Labor Day with Brielle Zia

 miner's parade / dinosaurs / lipgloss / sliding and coasting / princess dancing / lots and lots of kissses
Oh how I miss my nieces every day.

Beyonce Pad Thai

Last weekend was my cousin Sami's mission farewell, so it was the perfect opportunity for family time and a little post Park City hike-em-ups.  It's always nice to be around extended family.  And even though I don't see them much, it's so easy to just sink in and be comfortable.  Especially when the family room lounging and story time comes along.  I do wish I were better friends with my cousins though.  They lead the coolest lives.  But with too many years away from family for too long, it's probably time to make up for lost time and start rebuilding those friendships.  I'll work on it.

A bunch of eaten strawberries later and we made it to Park City with my oh so generous parents.  We spoke of Michael Jordan and bear encounters and ate PB&J.  And that mountain air!  Oh that mountain air.  Mmm.

Anyway.

These last couple of weeks I've been living the good life.  Complete with sleeping in on the reg, making some books (you heard me), and listening to Journey far too many times as I spin my legs silly.  I've been making it a point to take it slow before the long (but such fun!) days and weeks of a summer counselor takes over.  Tell me, why does doing so little feel so good?  Case in point: Panda Express at 10:14 at night.  So good.  Especially when your boyfriend is like "girl, lemme bring you food" and i'm like "boy, i'm not hungry."  But who isn't hungry when that msg laced goodness of chicken and noodles and broccoli and fried rice is in your face?  Ya know?  That and the cram session of The Office that ensues.  We're saving the finale for later though...  Erin is more and more my all time favorite, but do Kelly and Ryan come back for the wedding?  Because we all know I need more Mindy Kahling in my television life?!  If I had a spirit Kardashian, she would be it...  Think about it.

p.s. is fried rice made from brown rice or white rice I wonder?

A Little Christmas Cheer

a perfect way to end the year.  please note the greatest christmas surprise/gift/miracle of all... my brother Doug chopping off ten inches of his luscious locks. "Jo, your one true beauty!"

a merry christmas indeed.

Blah Blah Blah

{random pictures that i think are raaaddd}

so. what's going on in my life. hmm. school. work. getting locked out of my apartment every other day. volleyball {whhaa? i thought i swore it off after high school? yeah apparently i didn't and it's so great}. acing tests. also failing tests so that's fun. sleeping. weekends with momma. six dollar tuesday movie nights. apartment renovations. and hopefully future enchilada making because that is all i can think about right now. etcetera etcetera etcetera.

go life.

that's all she wrote.

party party.

 i'm a blogging machine lately.

i don't know how to end this.

go toros.

p.s. in the picture where rachel & justin are cutting their cake, she is totally sporting a "rachel face" and it makes me happy.

p.p.s. i swear there is more to me than leaves and sandwiches... although, i guess that isn't a bad thing to begin with.

Ramses Is At The Par-tay

Lauren's wedding was a success! 

Stand out moments for me:

1.  Playing with the babies in the visitors center for two hours.  I haven't had to watch all three of them at once before then, but it was seriously so much fun wrangling them from here and there.  And in all honesty, I cannot wait until I can do that with my own kiddos day after day.  Seriously, in an ideal world I would have a house full of babies right now.  {Remind me of this in five to ten years when I'm worn  to the core.}

2.  Seeing Lauren so happy once she came out of the temple was so special to me.  It's something I've been wanting for her, so needless to say that was pretty important.

3.  The opportunity to just talk with my momma in car rides back and forth from the venue {and delivering flowers to neighbors afterwards} was so needed for both of us.  Love her.

4.  The entire Fielding side of my family came down for the wedding, so after Lauren & Brandon had left for the night all of us ran back to the dance floor.  My cousin Alex was the DJ for the night and all of the girls are hard core dancers so it got puh-retty crazy for the next two hours.  Although the true highlight for me had to be seeing my aunt trying to sing "call me maybe" to me, and watching my {new} cousin Hillary cat daddy.  The best.

