WE HAVE INTERNET AGAIN!

after a painful five months of no internet, i can finally blog stalk and watch movies and pinterest to my hearts content!

but first, i suppose i should do an obligatory blog post. somehow it's already the end of january? so i figured it was high time i graced the internet again. also because allie texted me and told me to blog like four days ago.

we went to portland last month and it was fantastic. oregon in general is fantastic. having a sweet new nephew to snuggle is fantastic. being with family is fantastic. gah, what a great trip that was. (also, having internet is great. i think that i have an internet addiction.)

while in oregon, we visited the tilamook factory. i don't have any great pictures but just let it be known that i had some orange sherbet ice cream while i was there and i still haven't stopped thinking about it. oh and that dang smoked cheddar cheese. so good. after that, we went to cannon beach on probably the nicest day we could have gone. (this is where you think of your favorite goonies quote to tell me.) the oregon coast is beautiful! so. you know how dr. leo marvin drives one of them old station wagon woodies in 'what about bob?' (this is also where you tell me your favorite 'what about bob?' line.)
mikie and i were talking about how fun that would be to drive one of those old station wagons down the oregon/california coast and just camp outside at nighttime. and then maybe we could end it at disneyland. dibs on the ideal roadtrip right there! (anybody is welcome to join us when we have enough time and money to get away.)

anyway. yesterday, mikie and i went to this semi-sketchy mexican place in town and got some california burritos. they were really good. i recommend california burritos to anybody and everybody. obviously i can't stop thinking about that burrito either. california burritos for LIFE. (life is exciting right now; i'm writing about burritos that i ate.)

right now i am working on knitting a baby blanket for the aforementioned sweet new nephew, peter. it's coming together very well, and i can't wait til it's finished! as i was knitting the other day, i promised myself never again will i try knitting another blanket for fun. and then i laughed because two years ago i told myself i would never ever crochet another afghan. and then i knit a hat and i told myself i would never ever attempt something so ridiculous again. but then i knit mittens.
problems, yo. (blanket inspiration can be found here.) (i'm sure i cannot be the only person in the world that has craft 'problems' like i do.)

and because i don't know how to properly end a blog post unless it is with pictures, here. these are for you. i want to go take a nap.

 ^^cannon beach! what a gorgeous place.

 ^^my dear friend haleigh was married the day after christmas in the salt lake city temple. i'm so happy i was able to be there! haleigh and i have known each other for at least ten years. she's great. a huge congratulations to haleigh + brad!

 ^^more beach stuff. i could live here, probably.

 ^^this man and a baby, i swear. makes my heart melt. peter is just chilling, awake and holding his uncle's finger. ahhhhhh!

 ^^and lastly, some oregon tree pictures. there were several foggy mornings and i seriously loved it.

HERE IS THIS ESSAY, I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.

 happiness.

today, mikie got paid. and today, mikie texted me "gosh, we are poor."

we are poor, college students. or at least- poor, in-between-undergrad and grad school students.

but we are happy. 

we have our health, we have a warm places to live in, and we have each other. we are happily poor. i don't mind one bit.

i know that thanksgiving was last week, and everybody hates the person who posts the frequent "i'm so thankful my life is better than yours because ______." i promise i'm not trying to be that person, but gosh i sure am thankful for this life i live amen.

in other news, mother nature dumped snow two days ago.

//i woke up at 6AM because i have some horrible dbag neighbors who are incredibly inconsiderate (just the usual blasting pop music through their stereos, car honking, and yelling at six in the morning. you know, that sort of stuff.) and when i got out of bed so i could spy on them/throw invisible daggers, i saw one of my favorite thing in the world. snow. and then i couldn't fall back asleep; it was like christmas morning.

do you know what i love about snow? i love the coziness of snow. i love the muffled quiet of snow. i love how the sky never quite gets dark when it snows, it just gets that deep purple color. i love when you look at a street lamp, you can see the snow swirling underneath it. i love how the trees get frosted and how the world seems like a cleaner, quieter place.

