Cost of becoming the favorite aunt: $1

With three boys in the house, Joe and Kori felt they had reached their toy limit. They requested more useful gifts this Christmas, but sometimes you have to bend the rules just a little in order to be dubbed #1 Aunt. With Kori's permission, I got the boys the book "A Book With No Pictures." I think Joe enjoyed listening to Kori read the book (which has adults say silly things) just as much as the boys did! Not wanting the boys to have nothing to play with after opening presents, I grabbed a container of cornstarch and decided we could make some oobleck. 

In my imagination, making oobleck with the boys would consist of them sitting at the table, each with a bowl of oobleck goo in front of them. Pierson, however, decided it would be WAY more fun if we put the oobleck on the table. He also decided it would be WAY more fun to dump a lot of extra water in to make it more runny/messy. And just to top off the fun, he decided this activity could be best enjoyed from sitting on top of the table.

Not one to say no to my favorite boys, I promised Kori I would clean up the mess if she would just let them be as messy as they wanted. Because they are living in an old house they don't care about while in the process of building their dream home, Kori agreed. Crawford was a little unsure of getting messy at first, but he eventually joined his brothers on the table. By bath time, oobleck had made its way into 3 rooms and covered every surface in the dining room. But, more than once, the boys declared me their favorite aunt. WORTH IT.

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Reen likes to start planning Halloween on November 1st. It's not surprising to receive a text from Reen at 3am on a July morning with a list of costume ideas. The girl takes Halloween seriously! I've never loved Halloween, but I love Reen and she reallllllly loves Halloween. So sometimes I catch a bit of her excitement. 

This year: Alice in Wonderland. Gretz was Alice, I was the Mad Hatter, and Carine was the Queen of Hearts. Oh, and Kira was a random pink chef. 

Do you know who else loves Halloween? Josh. He's a dress-up-for-school-type. So instead of my morning run on Halloween, I did his makeup. There is just something a little frightening about spending more time on your boyfriend's makeup for school than you do on your own. But he looked dang good, so... #WorthIt

Megsie Moreno

How did I not blog about Megsie and Best Friend's wedding?! #IHaveABoyfriendSoINeverBlogAnymore

We squeezed into the car (really...we squeezed - there were 5 of us and it was very snuggly, but we really like each other so it was all good) and headed down to San Diego for Megsie's wedding. 

The weather was perfect. The company was perfect. The ceremony was perfect. The sealer maybe messed up Megan's name a time or two, but I think the giggles made the ceremony all the more perfect. 

After 5 zillion hours of post-wedding pictures, we had a quick lunch, made a stop at a sketchy store to buy the newlyweds a gift, and headed to Riverside for the ring ceremony and reception. We were late (like...very late) to the ring ceremony but, lucky for us, they waited until we arrived to start. And then all of the groomsmen decided approximately 7 seconds before the ring ceremony that I needed to re-pin all of their flowers. And only me. No one else could do it. I was still pinning flowers when people started walking down the aisle. Luckily, I was towards the end.

It's weird that Megsie is married. I'm not the biggest fan of sharing her, but it was bound to happen. And if it had to happen, I'm glad it was to Best Friend. I can tell he's a good one. Evidence: he has not put up a fight at all about my insistence that we call each other Best Friend. Other evidence: he makes Megan so happy.

100

Greta and I have been working on a 100 day snapstreak on snapchat for months. Admittedly, some days the only snaps we sent each other were of the floor with no words...just snapping to keep the flame alive. But WE DID IT. Greta and I finally earned the 100 emoji (which, in case you were wondering, only sticks around for 24 hours). It was a smidgen disappointing, but still worth it. 

We used to have the 2 months in a row best friend hearts, but then Josh stole my heart. On snapchat. And real life. Oops.

The Darwin

We love our little Darwin House. It's the cutest. I'm learning a lot about relationships from this adorable place. Let me explain. 

I've recently been learning in several of my classes about commitment. When we are committed to something (I signed a year contract) our minds have great incentive to focus more on the good than the bad. We do this subconsciously (which is why we have less regret buying something if we can't return it). My love for this house gives me great hope that my little non-committal self will one day be perfectly happily married to a less than perfect man.

I love my house so much that...

• The leaky roof is endearing. The sagging ceiling in the kitchen adds a lot of character.
• It's a blessing really that the charming brick walls create a sandbox of brick dust in my bed. It helps motivate me to wash my bedding frequently, and I really do love the smell of freshly laundered bedding.
• The holes in the walls and floors bring in a refreshing breeze, and I am loving getting to wear cozy clothes around the house. Sweatpants, leggings, flannels, sweatshirts, cozy socks...it's nice. It's almost like the house is putting me into cuddle clothes as a way of saying, "Thanks for loving me Lisa; have a snuggle."
• Maybe I should always live in old houses. No matter how much you clean, things never quite look perfectly clean. WHAT A BLESSING! I simply cannot be a perfectionist in this house, so I really don't stress at all about what the house looks like.
• I am really learning to love the buggies with whom we share our home. Not I'm-going-to-stop-killing-them sort of love, but more  I'm-not-as-scared-of-killing-them type love. 

