winter musings.

1. it was 0 degrees Farenheit today. literally. that is way too stinkin cold.

2. one more day of classes!

3. old navy has super cute stockings on sale - for only $1.00! and they're very very cute. don't worry. i bought 9. one for everyone in my family!

3. me and gravy have this obnoxious thing going on - we literally can not get mad at each other for more than a few minutes without one of us (which leads to both of us) bursting into laughter. its horrible!! i can't prove a point. i can't make him think im mad. i can't stay mad no matter how hard i try. its frustrating! okay so there's actually nothing horrible about it. i suppose it's actually really a great thing. but...frustrating!

4. we're officially done christmas shopping!! for everyone...except each other. but that will be done tomorrow! so exciting. i'm so excited about the presents that we are giving this year. we put so much thought into them, and i'm just really excited to give them away!!

5. we've had another little fun surprise thrown into our christmas vacation. gregs parents are going to fly down to vegas and meet us for 2 days on our way to california! greg and his parents are going to go to the vegas bowl to see BYU play, while I get my hair done by my favorite person!! it's been almost a year since she's done my hair. i really can't tell you how excited i am about it! we are staying at the trump hotel on the strip (exciting!), hopefully going to go see a show, and eating amazing food! (ie. claim jumper. my favorite thing about las vegas. giant pretzels with extra cheese, diet coke, black tie chicken pasta, chocolate chip cream cheese pie! ohh boy) it will be a fun little diversion! then off to califonrnia! sunshine, hot tubs, movies, food, yay!

6. i'm totally gona get straight a's again this semester :] woo-hoo!! scholarship finally please??

7. danny won the biggest loser. Better him than rudy...but still..why not amanda?? i liked her most. and she looked smokin at the finale!

8. last night at old navy i bought the CUTEST sweatpants that i have ever had. i will post a picture asap. They're bright orange and pink striped. oh boy. i love them. greg tried to make me wait until christmas to wear them - ya right!!! they're my new favorite article of clothing.

9. i've been married for almost 6 months. thats a long time! haha. i know what you're all thinking...no, it's not that long. but it kind of is! a lot has happened, we've both changed and grown and done so much. i love it!

10. we had some friends over for dinner on sunday night. i had a pretty delish recipe to make to dinner, but i needed something super for dessert. in my head i remembered seeing a picture of a blackberry peach cobbler. i had my heart set on it. i went through every single dessert page of every single cookbook that i own (not that many..but still..a big effort) and i couldn't find the picture! so, i recruited greg. we again went through every single dessert page of every single cookbook. not there. so, i decided to go back through all of the blogs that i read where people post recipes - thinking, obviously it had to be there. i knew that i had for sure seen it somewhere!!! i went back for 2 months worth of blogs. nothin! so, i remembered that a few days ago i had been waiting for greg to get out of class and i had looked through some cookbooks there. of course! it was obviously at the BYU bookstore. so, we packed up in the middle of the freezing snow, and drove to the bookstore. we dilligently looked through all of the dessert pages of like 15 cookbooks. NO BLACKBERRY PEACH COBBLER. we were about to head to costco, where i also remember seeing a cookbook....when i decided that i would just google it and see what images popped up. low and behold. i found it. 3 hours later... so. we made it. and it turned out disgusting. BUMMER!!! never again will i got running around the city in the snow trying to find a stupid recipe.

well. thats all. thanks bye!

thought of the day.

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin. -Jay Leno

date night

for date night tonight we went up to the byu basketball game at the delta center in salt lake with our best friends! it was a blast. im turning into a chunk. its true. we dont have a single picture from tonight where i dont look like a cream puff. we're going to have to work on that.

after the game we went to cpk for dinner (delish!!) and then went to check out the lights on temple square - a must!! it was freeezing (surprise). so our trip was a little fast...i couldn't feel my toes after a few minutes! 28 degrees. ouch!! california in 2 weeks! i'm counting.

     we love sean & alena (better known in our house as "shaleena" haha) and we have so much fun with them!!
                                                                        thanks guys!

