SPRING BREAK

So I've neglected this blog for a little bit, but here's a super long post to make up for it!

Two weeks ago was SPRING BREAK!!! It seriously couldn't come fast enough. We started planning in January, we were that excited. Mark and I planned the majority of the trip, and I must say, everything turned out awesome.

The first Friday Mark, Paula, Andrew and I drove down to Mark's house, which is 4 1/2 hours away. We spent the night there and then drove to St George the next morning. Daniel and Myles met us there, and we spent the afternoon shopping and exploring while Mark went to his niece's baptism. We all then went to the family dinner, and then drove to Mark's grandparent's house where we spent the night. While driving to Mark's grandparent's house somehow we got on the topic of canibalism and kicking people off the 'island', it was quite hilarious.

Me, Myles, Daniel, and Andrew on top of the Dixie Rock Paula and I by the crack

Sunday we went to church with Mark's grandparents, then went home and made dinner and just relaxed. His Grandparents are hilairous, and I really enjoyed visiting with them. Here's Andrew, Mark, and Daniel taking their Sunday nap together :)
That evening we drove back to St George where we met up with the other car of people (Adam, Heidi, Todd, Kathy and Rachel) and we stayed the night at Paula's cousin's house. It was awesome! They had a huge dinner for us, and basically let us have reign of their house. It was so much fun. The next morning we got up and got everything packed. They fed us a great breakfast, and we got our lunches ready for the car. Don't the brown bags with names on them remind you of elementary school?

We then started on our journey to California. Mark drove, I was the navigator, and Kathy, Paula, and Myles were in the backseat. We stopped for gas in Vegas and Barstow. When we got into California we were stopped by the 'wavers', or people looking for fruit in your cars. A bit ridiculous, I know. We realized we actually had a box of grapefruit in our trunk, so we were a bit worried about them stopping us. When we actually got up to them they just waved us through. All they accomplished was slowing down traffic, which was quite lame. When we got to Barstow it was soooooooo windy! I literally thought I was going to blow away. We drove the rest of the way to San Diego and dropped all of our stuff off at Kathy's uncle's house, just outside of San Diego. Can you tell they were excited to be out of the car?
That evening we went to eat at an awesome Mongolian buffet restaurnt. It was super good, but I ate way too much. We then drove to see the ocean!

We got there just before sunset, and it was gorgeous. A little chilly, but still awesome. Of course Heidi got splashed by a wave first thing ;) We then drove around trying to find Old Town San Diego, with no success. We then decided to call it a night.
The next day our first stop was the San Diego temple. We were able to go and do Baptisms, and everything about it was awesome. The Temple President actually came and talked to us, which was super neat. The boys that are Endowed did all the baptisms, and acutally ended up baptizing another group of girls, so we were actually all ready to go before they were even done. Us waiting for the boys became quite typical ;) We actually ran into another group of USU students there, and Preston from our ward was with them. Small world!

A nice gentleman that took our picture recommended that we eat lunch at Acupoco (spelling?) in Old Town San Diego. We actually found it this time! We went there and ate on a roof, hade amazing fajitas, and were serenaded by a man with a guitar. Life does not suck!
After lunch we went to the Mormon Batallion museum in Old Town. It was probably the best Mormon museum I've ever been to. It was way fun. We maybe had a little too much fun at the play set out back :)

After we explored the rest of Old Town, we drove to a Bay area to spend the rest of the day. We played in the water, build sand castles, buried our feet in the sand, had races, took a ridiculous amount of pictures, and had tons of fun. I almost stepped on a sting ray, which definitely would have put a damper on the trip.

It took us an outlandish amont of shots to perfect this ;)

This is basically a requirement at the beach :)

So is this :)

Posing like rock stars is also a requirement :)

We then drove to Little Italy and explored. Gelato is a necessity in little Italy! Far superior to our American ice cream.

It got quite cold and I didn't have a jacket, so Todd shared his with me. Isn't he so kind?

Two thumbs up for Little Italy :)

The next day we packed everything up and drove an hour and a half to Laguna Beach. It was a pretty drive, but San Diego is definitely the prettiest part of California that we saw. Mark and Myles were taking the cars to a parking lot, so they dropped us off right across the street from the beach. We were all standing at a stop light waiting to cross when two guys across from us took our picture and started laughing. Apparently we really looked like tourists. Maybe it had something to do with our entire case of bottled water, our ridiculously white skin, our 50 beach towels, or our sand toys. Whatever it was, they got a kick out of us.

