"Let It Go" - Frozen Soundtrack

We're within a couple of hours until the new year begins. If you think about how weird it is that we consider it a new year when really it's just a way that we measure time. Nothing really changes except for people's resolutions which have been proven to not last very long at all. But my mind is wandering.

Looking back at 2013 I couldn't be happier. My life motto is

  Live Life With No Regrets 

and I can honestly say that I can no regrets about how 2013 went. Of course there were good moments and bad moments, but I wouldn't change a thing. 

Highlights from this year:

- I took multiple multiple trips to Utah this year and California. I have the travel bug.
-DISNEYLAND - seriously one of the best parts of my year
-Tulip Fesitval at Thanksgiving Point Gardens (if you didn't know Tulips are my favorite flower I thought I'd might pass out of happiness)
-Helped assist in 23 adoptions this year through work. I LOVE ADOPTION. Seriously more than I could type. How many people can say that they help make eternal families? I mean seriously love it. I'm sad that I've closed that chapter but maybe I'll be able to jump back in later
-Got to go to the beach, because everyone needs a little beach in their life
-I baked a ton this year - my specialities are lemon bars and banana bread
-Directed my first church choir performance, The Christmas Program, and survived to tell the tale
-lots of movie preimiers... I love movies!
-Time spent with friends = priceless
-Moved to Utah! like 48 hours ago!

I mean really there are tons more moments that I could share but I'll save you the time. In short this year was AWESOME. Don't get me wrong it wasn't perfect but like I said I wouldn't change it. I'm sad to report I didn't complete my goal of blogging once a week. Hopefully this year I'll be better but I feel like Instagram is almost my new blog :)

For 2014:

Lots more traveling - hopefully I can expand past my trips to UT/CA/NV. I definitely need to get my passport-maybe this will be the year I go international! *wink wink Rachel cough cough*

Work on more photography. I never felt inspired to take pictures of rocks in Nevada but now I'm in a place that has seasons! With real nature that I can take pictures of! Maybe I can master the art of snow photography.

Find a job - I can honestly say that this will most definitely happen. Let's all pray sooner than later :)

And as always, NO regrets. 

Happy 2014!

"Counting Stars" - One Republic

I think it's safe to say that I have totally failed on the whole blogging once a month dealio I made back in January. I mostly attribute it to the fact that if I have any funny stories I just tell my family instead of blogging it for them to read. So here's to hoping that when I move back to Utah I will have more exciting stories to share.

For now I thought I'd share some pictures that I took. Diane came and visited me in...September I think? And we went to this really cool park that overlooks the entire valley and got some nice sunset pictures.

"How Great Thou Art" - Hymn #86

For your Sabbath enjoyment

How Great Thou Art

I Need Thee Every Hour

Reflections of Christ

Come See the Light

"I Want Crazy" - Hunter Hayes

So if you didn't know Rachel and I started leaving each other sticky notes for each other and it's just sort of escalated. This year I decides to hide them on the Internet since I can't be there in person. So Rachel here is another sticky note for you! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! <3 

"Radioactive" - Imagine Dragons

Okay so I keep failing on this whole blogging thing. Sorry. I'm trying to be better :)

Story time!

The Lemon Bar Fiasco 

Once upon a time when my mother was out of town I decided I wanted to make lemon bars. 

A pro and con to living at home is just getting used to everything being in stock. Again this is a pro and con. 

Lesson to learn: Assumption is the kiss of death. 

So I pull out the stuff to make the crust get it all in the oven and it starts baking. Time to move on to the filling. 

We had some lemons that I was going to use but we've had them for a long time and how was I supposed to know if they are still good?! You can't really taste a lemon because hey they're already sour. So I cut the lemon open and see this green thing inside.  At first I thought it was a worm so I touched. Actually the seed and started to sprout inside of the lemon. 

I should have just turned back there. 

Well like I said how are you supposed to know if a lemon is sour?! So I decided to taste it. Guess what? 

It was sour. 

So I juiced it anyway and decided to put it in the freezer and let mom decided what to do with it when she got home. I pulled out the bottled lemon juice and kept working. 

Then I go to get the eggs. 

We're out of eggs. 

By this point it was 10 o'clock at night and I had no desire to run to the store. But then I noticed we had egg beaters. 

That'll work. 

So I get the filling all mixed together and I realize that it doesn't smell like lemons. I have made these enough to know that when you finish mixing the filling it should smell springy and lemony wonderful goodness. 

It didn't. 

So I stick my head in the bowl and oh my word that smell was the funk nast. So I try to figure out what the smell could have been. I start sniffing around the kitchen. 

It was the egg beaters. 

I about threw up the smell was so bad. And I don't get queasy that easily. 

So I had to toss the whole filling out. Luckily we can be grateful that I had not poured it into the pan yet. I would have cried. 

