Ooops

Good thing I don't mind showing off my nee-nee to everyone on campus as I walk to and from work in my super-blowy skirt in 20 mph winds. That would be really embarrassing. I sure am glad that I don't care if the whole of BYU-Idaho faculty and student population saw my rear when the wind blew my skirt up five different times today. Because I am pretty sure I would die of shame. If I cared that is.

The G-Man turns one year older

Happy Birthday to the best father ever! And I really mean it. He is the best at everything he does. Here is a short & incomplete list of his absolute amazing-ness...

1. He can flip his eye-lids inside out.

2. We never need a mechanic, electrician, home-builder, landscaper, or computer tech with him around.

3. He makes really good shish-ka-bobs.

4. He is the best provider ever.

5. He is a great motivator.

6. There is no better listener then him!

7. His advice would give Dr. Phil a run for his money.

8. He is worthy to hold the priesthood.

9. He loves and honors my mom.

I could go on all night but I won't. Because I should actually be doing my English homework at this moment. But Happy Birthday dad...

You make me proud to be your daughter!

It's the simple life baby

Some people wonder why I have chosen to live in Idaho. My answer for them?

1. Scenery

2. People

I don't think I will ever be able to leave. Sorry mom. 

Happy Halloween!!!

I really do love Halloween. Or at least I used to, because when I turned 15 it became uncool to dress up as a witch or a zombie without adding the word "sexy" in front of it. You know, sexy bumblebee, sexy pirate, sexy minnie mouse, sexy nun, etc. You all have seen that scene from the movie "Mean Girls" where the girl shows up to the high school party in a dead bride costume and was humiliated? Yeah I had one of those experiences too, and it taught me that I no longer had any right to celebrate Halloween.

However, this semester I have been blessed with roommates who like to act as ridiculously as I do and so we decided to dress up for our Halloween party. And we weren't gonna be sexy pioneers or anything like that. We decided to dress up like the family we have become...Grandpa Eugene, Grandma Eunice, Mama Peggy, Daddy Carl, and little Kelli & Raymond. We had a cat too but she got sick and couldn't go. We went all out for this thing, curlers in our hair, fake staches, blacked out teeth, big booties, the whole nine yards. And we looked just as ridiculous as we had imagined. But it was FUN! We got weird looks and didn't win any costume prize. But it was FUN! Dressing up for Halloween became cool again (well no we were actually very far from cool but...FUN!). Enjoy the pics and make yourself look like an idiot sometime...you will be glad you did :)

The Isha men...Eugene, Carl, & Raymond

The Isha women...Eunice, Peggy, & Kelli

Grandma Eunice w/ her cakes

The whole Family together

Mom and Dad sharing a moment

Eunice helping Eugene eat his chili

Jackie bobbin' for apples...this is how swine flu is spread p.s.

Grandma & Grandpa eatin' some donuts

Cuttin' a Rug

The whole extended Fam

Somehow Dad's costume turned in a Lester costume...she looked like she was fresh outta jail & ready to be-friend some little boys.

So it was only natural to take a pic like this...

Can you spy the creeper? 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!!!

Ode to the Utah Poof

We have all seen them. The ridiculously ratted mess sitting on top of someone's head, desperately hidden beneath a thin layer of smooth hair. The Utah poof. Like the swine flu, it is sweeping across the Rexburg plains causing vomiting and hallucinations. It is moving up to the "hair-don'ts" right next to a comb-over and permed bangs. I know there are some people who can pull of this very well. 

Case and point: My sister Ali. 

She has mastered the way of the comb and it looks good.

 

But then there are those girls you see who take it a little too far, they got a little to excited with the comb and the hairspray. This artwork done by me and roommates is dedicated to you, keep your wrists strong and your combs stronger. May your hair always be ratted and never stand any less than 3 inches above your head. 

Lisa's Very Bad Day

I have been going through a "poor me" month. You know, thats when you realize your fat, lonely, old, bored, poor, & worthless all at the same time. I keep waiting for the kick in the pants that will get me going again but its not coming. So I am going to take the advice of countless mormons before me & count my many blessings. And pleeeeease let this be what I need to get me out of this funk. 

