last minute.

  So many of you know my brother, Michael, was sealed for time and all eternity to the woman he loves, Courtney. They were married & sealed in the Newport Beach temple in California. They seemed as in love as could be, and I couldn't be happier for them. Courtney grew up in Mexico, and Michael met her while doing summer sales for vivint in north carolina. SMALL WORLD. 

  well leading up to the wedding was pretty chaotic. Let's just say, spray tans & make overs were in order, and that was just the start of it. We drove down to california on thursday morning, and started the big weekend event there. we got there and immediately went to rubios. (a fan favorite in our family). after several hours of pillow talk + josh, we finally retired to bed. 

  the next day was the first day of festivities. we held an open house for the bride & groom that night to celebrate their upcoming wedding the following day. after seeing many friends & family at this occasion, and setting up many lights & other decorations, we finally ended the night by getting ice cream. (aka golden spoon) the promise ice cream. 

  on saturday it was finally the big event. THE WEDDING. it was my first time in a temple for the wedding, so it was a pretty cool experience to have with my family. michael and courtney were stunning and couldn't have been more perfect. the wedding was beautiful and the weather was beautiful, it was just a perfect day. we then all hurried over to islands and gorged our faces while michael and courtney went and took wedding pictures. after islands, we drove all the way to sprinkles. sprinkles is a sacred experience. best cupcakes & ice cream ever. we then ended the night with a family dinner & sending courtney and michael off on their honeymoon. what a night.

  we then drove all the way back up to utah on sunday. i begin my full-time missionary service on wednesday. it is so surreal for me to be leaving, but i am so excited i can't wait! i know this gospel is true & it brings happiness to all who draw near unto it. i would not be giving up school & work if i didn't know with every ounce of my heart that this gospel is true. i'm so excited to get to lubbock, and i'm so excited to be speaking in spanish! God works in mysterious ways, but i know i am meant to be going to texas to preach the gospel. i'll see everyone in 18.

Orlando I LOVE you!

  These past two weeks i got the amazing opportunity to travel to atlanta georgia and orlando florida! i went down to the south to go visit my sisters: tiersha & tahnee, and of course their kids. and i also went to work for tiersha. tiersha works for a business called lularoe, so of course photos & videos were the bane of our 2 weeks together. we modeled everything from dresses, to shirts, to leggings! they really do have it all.

  the first weekend i was there we drove down to florida to go to disneyworld and harry potter world. WOW that's all i can say. it was so amazing. harry potter world is literally everything you have read in books & seen in movies come to life in this amusement park. at universal studios you start by being in a town in london, & then you move through the bricks into diagon alley. it's exactly like the movie. i had a couple tears here & there just because of how breath taking & magical the experience truly was. we went on the gringotts bank ride first, and that ride was amazing! it's like you're actually on the cart that would be in gringotts & you ride your way through the bank & you see harry potter and all the other cast members!

  once we had finally seen everything in dragon alley, we took the hogwarts express over to hogsmeade. this is where i had my first butter beer. oh my word, nothing has ever tasted so amazing before. we then went on the dragon ride, where it portrays the dragons from the 4th movie. of course we chose the hungarian horntail. after this ride, we walked over to hogwarts & rode the ride there. oh my word, so many emotions. we actually got to walk through the castle & experience student life. it was oh so incredible. we even went into the classroom that the class 'defense against the dark arts' usually takes place in. this ride had you 'be on a broomstick' & you basically flew all over hogwarts & helped harry defeat voldemort. the ending of the ride was so good because it had the traditional harry potter ending music & it was just so nostalgic. i love harry potter. shortly after harry potter, we made our way through the rest of the park by starting with 'jurassic world'.

  as we were in orlando, we couldn't not go to disneyworld! so we made a quick stop that sunday at the most magical place on earth, and wow i just love disney. we decided it would be best to attend the 'not so scary mickey's halloween party' which meant, our hours in the park would be from 4-12. this was plenty of time! especially for how not crowded it was. we got to go on every ride that we wanted to (except pirates of the carribean, yes still bitter), but the only thing that was killer in orlando was the humidity. it feels like a warm wet blanket is wrapped around you & it just gets hotter as the day goes on. you can't escape it.

  after the fun in orlando, we made the trek back up to atlanta to finish our lularoe gig. we took so many pictures, i had to download my camera film 3 times. we also shot over an hour worth of video, so that was fun to edit down to 3 minutes! we also made stops to our favorite places, aka sprinkles, devinci's donuts, & shake shack. we also got to go walk along the belt line. this was a highlight for me in atlanta. i love the idea of old vintage things, & the belt line was just that! there was also this old sketchy piano along this path, & so of course i had to stop & play!

  this trip to atlanta/ florida was something so fun to me, i had the greatest time with both my sisters. from pictures, to church, to surviving the humidity in orlando, this trip was a great last vacation before i leave in 23 days for my mission.

new year// new roommates

   another year of college rolls around the corner, and yes that means new roommates. i have the BEST roommates. i am rooming with my 4 good friends from california. we all have known each other from 13 and on, and we've been best friends through everything, even the move to utah. my room roommate is sam dayton. she's my twin tower and my best friend! we're both around 6 ft tall, avid volleyball players, and have a love for piano. she's been there for me always, and i can always count on her for anything! cortney & brynn pack are also my roommates, and, WOW we go back. we would always be at disneyland on friday night and just doing crazy things. taylor chavez is our 5th roommate, and she's just a straight up cholo who loves lucky brand, she's pretty awesome.


