2012 In Review...

Things I did and learned this year...

TRIPS I TOOK:

- Went to California with Jake, Anna, and Nick

- Family trip to Florida and cruise to Bahamas, St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Maartin

- Road trip to Wyoming

RACES I COMPETED IN:

- Herriman Triathlon (placed 3rd!)

- Cahoots Duo Challenge

BOOKS I READ:

- Ender's Game

- The Princess Bride

- In Praise of Idleness - Bertrand Russell

- The Hunger Games Series

- Started a book club

SCHOOL AND DESIGN THINGS:

- Designed homes for people of Haiti

- Reupholstered a chair for charity
- Volunteered at the boys and girls club
- Attended a Fashion Show

- Designed Tibbitt's Family Pharmacy
- Designed picture wall for my mom and my aunts

NEW SKILLS I LEARNED:
- Long-boarding
- Paddleboarding

- More rock climbing

- Started learning to play the guitar
- Snowboarding

- Took Scuba diving lessons with Jake
- Slacklining
- Indoor surfing

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

- Attended my first Real Salt Lake game

- Voted in my first presidential election

- Kayaked across Utah Lake

- Moved into a new apartment

- Joined the WSU Triathlon Club

- Got a 0.52 cent raise at work!

- Had my own Thanksgiving Dinner with Jake

- Slept in a cave during a thunderstorm

- Went to my first bar and my first club

- Watched a lot of UFC fights with Jake

- Midnight hottubbing

- Completed the P90X Challenge with Jake

- Continued to spend time with this boy - and we celebrated our one-year anniversary of dating :-)

I'd say it has been an excellent year! I learned a lot of new things, had a lot of fun adventures, and loved spending time with Jake. Looking forward to the exciting things to come this next year :-)

Memes...

Memes... the new fad. I haven't really been a big fan. Probably because Jeremy feels the need to share a hundred with me every time he sees me. I finally gave him a quota of five per day because I just go so sick of them. But then Jake made one up that I could relate to, so...

I made my first meme! No insult intended, just the funny truth. It's always January and February that I can't find an open treadmill at the gym. Come March things are usually back to normal, but it's the first little bit that can be quite frustrating. Therefore, all use consistent gym users must "brace ourselves"...

Mom's Christmas Gift

For my mom's Christmas gift, I made a photobook of our cruise through Shutterfly.com

I wouldn't say it was the easiest program to work with, but I was satisfied with how it turned out. Take a look and tell me what you think :-)

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

Zoo Lights...

Instead of seeing the typical "Lights on Temple Square" that all the other million Utah's go see during December, Jake and I decided to see the Zoo Lights at Hogle Zoo. They were fun! Seeing the animals was fun too. The hallway of lights was definitely our favorite part...

Dinner for Two...

Jake and I had Thanksgiving dinner together, just the two of us. Neither of us are particularly fond of the idea  that Thanksgiving is centered around food (most of which is relatively unhealthy), and being the health nuts that we are, we found our own focus. We did a 4.2 miles run together down by the river and then had a light dinner complete with a healthy salad, steamed beans, and some chicken. We kept it light because we still had to save room for a little dessert with my family. It was nice to have a simple meal with Jake and talk about the different things that we're grateful for. It was also nice to see so many members of my extended family that I haven't seen in the longest time!

 Here are a couple pictures of the table arrangement I put together. I only bought new dishes, the rest I borrowed from my room and trees outside. And the dishes were only 2 bucks a piece! Score.

I think it turned out rather nicely :-)

Late Night Fondue...

Jake and I spend a lot of time together late at night. Usually we're just working on projects - Kyra on homework (no surprise there) and Jake on his own personal projects. We sit on the couch together, or across the table from each other, and occasionally exchange smiles in each other's direction. Romantic, eh?

Sometimes we get hungry though... and sometimes our desire for healthy food gets pushed aside as a longing for chocolate slowly creeps in. And because of that, we compromise...

Say hello to our midnight snack two nights in a row. Chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and pretzels. Quite delicious and surprisingly low on the calorie count. Definitely not something I should get used to...

Halloween Milestones...

Fun Halloween activities that Jake and I enjoyed included...

 Painting a pumpkin together. One pumpkin, each of us on either side of the table. After a few minutes, we turned the pumpkin around to see what each other had drawn. Can you guess who's side is who's?

On Halloween night we drove up to Logan to hang out with our friends Dan and Sharli. Jake and I put our awesome hunger games costumes to good use and dressed up as Peeta and Katniss in their training uniforms.

We tried to take a serious photo but of course I did nothing but smile and laugh because no matter how hard I try I will never be able to hold a straight face when I want to. Regardless, I'm loving this candid shot of us laughing at each other. 

