ACT. This is [was] HaLLoWeeN

Halloween 2009

Two years ago, I was a nurse for Halloween :)

Halloween of 2009 was spent with Brie, Ty, and Sam (my exboyfriend).

We had lots of fun going around taking pictures in the graveyard, ISU and other places.

Sam was a doctor.

Brie & Ty were masquerade. So cute.

Then we went to Pizza Hut and had dinner. It was a great time.

Halloween 2010

 Me. Mariana. & McHale (sister) went to an Institute Halloween dance.

I was an angel, Mariana was masquerade, and McHale was Jonah Hex.

It was a blast!

We convinced Hannah to come. She joined us at the Halloween dance and had fun! She dressed up as someone from the '80s. 

After we danced the night away haha we went to Walmart and bought a bunch of snacks.

Then McHale, Hannah, and our friend Tod came over and we watched some scary movie

My angel costume from 2010.

 We even tried to make our house as "Halloween-ish" on our college budgets.

 That is our witch we put on the window.

 Gotta love the cheap paper Halloween chandelier. 

 Another shot of the living room in #305.

 This was our sitting area on our balcony. We hung up Halloween lights and leaves along the balcony posts.

Haha that vampire was scary! We all would walk into the kitchen late at night at different times and all were freaked out when we saw Drake (that's what we named him) because the darkness made him look like a person! 

Halloween 2011

Me in my angel costume & blonde wig.

 A (Aubrey) "Brie", C (Charley" "CiCi" Me). & T (Tyson) "TyTy" 

went on another annual Halloween photo shoot at our beloved shutdown elementary school--Bonneville Elementary.

Brie and Ty were both pirates, and I was an angel.

This is us trying to be fierce!

 Snow [less] angel.

 Daydreaming. This is one of my favorites because it has a movie/dreamlike quality.

 The angel & The Pirate-ess

 Tyson's photography skills amaze me.

 My photography skills amaze me too :) 

 My best friends are pirates!

 It's a love/hate relationship haha... TOTALLY kidding. It's all love.

 Yo ho yo ho a pirates life for Brie & Ty

 Not to sound proud or bragging, but this picture I look of Brie was harder than it looks to take and turned out incredibly.

 I'm flying, she is watching.

 Aw kiss recreation from a photo of Sam & I two years prior.

 No one messes with Brie.

 Hate my smile but love you--XOXO

 To fly you must let go, ignore the risk, & take a chance.

These next shots are adorable. Someone drew that I <3 (heart) to the left of Brie and it makes for some cute pictures. I heart Brie!

 I <3 ?

 Brie hearts Ty.

 Best friends don't let best friends make bad decisions. 

 We didn't have anyone to take these pictures for us so we each had to trade being photographers to being photographed... so the three of us rarely got any pictures together. We put our camera on a staircase and set a timer so we could all pose. This picture turned out amazingly I must say. It shot it right at the right time!

 Aww presh... husband/wife laugh. so happy! I captured this moment.

 Another picture of the three of us. The "Fab Three" 

About this Halloween...

I got all dressed up for work in my angel costume. 

They told us everyone could dress up.

Soo... I get to work, and I'm the ONLY one who dressed up...

Needless to say, I was a little embarrassed.

Luckily, EVERYONE (coworkers and patients) loved it and went on all the about how cute I looked.

Some people even said I looked like a Victoria's Secret angel.

It was worth dressing up to see some of our older residents eyes light up like I was a magic angel.

I'm glad I dressed up. 

You only get to do that once a year.

Brie, Ty, & I had our Bonneville/Halloween photo shoot.

We hadn't had one since Sam and I were dating and Tyson and Brie had just started dating.

It's so sad how that school is falling apart and people are disrespecting it by breaking the windows and graffiting things. 

I'll never forget the Bonneville years and memories made there.

Those can't be damaged or torn away like the building.

Our photo shoot was fun and turned out cute.

I must admit for being amateurs we did quite a good job with the resources we had. :)

I LOVE how they turned out as you can see above.

When the shoot was finished, we headed to the Young's.

They bought this rad spider pinata that we all took turns hitting.

Brie believes on the matter was we should have to work for our candy.

I sure did, and I have the battle scars to prove it!

We were hitting the pinata with force because it wouldn't break.

Then the broom we were using to hit it broke and gashed my finger--the cut was rather deep.

Ty and Brie nursed me up though.

Those two are the best.

We finally broke it though and got our candy.

After that I headed to my mom's house. 

My stepdad was out of town so she wanted to hang out.

McHale (sister) spent some time with us too.

Mom made dinner and we all talked and watched Hocus Pocus (which in my opinion, is the best Halloween movie ever).

There were no trick or treats--it's not at all surprising due to the fact their house is so isolated and way up in the mountains with basically no neighborhood.

Oh well haha... more candy for us ;)

To sum it all up, it was a very Happy Halloween!

"Fear plays an interesting role in our life. How dare we let it motivate us, how dare we let it into our decision making, into our livelihoods, into our relationships. It's funny isn't it, we take a day a year to dress up in costume and celebrate fear."

-Robert California (The Office) 

It's Almost A Love Story [ies] Part 2

Gavin

May 2010

So I started talking to this boy named Gavin (name changed) who was a 22 year old RM. We talked via Facebook. He served a mission in Hawaii. He was my grandma and grandpa's best friends' son. He was extremely nice and had a great sense of humor. 

