Sunday, October 12, 2008

Us

Here we are- the sister missionaries of the Georgia Macon Mission. We had a mission reunion the Thursday of conference. Top L-R: Allison Moyes, Rachel Redman, Shannon Van Patten, Jaimi Stokes, Melissa Nickel, Elissa Stewart. Bottom: Eileen Seavers Thorpe, Heidi Bailey, Rebecca Carter, Brooke Wilson, Leslie Orme.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Ode to Kristie Gatewood


I met a girl named Kristie
She was giggly and somewhat frisky
She laughed at my jokes
Sent me facebook pokes
And broke lots of hearts of handsome young blokes
Now she's going to serve the Lord in Salt Lake City
A mission for 18 months, her we don't pity
Because she'll be amazing
Like wild zebras grazing
Until a lion comes and pounces on the weakest one while the rest run for their lives into the African grasslands that maybe one day I'll see.
So for her I've updated my blog one last time
Before she leaves me all her nickels and a dime
And I was going to put an animated eternal flame
But I got fed up with the internet, shame on my name

Saturday, September 6, 2008

To the Tree! To the Tree!

The title has nothing to do with the actual post- it is just reminiscent of of a child hood book I used to read about a dog party in a tree. But on to bigger things- my family came to Bear Lake and I met them down there and then we drove up to Rexburg/Idaho Falls so they could help my cute little brother Mitch move in to college. At Bear Lake we rode on a six person bike contraption, which in the hands of a 10 year old boy steering can be very dangerous. No worries- I survived. We also went down to the actual lake and made a huge clay ball. Sad to say we did not use it as mud masks or even bring it home with us. But we brought back memories. Yadda yadda yadda. And of course we had to get some nice pics by the falls and by the Rexburg Temple. Aren't families great! And forever, of course...




Audrey is engulfing a yacht. It did later on cause indigestion. Whew!

I've got the whole world, I mean clay, in my hands...


Tanner is holding a boat in his hand. Pretty sweet!Of course I had to show Stewarts in true fashion. You could say Tanner was kissing the temple grounds. Or you could call him refusing to get up until Mom said he was her favorite child (true story).

Monday, September 1, 2008

Southern Women

My dearuh friend Rachel Dean sent this to me and I absolutely luhved it!

SOUTHERN WOMEN

Southern women appreciate their natural assets:
Clean skin.
A winning smile.
That unforgettable Southern drawl.
Southern women know their manners:
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Why, no, Billy!'
Southern women have a distinct way with fond expressions :
'Y'all come back!'
'Well, bless your heart.'
'Drop by when you can.'
'How's your Momma?'
Southern women know their summer weather report:
Humidity
Humidity
Humidity
Southern women know their vacation spots:
The beach
The rivuh
The crick
Southern women know the joys of June, July, and August:
Colorful hi-heel sandals
Strapless sun dresses
Iced sweet tea with mint
Southern women know everybody's first name:
Honey
Darlin'
Shugah
Southern women know the movies that speak to their hearts:
Fried Green Tomatoes
Driving Miss Daisy
Steel Magnolias
Gone With The Wind
Southern women know their religions:
Baptist
Methodist
Football
Southern women know their country breakfasts:
Red-eye gravy
Grits
Eggs
Country ham
Mouth-watering homemade biscuits with momma's homemade jelly
Southern women know their cities dripping with Southern charm:
Chawl'stn
S'vanah
Foat Wuth
N'awlins
Addlanna
Southern women know their elegant gentlemen:
Men in uniform.
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler
Southern girls know their prime real estate:
The Mall
The Country Club
The Beauty Salon
Southern girls know the 3 deadly sins:
Having bad hair and nails
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food
More Suthen-ism's:
Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit , and that you don't 'HAVE' them, you 'PITCH' them.
Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up 'a mess.'
Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of 'yonder.'
Only a Southerner knows exactly how long 'directly' is, as in: 'Going to town, be back directly.'
Even Southern babies know that 'Gimme some sugar' is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table
All Southerners know exactly when 'by and by' is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.
Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. If the neighbor's trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin!
Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference
between 'right near' and 'a right far piece.' They also know that 'just down the road' can be 1 mile or 20.
Only a Southerner, both knows and understands, the difference between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.
No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.
A Southerner knows that 'fixin' can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.
Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines, .. and when we're 'in line,'. We talk to everybody!
Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're related, even if only by marriage.
In the South, y'all is singular, all y'all is plural.
Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.
Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.
When you hear some one say, 'Well, I caught myself lookin',' you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!
Only true Southerners say 'sweet tea' and 'sweet milk.' Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it -- we do not like our tea unsweetened. 'Sweet milk' means you don't want buttermilk.
And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say ,'Bless her heart' ... and go your own way.

To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!

And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, ... bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernness as a second language!

And for those that are not from the South but have lived here for a long time, all y'all need a sign to hang on y'alls front porch that reads 'I ain't from the South, but I got here as fast as I could.'
Southern girls know men may come and go, but friends are fahevah !
Now...... Shugah, send this to someone who was raised in the South or wish they had been!

