My Best Friend's Wedding

Last weekend I flew down to Utah for Caitlin's wedding. Me and Kaitlyn Pruitt (KK) arrived at the airport about the same time Friday afternoon, Caitlin picked us up, and we went to Whole Foods to eat. We got a fabulous vegetarian salad, organic pizza with spinach and tomatoes, and an interesting sort of juice... which upon further examination had tons of health benefits, but also had a tendency to ferment (we referred to this drink as the "wine" the rest of the time :)). After we ate we decided to go shopping! We ended up at The Gateway (which is a beautiful outdoor mall in Salt Lake) and hit Anthropologie (which all three of us loved to death... KK suggested we just move in), Victoria's Secret to outfit Cait with a few extra goodies, and we did a little window shopping. The weather was great, the sun was out, we had an awesome time.

The three of us were staying together in an awesome hotel/timeshare up at snowbird that Cait's parents own for the night before the wedding, and so we decided to go and touch base about when we'd be heading up, etc. We met them at Caitlin's aunt's house in Salt Lake, and I FINALLY met Cait's family, whom I've been hearing about forever, but I've never actually met, and we headed up to the resort.

It was absolutely beautiful, with mountain views, a spa, an outdoor pool and hot tub, not to mention our room which had a king sized bed, a fold out sofa, laundry, and big bathroom and extra vanity. We stayed in the same room Cait and Tim had plans to stay in the night after their wedding, so we got to reap the benefits of their celebration and christen the room before they had a chance to enjoy it. We had an awesome time, all three of us in the king bed, goofing off, making jokes, and giving last minute advice. In the morning we all woke up around 7:30am and hit the outdoor hot tub. We had just barely gotten in when we noticed big ugly storm clouds closing in on us, so we took a few pictures, lingered for a bit, and then we started hearing thunder and seeing lightning we decided that electrocution on the wedding day probably wasn't the best idea and we excused ourselves and went inside.

Getting ready for the wedding was a huge blur. Cait is hilariously low maintenance and so we were rushing around trying to make sure she didn't forget to do anything important... because honestly, she could've cared less! We convinced her to at least get her hair straightened at the local supercuts, and KK helped her with her makeup while I took the chipped red toenail polish off her toes. She took off for the temple with her parents while KK and I finished getting ready, only to call us and ask us to bring her her toothbrush and toothpaste (only Caitlin would forget to brush her teeth on her wedding day :)).

Anyway after a little waiting on the part of the bridesmaids and some swapping bridesmaid dresses, Cait and Tim came out the temple doors just as it started to downpour. We all huddled in the crevices of the temple, and waited for cloud breaks to take pictures... it was actually fun. I enjoyed mingling with all the family and friends during picture time, and Caitlin was just glowing. The reception was great too... at a park in Sugarhouse (just south of Salt Lake). The turn out was good but thankfully small, and the food was unlimited ice cream sundaes! I made sure I had two... with extra hot fudge. Cait's sister Lauren played the guitar while the bridesmaids sang "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson for the couples first dance, and when we ran out of people to talk to, we had a little bridesmaid game of four square and volleyball.

I loved it, Cait and Tim loved it. We all had an awesome time!

*note: while we were in Anthropologie I found bottles of lotion with whimsical sort of quotes on the backs of the bottles. Here's one that I particularly liked:

"Every morning she rose with the sun--a ritual punctually followed by peach-blossom tea and grapefruit. For refreshment she walked through the woods. There was life to be lived."

Eat, Pray, Love

I just recently read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it is officially one of the most difficult-to-put-down books I have ever read. I just finished it today, and after reading the last page I had no qualms whatsoever about flipping back to the first page and beginning again. I folded down the corners of so many pages and underlined so many sections... because they applied very accurately to my life presently. All I could think about was sharing the wonder with all of you! Here is one that I'm really enjoying today.

"I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch. I peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of asparagus... I put some olives on the plate, too, and the four knobs of goat cheese I'd picked up yesterday from the formaggeria down the street, and two slices of pink, oily salmon. For dessert--a lovely peach, which the woman at the market had given to me for free and which was still warm from the Roman sunlight. For the longest time I couldn't even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch, a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing. Finally, when I had fully absorbed the prettiness of my meal, I went and sat in a patch of sunbeam on my clean wooden floor and ate every bite of it, with my fingers, while reading my daily newspaper article in Italian. Happiness inhabited my every molecule."

Doesn't that sound absolutely exquisite? At this very moment, I tend toward feelings of guilt when I have little moments like that. BUT... I am trying with all my might to smother them! There is no need to feel guilty taking pleasure in simple things. Especially when I LOVE them so much. I would be happy to just have a simple life... I wouldn't need to be famous, or rich, or beautiful if I could just have a life filled with moments such as that.

by the way: this is a book you will need to purchase. i considered checking it out from the library, but I'm so glad I bought it... otherwise marking and dog-earing the pages would yield obviously negative consequences :)

ps. i've been quite busy lately and have participated in several blogworthy events which I have not yet blogged about! I'm going to make a note here so I don't forget to record them. So... these events are: Two nights at dad's (Pike Place and Shrek the Musical), the Puyallup Fair, Cait's wedding (lotion bottle quote).