//so then the power went out for 50,000 people yesterday. that was great. it was -10 and the power went out for eight and a half hours. thank goodness for down blankets and good books. and for fast food, which somehow still has electricity and stays open.

//i downloaded 'the cowboys' by john williams onto my ipod earlier today. i've listened to it at least four times in a row. i first played this song with the all-state band, and then with the high school symphonic band. sometimes i absolutely marvel that i was able to contribute to music like that. it's beautiful and now i wish i had actually bought high school band cds. man, we were jamming in the high school band.

//i was incredibly excited that i got two kids books for $10 (normally $15-20 each!) on black friday, so this is my life has come to now. i talk about my nursery babes like they're my own kids and stalk their moms' instagrams obsessively because i love those kids so dang much.  i make mikie look with me at the baby + kids clothes at target and old navy. whenever i see a super cute anything, i always think "oh, jack/anna/kirsten/grayden/nursery babe would just LOVE that! can i buy it?" to which mikie says no because apparently these kids have their own parents who buy them things, which... weird. i guess this is called baby fever?

c'est la vie.

and because i don't know how to end this properly- here! these pictures are for you.

^^ i love having my brother live down the road from me. there's something comforting about having family live in the same unfamiliar place as you.

^^i had to drop a bag off at my brother's at seven in the morning. i saw this on the way to his place, and i was strangely thankful to be up so early to catch a beautiful sunrise. you done good, idaho.

^^this dumb picture won't rotate.

^^no such thing as too much whipped cream, right? 

PROCRASTINATION AT ITS FINEST

i'm supposed to be writing a talk right now. i don't want to. so i'm not.

but really, i should really be writing this three minute talk. however, we haven't had internet in FOREVER and so i'm on this internet overload and i just have to blog stalk and pinterest and everything else that requires internet first.

so here we are. stealing wifi from campus and waiting for the byu vs georgia tech game writing my talk.

//mikie and i have been trying to kick these stupid colds. mostly it just makes me really tired, but mikie has been getting sinus headaches, body aches, and pretty much everything one could get from a simple cold. soup has become our new best friend.

//i'm on a quest for a good canvas coat that doesn't cost $400. if anybody has any great suggestions, please let me know because i've been taking mikie's canvas coat and it's... cut out for a man. i'd like to stop wearing a man coat.

//it's been cold and chilly every day this month and i seriously am loving it. fall is my favorite season. i actually think i say that about every season, except for summer. summer is my least favorite season. i. hate. hot.

//okay, a little bit of a tangent, but i seriously do NOT understand people who change pinterest pins of non-diy pins to what their idea of that diy item would be. like that one pin that is like "make letters for a birthday cake out of sticks of colored gum!" but originally it said "make letters out of gum paste." gum paste and sticks of chewing gum. kind of different. also that dumb pin that says "make boiled eggs in the oven." guys. they're not boiled eggs if you bake them.

//so we're sitting on campus, and there is some serious awkwardness going on. people watching has never been so fun. especially that cali bro who left the size sticker on his pants. are you supposed to tell somebody when they do that or just leave them be? what is the social etiquette on these kind of things?

//here are some pictures of fall leaves and other stuff, cause i don't know what else to talk about. geez we're so boring.

eyebrow stuff and not having kids stuff and other stuff (real specific, huh?)

1. i went to this un-official relief society party; it was a make-up and hair night. i also got my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever and guess what! it doesn't hurt! slightly sad that i waited this long to figure that out, but you know what? tweezing isn't supposed to hurt either and it makes my eyes tear up almost as bad as cutting onions. also, i got my eyebrows filled in just for fun and i think i looked like asian frida kahlo. or asian brooke shields. either way, i guess i think highly of myself for comparing myself to those ladies, huh?

2. i was the only one at said party who has never had a baby. so they were all talking pregnancy things like "oh i went to the doctor and he asked about my toenails because something about toenails and babies bla bla bla." and all i did was smile and nod my head like i didn't speak english. so i guess i didn't earn any bonus points for throwing in witty and funny comments into that conversation.

