So Much Wisdom on a T-Shirt

So about a week before Christmas I tell my dad that this t-shirt would be an awesome birthday idea for me since I wanted it real bad. I figured Christmas was coming up too soon so just submitted it as a birthday suggestion and then Christmas morning I wake up to find that Santa has dropped it off for me! I was so excited!

Here is why I am so excited about this t-shirt: It has the lyrics of a song on it by Brandi Carlile who is one of the most talented musical artists currently walking the planet. The song was inspired by a friend of Brandi's who went through an addiction and recovered. At the concert she actually introduced the song as one that she hoped would inspired juvenile delinquents to aim for a better future and that falling down does not mean staying down.

As this goes along directly with my line of work I was basically smitten by her awesomeness. So I think I'll attach a link so that the joy can be consumed by the ears of all of my loved ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_4ikETiuec

Dinner and a Whale

Ok so first Ben and I were hanging out and we were like "We're hungry. Let's make dinnner". But Ben is a vegetarian. I'm thinking about devoting a whole post to it. We'll see.

But anyway, I was like "what should we make?!" and Ben was all "Squash, peppers, onions and a little garlic"

And I was like- that sounds delicious!

But I need meat...

And this is what happened. Veggies and a Wendy's single YUM!

Ben also made sweet potatoes with Rosemary! This one looked happy and Asian >)

And then Ben ate him! He was a little less happy about that...

Also, as was mentioned in a previous post, I have a fear of whales. In order to help alleviate the fear, Ben found Steve (the tiny killer whale) and said (we'll find bigger and bigger ones until you get up to a real whale and then you won't be afraid! I said that was a bad idea because I don't want to be around whales at all but then when we at the dollar store yesterday we found this blue guy. Whale number 2. A little bit bigger than Steve. I've named him "That Whale Thing" (I just called it that one time and Ben decided it should be so). :( We'll see how this whole experiment works out...

Wait. It's the Middle of January?

So I was driving to a friend's place yesterday and saw a Christmas tree and thought "Oh yeah, it's almost Christma.... wait" and then I realized it's not almost Christmas. It's actually the middle of January!

Life has been crazy.

For example. On Christmas day I worked the evening shift at work. And then I worked every day after that for the next 7 days. By the end I was pretty sure I was dead.

But luckily I missed the sickness going around!

Ok, I'm just going to look back through pictures recently taken and do a little catch up!

So these are in no particular order, just how they uploaded:

So I went up to Farmington for a night and hung out with my grandma!  She is know to the little kids in her neighborhood as "Grandma Puppies" because of Zeus and Pheobe. They are hilarious and love to cuddle. And Zeus likes to sit on Pheobe's head so that's always hilarious!

We got some Chinese food! What's funny though is that this is
a picture of our food AFTER having finished. The portions were HUGE!

 New Year's Eve was spent with me experiencing this Just Dance game for the first time and it was awesome! Some personal favorites were "Maneater" and some Ricky Martin song that made you do things like pretend to ride a horse and sword fight. It was awesome!

Then there was the drive to Idaho that was barren but pretty... kind of.

Brynlee and McKinley in matching PJs!

Our family tried to play Christmas Pictionary. You were supposed to  use common Christmas phrases but Jeff started doing things like "Santa Claus likes ____" and putting the most mundane object possible (and then sucking at drawing it). As you can see Jake caught right on. We don't actually know if Santa likes pudding but at least it's within the realm of Christmas food. My favorite was Jeff putting "Santa said ho ho ho" and not telling us we got it right until we made sure to have "says" in the past tense.
This is my family.

Syd and i tried some new stuff with her make up! Success!
 And I just love this winking picture :)

Homemade cake totally from scratch!
Good thing Ben knows how to cook and bake...

One night Ben was like "I have your birthday present 
but I think I need to give it to you early." and so he  pulls these out. 
Tickets to a concert that I really want to go to but wasn't sure if 
I should spend the money on! I was so happy I was speechless! 
Seriously, I didn't talk for like 5 minutes.
We're going to Ed Sheeran!!!!! 

I went up to Salt Lake to hang out with Pappity and we went to Les Mis.
Ummmmmm stunning. Anne Hathaway and I patched up our friendship
(which was going through a rocky period of lack of respect for her) when
she flawlessly sang "I Dreamed a Dream" in one take.

And then Caitlan and I had a joint birthday party!
This was not part of it but it was at Zurchers so Caitlan had to put it on her head.

Dan, Rich, Caitlan, Me, Loren, Amanda and Ben
And here is a little snap shot from the party! The theme was 1920s. It was perfect and went awesomely!

And Life Just Keeps On Rollin'!

This is a picture of Caitlan, Me and Maryn during our 

senior year of high school- 2007

And this is a picture of me and Gwyneth Jane Coughran! 

Maryn's CHILD!!!

Growing up is super crazy but really awesome, she was the sweetest  thing and smiled at me a few times!!!

She looks just like Maryn except for the dark hair which we don't really know where that came from...

Maryn's sister said she looks like she could be mine!

Slaps

Dan and I decided it was hot chocolate time so we promptly ran over to Sonic and satisfied that need.

So I said "Let's take a picture for my blog! Smile"
and Dan couldn't get the menacing look off his face for two seconds for a friendly picture!