Shout Out

Since moving back home beginning of July in preparation for my mission, I've been thinking about my years as a college student, and how they're over, and how I'm sad about it. As stressful and crazy and unhealthy as those years were, I can't forget about the relationships I had with the girls who were there living through all of it with me. Living at home is great, but there's no way I could ever forget all the drama and boyfriends and all-nighters and weird food and wearing only underwear around the apartment and screaming because someone just got engaged or kissed that boy she'd been dreaming about for months. I can't forget about going on runs with Katie while belting Kelly Clarksen at the top of our lungs. There were the times we took showers all together in our swimsuits like 5 year olds, and laughed until our stomach's hurt and ate cookie dough or ice cream or cake until our stomach's rebelled. We built forts, snuggled two to a twin bed because someone had a bad dream or a bad day, had late night talks laying in blankets on the floor in the hallway, numerous movie marathons, did ballet in the living room at midnight, and shared everything from drinks to dinner to makeup to clothes to maybe somethings that shouldn't be shared. It was a time of just plain being 18 or 19 or 20, and loving everything about life.

So shout out to all 26 of my roommates (once a roommate, always a roommate) for putting up with me, and helping me make loads of unforgettable memories.
Heather and Austin

When you don't have time to actually do the dishes...

Never too old for dress up

The famous quote wall (and -er list, to the right)

"Random" date night

nothing's better than a cake fight

Caitlin and me

5 girls, 5 spoons, 1/2 gallon cookie dough ice cream...

...gone in less than 10 minutes :)

Don't try to do recipes from memory... unless you want to eat your weight in cookie dough

Dog pile on the closest bed you can find! which happens to be none of ours... love you Rachel!

Glamour shots in the early a.m.

Best fort ever! (sorry to those who had places to be in the morning and couldn't get out...)

fighting over the car bed

Why we're all standing on the same chair together? Couldn't tell you.

Al (right), one of my only roommates who understood the plight of a teacher

Lauri, Anna and I out supporting our ballerinas :)

Those who weren't exactly roommates but we were in and out of each other's rooms so much it should have counted:

Becca and Andrea

Those I had so many classes with they became like sisters:

Ashley, Sheri, Natalia

Group Eureka (minus our Natalia of course)

We're all growing up and moving on to do all sorts of good in the world (my girls wouldn't ever do any less), but I want you to know that I'll never forget you, my lovely ladies <3

[cue cheesy reminiscent music]

Small towns

I've been watching so much Gilmore Girls lately, I can't help but think about how much I would like to try living in a small town. I grew up on Anderson Island (which definitely fits in the small town category... if there was a teeny tiny town category, it'd fit there), and loved it as a kid, so I'd hope that I'd still love it as an adult (of course minus the whole "you can only get off the island when the ferry's running" deal).

I've thought about doing an internet search for small towns, but had ignored the idea since obviously deciding where I'm going to live for the rest of my life isn't exactly in the near future for me. But oddly enough, when I logged onto my Yahoo account, this article on small towns was up as a news story for the night.

America's 10 Coolest Small Towns

I'd seriously consider checking out the New York, Maine or California locations, but they all sound great!

What I'm In For...

I've been keeping up a little on the Hurricane Ike situation, and according to the weather reports I've seen and this picture (below) it appears that it's headed straight for Houston. Oh how I'm excited to experience my first hurricane! :) Hopefully the gulf can get all of its super hurricane energy out of its system before next summer when I'll be there :)

Favorite Quote and an Interesting Discovery!

I ran into this quote from one of my last year's students today, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Miss Hollenbaugh just told you to be quiet... with her eyes..."

Oh and guess what I discovered! Alexis Bledel (aka Rory Gilmore from the show The Gilmore Girls... one of my guilty pleasures of late) is originally from Houston, Texas, and her first language was spanish! Her parents are mexican and argentinian. Who knows... maybe I'll convert those Bledels :)

And i'm going to...

Texas Houston, spanish speaking.

Provo MTC, November 19th.

Pretty temple huh?

on the edge of my seat

Right now, at this very second, as I type this, lies my life for the next 18 months.

Yes, my mission call is in my lap.

