made flashcards for every class I've ever taken at BYU. And they may or may not all be saved in a box under my bed...Really though, I learn so well by using flashcards for terms and whatnot. So I'm freaking excited that some smarty decided that it would be a genius idea to make flashcards for us because now I don't have to spend a million hours making them. And I can also look through them before I'm even in the class!! Which is how I determined that my Spanish skills suck a lot worse than I thought they did...

You may have also noticed that I didn't actually get any real textbooks. I'm pretty disappointed about that, but they didn't have any of the ones I needed out on the floor yet. I jumped the gun just a little too much I suppose.

blog revamping

Since being back from London, I realized that my life has been less crazy and more nerdy. Now, this isn't really a surprise since a) Provo and London don't even compare on the crazy scale and b) I'm always been nerdy. It just doesn't always show.


The more I blog, the more nerdy my blog posts get. So I decided it was time for a blog change since my life has changed. really nothing but the layout at title are changing. but it was a necessary change. I hope you continue to enjoy all the randomness that ends up on here.

addictions

I have recently discovered a new addiction called Modern Family. It's basically the most hilarious TV show ever. My roommate Shawna got me addicted. And then I got Kelsey addicted. I know this probably isn't that exciting but first of all, you should go check it out and second of all, I felt like I needed more than one point to this post so its just a precursor to my real addiction.

My real addiction is not drug or alcohol related, though I'm sure you though I was about to spill some deep dark secret of mine. My real addiction is chapstick. I always have chapstick on me. Also, I always loose my chapstick. Which Kelsey will attest too as she sees me searching for it practically every night. So Kelsey found this YouTube video of a fellow chapstick addict, who also must loose it quite often. You will laugh, I promise. Just make sure you get to the very end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f​eature=player_embedded&v=5qYY0​6KD_Zg

the end of my childhood

My life ended last night at roughly 2 a.m. I walked through the cars laughing with my friends but inside I was crying as I left the last ever Harry Potter movie. It was hard enough when the books were over, but now everything Harry Potter related will just be old news...


Harry has been there with me since I was eight years old. What am I supposed to do with my life now? I just don't know...


For those of you that haven't seen the movie yet, you may want to hold off on reading the rest of this. The movie was good. But it wasn't my favorite. I just don't think it did the book justice. Everything was a million times cooler in my head. But also, maybe I'm just being a complainer because it is the end, and that's the only way I know how to react. I really didn't hate it though. Plus Kelsey, Kaylee and I made awesome t-shirts. Tara, unsurprisingly, came dressed as Professor Trelawny. Hannah completely forgot that it was last night and thought it was tonight. And we all finally got to see her since she just got back from Europe this week. Wilford was able to put up with 5 girls for six hours. And Harry Potter didn't die. So overall it was a good night. I enjoyed the movie. But I love to books so much more.


I have to share this quote as well. I honestly can't remember for sure if it's in the book, but it was in the movie. And basically is sums up how I feel about all of my Harry Potter experiences.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" -Albus Dumbledore