School funnies

Here are just a few pictures to cheer you up.

Both sides of our fourth of july float. Read carefully. (Yes, I'm serious, no one noticed this in the week long float construction, and it went through the entire Rexburg parade. No one noticed it, in fact, until I pointed it out a few days after.)

EVERYDAY ACTIONS CREATING AMAZING THINGS!






Here's a commitment to stop littering after we picked up trash off a highway to 'go green'.



I guess she is taking a stand against.....soda.

America, America, God shed his grace on thee...

Oh my word....I have not updated in a very long time. It gets to be very intimidating when you forget, kind of like my personal journal, because there's no way to catch up on everything!

Well, Mike and I arrived home safely after our fun trip to Disneyworld. We came home to a brand new (well, new to us) apartment in Rigby, Idaho. It's only about ten miles from Rexburg, so we didn't move far. It's halfway in between Rexburg, where I go to school, and Idaho Falls, where Mike works.

I am back at school, hoping to finish up by Halloween, although I might end up going a few days in November. I will soon have enough hours (1500) to apply for the advanced team, called Phase 2. I am keeping my fingers crossed for this because it's a great thing to put on a resume.

Other than that, we have been having lots of fun. We got to go fishing last friday night, and we had a great 4th of July. I hope everybody else did, too.
We got up and drove to Rexburg with Yohko for the parade. (Yes, we have turned into 'that couple', the one that takes their animal everywhere.) After that, we got to BBQ with some of Mike's friends, and we ended the day with fireworks with my family back in Rexburg.

Anyway, I know this is too late for the 4th, but since summer is upon us and fruit is abundant and deliciously cheap, I thought I would share the only apple pie recipe you will ever need. It is great for potlucks, parties, and holidays, and it is SO EASY. I make it every 4th of July and every Thanksgiving and people always say it is the best they've ever had. Sorry for the crappy picture, I snapped one of my cell phone when it came out of the oven, since I had the suspicion that it would be mostly eaten by the time I pulled out my real camera. I was right!



Don't be intimidated by the lattice crust, it is SO EASY to do. I did really thick strips but it would only have taken an extra 2 minutes to do a fancy one with smaller strips. If you have any questions on how to do it, ask me :)

4th of July Apple Pie

9 inch double crust pie (Guess what...I cheat and use the box mix)
1/2 cup (1 stick) UNSALTED butter
3 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Peeled, cored, and sliced Granny Smith (green) apples (I usually use about 4 good sized apples, and slice them into 16ths, to give you an idea of the thickness of slices)

Preheat oven to 425. Melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water and both sugars. Bring to a boil, then let it simmer on low for a few minutes.
Place bottom pie crust in pan, fill with apples in concentric design, until mounded slightly. Cover with lattice crust top.
Slowly pour the sauce over the crust, filling the pie. Make sure to either pour or use a brush to get the sauce to coat the lattice crust. This makes it caramel-y crunchy goodness.
Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake another 35-45 minutes. Enjoy!

Disneyworld!

Here comes the very long, very overdue post about our trip. It was SO MUCH FUN!! It seems like we had been planning it forever and that it would never actually get here. We bought our plane tickets last November and have just been anxiously waiting since then. I spent a frantic week before we left trying to make sure that absolutely everything would be taken care of - our room was reserved, our park tickets were there, our car would be at the airport, our flights were on time, our mail was held, the dog had a 'sitter', our bank knew we were traveling, etc etc. It was a very long week.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early! We got everything in the car and drove down to Salt Lake, stopping to drop Yohko off with my family (THANK YOU, again). My dad took us to the airport and the trip officially began. I like flying so I really don't mind the traveling part. We got in to Florida around 9:30 at night and got our rental car (an 09 Chevy Malibu....so nice!) and took off to our hotel...





We also had this neat little patio with a bug net that was outside our room. The patio looked out onto a lake with a fountain that was in the center of the resort. The pool was also nearby and it was AMAZING, but unfortunately we dipped in for a minute the first night and then went to bed, and it rained the rest of the trip so we didn't get to swim much. I also forgot to take pictures of that...