The family next to us on the beach also happened to be from Utah. I pegged them as Utahns becase of the three modest swimming suits. They actually came and asked us to watch their stuff while they were at lunch, and kindly let us use their boogie boards. They said they knew we were from Utah by our pale skin, and the fact that we were the only other people in the freezing water :)

Meet the Phatts - your average American sand family. Heidi, Kathy, Todd, and Myles.

Other eventful beach happenings: a seagull stole Paula's sandwich right out of her hands, and we saw dolphins in the wild! It was pretty awesome. I also drank quite a bit of sea water. I wasn't in past my knees yet, and Mark comes over and drags me deeper into the water. A huge wave then came and wiped us out. I'm pretty sure I tasted salt for the rest of the day. We then drove up towards LA, to our hotel in Hawthorne. Our hotel was super nice, and it was fun to not have to worry about being loud, our our stuff being everywhere. We unpacked everything and showered. We then went to an AMAZING authentic Italian restraunt. I can't remember the name, but it was sooooooooooo good. That night we watched a movie and just hung out. We also read scriptures every night together, which was really cool.

The next day we drove into LA and went to Chinatown!!! It was super cool. The little shops were really fun, and the owners were hilarious.

All us girls bought umbrellas, and Mark bought an awesome hat

We then ate the best chinese food ever! You know the food's gonna be good when you're the only white people in the place :)

Heidi rode the kiddie ride!

We then went to the Santa Monica Pier

We rode a ferris wheel over the ocean! It was pretty awesome. Mark howerver, complained the entire time. Apparently he hates ferris wheels. I didn't know it was possible to hate them. After we took this picture, "That was such a girl thing to do! Why did I do that?" - Mark

Let's cram 7 people into a small photo booth and take our own picture!

After the Pier we drove home in horrid traffic. We stopped at Jack in the Box for dinner, and it was actually pretty good. We got back to the hotel and just chilled, we were all pretty wiped out.

The next day I was woken up at 6:30 am by a phone call from Steph. The first thing I heard was 8.9 earthquake hit Japan. Tsunami headed for the entire West Coast. Crap. Was my first thought. Today was supposed to be our other big beach day. So, looking quite fabulous, I went next door to the boys' room to use Mark's computer. I looked up news on the earthquake and Tsunami. We were in the Tsunami Advisory area, and the waves were reportedly going to be 3-4 feet. Nothing too drastic, but we decided that it would be safer to go to the beach later in the day, or not at all. Apparently after I left the boys all made fun of me because they thought that I thought that the Tsunami was going to hit our hotel. Yes, I thought the Tsunami was going to hit our hotel 20 miles inland, ha, yeah right.

After I got back none of us could go back to sleep. We watched the news on the disaster, and got ready for the day and packed everything up. We then went down to breakfast. At the continental breakfast the lady was very strict. She got mad at Paula for putting too much batter into the waffle maker, and for not using tongs to get her bread. She also got mad at Myles for not wearing shoes. She earned the name the waffle nazi.

After everyone was up and ready to go, we decided to hang out at a park until we decided what to do. We were going to go to the 20th biggest park in the US, but the hour drive wasn't worth it, so we went to a ghetto park 2 min from our hotel. We tried to finish watching a movie we started, but it was too light to see it. Mark then said, 'We can either go to the car and cover ourselves with blankets, or we can cover ourselves with blankets here'. We laughed pretty hard at that one. We ran to a grocery store and got stuff for lunch, and then had lunch at the park. We then drove to Santa Monica beach. We didn't actually go swimming, but we did wade in the water.

I love this picture - Myles and I had no idea it was being taken.

It's pretty cool to say we got in the ocean during a Tsunami warning :) We caught about 20 hermit crabs. Four of them may or may not have made it to then car, only to tragically die . . . and my trunk may or may not smell like dead hermit crabs .....

Myles so kindly locked me in the outhouse. Apparently he's being my body guard.

Paula, Kathy, and Myles in the backseet while stuck in traffic. This is pretty typical of the entire week.