hello :]

hellllooooo blogging world. we have been on a sort of hiatus i suppose. life has been a litttle nutty. i swear, i have never had such a busy busy semester! its crazy. In the last 3 days i've written a 10 page paper, and 2 4 page papers! seriously crazy. my ten page paper was about this beauty by artist elihu vedder (ellie-who vay-der...pretty sweet huh?? if nothing else, the artist's got a cool name!)

check out that sucker! and try writing a 10 page paper about it. HEADACHE!! but at the same time, it makes me feel kind of intelligent that I pulled it off.

finals are in just one week!! this semester flew. i really don't feel like i've learned enough this semester to be taking a final on anything (except maybe dear elihu) one year from now i'll be a BYU grad! i hope i make it. this is rough.

we're so excited for christmas. we will head down to california for a few days to be with my family. doesn't get much better than that...sunshine, swimming pool, hot tub, good food, movies, my favorite little boys (who sadly aren't that little anymore) and best of all - 18 hours in the car with my love. it's so totally nerdy. but I love going on road trips with him. this summer we spent 100s of hours (literally) in the car together - and it was a blast!! i can't wait. best of all - not a single thing related to school that i have to think about! hurrah! i'm so excited to be with my family for christmas this year. last year was my first christmas away from my family...and it was pretty dang hard for me! i bawled in the airport (but it ended up being a super fun trip!! it was just hard to leave) anyway, i'm quite excited for this year!

after california we will head back east to north carolina for new years! which i'm equally excited for!! we're hoping to go to myrtle beach while we are there!! i'm really super excited for this. i've been once before, and i totally loved it.it's going to be an awesome break.

(PS. as i'm typing this, I'm watching some stupid show on TLC, but the girl on the show is named....STELLA!! okay. anyone who has talked to me in the last few weeks knows...i love love love this name. I want a baby girl named Stella. Stella Ettie Cook. HOW ADORABLE? It seriously doesn't get much cuter. Baby Stella....aw)

okay. moving on. we bought a christmas tree!! actually, technically speaking. i did. haha. i went shopping with my aunt on black friday, and came home with a tree! decorations and all. surprise honey!  anyway, it looks like a who-tree from a dr. seuss book. its skinny and short, and the branches are sparse...and i LOVE it!! our decorations are all pink and green and blue and SPARKLEY mmm. i love them. our tree topper is my abolsutel favorite part. 

backtracking a little... when new moon came out last month i totally had tickets at midnight. and we totally had a pre-party and totally made totally awesome slash totally adorable tshirts.

"oven or freezer, heater or ac, fire or ice, fur or fangs, werewolf or vampire, jacob or edward?"
"i (heart) him"
"Jacob is hotter than Edward...literally."
"i don't date disco balls"
"i (heart) boys that sparkle"

so fun. i love my friends.

unfortunately... my sweet boy got totally sick 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for the movie. so, i sent my friends on their way and played nurse to my sick husband. i wasn't very good at it. but i tried! i guess i love boys that are sick more than boys that sparkle.

lucky for me - i have an amazing friend who bought me a ticket (AND popcorn AND diet coke) for the next day. so i saw it. and surprise, i LOVED it. cheesy and silly and cute and poorly acted. and i loved it.

last night i had some of those same AMAZING friends over to watch ben hur for a humanities class that we're in. the movie was cool i guess. but i had so so so much fun. i love having friends. i love having girls that i like...that like me too :] we have fun together. and i'm so happy that i have them! for the first few months that we were married i didn't really go out with anyone except greg. which - was GREAT! but... there's something that I really, really missed about hanging out with girls. it was just hard for me to go from living with 5 of them..to living with slash not really ever even talking with them. it's weird how things change when you get married. atleast how they changed for me. there are some people that i thought that i would always always be best friends with, that i don't even talk to anymore. i have no idea what's going on in their lives, or if they ever think about me anymore. kay that kind of sounds like a sob story, and i dont mean for it to. i just think that its sad. and its been really hard for me.

moving on! good thing that i have greg. my wonderful fabulous amazing husband. i'm just gonna take a second and tell you all just how awesome he is.