Props to my amazing momma who pulled off an amazing party!

On This Side Of The Woods

{via}

––I am loving my 2D art class.  Luh-u-ving.  It is seriously just the best ever.  6 hours.  Just playing really.  And my professor is hilarious.  And I'm with this girl too.  Can life get better?  I submit that it cannot!

––My Bailey B's birthday was on Wednesday!  We went up the canyon and had a delicious bonfire to celebrate.  Bonfires really are the greatest thing in this world.  That and Bailey.  And her being born.  And stuff.  Happy birthday Bee!

––It was my grandma's birthday on Wednesday too!  Get this, she got a bouquet of flowers and she sent them back...  She sent flowers back.  Who does that!?  One very humble grandma I tell ya.

––And it was my brother-in-law Steve's birthday on Saturday!  Or sunday?  Sorry Steve, happy birthday!  I pray that the writers of Gossip Girl will choose Chuck for the season finale.  For you {and us all!}.  And Steve graduates from law school this week!  Yeah!

––My new roommate has this very distinct, musty, suffocating smell.  And I promise it's not me, I've checked.  And she has a lot of stuff piled up with that very suffocating smell.  What do I dooooo?

––Provo canyon is mighty beautiful right now.

––C. Jane has been killing it on her side of the woods.  Did I tell you I met her!?  Cause I did!

––Remember how I'm addicted to the bike?  So I'm at the gym {golllddss 4 lyffeee yeaahhh whatt so hard coooreeee [too much?]}.  As I was saying, so I'm at the gym and Thor is playing.  Now I'm not afraid to admit that I can become a little too invested in movies sometimes.  Even whilst exercising.  I cried like a baby when they played Friday Night Lights.  Anyway, there was this one guy who was smiling so big at his hero Thor.  I kid you not, every time I looked back he was just cheesin' it up over there, totally engrossed in his fandom.  So I finish up only to find a dozen or so guys packed in the back of the room just hypnotized by this movie!  It was hilarious {cool story hansel}.

––I was in Park City last weekend with the parentals.  After slaving over homework for a couple of hours I just fell to the floor by the fire.  And then my daddy came and snuggled with me.  I love him.

––I seriously miss my summer/winter/javelina girls.  I sing this all day long in mourning.

––I can feel every single spring through my mattress.  And one has even come through the fabric and cuts my leg at night.  Hmmm.  Well after eight months on the top bunk, i'll take it.

––New Girl just keeps getting better and better.  I mean Nick's little monologues at the end?  And Schmidt!?  The never ending Schmidt dialogue!?  Have you seen this?  Don't doubt me.  Seriously.

––Speaking of tv, you all watched the 30 rock live show right?  No?  Do it now.

––And last but not least, today is my beautiful mother's birthday!  And Monday is my father's birthday!  Mushy post to come!

––Happy Cinco De Mayo!

––Did anyone else feel like I abused the exclamation mark?  Big surprise huh, ya'll are used to me being very moody.  Not today my friends, not today.

!!!!!!!!

Roooaaadtrip!

leave da hometown with da parentals....

& arrive back in provo {reunited with ^this beaut & my wonderful new roommates} 9 hours & 20 minutes later.

man it feels good to be a desert lovin' gansta.

A Series of Fortunate Events

After I blogged what I thought was a series of unfortunate events, right then a series of very fortunate events followed.  The funny thing is though, that these fortunate events would actually be very unfortunate events had I not had those extremely minor unfortunate events.  I was obviously being prepared for the weekend to come.  Confused yet?  Maybe I should stop explaining and just get on with it.

1. Right after I pushed "publish" on that blog post, my momma called and said that she and pappa would be right down to pick me up after all!  Yay!

2.  I took my test, and didn't do my best, BUT then I remembered that out of the 5 tests in that class {not including the midterm and final} the lowest grade is dropped!  Hallelujah!