We decided to hang out so we had an amazingly fun evening hanging out with my best friends Aubrey and Tyson (her husband, but he was her fiancé at the time). He got along very well with them and vice versa. We played Phase 10 (which he won, it was unusual cause I win like every game... seriously!). Brie (Aubrey) also made brownies and gave us the bowl to lick the batter. Gavin and I got in a chocolate fight. It was a blast! He gave me a chocolate mustache haha. So I got him back and ,after a struggle, got it all over his face! I felt bad because I got it on his clothes too by accident, but he forgave me and we laughed about it. I hoped we would hang out again.

Here is a journal entry from a night a few days after the above incident.

"Tonight was a true fairytale, a dream come true. Tonight was the night I've been waiting for forever. Tonight was the best night of 2010! And all because of one boy: Gavin! I have butterflies. My heart lights up when I see him. Gavin is the cutest, most amazing boy I've ever met in my life. His testimony and dedication to the gospel is amazing. He's gorgeous. He's 22 and taller than me!!! 

Well tonight=perfect. Gavin and I hiked up Red Hill to watch the sunset. We talked and made lots of jokes. It got cold, so Gavin wrapped his arms around me, cuddled, and warmed me up... so sweet. 

After the sun had basically set, we drove to a pizza place and got a pizza. Gavin drove us up to this park on a hill. We sat in the backseat of his car and ate, cuddled, and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox it was good.

We get along so great. Then we kissed. He kissed me and it was hands down the best kiss of my life. He has the softest lips. We connect in a way I've never connected with a boy. My heart was racing faster than ever. I finally got my "Alex Karev" kiss. That first kiss worth waiting for. A kiss so hot, so deep, you don't want to come up for air and can feel it everywhere.

He showed me an album of pictures from his mission in Hawaii. They were incredible and cute! Aww tonight was perfect, a real fairytale, but I can't help wondering if it was too good to be true. If he is just like the rest. I shouldn't assume things, but I refuse to be hurt again, refuse to be used. Why do boys just see me as a pretty face, cute, wonderful girl to kiss? I will never be okay with that. I have so much more self respect. A kiss means something to me."

The next week, Gavin and I went on another date. 

We went to his house and watched my copy of The Lovely Bones. It was fun.

Here were some quotes I wrote in my journal that day.

"Oh sure, I think other guys are cute, but every time I see a cute guy, I remind myself of how cute you are. Of how you love me. Of how much I love you. Of how sweet you are. Of how much you can always brighten my day. And suddenly, that other guy doesn't look all that good anymore."

"Love is like water... you can drink it, swim in it, drown in it... but you can't live without it."

"Contrary to what the cynics say, distance is not for the fearful, it is for the bold. It's for those who are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. It's for those knowing a good thing when they see it, even if they don't see it nearly enough."

"Me? I'm scared of everything... of what I saw, of what I did, of who I am... but most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my life the way I feel when I'm with you." -Dirty Dancing

"The better you know someone, the less there is to say, or maybe there's less that needs to be said."

"They say, when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up." -Big Fish.

"A hug can turn your day around, it's an emotional Heimlich. Someone puts their arms around you, and they give you a squeeze and all your fear and anxiety comes shooting out of your mouth, and you can breathe again."- Pushing Daisies

"I gave you my heart and that's all I can give you, and if that's not enough, then I'm not enough." -One Tree Hill

"I'm a hopeless romantic and you're just hopeless." -Bouncing Souls

Now I didn't write much about Gavin and I after all of the above so here is my journal entry that explains the end of Gavin and me.

"Institute is going good! I enjoy it! I am in the class Teachings of the Latter Day Prophets with Brother Laga and Brother Williams. I'm so done with the whole dating thing, thanks to Emery and Gavin. And the worst/most awkward part is they are both in that class! It's like a bad romance/chick flick movie! Ironic or what? And lately, I've been talking to this boy named Ryan who, as you guessed it, is also in the class! But he is in our university 10th ward that Sam and I went to, so I've known him for a while. We are just friends and that's all we will ever be. I say that all the time haha, but I mean it! Two past boyfriends/boys I've dated is two too many! If love is meant to be it will come to me.

So as you can hopefully infer from the previous paragraph, Gavin and I are over. He was just like all the others. All I was to him=a pretty face to kiss and then move on without a care. Ah I'm so tired of being used! But I'm not sad about Gavin. I did the best I could! I gave my all. I just wanted to be friends, but he wanted more. So we dated. He didn't want a relationship (he says because of some bad news involving his family which makes him doubt relationships), but he still wanted to "hang out" aka kiss me.

Negative. I said no way. Kisses may mean nothing to him, Emery, and just about every other guy out there, but a kiss means something to me. I'm not a NCMO! I told Gavin off and didn't hold back. I did cute things like on Monday when I randomly decided to write him a note to cheer him up (because he was having a bad day) to surprise him. Waste of time and paper. He didn't care. I stuck it on his windshield. He threw it away.

He said I'm a pretty girl and it's too bad things turned out like this. He said it wasn't his intentions. I said I was aware of that and he is missing out on a girl who is smart, sweet, and goes out of her way to make people happy. He got mad because he said I wasn't being considerate of his situation. I'm sorry, but we all have trials. That's what life is about. I've had so many hardships, but the key is how you react. You need to hold your head up high, have faith, keep walking, and endure to the end with the knowledge that all is well and everything will be okay in the end.

I don't want a man who sits and does the "poor me", life is so hard, so I'm going to sit and mope thing. Life is amazing. Trials are blessings, faith is everything. I want an eternal companion with unwavering faith who will endure with me to the end. And one who appreciates my notes and me!"