this is the south.

I've spent the last two weeks loving South Carolina and time with the fam. 

And yeah, people here talk about gators and coons and "the war of northern aggression" and we went to a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the state's secession, but really, the South is quite lovely.

Here's the story from my phone:

 Hello, Atlantic Ocean! A beautiful beach with more starfish than I have ever seen

 Andrew got baptized! We're all so proud of him, and even though he was a little nervous, he did great!

 Newly baptized boy in his fancy clothes.

 Christmas pie contest. Our team's entry was Elegant Chocolate Raspberry Pie. We won most festive, which is quite an accomplishment, seeing as I was the only one with a 2 year old and an 8 year old on my team.

 Andrew, Natalie and Graham all became junior rangers at Fort Sumter. They were so excited to find all the facts and answer their trivia questions, then put their name on the wall of fame.

 Natalie and I dressed in traditional southern clothes, complete with hoop skirts but not the corset. I think I really could have lived in the antebellum south, you know without the war and everything.

 Rainbow Row in downtown Charleston was as lovely as I imagined. My favorite is the yellow house, which is for sale. Serendipitous?

 The architecture of downtown is just so quaint. I would love to live in any of the houses!

And just because I don't have a picture of Spence, and because he looks so cute in his new Thomas PJs.

so close...

done:
public relations capstone class, client presentation and book of death
religion final
2 hour beastly world politics final
global comms paper
elections final
apartment cleaned, bags packed, presents exchanged

to do:
visit Charleston, SC for a southern Christmas and baptism of a very special boy.
never mind I'm exhausted, got 2 hours of sleep last night and am flying through a snow storm. I'm pde (pretty darn excited)

turkey time.

thanksgiving 1.0: fakesgiving.
       a pre-Thanksgiving Sunday get-together with a unique assortment of friends and lots and lots of food. I broke out the homemade stuffing, and the pies were top-notch. Delicious, but I felt rather obese afterward.

thanksgiving 2.0: real Thanksgiving at Grandma's
       My flight home got delayed 4 hours, so I enjoyed food vouchers and an empty SLC airport, plus got home at 3 in the morning. My dad is a champ for picking me up from the airport and going to work 4 hours later. Spent a few days in snowy Sammamish, then headed to the grandparents for a family thanksgiving, complete with post-meal naps and Black Friday scheming.

thanksgiving 3.0: Colorado Thanksgiving
     Early Friday morning I headed to Colorado for a little time with the Kaiser fam and this boy. New state, new adventures, including a thrilling Nuggets game, which brought us the only picture I took the entire trip. Saturday was another Thanksgiving, where I ate turkey and kind of liked it. plus more pie. Thank you Kaisers, for being excellent hosts. 
We had a thrilling drive back, and I even succeeded in driving through a snowstorm. Take that, winter!

Basically, I just love Thanksgiving so much I had to celebrate it three times. and I loved every minute of it. I sure am a lucky girl!

washington, baby, dc!

I'll admit I was a little apprehensive to go back to DC,
 because I didn't want my memories to be different from how things really are.
But it was so great to be back in my favorite city.
It really felt like I was coming home.
And fall on the east coast is just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I was the group's tour guide, so I spent the first few days mothering everyone around DC, worrying the whole time I was going to lose someone
(there was an unfortunate incident of my boss getting stuck in the metro doors his first time, but other than that we were drama-free)

I loved visiting some of my favorite places, like the Lincoln Memorial at night, white house protesters) and some new places too (How had I never been to the 9-11 memorial at the Pentagon?)
And I missed the BCDC family so much...especially when we stopped by the Barlow and went to good stuff and when we talked about how "anything is possible"

highlights:

 Let's be honest--the first place we went (literally right after we checked into the hotel) was Good Stuff. I was worried I had talked it up and people wouldn't like it, but then I remembered how amazing good stuff is. and how life-changing those toasted marshmallow shakes are.

 just a little BYU PRSSA pride before the opening social.

 Arlington. always one of my favorite places and so beautiful in the fall

what up barack!

oh, you want some media placements about our award? ok

daily universe

byu news

awesome.

let's go to Canada, let's leave today

My mom and I took Five Iron Frenzy's advice and took a trip to Canada yesterday.
Our goal: the Vancouver LDS temple open house.

It was windy and wet, but the temple is incredibly beautiful, and there is such a special spirit that comes from it. The members were all so excited to finally be getting a temple in British Columbia.
Yay for Canada, even though I didn't get a stamp in my passport and it took over an hour to cross the border. I'm not a terrorist.

steps for a successful excursion:

1. congregate in Barlow lobby at 6:40am for bagels.
2. board bus. Professor immediately puts in dvd of "Gettysburg".
3. try to sleep.
4. groggily wake up from half sleep with Stonewall Jackson fighting a battle re-enactment way to loud on the tv right above your head
5. get to Gettysburg.6. go through museum, movie and cyclorama. (tidbit--cycloramas are cool, but not as cool as the name implies. nothing cycled, except us.)
7. get on bus with Jeff the tour guide, learn everything about Gettysburg while traveling around the field.
8. get off bus. sit on cannon. take picture.9. Climb tallest look-out on battlefield (not authentic). All 121 steps, but it felt much taller. Soak in great view.9. go to General Pickett's Buffet, a total tourist trap for student groups. my thoughts...Pickett's Charge was a huge military failure, why would the buffet be any different?
10. Repeat steps 2-4 en route to Harper's Ferry
11. Wander Harper's Ferry, feel jipped lots of things are closed or lame. Walk across the train bridge for a fabulous view of the rivers. Skip a rock in the river and feel wonderful.
12. participate in/view Barlow American Gladiators/Curb Chicken tournament while waiting for the bus. Realize how awful your balance is.13. Get back on bus and marvel at the West Virginia/Maryland/DC countryside on the way back.

