Finals Have Started and a Great Easter Sunday

Happy Easter! This past week has been really good. My last day of classes was on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were reading days, and finals started on Friday! I went to several reviews during reading days and spent most of my days studying, though I did get to take some breaks to hang out with Grant and do stuff with Amelia and Meredith.

On Friday morning, I took my Book of Mormon final. It was really easy and only took me about 15 minutes! That afternoon, I took my Physical Science final at the Smith Fieldhouse. It was not quite as easy...but it went really well. On Saturday morning, I took the Spanish 321 final, which went well. So three of my four finals (not including a Writing presentation) are successfully done! My last one is World Civilizations to 1500 and it is going to be a frickin' beast. I'm waiting to take that until Wednesday so I can study my brains out until then. And on Tuesday, I am turning in a paper for Writing and giving a group presentation. Finals are over on Wednesday, so I'll start packing and cleaning, and I will be back in Laramie on Saturday, April 26!

Today was such a great Easter Sunday. Church was incredible and I felt so uplifted by the testimonies and messages that were shared today. I'm grateful for the chance we have to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the message of hope that it brings. I really like this video by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and think it has a great message for this Easter Sunday: https://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#none-were-with-him
Here's a picture of us after church:

 Amber, me, Amelia, Meredith, and Natalie:

Also, Meredith, Amelia, and I decided to go for a walk after church because it is such a beautiful day. We walked down to the duck pond on campus by way of a gorgeous and charming stone pathway with a stream running by, small waterfalls, and beautiful flowers everywhere! I fell in love with it, and luckily, it is very close to where we'll be living in the fall. At the duck pond, we saw awkward mating turtles that we decided were breaking the Honor Code. But we also saw the most adorable baby ducklings ever! It was such a fun and relaxing walk. :)

I hope everyone is having a beautiful Easter! :)

Update -- sorry I'm such a slacker

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long! It's been a crazy and busy couple of weeks and I haven't taken any pictures, so I'm just going to briefly sum up recent events.

Last weekend, I met Mom, Dad, and Josh in Salt Lake, where we went to the Saturday afternoon session of conference together in the Conference Center. We had a great dinner together and then Mom and I had a girls' shopping spree while the boys went to the Priesthood session. Afterwards, we had pie at Village Inn. I said goodbye to them and drove to Murray (only about 15 minutes away) to stay at Grant's sister's house with him. We spent the night there and then watched both sessions of conference on Sunday with his sister Monica, her husband Thomas, his brother Brian and his wife Aubree. Thomas and Monica made us a delicious breakfast and dinner, and we had a good time with them. We headed back to Provo around 6:00 pm.

Other than that, things have been fairly normal in terms of classes and everything. My last day of classes is on Tuesday, and then I have Wednesday and Thursday off as "reading days." Final exams start on Friday and go until Wednesday, April 23. I'm planning on driving back to Laramie on Saturday, April 26 or maybe sooner, depending on how things work out.

I can't believe my freshman year is almost over! It has gone by so fast. It has been an amazing experience for me overall and I feel like I've grown a lot in so many ways. I'm very grateful that I decided to come to BYU; even though it was hard for me to move away from my family, it was definitely the right decision and Provo is the place I need to be. I am so thankful for the people I've met here and the friends I've made. However, I am also super excited to be coming home to Laramie for the summer, to spend time with the people I love most. :)

Fun week

On Wednesday this past week, Grant and I went to Spanish class in the afternoon as we always do. My teacher always asks for "juicy news," and on Wednesday she asked Grant if he had any. He said that he had two dates for Friday with the same girl. Pretty much the whole class knew he was talking about me, so they jokingly asked "Who is she?" Grant said "una chica muy especial." :) Then, two people who definitely know we're dating kept pressuring Grant and asking what "her" name was, but he managed to ignore them. Then Sister Deaton (our teacher) told him that he should bring "her" to class sometime, and he said "I already did!" She asked when, and he said "Every day." By then, everyone in the class was pointing at me, and Sister Deaton finally figured it out. She gasped and said "Amy! You lied to me! We need to talk!" She also said, "Amy, I have power over him. If he behaves badly, I can give him an F." It was super funny.

On Friday, Grant and I went to something called Comedy Sportz with his roommate Reuben and his date. It's basically a show with improv comedy, and there are two teams that compete against each other to be funnier. It was HILARIOUS. The show went until about 12:30, so we called it a night after that. 

