honolulu grill's so you think you can dance

a late halloween post

as much as my roommate wanted me to stay to party with here

i had to go home to go to my annual family halloween party!

(and to see my mom home from her world travels)

although we couldn't stay at the party the whole time cause we had to make the drive back,

it was worth the few hours we were there!

this year was probably the best turn out of costumes..

which always makes it more fun, 

when you can laugh at others and your own for creativity.

(or lack there of!) 

{queen of  ♥'s, alice, and the white rabbit}

thanks for such a fun time aunt lori! 

can't wait for next year

{then & now}

{then}

&

{now}

i {heart} friendships

..my kind of "work"

so i was "discovered" at work the other day when my boss asked me to rewrite this board for our member appreciation day that she already wrote on and this is what i came up with...

 i absolutely love to doodle on white boards, so what a fun way to spend half my time at work. the next day when my boss saw it she loved it so much she said that i was to paint the windows next.. now i was a little  stressed... cause 1 i've never painted windows before, 2 i couldn't mess up because it's not as easy to erase like a white board is and3 it had to be good cause it's going to be up there for a while and a lot of people were going to see it.

i was given my paints and told to clean the windows first. i was told to paint on the inside of the windows so in case it rains it wouldn't come off. but the thing about painting from the inside is that the writing has to be reversed and backwards. this worried me. i used a dry erase marker first to see how it would look, and i was trying so hard to write backwards. fail, but then help of a coworker came to the rescue.. he told me to write it normally on the outside of the window so i could just copy it from the inside. duh!

as i got it down it became a lot of fun! people were nice and even complimenting me on my work, the most common thing said was, "hey looking good!" i  liked pretend they were just talking about me, and not the windows. hahaha  but i did get awkwardly hit on a few times too.. i haven't yet so it must have been something like i'm not as intimidating when i'm not behind a desk or something..

anyway it turned out really good, here's a look

(i know it's hard to see because it's a window and it was 9 o'clock at night)

but you get the idea....

 (the skeleton is my favorite!)

(my cat is quite sad..i have a harder time with animals)

i loved doing it and it took me just about my whole shift! when my boss saw it she said it looked awesome and that i'm no longer allowed to leave. and i got the job replacing the girl who backed out of being the kid face painter for the member appreciation day. that should be fun.. and we get to dress up!

 i'm excited for the next window painting cause the "arts and crafts" are definitely my type of work!

two down...one to go

so here i am trying to keep my promise and keep up the blogging habit. this week has been a little crazy with midterms rolling around. since when did it become midterm!? seriously. i've already taken two tests and got one more to go tomorrow. {by the way i'm covering a shift for a girl tomorrow morning... yup 4:45 to 9 am before my 11 o'clock class..which i have my test in. but when i said yes i didn't know the when the test was going to be yet} so lets hope i can stay awake through it! once i make it through that, it's fall break. whew!

also i want to give a shout out to my brother, sister and dad for having their birthdays this past week!

i'm jealous that bry gets to go to stytcd in vegas with sam,

my dad has been in europe and now south africa with my mom,

and my sister is in disney world with her cute family!

{and i think i found mickey mouse in my ceiling in spite of you}

i hope you all had a wonderful day!

major slacker

i know. i'm a horrible blogger. it's been over four months from my last post. (yikes!!) and i know all my blog stalkers are probably wondering if i ever made it back safely from china. after just a few plane rides, a missed flight, and a few tears, we made it back to our beloved home. i was ever so happy to see those beautiful mountains. and my family. of course. since then so much has happened.... here's a short list of my lately:

bry and sammi's wedding

in st. geroge

and then in fruit heights

a trip fantastic to texas

a few short weeks with my mom before I..

moved to st. george for school

got a car (aka little feather)

met my cute roommates

started school

needed to do something besides school

applied for jobs

got a job two days later working at the

front desk at gold's gym and

now here we are.

i always feel dumb when i write a post. for one i'm not a good writer and second it's not like anyone reads this anyway, right? so why should i really care? well for a personal goal, i'm going to try to keep this up a whole lot better than i have been. lets just hope i'll have some interesting things to write about! until next time...

Beijing

I have been back from Beijing for about two weeks now, so I guess I'm past due on a blog post. Our days were so jam packed that I'm going to have to use my journal for help remembering everything that we did. (just a heads up this trip was a full week, compared to my four day post before. so it's probably going to be really long. read or don't read. at least enjoy the pictures)

 

Here. We. Go.

 

Friday April 30: With our bags already packed and in hand we left right after teaching to the bus station to go to Guangzhou. We weren't taking any chance of us missing our train this time. We made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare and no problems along the way. I must say we are becoming pro at traveling in a foreign country. Boarding time finally comes and I have no idea what to expect on this train. To our luck it was quite nice. We got hard sleeper beds, but hard they were not. They were softer than our beds in our apartment. They are stacked 3 high on each side in a cabin. It worked out perfectly for the six of us to all be together. The train ride was 21 hours long. So on to...

