Oops, August, September, October?

So we've all discovered I'm AWFUL at blogging! Lol. I always want to do some sweet clever elaborate post with pictures and witty captions. Then I get behind, then I can't get caught up. And I'm always busy with something, so it just never gets done. :( But I decided that I can still post something without pictures. Though it makes me sad. The pictures just drive me crazy because I want them to upload a certain way, and I have to post them in backwards order if I don't want to have to move them around. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Sigh.

August started out with me in California with my family. My friend Alessandra came with me and that was awesome, we got to do some fun things. See some wonderful people who I wasn't expecting to get to see, it was great. My newest nephew was blessed. Then I got back and school started. Not teaching what I wanted, and ended up taking a class and started to get ready for my huge "Comp"--a comprehensive chemistry exam I have to take for a masters degree. And started as the Choir director for our Institute Choir here in Greeley--very daunting! Our school is known for teaching, and for music! We have bunches of music majors--singers even--and I am very underqualified. It was terrifying for me (believe it or not) but it's working out well so far! They're amazing!

As school started and life got crazy (since that seems to be always the time that things start to work out?), I decided to finally revamp my scripture study, with the little prodding from my new Stake President. And that's been wonderful! I think it's better than it's ever been. As it should be, right, we should always be improving our scripture study huh? ;) And I go to way too many Institute classes! At least one everyday, literally...crazy I know. Ugh. But there were too many I wanted to go to. One is a Spanish Book of Mormon class, I haven't gone every week, and I don't understand a whole lot, but it's been good. My Spanish reading & translation has been slowly improving (though I'm starting to feel at a wall because I'm not doing enough Spanish to really get very good).

September, still school, preparing for the comp, teaching, helping with a Best of EFY day camp, a barn dance, finishing up our Temple Prep class at church for the last few missionaries who've left or who're leaving shortly. Oh and throughout all of this having started sometime in June or July I think, I may have been getting caught up on all the seasons of 'The Office.' ;) Zuchinni, summer squash, tomatoes (oh reaping the benefits of knowing people with gardens), cooking, studying for my comp. I did get to fly home to California for a weekend for my niece's baptism! That was wonderful, and I got to sing with my family and hold baby Paul some more.

October, my Comp finally came. Ugh, had to be the worst test of my life! It took me 6 hours!! Very literally, I started at 8:00 am friday the 9th, and did not finish till 2:00 and I had not really finished everything because I couldn't figure it out. It was an Analytical Chemistry Comp (for any of you that it might mean something), and it just worked me over like I haven't been worked very often. I was wiped out beyond belief. But I did get to end that day wonderfully in the Temple with a girl who leaves on her mission soon, it was beautifully perfect. I did get my results the next week and I had failed--a 60%, but my professor let me redo it all, with notes and he and I discussed the problems and I got that back this week, I passed with an 89%!! I'm happy with that score! It has been a huge relief.

Now I get to focus on research somehow. :( Someday soon--like next week. I also get to finish getting ready for our Institute Choir fireside! Eek, November 22nd is the day, it's going to be pretty intense finalizing the preparations. My pianist is thankfully AMAZing and pretty close to literally a professional! So she's been a HUGE help for me, who knows close to nothing about directing a choir. But she is also the lead in the Opera here the week before. So she's insanely busy, got the swine flu and will have missed a few of the practices beforehand. A little crazy, but I'm flexible. I'm trying to learn how to use my left hand while conducting--it's so inept and I haven't been successful yet. Hah. So sad.

Well that's sorta a quick rundown of my life right now. Oh, haha, so part of the reason why I'm having a successful choir experience is because I've promised treats every week. And I make them. It's way fun for me, and a stress reliever so I love that. And they really love it. I try to make them somewhat interesting. It's helping me get to flex my domesticity skills. ;) And we're getting more guys in choir than they've ever gotten here and than I've seen in any ward choir, I'm pretty sure that it really does relate to the food.

Conference was WONDERFUL right at the beginning of October (of course)! I loved every talk, and have already gotten caught up on Priesthood, which was awesome. Then I got to start teaching the 'Teaching, No Greater Call' Sunday School class. I just love that book--it's amazing! I have amazing people in the class, I have something like 30 people who are on a list that are supposed to be in it. But some are teaching during my class, and some took it last year from me. So I've had 22, 19, and 20 in there each week so far. It's great, and I love it!