3. my brother is visiting, and found mikie's nerf guns. things i have learned: being caught in the middle of a nerf battle that you have no interest in is the worst thing in the world. put that up there with cutting fabric.

4. i am dying for a chik-fil-a chocolate shake right now. i can almost taste it right now and it kills me that the closest chik-fil-a is two cities over. rexburg, you're killing me. i am literally dying because of this.

5. my best friend allie got married in brigham city a week and a half ago. she was the prettiest bride in the world! it was a wonderful day, and i think her photographer is a magician cause his pictures are fantastic. speaking of weddings, i cannot stop watching this video. it makes me want to recreate my wedding exactly like this, down to the dancing bag pipers.


anyway, enough of my super eventful life. pictures! let me throw pictures your way so you forget how awkward and boring i am in real life! i am completely normal! hahahaha!

^^my eyes are half shut and we couldn't really manage to look at the camera at the same time, so i guess it's not the best picture. LOL JK BEST PICTURE EVER ALLIE GOT MARRIED.

^^ here is some giant pieces of hail, which then quickly turned into a flash flood. speaking of flash floods, this.

^^and here is the rain, flooding out of the streets into my carport. it was all very exciting. obviously.

^^i made these shoes, and excuse my bragging, but i was pretty happy with the results. fun fact:all of my pregnant friends are having baby girls.  

^^i am a little bit in love with this cool fall weather. i can finally read books outside again without sweating! hip hip hooray!

^^a patriotic day calls for a patriotic snow cone. god bless america! gosh i love this place.

MY MID-LIFE CRISIS

(EDIT: HAHA FORGOT TO ATTACH PICS. MY BAD.)

i started quilting. once upon a time when i was fifteen, i made a quilt for girl's camp. it was terrible and somehow shrunk so bad that it fit in a baby's crib. the worst, the very worst thing about quilting is cutting out fabric. cutting out fabric was invented by satan and it is probably the worst thing in the whole entire world.
yet here i am, slowly putting together a baby quilt for some unknown baby.

almost every day i've been pinterest-ing 'mid-length layers', and 'lowlights for dark hair'. granted, this happens to me every summer when it gets ridiculously stupid hot out and i chop my hair. this is the first summer in a VERY long time that i haven't done anything to my hair and i am so very tempted to take my crafting shears to my head. i've never dyed my hair before either, because i'm pretty sure i'm too lazy to keep up on the coloring when my hair grows out; but here i am, reaaaaallly wanting to color my hair.

i have known nothing but college life since eighteen, and it absolutely terrifies me to move away from this life that i know. all of a sudden i am not ready to leave rexburg. i know i complain all the time about "rexburg is the WORST. why would you want to live here permanently!? it's terrible!" which is true, rexburg IS terrible. c'mon, there's only two grocery stores here. the only places to go out to eat are mexican and hamburgers, which is actually great cause those are both favorites, but sometimes a girl just wants a zupas near by. as it turns out, mikie very well just might have an internship opportunity in the next town over, so we just might not move after all.
EDIT: WE DON'T HAVE TO MOVE BECAUSE MIKIE IS A ROCK STAR. hallelujah!

in other news non-related to my mid-life crisis, we went the madison county fair the other day with our dear friends robyn + luke. it was miserable hot. we ate barbecue. we went on one ride. (i don't know why i picked the ferris wheel when it is a known fact that i am terrified of heights.) we got stalked by some children  we don't know who begged us to pay for their every whim. all in all, a complete fair experience, i would say.

i finally started to go through my alaska pictures from my nikon, and for all my four blog readers, enjoy these:

 ^^mary, this one is for you!

 ^^all the grandkids with their grandpa

 ^^the city of seward is unreal. one of the prettiest places i have ever been.

 ^^grayden was so scared to sit up on the high fence all by himself but he put on a smile. what a cutie!

^^fireweed was everywhere!