he gets me and puts up with me and understands me like no one else does or has or ever can. he knows when i need him. example...today, i had a really hard time in one of my classes. i didn't even tell greg about it, but when he picked me up from school...he had nothing other than a route 44 diet coke with vanilla from sonic.  seriously? he is amazing. wednesday night i was trying to write this impossible paper (analyzing mozarts violin sonata 2. gag.) and so i locked myself in my room. a little while later he surprised me with homemade chicken parmigiana and garlic bread (a favorite!) it was so nice of him.  it's small things like that that happen every day that make my life so great. im just so lucky. ah. i am the luckiest girl in...the world. :]

because i love him oh so much, i consented to freeze my butt off and go to the byu vs. utah game with him last saturday. and boy was it freeeezing. we had a little tailgate party with my family before hand. it was super fun! i seriously have the most awesome family.

the game was actually really fun! for the first half of the game, we had awesome seats and i was completely enjoying myself. it was a close game, lots of exciting things happened.

BUT THEN...the sun went down. and the wind started blowing a little bit..and i was done. it was so stinkin cold i didn't even know what to do with myself. i was wearing 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, a winter coat, mittens,  2 pairs of leggings, jeans, winter boots, socks. PLUS i had a blanket. and it still wasn't enough.

greg bought some hot chocolate - super delicious hot chocolate by the way - which made the final quarter bearable. and it was totally worth it. the outcome of the game was fabulous. greg rushed the field with my cousin jake. it was super exciting. im totally content with my one football experience of the season.

hopefully with life calming down a little bit ill be able to blog more? but don't hold your breath. i kind of really suck at blogging.

ps. thought of the day....i was so lucky to live here for 2 months.

oh how i love that city.

tollipop

http://www.tollipop.com/

i know that i really suck at blogging lately. what can i say, life is crazy. but...i have found time to find this new blog, that i totally love. i think her stuff is darling. i want to win a giveaway!!

anyway, lots of super exciting stuff coming up (ie. new moon at midnight plus pre-movie extraveganza). i will be sure to sufficiently document and post our fun night!

definitely blog worthy.

turn it up really loud.
still laughing the 23 time ive watched it.

flowers.

over the last four months (that's IT?! sometimes it's really hard for me to believe that we've only been married for four months. anyway.) Greg has randomly come home with flowers a few times! Usually it happens to be the day after an argument or when i've just taken a really hard test or something. so i've never really thought too hard about it. i just assumed that i have an adorable husband who buys me presents. (which i do..im not trying to refute that statement :] hah) so on tuesday he comes home with flowers again! suuuper pretty purple ones with roses mixed in. i asked him why he bought them?! we hadn't gotten in a fight, i didnt have a test, nothing big was going on. my sweet husband answered "Jord, I always buy you flowers on the 27th". aww. so silly me, just assuming that he was randomly buying flowers once a month. He was always bringing them home on the 27...the day we got married. :]

isn't he AMAZING?!

music.

music speaks to me. it just does. i love it. it helps me deal.

tonight was one of 'those nights'. hopefully someone else out there understands. just a weird night. well, i layed there and listened to this music, and it made me kind of get out of this funk.

i know its obnoxious when you go to someone's page and music starts blaring while you're in the middle of listening to another song (rachel) but, give this playlist a shot. these are my latest obsessions. the first song was on the first few episodes of so you think you can dance. i'm obsessed with it. many a night ive made poor greg listen to me blare it while i fall asleep. i think its magical. the rest of the songs...are equally as magical. all in their own way. this is my new favorite playlist. yanno..the 10 songs that i listen to nonstop until i get sick of them and can't stand to hear them anymore. but we haven't gotten there yet :]

so. if any of you are having one of 'those nights' maybe you should go in your room, turn off all the lights, lay in bed, and listen to this playlist. it tends to fix those sorts of nights.... not that i know this from doing it on a weekly basis :]

so funny pictures.

i had to post a link to my aunts blog. seriously, this post is hilarious. i love it. thanks for a good laugh!!

fall so far.