On Saturday, Grant and I went to D.I. together to buy some old, cheap clothes that we could get ruined. We went to the Festival of Colors that afternoon with a few of Grant's friends from his ward. The festival takes place at the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork (about a 20 minute drive away). We had to wear old clothes because the festival consists of tons of people throwing chalk at each other. At one point, we were part of a jumping and dancing mosh pit and we got owned by chalk -- you'll see in the pictures :)

 Rose and Taylor (a couple from Grant's ward) and Grant and me:

 Ash, Sarah, Amber, Maddie, Grant, and me (they are all in Grant's ward, too):

 Rose, Taylor, Grant, and me again:

We had tons of fun at the Festival of Colors (or FOC, as Grant called it :)

When we were walking back from the festival, a young boy told me "Stay beautiful, ma'am!" Haha I thought it was a cute compliment. When we got back around 6 pm, I watched the General Women's Meeting with Amelia and Meredith. They both stared at me like deer in the headlights when they saw how covered in chalk I was. 

Today I went to church, where we had a testimony meeting that was really uplifting. And tonight at midnight I register for my fall classes! Hope everyone had a great week!

Visit from the family!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long, but I had a good reason: Mom, Dad, and Josh came to visit me for their spring break! They got to Provo in the evening of March 14, so I met them at their hotel. We went to Krispy Kreme and got fresh donuts straight off the conveyor belt, went swimming, talked, and then I went back to my dorm to go to bed.
On Saturday, they picked me up and we went to take a tour of campus. We visited the Eyring Science Center, the library (Josh wanted to look at science books), and then we went to the Wilk to play pool in the basement. At 12, we left to pick up Grant from his apartment. We took him to lunch with us at Olive Garden and it was a lot of fun! He got along really well with everyone and we had a fun conversation. Plus, he told Mom and Dad that "Amy is a wonderful girl," which made me happy :) After lunch, we dropped him off and drove to Salt Lake to visit the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. It sounded really cool, as it has a bunch of religious documents from 2000 BC, but it turned out to be pretty dang boring. Josh and I were counting the seconds until we could escape, and even Dad admitted that he was bored. We drove back to Provo afterwards and had a delicious dinner at Cafe Rio, then we played some more pool and ping-pong in the Wilk. After that, we swam at the hotel and then called it a night.
The next morning, I had to play the piano in sacrament meeting, so Mom, Dad, and Josh met me in the JKB for church. They came to Amelia's Sunday School lesson with me and went to Relief Society and Elders Quorum as well. After church, we had lunch in the Cannon center and then spent the afternoon relaxing on a blanket outside because the weather was beautiful. We read books and talked. We ate dinner at IHOP and then they dropped me off at the dorms so I could spend some time with Grant. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures the first weekend they were here, so stay tuned for pictures coming later in the post ;)

The next morning, they flew to Arizona to spend the week there while I was in classes. I had three midterms (Physical Science, World Civilizations, and Book of Mormon) that week, so I spent a lot of time studying and keeping up with my usual homework as well as spending time with Grant and my other friends! The week flew by. The highlight was Friday night: Grant and I drove down to Ogden around 6:30 in order to get there for a comedy show at 8. We decided to go to this show because it was featuring an absolutely hilarious LDS guy named Steve Soelberg who performed at a Humor U show we went to a few weeks ago. The show was so funny! Also, it was fun to be able to talk to Grant during the drive.
Here are Grant and I after the comedy show:

On Saturday around noon, Mom, Dad, and Josh got back in town, so I met them at the P.F. Chang's in the Orem mall, where we had a great lunch. It was fun to catch up with them about their week! After lunch, we went up on campus again to explore the library and play some more pool and ping-pong. Later that afternoon, we went to the Sacred Gifts exhibit at the MOA on campus, which has beautiful paintings of Jesus Christ's life by Carl Bloch and two other amazing artists. We ate dinner at Brick Oven that night, and we swung by Grant's apartment afterwards to donate our leftovers to poor, starving college students (him and his roommate Reuben). :)
Here we are at Brick Oven:

Here are some other pictures of the four of us from that day:

 After dinner, we went to BYU's production of Pride & Prejudice, the play. It was two and a half hours long, and I'll admit that it was slightly boring. Josh kept asking me in Spanish to kill him during the play. Poor Dad and Josh -- they were good sports to go see that with me and Mom. After the play, they headed back to the hotel and I hung out with Grant.

