"That summer seemed to last forever!"

As summer slowly comes to a close (9 more days until school starts?!), I look back and see that it was pretty full for me of a lot of different things!  

First thing is the same old thing-- working at my wonderful job! As of the 5th, I have officially been working for a whole year!! It's something I've really enjoyed doing a lot and not to put school down or anything but I've learned more about becoming a social worker in my one year of working there than I have in my years of schooling! It's also been very interesting to see how the boys I've worked with have grown from the time I first met them--it's really amazing sometimes to look back and see how much change someone can undergo.  I have one boy right now who has made a lot of amazing changes and personal growth over the past year that I just want to go around bragging like a proud parent about it to everyone I meet!! I've had a lot of fun working with the boys but it's definitely tough work but they make it oh-so-much better by often times having such great attitudes!! 

The boys picked me a Dandelion Bouquet one day--this is cute, right?!

Next on to the update of what happened with Brooks' summer Grassroots Shakespeare tour this summer: it was amazing!! I saw each play at least 3 times and loved it every time!  It was a whole lot of fun to see Brooks doing something he loves and that he's freaking good at too!! The plays were a huge success and it was the most popular and profitable tour they've had to date! Brooks' acting got some people to take notice of him and he had a lot of offers to have parts in various plays and requests for him to audition at places like the Hale Center Theater! If you don't know Brooks, he's apparently a pretty big deal! Unfortunately because of his schooling he's not able to take any of the offers up but just wait until next summer--he's going to be all over that!!  Here's my favorite scene of his where he plays Pistol-- I just love the way he plays this old man and how well all the characters interact with each other. Brooks is super funny and (dare I say it... attractive) as an old man! (I've watched this at least 20 times because it makes me so happy!)

"There were some aspects of the production that were of particular enjoyment to me, such as the commedia dell’arte take on the scenes with Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, complete with stylized masks and melodramatic acting. As Pistol, Brooks Lindberg displayed some wonderful physicality, bending his body into overwrought positions and shuffling across the stage in a hyperbolic portrayal of the elderly character."~Utah Theatre Bloggers Associate Review 

Speaking of Brooks, because of his ongoing tour of awesomeness sadly I did not see him nearly as often as I would have liked this summer.  When I did get to see him though it was absolutely amazing!! I made it out to see his plays as often as was possible and he tried to come see me as often as was feasible (not often). We were able to have a lot of fun those few times we were together--I freaking love this man!

Hike to Bridal Veil Falls

View at our favorite places to eat out--The Crepery

Playing on the beach at Bear Lake

Eating out and showing off our Poutine

For our family vacation this summer we went to Montana to visit my grandparent's farm and then we headed over to Glacier National Park.  It would have been a super amazing trip... if it hadn't rain nearly as much but even as wet as it was it was a very fun experience and I saw some very pretty things!! 

Those are pictures from my phone--gorgeous!! I saw some Bald Eagles, a beaver, a moose and baby moose. 

To update for the neices and nephews of 2014, Max and Parker are doing great and I love when I get to see them.  

Parker  (L) is not nearly as enamored as Max (R) is! 

Jake and Brook and have welcomed little Emmaline--I on the other hand haven't yet gotten that priviledge... oh the woes of a not so great work schedule!! I'm looking forward to meeting this little girl sometime soon!! (poor Jake is slowly getting more and more outnumbered by the lovely girls in his life!)

Megan and Bryant still haven't had their baby, but they do know the gender: Female! So that makes the result of this year 2 neices and 2 nephews! That'll be fun! I just had Megan come over and spend a few days at my apartment which was a whole lot of fun for me!! We shared a bed like we did growing up again but this time when we stayed up until 2 am talking dad didn't come downstairs and yell at us to be quiet!! It was a lot of fun to spend time with Megan and I'm happy she came and visited!

Prego-Mego at 29 weeks!

I've gone through a pretty big change this summer through finally making the decision to have the 2 moles on my face removed.  This was a pretty tough decision for me to make--the decision has been about 9 years in the making and I finally decided to just get it over with.  The reasons I ended up getting it done was as follows; still on parent's insurance, they kept getting bigger every year, there was a little bit of insecurity, and there were some weird/gross things going on with them that I'll save you the trouble of thinking about.  