LA traffic may be the worst I've ever seen. It took us 4 hours to go 90 miles. We eventually made it to Paula's uncle's house near Victorville. He had and awesome dinner ready for us - baked potatoes, roast beef, rolls, salad, and tons of other great food, as well as dessert. He also had every individually packeged snack available from Costco for us. We were definitely spoiled. We all slept on the floor, and as usual, at least one person was snoring. We got up early and ate an awesome breakfast, and then drove 2 hours to Six Flags.

Six Flags has the best rollercoasters ever, but ridiculous amounts of people. We waited in two two hour lines. In totaly we rode six rides, which were all pretty awesome. My favorites were Tatsu, The Riddler's Revenge, and the X2. Way better than Lagoon or even Disneyland. You can definitely tell we were all tired though.

Heidi and Todd being themselves

Yay for touristy pics

Six Flags was awesome, but tiring. We drove back to Paula's uncle's house where he had tons of options for food that night and the next morning. He also had a big journal, small journal, quotes, a cd, and pens for all of us. He was one the coolest guys I've met. We were really lucky to have been able to stay with him and his family.

By the time we got to bed it was around 12:15, and we were getting up at 5 to head home. However, with daylights savings time, it was really like we were getting up at 4am. Yay. We ended up leaving by 6, and getting to Vegas about 8:45.

Paula, Kathy, and Mark - this us most of the ride home.

We stopped at Adam's uncle's house in Vegas. We went to a Sacrament Meeting at 10, and then went back to the house where they fed us an awesome lunch. We then started our drive back home. My car stopped at Mark's house to get my ipod I'd left in Cedar, and also Mark's clothes he'd left there. We made sandwiches for the car, and just relaxed for about an hour. We then drove the rest of the way home. We got home about 11:00, and were so ready to be out of the car. It was an aweome trip, but after 10 days it feels good to be home again.

My future according to Steph

Steph sent me and adorably awesome text today, it made my entire day :) It was totally out of the blue, and I really I really hope she's right :)

"There once was a beautiful lady named Meeshell. And dang was she fine, she had long dark hair and deep brown eyes. Every boy secretly wanted her but they were intimidated by her brains and beauty. She waited patiently for that day when her prince charming would finally have the guts to ask her out .... once he mustered the courage to approach her and ask her out they went on a fabulous date and were inseparable since then. And they lived happily ever after and he did cute things for her and was never a jerk and never looked at flousies because he had his perfect woman. Yep. This is gonna happen, just you wait and see :)"

Can I just say I love my sister tons? She's basically awesome.

Dances, cakes, and pranks, oh my!

Hello again! I've been meaning to update this since last Sunday, but I always seem to have something else going on. So remember my huge Physiology test? I got a 94!!! I was so freakin' excited! I found out while I was at work, and I freaked out, literally. I was at the front desk and doing a happy dance inside. I called my Dad to tell him and basically shouted it at him, it was great :) Can I just say I love this picture? The randomness of Tyson and Kathy basically describe the past two weeks :) We hung out with Tyson a lot yesterday, and I realized how much I miss him. We always have excellent chats.

Not last Friday but the Friday before was the IWA dance. Like I said before, my original date got sick so I went with Mark. We had a ton of fun. We went to Fredrico's for dinner, then we played games, and then we went to a dress rehearsal of Bandito Rides Again, the Melodrama from Pickleville Playhouse that played last summer. Mckenna, Aubree, and Cory are all in it, and it's stinkin' hilarious. It was a ton of fun but went longer than we originally planned, so we were only at the dance for about 20 minutes. The 2o minutes we were there were super fun. They played awesome songs, and we went crazy dancing. The last song was 'My Heart Will Go On' and Mark and I had an awesome time making complete idiots of ourselves. We sang loudly at the top of our lungs and danced around like crazies. It was awesome :) We then went back to our apartment and had phizookies, which were delicious. We may have lit our oven on fire . . . shhh!!!

What a good lookin' bunch of people :)Our oven's on fire!!!!!!!!!!!

Last Sunday we at dinner with the boys which was super fun. We also made super awesome homemade pizza last week, which was so good.


Thursday was Rachelle's 1/2 birthday, so we made her an awesome cake. I asked Mark the most random animal he could think of, and he said Platypus. He was convinced we couldn't make it, so we did it to prove him wrong. Also, platypuses . . . platypi? whatever the plural form of platypus is are just awesome animals. They're good at everything, just like Rachelle :) They also just seem like happy, bubbly creatures. We made Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb.

