Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Time with the Boys

Not much actually happened this week. Surprisingly, I got to spend a bunch of time with the boys this week. Friday night Emily was at her cousin’s babysitting so I went over to the Russian house to chill. In the end me and Sean played a bunch of Uncharted 3. It was a lot of fun.

The night got a little extra crazy when my laundry suddenly went missing. I had put a load of whites in to the dryer, and forgotten then for a while. When I remembered and went back to get them I found that they were missing. I was very confused. If you were going to steal clothes, why on earth would you steal garments. It just made no sense to me. I looked everywhere for them, and in the end I just gave up. Guess I just have no clothes.

Well anyways, when Emily came back from babysitting I decided to tell her the story of my clothes, and went to the laundry room to prove my story. There we found the culprit. His roommate had helped him by getting his clothes, but had taken mine instead. When he realized what had happened he came to get his clothes, but didn’t bring back mine. Luckily I was telling the story to Emily and he says “There in my bedroom!” I was then able to go with him and get my clothes, so that story ended well.

Saturday was another day with the boys. In the afternoon Drew came over. He was going to perform at the Chinese New Year's festival that nights, and so he was chilling in Provo in the meantime. We also played some Uncharted 3, and it was a lot of fun. It was great to get to just chill with all my friends, it is a rare chance these days. It is also wonderful to see drew, I hardly get that chance anymore.

Later that night Emily and I had the opportunity to go to the New Year’s celebration and watch Drew perform. He did an amazing job. He performed a Chinese song he had written for his wife named 《光》. It was absolutely gorgeous.

 

So that was my weekend with the boys. It was a lot of fun. It makes me wish all the boys from flagship were back. I miss the epic parties that we had. Oh well, at least Drew is still here. I need to find more opportunities to visit him… Well, that was this week. Hopefully all my other friends also had great weeks.

P.S. I am happy to see that some of my friends posted again. Even if it took a little pestering ;)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Emily’s Birthday

So this week was a really good week. It started with an excellent day of no school. Emily and I made banana pancakes for breakfast, and while they tasted quite good, they were a little doughy. Still it was a lot of fun. We also tried making sugar cookies, but they got a little burned. So, not the best day for cooking, but it was still really great.

The sad part of that day was saying Goodbye to Karin. She was a member of the girls Chinese house and she is now going off to China. We will certainly miss her. She was one of the more confident speakers in the Chinese house and it will be a real loss without her. Hopefully all goes well for her in China!

 

On Thursday we went to the basketball game. Unfortunately we had to watch our team losing. Never a lot of fun. It seems like we have a lot of potential, but unfortunately we are just not living up to that potential. We get sloppy when we need good execution the most.

After the game I took Emily up to my uncle’s house and we watch Tangled. It was a lot of fun, and certainly made up for the lackluster game. It really is a great movie. We ended the day by going to YogurtLand. I am really liking that place way too much. I need to avoid there before I eat all of the frozen yogurt :)

 

The real big event this week though was Emily’s birthday. This Sunday, the 22nd, she turned 20. She was really excited to no longer be a “teenager”. It is funny to me that she though of her self that way, especially since she is much less a “teenager” then many girls I know that are well in into their twenties. Anyways, on Friday Emily had a Freshman year roommates party, so I took that time to go prepare some stuff for her birthday. Specifically, most of the time was spent baking 2 cheesecakes for her birthday. It was my first time ever making Cheesecake, but it turned out really well! I was so excited about it, especially since this is Emily’s favorite type of cake.

Anyways we started celebrating Emily’s birthday on Saturday, because it is hard to do too much on Sunday. So in the morning I made her breakfast. It consisted of Chocolate pancakes, eggs with cheddar cheese, orange juice, and milk. She really loved it. I picked those since in the past she had mentioned she loved it when her parents made her those dishes for breakfast.

After breakfast we went to the temple together to do baptisms. It was a really good time. It is crazy how busy the Provo temple is. It takes us around two and a half hours to finish baptisms and confirmations. Its okay though, since it was just nice to sit with her that whole time :)

For dinner that night I took her out to P.F. Chang’s. We got shrimp with candied walnuts, beef and broccoli, lettuce wraps, and green beans. It all tasted so wonderful. She was so happy with going there, as she really loves the restaurant. It was a wonderful time. After we were done eating, we just walked around University Mall together and talked. :)

After that, we went back to her place to get things setup for her party. She was having a bunch of friends over to celebrate her birthday, so we made food and got everything ready. When the friends arrived we played games, talked, “danced”, and just generally had a lot of fun. It was great to see Emily enjoying herself so much. I stayed till 12 to wish her happy birthday on her actual birthday, and then went home.

On Sunday, her actual birthday, during FLSR dinner, I brought out the strawberry cheesecake and some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and got everyone to sing happy birthday to her. I was so glad that she loved the cheesecake I made. She says it was the best she has ever had, but she is probably just being a little biased ;)

After dinner, we went up to Orem and watched Princess Bride together, one of her favorite movies of all time. We then just spent the rest of that evening together talking and having fun (and eating even more cheesecake). It was just wonderful getting to spend her birthday with her, and help make it so memorable for her.

 

Well, that was what I have been up to this week. Life is going really well, classes are good. I do need to do a little better at working efficiently during work, but other than that I couldn’t ask for anything more!

P.S. I do have pictures of the cheesecake, but they are not on this computer, so hopefully I remember to update this post with the pictures when I am next around to my laptop.

Monday, January 16, 2012

A blog post!

