Around the World in 30 Days

Okay, maybe it was more like 'around the Western United States in 10 days' but still...it seemed like my latest excursions lasted a good 30 days. :) So, here goes nothin...

Destination 1: Boulder, Colorado
I drove out on Friday afternoon and spent the next day and a half with Jen's mom and dad. I LOVE the Jones's! It was so fun to see them again! When I got there, Mom Jones and I sat and talked for a little until Papa Jones got home and then they took me out to this little, quaint restaurant for dinner. It was fun to catch up with life and just relax a little before my interview. I was planning on getting to bed early-ish since I'd been driving all day and I wanted to be all rested for my interview the next morning, but I just couldn't tear myself away from Mom Jones that night. We stayed up talking about life n stuff for a good chunk of the evening which was just so good!

The next morning, I went to the interview. Long story short, I got accepted into the Dance/Movement Therapy program, but I'm not taking their offer. The whole time that I was there, I just felt really badly about the whole thing. Not to mention there were a lot of other negatives that were brought up throughout the whole thing, but it was a really good experience and I'm glad that it was so easy for me to feel that that wasn't the best place for me. Don't get me wrong...the decision to decline their offer was really hard. As much as I didn't feel right about it, I still wanted to to do it...but, I'm hoping that the Lord has something even better in mind for me that I don't know about yet! :) The day ended with me making the long drive home after my intensive interview...good times in the car! With that said, I've decided to move home in August. August 14th to be exact actually. I've been job hunting a little bit and I hope I'll find something that I'll really enjoy doing. I'm also planning on doing dance lessons again if I can find a place to do it. I think it would be fun to do an adult tap or Irish class or something too...who knows. There's still plenty of time to think about it!

Destination 2: Lake Havasu, Arizona
Sunday morning, Ashley and I woke up early to go to church and then spent the rest of the morning loading up our cars with all of her stuff. She's going on a mission and didn't have enough room for all of her stuff in her car and due to a lot of different family circumstances, it didn't work out that someone from her family could come with an extra car, so I volunteered mine! I spent most of the week in Arizona with Ashley and it was SO much fun! We got to go to the London Bridge which was fun...Ashley has those pictures though, so you'll have to wait to see them until I get them from her. :) I'm so glad I went though. Her family is amazing and I seriously had such a blast while I was there. I don't think I could ever get tired of being around Ashley...good times, sister...good times!

I had to drive back to Provo on Thursday because some work junk happened and I had to sign this paperwork, otherwise I wouldn't get paid and I had to do it that week for some reason...blah blah. Anyway, I drove back to sign the papers and then left the next morning for Cali!

Destination 3: Malibu, California
I'd never been to California before so it was definitely fun to go. I went up for Elsie's baby blessing and to meet Beth for the first time! It was SOOOOOO good to finally meet her. I had so much fun with her and her family! Adam drove with me for this trip so it was nice to have someone else in the car to talk to when he wasn't sleeping. haha. Here's my funny/retarded moment on the way up (I have to have one, right?) I'm gonna go ahead and name this a Rome/Italy moment, Meredith...yeah, good to know it runs in the family. So, here's how it went...We stopped at Wendy's for lunch and Adam grabbed a spoon out of habit and he didn't need it. So, he turns to me and says, "Hey...want a spoon?" Well, 'action deprived me' heard, "Hey...wanna spoon?" In the back of my brain, I knew what he really meant, but instead of responding accordingly, I said, "You bet I do! *pauses* want...a...spoon." I'm pretty sure that Adam just thought I was very enthusiastic about getting a free spoon....too bad I wasn't so smooth in covering up my idiocy. haha. I need to have a summer fling...fast. :) The blessing was really good though. It was fun to be there, for sure! Thanks for helping me feel so at home even though I was the only non-related person there. I love me some good times with the Borgias!

Anyway, while we were there, we went to the beach and had BBQs and such. It was so much fun! I loved getting to play with Will (Beth's son) too...he kept calling me 'my girl.' Lol...all the time..."Hey mom...where's my girl? I want to play with my girl?" lol Love that kid. We wrapped up the trip with helpin Beth and her family get all packed and on their way to AZ where they were moving. They left on Monday a little bit after Adam and I left to come back home. It was good to be there to help a little...I hope I was more of a help than just being in the way...

Now, I'm back home and my butt still hurts a little from sitting in a car so much, but it could be worse! :) It's good to be back in good ol' P Town. I'm gettin ready to soak up as much of it as I can in the next 2 1/2 months!

Water, water everywhere and not a drop I want to drink...