life lately is just grand. im so happy. i love my life. i love my husband. i love my job. i love my friends. i love my family. i love my apartment.

keep in mind..this is not how i feel everyday...infact i think even yesterday i felt quite the opposite of this. however, today is a really great day.

i only have one midterm left.
i have no more papers for a week.
byu FINALLY decided to turn on the heat in their buildings! (aka..my office is no longer a freezer!)
my boy bought me pretty purple flowers.
we're going out with our friends this weekend to THE PIE! yum. pretty dang good pizza.
the sun was shining and warm while i was outside studying for my french test.
my french test is over...
i finally dyed my hair back and covered up my nasty roots. it feels great.
my grandparents homemade donuts...which we now have at our apartment. isnt THAT lovely?
we had delish alfredo for dinner last night.
a trip to london is within reach.... (this is the biggest happy factor in my life at the moment :] )
i got 100% on the multiple choice part of one of my exams - the screen in the testing center said "perfect      score!" it was grand
we finally got (courtesy of gregs parents) a COFFEE TABLE for our living room!! much needed. now we can do homework without having 5 books piled up on our laps.

hurrah.

follow up.

this video could possibly be the most rewarding 5:43 of your day. its just a follow up video to the video that I posted last night.

let me give you a synopsis of this episode: 

gay boy (the dancing guy in the trailer) gets on the football team to make his dad proud.
the football team sucks and hasn't won any games.
so, they decide that inorder to get touchdowns, they will dance to distract the other team.
gay boy is the team kicker. in order to kick, he has to do a warm up dance.
hilarious.

im really sorry for the naughty words. just ignore them. sorry.

and let the video load completely first. its funniest if you can watch the whole thing through without waiting for it to load.

two papers down two to go! woo-hoo!

glee.

fast update. (once again while avoiding writing a paper. shocker. it always seems to be my excuse to blog)

here is my schedule for the next 6 days.

friday: hum 201 paper due
monday: hum 250 paper due & french paper due
tuesday: hum 261 paper due
wednesday: hum 201 midterm
thursday: hum 261 midterm
friday: french speaking lab.

seriously. my life is nuts.

on a brighter note. glee is my new favorite show. it is absolutely hilarious. tonights episode made me laugh harder than i have laughed this year. i love it. everyone should watch.



also. im so so excited to see where the wild things are. it looks so cute. i love the previews. also excited to see the fame :]

also. terry and anita come this weekend! should be a party. on sunday night my bishopric called. here is how our conversation went:

bish: are you going to be in church on sunday?
me:  of course!
bish: would you consider speaking in sacrament meeting?
**suddenly i remember that terry & anita are going to be there**
me:  ooh...actually, my in laws are going to be in town...
bish: you forgot that they were going to be there?
me:  yeah..actually. i'm not sure what time they're going to be leaving or if we have to take them to the airport. im sure that this sounds like a total cop-out but i promise that it's not made up...
bish: mmhm. well we'll try again some other time then.

ha. whoops. i wasn't even lying.

back to writing papers. blah.

funny stuff

super funny website. entertained me for almost an hour. its hilarious!!!

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com

yet again.

yet again supposed to be doing homework. this time writing one essay about puritan philosophy in art, and another about nathanial hawthorne's story artist of the beautiful. however. this time you will not receive such a lovely little report about how much i love my major. we're not on the best terms right now. this whole, three papers due in one week thing is KI-LL-ING-ME!

but. we had a really fun weekend. so once again i've managed to convince myself that blogging is more important than my homework that is due at 1:00 pm tomorrow. here we go.

friday we:
- (I) went to get frozen yogurt with sam! it was delicious and super fun.
- ate $5 pizza from dominos for dinner. (also delish)
- went to fall fest with our friends sean and alena! surprisingly fun. saw a tricky little magic show.
- katelyn came over and we tried to dye my hair. bad idea. it started a whole train of unfortunate events. it turned out  reddish on the bottom but the roots were definitely pink. (which in hind sight...was a fabulous color)
- stayed up til 2 am watching the office season 5.