On Sunday, they picked me up and we went to my ward together. After church, we checked out of their hotel, ate at the Cannon center, and sat in my building's lobby, reading books and talking. We took a short drive around Provo to see the new temple that's being built and the apartment I'll be living at in the fall. At 4, I said goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Josh, and they drove to the airport. I am so grateful that they came to visit me! It is always so fun to spend time with them. They are three of the most incredible people in the whole world and I love them with all my heart :)

Another good week

Since I didn't blog last week, I should probably catch up. It was a fairly normal week for the most part. Here are some of my favorite parts:
When I went to buy some food at Taco Bell for lunch one day, I was waiting in line when I noticed one of the workers staring at me. We made eye contact and he raised his eyebrows at me, then he started walking over. I went up to the register because I thought he was going to ring me up, but he said "Oh, I'm not doing the register, I just wanted to tell you that you are beautiful!" I love getting random compliments and it totally made my day.
On Friday (Feb 28th), Grant and I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the dollar theater. We ended up hanging out until about 2 am, then he walked me home. It was POURING rain, so we ran around in the rain together and got soaked. It was like a dream come true for me since I love rain (plus rain happens to be super romantic). It was so fun. :)

As for this past week, it's been pretty normal too. For FHE on Monday, we played volleyball on some sand courts here at Helaman halls, but the sand was absolutely freezing. We all thought our feet would go numb at some point but they never did, so we were in pain the whole time. It was fun though. That night, Amelia, Meredith, and I made fools out of ourselves by going to the Creamery in pajamas and buying french toast at 10 pm. We had a blast but we also got some weird looks!

Here we are with our french toast:

On Tuesday, we went to Cold Stone for dessert and it was super delicious! The rest of the week mostly consisted of studying Spanish with Grant every night, doing homework, and other random stuff. On Friday night, Grant and I had a "date night" that included studying for our Spanish test with Martinellis (the sparkling apple cider stuff) and strawberry puffs. I took the test on Saturday and it went super well.

On Saturday night, Grant and I went on a double date with his buddy from back home and a girl he works with (he set the two of them up on a blind date). The four of us went to a Humor U show and then got some ice cream. Then Grant and I said goodbye to them and watched a movie called Rudy. Amelia and Meredith had gone to a dance that night and Amelia met a cute boy there. He invited her to hike the Y after the dance, so she was gone super late and I had to stay up to let her into the building (she had left her ID card in our room and you need it to get into Hinckley after midnight). So we didn't go to sleep until 3:30 am (stupid daylight savings) and had to wake up 4 hours later for church. We're exhausted! But we both had a good weekend.

Since I spend the majority of my time with Grant, I figured I should probably post some pictures of us.

Here's what we do when we get bored of studying in the library:

I hope everyone has a great week! :)

Schoolwork, housing, and a Jazz game

This week has been pretty normal for the most part, and I've been busy with a lot of schoolwork. We had our second midterm in Spanish, which Grant and I studied a lot for. It went really well for both of us (though I did beat him on the test ;). I went to the basketball game on Thursday night with Lauren and Amelia, but I didn't take any pictures. However, the Cougars played Gonzaga (the #25 team in the nation) and won! It was a great game! We had to get there two hours early to get seats in the student section. The whole Marriott center was packed and riled up :)

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:20 am to get to Monticello apartments by 5 am with my friends. We decided that we want to live there, and the new tenant signings were at 9 am. It's very competitive to get into Monticello, which is why we decided to get there so early. Lots of people even camped out! I went with Amelia, Meredith, Mikayla, and Lauren. We waited in the cold for four hours until they started the signings, then finally signed our contracts by 11. Amelia, Meredith, and I are sharing an apartment with one other random girl in the fall, and Mikayla and Lauren are sharing the apartment next door, since they are staying for spring and summer also. Monticello seems like a great place to live, and we're really excited about it! It's also a relief to have that huge decision made and out of the way for a while.

When we got back from Monticello, we took a 3-hour nap, due to the fact that we had gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before. After my nap, I showered and got ready, then went to pick up Grant. We drove to Salt Lake, where we went to his older sister Monica's house and I met her and her husband, Thomas, for the first time. Grant's brother Brian and sister-in-law Aubree were also there, but I had met them before. We ate dinner together and then went to the Jazz game, which we unfortunately lost. It was a fun time even though I was really nervous :) We got back to Provo by about 10:30.

This is Aubree, Brian (Grant's brother), Thomas, Monica (Grant's sister), Grant, and me at the Jazz game:

It's been a fun week! I have a couple of midterms coming up and some papers due, so this week will be pretty busy. I hope everyone's doing well! :)

Pictures, as promised

Here are the pictures of me and Grant at Big Band Night :)

(I don't like this one as much because I didn't realize how awkward my hand looked)