  our favorite hobbies include shopping, eating, watching movies, repeat. we recently went up to salt lake city for the day, and we literally shopped til we dropped. we started the day at temple square and got to see the visitor centers. after that we headed over to the conference center. we had a tour given to us by the cute elderly woman who was just ecstatic to talk to us and for our missions. after the conference center we SHOPPED. and not just your average shopping trip, we literally went into every store. thank goodness for labor day sales or my bank account would be suffering. (lol jokes mom)

  we started to get kind of hungry towards the end of our shopping spree, and so sam suggested we go to her favorite burger place in slc. cheddaburger. some of these burgers included fried eggs, marshmallows, and basically any other ingredient you can think of. also, their shakes. there are such things as nutella shakes !! so as you can imagine, our stomachs were full by the end of this stop.

  lastly, we made a stop at our favorite store: trader joe's. my personal favorite thing to get here is the mochi ice cream. this is ice cream rolled into a ball covered in a rice sweet dough and covered in flour, and then frozen. other roommate favorite snacks include: dried sugar coated mangos, kettle corn, and chocolate covered almonds.

  this day to salt lake city was definitely one of my favorite times so far with my roommates. i find it so sad to only have 48 more days with them, but i'm excited for the times after the missions and the weddings and all the great times before we each leave. i love these girls so much.

Washington DC

     this past week i was able to visit america's capitol, Washington DC. i went only with my two parentals and we left for maryland at 5 in the morning and arrived around 4 pm. we quickly hit the aviation and space museum located right next to the dolles airport. after getting our rental car for the week we headed straight for the museum. the museum closed at 6:30 and we didn't arrive until 5:30 so we had limited time to see everything before it closed. naturally i started snapping pictures the minute we walked in. and WOW what a museum, i was blown away. planes as old as the 1900's to new space shuttles filled the rooms.

     after the museum we went and checked into our hotel in downtown DC. once we were all settled, we knew it was time for us to eat. i suggested (a fan favorite) cheesecake factory. we stuffed our faces w/ food & cake and then soon started back to the hotel.

     the next day we woke up early in the morning and headed to g. washington's house at mount vernon. this incredible experienced opened my eyes on how people back in the day lived and went about things in life w/out technology & normal appliances. g. washington was such an inspiring man who had so many hopes & dreams for our nation. he was a humble man and never let the power get to him.

     later that night we decided it would be a genius idea to go to sprinkles cupcake in georgetown. wellll we got there and asked what cupcakes remained, and they informed us that the only cupcakes left were gluten free & vegan, so we quickly vetoed that idea, & went to georgetown cupcakes (aka DC cupcakes) we each grabbed our favorite flavors after waiting an hour in line, & then headed back to the hotel to eat our delicious treats & to watch the olympics. (s/o to michael phelps)

     the next day we woke up early in the morning again & began a long road trip to monticello virginia. on the way there we stopped at an lds church and attended a ward in charlottesville. we quickly got back in the car after sacrament meeting and got to monticello. monticello has thomas jefferson's home in their little city. it was blistering hot, but luckily they had just added air conditioning units into thomas jefferson's humble abode. we saw where he lived, where the slaves worked, and things that the people in that time era would do for entertainment. we didn't get home till 7-ish from monticello so we decided to stay in & to watch the olympics while eating our second helping of georgetown cupcakes from the previous night.

    on the third day, we woke up around 7 am and quickly got ready for our tour of the united states capitol building. we scheduled a tour through our senate and got a VIP tour with a intern from university of utah. when we met the rest of our tour guide group we ended up being with a girl (and her family) that i had met on instagram because she had recently been called to my mission! we freaked out and got to tour the whole capitol together! it was such a tender mercy being able to meet someone going to my mission before i got to the mission.

         

    then after the capitol we took an uber over to the holocaust museum. what an amazing & humbling experience i have ever had. i got to see a little glimpse of what life was life during the wwII era. i was in complete disgust w/ the nazis and the lifestyle that was lived then. i'm so grateful for the end of the evil power hitler possessed. many tears were shed through this museum, but i have a heart full for the people of germany.

    the following day me & my mother decided we wanted to sleep in while dad went to business meetings. our day consisted of sight seeing & touristy travels. we went all over DC from the museum of natural history to the abraham lincoln memorial. we took tons of pictures and lived off of ice cream cookie sandwiches. yum. my favorite museum was the museum of natural history by far. i loved this stop because i loved learning about the heritage and innovations of our ancestors. the way people lived in the 50's excites me so much. the inventions our founding fathers came up with to the iphone steve jobs created, all of it is thrilling.

    our last day was jam packed with traveling. we got up early in the morning to try and go see the money museum, but w/ no luck we missed our chance. so we ended up just taking some cute pictures. we then had to call an uber to take us back to the airport. our plane ride to slc was a bit chaotic. we hit turbulence coming into the slc valley, and almost couldn't land at the slc airport. the pilot informed us we would be circling for awhile and that due to the turbulence it was going to be a bumpy ride. he sure wasn't lying! we landed safely after an hour of trying to land, we finally made it safely.

     this trip opened my eyes to the history and heritage of america. my love for this country continues to grow and will always because of the sacrifice of my founding fathers. i love america and i loved going to DC. this trip will always be a special one in my heart.