3.  I got to Park City, eager to help out by babysitting my niece and facilitating the care of my broken kneed brother.  That night at around 4 in the morning {okay so morning} I was abruptly woken up to hear my sister in law Moranda on the phone with 911.  My brother was on a combination of some heavy pain pills, got up, the blood rushed to fast, had an anxiety attack, couldn't feel himself breath: a combination of things that sent him into uncontrollable convulsions.  Okay, so that is definitely not a good thing but it gets better.  While listening to Moranda describe the convulsions on the phone, my body went out of control.  That intense description put me in shock.  I was shaking, experiencing the most extreme vertigo ever  {I get migraines, so it wasn't the first time} and was literally on the floor because I couldn't handle it.  BUTTTT then I finally got control of myself and was able to manage to not pass out while they wheeled him away to the ER.  Mom and I were then able to stay up with Violet despite little sleep which is so fortunate.  Ultimately they were able to stabilize Clark and change his regimen before anything serious could take place.  Blessed!

4.  That night I was helping my Momma cook dinner.  Tasked to open all of the cans for the chili, I began on a can of beans.  Both ends of the lid somehow remained attached, so I began to pull it and BOOM sliced my ring finger.  A few expletives were uttered and my dad whisked me to the ER for stitches in a matter of 5 minutes, a record time for him.  Okay, so this isn't very fortunate either, BUT it gets better.  The entire ER visit was comical really.  I was expecting to just get it washed out and stitched up within the half hour.  Nope, I was there for four hours.  I had to get my Tetanus shot.  I had to get X-Rays.  I had to get it numbed.  I had to get it cleaned out.  Said vigorous cleaning out also cleaned out all of the anesthesia.  I felt every single stitch.  BUTTTT I was totally fine.  Even though I can't handle when other people get hurt {once I blacked out in seminary after hearing my teacher talk about donating blood...} I have a {and I'm not bragging here} very high pain tolerance.  I've had many an injury growing up: stitches in crazy places {you don't want to know}, broken appendages, head traumas, 10 sprained ankles, shin splints, too many ear infections, and of course my blasted migraines.  So even though I can't handle others, I can darn skippity handle myself.  Fantastic!

5.  Because of my "bad day" on Friday, I got the negativity out of my system and kept high spirits during the real traumas of the day.  More shiz went {and continues to go} down that is vey personal and not for the blog {what? she doesn't spill everything? it totally seems like she does? oh the humanity!}, but again I was able to forget about my "problems" and work through the arising situations that came.  Success!

6.  My lost iPod & student ID were found and returned to the ski resort!  Miracle!

7.  It stopped snowing just in time for Momma to drive me down the canyon in time for class tomorrow without scary-icy-windy-roads!  Hurrah!

8.  News flash, it's not about you.  I mean it's not about me!  It is about you...  Okay now this is confusing.  Essentially, let's not be selfish!  I definitely need to work at it, and this weekend was a complete learning experience for me.  I only hope that I can help out with everything that is still going on while finishing my finals the best that I can.  Stronger than yesterday!

P.S.  I'm totally typing with a stitched up finger right now.  Boo ya!

P.P.S.  2011, what a year, am I right?

P.P.P.S.  The dinner Saturday night was delicious, and there was no finger in it thank goodness.

P.P.P.P.S.  I tell ya, be grateful that you have functioning un-shattered and surgery ridden knees.  My poor poor Clark.  It really is so devastating.  I would post a picture, but that would be too heartbreaking.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Be so very grateful for your families.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.  Want to see me after the ER in a very haggard state?  Apparently Mommas iPhone believes in reduced hairlines and triangle noses...

You're welcome.

The Thanksgiving Photo Album of Sorts

I feel like I should write a general account of all that happened over the course of the break, but I kind of like leaving it this way.  It was so blissful, why complicate it with words?  Though I should add this, my brother Clark busted his knees afer going off an icy jump at the Canyons.  He just underwent surgery, and more operations are in the future.  He is in sooo much pain.  But he's making sure that everyone knows it's because he's "young and reckless" not because he's old.  Le sigh...

And on that note, I hope you appreciate your knees today!