If you're a Northern transplant, Bless your little heart, fake it. We know you got here as fast as you could.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Vacation!

For the hundreds of you who take time to read my blog (cough, cough, yeah right) I have been on vacation for basically a month. Went to Utah to visit some peeps, then down to Phoenix area to help my grandma celebrate her 80th birthday. Wow! Then home to California for a week and finally back up to Rexburg. I picked up my wonderful friend Rachel Dean (who I haven't seen in 2 years) and we caught up. While I was in Utah I went to an old mission comp's wedding reception. So I'm including those pictures as well. Happy day. Hope you enjoy my playlist. I'm open to suggestions. I'm including pictures, but the thing is struggling right now, so hold on to your ant eaters and I'll get 'em soon enough
There were really 80 candles on the cake

All the grandkids/their spouses and their kids

Steve, Me, Shannon Van Patten, Brooke Devey "Wilson", Rachel Redman

Leslie Orme, Melissa Nickel, Me, Rachel Redman


Rachel Dean and I in front of the beautiful Rexburg temple

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The not so ugly duckling

We (Joelle, her husband Nate and I) went to go feed the ducks as we were waiting for our batman movie to start. And we found a cute little duckling that said "wee wee wee". It was very precious. No golden eggs though.

Mission Companions





A couple of weekends ago I went down to Utah for a family reunion and also got to see some of my mission companions. Then last Sunday was our mission president's homecoming so I got to see even more of my mission buddies! Here's some pictures of us at temple square and me with my president and his wife.

Belted

So all semester long I had to take images of this belt and at the end of the semester I had to put them all in a book. The images below don't look like the actual book, I cut them in half and made each it's one page. The writing on the left and picture on the right. If I actually took the time to craft the book I probably would have gotten an A, but I had just gotten back from a family reunion and really, what's more important? If you double click the image you'll be able to read the Haiku that goes with the image. Only me.

The Images















Thursday, July 17, 2008

What I do for a grade...


So this project for graphic design I had to "show" tattoo popularity in the NBA. The model is a friend of a friend and it was a little awkward taking pictures of him with his shirt off, especially at BYU-I, but for the sake of art it was worth it. And I got an A, which makes it even more worth it. The whole idea is that so many players in the NBA have tats that they might as well tattoo the uniforms on. I'm just glad I didn't have to do it for the WNBA.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Hiking and Snow on the 4th


As my alarm clock went off at 6:30 I had to think, do I really want to do this? But then I decided this is what it was all about, going off on adventures, even if they are early in the morning. Luckily I woke up enough to drive to my friend's house and off we went to the Darby Wind Caves in Targhee National Forest in Wyoming. It took us about an hour to get there, but once we got there it was amazing. It was nice mountain fresh air with the sound of a rushing river in the background. I could have sworn I saw Sasquatch, or maybe it was just Pocahontas running through the color of the winds. The weather was perfect for our hike because it was slightly overcast but still nice and warm. We decided it was probably around 6 miles round trip. Unfortunately we weren't able to go into the actual wind cave because there was too much snow and water! Kristie said that the two other times she had been there, there had never been so much water. We ate lunch underneath the mouth of the cave where a waterfall was coming out. There were lots of watery waterfalls (I didn't want to use pretty because that's so over done when talking about waterfalls!). So the movie is of me bottom sledding (for lack of a better phrase) down a hill. The best part was the sign that said "Please do not cut switchbacks" which we technically did but technically didn't because it was all snow. So I saw snow on the 4th of July. Happy America Day!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

FIRE

Pictures from lighting a belt on fire. Don't worry, I had to do it for class.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Check this chick out

So I have this way cool friend from high school named Naureen Meyer and she is an amazing artist who does art how I think. Okay, actually that's not possible for anyone to do art the way I think, but I think she comes the closest out of everyone. You should check out her site where she sells her stuff. Maybe one day I'll sell something. Like one of my thoughts for a penny. Get it? Nevermind.
www.naureenm.etsy.com

Sunday, June 22, 2008

You've Got Mail


This is a project for graphic design that we did. It was supposed to be a "brochure" that was promoting a change consultancy. The objective was to make a brochure that wouldn't be automatically thrown out due to its boringness. So I went all out, and yes my brains were out by the time I was done with it. I took an actual mailbox and had a nice boy named Sam help me cut it down. The "text" inside were postcards that I made; I took pictures that I had and made them look cheesy postcardish.

On the back I had my roommates write out stuff that was supposed to be included. I also bought real postcard stamps, and here is were it gets real exciting- I actually did the postmarking stamping thing all on my own. It took some time and money to figure it out, but I'm pretty darn proud of it. For our final presentations of the project our teacher did hold up my mail box and asked the class if that thing landed on their desk if they would open it. Of course who wouldn't open a shrunk-ated mailbox, so I therefore met the main objective, even though the rest of the project might have not met perfect standards. And this folks, is what I do day in and day out. If you want to see a more detailed image of the postcards just click the picture.

The Postcards