See? The Darwin really is preparing me for the hubs. But really, I love this house. It is hands-down my favorite place I've lived in Provo.  

Disney+

As one last roommate hurrah before we moved and Megan gets married, we took a road trip to California. 10/10 highly recommend.

HOWEVER, 10/10 also recommend that you check the weather before making the drive. Turns out if you don't check the weather/road conditions you might drive into a fire and get stuck in traffic for long amounts of time and then eventually find out the interstate is closed and have to turn around and add lots of time on to the road trip. But, I mean, sometimes traffic is fun. For example, we saw a man get out of the driver's seat and run across 3 lanes of traffic to pee on the side of the road. So, you know, it's not all bad.

We spent our first evening and the entire next day at Venice beach. I looooove the beach.

But do you know what I love MORE than the beach? Disneyland. Even the birds chirp more magically there. Everything is happy and beautiful and wonderful at Disneyland.

I was on a happy-high the entire day. I think I was running on straight happy-juice. I wanted to go go go all day (from park open to close). People keep asking what my favorite part was, but umm... ALL OF IT IS MY FAVORITE. I simply cannot choose. If I told you I had a favorite part, I'd be a liar.

Due to car trouble, Disney day 2 was postponed. BUT that is a blessing in disguise because now we are probably going to go back on my BIRTHDAY weekend/Megan's wedding weekend. How magical is THAT? 

Since we couldn't go to Disney, we spent the next day at Knott's Berry Farm - a super awesome roller coaster park. Since I recently rediscovered my love for roller coasters (Gretz and I went to Lagoon a few days before the California trip), I was excited and braved all the big coasters. We had a blast riding rides and convincing Reenie to flirt with the ride attendants.

These ladies have been game changers. College would not be the same without them. So glad God brought us all together freshman year!

Death by pride

My life is FULL of evidence that God is aware of me. He sends me exactly what I need, but sometimes my stubborn pride gets in the way.

Greta, Megan, and I went on a hike earlier this summer. It was just supposed to be a tiny baby hike, so we didn't bring water. However, we couldn't find the trail at first and ended up hiking up a mountain before realizing there was no way we were on the right trail. So we hiked back down and finally found the right trail. By this point (before we even started the real hike) we were hot and tired. The easy hike did not feel easy to our poor dehydrated bodies. 

While taking a break, a nice man approached us with a huge water bottle FULL of beautiful water. He asked if we needed some water, but our pride spoke before our survival instincts, and we declined the water. He hiked on, and we immediately regretted our decision. I silently wished for another hiker to offer us water, but I knew I was being taught a lesson.

We made it to the waterfall, cooled down, and on the way back we realized how short and easy the hike really was. We had made it a million times harder on ourselves by not being prepared and not accepting the help heaven sent.

It was really obvious that day that my pride got in the way of a beautiful blessing (water), but I can't help but wonder what less obvious blessings my pride blocks.

Growing Up

I had a good conversation with my brother last week in which he reminded me that I am (and have been for awhile) an adult. My adulthood is not contingent upon my graduation date, post-grad plans, or marital status. TRUTH. 

Since that conversation, I have really been embracing adulthood. Top 3 evidences:

1. I made a dentist appointment.
2. Instead of bringing the giant container of homemade fudge sauce to work, I brought a small container. And carrots. Because I think eating mass amounts of chocolate is fine if you also eat vegetables on the same day. Don't try to correct me on this point; I'm an adult danggit.
3. I decided it is time to upgrade from cinder-block wall apartments. We are moving to the cutest house next month. Seriously. It is the most adorable thing ever. Exposed brick walls, white wood floors, clawfoot tub...as soon as we add twinkly lights it will be absolute PERFECTION. The house makes me feel more grown up, and the process leading to the decision to move and finding the house was absolutely drenched in revelation. God brought us to Elite last fall, and now He is leading us to this house. I won't go into all the details here, but Gretz mentioned that she might blog the whole story because it is really way too good to not have recorded somewhere. God knows us. He has a plan. He guides us. He is in control. That has been absolutely undeniable the past few days. Stay tuned for pictures next month!

There are smaller evidences, too. Like how I decided to start taking vitamins (which I forgot to take today, but that's besides the point). And I've been eating more fruits and veggies and tofu. I used to eat tofu in Eugene all the time. I weirdly love it. I made tofu pad thai the other day and Gretz tried it and learned that she doesn't hate tofu at all. Miracle. Mostly the increase in intake of vitamins and tofu are related to this fear I have that I don't eat enough protein and my hair is all going to fall out, and I'll be bald. It's an adult fear, so I guess that is further evidence of my adulthood.

