Bridal Shower for Rose

Last Friday Marleah and I threw a bridal shower for Rose. Rose's mom came all the way up from St. George for it! My mom and Angelynn also came up for the shower. 

I made a vanilla strawberry cake for the shower. It was DELICIOUS!

For the first game, we asked Rose some questions and she would have to answer them the way Fred would. (I asked Fred the questions previously in the week so we had his answers) Every time Rose got an answer wrong, she would have to chew a piece of bubble gum. 

Rose with 8 pieces of bubble gum stuffed in her cheeks! 

 The next game we played was the classic game where we had 3 groups and they had to make a wedding dress out of toilet paper. We used the stairs as a runway for the models to show off their beautiful dresses. Rose picked her favorite, which is the one lovely Taryn (the one in the middle) is modeling. 

The lucky ones who got to model the dresses :) Aren't the dresses so creative?

 For the third game, we had Rose bake a cake without using any measuring tools. It didn't turn out half bad! Rose is a pro baker/cooker!

Want some cake?

 We also played telephone pictionary. Each person came up with a wedding word and wrote it on the top of a piece of paper. Then, they passed it to the person on their right and that person had to draw the word. They would fold over the paper so just the picture was showing then pass it on to the next person and that person would write the word that they think the picture was. When the papers were full of words and pictures, we shared them around the circle. Some of them came out really silly!

For the last activity, Rose opened presents and whose ever present she was opening that person would tell a story they have about Rose or Rose and Fred. 

Cross stitch my mom made for Rose and Fred

The group of people at the shower

Hob nobbing after the shower. We color coordinated well, didn't we? 

Yep, Fred was at the shower too ;) 

No, just kidding. Fred showed up right after the shower. 

It was a very successful bridal shower. Rose couldn't stop smiling; she was so happy the whole time! I can't wait for her to be my sister! 

My Birthday!

I'm 21!

My birthday started off with eating some delicious chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast with my roommates. Then I decided that since it was my birthday, I wasn't going to go to any of my classes. I felt like such a rebel! But don't worry it was only 2 classes and I knew I wasn't going to miss anything.

Rose and Katelyn made me a funfetti birthday cake and cupcakes. They were going to make 21 cupcakes, but we didn't have enough liners. So, it ended up being 12 cupcakes and one small cake.

Thank you Rose and Katelyn for the cupcakes and tiny cake!

Nice action shot!

Katelyn also left me a little surprise in my room. It was a list entitled "21 reasons why I love u!" It was so special to me.

Thanks Katelyn! I love you!

In the evening I went with Fred, Rose, Peter, and Jessica to a place called The White Owl. This place gives you a free burger on your birthday. It was a scrumptious burger! Fred bought me an Indian Pale Ale which came in a gigantic mug! Fred had to help me drink it all!

My free birthday burger!

When we came back from The White Owl, we played some Uno and Mexican Train. It was a fun ending to my 21st birthday!

All throughout the day I received many birthday texts, birthday phone calls, birthday cards, and birthday wishes on Facebook. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family who care about me more than I can even imagine!

Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday special!

Spring Break!

Last week Fred and I had spring break and we decided to travel out to Colorado Springs to visit Jeremy, Amanda, baby John-Michael, Derrek, and mom (who had gone out a week earlier to help out with the baby).

Angelynn got off work for that whole week and drove out with us. We drove her new car (we like to call her Sophie) because Sophie was nice and spacious. It was a nice drive out to Colorado.

We got to Jeremy's house at about 8 p.m. and when we got there Klondike and the rest of the family were excited to see us. We watched Klondike and Jerry (Derrek's cat) "play" with each other. Those 2 are so funny to watch. Klondike really wants to play with Jerry, but she knows if she gets too close, then Jerry will swipe at her.

When we were done watching the pets, we met John-Michael.
HE IS THE CUTEST BABY! He is also a very good baby.

Aunt Amberly loves her nephew!

Uncle Fred has not had much experience with holding such tiny babies, so aunt Amberly had to teach him.

Aunt Angelynn's turn to hold John-Michael

Jeremy and Derrek were doing a major plumbing operation because there were some clogged pipes. The water had to be turned off for 2 days while they fixed the pipes.

This picture shows the fixed pipes. I have some very handy brothers!

We did a hike close to Jeremy and Amanda's house on Monday.

On Tuesday Amanda and John-Michael left for Kansas because her grandma wasn't doing so well and she wanted grandma to see John-Michael before she passed away. Amanda's grandma was able to see John-Michael before she passed away; it was good that Amanda drove to Kansas to be with her family at this time, she needed to be there. Even if it meant we couldn't see John-Michael for the rest of our spring break.

The rest of the week we did fun things around Colorado Springs.

We sampled the 9 natural springs, which tasted like baking soda. YUCK!

Then we went to Garden of the Gods.

We hiked to pulpit rock, which we also like to call 'puppet' rock.

Don't we look like puppets???

We went to Focus on the Family and got some yummy icecream at Whit's End.

Ang and I both got a raspberry ripple.

We hiked to some partially frozen waterfalls. There were even some ice climbers climbing up the waterfall! It was cool to watch!

Since most of my family was together, we celebrated my 21st birthday. My mom gave me 21 presents!

Most of my presents were from Hawaii.

We also visited the Olympic training center. Yes, Olympians really do train here!