As we were chatting I found a dollar store purchase 

in my car that I had forgotten about 

(the dollar store never stops providing happiness)!

These little sticky slap hands made it possible for me to slap Dan across the face 17 times and blindly flail about during which I'm sure i smote him thousands of times.

...he may have gotten me once or twice...

The Dollar Store is a Magical Place

And here is reason number one.

These guys glow...

In the dark!

Pop Rocks! 

Also these little nerf air guns.
This was the last moment of Ben's life.

Just kidding! 

He lived and it was super rewarding to nerf someone in the head!

I also now own a giant toothbrush that I don't 

have a picture of but is awesome.

Promptly after Ben telling me it had no purpose 

I blocked a nerf bullet with it.

WIN.

A Quick Trip to Italy and a Dash Into the Woods...

So Bryan and I went to Gloria's Little Italy 

and felt totally like white trash the whole time 

(ok, Bryan says it was just me) 

because it was such a nice restaurant! 

We enjoyed some delicious food 

that we didn't know how to pronounce!

 Then on the way back to his place we were spinning cookies around the block and found these guys in someone's yard! 

They were just chillin'. I didn't get a picture of the one with antlers because they kind of got spooked when we swung around in front of them...

Then we went home and Bryan played the piano while we sang some Christmas songs! Eventually we moved onto Billy Joel (like everyone does) and recorded one but unfortunately we can't figure out how to format it so it will upload... 

Probably for the best hahaha! But we'll keep working on it!

Brandi Effing Carlile

So I have no words to express how

incredible this concert was.

Allow me to try.

 So it was sold out!

first of all, this is how close we were.

THAT is the set list. 

This is how Phil, Brandi and Tim

came out and started the show.

At one point she was taking requests and got one that she didn’t know so she was like 

“Well, let’s figure it out!”

Every single song was sung so passionately. Papz and I were listening to her CDs after and we both agreed that she’s actually significantly better live. She holds nothing back and is just so loving every minute of being there with you.

She was literally 12 feet away from us.

We were basically singing in the mic with Tim.

The incredible Trio

Phil and Brandi

 Papz and I were thrilled to hear her sing 

“The Story” which is, indeed, our song!

Brandi and Tim basically making their guitars into one amazing power instrument from the gods.

And then she sang “That Wasn’t Me” which was written from experiences had with people who have made major mistakes. It's aimed toward juveniles to inspire them to be the best person they can be. As this is what I am passionate about I all but died when she was talking about it.

Phil and Tim sang this awesome song called Love Hurts. I was laughing the whole time!

I could have listened to her sing “The River” the entire night. It was honestly so inspiring.

An accurate depiction of how awesome they are

Papz and I post concert. It was an incredible night. We went home and watched another concert of hers off of itunes.

And then I experienced the Front Runner!

So glad that’s up and running!

So the night was basically incredible! 

Brandi Carlile is a goddess and Papz 

and I were in the same room as her! 

Life changing experience.

So Ben Got Jealous

I was doing my hair this morning at Ben's place (I had an early final that I didn't get ready for and then just went to his place) and he got all jealous of how awesome it looked. So I was like "I can do it to yours too!" and he was all "no you can't, my hair doesn't do that" and I informed him that I have magical hair stuff.

So after putting some hairspray in his hair (or as he would say "after puttin' some shiz in his hair") I took the straighter to it and this wonder happened!

Majestic

Sister Clark is off to Germany!

Me and Sydnee

So this was hilarious. 

Syd and I decide to do a temple trip and on the way up we're talking about how we can help people at 12:12 today (12/12/12) because of a birthday wish my friend Alex made. 

He asked that, for his birthday, at 12:12 pm people do nice things for each other, little acts of service. So it's approaching and we're like "what should we do?"

Then a woman stops us and asks if we can take a picture. Awesome, a little act of service!

So in this little group I see two middle-aged women, a boy (who I assume is leaving) and then there's a girl but she's talking to one of the woman and is not facing me.

She hands Syd the camera and I'm finishing a text on my phone (I know, some service I'm providing, right?) and then I hear "Jessie?!?!?!" 

I look up and it turns out that it's the GIRL who is going on a mission and she's one of my old work friends who I LOVED working with! Just that morning I had looked up her address and was ready to send her a DearElder by the end if the day!

It was so exciting to catch up and send her off!!!!

So for my act of service at 12:12 pm on 12/12/12 

I sent off a missionary!

All the pictures were on her camera but I told her to send me them so hopefully I'll be able to update this post with a picture that includes her!

It was a successful 12/12/12.

Now we'll see what 12/21/12 brings!

It's Tuesday of Finals Week

And the only one I have left I'll be taking tomorrow!

What better time to play with the new haircut 

you haven't had time to explore?

This is going to be a post with a lot of pictures 

of my face but there's a prize at the 

end that will hopefully make it all worth it.

So this is what it usually looks like:

And this was what happened today:

The 1960s brush over bob

The Beeb- actually a hard picture to take since you have to
 do the emo head swing and then take the picture...

A moment with the Monkees

Affectionately called: Right Down The Line

The Toupee

And the moment we've all been waiting for:

The Mohawk

From the side

Well Back to Studying...

Just kidding, here's the aftermath of doing a mohawk, I'm actually pretty pleased!

Updates and New Discoveries: