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I Didn't Die

What I have been up to (because according to my blog, pretty much nothing):

-thanksgiving with zane's family. lots of fun, lots of laughing. hanging out with zane's brothers makes me realize i definitely grew up in a house of all girls. but in a good way.

-painting pottery at color me mine. apparently zane's a budding artist... haha. have pics but i look gross so i won't be sharing those.

-got a new job. yay! i hate job hunting, and trying to find one at a campus of 35,000 students who all could use some extra cash was especially hard. my diligence was finally rewarded and i am now the new secretary for the conferences and workshops division of continuing education. apparently answering phones and collecting mail is my calling. ;)

-christmas party with the roomies. i love my roomies. they are the first roommates that i've had that i can actually call my friends. they are wonderful.

-finals week. six finals and four extra credit papers in 7 days. i barely survived. but i did, and it looks like i will be rewarded for my efforts. also, zane earned an impressive 3.7 this semester, especially with all those not fun engineering classes he has to take. i'm a little proud. :)

-work party. included wearing an ugly christmas sweater (mine was a sweater vest with red cardinals on it. i pity whoever actually buys it to wear in real life.), caroling, white elephant gifting and lots of yum treats.

-christmas symphony in salt lake with zane. i gave the tickets to him as one of his presents and it was a really fun show. they had a great mix of the traditional and the more fun ones and we both really liked it. went to dinner beforehand... fyi for those of you in the salt lake area:"Christopher's Steakhouse" in the Perry hotel is an average $40 a plate place. zane and i were unaware of this until we looked at the menu. i got a salad, he got soup. we went to Sonic after the show because we were starving!

-met more of zane's extended family at sunday dinner. they are all really laid back and nice people. i love his grandma. she gives me hugs. his cousin got engaged. the new fiancé likes to call everyone hun and is kinda... quirky. charlie (zane's younger brother) is grateful for my personality now i think. haha.

-came home for christmas and am enjoying time with my family. we all went to the nutcracker ballet today and it's starting to feel a lot more like christmas. lots of fun plans for the week and i promise to take lots of pictures!

til then,

eat lots of sweets. i am!

The Jazz Game

So basically I'm the least luckiest person ever. I have built up quite the list of blogs I like to peruse, and occasionally there will be giveaways hosted on a blog. I always enter, even if I don't want to win, and I have yet to win a single prize. Sad day.

A couple weeks ago Pedaling over at Pedaling Fast was hosting such an event over on her blog. I started reading her my freshman year when her daughter Amber was in my ward. She's a fun read and has some very strong opinions (that I often share) and some way cute grandkids. Anyway, she was giving away two FOURTH ROW Jazz tickets for the Nov. 24th game. Once in a lifetime thing right? So I entered and anticipated finding out if luck had finally found me.

And... I didn't win. Usually I'm like whatever, that stinks, but I had really wanted this one and even told Zane about it because I was so excited. Well, that night I got an email from Pedaling herself saying, "Big daddy [her hubby] has a soft place in his heart for those serving this country. Especially those in the air force. Which do you like best? The Bulls on Thanksgiving night or the Trail Blazers on Saturday?"

How sweet is that?! In my comment to win the tickets, I had told her Zane and I's story about how we're doing the long distance thing since we're at different schools and that Thanksgiving was one of our few times together during the semester. Zane and I chose the Saturday tickets so this past Saturday we were up close watching while the Jazz killed the Trail Blazers with a final score of 108 to 92.

Zane insisted on taking me to the top of the stadium so I would appreciate how great our seats were.

I think BYU lucked out with Cosmo. He is by far the cutest mascot I have seen. The Jazz Bear was a little... scary looking.

Before the game, Zane took me to a great dinner at Biaggi's at the Gateway. He got a stuffed pizza, he has an obsession with pizza, and I got this Salmon/Shrimp/Asparagus/Cheesy Cream Rice goodness thing. We both could only eat like half, it was all so rich and filling! We walked around the shops and then walked over to the Energy Solutions Arena for the game. We finished the night with some Cold Stone and snuggling on the couch. It was a great night.

Zane is happy to be there... he just had food in his mouth.

I highly recommend this dish. SO GOOD!

Thanks again Pedaling and Big Daddy! It was great!

Free Money=More Clothes. Excellent.

it's getting to be that time of year. you know, the holidays. which means you are going to need to start buying people (or yourself) some sweet stuff.

RueLaLa is giving $10 to every new member until Dec 24th.

RueLaLa is by invitation only to some really great sample sales. and i pretend like i know what a sample sale is... because it's not like i own anything worthy of the title couture. hello american eagle.

use my invitation link to sign up!

The Sisterhood is Growing Up; Est. 2004

Freshman year of high school I made the best group of girlfriends anyone could ever have. They have been there for me through so much; moving away, falling in love, break-ups, going to college, learning about coming an adult, etc. Now, five years later (crazy!) we are all growing up and recent events are making me realize how grateful I am for these girlies.

EMILY! aka emster

Emily goes to school at the Berkley School of Music in Boston. I didn't realize it for a long time, but I guess it's pretty much a big deal to go there! She's a singer/songwriter/musican who completely supports herself and will be graduating this next spring with a Bachelor's in Music Performance. She did it all in only three years for what takes a lot of people 4+. After that she's moving to Nashville and is going to become famous. Pretty much the way it is.