Oh, exciting, I started a puzzle before school started, a 1000 piece puzzle (my favorite), of daisies, and once school started and I wasn't around, and if I was, I always had to grade, or study. Anyhow, it's just been moved all around our living room for months, and I finished it this morning! Yay! There is one piece missing, but I bet it's around our living room somewhere, it was moved around so much. But that made me really happy.

I'm gonna try to not let it be 3 months till I post again, course it won't be 3 months till tomorrow, lol. ;)

Love to all,
Carol Joy

Grapes of Frath Murder Mystery Dinner

The year was 1920, and here are,

The Suspects:

Fearless Captain Mal, with his medals from war where he received the injury necessitating the use of a cane

Jules, the jewel thief

Bella Maria, the conturasoprano

Nadya, the Russian brothel owner

Lucie

Miles, the race car driver

Desiree Fambeau, businesswoman, proprietor of Flambeau vineyards

Wellington, businessman and expert on fine wines

or could it have been Lily, the flamenco dancer on board?

Some of the facts unravel...

Miles and Desiree may have had something going on, and Miles kept trying to hold her hand, but she was resistant in public.

She had to hold his wrist to stop him.

Jules didn't only like the jewels, but he also liked the ladies!

And liked to share the jewels with the ladies...

Miles likes to drive the cars. Fast.

It was quite the night of crazy mayhem. Lots of French accents, accusations, laughing. Good food. Good times! 'Twas a blast. As for who committed the murder?! Well guess you'll just have to do this one yourself sometime... ;)

Utah! Utah! Utah!

July has been nuts. First weekend was the 4th, and I got to pick up Alessandra from the airport in Denver as she arrived back in the US after a month studying abroad in China. It was awesome! She was only in Greeley for 4 hours. Hah, Chelsea was able take her back to the airport in the morning, but of course we got pictures in.

This was a picture Alessandra was taking of a drum she bought so she wouldn't have to take it to Utah for her family to see...

Chelsea got to come over for a bit after the Greeley Stampede, so, like I said, she was able to take Alessandra back to the airport on her way home, it was a huge help.

The second weekend of July our friend Ryan was going out to Utah for his mission president's homecoming talk, so I went along for the ride, and to see Alessandra. We were originally going to pick Alessandra up, but her parents didn't want her to leave. And her family had tickets for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, so Ryan and I worked friday night (till 10:30pm), I went and took a couple hour nap, and we left Greeley at 3:00am Saturday morning! Ryan, has a manual so I couldn't help drive, just help keep him awake, but he was crazy fast, and we made REALLY good time to Alessandra's house. We even had time to take a wee nap. The open house was amazing! The temple is so beautiful. I look forward to going back after it's dedicated.

This is a picture Alessandra took so I could see what I looked like with her sister Luli's glasses. I wanna get new frames, so I was just curious what I looked like. I don't think they're me...

You can't see us very well, but here we are in front of the temple. Ryan, Alessandra, Michella, Ruth, and me.

After the temple, I went down to Provo and got to hang out with Nicolle and Jillaine. Michelle was at home in California.

Sunday I got to go play with my cousins. It was really fun. Here I am with Deborah and Liza! Love those two bunches and bunches!

So the next weekend, Diane was going out to Utah for a wedding reception. So her job was to pick up Alessandra. She wanted me to go with her. Of course I wanted to. I really didn't want to cancel my Sunday School class for another week, so I told her that I'd go if we could make it back in time for church sunday morning. So we decided we'd leave Utah whenever her reception was over saturday night. Crazy, but I figured we'd be able to take turns sleeping in the back seat.

So next the question was when we would leave Colorado. Originally I thought the plan was to leave on friday morning. Then maybe friday night. But that didn't work out for Diane. So we left Saturday morning at 8:00am, and we left Utah at 9:00pm to come back. It was nuts! I hung out in Provo with Michelle, where Alessandra met up with us, and then we met back up with Diane. We got into Greeley at 4:00am sunday morning. I got 3 hours of sleep before church! It was crazy! But we all survived. Whether we've recovered or not is another issue. ;) It was fun though. And how many people can say they've gone to Utah and back from Colorado in one day?! Hah, not many. But Diane and I can. In fact it was so fast there and back that I have no pictures to show from it. How'd I manage to not take pictures? I'm really not sure.