Oh! I almost forgot! So the thing I couldn't write about last week was our awesome prank on Todd. He turned our entire apartment upside down, so we stole all of his plaid shirts. If you know Todd, you know he loves his plaid shirts. He wears one almost every day, so for him to not have his shirts, it was a pretty big deal. We gave a shirt back to him in a cereal box via Preston, we put one in his mail box, we put one on a monkey from the DI, we had some girls return on, we had his roommate wear one, and the best yet, we had one of his Professors return one to him in the middle of class. That was beautiful. He was so embarrassed! We gave the rest of them back to him at ward prayer by all of us wearing them.

We look rather smashing in them, I must say. Plaid, we always look good in plaid ;)

What are you, stupid? Red eye flashes twice!!! (Look up Julian Smith, Red eye flashes twice on youtube :)

For FHE we made cakes without a recipe. They were interesting, to say the least . . . .

I'm not quite sure what's happening here . . . they all looks so happy :)

Mark brought over a 5 lb bag of gummy bears. Of course a gummy bear war ensued. These poor little fellas were the casualties. I found them everywhere, from the bathroom to the coat closet. They never even had a chance.

Yay for Aggie basketball! We're basically awesome :)

This is inside our amazingly awesome fort we built in the P lounge. Sadly I didn't get a picture of it from the outside before it fell down, but it was awesome. We set up a projector and watched two movies in it. I love feeling like I'm five again. Maybe that's why I love my jelly shoes . . . .

This is my friend Sam. Sam's birthday was during finals week, and needless to say, everyone was super busy. We promised Sam a cake spring semester, and we finally got around to doing it. It turned out smashingly, I must say. He loved it, and almost didn't want to eat it :) His name is Alfonso, and he's your average garden gnome.

I'm currently learning two piano duets, and I'm really excited about them. I haven't actually learned a new song on the piano forever, and it feels so good to actually play again.

Yesterday was the Joseph Smith Memorial fireside. Elder Ballard came, and it was amazing to have an Apostle of the Lord speak to us. Church was really good as well yesterday. Because they just split two wards in my stake, my ward now has church at 8 am. A little bit on the early side, but it's definitely not as bad as the 2:30-5:30 ward.

Oh, random story for the day, I lit an oven mitt on fire yesterday while getting something out of the toaster oven . . . how I managed that, I have no idea.

The weather has been so warm lately! Yesterday it was 50 degrees! That's crazy for February. Rachelle and I delivered Valentines to our favorite people in the ward, and then we got a bunch of people together to play Frisbee on the grassy knoll. It was so nice to play outside. We got five Frisbees going on at once, which was pretty intense at times. Many windows, buildings, and people were hit, but no major injuries occurred. We also got to play the most epic hopscotch ever. It was 40 squares long, and turned into Elf. You got to go through the candy candy forest and crawl through the Lincoln tunnel. You also got to dance for 38 seconds. It was definitely epic :)

For Valentine's Day some boys in the ward made all of the girls Roses out of red and green duct tape. They're really quite cool, and they never die! The perfect kind of flower really. I also got a balloon, candy and homemade cookie from my parents. I always love getting the balloon, it's not the balloon its self, but more of the tradition of it :)

Speaking of Valentine's Day, this is THE CUTEST THING I've ever seen done for Valentine's Day. I got giddy over it, and it doesn't involve me or people I even know!

http://owlcitymusic.com/vday/

Tonight for FHE we went to a combined Valentine's dance with the other two wards from Old Farm. It was a lot of fun. The best was dancing with Mark to a song from the Lion King. Needless to say we're not afraid to make fools of ourselves. Apparently the guy Heidi was dancing with actually told her he wanted to stop and watch us. Bahahahaha :)

While at the dance I went to get a drink and started talking to Bishop's wife. She's awesome, and I love her tons. She asked me if I had a boyfriend in the ward. I told her no, but asked if she thought I was dating anyone. She said she thought I was dating the boy I'm currently trying not to like. I was like, uh, nope, we're not dating. And someone else asked Heidi if we were dating. Why do I like the stupid boy? I thought I was doing better . . . fail. Well shoot!