KATHRYN! aka katrine

Kathryn is up here at BYU with me and Jess usually, but not this semester! Kathryn leaves Nov. 25th to serve as a missionary in the Brazil Sao Paulo South mission. I am so proud of her. Kat is the mom of our little group and always sets such a great example, for me especially, of what it is to be a true friend and a great person. I know she is going to be an awesome missionary, but we will all be so excited for when she comes home and the sisterhood will be reunited again!

JENNIFER! aka fer

Jen's a psych major at the University of New Mexico. I have never seen anyone with a work ethic like this girl. She works so hard a school, is a great daughter, is often in a relationship (the boys love her) and is a great girlfriend, loves her sorority and she is for sure a wonderful friend. With us all separated it's easy for us to not talk for a while but fer makes sure that we stay connected. Fer is so smart and is a great listener. I know she's going to be a great mom and, if this is still what she's going to do (us college kids change our minds a lot), she's going to be a wonderful, helpful counselor to those who need her listening ears.

JESSICA! aka jess or my personal bffl

Jessi is my love. She puts up with so much from me lol. I am definitely not like jenni in the respect of staying connected. It's actually kind of pathetic that jess and I go to school together and we don't really see each other that much (for sure my fault). But, we are living together next spring/summer! Jessi is so fun and bubbly. She is definitely your typical cheerleader peppy personality, but is also the nicest girl ever. No one makes me laugh like this girl does. Her fun energy and love is contagious and she makes me feel so happy when I am around her. I have so many great memories with this girl, memories that I will cherish forever. I can't wait to make more, because after all, we are best friends forever, literally! :)

SARAH! aka frank

Sarah is basically one of the smartest people I know. She is going to change the world someday. She is an International Relations major at one of the best school's in the nation for that program and she is rockin' it. She's learned Russian and is now on a semester abroad in St. Petersburg. She has a boyfriend who is crazy in love with her and a family who I know are grateful to have miss frank in their lives. Sarah is such an amazing person and I look up to her so much. If she sets a goal, she accomplishes it. I know she will do great things.

I love my friends so much and they are all such huge blessings in my life. I hope these girls know how much they mean to me. Can't wait to be together (Kathryn in spirit) at Christmas.

Out of Order

I know this is so late but I'm still playing catch-up!

The first weekend in September was Parents Weekend at the Academy. Zane's mom and grandma came down, his dad had to work, and we had tons of fun for three days. The Academy goes all out for the parents. There's a big parade with all the cadets marching in their blue uniforms by squadrons, an F-15 flyover, lunches, dinners, football game with a flyover and a HUGE tailgate. I was able to go to all of the stuff with Zane's mom and grandma, plus we got to go out to dinner, go to Garden of the Gods and an Arts Fair in Manitou Springs. My family also had them over for dessert on Sunday night... yummy homemade brownies and homemade ice cream. Delicious. My family likes Zane... especially my dad and Kelsey I think. My dad because he's just happy to have another guy around to commiserate about all of the girliness they are surrounded by and Kelsey because Zane will carry her around on his shoulders lol.

Zane was here this weekend too; for a whole 33 hours. But, that's the situation we are in and I'll take anything! Pics and details to be posted soon. Here are some pictures of Parents Weekend:

Conference Weekend

So I know everyone had their conference posts done last week... but hey, I went four months without blogging, so a week late is pretty much awesome.

On Friday we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Silver Lake. I have never been up there and it was beautiful with all the changing fall colors. I love aspen trees so much. We then met Zane's mom Carolyn for lunch at Cafe Rio and walked around the Gateway. That night the whole family got together at Zane's house for pizza and a "scary" movie. We watched "The Innocents" from like the 1930's I think. It was the most awkward, confusing movie I think any of us have ever seen. It just turned into the boys making fun of it the whole time. Pretty funny.

The LDS cadets were given tickets to each of the conference sessions. Zane traded and was able to secure one for me so we went to the Saturday morning session together at the Conference Center. We were sitting on the main floor. It was so fun to be able to actually see the various brethren's faces up close, seeing who fell asleep, who talked to the others during the talks, etc. I was so happy it was that session we got to see because I loved President Uchtdorf's talk on love. I thought it was so beautiful and really inspiring, telling us how we need to communicate love and affection to those around is everyday.

Saturday night the boys went to Priesthood and Carolyn and I shopped around Gardner Village and then met Zane's aunt, cousin and a couple other ladies for dinner. Zane's family is so nice and friendly, I love meeting more and more of them. After that we met up with the boys and the kids all went on a date to the dollar movie.

Sunday morning was AMAZING waffles made by Kyle, Zane's dad, Conference in pajamas, and card making with Carolyn. She has a card group that she is in charge of every month where she designs the cards and creates kits for the ladies in the group to make them. She was so sweet and made one for me so we got to make cards during Conference. It was so fun and she is very talented!

Zane drove me down to Provo in between sessions because his flight left at 5:00. It was a great weekend, but definitely too short. I can't wait for us all to get together again at Thanksgiving!