 

Saturday May 1: The night on the train wasn't too bad. Trying to fall asleep was a little hard, I was paranoid that some asian was going to come and steal all of my stuff. But then I got over it and fell asleep. We got off the train around one o'clock and trekked our way to the hostel, from bus to subway, to walking. We stayed at the Candy Inn. It was way nice for a cheap little hostel. We all stayed in one room with three bunk beds that were once again soft.

 

 

After checking in we waisted no time sitting around we headed straight to the Pearl Market for some shopping. It definitely was overwhelming and crazy as you walked down the isle and all you hear is.."you want to buy a purse? come take a look inside. i give you best price. i have best quality..." and so on. We did make it out alive and with some good loot in hand.

 

Sunday May 2: We thought we could master the Great Wall on our own. Fail. So here in China, the first three days are May Holiday. And you can imagine how crazy it is with all the people. I don't think I've seen so many people in my life before. We made it to bus station where every bus there takes you to the Great Wall. But it was like Disneyland on the worst day possible, times 100! There were so many lines. Lines for a seat. Lines for standing. We couldn't even find the end of either of them. And we didn't even know how long it would be before we got on a bus and then the fact of waiting in line at the Great Wall to come home. So we turned around and went home and booked a tour through the hostel. We ended the day by going to an acrobatic show. Amazing. They have crazy strength and flexibility it's unreal. 

 

Then at the very end they bring out this huge metal ball. And the put a motor cycler in there, and then two...three...and then four. I was in awe..then yup a fifth motorcycle comes out and gets into the globe. 5 motorcycles! 

 

Monday May 3: A successful day getting to the Great Wall. Our tour guide came to pick us up at 8. It being the last day of the Holiday we had to get an early start to beat the crowds. First stop: Great Wall. We had about an hour and a half to explore and climb on our own time. Some of those steps are really steep! But it was amazing to be there and see it for myself! It truly is the GREAT WALL.

 

After that Lily our tour guide took us to the Ming tombs. We only got to see one considering there are 13 within the mountain range. But it was really interesting to hear all the facts and reasons of how and why it was built, with all the culture in it.

 

 

We also went to a Jade factory. And then to lunch. After lunch we hit up a Silk factory and we got to see how silk is made. That was really cool. Everything was so soft and pretty. It was a fun filled day, with way more than we expected.

 

Tuesday May 4: This day involved a lot of walking. (everyday does, but it was so filled i think my feet hated me for it) We went to the Summer Palace. It is amazingly beautiful and amazing huge. With it being 2.9 square kilometers, and three quarters of that is water. You can imagine how little we saw, and how much we didn't. We didn't have a tour guide, so we missed out on hearing cool facts about it. But just seeing it was incredible. It was definitely one of my favorite places. 

 

Wednesday May 5: Another shopping day. It threatened and rained for most of the morning. Courtney, Kristen, and I had an adventure finding a flea market. And by the time we got there the day had cleared into a beautiful sunny day! We got some goodies for a great deal. 

 

 

After our time there we met up with the other girls at the Pearl Market. And then found ourselves a Cold Stone. It was heavenly. And it tasted just like home. So yummy!

 

Thursday May 6: Right next to our hostel was the Lama Temple. So we thought we couldn't stay right next to this place and not see it. Inside there is the biggest Buddha carved out of a single piece of sandalwood. It even made Guinness book of world records! It was a little weird to be there and see everyone worship there. (here is the best sneaky picture we could get of it, just so you have an idea of how huge this this is...but no pictures..so shhhhh)

 

 

We then headed to the Temple of Heaven. This temple is where the Emperor would pray for rain to have good harvest for their crops. This place had a real fun atmosphere where tons of people where dancing, singing, playing hack-e-sack and interacting with others.

                            

 

Then we went to the Olympic Park! It was awesome to see the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube and Torch in real life instead of on tv!

 

 

Friday May 7: CATELIN'S BIRTHDAY! We woke up early and headed to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Which once again was massive and incredible. I can't even describe how big it was. 

 

After that we had to pack all of our stuff and get on another train to Xi'an. This is where the Terra Cotta Warriors are. It was an over night trip and we go there bright and early.

 

Saturday May 8: We made it to the hostel which was super nice for just a little place. We took a little rest and then headed off to see the famous warriors. It wasn't like anything I expected at all. It was amazing to see how many there are and how many the are still to be uncovered. 

 

 

Sunday May 9: We hung out at the hostel for the morning and then we were taken to the airport to fly home. (i must say i love airports. a lot less creepy people there and much cleaner. and i feel a lot more safe!)

 

It was an awesome trip fun filled with adventure! There was so much to see and do, and I'm so glad we got to do most everything on our list! Beijing was an amazing place and I would definitely go there again someday!