After a rollercoaster of a week, it finally arrived. On Sunday I called my bishop to get the status on it (I'm really hoping to take my endowments out before Caitlin and Tim's sealing so that I can attend), and he told me that it was put in the mail on Friday. I figure it usually takes things about 3 days to get from Utah to here, so including the holiday that put me at Wednesday (possibly Tuesday if I got lucky). Everyone started school on Tuesday, so I've had the house to myself during the day all week, which has been absolute torture because the mail doesn't come til around 11am, and the last person to leave is about 8:30. So I doddle around the house until about 10:45, then go and read scriptures out on the lawn watching for the mailman to come (I know I'm pathetic... but it's been driving me nuts!). Tuesday, Wednesday passed... still no call. Depression began settling over me... typical doubts... maybe the address was wrong? what if they lost it? did he really check the status of MY call???? on and on and on ridiculously. Then when it didn't come Thursday it just got worse! We're going to Canada to visit my grandma this weekend again, so I was worried it might not come today and then I'd have to wait all weekend. My little sis Mckenzie told me this morning as she was walking out the door, "I KNOW your mission call is coming today Austin. I said a prayer last night that it would." How can you deny that?? My whole family has been hoping every single day that it would be here too. Finally I'll have good news for them when they come home!!! ah!

I will be sure to post something after I open it! Last chance for guesses!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

My call is in the mail!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Who wants to guess where i'm going?!?!?!

ohmanohmanohman.

Healing

They're definitely not all better, but they're getting there! The doctor opened up the blisters on Tuesday, and then the skin that had been covering the blisters dried out and was (in my opinion... maybe not my mothers) doing more harm than good. So last night I used fingernail clippers to take all the extra skin off so it wouldn't irritate them anymore, exposing the "baby skin" underneath. Pictures below:

Catching up my pictures

I was FINALLY able to get some pictures that I've been wanting to share off my phone! So here are some rather belated stories that I've been waiting until I had pictures, to tell.

This one is from when my brother crashed his motorcycle. Everyone was just generally stressed out because hello, all we wanted to do was go to dinner and we ended up in the hospital. My mom and I were in the room with him when they unstrapped him from that horrible back board, and we found a little treasure right in the middle of his chest!

A Dandelion!

Apparently it just so happened that when they were strapping him onto the board where he had crashed, a dandelion got strapped in too! We made sure to take pictures, and even left it there for a little while :). It definitely lightened the mood.

This one I took while driving home to Washinton from Utah. My car was stuffed to capacity and it was only a couple days after school had gotten out, but I was moving home to get ready and save money for my mission. I just happened to notice that I was hitting the 22,222 mile mark! I took it as a good omen :)

The picture below is of the horrible burn I got on Friday night. That's what you get for trying to save your sister's life! Mckenzie found one of those gel candles, lit it, and let it burn for probably at least 3 or 4 hours... enough time for tons of the gel to melt into this oily substance. We were all out of the room, and the fire alarm started going off, so the little girls ran into the room and soon they started frantically calling me. I told them to just blow it out, and they were panicky and yelling, "we can't! we can't!" So I went in and saw that not only was the wick lit, but the oily liquid had also lit on fire. The flame was too big to blow out, so I picked it up around the bottom where it wasn't too hot for my bare fingers and took it downstairs where I smothered it by covering the top of the container (still no burn). There was lots of smoke inside the container after I put it out, and I wanted to keep the smoke alarm from going off, so I stood up still covering it and took it out the backdoor to let the smoke out outside. I still don't remember exactly what happened, but once I was on the back deck I managed to touch the hot part of the candle holder, which made my hand jerk involuntarily, causing the hot oil to spill all over my left hand... at which point I made some sort of inhuman screeching sound and automatically tried to scrape the liquid (which was turning back into gel ON my hand) off. Once my mind caught up and realized what had happened I ran to the kitchen sink and put it immediately under the cold water. Apparently milk is better than cold water for burns, so we did that for awhile too (my sister and her friend were great little nurses, especially since I was one-handed). I kept it in cold liquids for more than two hours and still the pain was unbearable when it was not in some sort of cold something. Seriously... worst pain I've ever felt. Anyway, managed to go to sleep that night with my hand in front of the fan, woke up the next morning to a much improved and less painful burn (not even really blistered!), but after getting up and being outside in the warm day it started to blister, and get bigger, and bigger until I finally succumbed and went to the doctor (Saturday evening) where I took these pictures. They prescribed me some cream and wrapped it up, which honestly didn't help the pain at all, but at least it was protected. I was really hoping they'd drain the blisters because they were really hurting me. Anyway, after getting much larger than these pictures, the blisters are finally starting to deflate slightly and aren't hurting anymore :).

Believe it or not the two that are right next to each other on the upper part of my palm merged together and grew even larger than those two combined. It looks really gross. Trust me.

Finally, I was looking through a bunch of ads my mom had in her car when we were waiting for an hour to cross the border back into the US. I found out that the Tacoma Art Museum and the Museum of Glass allow free entry on the 3rd Thursday of every month during specific hours, so Emily and I went last Thursday. It was really interesting! I jotted down the names of some artists whose work I really liked at the art museum, and then we walked down the street a couple blocks to the Museum of Glass. To get to the entrance you have to walk across the bridge of glass, which goes over the freeway. It's decorated with tons of blown glass on the walls and some on the ceiling too! This picture is of the ceiling with the blown glass in it.