We also took a tour of Jeremy's work and on the last day in Colorado Springs we hiked the cog railway.

It was so much fun, but we didn't have enough time to make it to the top :(
We will just have to come back!

We spent our last night at our Uncle Mark's house in Denver...

(Notice Sophia in the driveway)
... and in the morning we visited our cousins and ate breakfast with them before we made the long drive back home to Utah.

It was a great trip! I love my family so much! We make so many wonderful memories together!

New haircut and other adventures...

On Saturday, I got a haircut! Nothing too fancy, I just got a trim to get rid of split ends and some layers. Can you see them?

Also on Saturday, I went to a gigantic book sale. I heard about a place that was selling children's books for $1. I thought this was a great opportunity to get some books for my future classroom. This book sale had tons of books. It had cookbooks, craft books, fiction, non fiction, pretty much every genre of book. I looked a little at the other books, but the children's books were the ones I was interested in; and boy, did I find some good deals on these books.
I got some pop up books and some classic books like Corduroy, Curious George, If you give a mouse a muffin, Amelia Bedelia, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (that is the big book) and some interactive science books.

On Sunday I had an orchestra recital! I am in a community orchestra, which doubles as a credit towards my fine arts emphasis, which has a good mix of non-music major students as well as older people from the community who want to keep up on their instruments. It is so much fun! I love being in an orchestra again! I never thought I would play violin at such a prestigious level! Even though some of the music is a little difficult for me, it is good for me to keep up practicing on violin and it doesn't hurt to be challenged!

Crochet Pillow

So, you know that yarn Ang and I bought during the sister retreat? This is what I made with the yarn! I know, I got it done fast! This is my first crochet pillow. I have sewn many pillows, but I never have crocheted any. Except, I don't want to snuggle with it too much because I want to put it in the fair so I want it to stay nice and fluffy.

Ok, for all you crafty crocheters out there, here is how I made the pillow:

Supplies:

• 12x12 pillow form
• 2 skeins angel yarn from Joann fabrics
• size J crochet hook
• large safety pins~6

Pattern:
row 1: ch 36, sc in 2nd loop from hook, sc across. ch 1, turn.
row 2: sc across, ch 1 turn.
row 3-?: alternate doing sc and tc (triple crochet) across rows, always ch 1 before turning. Continue with this pattern until you have crocheted a square. (fold corners together to be able to tell if you have made a square)

For the back: If you have enough yarn, you can to the same pattern as for the front, or you can just do dc (double crochet) all the way. I started the back the same as the front except changed to dc (ch 36, dc in 2nd lp from hook). Do dc all the way until you have made a square.

Putting it together: Put the front and back squares on the pillow form and pin it with safety pins. Sc all the way around the pillow connecting the front and back panels.

Ta-da! Your pillow is all finished! Now it's time for a nap! :)

Sister's Retreat!

I had President's day off from school, so I decided to go have a sister's retreat with Angelynn down in Ogden! She had to work on Friday and Saturday, so I left for our fun weekend right after church on Sunday. It had started snowing on Saturday night and I was a little scared that driving down the canyon would be a little dangerous; but it mostly stopped snowing by the time I drove down to Ogden, so the driving was nice and safe.
I guess this sister's retreat was meant to be!

Since it had just snowed a whole bunch, Ang and I decided that we wanted to go sledding. So we drove up Odgen canyon and did some back country sledding. But first things first; we just had to make snow angels!

After the snow angels, we began sledding. There were some people snowshoeing who were watching us sled and they called us "super adventurous" to be doing back country sledding. We didn't think we were being that adventurous, but I guess the average person doesn't try to go sledding in the back country!
We found the best sledding hill; do you see that telephone post in the background? That is where we started and we ended up where this picture was taken! It was a long run! (In more than one way, too! haha, I just had to put that pun in there)

However, the snow was REALLY deep, like up to our knees deep, and we didn't feel like walking all the way back up to the telephone post without snowshoes, so we just kept on sledding down the mountain. It was slow going at spots, but we got a good arm workout! We sledded until we hit a no trespassing sign and until my cracked sled wouldn't sled anymore. So, we climbed up a steep hill to get back up to the road.

We followed the road back to the car. The walk back was nice and peaceful because it was snowing gently while the sun was still shining! My, what a sledding adventure we had!

But the fun didn't stop there, after sledding we went back to Ang's house and made yummy pork chops and Gold Rush Brownies with Christy (Ang's roommate) and Ben (Ang's boyfriend). Then we did some girly stuff like foot baths and painting nails while watching a movie.

The next day, we both did a waterfall braid in our hair and then we did some shopping at JoAnn's to find a craft project to do together. We found this super soft and cuddly yarn and decided that we wanted to make a pillow out of it.
See how soft it is? We are already snuggling with it!

Then we made some pretzels and gobbled several of them up while we watched an episode of Project Runway before I headed back up to Logan. This nice little sister's retreat was fun, but too short! We'll have to do it again sometime, Ang!

First come love, second comes marriage, then comes...

A BABY!!!!

John Michael Long was born on February 23, 2012.
He weighed 6lbs 8oz and was 22in long.

Congratulations Jeremy and Amanda! You will be excellent parents!
Isn't he the cutest?

I am so excited to be an aunt! I can't wait until March when I get to hold this little bundle of joy!!!