So I check in the freezer and find more egg beaters. Perfect! Now they are frozen solid and I wanted to finish them that night and not in the morning. So I decided to defrost the egg beaters my self. I put those bad boys in the sink with the water on high and let those puppies defrost. 

Bad. Idea. 

Do you know what happens when you put eggs under hot water? 

They cook. 

I went the pour at the eggs and they were chunky and cooked. 

Lesson to learn: let eggs defrost on their own. 

At this point I gave up and almost started crying. I had wasted so much food at this point. 

So I waited to 2 days and finally made it to the store and finished my lemon bars. 

My mom came home and claimed that she found eggs in the back of the fridge but I don't believe her. 

Lesson learned: Always check to make sure you have all ingredients needed and do not assume that Mom has everything stocked. 

The End. 

"Feel This Moment" - Pitbull

I'm wide awake so naturally I am catching up on everything in my life. Things have been crazy. I feel like the weeks have flown by and the months have dragged on. When I stop to think about everything that's happened in the last 2 months my mind can hardly comprehend it all.

So update on me.

I'm still working at LDS Family Services. Love that job. Working for the church is fantastic. I love helping with adoption. I LOVE ADOPTION. I get to see the good and the bad and many many miracles.

A couple of weeks ago I was offered a job at a pediatric dentist office. I follow the Dr. during examinations and take notes and make treatments plans and all that jazz. I have learned so much in the little time that I have been there. A few screaming children haha but all is well. It's funny that the thing that makes me most queasy are teeth so I'm facing my fear! Luckily right now I don't have to do anything in the mouth, so far so good. I think my favorite part of this job is all the anatomy of it. I love looking at x-rays!

I am doing some data entry for another lady I know so now I'll be doing that in the evenings and weekends.

I have no time for social life.

Not that I have one.

Because I have my awesome family.

I love them.

Brandon and Anna have moved out here. woohoo!! And I love getting to spend so much time with them. Even if Jackson screams NOOOO and runs the other direction every time he sees me :)

I've started going to the singles ward. It's at 230. UGH. But I'm going. So good on me.

Also I just remembered that I get to wear scrubs to work. I look dang good in scrubs. I've always wanted a job where I could wear scrubs. Mission accomplished.

"This" - Ed Sheeran

So I'm totally failing on my goal of blogging once a week this year but hey jack life happens sometimes. Even if my life isn't that exciting I still get somewhat busy...sometimes...

Well for General Conference, which was uh-mazing by the way, I went over to watch with some friends...and some missionaries. It was seriously one of the best things ever. I was like the plague to them. They all walked in and looked at me and their eyes got all big and it was great. It probably would have been awkward but now that I am older than almost all of them it wasn't. They would make funny comments about "flirting" with me or if they were "alone" in the room with me. Hahah I really enjoyed myself.

Taking pictures of the missionaries!

So my co-worker Cindy, her husband blows glass for the fun of it. And he is FANTASTIC. Their house is just full of glass things. Like anything you can image. Well one time I was over there and went in their bathroom and they had a blown jellyfish and I was like out of my mind excited about it. Well I go over there to watch conference and they gave me an early birth present. My own blown jellyfish!! I named him squishy and he will be mine and he will be my squishy. But seriously next time we're all together with squishy I'll will show you what he looks like lit up. I seriously just like sat and stared at it forever when they first gave it to me. They are the nicest people.

In between the afternoon and priesthood session we went outside and played bocci ball. We played on a lacrosse field so it was very flat which is good and bad. But this one Elder just chucked the white ball and we were playing in teams and I hadn't been doing very well. Anyway the ball had to have been at least 100 feet away...okay maybe that's a little over exaggeration well maybe not I'm a terrible judge of distance but anyway I through my ball and it landed right next to it! I was jumping up and down and so excited all the Elders were super impressed. Bless their hearts when we were talking about it over dinner they kept uping the distance to like 300 feet haha.


I had to get a picture. Obviously mine is the red one :) It was deemed the best throw of the game!

Also couldn't have conference without some Diet Coke am I right? It helps with keeping ya awake!

"Part of Me" - Katy Perry

Diane came to visit last weekend which now seems like forever ago...sad face...but we had tons of fun!! We went scorpion hunting and played on swings at the park and rode around with the top down and music playing and we went to the temple and made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream and dyed eggs and stated up late and yeah had an awesome time. I love her :)

"Little Talks" - Of Monsters and Men

I don't talk. Hardly ever. Especially when you first meet me. People say I look intimidating but let's be real I'm like a spider; I am more afraid of you than you are of me.

I always have plenty of things in my mind to say but I don't open my mouth. I'm just selective. I don't start to come out of my comfort zone until I'm around people that I am really comfortable with.