Patience, that's what I need to work on. Every time I get frustrated, I tell myself patience. Sometime in the past week, I can't remember when, I was extremely frustrated with the situation. I opened my scriptures randomly to "Trust in the Lord, with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all they ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct they paths." It's one of my favorite scriptures, and definitely one that I needed to hear right then. I'm definitely grateful that Heavenly Father is always aware of me and my feelings, no matter how trivial they may be in the eternal scheme of things.

Well it's midnight and I really should go to bed, so goodnight!

Love, Michelle

A Crazy Week ....

This past week has been a little crazy. I've had three huge tests, and now I feel like I can finally breathe again. Saturday I took an online test for sign language, and I think it went really well. Tuesday I had my first test in Physiology, and I hope it went okay. I'd be ecstatic if I got a B. I've never studied that much for a test before. Saturday Kathy and I were home alone for most of the day. All we did was study, sing with the Ukulele occasionally, and make cinnamon rolls that didn't rise. I didn't leave the apartment until 6 that night for the adult session of Stake Conference. Needless to say, we were both going a little crazy. Wednesday I had a test in my 5200 class. I hope it went okay, but I'm not sure.

This week our receptionist at work is out, so I've been filling in a lot. Tuesday I sat on the phones for six hours straight. Six hours of answering phones and not moving makes you a little crazy. I definitely couldn't do it every day. I'm actually on the phones right now, and it's super slow. I've received four calls in an hour. I know you're all super jealous right now.

FHE was super fun this week. Stephanie gave a really good lesson on individual worth, and then we went to the Fine Arts building and played miniature golf through the building with tennis balls. I love that no one asked what we were doing :)

Ooh! Call number five just came in. Wow, it's slow today.

So the best thing that's been happening this week I can't really write about until Sunday . . . so you'll just have to wait. It's so good though, you should be excited, who ever 'you' is.

Wednesday was Rachel's 1/2 birthday. Stephanie made her an awesome cake shaped like a vacuum, because Rachel loves to vacuum. She was pretty excited. I'll post a picture next time when I have access to my pictures. Wednesday Rachel and I had quite the little adventure. So her hamster Aggie had a swollen face, so we took her to the vet. We went to the one in Richmond, which was super funny, because it's mostly a large animal vet clinic. Little Aggie had a check up, got a shot, as well as eye drops and an antibiotic. The cat at the vet decided I was her new best friend. I named her Gertrude. She was very nice, but I shouldn't have held her while wearing my black coat . . .

So tonight is the IWA girl's choice formal dance. Basically it's an excuse to get all dressed up and feel pretty :) I asked a super cute super nice boy in my ward, and I was way excited about it. I don't know him very well, but he's just a solid, good cute guy. Sadly he called last night and he's been super sick all week. He had a doctor's appointment today at home, so he can't go. Well shoot! Luckily he said we should do something next weekend, which is pretty sweet. He actually invited me to go hiking with him towards the beginning of the school year, but I was going boating and couldn't go, which I was pretty sad about. Of course with him not being able to go, I now have the dilemma of not having a date. Rachel and Rachelle kept suggesting all these different boys, including ones I had never met. All of my roommates asked someone they were at least slightly interested, and I definitely don't want to go with someone I don't know. The date's gonna be super fun, and I don't want to be with someone I don't know. So, I asked Mark to go with me. We're going as just friends, which really is awesome, because then it'll just be chill and fun. I don't have to worry about impressing anyone. I can be crazy and dance like an idiot if I want to :) He knows my date was sick and couldn't go, so it shouldn't be weird that I took him to the last dance. Well, we never actually went to the dance because the fire alarm was going off when we got there so we just left and went to Harry Potter.

Wow, there have been three good songs on the radio in a row. That never happens! This is amazing.

So, two people just walked into the front office and left cheese and crackers on the desk . . . . but they didn't say who it's for . . . odd. hmmm

There are so many funny people at work. I just spent a few minutes talking with this guy named Sai. He's pretty funny, he asked me if I liked American Idol. Good times at work, good times :)

So I go from no calls to four at once. I think they must coordinate it. The last person asked if you took Hunter Safety here, um, that would be a no, hahahaha.

So I found a girl on Youtube who is AMAZING! Her name's Jayme Dee, look her up. Her original song 'Love Whiplash' has been on constant repeat for the last two days.

Well I'm pretty sure this is super boring . . . I'll post again this weekend about the dance and the other thing I mentioned. :)

~Michelle~