Our Trip to Canada

A couple weeks ago my sister Mckenzie, my mom, and I drove our grandma up to Canada to visit her husband. I know that sounds pretty strange... here's the deal. My grandma married Sid, my step-grandpa, last August. He was born in England, moved to Canada and has been there ever since... needless to say he is a Canadian citizen. Before they got married the customs officers told him there would be no problem with his visits as long as he spent at least 6 months in Canada every year, so that's how they functioned. As they said, there weren't any problems. However, unbeknownst to us, the rules change when you marry an American citizen. He was planning on applying for a green card, but hadn't done so yet, when they took a little trip up to Canada. They got into Canada fine, but when they tried to come back, they US customs officers pulled the car over, took him into an office, interogated for 5 or 6 hours, and then refused to let him across the border until he gets his green card. The whole situation has been pretty rough for them both as they have only been able to see each other on and off since last October, but with luck he'll have his green card soon. ANYWAY... we drove my grandma up to stay with him for awhile at the beginning of August, and it was a great trip! We didn't take many pictures, but I'll tell you about it nonetheless.

The first night, following the joyous reunion, we went out to eat at Ricky's, and then went back to the mini-mobile and hung out, rested up, etc. etc.

The next morning we were originally going to go mini-golfing, but it was so hot we decided to go swim at the lake instead. Sid's dog Oreo played fetch with rock after rock... sometimes she'd come up with the same rock, sometimes a different one, and everytime she would bring up a rock she'd take it to the exact same place on the shore. Sid said she likes to build a wall... which is what it looked like after she had placed about 20 rocks in a line.

Then we drove down into Chilliwack where we looked at what we thought was going to be their new apartment (turns out it's in a horrible part of town... too bad because it was really nice inside), and then we drove out to Harrison Hot Springs, which is this gorgeous town on the edge of a huge lake with sandy beaches, cute shops and cafe's, and gelato! We ate dinner, had gelato, then relaxed at the edge of the water. There are hot springs there... but they are of course on the side of the mountain, a couple hours up, so we decided to pass and just enjoy the closer, more convenient leisures.

The next day was a little cooler, so we decided to go mini-golfing at the cutest mini-golf course I have ever seen. It was designed exceptionally... there is even a legend that describes how the golf-course came about! Sid was the winner, followed by my mom (who was thoroughly upset because she got TWO holes in one), then me, then Kenzie. My grandma was our score-keeper, and she even putted for Sid a couple times! After mini-golf we went to the Cultus Lake Waterpark, which is supposedly the biggest waterpark in Canada... although that shocks me because it isn't, like, overly huge. Kenzie and I were the only ones that ended up going because at that point the adults were tired, so they gave us some money, told us to have fun, left us a car, and drove home to sit around and have juice and relax. We went in and went on all the slides multiple times, had an ice cream cone, and went on all the slides again. We even went on the half-pipe thing, on which I managed to get whiplash, and our waterpark trip ended rather swiftly after that :)

We got there on Wednesday night, stayed Thursday and Friday, and left Saturday morning. Even though we did tons, there was still lots of time for relaxing, and I was able to squeeze in the second Harry Potter book in my down time.

I actually really enjoyed it there, despite various things that I've heard. There was tons of European culture... everywhere we went there were people speaking French, or with british accents, or speaking other languages. The people were pretty nice, and it's beautiful! It's looks like we'll be going up to visit again over labor day weekend, so I hope we have just as much fun!

dressing up is overrated

"I hated the dress. And the shoes. There was little I could do in a dress, and as for shoes, they imprisoned freedom-loving feet accustomed to the feel of the warm earth."

~Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Anyone else identify with this statement?

parenting models

Fictional parents whom I want to model my own parenting after:

Stargirl: Stargirl's parents

Bridge to Terabithia: Leslie's parents

Both of these sets of parents seem to have mastered the balance between involved yet not smothering. My main goal is to avoid smothering their creativity, yet being supportive.

If you haven't read Stargirl, or Bridge to Terabithia, I recommend them!

Pictures from Our Ocean Trip

Here are some pictures of all the crazy stuff we did while down at Ocean Shores!

Flying the Kite

GORGEOUS sunset!

no comment.

proper, symmetrical jump

crazy lunatic (yes, it is as bad as it looks)

jumping picture turned levitation

fancy dinner

mini-golf

blowing bubbles

attempting to skim board

boogie boarding

trying to not look awkward while mom takes a fake candid.

didn't turn out that bad!

We had tons of fun, and miss it! It was great to not have any obligations, and play in the sun!