So I got Alessandra, and sunday afternoon we made a big dinner for the Toy Family who was moving away to Mississippi on that next tuesday. We ate with them of course (oh, the food turned out amazing, orange beef with broccoli, and tons of vegies), and then hung out with them till birthday cake for Kristin Nelson followed by games at the Huffines called us away.

Alessandra got quite the workout playing with the 4 adorable kids (especially since it was so hot)!

How cute is baby Ammon?

Thursday of that week we were going over to Ryan's to have some dinner, watch some of The Office, and I had some zuchini bread to make (with yellow squash as an experiment). As I took a corner a little too fast to make the light (the one at 34 and 47th Ave, horrible light), two of the eggs jumped out and cracked. Of course I had to take a picture of Alessandra with the dripping egg. Hah, I was laughing so hard. The bread turned out awesome though!

Alessandra had to be in Colorado primarily for Chelsea & Sean's wedding and reception friday the 24th. It was great, and I'll post a blog entry about it, but when we got home we were beat! It'd been a really long day--over 12 hours down in Denver area, and dancing on hard wood with bare feet (couldn't do it in my 4-inch heels), so we soaked our poor dirty and tired feet in hot soapy water while we watched an episode of Robin Hood with Ashley! It was fun. We felt better after that.

Saturday was another wedding reception, then Sunday was filled with church (of course), choir stuff, visiting teaching, the Nursing home, packing, dinner, fireside, and finally we left Fort Collins at 8:55pm for Alessandra's house in Sandy. Doesn't Alessandra look so happy to be driving? She drove first of course.

I slept in the back seat while she drove for the first 4 hours. I slept for prolly around 2.5 hours. Not bad! Would've totally thought that would've been enough. She was still feelin alright to drive when we filled up on gas at 1:00am. Look at that! We didn't even end up having to buy gas on the Sabbath!

But we decided I'd drive anyway since I'd slept so much.

Well turned out I was WAY tired, normally I'm way good to go late at night and stuff. But turns out that was a big negatory. I was okay driving, but I was way tired. So after trying to get some Taco Bell and failing (apparently Wyoming doesn't believe in 24-hr Taco Bells, a friend mentioned Taco Bell a few too many times during the month of July, and I really wanted some), I lasted only until 3:00am.

We were already in Utah at this point. I knew we were close to Sandy, about 45 minutes away was all. But I had to close my eyes for a bit. So I pulled into a rest stop, Alessandra stirred in the backseat and I told her where we were. I curled up in the drivers seat thinking that I'd sleep for a half hour or maybe an hour. (I don't normally sleep very well in cars.) Yeah, Alessandra and I woke up at 6:00am! We slept for 3 hours! So I drove the 45 minutes to her family in Sandy, where I then slept for another 5 hours! Guess everything else in July just wore me out!

So I drove to Utah for 3 of the weekends in July (hence the blog title, know what movie it's a play on? I haven't actually seen the movie, but I've heard of it anyhow). And I saw Alessandra every weekend of July! It's been crazy!

Now Alessandra and I are at my house in California. Again, more to come later.

Till then...

Life since Nauvoo

So I decided I oughta put a little about what I've been doing since then. I decided (prolly dumb, oh well) to do them backwards chronologically. Well I have been super cleaning/organizing (for me at least) my room, and I will do it's own post with pictures when I'm all done, there are still some finishing touches I've been working on. It's been quite the process. I also haven't been taking that many pictures, and some that I have taken are still on my camera. Hah.

Many of you may know that I'd gotten fairly addicted to Alias. Well we finished all 5 seasons just last week! It was very exciting, started April 7th, finished June 26th. Not too bad. On one episode in season 3 or 4 (shoot, I can't remember) Jennifer Garner had her hair in three braided buns on the back of her head and I LOVED it. So I tried it once, and it was a disaster, but then one day I tried it and was fairly successful if I do say so myself. ;) I should have used clear hair ties, it could still take some perfecting, and my hairs a little long for it, but it was fun. Nerdy I know, haha.

Alessandra's in China for study abroad, and we were video chatting on Skype, and she took a picture of me and sent it to me. It's always funny because the video will pause momentarily on the funniest facial expressions. She caught me at quite the moment with this picgture, Jessica was staying at our hours that night, so she was talking to her too.

