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

My Life as a Dancer

As we got our first public appearance of our "Rock Girls" hip hop out of the way last night, a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders. I've been scared shizless for the past week or so for this performance...I hadn't been in front of a crowd like that in over a year. Things went good and I'm excited for another season of competitions. Now that I'm mostly over my fear of performing I had some time today to think about how much fun I've had dancing over the years. I can't even count how many times I've slipped on this costume and applied that makeup...it's crazy to think how much of my life has been filled with dance. My short break may have decreased my technique a little, but it for sure reminded me of and strenghthened my love and passion for dance. Here is a little montage of mostly my high school days of dancing...enjoy. Sorry, I feel like a blogtard. I can't figure out how to post the video any other way...if someone knows how to fix it let me know!

The Week In Review

Throughout the week I've been thinking about sitting down at the computer and blogging a few of the things that have been going on. I always end up either thinking it's too small a thing to actually blog about or something else comes up to distract me (this is very easy to do) and fill my time. I've also been trying to get myself to write in my journal, something I used to be really good at but that has somehow been slipping my mind the past few months. So in an attempt to give you blog followers something to read about and myself something to remember what I was doing this past week, here is my week in review.

On Monday night the Utah State gymnastics team hosted the #1 Utes. I love going to gymnastics even though the meets are not the same without Tanner's commentary. Although I am an Aggie, you can't help but cheer for the Utes. They are amazing and basically flawless. My favorite gymnast of the night was Kristina Baskett. She is almost unhuman. She is such a cute girl and did so so good on Monday. Our team put up a pretty good fight but in the end we lost, 196.95-193.5, with our second highest score of the season. Not bad against the number 1 ranked team in the country.

Back in the studio of the Tueller School of Dance, our specialty dance is almost done! On Tuesday we spent a little more time finishing up our beginning and end, leaving only a small hole somewhere in the middle. It's coming together so good! It is going to be amazing! Our first performance is this Saturday so we're a little stressed to get it all down but I think we can pull it off. Janessa posted our progress from this week on facebook so take a look! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=51882512359&subj=1093029127

My good friend Jordan Kendrick has been on this crocheting kick for a few weeks. Mainly with beanies, but she's thrown a few headbands and other things in there. I think she's crocheted a total of 700 beanies, maybe. She even spent an evening trying to teach me. Useless. I do not have the patience or domestication to sit down and create anything of that sort. I wanted one to give to my little baby Brinley a.k.a. my friend Celeste's 3 month old baby, so we picked out a new yarn color and we found some cute flowers and ribbon for a tiny sized beanie. I think it turned out so cute! I've also been trying to figure out how those peeps make the cute headbands with the big flowers so I made an attempt to make my own. It's not the cutest of cute headbands but for a first try I'll give myself a high five. I was afraid they wouldn't fit her but they did and they looked so cute! She is such a cute little girl!

Last night we got home from a little dance convention in Layton called Hollywood Vibe. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot of fun and crazy dances. We took class from Al Bee, Jennifer Parsley, Chali Jennings, Roman Vasquez, Joaquin, and of course Christopher Smith. Even though I walked away with 1000 new bruises and I woke up this morning not being able to walk it was a lot of fun to take the classes and get to know such amazing professional dancers. It was fun to just get away for the weekend too. There were a lot of other dancers there to provide some good entertainment. We had the trani, the 15 year old smoldering temptress, the BYU booty shorts along with a few others.

After our own dinner at Subway, we came back to the convention center and walked in on this eating contest...they were apparently starving.

This is one of the times it's good to be older. This is how Brycelyn and Maddi slept for the night! Poor little lambsMy little bedmate KelinaWe were there to make peace.