And of course we had to play the archery game on the Wii to see if I really fit the part of Katniss... turns out Peeta and Indiana Jones (Dan) did much better than I did. It was a fun night!

The best part? Halloween is Jake and my one year of dating anniversary :-) (our first date was back in August, but we didn't go on a second date until October). Now of course I was thinking about this all day, remembering how last year Halloween was our second date but our first kiss, but at the same time, I know that girls are generally the ones to remember dates like this and guys find it silly. So I didn't ever bring it up - not expecting him to remember or planning to be disappointed when he didn't remember, I just chose to enjoy the day with him and not worry about it. But then he ended up surprising me. We made it back to my apartment late...2:45am late. He said he wanted to run and pick up something to eat and I decided to get ready for bed. When he got back, he came and got me out of my room and had a beautiful rose, a lit candle, and chocolate covered goodies set out on the table :-) It was absolutely adorable! Jake is sooo incredibly sweet and I'm so excited that we have been dating for a year! I love all the time I get to spend with him!

Slacklining and Hiking...

Ever heard of slacklining? It's one of those things that Jake and his friends do together but just recently did I learn what it was. Don't tell any slackliners that I said this, but it's the same idea as tight rope walking. Although if you call it that you'll offend a lot of guys. Apparently a lot of people use it for meditation and stress relief. Basically we just tied some webbing between two trees and did our best to walk across (don't worry, we protected the trees first).  

 Jake can make it all the way across, turn around in the middle, and is working on being able to lie down.

I barely made it halfway. It's tough! But it was a fun challenge. 

And one more fun activity we did recently. Jake and I hiked the "Y" down in Provo. Even though I went to BYU for a little bit, I never went on this popular hike, so Jake and I decided to do it together. It's a short but very steep hike and the view is gorgeous!

Fall Football...

Jake and I enjoyed the BYU vs. Utah State football game last weekend :-) It was fun to see how "excited" fans got - Jake and I had a hard time not laughing at some of the comments we heard. And here is a lovely picture of the two of us at half time...

New Home...

I moved up to Ogden last week to be closer to school and work. The 3 minutes commute to class (15 if I'm walking) and 8 minute commute to work is absolutely divine! This is my cute little house...

Isn't is just so quaint?! I have one roommate, her name is Madi - she's been great! We each have our own room and lots of empty space. I'll take you on a quick walk through...

This is our very empty front room. I will eventually buy some furniture for here, but I spent enough on my own room this month so it will just have to wait. Also, be prepared for very barren walls... art needs to be purchased.

Next we have our nice white kitchen complete with empty cupboards. Madi and I really only use 2 cupboards and 3 drawers... Our old wooden table is behind me in this picture as well as a washer and dryer! Right on site! Hoorah!

 Here we have our newly remodeled bathroom. It's actually quite nice. My only complains are the nonexistent counter top (how is a girl suppose to get ready?? although this does help keep it clean... hmm...) and the fact that the fan turns on when the light turns on. I've never quite understood why someone would think this was a good idea. The bathroom is not only for the use of the toilet.

I don't have a picture of Madi's room so I will just move on to mine. First we have the before pictures. Notice the lovely blue green carpet... (it's not quite as bad in the pictures)

And of course, my favorite: peach and green wallpaper chair rail...

I HAD to come up with a way to cover this up - without clashing with the carpet. So this is what I did...

You will have to image the colors a little bit better than this pictures portrays. I used a blue-green slate for the wall fabric, chocolate brown for the bed, and rust accents on the shelves and pillows. A few things you will have to overlook: the throw is suppose to match but doesn't right now, the unpainted side of the bookshelf (I may get around to this, I may not), and the missing art. The plan was to have three pieces of artwork hanging above the bed on top of the fabric so as not to overwhelm anyone with fabric everywhere, but it turns out the off center window I was covering up (yes, there is a window hidden behind all that) got in the way of picture hanging. I'm now in the process of looking for a new piece of art. Aside from that... what do you think? Much better than the chair rail, for sure!

I love this cute new home and already feel so comfortable in it! You will have to stop by sometime and visit me, but plan on a lack of seating for awhile ;-)

Leonardo and Deep Fried Twinkies...

On Friday, Jake and I explored The Leonardo; a contemporary science and art museum in Salt Lake, right next to the library. We've been wanting to find a fun museum in Salt Lake (our half-way point) to explore and this one was definitely a good choice. After enjoying the contemporary art and installations, we wandered over to the science side...

We had a lot of fun in this area as the camera picked up on our movements and reflected them as a skeleton on the computer.