saturday we:
- woke up, ate supurb french toast, went back to sleep until 1 in the afternoon
- watched the beginning of the BYU football game
- (I) went to addy's to do her hair for homecoming. both the hair and girl looked super pretty. :]
- went to dinner at the red iguana in slc with our friends steph and tanner!! super fun. planning a trip in october to go visit! yay!
- stayed up til 2 am watching the office season 5.

sunday we:
- tried dying my hair brown to cover up the pinkish reddish color. turned into a deep violet. truly purple. scary. i looked the violet in willy wonka and the chocolate factory. scary.
- striped the color out of my hair so that it would be my "natural" color. had to stay in the shower for 25 minutes to rinse it all out (so said the box).
- kind of have this weird blondish brownish reddish color going on. a little bit scared.
- still have to write 2 papers and read a french story. ew.

on the bright side.

this week:
- one tree hill premier.
- gossip girl premier.
- so you think you can dance.
- the office premier.

yay.

this city.

i love this city. i love everything about it. i love the tube. i love the museums. i love the waffles. i love the parks. i love the buses. i love the stores. i love the theaters. i love m&s. i love the yogurt. i love the accents. i love the  people. i love the rain. i love the smell. i love the sound. i love the magic. i want to go back. the end.

gilgamesh.

well..right about now is when i am supposed to be reading the 4000 year old story of gilgamesh...instead, i read the online summary, answered my questions, and decided it was about time to do something of more pertinence to the 21 century - blog.

sometimes i wonder why i am a humanities major.  this week i've...

...watched the disney movie "Pocahontas" and discussed (for a total of 3 solid hours) the effect that the movie had on history.

...read the short story  "The Nose". Let me give you a plot summary of this fine piece of prose. In short, it is about a man who looses his nose, which is spotting running about town in a soldiers uniform, then it randomly turns up at the police station (in it's proper shape and size), after being turned in, it is given back to the man who lost it, at which time it is returned to it's proper place on his face. we then proceeded to dissect the story and its "true meaning". seriously?

...read a total of almost 250 textbook pages, including (but not limited to) complete history of plymouth written by its first governor (in the type of highly complicated english that was spoken at the time), the personal history of john smith, written by none other than good ol johnny himself. gotta love it. and gilgamesh. a ridiculously long, pessimistic, depressing, Sumerian version of noah's ark. absolutely thrilling.

...learned about what the tower of babel may have looked like according to one artists depiction that was drawn according to one translation of a letter written by a man to another man describing a temple that he saw in a city around the general area of the place that historians think may have been where the tower was built in a year which is close to the year that it is generally believed that said tower was probably constructed.

the sad thing is that i have really enjoyed every second of it. stuff like this makes me smile. it makes sense to me. i get john smith. i get magical noses. i get gilgamesh (okay that might be a stretch). stuff like this makes me happy. i love my major. i really do.

summer.

FINALLY! A blog post. Hurrah. We were so busy this summer that I just didn’t take the time to write. Greg complained that I wasn’t writing because life with him wasn’t as interesting as life in London…which is definitely not true. This has been the funnest summer of my life. There are so many exciting things that have happened this summer. We’ve done so much!! It’s almost ridiculous how much we’ve traveled. So, this is going to be an attempt to relate it all…in a concise sort of way. And from here on out, I promise to faithfully blog about my interesting life with Greg :]

SUMMER 2009

Cities Visited – 23
Pictures Taken – 1000’s (literally…I think I took over 900 in London)
Hours Spent in the Car – Over 100
Hotel’s Stayed In – 17
Weddings – 2
Honeymoons – 1 (Unfortunately…We’d totally go again if we could :] haha)
Gifts Received – 100’s (people are so generous! Thank you all. We sure do appreciate it!)
Seasons of The Office Watched – 4 (My new TV addiction. Hilarious)
Seasons of Lost Watched – 1 (We had to finish the most recent…cant wait for it to start again!

