what we have been doing in reverse order

January 24: Dave turned the big 2-0! LeBron whooped the Jazz! Everybody else missed the memo to throw up a gang sign for the picture! Our windshield wipers quit working on the interstate during a massive rainstorm!
January 23: Cody took me to a hockey game -- the Idaho Steelheads versus the Utah Grizzlies. Can you guess who represents each team? There was a big fight and I watched the puck faithfully after being reminded by about 10 people that I could get hurt if I didn't.

January 22: The Faith & Scholarship Symposium. The picture above is before I had my breakdown :) Interestingly, my breakdown was not caused by the fact that I was conducting in front of more than 500 people. I have such composure :) Haha! The picture below is half of the people that were there -- I couldn't get the whole ballroom in the shot. For a kind review, check out this kind post. If you click on the words "this kind post" it will take you to another blog.

curly ponytails

Today, my hair was out of control (read: there was no way in heck it was doing anything cute). On hair days like today, I resort to the trusty curly side ponytail -- I learned this hairdo from my cousin Camille & her dancer buddies. Camille is pretty much hilarious. She is sweet, kind, and loves HSM as much as me -- not to mention her killer muscles that I covet. Thinking of Camille made me think about all my other cousins too. I am so glad that I grew up with all of them so close. We are practically siblings . . . none of this cousin stuff :)
Tyler & Rob are my closest cousins age-wise. They made sure I never had a shortage of sporting events to attend. Ty & I spent a year at BYU together. Even though we weren't together all of the time, I cherish some of the things we experienced together. Without Rob, I wouldn't have passed my Independent Study tennis class/graduated from high school. Now they are both married - yay! To people I like - double yay!
Travis is the epitome of fun -- he is so hilarious & good-natured. There is NEVER a dull moment when Trav is around.
Katie cracks me up too. She is just her stinkin' adorable self. When we were both working at the store, I would get really excited to work with her because she (1) would work and (2) was easy to get along with. Savannah is a total fashionista, but there is way more to her than looks :) My personal opinion is that Savannah has the BEST laugh I have ever heard -- it always makes me giggle too. Taylor is TALL!!! I guess from now on I will have to call him my younger cousin instead of my little cousin. Who knew I would end up being the shorty in our fam? And Tanner! He is Mr. Personality. He is so energetic and gives 100% to whatever he does. Tanner will give anything a try -- pomegranates, grapefruit juice, you name it!

I just love my cousins. They are the greatest :) And their Facebook accounts are great for stealing pictures from!

christmas is really here now

I am so excited right now! I just opened our front door to take the garbage out and there was a giant package on our porch. I wasn't really expecting anything, but then I looked at the return address -- it was from my Grandma Hopkins :) The contents of the package are PRIME : homemade beef jerky, caramel popcorn, & spicy mustard -- and usually a few other treats just for good measure. My grandma has sent us Christmas packages/baskets for as long as I can remember. Some of my favorite Christmas memories are eating her beef jerky & caramel popcorn at unearthly hours of the morning while we opened presents. Pretty much, my grandma rocks!

And, thanks for everybody's congrats on my last post about the Praxis -- it was kind of ironic that my shortest post got the most comments, but they were all welcome :)

I PASSED THE PRAXIS!!!!!

that's all :)

so . . .

a lot has happened since the last time I wrote a real post and I just need to catch up so I feel like I can blog again :)

• Cody dominated the GMAT -- hooray!
• I still haven't found out my score on the Praxis -- boo! It has the potential to be a Christmas-ruiner.
  
• We went to Idaho for Thanksgiving. The downer was that everybody except Cody got sick. But that just meant that all the cousins came over to hang out at our house. Party!
• We survived another GSS heavy week -- a Christmas party, meetings galore & service project. Crazy! I went shopping for the Christmas party all alone at Costco. I made two trips : one for paper products and veggies & the other for meat, pies and rolls. During the second trip, I ended up pushing a pallet card overflowing with rolls through the store. I only got a handful of strange looks -- thankfully, I didn't have to take any sharp corners or go over any major bumps (both of which would have been tragic).
  
• I got a ton of my literature review for my thesis done. I am just waiting to hear back from my chair to see if I am missing anything major :)
  
• I visited my mom & aunt while they were in SLC for a day last week. Yay brave Mom!!
• We found approximately 10 pairs of my socks at the bottom of our bed when we put orur flannel sheets on. They are all in the laundry now.
  
• Cody & I decided to go to Peru when the Trujillo temple is being dedicated. Any donations would be welcome :) Just kidding, hopefully it works out!
• I was making an amazing comeback playing Backgammon with Cody's dad -- and he rolled double 4s to beat me. Someday I will be the backgammon master . . .
  

The end!

what's in a name

Okay, I know I haven't posted for a while and I promise I will monster blog about what's been going on . . . eventually.

I have been reading a lot of articles for my thesis and some people have really unfortunate names. Two of my favs are Assman and Moonwomon. Seriously!

Weird names bring a smile to my face for some reason, probably because I like mine :)

knight time

So, last night Hillcrest (my high school) played in the Idaho State Championship football game. It may not sound remarkable to very many people, but . . . the team was riding a 22 game LOSING streak!! Cody found a site where we could watch the live webcast of the game, which was wonderful. The announcers kept begging people to email their shoutouts -- we decided to since we wanted the announcers to tell us about the game instead of begging. This is what we said :

"I am a former Hillcrest Knight watching the game with my husband in Utah -- it is great to see them with a winning season (something I never witnessed when I was a student there!)

I'm even trying to teach my husband the fight song :) Hillcrest Knights! Show your might!"

Then, not even five minutes after I had sent the email, they read it -- right when Jerome scored a touchdown. Oh the irony!! Anyway, I pooped out at halftime, but Cody woke me up when the game was over to tell me Hillcrest won. Then I turned back over and fell asleep . . . with a smile on my face :)