The night before my procedure I had a little break down because I was worried what others would think about me for having them removed or that people would assume I didn't love myself the way I was. The main reason I was worried though was that I've had them for as long as I could remember and I was worried about not recognizing my face or losing part of my identity. Brooks was there to help me through all my crazy emotions and even held my hand during the procedure the next day (which I imagine had to be really super gross!) 

This is about 2 weeks after having the stitches removed

In the end, I'm happy I finally got up the courage to do it, I'm a little sad they're gone but overall it was the best choice.  The scars will take up to a year to fade really well but I'm really kind of happy with where they are now.  I've been asked why I don't try to cover them up with make up by the boys I work with and I shrug and say that I guess I'm just really confident with the way I am.  Now I truly know that I am and that though my moles at times made me feel a little self conscious overall I'm a pretty dang confident person and I know that I didn't have the removed out of shame or a negative self-image. I had them removed because their role in my life was getting complicated, and I didn't need them.  Right now I'm loving my scars--it would be nice if they healed and faded more but I know I'd be happy if they stayed this way forever!  So next time you see me, don't be alarmed by my 'unsightly' scars or surprised if you hear me refer to myself as 'Scar Face' I really am happy with my decision and I'm proud to be my beautiful self no matter what!!

School's Out: Revenge of the Babies

SO! It's been awhile! School is pretty much officially over for me! I've finished all my assignments and everything, there's just one test that I'm taking that's unrelated to any of my courses that I need to pass if I want to go on to a Master's Degree. (I can retake it once a month if I need to but that'll get pretty pricey so I'd like to pass it my first try to keep options open) That's not until Thursday though, so I still have plenty of time to study for that. It's such a great feeling to be done with school this semester, it's felt like I've been dragging my feet through sand uphill. Yeah... It's been a rough semester filled with pretty much zero motivation for school but I think I scrapped through alright and look forward to the next semester and the opportunity to take some classes that I'm actually interested in again!

Brooks and I at Bear Lake

Speaking of next semester, I finally got my practicum placement! For those of you who do not know, a practicum is essentially a class I have to take that has an unpaid internship that I must participate in as well. I got my first choice as a medical social worker at McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden working in the Joint and Spine unit! That should be a great experience and I'm really looking forward to it. Plus: my mother works at McKay Dee so I'm looking forward to having lunch with her and hanging out with all the sick peoples! I'll be working there about 16 hours a week on Tuesday and Wednesday so for those of my friends still in Layton that means I'll be at my parent's house every Tuesday night so we should hang out for sure!

Something else that is new with my life is that everyone in my family is having babies this year!! Like literally every single one of my siblings are either expecting by the end of the year or have already delivered, it's the year for babies and I'm kind of left out... I'm thinking about making Brooks buy me a baby hedgehog so I'm not left out. He promised me once that if I caught a fish with my hands and he has yet to follow through... plus, just look at how CUTE!!!

 

I mean I need this right?! 

But in all seriousness:

Trevor & Brynn gave birth to little baby Max Gotberg on February 10th. He has gotten so big and I got to see him today for his baby blessing, he's a cute little boy!

Jessica and Mike gave birth to BIG baby Parker Tiberius (Yes, really) Stagg


On the way to see baby Parker, Aunt Nikki's car broke down and would not go faster than 20mph on the freeway. It's officially dead and gone now which is a bummer for sure.... I guess that's just the price you have to pay for adorable nephews. Speaking of nephews, Parker's older brother Keagan is not very thrilled currently about the new addition.

Keagan's not too sure about Parker yet

When asked if he wants to give Parker a kiss Keagan says NO! He's not a fan of having to share his mommy and daddy.  My mother tried bribing Keagan with pop to get him to like Parker more. She gives him some pop and says "Parker told me that you could have pop, Keagan! Isn't that nice of Parker? Say thank you, Parker!" and Keagan says "Dank oou Pawkew."

Brook and Jake have announced that they are expecting a baby girl on July 24th! This baby gets blessed to have 2 of the most adorable older sisters!! Girl power! It'll be fun to have a new baby neice after 2 new nephews.



AND! Megan and Bryant recently announced that they are expecting!  This is really great news as some of you may have known they have struggled with fertility issues which makes this baby an extra little miracle (to read more about Megan's super empowering story you should read her blog at http://bryantandmegan.blogspot.com/2014/04/two-very-different-announcements.html. They are due on October 25th and I get the privilege of getting to spoil this baby rotten because I will be seeing him at least once a week when he's born because Megan is coming back to the USA (YAY!) and living with my parents (DOUBLE YAY!) so when I'm home for my practicum dates I get to see Megan and new baby.  I'm really looking forward to Megan being back in a very selfish way because I've missed her a lot since she left to the Caribbean last year so Bryant could go to medical school and I'm happy to have her so close again without the distractions of having a husband (no offense Bryant). She'll be coming back in the end of May. The only thing I'm not too excited about is to be standing next to her in all her tanned glory while I'm still ridiculously pale.

I mean look at that tan... no one can compete with that!!

Yay for babies!! Something else that is going on this summer is Brooks has auditioned for and made it in the Grassroots Shakespeare Company!! It's very exciting for him to get back into the acting saddle. Grassroots Shakespeare Company is really unique: they don't have a director, a costumer, or light designer. The actors themselves collaborate together to put the show together. This is the way that it was done back in Shakespeare's time. They have limited rehearsal time and then they will begin touring around Utah performing outside at parks and Renaissance festivals. All the shows are FREE but the suggest you donate $3 so it's really not that big of a monetary commitment if you'd like to go see him. He's the leading man in As You Like It he has the part of Orlando.  He also has the parts of Westmoreland & Pistol in Henry V. I'd recommend seeing As You Like It if you have the choice. You can see the dates for upcoming performances here: http://www.grassrootsshakespeare.com/summer-tour.html to see if there's anything playing near you. They don't have all the performances up yet so keep checking back. Here's a sneak peek of what they're up to, I'll post more videos as time goes on!

My phone did this automatically... I think it's funny.

Now for some random pictures of what I've been up to:

Brooks at Bear Lake on the prettiest day in the whole universe!! It was gorgeous!!

Keagan and Ginger at the park, I'm not sure who liked going down the slides more!

Courtney Dixie and I at my girl's night over Spring Break

Girl's Night with my roommates and a friend

Wuv, Twue Wuv!

I took this picture!! :)

Hey! So I have not done anything with this forever and I’m going to blame it on the amazingly wonderful Brooks Lindberg who stole all my free time by his manly charm! Speaking of Brooks, I think I shall dedicate a post to the boy who ended all posts for such a long time!

So I’ve been dating Brooks for 2 years, but I’ve totally been head over heels for him for 3 :/ Yep! The whole “love at first sight” thing is pretty much the story of how I met Brooks.  It was my first audition for a production at Snow College and I was extremely nervous so that nervous energy chose to channel itself into fixing the cow lick of the cute boy in front of me… yeah… touching random guy’s heads is something I did back then I guess!  This really attractive guy would be Brooks which it was also his first audition at Snow.  

American Gothic... our take.

 We were auditioning for Arsenic and Old Lace (a personal favorite!) and Brooks and I kept getting called up to read together for the part of Nathan and Elaine the lovers of the play which I was REALLY okay with!  Brooks got the part, I on the other hand came close but lost out to another girl.  But from that day Brooks was definitely cemented in my head as THE guy. The perfect guy that everyone dreams about but never actually exists. 

Well the semester went by and little by little I got to know Brooks better and start to like him for his personality; he was so funny, intelligent, talented and interesting… unlucky for me I was not the only one to notice and for the rest of the year Brooks was in and out of different relationships.  Always my ideal guy and always out of reach.  

Before we were dating... so cute!

So when I graduated from Snow I figured all chances were dead and gone as I’d be off to USU and Brooks would have his 2^nd year at Snow ahead of him.  Over the summer to my great pleasure and delight, Brooks started texting me, *cue texts of ridiculous amounts of over the top flirting*.  During fall semester Brooks and I kept in contact pretty regularly and I made the decision to go see him in Taming of the Shrew at Snow where he was playing the lead character whose name I can’t even begin to spell.  I told everyone I was going back to see all my old friends, but it was definitely just Brooks. When I arrived I called him and made up some story about me needing to put air in my tires but not knowing how (lies!).  Brooks came to the rescue and we ended up spending the whole day together: perfection!  This happened a 2^nd time during November for their other school play, this time though Brooks told me he liked me which was pretty amazing (even if he did call me a Buffalo in the process)!  Well we worked hard and made it work long distance (3 hours away) we saw each other roughly 4 days out of a month but talked 2 or so hours on the phone every night.  I’m so happy that now we live in the same apartment complex and I can see him whenever I feel like it.

