Smile Like You Mean It, Laugh Like You Don't Care

This weekend has been epic for several reasons.

The first being that I got to do a photo shoot of my friends. I'll show you my favorites of each, but you can see the rest here. They are all up now.

Let us start with Nikki:

I would comment on all of these but I rather not and let you enjoy them as they are.
I hope you appreciate these as much as I do. =]

Jaide

Jeanette

Eliza

Freyja

These are my friends:

Great aren't they?

My roommates and I Fall 2011:

This is one GREAT group of girls.
I am loving this semester so far and hope to have a blast in the future! =]

Aside from that Jenny and I got to play Glow-In-The-Dark Hide-And-Go-Seek in a cave and it was a blast! It was dangerous and now I look like I got attacked, but it was completely worth scraping my knee, hand and neck and the 7 bruises on my knee and that I had a limp for 2 days. Trust me I wouldn't change a thing.

Later that night I got to go play at the sand dunes and only got attacked down the hill once! =D

Sunday I had to work from 3-8 but no worries, I went to my old ward with my friends Tom and Haley so I didn't have to miss out on the blessings of church. I even got to have a nice chat with Haley over lunch before I had to go to work.

Albert came over to my apartment for the first time in weeks and I got to introduce him to 2 of my roommates and my friend David. Davids reaction to Albert and I being siblings was PRICELESS.

Albert: "Yeah we're siblings."

David: "........FHE siblings?????" (confused look)

Albert: "No. Like I remember my mom being pregnant with her."

(Albert and I giggling as David tries to figure out if we're being serious).

David: "You guys don't look related at all...."

Me: "Trust me, we know."

Today I woke up to my friend telling my I would make a good missionary. I have determined that is one of the highest compliments anyone could give me.

I have gotten to talk to my mom LOTS lately and I love it! Even got to talk to my daddy for a bit! And Rachel of course =]

I hope to hear from Aaron and Catherine SOON please. =]

Today has had perfect weather.
I ran into a new friend in my home (The Spori building) and got to talk to him for a bit.
New Testament is AMAZING and INCREDIBLE. Enough said.

My FHE family is AWESOME!
We played "Never have I ever" and next week we're going to play "Disney: Scene It".
I think this will be a fun semester. =]

And I got to write 3 of my friends and mail their letters off today.
Letter writing is pretty much a hobby now.


Basically life has been great these past few days and this next weekend will be just as great because my family is going to be reunited ALL together for the first time in over a year. =D

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend, have an even BETTER week and remember to enjoy the small things in life. Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God. (I think I have quoted that before but I still love it). Love y'all!

My neck looks like a vampire bit me.
I know people keep staring and want to
ask about it, but are too scared to ask.
I just have epic falling skills okay?
Meg

Some Things Are Worth the Loss

Like lack of sleep to watch the sunrise at the sand dunes.

I'm actually going to do this in reverse order of what happened so here it goes: Our neighbors in 309 invited Nikki and I to go watch the sunrise with them at the sand dunes this morning.

The thing about Rexburg is that the sun rises around 5:45am. And the sand dunes are a good 20-25 minute drive. So Amy came to Nikki and I's window at 5am this morning to get us up.

Groggy and tired we threw on several layers of clothes on and the 7 of us piled into Collette's car.

But let me tell you, I have rarely seen anything so beautiful in my life.

(Sorry these pictures are fuzzy; they weren't from my camera. Amy took them). This was before the sun rose, but to give you an idea of how much you can see (sort of).

Yes those are the Grand Tetons on the right. Gorgeous, am I right?

As the morning got lighter (it wasn't actually this bright, or it didn't feel like it. Also the sand was FREEZING cold but you can't wear shoes in the sand....)

As it began to rise. It rose really quickly!
The full view from the top of the dunes.
Amazing.

(from left to right: Amy, Collette, Michelle, Nikki, Ashley, Me, Kendall).
Kendall and I are kind of hiding in the background b/c as soon as I sat down I was NOT about to move because the sand warms up where you sit and the girls wanted to huddle after I sat down. I was bundled in my BYU-I hoodie and would not move. Oh well, got to know Kendall better. He's one of the pre-mi's in my ward and he's from NY.

I loved the shadows of the ripples of the sand. It had this beautiful blue and yellow contrast that I loved!

On the left is Nikki and Michelle sharing a sleeping bag.
I think they rolled down the hill. They tried to move like a worm. As Nikki said "I don't want to be a worm! It's too hard!" So Kendall pulled them to the car.
I'm doing a little "My feet are numb but not numb enough to not feel the sharp rocky ground" dance looking around for my shoes.

To give you an idea how steep the sand dunes are. It's a good little work out trying to get up them. And they are all that steep pretty much.

So yesterday Nikki and I took some pictures together. See here.
This is my roommate and best friend, Nikki.
I'm so happy that we're rooming together in the fall! =D
(She's so pretty!)

Besties even though she has a bit of a creepy face going on there and I couldn't stop laughing.

=D =D =D =D =D That is all I have to say.

