Happiness Haps.

Here are some things that were pure happiness these last weeks....

1. Painting with the Mr. Ladd. I'm impressed with our water coloring skills, but no worries, it was mostly him. I only did the sky. Which actually, I think looks quite lovely. Man, I want to go to Paris

2. Hanging out with Cosmo at the last home gymnastics meet. Just the norm.

3. Hunger Games. I'm obsessed. Definitely cried throughout and still, it is the hottest topic at our lunch table.

4. The Holi Festival of Colors. So much fun, so much color. Definitely a must-do if you're ever living near Spanish Fork, Utah.

5. Less than a month till I am in Orlando and working at Disney World! Seriously, I cannot wait. Looking forward to lifeguarding, visiting the beach over and over, and meeting lots of new friends. It's going to be the life.

Gosh, I'm so excited for life. Hello, last two weeks of school, could things be any crazier? I think not! So many things to look forward to in the future, and although there is some sadness and the fact that I currently do not know any of my male friends in the fall, (this is what happens with missions.. girls have no male friends going into fall, it's cool) I am so excited for life. I see life as this wonderful thing that just is happiness crammed into an overflowing ocean of joy. I don't even know if that makes sense, but that's about how gigantic life is for me; an ocean, but one of joy.

Ain't this life the best?

Love always,
Ems

Birthday Dinner.

Remember how I love Josh and Sarah so much?
I love them a lot.

They had me and my 3 Mesa girls
(we missed you, Cuc!)
over for dinner on Wednesday night.

Josh made some delicious mexican food for us-
REAL mexican food, people.

We were all in paradise.

After the heavenly mexican meal,
we had an erupted volcano cake....
long story there.

It was a beautiful night filled with lots of great conversation,
funny books about kissing with confidence,
and lots of awkward stories from Josh and Sarah about
weird people they dated.

I feel so blessed.

Hip Hip for the last year of teenage-hood!

Love always,
Ems

The Best Class Ever (Continued)

Remember how I posted that video about RMYL215?
It's the best class ever.

If I were Rapunzel, I would swing around a tree saying,
"THIS IS THE BEST CLASS EVER!!!"
But I'm not....
so that image will have to suffice y'all.

Here's why that class is the best.

 Buddy the Elf came to our class today.

Yup.

It's the coolest class.

And then, we enjoyed the four main food groups:
Candy, Candy Canes, Candy Corn, and Syrup.

Well, Cameron and Mitch did.....

The girls stood around and took pictures. 

So classic Team Awesome.

Love those people.

Seriously, take this class.

You can't even understand how awesome Dr. Palmer is until he's standing in front of the class singing, dancing, and acting out all sorts ridiculous things. 

He's a hoot, a real hoot.

Oh man, I love that class.

I'm going to be so sad to see the end of it on my birthday next week.

Love always,

Ems

Lots to Talk About.

Hello, people of the blogging world. 

There is a lot to talk about, just as my title says.
We have....
boys
weekends
pictures
adventures
music
school
school
school.
And, some more school.

Let me tell ya, I love school, but it's gosh darn hard.
But still, I love it.
I've switched my minor...
in my head....
I never actually declared it with the officials.
I've decided, for now, on communications and possibly a double minor in French.
We will see how that works out for me.

As I told Becca on Saturday,
I think I'd rather clean houses all day then go to school.
Something is wrong with that sentence.

So, here's a quickie update on life in the room with a view.

We spent a weekend up in Park City a while back and Kassie about broke Caroline's finger in our adventures in baking. Kassie was traumatized. The rest of us were just trying not to die of laughter.

This was the night of technology overload. I was on the phone with my dad, texting Jacob, and also on goggle docs with my dad editing my essay. It was a lot to take in. Regardless, please just be so amazed at this conversation Jacob and I were having. Really, I'm still trying to figure out if this kid is real or if he's just pretending....

One of my favorite things?
Smart Water.
Especially when I get the otter.
Not so much when I get the lobster.

But really, how can you refuse to recycle with such a cute thing encouraging you?

One night, as we were sitting at dinner, Asa calls Alex and Alex sprints out of the Cannon Center.
Next thing I know, I'm getting a call from Alex who tells me I need to smuggle out food because they have a kitten and he's starving.
I, of course, made the boys do it.
So Jacob made this nasty meat sandwich....
And then he had to throw it away because you cannot take food out go the Cannon Center.
Operation Food for Kitten: fail.

I've never seen boys so in love with a kitten.

Here's another tragedy.
Mr. Collins got knocked off the window sill....
We replanted him in Javert's pot.
Hopefully that doesn't kill him.