I’m so lucky to have Brooks and so happy to be with him. He writes me notes with the perfect blend between ridiculous and loving, has the enthusiasm of a 5 year old at times, and to top it all off he is my best friend. I feel as though I am constantly growing with him, thinking more than I’ve ever thought and truly discovering myself in the process. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life and I always want to spend every last second I have with him.  I mean, I love him enough to listen to a 30 minute discussion on the book he’s currently reading when he’s only like 10 pages in. Sorry for the sappy post! Just have to let everyone know!!

Now if only I could get him to ACTUALLY smile in pictures he'd be perfect!!

Summer Blues

If I had to pick one word to sum up my summer (Haha, 'sum up my summer' is a fun phrase!!) it would be "BORING!!" I've been so gosh darn bored!! And I know people are always like "It's only boring if you make it..." in which case I obviously hate myself because I feel so bored about everything!!

Basically all of my friends are either on missions (how dare they!), at school, or so busy working I never see them. There is also the small group of friends, which I feel no longer wish for my friendship as whenever I call them they're always 'busy' and tend to forget to invite me to things! Those savages!! Oh well, people grow apart I suppose...

It's okay though, because I'm so busy with work and making money that I don't really notice. LIES!! My work HARDLY schedules me!! They decided that they were going to hire 15 new people this summer to make my life miserable and contribute to poor college students!! I've made only $800 since April!!! I'm so poor!!

My summer hasn't been all terrible... I do fun things every now and then with people. I'd say at least twice a week I do something worthwhile. But the time in between those things is so excruciatingly dull. I usually find myself home alone everyday with no friends able to hang out with.

Because this summer has been such a bummer I can't wait for school to start again. Maybe this sucky summer was a ploy to make me better appreciate school and learning. In any case I'm counting down the days till I'm too busy with school and friends to even remember what the meaning of 'boring' is!!

I have such a busy schedule set up! And since I'm rather bored and have nothing better to do, I shall share it with you! (Sorry, you'll live!)

On Monday and Wednesdays I have my Theater History class. It's a 3 credit class and it's taught by Dr. K who rocks my socks. Then I have Theater Improv (3 credits) with Professor Olsen, which I've heard is a really fun class and I'm rather not the best at Improv so it's a good choice for me. Then I have Institute D&C with Sperry, I don't really know what to expect about this but it's been awhile since D&C. Then I have my Ballroom dance company class (2), I made the Ballroom dance team and ironically I don't really know how to Ballroom dance, so I'm going to feel really dumb with all the people who know what they're doing, but this is going to be a lot of fun for me! Finishing it off with History (3) I hate history.

On Tuesday and Thursdays I have Biology (3) which I've heard is one of--if not THE hardest class on campus, I picked out a teacher who seemed to be better than the rest, but I won't know until class starts. I also have Biology Lab (1) on Thursdays only for like 2 hours and I think I'm going to die in that class. After that I have American Folklore (3) not to be confused with 'Forklore' which is what I referred to it as once. I really have no idea what to expect from that one.

Friday all I have is Friday Forum... we'll see if I actually decide to go or not, It'll depend on the week I'm sure. I'm pretty happy about having a rather clean Friday because that means I can leave at 3 pm on Thursday for home or whatever... it just sucks because I don't have a car and so finding someone who'd be able to take me home then will be hard.

You may have noticed my theater classes, this is due to my Theater scholarship. I have to take 2 theater classes a semester. Not only that but I HAVE to audition for all the plays. I'm kind of glad that I have something forcing me to audition now, because I ended up chickening out on all the plays last year, I only auditioned for the last one which I didn't make and then for the one act plays, which I did make. So now I've got something forcing me, so I can't chicken out!! Well the thing is, if I make any of the plays they are going to take up SO much of my time. Also if I don't make the plays I can be chosen to work as a tecky, so I'll have a lot of time taken up there too. All in all I don't think I'll be bored come school and I can't wait for it to start.

Well this has been rather all over the place and kind of pity-party-ish at the beginning, but mostly sarcastically bored. And besides, I can throw a pity-party if I want to... probably the only party I'll be invited to this summer anyways... ;)

Recap

So school is over!! Goodness, it seems like time moves a lot faster when you're in college... so I think I'll do a quick catch up on what's happened since last time.