And she taught me how to hang off the balcony. Mom does this remind you of someone? I felt this was a Catherine moment back in the day.

We also went with Cacia and her roommate, Stephanie, to tie-dye t-shirts! It was my first time ever! And Nikki and I dyed our hands as well.

Quite a work of art I must say.

I guess I can't escape West's colors. Green and Gold.

The green is mostly gone but the yellow is still very much there. Hope no one notices at church tomorrow....

Nikki and I also sat on our porch for 3 hours hanging out with the girls in 309, just chatting it up. And we watched Penelope. (I thought of you Catherine).

We launched water balloons, muahahahaha! =D

And I finally climbed up the balcony. From the ground to the third floor, I'm proud of myself. =]

And now to go get my laundry.

It's been a GREAT weekend thus far, can't wait to see what happens next!

I love bacon
and so much food!
And sometimes a
lack of sleep can be
completely worth it!
Meg

Back to the adventures of poor college girls in REXBURG!

Once upon a time there were four roommates on Halloween weekend with not much to do on a Friday afternoon. So two of the girls decided to skip off to the gardens for one of the girls portrait photography project (yeah try saying that 10 times fast).

(Pretty pretty!)

After rolling through the leaves, making leaf angels

and making it rain leaves,

the girls skipped off down the hill (well actually they ran...) back to their warm apartment in excitement for a dear sister of one of the girls to come visit!

Katherine Wiscombe came up for the weekend to see her dear sweet sister, Cacia. So the four girls (Cacia, Alisa, Katherine and I (the others were gone for the night/weekend))were planning on going to "Nightmare Before Curfew" but they had a problem... they had.........no ride. (Insert creepy music "dun Dun DUUUUUN!")

But in the midst of their sadness at not being able to dance as wild animals, their tummies began to grumble, like hungry lionesses...the call of Little Caesar's pizza haunted them...and they gave in to the crazy bread and root beer craving.

The hungry girls devoured their lovely pepperoni pizza, crazy bread and root beer. But they knew one thing was missing.....

DESSERT!

And that satisfaction could only come from Sammy's pie shakes.

(For all you East Coasters and unfortunate people who have never heard of Sammy's. Sammy's is a restaurant that started down in Provo. They are famous for the 50's style eatery, loop around counter that you can sit at, or if you want some entertainment, you can sit in the next room and listen to the live band that is playing. They also have THE most AMAZING pie shakes and cupcake shakes EVER!!!!!! They literally use slices of pie or a cupcake in your shake.)

The girls entered into the crowd that filled Sammy's and made their way to the line to order the most heavenly pie shakes ever.

(This is the pumpkin cheesecake pie shake)

While enjoying their amazing shakes, in came four of the scariest sights you could possibly imagine......guys dressed up as Kiss! After taking in this bewildering image, the girls decided it was time to retire to their warm home. After getting home, the girls settled down to enjoy a goofy chick flick and headed off to bed, tummies satisfied and humor compensated until.....Saturday!

Waking up Saturday the 5 girls (Rachel returned) decided it was time for an adventure to

THE ICE CAVES

however

they had poor directions

and ended up in the middle of nowhere
"We're lost!"

but they found a magical door, which they then tried to open

only to find...

some cacti and a dead bird!

They left quickly, but not before exploring the abandoned grounds

(I just love this picture of Rachel and felt I needed to share it =D)

Feeling discouraged, they decided to go down the crazy, bumpy, muddy road to the Civil Court Caves

And headed deep down inside to see what they could find
(Believe it or not, a few weeks back there was a party in this cave called Cave Jam. This WHOLE thing was packed full of people! I didn't go but some of my roommates did, crazy people!)

After getting some better directions they headed for the ice caves!

But it began to rain and the road to the caves is long and VERY VERY VERY bumpy so they decided to go to the sand dunes instead.

However, not realizing how deep the sand was, while trying to park, they got stuck. They tried using branches to dig out the wheels and pushing but nothing worked. Finally they had to rely on the kind hospitality of two nice young men to pull the truck out of the sand.

After a long day they went back home to the quiet boredom of their apartment.

While lounging around some girls invited them to a party at Delta Fi or something like that...the girls lived on the floor above them and you could hear the music from across the street. However, the girls were quite worn out from their adventures and declined saying they might go out later.

But instead they decided to make homemade pizookie (pizza cookie)

Not wanting to share, some of them refused to call a few of the guys to help them eat it, though some of them knew they would not finish this massive cookie. But they ate most of it and it was the best pizookie they had ever made!

Feeling quite satisfied they sat down for a game of


MARIO PARTY 2!!!! on N64!

And they all failed due to not reading the instructions to the games, but had a great time laughing their heads off at their pathetic attempts to win.

Katherine kicked everyone's butt though she had never played before.

In the end the girls had a wonderful time laughing their heads off, whether in the car, going down ridiculous dirt roads, getting stuck in the sand or failing at the easiest games. It only goes to show, it is the simple things in life that make life worth it.

The End. (Until next time)

"I don't like roads" -Alisa
"You just don't like anything do you? Geez!" -Rachel
Meg