If you were Emily in Utah... This is what your house would look like!

I am very quickly coming to the close of my third week here in Provo, UT and I realized that I have not written anything about what I am doing! How rude of me?! It was a beautiful rainy day today and I felt suddenly inspired to write... or rather, to take pictures. I love how everything smells so clean and earthy after it rains. I love the rain! Anyway, I went outside and walked around my little bubble and took some pictures of what I look at everyday.

The mountains were just too pretty to resist taking some pictures of them.


This is 800 N heading east. (Like how I can now tell which direction I am actually going?)This is the way I usually walk to campus in the morning.

This is my beautiful 4-plex.

My bedroom window...

We have the only white door :) Yeah that is what I call being a rebel. haha

Oh wait! Kassandra is leaving for her work interview at the farmer's market place thingy...

Good Luck! Bring home the bacon Baby! haha Literally... she applied to work the meat counter.


Welcome to our common room! Please don't mind that it is a little messy. Everyone just got home and left again for night classes and work. I promise it does not usually look like this Mom :)



At the moment, we have a lovely sculpture. It is Chelsea's green Schwinn that is waiting 'til the snow melt to get back out in the sun.

Here are only some of my books on the bookshelf because the majority of them are always in my backpack :(


The Kitchen...



There are still some things left over from the girls that Kassi and I bought our contracts from.


Now we will go downstairs to my bedroom.

At the end of the hall at the bottom of the stairs there are storage cupboards that contain very little except for things like our irons and my extra towels and blankets.

Entering through the door immediately to the left of the cupboard will lead you into the room I share with Kassi.

This is my sweet bed in my sweet room. When I first got here the beds were bunked but things did not stay that way very long. We are both grateful that neither of us have to climb up or have someone climb up over them each night.

I get all of the drawers to myself! Isn't it magical? :)

My bed again with all of my pillows :) and my nightstand of course with my essentials and mini pharmacy.

This is the view from my window.


OH MY!!! Look out for the infamous bathroom door knob. Everyone new to the apartment has issues with opening this door after locking it because you have to push it back in as you twist it to unlock it before you can twist to open it. Everyone who lives here has it pretty much down with the exception of late at night or very early in the morning when brain processes and reflexes are slowed down significantly. Kassi, however, would fall under the "has troubles getting out of the bathroom" group. I love to hear the door knob twist again and again and again and then a growl and finally to hear the door open and Kassi can escape. I tease her that she should keep her phone on her just in case she gets trapped and I have to come back from school to free her. She is such a good sport about it and has not had an incident recently until I was in our room taking pictures and she was trying to get it unlocked. I am so happy she reminded me of our favorite part of our little home so I could capture a picture of it for our posterity.

Our bathroom is really large and has tons of counter and storage space but then again it serves 5 women so I'd hope it does.


Can you guess which drawer is mine?

It helps to have the extra mirrors with so many girls in the bathroom on Sunday mornings.

My corner of the shower...

I am currently sharing my real estate with Kassandra's shampoo and conditioner.

Here is my side of the towel rack with my beautiful purple towel! You may be asking yourself "Why do they have two chairs in the bathroom?" Well the answer is simple... because we love to have parties in the bathroom and hang out for hours :) Ok the real reason they are in there is because we had no other place to stick two chairs than in the bathroom. It is kinda nice when we have stuff because then we have another place to put it other than on the counters or floor.

Here are my lovely two shelves in the mirrored vanity over the sinks.

My towels again :)

The stairs going back up to the common room...

And once up the stairs our tour is complete!


But now we have come to the most important part! The presentation of the roommates!
(These pictures have bee brought to you by the BYU 26th Ward Directory...)

Here we all are! My don't we look like an apartment of pleasant women. I personally think that we would win for the best looking apartment full of women but don't let it get out. People are already jealous of us ;)

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my current residence. Well I must go do my homework because I have put if off long enough and would like to get to bed before midnight!

High School Never Ends

I used to think that if I had to go back to high school, that I would make it through better than I did before because of whom I am now. I am stronger than I was and know who I am. Time plays tricks on the mind that cannot be denied or avoided. I may be different now but I still remember that girl that I was back then. Her voice still rings in my head at times and I have to banish her to the past and focus on the present. Perhaps I was braver then… smarter then.

I never actually thought I would see her again or would have to go back to high school but here I am at Brigham Young University and in the midst of it. I never had that time to be a young adult and goof off and take classes just because I thought it would be easy of fun. Ever since graduation I have had goals and they have driven me from day to day. At first, it was just to wake up each morning. Next, it was to stand and then to walk and then run. Then it was school; West Valley, transfer and now BYU. My next goal is graduate school. Of course I need to get married and have a family… I have no idea where that fits in… I have little to no control over that so I will push that into the back of my mind for an easier time. I am not like the rest of the people I am surrounded by. I feel as though I need to be done with this part of my life because I don’t belong here. I belong with the rest of the ‘adults’ but am prevented from being there. It is so frustrating. Perhaps that is why I am here. Maybe I need to learn how to be young again. I need to learn to love and life freely without constant fears of being hurt and left. Is that why I am here?

So my point was that BYU is no different than high school. There were all of the same people and cliques that there once were. People are who they are. Some are still out to damage others to build themselves up and others have grown and developed voices to stand up and speak for themselves. Bowling for Soup had it right when they sang that high school never ends. Even the world is another larger high school with all of the same people I have dealt with my entire life. Don't get me wrong because I am very happy to be here. I just idealized the people that I thought I would meet. I am far from perfect and do not want to judge and yet here I am doing it. Nothing changes but me and that is all I can change. I need to remember who I am and how hard I fought to get here. Every tear, every drop of blood and sweat got me here and I am not ready to turn back even though I really think I want to.

Vincent Van Gogh said “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” What more can I say?

I know this is where I am supposed to be. This is where the Lord wants me to be so I will be here and learn as much as I can so when the time comes for me to leave I can with confidence and feeling complete.

If someday, someone asks me if I would redo college if I was given the chance, would I? I pray that I will not feel the same way as I used to feel about high school and will say that there is no need to go back because I did it the best I could the first time.

So Mr. Van Gogh, I will paint. I will paint and even when things look like they are a mess made by a 5 year old, I will hold my head up high and know that it is mine and be proud because at least I tried : )