Fall Festivities.

Soaking in the sun with a few final picnics

Carving pumpkins

Frolicking

Dressing up even after Halloween

Making soup

Going on beautiful hikes with my mom

"Fall"-ing. So glad my mom got a picture of that.

Nothing as beautiful as Utah in the Fall time!

Camping in the back of the van

The after/next morning picture of camping

Building forts

Enjoying beautiful fall colors

Going to receptions. Understandably, everyone wants to get married in the best season. It was so fun to see my Jerusalem friends at the second Jerusalem couple reception!

Elections! Here's campaigning Idaho style.

Farewell Fall. I guess those festivities are over. Time for new festivities. Like this:

And this:

And this.

Okay fine, now I'm ready. Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

It's all in the GLASSES

You know those movies where the girl starts out unfortunate looking? Then all of a sudden one day she's not-so-unfortunate-looking and everyone is like Woah! Well I've noticed a common thread in these movies -almost all of those girls had glasses. I resent that. ("So do I!") I don't think that one pair of glasses makes you ugly. I wore glasses for years and I just don't want to believe that. Either you are beautiful and the glasses are just a distraction that kind of hides your beauty or there are many features contributing to the not-so-fortunate look.

What brought this all on? Well I was watching Taylor Swift's music video You Belong With Me. Check it out. Supposedly the glasses are supposed to make her look bad? Then all of a sudden she takes them off and TA-DA! Who knew she was beautiful? I did. Just look beyond the lens people. Then there's Princess Diaries which does the opposite thing with her hair. You really expect me to believe that no one could tell she had a makeover and they only notice something when she takes off her hat? Not buying it.

I'm just really concerned about this philosophy that glasses = ugly. The thing is sometimes I'm lazy and I don't want to wear my contacts so I wear my glasses. I just don't think there's a huge difference.

Without glasses:

With glasses:

Do you?

Winner for most visits goes to...

BENJY

During my time here at BYU-I I've been blessed with so many fun visitors. Each visitor has been awesome, but there is one visitor that stands above the rest and that is Benjy. He has come all the way up to Idaho each semester just to visit me. Okay fine, maybe he was coming up anyways - but he always makes an effort to see me. I've seen him every semester (and sometimes twice) and it always makes me so happy to see him and get a good Benjy hug. This is late, but here are some pictures from his visit last month -

Benjy took me out to eat with the money that Mom sent him. :) What a gem.

We had more time than usual which was way nice. I gave Benjy a little tour of campus. He was excited to see all the basketball courts. Probably as excited as he'll be that I posted this picture. Sorry Benj - I think it's cute though. We also got to watch the new Psych episode which was fun since we used to do that all the time together.

Thanks Benjy! You win the Most Visits Award. Your prize? You get an award of some sort. Uh, how about a ride in the Chair of Cheers? And no, the child didn't mention a check.

Worst (as in best) Villains

Shan Yu. Where to start. Um, he's kind of large, has creepy hair, yellow eyes, and the scariest, long eyebrows I've ever seen. And his hand pops out of the snow "like daisies." Creepy.

If I had to run into a villain then I would pick Madam Mim. She is hilarious and can make herself uglier yet. Plus she's mad about games and will give you a sporting chance. Plus in the end Merlin would show up and save me and then I could watch their wizards duel.

Sometimes animals are the villains. Usually it's the tiger or lion that's the villain (Swiss Family Robinson, Jungle Book.) Well the best animal villain is Scar. First off he's the worst brother and uncle ever. Also he hangs out with hyenas. And he has really creepy eyes.

Ugliest villain goes to this guy. I think he's a villain at least. I don't remember because I dislike the sequel Pirate movies so much that I forced myself to sleep during them. I think I'll blame him for chasing me away from watching the beautiful Will Turner.

Villains have some pretty awesome inventions. Professor Fate from the Great Race has some pretty sweet weapons, however Mrs. Meers from Thoroughly Modern Millie wins for coolest weapons. Why? Because somehow they're all in her ring or chopsticks.

For some reason Disney has this bad habit of making mothers the villain. Lady Tremaine on Cinderella. The Queen on Snow White. Well those are nothing compared to Mother Gothel. Kidnapping you and pretending to be your mother for your entire life? Creepy. Worst. Fake-Mom. Ever.

Sometimes villains are really dumb. Most of the time I think they are quite humorous. However, there's one dumb villain I never want to cross paths with and that's Lina Lemont. She can't sing, she can't dance, and she can't act. Triple threat. What a dope.

You know what would be the worst thing ever? If a villain had a crush on you. Poor Laurie. I can't believe she agreed to go to the box social with Jud Fry just to make Curly jealous. That was a stupid move. Jud is a peeping-tom who has anger issues and likes to light haystacks on fire. Yeah I'd never want him to have a crush on me.

Harry Potter has a lot of villains. A lot. Well forget about Draco Malfoy and He-who-must-not-be-named, have you seen Bellatrix Lestrange? She is the definition of evil. I was almost her for Halloween, but I didn't want to end the night without friends.