It was a friend of our's birthday, so we bought some army men and bobble head people, made signs and put them all over his car and front porch. It was awesome! Unfortunately he figured out was us and a member of our band ratted us out. Oh well for anonymity...

Tanner and I went put-put one night, it was fun, I actually beat him (by 4) which is amazing because I'm TERRible at it. We both had way high scores, but it was fun.
Aagh, who's hands are whose?! Wacky...

The night we got back from Nauvoo we went to a baby shower, and my foot ran away with me hypermimiating a little too much, and dumped Cheche's chocolate all over her. I felt so bad, but it was really funny too! I'm ridiculous.

Almost caught up...yay!!

OMAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I feel the need to explain a little, and no pictures of Omaha/Winter Quarters made it in my last post. Oh yeah, that's because strangely enough I didn't take any. Lame, right? Oh well. I guess I figured I had enough pictures from when I lived there. It was awesome going to the Winter Quarters Temple because I was just going home. It was amazing.

Here's home for me:

So I was of course excited to go to Omaha because I hadn't been there since I moved (almost a full 2 years). So before we left on the trip I got excited talking about it. I always hypermimiate (excessive use of the hands while talking) in general, so especially as I was excited about Omaha I guess I threw my hands up in the air because I couldn't contain it very well. So as we were driving in everyone (well Bryn and Bishop Hatch led it, I think Bryn started it) started shouting OMAHA!!!!!! And throwing their arms up in the air. I was excited to see familiar places, and everyone just made fun of me. Bryn and Bishop Hatch were dancing in their seats, then standing up. That was probably the loudest the bus was the whole trip! It was really hysterical really. Embarassing to some degree, but SO funny!

While I was in the temple Alessandra and Megan took this picture in honor of me, that's what any of them do now anytime Omaha may come up, throw their arms in the air as they say it and act really excited. It's crazy. Just a little odd that everyone on the bus was making fun of me. But it was all in good fun.

Nauvoo or Bust

So we had to be to the Stake Center by 5:30 in the morning Monday 11 May 2009!! It was nutso! We were supposed to leave at 6:00. I don't remember what time we actually left. I think we were fairly close to that time, but we stood/sat around in the cultural hall for a while. We were all lookin ready to try to be comfy during a 10 hour (ended up being closer to 12 if I recall correctly) bus ride--and to try to sleep.

This post is mostly is pictures, I took about 300 pictures throughout the trip, and a few videos that were pretty great. So I rifled through, and chose I think about 40--haha, couldn't resist too many of them--for this post. So I'll just kinda explain/caption each picture and that'll be how you will all experience the Nauvoo trip with us. ;)

So Diane out of all of us was prolly the most used to being up this early, teaching Seminary and all... (don't worry, she definitely got some sleep on the bus, hah)

Sean of course picks up Alessandra on a relatively regular basis...I mean who can resist the absolutely adorable wee one?! ;) Love her!

Do Chelsea and I look excited or what?!

And of course Alessandra can hardly contain her exhilaration at the prospect of being on a bus for 30+ hours with all of us! Oh and Bryn was trying to show off his tongue?!

Alessandra all ready to try to sleep...isn't she just the cutest ever?!

I attempted to sleep (was almost never successful), and Michella actually did fall asleep, even though it doesn't look like it in this picture--haha

Bryn and Tanner were 'so far' back there for that whole first day (well until they wandered everywhere on the bus), oh and Ryan who constantly looked like he was asleep but also almost never was...

Another attempt at falling asleep. Bryn and Tanner yelled for me to put my feet down, of course all I did then was wiggle my toes at them, I was surprisingly comfy!

At this rest stop it advertised a look out, so we hiked up it (aka walked up the stairs) to check it out, it really was thrilling as you can tell from Ryan and Tanner's faces displaying the excitement at the view...

We had to take a picture at the state sign of course...not sure why The Megan decided to stand over there on her own, but it cracks me up everytime I look at it!

Duh, had to take a picture with the buffalo!

Another rest stop, Bryn tried to give me a piggy back ride, but his lack of hips prevented this from occuring, but we got a couple of funny pictures from the attempts.

Ryan was 'charging' Tanner in a field (a Loaded Questions reference), then Sean jumped in and picked Tanner up by his legs, it was really funny. In this picture it looks like Ryan's trying to whack them with his hand, I just thought it was a pretty awkward picture.