One night I walked into our room and found our sink a war zone.....
Who knows what happened;
however, now I am an expert light fixer.

HALLOWEEN TIME!

We had an awesome Halloween. 

We dressed up as 80's rockers,

and our favorite ward boys had the most creative outfits. 

Exhibit A. 

Dallin and Michael dressed as Michael and Dallin.

If you knew them, you would be laughing a lot harder. 

All our ward boys. 

Included in the array of outfits are Winnie the Pooh, a Utah fan, thugs slash mobsters, a pirate, and a Hunter (because his name is Alex Hunter.... it's puny...)

Our very favorite Salt Lake City boy came and visited us!
We were so very happy to see him even though his costume was a bit pathetic....
And Nate is excellently photobombing in this picture.

So yes, that is the life from the room with a view.

Life, my friends, is good.
I love being up here at the good 'ole BYU.
There really is not a better school, and most definitely there are no better people than the people I have been able to become friends with.
Isn't it great to look around and realize how blessed we are?

Love always,
Ems

The Weekend in Review.

Bonjour, les amis!

Let me tell you, this weekend was beautiful in so many ways.
It made me really want to be in love.

No worries, Mom and Dad,
I'm not getting married anytime soon
(although, I wish it was the future so I was...)

Regardless of that desire, I'm loving being a freshman,
promise.

Here's why this weekend made me want to be in love.

My cousin, Shawnee, got married and my family and I spent the weekend in Salt Lake enjoying wedding stress and festivities.

Here's the thing,
it rekindled my love for weddings more than anything before.
There's no degree for wedding planning though,
and therein lies my dilemma.

Anyway, here's the happy couple enjoying their first dance.
It makes my heart melt.

True love.
It's very much worth the wait,
I just keep saying that to myself.

In other news,
I had this frustration the other week about how sad it is that little children in other countries cannot enjoy Dr. Seuss because his wit and rhymes would not translate well.
Lo and behold, I found this in Anthropologie.

Green Eggs and Ham in French.
French, my beloved language.
I added it to my birthday list the moment I saw it and I am now satisfied to know that children in other countries can appreciate Dr. Seuss as much as I do.

Here are some other pictures from the weekend. I was so happy all weekend. Nothing better.

Sunday afternoon, Bexs decided to be a hippster for .5 seconds.
Doesn't she look like a genuine hipster?
Fake glasses, obscure band t-shirt, jean jacket and all!

 Scotty, Bexs, our home-ward friend Alisha (she was visiting from Idaho) and I decided to go on a little walk after dinner.
We got stuck outside the Marriott center because the grass looked so lush that I just had to lay in it.
It ended up that Scotty became our photographer for a bit.
Scotty rocks, needless to say.

 Bexs wanted to creepily crawl towards Scotty....

The reason for our walk was to delivere a package to Morgan, but she was in church.
So, logically, we hid the package in a bush outside the Marriott center while we went to the temple.

The temple was beautiful. 
I actually would consider getting married there if my dear Mesa temple were closed. (a very real possibility)

See all the missionaries behind us?
It was temple visiting time for a large portion of the MTC and it was crazy how many missionaries were there! I named it the missionary invasion.

On our way home, we ran into none other than Elder Conrad Nicole!
This is our super confused picture.
It's a classic, obviously.

Last, but most certainly not least, a plant update.

Javert, unfortunately, died. 

We were going to have a proper funeral for him last weekend by throwing him in the river, but, he was left in Alex and Lindsey's room.

So, last night, as we created our Scale, this package slides into our room.

I just about died of laughter, as did Bexs and Scotty.
Night, made.

Life is so wonderful, my friends!
Keep on keeping on!

Love always,
Ems

How to Spend a Sunday Correctly.

Today, as we sat at dinner with Scotty Andrews,
We decided that we needed a scale to rate guys by.

Originally, we were going to use real guys we knew with code names.

That wasn't nice though, so we went for the fictional aspect of things....

Disney Princes. Here's what we came up with....

Pretty self-explanatory.

Then, since the princes have weak-sauce personalities, we came up with a personality scale using only our very favorite chick-flicks.

Here's that one....

This one calls for explanation.
So Noah and Darcy are the best fictional characters invented.
Thank you, Mr. Sparks and Ms. Austen.
Noah is just a bit more forward, which we love.
Plus, we don't know how P&P ends, so.... Where's the rest of their life to judge by?
(Although secretly, I love Darcy maybe a tad more than Noah...)

