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!

weekend warriors

(no, not the HGTV show)

welcome to summer at the Treasure home
Monday-Friday= work hard
Saturday= insane outdoor activity
Sunday=wake up sore and hobble around in recovery, thank goodness this is a day of rest

week 1:
mountain bike 16 miles along Kechless Lake by Snoqualmie Pass. Beautiful, but my butt felt it the next dayWeek 2: Hike Big Si

None of this Little Mt. Si business, we went all the way. 4 butt-kicking uphill miles, and 4 long trudging miles down. But quite the accomplishment to say we did it. The view? cloudy, but pretty amazing.(lesson learned. you may think you know where north is, but you can be wrong. the iphone compass is always right)

Week 4: Hike Tiger Mountain
A walk in the park compared the the last few activities (but maybe because my dad was hauling 30 pounds of pack and I had nothing.) lovely hike. I felt like I was in Twilight, except Edward jumps, not hikes
For the record, I do wear makeup and do my hair during the summer, but that tends to kick in around noon on Saturdays, long after the morning adventures are done.

summer adventures

I'm loving summer at home. perfect weather days, small children and the start of tan lines, even though it's july. Besides forgetting how to rotate pictures, here are some other recent adventures:

hiking with Janice and the children. 4th of July weekend, and we're wearing coats and layers. love washington.

Lacey got married at a beautiful wedding. her dress was amazing!Grandpa rocked suspendersand even in heels, I was the shortest of all the cousins we could gather at the reception.We finally stopped at the scenic view we've been driving past for years.Mom and I went to visit Grandpa. we went to a museum in a jail turned girl scout camp.Grandpa and I enjoyed nature.

and we rode on da boat.

love summer.
one month left...and I'm soaking up the sun!

it is christmastime. i am home.

This semester was hands down my craziest one yet. I often felt like I didn't have time to breathe, but in a lot of ways, it was my best semester yet. Now I'm home, getting ready for Christmas and thinking ahead to my next adventure. As I drove out of Provo last week, it was weird that I won't be coming back next semester. Like a friend told me, I want to go, I just don't want to leave.

Anyway, this break should be quite lovely.
Here is my to-do list:

• edit the BYU Comms Annual Report (honestly, I am super glad to have this project. I don't know what I would do with 2 PR-free weeks)
• catch up in my journal writing
• plan my life/summer internship
• get ready for my winter internship
• grow an extra layer of fat to stay warm in a DC winter
• update my portfolio
  
• celebrate Christmas with friends and family
• meet my newest niece
• play the piano, something I haven't done in months
• relax...if I can sit still love enough
  

home is...

where you are free to be yourself
where it feels like nothing can do wrong
but when it does, you know it will all be okay.
beautiful
a sanctuary from the craziness of life
somehow full of distractions unknown until you try to write a research paper
my favorite place to be for Thanksgiving
where it's okay if it rains every day, in fact
full of love
where the heart is


my week at home for thanksgiving was great. I loved relaxing, being with family, and taking time to be thankful and thoughtful.

hey washington...

you're pretty

a lake day.

In January, my uncle turned 50. In August, there was a party. It was quite the celebration at my aunt and uncle's lake house this weekend.

My mom and I got there early to help set up, and were in charge of arranging the beer. How very fitting. We took a break to shop with the cousins, then the real party started.

I didn't take any pictures of the guest of honor or the tons of other people that were there, but it seems all my pictures are of Isaac, so here are his adventures at the party.

Isaac and Nana found ducks off the dock. Isaac threw a golf ball at them.

There was a band...

...which led to this fine moment of dancing and Isaac's first rejection when the girl ditched him to swoon over the lead singer.

Isaac enjoyed "flying" with his favorite aunt.

While his parents and Olivia took a paddle-boat ride.

Isaac also loved playing with the neighbor dog Pepper and trying to ride her. Pepper didn't really love it.

Oh, and Dudley Dursley was there.

atleast we made history

It's hot here.
Way hot.