London…obviously who ever is reading this knows that I went to London for 2 months this summer. It was absolutely amazing. I can’t even put it into words. People ask how it was and there is so response that can do it justice. It is my favorite place in the world. I’m counting down until I can go back. I’ve become slightly obsessive…we have London magnets on our fridge, London paintings around the house, London dish towels, pictures from London, an adorable book from Anthropologie called “This is London” (love it super much) and London keychains. I love it there. I miss it…a lot. I’ve talked to other girls that went with me on the program and they all miss it too. I talked with one friend on mine who went last winter and she said that she still misses it and that that feeling never goes away. Bummer.

Got married…hehe. It was so much fun!! Our reception was above and beyond what I wanted. It was perfect. Everyone put so much work into it. It made me sooo happy. It was a blast. It made me so grateful for my family. They’re the best and it was so fun to have everyone together. Funny slash super embarrassing story….when we left our reception I burst into tears and bawled until we past Thanksgiving Point…who knows why. I was emotional…haha I told Greg that I just wanted to go back to my grandparents house and hang out with my family that night… and the sweet sweet boy that I married started merging over to get off the freeway and turn around to take me back. Haha. I laugh about it now, but how stupid am I?? It was ridiculous. But – no worries…we proceeded to Salt Lake and..well, yanno. anyway. there are so so many pictures. how do i pick?? these are some favorites. we still haven't gotten our photos from our photographer..but im sure they'll be done soon and i'll post some for sure.

Honeymoon…We went on a cruise to the Bahamas. :] It was a blast!! Unfortunately, I had about 5 minutes worth of battery left on my camera…I know. So lame. So I took about 3 pictures. Sorry. We had so much fun though. 

 The cruise was fabulous, and after the cruise we went to this beautiful hotel in Miami

where we stayed for 4 days. It was awesome!!

North Carolina…After Miami we went straight to North Carolina to visit Greg’s family and have reception number 2. Again, it was fabulous! Greg’s mom worked so hard and it was a lovely evening. My family, both sets of grandparents and this aunt and uncle came down for it. It was fun!!

Cross Country trip…Greg had drive back to North Carolina in April so we had to drive his car back from North Carolina to Provo. I was dreading it…but it was actually a great trip! It took 4 long days, but it was a beautiful drive and it was fun to be with Greg!

Calgary…We were in Provo for about a week, then we headed up to Calgary to visit my family and have reception number 3! We spent a week at my cabin on Shuswap Lake in British Columbia. It was so much fun. I love the cabin. The weather was a little shaky but it was a fun week anyway. 

                                                                Greg learned how to water ski!!

When we got back to Calgary we had an awesome open house thanks to my Aunt Pam. It was fun to see all of the people that I had grown up with in Calgary. The next day Greg and I headed to Banff and Lake Louise for the day – another great trip! It was beautiful! We went to Banff’s natural hot springs, the Banff Springs Hotel, and walked around downtown. I loved it.

California…The day after we got home from Calgary we jumped back in the car and headed to Sacramento for a wedding. Greg’s best friend and my old roommate got married in the Sacramento Temple. We had a really great time! The reception was one of the most beautiful things I have ever been to. They rented out a historic mansion that was built in 1917. There was a huge dinner and dancing. After the reception ended the bridal party got to stay at the mansion. We had a room that had this amazing bathroom!! It was unreal. 

The next morning we got up at unholy hour and drove to San Francisco. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! I love that city!! We stayed in another beautiful hotel (Thanks so Greg’s dad :] woo hoo!!) The weather was freezing, so we bought the cheapest, tackiest sweatshirts we could find. It was fabulous. We took a 2 hour tour of the city, went to Alcatraz, walked along the Pier, went to Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, went into some fun shops, and went to dinner on the 8^th floor of Macy’s in Union Square. It was a perfect day.

Now we’re back in Provo ready for school to start. It sounds nerdy…but I’m definitely ready to be doing something productive. This summer has been fantastic, but it will be nice to have a schedule and responsibilities again. Weird. I know. I started work last Monday. It actually felt pretty good to be back! We have some pretty fun things coming up this month like rafting with one of our favorite aunties and her girlies down the San Juan and the Utah State Fair with some of our favorite friends!