1. My Family

2. BYU-Idaho

3. My Job

4. My Roommates

5. My Friends

6. Beautiful Idaho

7. My Lazy Fall Days

8. My Awesome Bishopric & Ward

9. My Testimony

10. Old Bluey

11. My Laptop

12. This video that makes me laugh at the most inappropriate times (usually during sacrament meeting)

13. This Delicious Meal I Made Today:

(its an omelet in case you were wondering)

I don't think my plan worked. On to Plan B--watching DWTS & drinking a Coke. Hey maybe I will make it a party & throw in some Peanut M&M's. 

Roommate Love <3 <3 <3

I haven't ever been a big supporter of roommate bonding, especially with almost 5 years of college & numerous roommate switches under my belt. But these recent roommies have found a way to unfreeze this grinch heart & have made the first few weeks of the Fall Semester so much fun. 

This weekend we had our first "roommate date" which included a rodeo, a waffle breakfast, roommie pics & a straw maze.

The rodeo was actually one meant for students who have always wanted to bull-ride but don't want to die. So they had little bulls that mainly just ran around. But there were some near trampled-incidents so it was still exciting. It was Taiwanese Sandy's first rodeo ever & her reactions varied from laughing at the mutton-busters to crying for the calves that were roped. Watching her was almost as good as watching the rodeo.

And of course no rodeo would be complete without these:

I want this shirt almost as badly as I want to know why this guy is wearing it...

And your homework for tonight is:

1. Read or listen to Dallin H. Oaks BYU-Idaho Devotional Talk here

2. Read my sister's blog (even though it is cuter then mine) here

Ok. I am going to try REALLY hard not to get preachy here but I feel like I have to say it. I have looked at a lot of blogs lately with the vast majority of them being to married women. And when there is one for a single person they always preface it like this...

"So I know single people shouldn't have these..." or "I was going to wait until I was married but since this hasn't happened yet..."

And for some reason this really bugs me. I mean, I am embarrassed that I have a blog whether I am single or married but I guess I didn't know that the right to have a blog only comes when you are married. Is that part of the wedding vow? You promise to have and to hold and to blog?

 

I guess it kind of bothers me because I feel like it fits into the whole "your life doesn't count until your married" atmosphere that exists around here. Back in AZ, I hardly thought about it but here in Rexburg you are lucky if you can get through 5 minutes without marriage being brought up some way or another. Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE my married friends & their blogs are amazing. They are the ones who got me into this whole blogging thing because their blogs are so darn cute! But I feel like life is pretty good for me too and I would love to share that with you guys through my blog! 

So Ali, my dear sister...be loud and be proud about your blog! you are welcome.

In other news...please tell me I am not the only person in the world who loves DWTS (yeah I abbreviate it now. Me & Dancing With the Stars are Pretty Tight). I have a new fave. It's Chelsie Hightower and snowboarder Louie Vito. They are just too darn cute. And their little number last monday was showing some definite sexual tension...I mean come one, look at this picture.

 

Can I just say I would love to be on DWTS if I could look like that. To use my dad's fave phrase...YOWZA!

Here comes the snow

Yes, it is that time again...sweaters, scarves, gloves, hats, scraping ice off your car, etc. In other words, winter has arrived early in Rexburg. 

We were supposed to have relatively nice Fall weather but this last weekend brought in 20-30 degree weather and snow. And while I know that it probably will warm up again briefly in the next couple of weeks, I recognize this as the beginning of the end. 

Rexburg Idaho has a mathematical equation that is used in the winter:

    +       = 

For those of you who have had trouble with math like I have I will simplify it for you- 

below zero temps + tornado strength winds= Rexburg Idaho from December-April!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of me in Idaho during the winter because a) I had no friends last semester and b) I rarely went outside for anything but school. But just imagine me being something like this:

Despite all this...I am also excited for winter because it means this:

This...

And this...

I guess thats the trade-off, horribly cold weather for the best three months of the year!