The first morning we got up was beautiful. The sun was shining and we were off!



The first day we decided to do Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was so much fun. It rained for just a few minutes during the day, but other than that it was beautiful...and very warm....and very, very humid. Here are a few pics from that day:

The tower of terror! This was such an awesome ride!


Our 3D glasses for Buzz Lightyear's ride.





Mike in a star wars....something. Not really sure but he insisted on this picture.


Isn't this cool? They have lots of Disney gardens all over all the parks.



The second day was Magic Kingdom day! We woke up to pouring rain, and I mean really torrential pouring rain. Sadly I couldn't take too many pictures with it raining that hard, but I did what I could. I was trying to keep my nice camera dry, since it was my Christmas present and I didn't really feel like ruining it on vacation. It was soaking wet all day, but still about 70 degrees. Nice and warm :)

On our way in to the park. You can't tell, but the water was up over our feet. There were lots of Disney employees whose job was solely to squeegee water off the sidewalks when it made huge puddles.


The ponchos we bought that saved our lives for the rest of the week.


Mike kept his eyes closed when I made him ride the teacups so he wouldn't puke all over.


It's a small world! The ride where all national stereotypes began.


Cinderella's castle!



Day 3 was still raining just as hard, but we bundled up and headed to Epcot. Did you know that Epcot is cool? Like, really really cool? I thought it was going to be stuff like "Science projects are neat!" and it was, but it was also really, really awesome. Here are a few of Epcot:



Aurora and Prince Philip


Belle and the Beast


Cinderella and...does this guy have a name? Prince Charming?


Mike and I in front of...something. Not quite sure. Raining though!


The back of Epcot is called the World Showcase, and it was my favorite part. They had little areas of the park that were parts of countries. They would have a little exhibit, a restaurant, and some shopping areas for each country.

Mexico:
Coming around the first corner to the world showcase


Mike in front of the Mexican...temple? Ziggurat?


The shopping plaza inside. They had a neat little boat ride in there too.


Norway, which had an awesome viking ride called Maelstrom:


Walking from Norway to...China!


China, which had an awesome 15 minute "360" movie showing the landscapes and cities of China. You stood in a room that had screens all the way around the circular room. It was so beautiful


Terra Cotta soldiers inside China:


We also walked through Japan, Germany, Britain, Canada, and my favorite, France. Mike and I were together in France a few years ago so we went to the Epcot Patisserie and bought a pain-au-chocolate (chocolate filled croissant) like we did in Paris. It was delicious!

The last park was the Animal Kingdom park. I will be honest, I kind of whined to Mike because this sounded like the least interesting park, more like a big Disney zoo. (In retrospect, what on earth would be not fun about a big disney zoo?) Anyway, Animal Kingdom turned out to be one of my favorite days! It was really beautiful. It still rained on and off but we had a great time and they had some really neat rides and lots of cool animals.

Best parking lot ever :)


The whole park looked like a big, overgrown jungle


In the center of the park, they have this big "Tree of Life". It was so awesome. You can't get really close to it but it is BIG. I zoomed in on a few pictures so that you could see all the animals carved in to the trunk. It was really pretty.






This is the view up the river to the Mt. Everest rollercoaster (which was awesome)


Also, I would like to share how brave I was to go in the bat cave as part of the 'animal walk'. It kept saying "giant bats" and had all these warning signs that, really, these are really big bats. We walked in to the room and they were out under a net in their little habitat thing and THERE WERE NO WINDOWS separating us from the bats. I was very brave. Really. Big bats. Really big. And I am not a fan of bats. Lest you don't believe me about their size, here is a picture of one of the bats eating a CORN COB!


Our last few days of the trip were spent relaxing true vacation style with Mike's aunt and uncle that live near Orlando. We also went to Universal Studios one day which resulted in this picture of super-excited Mike getting ready to go into the Simpson's Krustyland. Or Krazyland, or something.