One of the greatest pieces of art we saw was a wall of photos where people recreated pictures of themselves from the past. See exhibit A below.

Sooo funny. This one was one of the best. Jake and I may try this sometime with some old photos from our childhood... stayed tuned.

On Saturday we went on a double date with Jeff and Katy. Jake's first time at a State Fair. He was so excited to try the famous deep fried Twinkies. We tried a deep fried Snickers instead - not too bad actually (taste wise, that is. Definitely very 'bad' in the health aspect I'm sure). We had a fun time exploring and playing some of the games and we finally have another picture together! Yeah us!

White Rock...

Another rock climbing / rappelling extravaganza. We went out to White Rocks on the Dugway proving grounds (ya, we're probably getting radiation poisoning or something...). We climbed up the cliff about 200 feet and slept under a cliff overhang.

Of course we chose the weekend of the big thunderstorm that hit Utah - I heard there was golf ball sized hail in Davis county. We experienced the lightning closer than I've ever been. So close, in fact, that we couldn't see the "strikes" of lighting, or a flash of light in the sky. So close that our entire field of vision went stark white and we couldn't see for a moment afterwards. So close that the lighting and the thunder were instantaneous and shock the ground and the rock above use. So close that Jake was afraid we were going to get struck.

The next morning the weather was absolutely perfect. Here's the awesome group getting ready to head down (aside from Christin and I).

If you want to see a fun video compilation of our pictures and videos, click on this link Rappelling Trip

Here We Go...

Tomorrow begins the first day of the last year of my education. I start my senior year for my bachelor's degree. This time next year I will be done with college and working at an architecture firm in Salt Lake City (this is what I keep telling myself until it happens).

I'm nervous. I don't know what to do with myself. The senior year in the interior design program is intense. All I've heard from past students are horror stories, and yet I'm jumping in with both feet; and then some.

For the last couple of weeks I've been exciting and nervous all at the same time and it has caused some weird butterflies to fly inside. Regardless of how I feel - it all starts tomorrow. Deep breaths. I can do this. I can do this.

We're In Cahoots...

Jake and I competed in the Cahoots Duo Challenge last week (a 5k mud run with obstacles). It was a blast!

We decided to dress like the Hunger Games characters in training so we ordered these awesome shirts online - the same shirts Katniss and Peeta wore while training for the games. We figured since they won those games, our shirts might give us a little advantage to winning these games ;-)

A few of the obstacles included mud pits, balance beams, a 10 foot wall to climb over, tires to run through with your leg tied to your partner's, a cargo net to climb over, etc. You got more points for teamwork, costumes, and overall spirit.

Our absolute favorite obstacle... the zip-line. We stood in line long enough to watch 99% of people fail...

Most people looked like this...

And most didn't even make it halfway. But Jake and I? We rocked that zip-line! Even got an ovation at the end. 

Although the event wasn't organized super well, we enjoyed the challenge and the adventure together.

And we'll probably come back again next year - check out these stellar medals we got at the end! Ya, they are magnetic and attach to your partners. So sweet.

Paddle Boards...

There was a single's ward activity last weekend up at Bear Lake. Jake and I went... just not exactly with the ward. We decided that instead of waiting in a line of cars for an hour just to pay $5 to park, squish on one little beach, and hang out with awkward single's (those whose reasons for being single are easily determined), we would enjoy the lake on our own terms...

So we went paddle boarding! :-) It was crazy fun! I did fall off once on account of high winds and waves, but I eventually got the hang of it. The best part? Learning how to dive! I've never been able to, and now that I'm 21 I'm embarrassed to learn - especially in a pool where other people can watch an awkward adult dive into a pool from her knees. A few weeks ago Jake and I had Dan and Sharli's pool all to ourselves and he took the opportunity to give me a few small knee dive lessons. It took a lot of convincing on his part because I was sure he would laugh at me and I was already embarrassed. Jake was very patient and did a very good job treating me like he probably did the three year old he taught in swim lessons ;-) 

Jake was very excited for me to have the chance to dive off a paddle board and it turns out it wasn't as difficult as I thought! He said I looked great!

If you're also having trouble diving, think of it as a handstand. That was the best advice I've ever received. **Thank you, Jake!**

Jake also fell once - however he deleted the incredible falling picture that I snagged and sent me this one instead. I guess it hurt his pride a little bit (pardon my finger in the way).

And finally we have another picture of us together! I think that brings us to a grand total of four after almost a year of dating... We're pathetic. 

We also sat on the beach and enjoyed Jake's lovely sunburn from last week's lake activity. It was another wonderful weekend spend with a wonderful boy :-)