Life doesn't always go according to my plans. I think that's a good thing.

Update: Greta blogged about the housing search! Yay for documenting the whole process! Read the story here.

Fireworks!

I am a big fan of fireworks. Actually, I think I'm just a big fan of anything that lights up the dark. I love stars. I love twinkly lights. I love campfires. I love goodness. I love Jesus Christ.

Light in the darkness makes me feel warm and fuzzy. It's as if anything can happen.

July in Utah means fireworks all month long - starting with the 4th and continuing until the 24th (Pioneer Day...it's a thing here). My friends are absolute gems and have totally indulged me this month by taking me to at least one firework show every weekend. I think they're mostly entertained by how much I geek out over my love of fireworks.

This weekend's show in Spanish Fork was the PERFECT ending to a month of fireworks (we'll be out of town next weekend and miss all the Pioneer Day shows). It was hands down my favorite show this year. It was a "pyromusical," meaning the fireworks were synced to the music. Very cool.

Reenie videoed part of the show so that you can enjoy it. Just keep in mind that THIS WASN'T EVEN THE FINALE. The show was like this the ENTIRE time, and the finale was GOLDEN and PERFECT.

Spiders...I can't

I'm pretty proud of myself for how far I've come in my relationship with spiders. I used to run, screaming in fear. And then I learned to stay and scream in fear until someone else came to kill it (which is super smart, because when you run sometimes the spider also runs and you lose it forever). Then I graduated to killing the spiders myself, still with lots of screaming. Lately, I've been killing the (far too many) spiders in my apartment without screaming. It's a big deal. Despite all my growth and preparation, yesterday morning's spider adventure was just too much.

It was on the wall when I first saw it. It was BIG. When I immediately reacted with screaming and tears, I knew this was too big for me to handle on my own. I sent out an SOS snapchat video of the spider. The spider crawled on to a paper bag, making it almost impossible to kill without getting real close. And I couldn't. Instead, I just stared at that spider. For probably 30 minutes. I sent Greta multiple tear filled videos explaining the situation I was in. I was going to be late for work, but I couldn't just leave it there!

Eventually, I rallied up the courage to trap the spider under a cup (by this point I was convinced it was the kind of spider that if you squish it a million baby spiders come out of it). Once I secured the spider under the cup and cut off all of its oxygen with duct tape, I decided it was safe to leave the spider and let it suffocate and die.

However, only moments after the spider was trapped, Jeff took his lunch break from work  and came to the rescue. Even though he thought I was being severely ridiculous, he followed my wishes to take the spider outside--far away in the parking lot--and kill it. He just might be my favorite person.

It took me a good half hour post-spider death to calm down enough to focus on anything else. It was a really traumatic experience.

I have since cleaned my room, searching for spiders, and drenched every crack and crevice in spider spray. I think we're good now. Fingers crossed.

Oh, Livia

I count Livia's name starting with an "L" as one of the greatest accomplishments of my first decade of mortality. I count her not hating me for having to explain that her name is Livia not Olivia to everyone she meets as one of the greatest accomplishments of decade #2.

Since the Livster is now ancient (14 years old), she flew out for a visit and her first EFY. Having her here was SO FUN. I was exhausted by the time she left because we had fun things from early in the morning until way too late at night every.single.day. We  didn't have time to squeeze in everything, but that's okay because she'll have plenty of time to explore P-town when she moves here in 4 years.

Casual kung-fu training.

I was very worried Liv wouldn't like any of my favorite Provo food places, but Slab Pizza was a winner! I was very impressed that my picky little sis even branched out and got an adventurous pizza: rosemary, bacon, potato.

Classic temple square. Also, can you believe we were there on a Saturday and we didn't even have to wait in a line of brides for this class picture spot?

Conference center with Gretz, Liv, and Ashlyn.

On the Conference Center roof with my not-so-little sister.

<3

Embracing our inner nerd.

Creepy sister face swap.

Liv's locks = glorious

My parents think she's still VL, but I mean...I sent them this picture.

While Liv was here, we knocked off several of her bucket list items, Most notably, she finally got to go to Ikea (which is basically Livia heaven).

Mt. Timpanogos temple (because it has my favorite baptistry).

Cascade Springs

 

Train rides

Liv got the National Parks to sign her ticket.

I was majorly impressed by Liv's National Parks knowledge. She knew everyone's names and all the words to the songs. I'd say it was a pretty great sendoff. 

Last stop before the airport: East High. Because HSM = <3

#DearDaddy

This is important.
I'll let it speak for itself.

Click here to watch the video.

Carine: DTRer Extraordinaire

Carine's superhero power: radiating a "come talk to me about how my roommate feels about you" vibe.