Unfortunately most of the villains on Disney Channel end up turning good at the end or they show a few redeeming qualities throughout. Well the best consistently bad villain on Disney Channel goes to Kate Sanders from Lizzie McGuire. Mostly because although she may seem nice at certain points she's not fooling me. Deep down I know she's making fun of my outfit and trying to beat me out for Ethan Craft. (Sorry about the baby picture, I couldn't find a better one.)

There's one villain that wins for giving me the most nightmares. That would be Injun Joe from Tom and Huck. I used to always watch this with my cousin Hil. She had a crush on Huck and I had a crush on Tom (JTT). We watched this movie right before she went on her mission and decided that it was totally legitimate for us to be terrified of Injun Joe. And it still is. He hangs out in graveyards, calls little boys fat, and he will ask you if the marble belongs to you. If you don't think he's that bad of a villain then watch this: Scary Injun Joe. Now do you believe me? Worst (as in best) villain ever.

How to Be a Star Bellied Sneetch

First - have a cool cousin who comes up with the idea and then lets you steal it when she can't do it with you. Next, find someone to be a star bellied sneetch with you. If you don't then your frankfurter roasts won't be fun.

Find a yellow outfit. You can try DI, but this failed us. So we went to GENX and got man shirts. It was kind of trial and error for a bit.

Figure out the stuffing. You don't want to look like Spongebob, or a pregnant lady with a star on your stomach

Get a star and sew it on. "Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small.

You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all."

Get some brilliant collar thing going. Maybe your sister Marie can make one for you.

Sew in elastic to the bottom. Maybe your Mom will do this for you.

Get some awesome sneetch hair going on. Maybe Jessie will do this for you while you finish your homework.

Find some beautiful shoes to work the outfit with.

Go out to the cherry tree in your backyard and steal some branches. Then put mallows on them.

Lastly, make sure you raise your snoots in the air, sniff and then snort,

“We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”

WARNING: Stay away from Sylvester McMonkey McBean, he'll try and trick you!

Best Surprise Ever!

This last week was horrible. It was just a very busy, rotten week. Sunday night I lay in bed thinking about everything I had to do that week and I got so discouraged. Monday Marie called me and got to hear all my pouting. She was so sweet and sympathetic. Friday I was talking to Marie again and she surprised me by saying she and Tia were planning on driving up Saturday and staying here until Sunday! I was so excited I kept dancing around all Friday.

Marie and Tia got here Saturday afternoon. Marie came with meals already prepared. So sweet! Even though our time was short we still fit in so much. It was just fun to see them and get to hold their sweet little girls. I've missed those girls and I'm pretty sure they missed me too.

After lunch I gave a tour of some of my favorite things on campus. Marie loved the new BYU-Idaho center and she took some pretty awesome videos so I thought I'd share them here:

After the tour we came back to my apartment and just talked. It's kind of funny when I think back on how I used to hate just talking and I always wanted to play a game. Totally different now. After another delicious meal from Marie they took me out to Nielsens Frozen Custard. This place is amazing. Back in the day when we went to St. George all the time we would usually stop here and split delicious custard. You can imagine just how excited I was when I came back this semester to find one in Rexburg!

Next we went to the hotel and hot-tubbed and then watched Princess Bride. The next day, Sunday, we found a church and went to that ward. Sacrament Meeting is much more enjoyable when you have a little angel in your arms. After church we went to the temple for a bit. They came back to my apt. for a little while longer and then they left. That is a very short summary of what we did. It's hard to sum it all up though - the best part was just seeing them!

I'm so thankful they came. That is a huge sacrifice to take an 8 hour drive for a 24 hr visit, especially with two little girls. After they left I felt this overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I was so touched at their thoughtful notion to come and visit. Marie said after she got off the phone with me on Monday she quickly suggested to Tia the idea of coming up here and they both got so excited to surprise me. Well it was a great surprise. After a pretty difficult past few weeks their visit was an answer to prayers.

Thanks Purcell Family!

Psyched.

I have an obsession. Well I have a few (Tootsie Rolls, Hoodies, Disney Channel Movies, etc.), but this obsession is pretty bad. A few years a go I was procrastinating homework (which I'm quite good at) and I decided to borrow my roommate's DVDs of some series called Psych. Well I fell in love with it. That semester I watched the first two seasons. Since then I have anxiously waited and watched the new episodes as they've come out. In the meantime I have introduced others to Psych. I'm proud to say that I have gotten quite a few people almost as addicted as I am. Well yesterday was the Season 6 premiere. Danielle, Tia, and I have been watching this show together for years so we knew there had to be some type of celebration. Here's what we did:

We made a pineapple pinata.

We ate Chinese Food. They're always eating Chinese food on Psych.

Tia and Danielle made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake. It was evil.

No we didn't karate chop the pineapple. We hit it with a ruler. It was too cold to go outside so we did a smaller version.

I haven't had a pinata in quite a while. I was excited.

Worst picture ever. But I had to show one of my candy house since Marie, Jess, and I used to do that.

This was the display we had out all day. Yes I own all 5 seasons of Psych (Thanks to Benjy and Aunt Patti for helping me out.) Yes Danielle has the Blueberry. We found it at Broulims. Also I have a Psych notebook thanks to my awesome cousin Alison. So there you have it. I'm addicted. Some people call the fans Psych-o's. That makes me sound like a crazy person so I think I'll just say I've been Psyched.