Once upon a time I went on this date. It was a first date. We had met a few times before with minimal conversation and we had texted a little bit.

We had a picnic at a park. It was a gorgeous day. I was wearing flip flops. It felt like a gorgeous summer day (but obviously not a Vegas summer day because then it would have been 40 degrees warmer and unbearable).

We're eating and talking the conversation was great, no awkwardness. Then all of a sudden he says "You've been talking talking too much."

I've never been told that before in my life.

Now before you think that it was rude or something he was going off the fact that I had hardly eaten anything and he was already done with his food. We laughed about it and later I tried to convince him that I really am a shy person but I don't think he bought it.

I just feel validated that everyone is as shocked as I am that he said that. It still makes me laugh!

"One Thing" - One Direction

I finally got my hair cut today. I've been waiting to get it cut for a while because it has gotten so plain and long and bleh. Oh and brown. I don't like brown.

So now I gots my blonde back and layers! Woo!

"Smooth Criminal" - Michael Jackson

My mom and I hosted a bridal shower this weekend, which I'll post more about later, so we wanted to make sure the house looked nice. My mom wanted the carpets to be cleaned so we decided that we would move the furniture out of the room the night before so when I woke up the next morning I could just go ahead and start.

So Tuesday night my mom picks Meghan up from Mutual and comes home. A little while later our neighbor comes over and says that Meghan forgot her Personal Progress book at mutual and was kind enough to bring it over. As we're getting ready to go to bed my mom and I move the furniture out of the living room. This is what it looked like.

I fell asleep earlier than I normally do, because I was tired and I actually could go to bed earlier, and I was out in a deep sleep. 

At about 12:30 (which really isn't that late and some nights I'm not even asleep yet by this time) I woke up thinking that I heard something. You know how you can't decipher if it was a dream or not but then you really start processing and realize you heard it before you woke up. Then I heard it again; someone was knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell. At this point my mind is all over the place trying to figure out who could it be. I decided not to turn my light on because I didn't want whoever to find out that I was awake. I ran into my parents room and woke up my mom at which point the phone starts ringing in addition to the knocking and ringing. 

My mom wakes my dad up and he starts downstairs while my mom and I run into a bedroom to look out the front window. She peaks through the blinds and says the police are out front. Now at this point I'm expecting to see like a swarm of police but it was just one car but they flashed their light on us which was bright. This doesn't add to the story I just felt like telling you. We proceed to run down the stairs trying to tell my dad that it's the police at the door. 

We make it to the living room where my dad is half awake and we are running in trying to tell him the police are at the door when he flips a switch on, looks around and says 

"We've been robbed!!!"

He had no idea we had moved the furniture. 

Had it not been such a serious moment I would have started laughing right then. 

But you have to realize that this is all happening with in seconds so we have no time to explain why the furniture is not there and why the police are there so we open the door and the police man says "I just wanted to let you guys know that your garage door is open." And they kindly waited until we closed our garage door before driving off into the night. 

I woke up the next morning laughing my head off. I still laugh every time I think about it, even while typing this. What are the odds that the one night the police show up knocking on our door would be the same night we had moved the furniture out of the living room. 

It also begs the question why didn't our kind neighbor tell us our garage door was open?! But kudos to the nice policemen who patrol our neighborhood at night. 

"Keep Me Crazy" - Chris Wallace

It's time for another series of YouTube videos peeps! It strange how they come in waves sometimes and BOOM there's great viral videos. Although I would have you know that a lot of these I already planned on showing you before  they were posted 20 times on facebook and became super pop-pop-popular - because I'm hipster like that #jeah

So some are funny and some are just plain adorable so enjoy :)

Sea Otter Hoop Dreams


Amazing Basketball Child


I promise these aren't all basketball videos

Cat Sail


Now this next one is based off this goat video where the goat sounds like a human screaming
Taylor Swift and Goat...Duet


Bucket of Sloths


Hair Tutorial Gone Wrong


 And just because I love this video so much
You Don't Know You're Beautiful by PianoGuys

"Stay With You" - The Goo Goo Dolls

Did anyone else's three day weekend go by too fast? Yeah I thought so. But was everyone's as epic as mine? Nay I say!

Who came to visit but the most wonderful person from P-town. My home-skillet Rachel. I love her. Like so much. And I am missing her soo much. Come back soon please?

Well it wouldn't have been a typical time if we didn't get some Froyo!

But not before we also went on our excursion of scorpion hunting! We went one time before when Rachel was here but we weren't looking in the right spots. Now we know that they like the holes and cracks.

Oh wait I left out the part that we went hunting with black lights. Did you know that scorpions glow under black light? Everyone kept telling us that when you shine the light on them you will know that you found one. I didn't believe until I saw it. I knew what it was from quite a distance and thank goodness too because I feel like I would have screamed if I had found it at my feet.