Okay, so before I tell the story that I'm about to tell, I have to just say that I'm completely addicted to Wicked. Seriously, the music is SO good. I've never actually seen the play, but I can't stop listening to it. Definitely the album crush of the month, for sure...

Anyway, so Friday night was absolutely hilarious...its about midnight-ish and I'm gettin ready to turn in for the night. Ashley is in the bathroom and all of a sudden, this is what I hear..."Uh Tara! The water is overflowing!" hahaha oh man...I go runnin in there and the toilet is seriously spewing out everything that it ever held. Luckily just water tho...not the other stuff. We try turning the water off with absolutely no luck. Well, okay, we turned it off but the water kept coming. Finally, it just randomly stopped and we spent the next while trying to soak up all the water that was in our apartment. I washed the towels and everything was hunky dory, right?

I told you that story, to tell you this story. Last night, me and a bunch of people decided to hit up the swimming pool for some 'good for the soul' swimmin time. I get back in to the apartment, put on some warm clothes while Ashley was showering and wrapped my hair in a, nice, clean towel. I went downstairs because some people came over to bond and as I was sitting there, I kept smelling this faint poo smell.... It was seriously nasty and it wouldn't go away. At first, I thought maybe someone tooted a little and didn't want to own up to it. So, instead of asking if anyone could smell that smell, I just suffered through it. About 10 minutes passed and the smell didn't go away so I thought something had to be goin on. Ashley came downstairs and I asked if anyone could smell the poo smell? Everyone said no but as Ashley started walking more towards me, she realized it was getting stronger. That's right...she followed her nose to my TOWEL! AHHH IT WAS SO NASTY. I ran upstairs and got the towel off my head and proceeded to smell the other towels that were used to mop up the nasty poo smelling water. Good thing all of my towels now smell like poo, huh? I tried washing them again today in hopes of getting the smell out but seriously...EW! Anyway, that's my funny story of the week. The poo towels are now famous across quite a few apartments in the ward. Man, how news travels! hahaha Good times in Provo...I did always say that I wanted to go out with a bang...I guess I got my wish! haah Siiiiiick...

Women's Conferencing

This weekend I got to go to Women's Conference at BYU for the first time. It was so awesome! Thursday Beth, Ashley and I hit up the sessions together which was definitely fun! We made the mistake of picking all the ones that had to do with overcoming and finding strength in our trials though. It was definitely my favorite day becuase everything was so great and inspiring, but it was EXHAUSTING. When we got to the closing session where everyone came back together that day, Ashley asked me what the topic was that the speaker was speaking on and I pulled out the program and read, "Finding strength in our trails." We all paused and proclaimed, "NOOOOO!" hahaha It was way funny though...but we definitely mixed things up a bit the next day.

After we ate up and took a little break from the hoards of women that were surrounding us, we went back into the madness and made tutus for battered women's shelters. It was definitely my favorite part of the Conference. We were at a little table of like 5 or 6 of us and out of everyone that sits next to me, guess who it was? The wife of the Bishop for the ward that I'll be in if I move to Colorado! Yeah...good times. I'd been getting a little discouraged about it lately...trying to figure out if that was really the path that I needed to go down and this totally re-pumped me up! We talked all about the area and the ppl in the ward and such. She told me that most people in that ward are all Graduate students at CU so they'll be older which is nice. She said that they were just wonderful and told me about their institute program which I've heard great things about. It was awesome. And of course, we found some time for some goofing off time too....

Righ when we took the picture of Ashley with the tutu on her head, we look over and Sister Beck is standing like 20 feet from us. Her second counselor was there too and she looked at us and started laughing. lol. Thats probably why they allow women our age to go...they need some good laughs :)

Friday was just Ashley and I and we got to hear John Bytheway and Bro Wilcox speak which was AWESOME as you could imagine. We decided that instead of moving around all over campus that we would just stay in one building and bring uno cards to keep us entertained. The day before was nice to get up and walk around but some of those ladies were rutheless! You'd be surprised how much pushing and shoving was goin on. haha. It was definitely funny to watch for sure. And I would just like to say that I was crowned the Women's Conference Uno Champion. That's right...don't mess with this. :) We got to hear Sister Beck and Elder Perry talk which was AWESOME. And not to mention that Sunday's CES Fireside was given by Elder Bednar, so its been an awesome weekend. I highly recommend Women's conference to everyone! Although, I must say...I did miss being surrounded by my male counterparts those couple of days. Sheesh...so much estrogen. haha. Seriously though...so wonderful and it was SO much fun!