Imaginative Dispostion, Creative Pleasures

Hello my friends,

I know, it's been far too long since I have written, but that seems to be my way. These last two and half months have been filled with much joy and excitement as well as trials and tears. But that is life, I suppose.

I've decided to give you a quick overview of some things I've been up to, some new pictures of Monte, and a few other random fun facts. So, enjoy the potpourri.

First, we begin with Christmas...
Every year my mother sets up the Christmas village. It's tradition. What's also tradition, apparently, is that my mother adds to the village every year. I tried to help by setting it up this year and I realized there was not enough room to put everything on the table that we have now. This village has been growing my entire life. It may need to move next year...maybe to our very large dining room table. I guess we'll eat in the kitchen. The four of us don't need as much room as this mini town...I mean mini city. (And there's my bro...looking real happy.)

I got a new camera for Christmas because my other one broke on Halloween. I've been devastated that I could not take pictures and that I had to rely on the fuzzy shots of others. So, to try out my new camera I started taking pictures of everything...right away. As I was looking through some pictures from Christmas break back home in South Carolina with my family, I noticed that all the pictures taken at breakfast seemed to have a recurring theme. I've included a couple of pictures demonstrating. Do you see it?

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My family is putting on a Tropicana orange juice commercial!!! This, of course, happened all my accident. But looking back it's seems pretty funny now.

Christmas went alright. New Years was better because Monte came to visit. And then we were back in Utah. The whole break went by so quickly.

In January there was still lots of snow around my apartment. My apartment tends to get really hot in the winter as we don't have control over the heat and those that do either love it toasty or have no idea how hot it gets in our apartment. I told Monte that if he was hot that he could go lay in the snow. Then I said...if you make a snow angel I will. I was just kidding. But then he did it. And he wanted me to keep my word and do it. Yeah...you can just see how that went. :)

I try my best to keep my word. Better watch what I say then.








Now on to some roommate fun. As most of you know...or will know now. My roommate, Mary, is getting married in April. She has decided to decorate her own wedding cake. Because of this we decided it was time to practice.

This was my first attempt at making and using fondant. I am thinking of doing my own wedding cake as well. It will be cheaper and I will learn a new fun skill. I've got plenty of time to practice so that's good. :)

I made blue fondant and Mary made a white batch. We actually made 4 batches cause we tried out two recipes but one the recipes was terribly sticky and shiny. The winner of the evening was a marshmallow fondant that really doesn't taste too bad.

In the back there you can also see Mary's cake. She put four circles on it and then exclaimed, "Oh no, I made a button!" and then she gave up for the evening. Haha.

Shiloh was a little disapointed because when she got home we gave her the sticky batch to work with and it didn't work. But she was good sport and decorated her cake with chunks of left over fondant. And then I got this really great picture. Who knew that my gorgeous roommate could make such a face. I think she looks like Pop-Eye, however, so I had to include the picture here.
We all had lots of fun!

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Monte and I try to go out on at least one real date a week. We have been doing that for over five months now. I have seen plays and shows and comedy teams. I've eaten many dinners and watched movies. I've listened to the phil harmonic orchestra thrice. It's been great. Here are a few pictures of a date we went on in February. We saw Mid Summer's Night Dream at the HFAC. My roommate Shiloh did the costume design for the play. It was amazing! Afterwards we looked at the art work on display. I love dating.

Speaking of dating. Valentine's Day was last month as well. V-day last year was spent with my roommate Kari. I took her to Denny's because she was bummed that her fiance couldn't come and see her for V-day. The V-day before that was spent with my roommates Shiloh and Joo-Hee at Red Lobster. And before that...I don't think I remember that it was V-day. Haha. But this year was different. I had someone to celebrate with. Unfortunately he has class on Thursdays and I don't usually get to see him till 10 or 11 pm. He managed to get home by 9:30 that night and we made fortune cookies together. It was sooo much fun. They weren't as easy as I would have supposed but it led to many laughs. Just remember that wax paper burns in the oven and parchment paper does not. Do not get those two confused!

Of course, Here are some pictures. There's the two of us. And then is a pic of the chocolate covered strawberries that I made and surprised him with when he came home. Then me with the pot of roses he brought me with a heart shaped box o' chocolates. And lastly is the fortune cookies we made. They were delicious!



















Other events in February included my ex-roommate's wedding up at the Idaho Falls Temple. Monte and I and my friend Matt drove up for the wedding and reception. I was sad that I was going to miss my old coworkers' party to celebrate one person's engagement and another's new baby. A lot has been happening since I left. (And I really wanted to see a prego Lilit :( She is the cutest!) Anyhow, I could not attend the party because I was invited to my old roommates temple sealing...

Unfortunately...I did not make it. On the way to the temple that morning (Sat. Feb. 9th) we had a little car accident. The car in front of us put on his brakes because we were passing a cop. Monte then hit the breaks slightly because the car in front of us was slowing down faster than we were and we were catching up on him. We couldn't swerve into the left lane because the patrol car was parked there half way on the side of the road and halfway off. When Monte hit the breaks the car began to fishtail. Apparently there was some black ice on the road and we were coming off a bridge heading downhill. The car spun around backwards on the interstate and then into the medium where it flip up on the side. The snow cushioned the flip but it was still pretty scary and I had to climb out the drivers window above just to land in knee deep snow that burned my legs because I was wearing a skirt. It was a pretty crazy morning. But we managed to get the car flipped back over and made it to the Temple in time to see Leila come out. And she looked wonderful! Here are some pictures of her leaving the Temple and of us at the reception.

Oh and the car we were driving and flipped at 65 miles an hour miraculously had little to no damage. Two slight dents that you have to catch in the light just right to even see. It was a miracle. It was also my roommate Shiloh's car. And her car has been having some bad luck lately. She was really great and understanding about our accident in her car but then a couple weeks later her car was sitting in the parking lot behind our apartment and about 1 AM a young man backs into her car. You can see in the picture below that he mangled her license plate and broke her grill. The license plate is hanging on by one screw after being rip up and spun around. And her Toyota symbol is now sitting on her desk in her bedroom. Sad. But strange that we could roll the car off the road at high speeds and it would have so much less damage than someone backing into it in a parking lot. We really lucked out.

So, there you have it. Life up to this point. I am happy. I am still working at Coleman Studios. I like my job a lot. It's fun to be around artwork and artist. But for the last month the printer has been broken and customers are starting to get upset that they don't have their orders. That is not fun to deal with.

My roommates are good too. Mary is busy with wedding plans and Shiloh just get back from a trip to California with the Young Ambassadors. She will be traveling with them to Australia at the end of April so that's terribly exciting.

Monte and I are still doing wonderfully well. He had interviews in Boise, ID and Colorado Springs, CO last week. And next week he is flying to Austin, TX for another interview. He has also been accepted to a couple different grad schools. So, this summer looks to be full of lots of changes. It will be interesting to see how things pan out. I will indefinitely keep you all updated. I promise.

Oh, this should make Caroline and Jana proud, I found out last night that I have not lost my Boggle skills. I more than doubled most scores. It was impressive. But I was not allowed to use the word Tao. Haha. Well, that's life. I'll write more later. Take care my friends.

P.S. I know it says that this blog was published on the 28th of Feb. This is not true...it was started then...but it wasn't actually posted until today, March 10th. Oops...haha time got away from me.