Our little buddy came out for a photo op!

As many of our roommates know Rachel and I have this thing with sticky notes. I think it started when she left them for me for my birthday? Or maybe we did some before? Anyway now every time we get together we hid some for each other. I have yet to find any yet and Rachel said she hid them well. I believe her.

Well I hid some from Rachel right before she got up to leave. That was very tricky. But I think this one has to be my favorite (in both a humorous and serious way) I put it in her planner and it says "You came back...I came home"

100 POINTS TO WHOEVER CAN GUESS THAT MOVE QUOTE

Anyway it was loads of fun. As always it was too short. And the next time I'll see her she'll be all dressed up in a cap and gown *sniff sniff* graduating college DAWWWWW

"Getting To Know You" - The King And I

Decided to do something a little different this time and do one of those question things that kind of circulate around the interenetz

1. Do you have any nicknames? Where did they come from?
          I have 3 LoLo, Troutface and Louis 
             LoLo came from when I was little 
             Troutface came from girls camp even though it's not my official camp name 
             Louis from Kaleen because of Leap Year

2. What book have you read the most?
           Well definitely The Book of Mormon otherwise probably Harry Potter 

3. Did you have any fears as a kid that you grew out of?
           Hmm my first thought was earthquakes hahaha but I don't even have to think about         those here but other than that I can't think of any?

4. What genre do you have the most music for in your library?
           Probably piano or soundtrack 

5. Did you/do you have an imaginary friend?
            I'm sure I did as a child

6. A movie you love but haven't watched in a long time.
            The Secret Garden or Dark Knight

7. A song you always get stuck in your head.
            Today it was Hey Jude or it's usually this girl is on fire 

8. How did you meet your best friend?
            Which ones? Hmm Rachel from birth haha no idea what our first "meeting" was, Diane was freshmen year at BYU, Jessika was seminary/high school and all my other awesome peeps from BYU 

9. the last text you received on your phone.
            G'night!

10. Your favorite drink/blend of drinks.
             Diet coke or dr.pepper with cherry 

11. Favorite pizza topping.
             Cheeeeeze or canadian bacon

12. Most used program on your computer.
            Chrome or to be more specific gmail 

13. Your favorite stuffed animal.
             Hmm from my childhood probably Tubby from now Baby Monguin 
14. Biggest Dream
             HAWAII - ok not my biggest but current
15. A secret
             Pshhh I'm the best secret keeper there is! Oh I thought of a good one but it's too embarrassing. 

16. A picture of you smiling. 

"Baby Monkey" - Parry Gripp

So I am trying to do better with my blogging once a week. Last week was a little unsuccessful but we shall persevere!

Last weekend I got to go to California! I was hoping for some of that fantastic 80 degree weather and flip flops but it rained the entire time. Oh well.

Meg had gone to Disneyland for a school trip so we met her in downtown Disney to pick her up. She was the kindest soul to buy me a dole whip float. If ya'll have never tried file whip do it. But Rachel also found a fantastic recipe that's easy to make at home.

We got to go visit my grandparents Murrieta. It is never a dull moment with them. And it was tons of fun to just be at Grandmas house! Meg and I watched Circus of the Stars a childhood movie of mine and it never gets old. I feel like its actually more entertaining because I notice people from movies they have just been in.

This is Baby Monguin my baby monkey. If you have never seen the video of a baby monkey riding on a pig go watch it right now here So for my 21st birthday my roommate Breanna got me a baby monkey because we were so obsessed with the one from the video. She's the best! Well I decided to take Baby Monguin to CA with us so he could have a little fun too. He was like my little dog in my purse.

First tram ride! 

First dole whip! 

"It's Time" - Imagine Dragons

New year so of course we gotta do the whole reflection ponderingness of 2012.

So in 2012 I:
-was in two places at once
-took 17 credits and 10 classes in 1 semester
-fell in love with Ballroom
-graduated from BYU on my birthday
-FINALLY roomed with Rachel!!!
-family reunion to C A L I F O R N I A (luv me some beach)
-moved home
-got crafty
-went back to Utah to visit
-reunited with Rachel, Courtney and Hilary together again!
-had Diane come visit :)
-got my first post-graduate job
-spent New Year's playing Oh Heck and drinking diet coke

I guess this could be considered an uneventful year. At least that's how it seems typing it out. Maybe because I'm just tired

Onward and forward

So in 2013 I want:
-to blog once a week. Now that I've said it I'm gonna do it!
-go to DISNEYLAND my heart is about to give out I want to go so badly!!
-finish my t-shirt quilt
-take more pictures
-write in my journal more. I used to all the time when I was in school and stopped probably because my life is so boring I feel like I have nothing to write
-do something totally new and epic
-have no regrets