Okay folks, if I try to upload and chronologically arrange one more picture I think my eyes will permanently cross. I am so glad that we got to take such a fun vacation together and have a week to just relax and enjoy each other's company without having to worry about work and school. Next up...Summer! Fourth of July, campouts, cookouts, Harry Potter movie, Depeche Mode concert, The Killers concert, Bridge-jumping, family, and friends. What a good life.

Quick Update

Sorry we have not been on here in a while...we are so busy.
Erin got to spend a weekend with her family down in Mesa, Az recently for her cousin Lucy's wedding! It was so much fun to get to spend time with everybody, and the sunshine was nice too :)

This past week we have spent moving into a new apartment in Rigby, Idaho. Yohko freaked out the first few days but now we are getting everything settled. We still don't have the internet there so we are going a little crazy.

We are also getting ready for our big Disneyworld trip this Saturday! FINALLY a vacation!!

Oh, Beauty School

I have to start this post with a disclaimer. Long before I started cosmetology schooling, understood hair cuts and colors, etc, I was still pretty picky about my hair. I have a great stylist I go to in Idaho Falls and have been seeing her for over 10 years now. I have never had an experience like so many people have, where I come home crying over an absolutely awful cut/color. This stylist (Kim) has some kind of eerie connection with my brainwaves and has always given me EXACTLY what I have pictured. The cuts are always flawless and make it look as though I effortlessly have big, sexy voluminous hair. Her highlights are the icy blond weaves that I can only dream of.

However, I made a mistake this week. I committed stylist adultery. Oh boy, folks, did I commit adultery. And lest you think stylist adultery is okay, let me tell you: it is NOT.

Let me start at the beginning. My school has a three month period every year where they do intense fundraising (all Paul Mitchell schools nationwide do it together) for several large organizations (Cancer Schmancer, which is Fran Drescher's foundation; The Larry King Cardiac Foundation; Leeza Gibbons' foundation, etc). One of the fundraising ideas was to have the students bid on a full day of services with an instructor at the school. Six hours of whatever we wanted! Joy! Bliss! I had my eye on a particular instructor and put my bid in...and won. Yay!

At this point, my hair was a milk chocolate-y brown with blond highlights. I had wanted the brown out for some time, wanting to go back to my natural blond for the summer, and I also had almost an inch of my natural roots that needed done. So you can imagine my excitement when I thought of the gorgeous blond hair I would finally have when this instructor finish with me.

I will not go in to any details, but I will say this: At the end of the service, I was holding back tears. Has anyone ever had this happen with a stylist? As you're watching the service wind down and your hair get styled, that pit starts to settle in your stomach. You think things like Are they really done? Maybe it's not done. She's not going to leave it like this is she? Is it rude to ask for my money back? Do I know which car she drives so I can key it on the way out? And so on and so forth. My A-line haircut was (no exaggeration) 3/4 of an inch longer on one side. I cut fringe/bangs and they came down to my eyebrow on my left eye...and to my eyelashes on my right eye. Absolutely, no question about it, crooked. And the color-- oh the color! I did not take a picture of it just because I knew I would post it on this blog and I just couldn't let people see it like that. I won't go through the steps of the color but I will just tell you: The milk chocolate/highlighted part was now bright yellow. Think those Peeps marshmallow chicks. Yellow. Those roots I had? Now Orange. Think rusty metal outside of a barn. Rusty Orange. Do you know what this means? Now, not only do I look like a clown, but when my REAL natural hair grows out, the orange stripe will travel down my head. I looked like an idiot. I felt like crawling under a rock and dying. Honestly. I now have complete sympathy for anyone who has had this happen. Long story short, I left the school immediately after and went home sobbing. Sobbed to Mike. Sobbed to my mom (who told me I probably shouldn't go out in public). Honestly.

So I swallowed my pride and picked up the phone and called Kim. Sobbing. Still. I explained to her that I had let this happen and she told me to come in the following morning. I just cannot honestly convey to you all the depth of how horrible that feels. Men might laugh or roll their eyes and say that it's not that bad, but it really IS that bad.

Anyway, Kim worked a small miracle on me, and while my hair still looks a little "bottle-blond" and more fakey than my natural, it is so much better. I will now be going to her every six weeks on the dot until I die.