Yesterday was the hottest day in Seattle ever. Which makes me feel somewhat better about the whole thing because at least I know it's not all in my head. After surviving being trenched in sweat in northern Guatemala, I vowed never to complain about the heat again. Well, that didn't last. I'm being forced to turn on the air conditioning in my car, but houses here just don't have AC, so we're surviving based on fans.

You know it's super hot when...

You take pictures to prove how hot it is. 103, baby! and a little humid. And I think it got hotter at my house. The worst part-- 86 degrees inside, and that doesn't go down any too fast.

You gather the essential-- HP and Otter Pops, and huddle near a fan for hours to cool down

Your mom and you abandon your beds in the hot upstairs to camp out on air mattresses in the cool downstairs family room with open windows and fans. You can't take the kids at work out into the heat, so you're forced to come up with other activities, such as today's "mural art" on the walls.

It's been quite the adventure, and I'm definitley looking forward to normal temperatures tomorrow (we're 25 degrees above average for this time of year!)
Oh Seattle summers, you keep me young.

Christmas at home!

I had a wonderful few weeks at home for Christmas, and experienced my first white Christmas ever. The snow was lots of fun, but a little cabin-fever inducing. I loved being with tons of family and taking a break from school. Here are some highlights from my time at home: Riding the ferry

Opening cousin Christmas presents

visiting Grandma and Grandpa Treasure

swinging with Isaac

pictures on the deck in the snow

Home for Thanksgiving

What a relaxing week I had! It was so much fun to be home, even if I was the only sister to make it back to Washington. (I guess that shows who the favorite daughter is, the only one the parents bought a plane ticket for.) It was a wonderful week of sleeping, playing piano, trying my hand at golf and getting thoroughly embarrassed, biking, shopping, getting pampered with the cousins, and relaxing. Thanksgiving was great, and I even got to try my hand at making the stuffing all by myself, but under Mom's watchful eye. I've expanded my repertoire past cranberries to include dinner rolls, stuffing, and even cooking the hairy yams. It was fun to be back in the rain with family!

I came back and my roommates and I started decorating our apartment for Christmas right away. I just love this holiday season!
Now, its time to crack down because finals start 2 weeks from today!

whitney the wed

The paper chain is done, and so is the most anticipated reunion of the summer! It was wonderful to have my favorite people come visit for Whitney's wedding. The wedding was a classy affair, but of course had a bad dance party involved.

I loved showing my friends around Seattle and hanging out in the days afterward as well. Plus, I'm a total expert at driving to the airport now. And in just a week, the party will keep on going
when we reunite for good in Provo.

RIP Single Whitney

nature at its finest

A few weeks ago, my parents found a bird nest in the hanging flowers off of our deck and within a day we had a baby bird. We loved to watch our baby and check his progress everyday. My mom even rigged up a McGuyver-esque cover to protect the bird from the rain. Its mother hated us, and we had some close divebomb attacks when we were checking on it.

Baby bird grew feathers and bigger, and then all of the sudden it was gone. Its actually quite tragic,and made worse by the fact that my grandma is convinced that our bird was eaten.

So farewell, baby bird, hopefully you will come visit us again. Your nest is always open.

The view from my window

The other day my mom came into my room and was amazed at the tree growing right outside my window. I didn't think much of it because I see that tree everyday, but ever since she mentioned it, I can't help but notice it. Although there are dozens of other trees I can see from my window, this one is the closest, and so often the most overlooked. Where else are there trees like this in my life? So often I go looking for help, when the people I really need are right in front of me. I focus so much on getting out and getting away from here and having a big adventure, when there are so many great opportunities and experiences just waiting to be had that are right outside my window. It is just a matter of changing perspective, looking at things differently, and seeing that what you need more than anything is the thing that was right there all along. Its all a matter of finding the true beauty in your life. I realized that I've been looking at these trees for years and the tree outside my window has always been my favorite, it just took some pointing out to get me to realize that and to take advantage of the wonderful things that are right in front of me. Bloom where you are planted, explore the close things, and don't overlook the beauty that surrounds you.