Last fall, a boy had taken Greta on a couple dates. He wasn't sure if he should ask her out again, so what did he do? He went to Carine. Carine, who is very much in the know about all of our feelings, kindly suggested that the boy spend his time and money on someone more interested.

Fast forward to this summer. I had gone on a few dates with one of our good friends, but I wasn't feeling anything more than friendship. I was really starting to worry about how I was going to tell him I wasn't interested and still preserve the friendship (I have a history of going on dates and then just avoiding the boy for the rest of eternity...it's a problem). And then suddenly, all of my problems were solved: Carine DTRed with the boy. 

I'm still not sure how I got out of that one, but I really think it worked out perfectly. There is no awkwardness and the friendship was preserved. #Blessed

Also, have I mentioned that I recently discovered I have an avoidant attachment style when it comes to dating? I discovered this in my families theories class. I came home and told my roommates about my "discovery." They were not impressed. Evidently everyone knew about this long before me.

Also, Mom knows about my avoidant attachment too. I'm glad my prof finally clued me in.

Facebook Quizzes

The other day, I was avoiding writing a paper so I decided to see what was new in the world of Facebook. A bunch of my friends had recently taken a "How Old Are You?" quiz. I use the term quiz veryyyyy loosely, because you answer 0 questions. You just click a button and allow the quiz to look at your Facebook info/pictures. I would never post quiz results on Facebook as a matter of principle, but for posting Facebook quiz results on the blog? Totally okay.

Young heart, old soul, and on target body. Life is good.

Someone pooped on my floor...NOT A JOKE.

I came home from class the other day to process (aka bawl my eyes out) after watching a devastating documentary. I was a bit of an emotional wreck, and then I saw it. There was poop. On the floor.

We don't have any pets. We don't have children. This was a human adult's poop. On my floor.

At first I thought it was a slug or something. There was no way there could be poop on the floor. Not my floor. Thankfully, I never touch unidentified objects with my hands. A sniff test confirmed my fears; this was in fact feces.

My tears and frustration with all that is wrong in the world (emotions from the documentary) were calmed as laughter took over. I must have laughed for an hour straight. Good, hard, belly laughing. Man, laughter does wonders for the soul.

Of course, I immediately sanitized the area and texted the roommate group text requesting that we all try to keep our poopies in the toilet.

The mystery remains as to how someone accidentally poops on the floor. We have our theories. We also have a sneaking suspicion as to the identity of the poop culprit. But, there is no way to gain conclusive evidence. Nor does it really matter to us. I mean, I guess it could happen to anyone (maybe).

While I do not recommend pooping on my floor the next time you want to cheer me up, I must admit that it was a perfectly timed turd.

Life is good.

Antelope Island Adventure

FACT: Salt Lake City is named after a lake. The Great Salt Lake. Today, after 3 years of living in Utah, I met the Great Salt Lake. She's smelly and very buggy, but she's also beautiful, buoyant, and has an abundance of flat rocks that are perfect for skipping.

We took a million pictures with the sign, because we didn't have a photographer so, naturally, we had to rotate so that everyone could have a picture with everyone.

Also, MEET MEGAN SHEEN! She's our favorite. I don't know how we haven't been best friends for our whole lives (I guess geography probably played a role in that...). Anyway, she's become very important in my life lately. 

Wisdom for future Great Salt Lake visitors:

1. Bring chairs, not blankets/towels. The sand is pretty rocky.
2. Leave your towel in the car. If you leave it on the beach, it will absorb salt and become quite crusty. Like, unusable crusty. Hard as a board crusty. Why did I even bother to bring a towel crusty.
3. Pack a picnic, but eat at the picnic tables by the parking lot and not down by the water. There are too many bugs down there.
4. Either bring a pool noodle to beat away the bugs at the water's edge or prepare to run REAL fast. There is a lovely lining of little bugs bordering the water. It might look like the sand is just darker there or it is plant debris, but rest assured that it is a million little flying bugs which will fly up and try to eat you when you walk through them.
5. While floating, reach your hand down into the sand and you will find an endless supply of skipping rocks. Perfect shaped rocks + salty water = PERFECT for skipping rocks.

I love adventuring with the girls. They make my life so HAPPY. 

How to do (almost) everything Idaho has to offer in 2 days

Shoot some guns. 

Don't worry: if you are a moving target you have no need to fear that I will ever be able to shoot you. I hit a grand total of 0 clay pigeons. However, I nailed the stationary target on the first try. Moral of the story, listen to Dory and just keep swimming.

Go to the Boise farmer's market. 

Eat all of the samples.

Hike some things.

Table Rock, to be more specific.

Go to the Boise temple.

Forget to take a picture.

Sadly, I did not get to harvest a single potato. Next time, Idaho. Next time.