Next, we have the self-sacrificing lovers.
Gerry, from PS I Love You.
Tears. Every. Time.
Need I say more?
No.
And then Landon Carter from A Walk to Remember.
Heart breaking story of love and a man doing everything he can to make his one love happy.
Even marrying her when he knows he will only have her for a little.
(Scotty thinks Landon is better than Gerry, but we're undecided so we left him where he is...
pretty much, all the top guys are amazing and we would marry any of them)

Anyway...
Then we have the Toms.
Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle.
"Just a good guy." -Becca.
And Tom from {500} Days of Summer.
We love Tom, but he needs to wear the pants a bit more.

So, here are the less desirables.
The ones we still love but can't quite handle: Rhett Butler and Heathcliff.
Rhett Butler loves Scarlett to the moon and back, but....
So much arrogance.
Dislike.
Heathcliff, is a passionate lover.
A bit too much passion and um....
maybe just a bit too vengeful,
but just a bit.

Then, the two VERY undesirables.
John Willoughby, heart breaker.
He should teach a course on it.
Thank you Colonel Brandon for saving Marianne.
And....
Mr. Collins.
Need anyone say more on this matter?
I protest not.

So, there you have it.
Please refer back to this if you ever are lost on the blog about guys.

Love always,
Ems, Bexs, and Scotty Andrews.

p.s. this may be our biggest accomplishment of college yet.

So Goes the Life.

Life over here in Ptown has been stupendous.

Since I cannot remember the last time I blogged,
I'll just upload some pictures of what has been going on.

This was our view during conference. It was so beautiful. And not cold. 

Now it's cold.

Representing the 108th ward at Tunnel Singing! 

Ryan, the boy in the picture, is going to Germany for his mission.

He was waiting to announcing it right then.

On Friday, my Book of Mormon friend, David, ate lunch with Maeser and I! We convinced him to forego homework and go with us to Morgan's to make cookies. He said he was only going to stay for 15 minutes. He stayed for 2 hours. Rylee and Drew joined us and it was so much fun! Even if our attempt at cookie bowls was an utter failure. 

This is an extremely awkward picture of everyone. But a keepsake, nonetheless.

 It rained for two days straight last week. 

Cold.

So much coldness.

On the upside, there was so much fun umbrella and bootness that went on. 

Hence, this picture.

 Then, on Saturday, we ended the night at the football game.

We won, and we froze.

Again, so cold.

What are we going to do when it becomes winter- a real winter, with snow and negative temperatures?

I think I shall just become an ice cube.

As we walked home, we noticed the Y was only half-lit,

so odd.

So I snapped a picture.

Today, was a productive Monday. I already have my humanities reading done for Wednesday. That is something that never happens. So, I am very happy. Tayla came over to our dorm after FHE and we all did homework. And yes, we really did do homework. Then we celebrated homework with photo booth. Of course. 

Oh, life is so good.

Love always,

Ems

Life is Grand, so Grand.

Hello friends!
Life over her at Helamen Halls is going well,
of course.
This week was a bit stressful between sickness, homework, and midterms but, we pulled through most successfully and then had a most wonderful weekend!

Last week, we took a trip to Costa Vida after our Friday classes. We really miss our weekly Cafe Rio trips so we had to settle for the second best- Costa. It was satisfying, but not as much as Cafe. Someday we'll get down to Cafe.

 The Gang:

This weekend was started off with a bang! We went to the BYU vs. UCF game which BYU won! Oh happy day! And we had 4th row tickets! FOURTH ROW TICKETS PEOPLE. It was awesome!

Here are some happenings at the game. We love BYU football. Especially when they redeem themselves from the game that must not be named.

I don't know what's going on in this picture....

Becca and Sean know a secret, apparently.

Yup, Cosmo came up to us. Becca screamed so loud every time he was close. (oh an ps please love the girl in the background... it makes me laugh every.time.)

 Yesterday, after the Alumni lunch for Arizona kids (which we won stuff at!), Becca and I went to take some tests- the testing center was CRAZY. Then I came home to study and she went about doing Sean things. Anyway, as I was walking in the hallway, Alyssa, the RS president from upstairs asked if I was going to the Marriott center for the RS broadcast then gave me a ticket to got to Salt Lake to see it in the conference center! It was an AMAZING experience. And Pres. Ucthdorf's talk was astounding... it brought me to tears.

After, the five girls I was with went and walked around Temple Square. It was so lovely.

I came home, Tyler helped me with my French homework, and then got his guitar and played for me. Yup, I spent the rest of the evening being serenaded. Ya know, the norm.

So life is grand.
We love most everything about it.
Except the stress, but with chocolate milk, it's all ok.

Becca's words of advice for the week are,
"When you're having a hard time motivating yourself, just use a green pen. It's more fun!"
Thanks, Bexs.

I hope everyone has an amazing Sunday!
I'm quite certain we will!

Love always,
Ems