hogwarts cont.

hogsmead cont.

in the three broomsticks




mmm butterbeer...




we enjoyed fish and chips, cornish pasties, and chicken platters

rainy slushy saturday

Today started off a lil more brutal than I was prepared for but it is shaping up quickly :)
So the brutal part(you're going to laugh at me) but I had to get up at eight to go with Cody to get the car's oil changed cause there were guys coming to clean our carpets at 8:30 and I couldn't stay in bed with them working around me and I didn't want to be left alone with a bunch of random workers stuck in the kitchen so I grudgingly got up at 8 (on a saturday this is considerably horrible-during the week fine, but saturday morning is a sacred time-a time of rest and relaxation).
So after I got over that lil bump in my schedule I read some more from three cups of tea-i started it back over the summer and only have enough time to get back to it now-really good though, highly recommend it.
I just put in an order for 5 swedish limpa loaves of bread (and if you speak swedish, yes i know that is repetitive-limpa means loaf in swedish). Anywho, I can't wait!!! Tuesday morning baby, tuesday morning.
I'm pretty much done with Cody's gift and just have to order it-so excited about that too!
and byu's bowl game is at noon.
so today is shaping up quickly.

Last night was awesome too. Our friends the Engstroms treated us to a nice dinner at PF Chang's and then we came back and watched the extended fellowship of the rings (i think all of us dozed off at one point, but it was still fun).

and now for some pics of harry potter world:












the three broomsticks where we had lunch :) more on that later...


More to come later...

I'm DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh, this is ridiculous how amazing I feel! The best that I can describe it is walking off of the plane and stepping foot on american soil after living 1.5 years over in Russia. You feel just overwhelmed with color and life and smiling people. And it's not that I was miserable over in Russia-I loved it, but you just get used to your environment and forget what any other reality is like until you are removed from it. The past two months have been RIDICULOUS for me. All of my assignments/tests/papers/projects all were spaced out just enough so that it was just a constant feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest and working with no feeling of end in sight. I definitely got better at dealing with the stress though and learned to not think but just do-work,work,work and don't think about how tired you are. Today I finally realized that I didn't have to do that anymore and now finally the feeling of how drained I am is sinking in and the delicious thought I'm done. Other than working on my present for Code I have nothing to worry about nothing to feel guilty about not doing. done. Oh man, I feel like when you get off a sweet roller coaster and you feel all weak and dizzy and your head can't believe you're on regular ground again.

And speaking of sweet roller coasters-stay tuned for the next installment of our universal studios trip :)

spreading a lil holiday cheer :)

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

first installment of our weekend get away to Universal Studio's the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

walking to the park:






we made it!





Entering adventure island (aka: where all the cool rides/parks are)




Suess Land was all decked out for the holidays...




the best is yet to come...

I forgot to mention one of Cody's funnier sleep walking incidents from the other night :)
So we moved our keyboard into our bedroom because we got a desk and there was no where to put it but where the keyboard was previously. (ironic how we get a desk once we're pretty much done with the semester and studying-i've gotten so used to the couch it's weird to have so much structure). anywho, so I wake up in the middle of the night and cody is unplugging and moving the piano over to the other side of our room in pieces-I asked him what he was doing but couldn't understand him cause he was half asleep and so was i. Apparently later the next morning when I woke up and looked at the wall and saw the piano gone I realized it wasn't a dream. I rolled over and asked cody why he moved it-he said "the queen was coming and we had to make room." ......apparently she's a robust woman....

true beauty

dove evolution

if you haven't seen this you should check it out. I was reminded of it today during a presentation in my museum class.
stuff like this always reminds me of this thing Jean Applonie (sp?) director of the byu women's choir said once...we were stretching or doing breathing excercises or something and she said something to the affect of: love your tummy. love it because it is round. and then she pointed out how it's natural and it just struck me because I had never even thought of that concept before...I mean whether I like to admit it or not, I always just assumed that an acceptable stomach is a flat one, but I never considered that the stomach is supposed to be round (granted not unhealthily so) but still...that's when I realized that my idea of reality/beauty was distorted.

anywho,
today was good-got lots of good things done and can't wait to get even more done tomorrow :)

we had FHE tonight with our sunday school class and we did a white elephant. since we had extras of the HP movies since we both owned them we gave away as one of our gifts the order of the pheonix and the half-blood prince. People were fighting over it like crazy-it was great, haha. We got a cool kicking toy from cambodia and a glass cinderalla carriage looking thing.

Dear Life...I'm still alive.

Whew....crazy crazy week. Started off kind of shaky but it's ok-I'll live (my mantra at the moment, haha). So I just have to survive the next week. The major sources of stress at this point are: a paper for my capstone class, a presentation on that paper (this is the real kicker for me), and finishing my final education proposal for my museum class and the presentation. Not to mention my actual finals but whatever-one disaster at a time ;)
Tomorrow is booked solid which is NOT normal for me on a Saturday. At ten I have a group meeting at the library, then it's over to the museum to help them with the opening of the Christmas Lamb It's the first show where I actually decided what went into it and nailed it up on the walls (with the help of crystal and kristal-have to distinguish the spellings there)so it's pretty exciting ;) It's a show for K-10th grade and they have to do something based on the spirit of christmas/giving. It's pretty cute so you should stop by the Springville Museum of Art sometime this month and look at all the kids' work :)
Anywho...after that there's baby shower planning at 4:00 tomorrow and then I'm technically free but I have the paper/museum proposal to work on so sadly my Saturday will not be that relaxing...oh well, I guess that's what Sunday is for!

This upcoming weekend we will be at Harry Potter World in Florida-yeah don't even worry-there will be plenty of pics- I can't wait!

p.s. Relient K's new cd (well it came out in 2009) is awesome!!!! check it out-my favorites: savannah, candlelight, baby, (if you want it), Forget and not slow down,