All in all, good day. I learned a lot, had lots of fun, and loved the chance to get out of the city and into nature.(this is looking at the site of Pickett's Charge. Can you imagine 13,000 people marching at you in a line 1 mile long? crazy. I still can't wrap my head around that style of battle.)

And the whole day, I was totally quoting this scene in my head...love it.

nyc, round 2

Remember when I went to New York like 7 years ago? yeah, here it is...

President's Day weekend in New York was absolutely amazing.

Please indulge me with this long, (stolen) picture-heavy post, as I present the ABCs of NYC

A-- American Eagle. They have one of the biggest screens on Times Square, and we got our picture up there...twice. basically famous. BYU Interns, Barlow Babies, Rawr Rawr Rawr, Provo, UT. We're a big deal.B-- Brooklyn Bridge. Newsies style. At night in the freezing cold, but seeing the lights of city was amazing.C--Central Park. lovely.D--Diner. A cute local place with real New Yorkers, accents, good food, and locals. Welcome to the Sunday Breakfast Club.

E--Enchanted Pizza. Patsy's, where they ate in Enchanted. such good pizza. hello, James Marsden.

F--Frick. The Frick Collection was amazing art in a fabulous house. I loved learning how Mr. Frick lived his life and hearing the stories about every piece of art he had and how it all had a spot with purpose.

G--Ground Zero. still powerful, years later.

H--hot chocolate. Who knew Dunkin Donuts was so good?

I-- ice skating man. The most amazing ice dancer man at Rockafeller Center, with a scarf, some dance skill, and a beat all his own. Who needs to skate in a circle when you can ice-waltz with yourself?

J--jumping picture. Washington Square, where Will Smith lived in I Am Legend.

K--Knights Templar. They hid their treasure at Trinity Church (Heere at the Wall...Wall Street and Broadway). We couldn't find the crypts or treasure stairs, but I know its there somewhere.L--Lego creatures. FAO Schwartz (home of the Big piano) and Toys R Us. Amazing.

M--Mary Poppins. We had box seats because we're that swanky. The music, sets, and production were amazing, but the plot was meh. Bert tapdanced and sung on the ceiling. Mary Poppins flew across the audience.N--nationality, my own. Little Italy, Grandpa Ernie would be so proud. great food and so quaint.

O--Oh, Lady Liberty. I'm not gonna lie, the Statue of Liberty is kind of disappointing in real life. She's short. And the Staten Island ferry was as freezing cold as it was free.
P--piano man. To the man playing incredible piano in Washington Square as the locals listened and meandered, thank you. You made my life feel like a movie.Q--quilted potholders. My favorite book for sale on a corner table was boldly called "Potholders!"

R--roses from the Barlow boys. Thanks for the Valentines Day present

S--shared bathroom. Our hotel was cheap, but had zero ammentiies. 17 of us shared 1 bathroom. bonding.

T--temple. We got the chance to do baptisms at the Manhattan LDS Temple, which was absolutely amazing. It's crazy that somewhere so peaceful and important can be right in the middle of a bustling city block.U--underground rats (as in the subway, but S was already taken). I saw them, they are huge.

V--very cold. It was freezing the entire time. Except when it wasn't, which was rare.

W--Wall Street. Cooler than I thought, partially because of the excitement of the boys I was with and because we found where George Washington gave his first inaugural address.

X--X-treme getting to the bus. Don't worry, we made it.

Y-- You've Got Mail. One of the many wonderful New York movies

Z--zoo, the confusion that is the NYC subway (used in a sentence: wow, the subway is a zoo)

snoverkill? oh yeah.

Today I accidentally stepped in a slush puddle, thinking it was just a layer of ice, but it was really the edge of the curb, plunging my already soggy foot into 5 inches of ice cold slush-water.

Days 1-4 of snowmagedon = exciting
Days 5-6 = fading
Day 7 = lame-o.

I'm so ready to get out of this...

and into this...4 days in New York City!

birthday blizzard...aka snow-pocolypse

So DC got 28 inches of snow in 24 hours...literally the snow of the century. and where were we? snowed in at Valley Forge, PA of course.
Back track.

We arrived at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge, pre-snow, and went on a tour of the park.This is Rob, our tour guide. He could play the fife and has been giving Valley Forge tours for 14 years, so he knows his stuff.Unfortunately, this is as exciting as Rob's tour got. He called us "Rob's group" to get us to follow him, as if there was some confusion about who our tour guide was. We were the only people in some 100+ acres of Valley Forge.We were on and off the bus all around VF, and we did learn some cool facts. The huts behind us in this picture? historically inaccurate. they were built in the 1950s and don't look like the original huts. Rob made us get out and look at 3 different groups of them.

(Valley Forge was good for Matthew, who got to sit on a log with 8 girls)

After the tour, it started to snow. Hard. All night. We woke up in the morning, ready to head to Philadelphia, but we were snowed in. After hours of games, we were resigned to spending another night. We even celebrated my birthday in the cafeteria after lunch. My birthday wish was that we would make it back soon. 10 minutes after making the wish, it stopped snowing, 4 hours earlier than predicted. coincidence? who knows, but it was my defense when I was fined for being snowed in on my birthday in the Barlow Court. (which, was incredibly enertaining)We boarded the bus, leaving this behind, snow up to our knees, and slowly drove back to DC. The 3 hour drive took 7 hours and we had to circle Baltimore for a few hours to find an open road. Our bus driver Al was a stud, and we made it back to DC.The night ended with a massive snow fight, lots of whitewashing in front of the Barlow, then scary stories and a "campfire" in the basement.

most
memorable
birthday
ever.

and a snow day from work tomorrow. so excited.