Tanner is crazy as everyone knows! He prolly spent a couple hour or two on the floor in the aisle, someone gave his this neck pillow, and this is one of the many ridiculous pictures taken while he was on the floor.

I have no idea who took this picture (yes on my camera), nor am I entirely sure what I was doing here, but I thought it was SO funny! It really almost looks like I have no teeth--Hah!

Yay, now we were in Nauvoo, one of our very favorite stops was the Schoolhouse! It was way fun. Look at us playing school, Ryan made good stern teacher faces, and Tanner was a pretty good dunce on the dunce stool, I think I got in trouble because I wasn't turning and looking at the camera.

A Sanra size rocker! (hah, k, so prolly actually even too small for Sanra)

Kristin and I never stayed in the same hotel room so we never could've planned on matching, though Megan and Alessandra can't say the same. However it happened, of course we had to take a picture of the two sets of twins! Hehe.

There were Sanra-size ponies randomly!! We made her climb the fence so we could take pictures of her with them. It was the cutest thing ever, I almost wanted to cry!

We were so tired (of course), we almost did fall asleep like this in our rather large hotel room suite thingy (where 10 of us girls stayed, fun fun).

She just looked SO cute with her umbrella sitting there eating under it! (It had sprinkled a little on us when we were eating, one night it poured for a fair amount of time.)

While we were walking Bryn picked this nut shell thingy and called it a pig's nose fossil, he was WAY funny about it, he kept playing with it...that boy was really just constantly cracking us all up of course.

Ryan said we needed to take a picture on the "happy bridge" so of course we have a few.

Bryn put his backpack on completely backwards, it was pretty amazing. We gave him a hard enough time he ended up fixing it shortly after this was taken.

There were so many dandelions mostly Tanner and I kept picking them and making wishes. Then we all did it.

After eating lunch at Carthage jail. We wanted to take another when Tanner was around, but he'd gone off talking to someone and we forgot to do it again. So this is the only one we have like this. These pictures of heads all close together were always my favorite growing up.

Sanra piggy back ride

All of us at Carthage Jail. This picture turned out pretty well, can see everyone fairly decently, and hello, Carthage Jail right behind! Good job Elder.

This sign was in the Red Brick Store and I thought it especially combined with Bryn's brilliant face in this picture was so funny!

Had to stop at my 4th-Great Grandfather's home.

We went to see the Joseph Smith movie, nice face Megan! ;)

Nice face Ryan, don't look too excited to see the movie.

We were having a 'staring contest' and it took forEVER because we kept laughing. I think I was actually the best at keeping a straight face, which is nuts. Too bad we don't have a bajillion pictures of our attempts, they would've been funny, oh well.

Tanner really wanted to do stick pulling, but the sticks were put away, so he found this huge branch and it was hilarious as he tried to break it into something smaller, and then as he and Ryan attempted to stick pull with it. The video is practically priceless.

My feet resting on Alessandra in my almost most successful attempt at sleeping, draped across the aisle. The problem mostly arose from having to move my legs for people passing by. So sad, I got MAYbe tops one hour of sleep during the 30+ hours on that bus...

Some of our creepy eyes staring at Tanner and Ryan, hah. (I'm pretty sure Ryan was 'asleep' while Tanner took this picture.)

A road trip would not be complete without a picture of Bryn brushing his teeth!! I'm pretty sure this was taken as we were driving into Greeley.

Ryan's bag was so big we had a joke that Alessandra would fit inside. So when we got back, Saturday 16 May, of course we'd gone over to Ryan's to watch some Alias, so Ryan emptied it out so we could try. Clearly Alessandra fit, so this is her breaking out of it. So great!

So this is just a sampling (a big one albeit) of the pictures from the trip, and still only a sampling of the stories. We had tons of fun, definitely didn't get enough sleep, as I'd known, and had some great experiences. I got to do an endowment session in Nauvoo and Winter Quarters! Amazing. It's perhaps mildly unexpected that we could have a spiritual experience on such little sleep and a whirlwind or a trip. But it's great how the Spirit works on you when you may not expect it. It was a great opportunity none of us will ever have again and I think I can look back and honestly say that I loved every minute of it! Okay, maybe not running down main st in Nauvoo to try to catch the bus, but that's just because I'm weak and I can't run. Hah. But even that is way funny to look back on. Yep, it was all fantastic, LOVED it!!