Utah Dance Fest

Competition season is here! Which ultimately means spending countless hours with the team entertaining ourselves in the dressing room before we wow the crowd with our four minutes of real entertainment. On Saturday we had our first competition of the year, the Utah Dance Fest. This is always a tough comp so we knew we needed a lot of mental preparation before we hit the Spectrum floor...

and that's how it's done...this is also how it's done

some of my favorite T's...

Smalls needs to wash her hair

Lina and I trying to figure out how to make Peace
The face game...Alicia...Alyssa...Courteney...Kelina...Janessa
Makin Peace! and bringin home a trophy not as big as we would have liked...but we felt some serious peace being made that night.The official Rockgirls!
me and cousin Shelly

We Bring the Fire! Make You Come Alive!

We also bring home a 1st Place, Best Choreography, Best Showmanship, and second highest score of the day!

The Remnants of a Perfect Day

You know those days where nothing in the category of incredible happens but everything that does happen is great? Meet my Wednesday March 18, 2009. Pretty perfect. Although the day began at 7:20 a.m. and waking up before 11 a.m. is definitely not my style, I could already feel in my bones that some great things were about to go down. When your day begins with Frank Shuman, principle lecturer at the School of Accountancy of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, accompanied by Jordan Kendrick and Sheldon Hill, your life is basically perfection at its best. Even more so when Frank decides to move Exam 3 from Friday to Monday. I heart Frank Shuman.

After class, LuCinda sent me off to Kohl's Department Store in search of an amazing baby shower gift for one of her friends. I have to admit, I could shop for babies for a living. I love it! Especially little girls, I was basically in heaven.

After some very thoughtful searching I found this cute Carter's dress. I can't wait to see little baby Bell rockin' out this summer in her little brown frock! I spent about an hour goggling at the cuteness I was surrounded by in the baby section and then I was off school again to study at my all-time favorite study spot on campus, the Eccles Conference Center. I didn't ever plan on sharing my secret spot with anyone but I just have to tell you why I love it so much and why it is the perfect place for my life.

1. The quiet. Only on rare occasions are there other people on the 2nd floor where I study. No one comes to bug ya.
   
2. The windows. For two reasons: a. the sun was shining! It was so warm and I was so happy to feel the sun! b. creeping, that's right. My day would not be perfect without a little bit of this. When your homework gets a little boring and class is getting out I love to watch the peeps walking around.
   
3. The banquet food. There wasn't one yesterday, but when there is a conference or something of that sort there is always catering going on. Smelling it while I study satisfies some great cravings that are usually never acted upon. Two birds with one stone kind of thing.
   
4. The music. They don't play overhead music at the library. But most days inside my Eccles Conference center, they play music. The best is during Christmastime.

Math assignment finished and I was off to another one of my favorite places...SARC as I like to call it or Sports Academy is what it is more commonly known as. I'll be honest, a lot of the time I

dink around at the gym. I kind of suck at self-motivation until I see the half anorexic mom's working out and then I might work a little harder. But yesterday, I worked hard. I was even a little sweaty when I was done. Don't worry, I gave myself a solid high five. Hopefully my desire to get in better shape continues to outweigh my desire to be a lazy bum. Cross your fingers for me if you will.

I finished my intense workout sesh, got re-ready for the day and sat like a 5 year old child indian style with my backpack on waiting for my ride to pick me up from after school club. Jordan and I were headed back to school for some more greatness. Math was fantastic. My main man Jim is a great teacher. When your professor writes the answer to your homework as (pardon my french) "See, you jackass..." you can't help but smile and be glad you're in Math 1030 on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. I studied a little in the library before Jordan was back and we went on our first adventure of the day. Although the car was parked by the Engineering building, we had to take a detour around the library, down old main, to our friends' who live at the welcoming home at 5th & 6th. I'm sure Matt loved driving us back to our car too. We love him. We also deeply love the man who inspired to go on that 1/2 mile walk.

Have you ever noticed the ranger station on the top of the hill right before Logan canyon? It's pretty sweet...and the view is beautiful so we had to stop for a short photo session. We love Spring and we love our valley!

We drove around for a little bit...saw some amazing houses we will one day own...I got to see Keller's new haircut...shared some chips & salsa with Glenna & Lane...and then dipped cones were in order.

Now, last week was Spring Break so there were lots of our friends that we hadn't seen for a small period of time. We needed to rekindle some of those friendships...

Jamie Coy is one of the loves of my life...she is an angel.
Jordan went out for a little night ride with Sheldon.

Our new friend Zac and old friends Sammy & Gish.
Poppa B... love

Jord, Doyle, and I before another infamous wrestling match. I don't know why we keep going in for more, he kills us every time.

We shared a few laughs together...Then, at the request of Matthew we were off to our cleaning duty...we're pretty good at sorting clothing. We just wanted to make some peace down there.
and we have mad bed-making skills.

Off to the last adventure...Lynsi was home from her date and we needed to see her beautiful face, too bad she just wanted to make peace too. Dustin was busy studying so we had to try our quiet voices out, we're not very good so he just joined our fun.
The perfect ending to the perfect day couldn't be anything but Tim shimmying. Self-taught, I'd say he's amazing but maybe that's just me!

Mr. & Mrs. Jake Cowdin!

It's official!!! Haley and Jake got married on Saturday! They both looked so happy coming out of the temple and their smiles only grew throughout the day.

The 3 amigos at the temple So mine and Lynsi's day began pretty early to make it to the temple in time...and then we had a lot of spare time at different periods of the day. We killed a few hours at the Gateway before heading to Layton for the luncheon...we found our new favorite toy at Z Gallerie.
Jordan, me, Lynsi, and Morgan at Corbin's Grill for the luncheonAfter an amazing meal, we again passed a few hours at the mall before we had to be at the reception. Layton Hills Mall doesn't have any oversized magnifying glasses, but they do have a LoveSac store. The boys met us over there and we had a nice long chat on the couches. This is what happens when Ben has your camera, just a small word of warning.

A Bridal Shower For the Future Mrs. Cowdin

With 13 days to go before the big day, Lynsi and I threw a little friendly get-together known more commonly as a bridal shower for the bride-to-be. After a few rejections and a very stressful last minute search for a location our amazing friend Morgan loaned us the Phiv for the evening. It was the perfect place for the shower! Things finally came all together and we started the pre-shower preparations when we ran into another bump in the road...our frozen soups weren't thawing.We had to take to a few extreme measures but everything turned out perfectly and everyone enjoyed the soups... Melissa and Alyssa pretend they want to see the big rock, but as we can see something else was a little more cool.

A candid shot of the girls...Sharice, Haylee, Hollie, Dani, and the woman of the hour
Maria, Steph, and Amanda Shanda just wanted to eat the cake...
You would think since Jordan made the dessert she wouldn't be so in love with it that she had to lick her plate...

Morgs and I