Look, I am actually posting pretty much when I am supposed to be posting. It is a miracle ;)

This week was the first full week of class, and it has been good. All of my teachers have told me they don’t really want to have to deal with grade, and as long as we just do the work well they will give us all A’s. It sure takes of a lot of pressure with classes. I am also loving the work. I am starting to really enjoy reading and writing about research. I am still not up to the level I need to be, but I am getting there :)

Most of the week was just normal FLSR life. We did have some really amazing food though. Song cooked twice during the week, and I have to say it turned out rather yummy. He is a really good cook. We also had Serena cook an amazing meal this Sunday. She is just an amazing cook, one of the best I have ever met. Her ability to cook Chinese good is just great. At the end of that dinner we also had homemade ice cream cake to celebrate Serena’s birthday. It was glorious!

 

As for Adventures, this Friday several of us went out to eat at Sichuan Garden. It is this fabulous Chinese place out in Sandy. It has the most authentic Chinese food that I have eaten in Utah. I am just in love with it. It was so much fun, though I did eat a bit too much.

After that I went with Emily to a Friday the 13th party. It was fun. I won a game of spoons, which was a real turnaround since last time we played I lost in the first round both times. We also played Mafia, and I got to be the narrator. The second game I used my silly Russian accent to make it even more interesting. It was so much fun :)

After that Emily and I drove up the canyon to look at the stars. She loves to look at the stars, and this was the one place we could go that there wouldn’t be any light pollution. It was freezing and the wind was blowing like no tomorrow, but it was still really fun. We didn’t stay long, but it was worth the drive :)

On Saturday we had more adventures, but this time with the Russian house. We got together with them at night to watch the last Harry Potter movie. It was really fun to hang out with everyone. After that we played Rock Band together. I even got Emily to try playing the guitar, which was really surprising considering how much she seemed to not want to. We’ll have to do it sometime. Either that or go to Drew and Cassi’s house and play Rock Band with them ;)

The week ended with a wonderful Sunday. At first it was really busy as I tried to get the last details about home teaching finished, but then Emily and I went up to Crystal’s (my older sister) for my nephew’s birthday party. It was so much fun. I love seeing my nephews. He was so cute as he would try his best to walk around the house and then fall after a few steps. It was just the cutest thing you had ever seen.

It was also really great when we got to the cake. He decided that playing with the cake was more fun then eating the cake, so he decided to smear it around everywhere. It was hilarious to watch. After, when the kids went to sleep, we all watched Cars 2, and I must say that I really enjoyed the movie.

 

So that is what has been happening in my life. It has been great since school started back up. I wonder how life is for all those that are now out of school. It seems like all my good friends have stopped blogging, and that makes me really sad :( Here’s hoping that all of you will start blogging again soon!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Christmas Holiday

The last three weeks have been really good. Christmas break was wonderful, and it was good to have a break for school. It is going to be crazy when I actually have a job and don’t get a 2 1/2 week break at the end of every year.

So lets thing, what adventures did I have? On the first Monday of the break (Dec 19) Emily and I made gingerbread houses. It was the first time I have ever made them from scratch. Lets just say… I didn’t quite get the thickness of the walls completely corrects =p I tried really hard, but it wasn’t right and caused some structural problems :)

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As you can see things started out rather well, and then quickly died as we put the finishing touches on the house. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. We didn’t actually get to eat any as my ravenous family finished it off quickly the next day. Next time will have to do a better job :)

 

Another adventure was going to YogurtLand for my first time ever. I know I have had friends telling me forever how wonderful frozen yogurt was, and I have to admit I have always been skeptical. Yes, I know that it taste great, but people always seemed to overdo it in their praise of various frozen yogurt spots. Well, now I am one of those people :) YogurtLand had great yogurt, but even more importantly had great fruit. It was just amazing. I hadn’t had Dragon Eyes in forever, and it was just delightful.

 

Christmas itself was a great time. We all were at my older sister’s house and had Christmas. As always their were the fun antics of having Christmas with my family :) You know.

Much of the rest of the break was spent reading books (something I kept myself from doing during school), playing Uncharted 3 and Resistance 3 (beat both), watching Arrested Development (all three seasons) and baking. All of that was just to keep me busy and not lonely. Emily was gone and the Whitings also headed up to their cabin this week. So me and Chris spent a lot of time together, and I did the above activities. I must say that the baking went especially well. I made some spice cake cake balls that were to die for. I am really proud of myself.

Another highlight of that period was the BYU football game. For all of those that watched it you know how heart racing it was. It is crazy that we won it within the last minute. It was so awesome. For those of you that aren’t sports fans, you should starting being one, watching your team score in the last couple seconds is legen-dairy! (I wonder how many people will figure out what this is a reference too?)

 

And then we had last week, which was all about getting ready for the start of school. On Monday I decided to get me and my car ready. First I went and got a haircut at Aveda. I love that place. For 5 dollars I get a neck massage, hair wash, hair cut, and a hot towel facial. It may take upwards of an hour, but it is certainly worth it. I also cleaned and vacuumed my car. It is shining once again! :)

Monday night Song had made everyone beef soup. It was really good, but he felt that we all needed huge bowls so we used pots instead of bowls. It was hilarious :)

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On Tuesday Emily came back to school :) We spent the day running errands together to get ready for school. For dinner we had another Chinese meal. It was delicious. I just wish every meal for the rest of the semester would be this good, unfortunately it probably won’t :(

That week was also good because I saw Drew. It was his birthday this last Friday. He came down on Saturday to see all of us. We went to the temple together, and then He, Cassi, Emily, Pasha, and I all went to get Korean food together. It was actually really good. I don’t care for a lot of Korean dishes, but I actually enjoyed most of what we ate, and even if I had been eating garbage it would have been worth it to see Cassi and Drew. I really miss having them around in Provo.

 

Well, that is what has happened in the last three weeks. Sorry everyone had to wait so long for an update again. I am really trying to do better at getting out a weekly blog again. Hopefully in the future things will come out sooner. Anyways, I hope that everyone is having a great new year!