I just wanted to offer my sincere condolences to anyone who has had an experience like this.

only because it's 1 in the morning

This was a commentary on my friend Jon's blog and I almost peed my pants as I read it. It is most likely because I should have been asleep long ago, but I thought it was pretty funny and maybe you will enjoy.

"Elliptical Machines - WTF? A thought from Jon"

Yeah so whenever I go to the gym (which isn't that much, but more than you would think) I try to get the courage to use an eliptical machine. For those who dont know what this is it is a contraption that has 2 step like things to put your feet on, and two handles to hold onto. So when you use this thing, your feet and arms are supposed to move in sucession. Its kind of like a nordic trac made love to a stair stepper, then that child made love to a tread mill, than that child made love to a demon, and there ya go you get an eliptical. I have always tried to imagine what it would be like to use one, but whenever I do I envision something like this:
So you get on one of these contraptions and things are going well, you got a good rythm going, and your arms and feet are going in sucession. Well now you decide you want to go a bit faster and get your heart rate up. What then results is a panic because you find yourself holding on for dear life with your hands, (which by the way are moving in sync with your out of control feet), and you feel like you might punch yourself in the face as your arms move back and forth uncontrolably. And of course your thinking "Its ok I can regain control" , but you cant. At this point my friend you are done riding the eliptical, and it is now taking you for a ride. So now your trying to figure out how to get off the mad bronco eliptical before it bucks you off and breaks your legs. Well you can't just jump off cuz the platform pedal things will come back around and break your shins in half, and you risk blunt force trama to the head from the flying handle bars. So what to do? You could tense your arms up and try to stop the beast, but then it just rips your arms off and still lays claim to your legs. You could just stop moving, but all the momentum you just built from your attempt to get your heart rate up is now moving the eliptical like a well oiled freight train, and it might just kill you.
No my friends the correct solution is to not use this tool of the devil at all. Avoid it at all costs. Unless your a risk taker, or a professional eliptical wrangler, then go ahead, but as for me I'll stay clear.

Hair, there, & everywhere!

This is going to be a long, enjoyably readable update on something I haven't posted much about lately: hair! Sometimes it's hard for me to come home and update lots about what I'm doing in school because I'm just so darn busy. I will officially be halfway done with school next week! Yay! It seems both so fast and so slow.

For the past few months at school, I have been on a student run team called Design Team. It has helped me SOO much. Let me explain: I can cut your hair. I can color your hair. I cannot, however, make you look like anything but poop when you leave my chair. Styling hair is SO HARD. We all know exactly how like our hair to lay, and it is stinking hard to be able to do that for someone else. Especially someone with totally different hair than my stick straight fine blond hair. Curly hair? Why can't we be friends? I just don't know you.
Anyway. Design team is a community oriented student styling team. We do the hair and makeup for lots of local events, like school/college plays, Junior Miss, etc. We also go out and set up booths at career fairs, street festivals, etc. We each have a chair in front of us and a table of products behind us and the whole idea is that you have 5 minutes with each person in your chair to 'quick style' them. It's 5 minutes to give them a totally different hairstyle, whether it be funky, fun, or cute. My styling abilities have improved tenfold from being on this team, even though it's tiring, and I'm having so much fun.

This is an example of a quick style. As I was leaving school today, my friend Diana asked me if I could quickly give her an elegant sort of style as she thinks she is getting proposed to tonight! I only had a few minutes but managed to find something nice. Here are the before and a few after shots:









Here is a cut/color I did on my sister Emily:








Here are pictures of a fear of mine: pixie cuts. This girl came in and wanted everything chopped off. It may not be my cup of tea, but she loved it. Please excuse my flash being off for a couple shots.










Lastly, a cut I did on my younger sister Carly today. Dumb me! I forgot to take a before picture. She had simple long, straight hair halfway down her back. I styled her and sent her home, and then went back a few hours later for pictures so it's a little disheveled, but still cute.







Unfortunately that's all I have around for right now. I need to take better advantage of having a nice camera! I have had many awesome appointments that I haven't had a camera available, but I vow to be better about it!