In March I went to The Festival of Colors, it's in Spanish Fork... or maybe American Fork... in any case, it was a fork. There's an Indian temple there (like not Native Americans, legit Indians), and they have this festival to celebrate spring every year. So I went with Megan (my lovely older sister), Bryant (Megan's fiancé!), and Jake (my boyfriend). It was a lot of fun. The best way for me to describe this is as a glorified chalk fight. You buy little packets of 'chalk'--turns out it's really just cornstarch that's a different color and you throw it at people at a certain time to celebrate spring.

*Before and after pictures from the Festival of Colors. L to R: Jake (bf), ME!, Bryant (Megan's fiance), Megan (my sister!).*

I really liked it because first off the temple thing, I had no clue there was something like that in Utah. It's really beautiful and I think it would be fun to go look at it sometime for fun. They had a fountain and peacocks and it was just a cool place. The chalk stuff smelled like incense, it was a good smell and when everyone threw the chalk at once, there were so many people and so much chalk that it actually blotted out the sun for awhile and you could only see like 4 feet around you. It was crazy!! We got pretty chalky and it was loads of fun, I think I'll definitely go again next year!

The next cool thing that happened was I went to a masquerade. So this summer I bought this freaking awesome mask from the Shakespearean Festival and I've NEVER had an opportunity to wear it without raising eyebrows. So finally I got my chance to shine.

*I got so many compliments and it was definitely one of the coolest--if not THE coolest, mask there!! *

<---- ake="" and="" attractive="" dance="" em="" going="" me="" re="" the="" to="" we="">

*Jake got a mask painted on later at the dance and this is what he ended up looking after he tried (unsuccessfully) to wash it off. * ------>

The dance wasn't that cool outside of the stuff they had there. I really didn't like the DJ much so we ended up spending the majority of the dance standing in a line for a carriage ride, I'd never been on a carriage ride before and it was something that was on my goal list. (I have a goal list btw) So I really wanted a ride, so we waited around forever. We were way lucky, we were the last group that they let ride :) I was really happy!! And it was everything I was hoping it was, except there wasn't romantic music playing, and there weren't pretty lights.

So that’s basically the only cool things out of school that happened, in school I was granted a theatre scholarship for next year, which is super awesome! I love theatre and it makes me quite happy, also I was getting sick and tired of band and I felt super bad because I wasn’t putting in as much time into practicing as I should have and I really didn’t like playing anymore so my heart just wasn’t in it. But the idea of getting paid to audition for the school plays and take theatre classes just makes me super happy!!

Also in relation to that I auditioned for, and made a one act play at Snow. It was called “While Shakespeare Slept” and it was basically awesome. Essentially Shakespeare’s decided to quit theatre and all of his characters come to him in a dream and talk him into writing plays. It’s a comedy and it’s especially funny if you know Shakespeare because there’s a lot of Shakespeare-inside jokes. I got to play the part of Rosalind, which I really liked because she’s one of my favorite Shakespearean girls AND I got to dress up like a Newsie essentially, which is always favorite. That finished like last week and was super fun, I really liked working with the people I did and performing for an actual audience again. It was a nice warm up for hopefully next year’s season. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The next super awesome thing that happened to me was I auditioned for Snow College’s Ballroom Dance team… AND I MADE IT!!! I’m way excited for this. I was a classical ballerina for about 10 years and I always thought it would be way fun to learn how to Ballroom dance. Well this semester I took Latin Social I and I picked up on everything like super fast, so I decided to audition. I’m way excited, I’ve missed dancing a lot and this will be a really fun opportunity for me to dance, meet new people, try choreographing (all the dances are choreographed by the members), and travel!!

Between theatre and ballroom dancing, I can’t wait for next year to start!!

Well that’s basically all the cool things that have happened. So far I’m feeling really good about my grades. If everything goes according to plan I’ll be keeping my academic scholarship for next year, and if everything goes AMAZING, I could get the first 4.0 of my life!! Right now I’ve done most of my finals, and turned in all my papers, so all that’s left is for me to give a group speech tonight and pack up and clean and move away. It’s kind of crazy to think that this is my last week, because I feel like it should feel more monumental, but it really just feels like a normal week except I’m out of good food and don’t want to go restock.

Well… I’m thinking that’s about it for now, I’m going to have a lot more time to write on this thing now that school’s over, so expect to see more posts in the future.

P.S. Is anyone else super mad about the weather?! (For those of you not living near me it snowed hard core last night.) Jake put it perfectly when he said “It’s almost May, weather, grow up!”