Take a little time to say "I love you"

I just finished watching a documentary on the Tsunami that hit Thailand, Sumatra, and other parts of Asia on December 26th 2004. The movie brought back a lot of emotions that I remember feeling back then. We had just celebrated Christmas, life seemed good, and it seemed so unbelievable that something like this could happen. September 11th had just occurred three years prior and I remember being stunned by the number of people who had died in that. The total number of casualties for September 11th was just under 3,000. The number of people who died or went missing in the 2oo4 tsunami was 225,000. That number is astounding and my mind can't grasp it. 416,000 American soldiers died in WWII. I guess that kind of puts it in perspective. 

Anyways, this post wasn't meant to be a downer but instead a reminder of how important it is to appreciate and value the time with our families. One man in this story lost his ten month old baby when it slipped out of his arms in the flood. Another little boy saw his mother and two little sisters swept away in the water. They both said that they had regrets of not saying or doing something in the moments before the tsunami hit. I never want to feel that regret, I want my family to always know they mean the world to me. 

This reminds me of the October 2007 General Conference talk by Elder Claudio R. M. Costa of the Seventy. He spoke of the importance of not waiting until tomorrow to do the things we can do today, especially in regards to our family. In his talk he quoted the poem "If tomorrow never comes" by Norma Marek. 

"So, just in case tomorrow never comes, and today is all I get,

I'd like to say how much I love you, and I hope we never will forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike,

And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.

So, if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?

For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day

That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss,

And you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,

That you love them very much, and you'll always hold them dear.

Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "thank you" or "it's okay".

And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today."

I love you mom, dad, Ali, Amy, Axel, Greg, Andrea, Charlie, cousins, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, and friends!

Summer Lovin'

This was one of the most fun summers I have had in a while. Part of it was that I was up here in Rexburg with lots of good friends, the other part was that getting to see my family after so long made family vacations even more fun. Here is the shortened version of my summer fun in Idaho!

Jackie & I moved into Nauvoo House apartments with two other girls. One of our fave past times was squirting people outside of our window as they walked by at night. It was like a guilty pleasure because we felt bad but still laughed our heads off at the people who got wet. 

           

We lucked out with having awesome FHE bros who ended up becoming some of our closest friends. They were getting ready to graduate and knew all the best places to visit in Idaho. We went on hikes, saw waterfalls, went go-karting, played games, and watched movies. I had so much fun with them and I miss them a lot!

My sister Ali came up and visited my in May for Memorial Day. That was one of the funnest (yeah I know thats not a word) weekends I have had since I have been up here. Best memories from that trip:

1. Guy asking to smell Ali's underwear

2. The gross shaped slides

3. The scary noises in the train

Come back to visit soon!!!!

Ali and I decided to surprise our family for 4th of July by driving down to AZ. It was a 4 day weekend but it seemed like it was waaaaaaay to short for the 16 hour drive. But it was totally worth it to see the surprise on everyone's face when we came home. Amy wins for having the best surprised face (see pic below) but mom won for the best reaction. She thought that maybe we had time traveled. Yeah that would be my first though too. Not. :)

Then in July it was my family's turn to come up and visit me in Rexburg. The last time they had been there was in January when it was 5 below and the wind was horrible so I felt like they needed to see the beautiful side of living in Idaho too. We explored a lava tube, stayed in shady hotels, and went to our first rodeo. It was a blast!

Then at the end of July we went on our yearly family vacay and decided to visit San Fran. It was the first time for us kids and we had SUCH a blast. We got to experience a traditional Dim Sum (where we were the only white people in sight), see the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, visit the Monterrey Aquarium, ride segways and go-karts, stay in beautiful hotels, go to an amazing theme park, visit the Jelly Belly museum, and best of all, spend time with our amazing, wonderful cousins. Thanks mom and dad for one of the best Royal trips yet!

And I couldn't talk about my amazing summer without mentioning my partner in crime, roommate, and best friend Jackie. We met in January and have been causing trouble since then. We went on wagon ride trips, camping, picnics, and so much more. It makes life a lot easier up here to have someone so fun to be with.

Now I can only hope that the Fall Semester can be this fun too!