Happy.

Let me tell you how my week started: poorly. I had to pre-catch up on so much school and try to stay sane with all the stuff I'd be missing for three days. Also I was in charge of a big activity on Friday for Institute. And then I got locked out of my room and tried to pick the lock until my fingers were bleeding at 3am. And then wake up, pack super fast, and drive eight (8) hours north to Provo. Where my car then broke down. And I stayed up late doing more homework because there's no such thing as vacation in grad school. (Also unrelated to the bad news, I went on a date with a friend and it was chill.)

Ben's 7-layer ice cream cake. 

A hefty lecture.

Luckily, Ben and Joy are as hospitable as ever. Ben cooked steaks and molded an ice cream cake for E's birthday. Lauren came over to remind Zach of all his quotes and then get wrecked by Grampy for not being married yet. David kept giving me weeny weapons to "defend" myself against his nerf machine guns.

I love this girl. 

The REAL star of the show. 

After getting my car towed to the shop, Greg asked me to emcee his wedding but also to be "tender". Which is a word I would never use to describe myself ever. So instead of trying to insert tenderness, I just took out most of the jokes. Ol' deek stole the show with his standup. And the food was also good.

How she stylin' like that.

The missionaries. 

We hung out at the temple. Elder Hutchins (the most recent) broke out of the MTC with his comp - and we were under orders to make sure he felt just as welcome as the Trevmeister did. Naturally, we mobbed the comp and left T Sizzle in the dust. Sucker.

The fam. 

Hannah's got the butt!

Watch out: the girls are getting fun. Slowly.

Keepin it lit. 

They got married. And we took pictures. And I got my car back (thank$ dadso). And we partied it up at the reception, stealing grapes off the vine and cobbler off the tables. Apparently I was also in charge of moving things along here, but nobody knew. Surprises all around.

Moriah. Grace. Hutchins.

Gotta make sure you see this smiling face at least once. 

Or twice. 

Or three times, because I love her. 

Photo: @Ben.

All day Friday, Derek kept reminding us that Greg had previously shared his location with him and so he knew they were only two miles away from Craig's "cabin". We played games. Xandino and I went adventuring sans permiso on the 4 wheeler. Deek and I explored the crawl space. I took a nap in the hammock. Moriah crushed at croquet. The Wildes came over and we had pizza.

P-A-R-T-Y

Chillin.

Moriah freaking killed this game.

Hannah and I spent a day in Provo before heading back. We visited Taylor, my old quidditch bud who's getting married soon. Then we crashed Hunter's date, ate his cinnamon rolls, and invited Joshie Boyy over to chill. Mom funded our lunch at Tucano's for Hannah's birthday and Mallory Layton joined us. Then we layed on the grass at the temple with Abby and Emarie (WHO'S PREGNANT!) and chatted for a while. Dinner was Zupa's, per Hannah's request, with Lauren. Then we went to Comedy Sportz, where I got in trouble for yelling inappropriate jokes. And Markies drove up to pick Hannah up because he missed her. Crazy kids. A lot of people I love.

She loved this attention.

He also loved this.

And the winner is

Well the good news, ladies and gents, is that I almost have friends who will play basketball with me. And it's only taken a month for them to add me to the group chat and then stand me up. BUT - the good news it that I had clinical practice (so freaking fun) with Jason and his injured friend who invited me to play ball with some of their guys Wednesday morning. Which will probably be better competition anyways.

Volleyball is heating up and has been super fun the last couple weeks. Usually for about the last hour, we only have enough for two teams and it's fairly competitive. I'm also on Val's PT student team for a community volleyball league, which should be pretty fun.

Note to self: bring gloves and thicker pants bc these rocks are hurty.

My group for FHE did a "service" scavenger hunt. I was unimpressed with the list items. Also the other team left in cars to accomplish the list that could easily be accomplished at the building. It was stuff like "give 5 compliments (10pts)" or "write a thank you note to the bishop (15pts)". I commandeered the group because I'm in it to win, and we stayed put. Everyone had assigned tasks. Upon closer examination, I found that the highest point offerings were from asking people out on dates (50pts). So I took one for the team and asked out 47 people (without discrimination). I only actually have to go out with three of them now, so I'mma take that as a win because my team ended with 2540 points, while the other team had under 400. Suckers.

Brandi and I went to two comedy shows from the Big Pine Festival. There were some semi-famous comedians there and a lot of encouragement to do drugs. My favorite parts were the ostrich facts and "if you can't have a peanut butter and jelly, you're basically in the Taliban".

NAU's freshman DPT class had our first actual exam on Friday and people were freaking out. I wasn't. But also, I have a pretty good schedule where I actually learn the material and can apply it appropriately vs. last minute cramming.

This is the princess. Almost on my level, but not.

I got a flyer in the mail from a car dealership that said I won a prize. I was hoping for the truck or the $7K, but I figured I'd take the bluetooth speaker at worst. So I showed up at the dealership and there were two other people holding the same flyer who had also won prizes. I waited with them until a lady came over asking if we'd been helped, and not waiting for someone else to take the lead, I told her we were waiting to collect our prizes. She took my flyer from me and as she was checking the code, said "By the way, we can only hand out two prizes today. What do you want?" And that's how I got my bluetooth speaker and booked it out of there so fast, leaving the other two to Hunger Games it.

I had options Friday night, but ended up hitting up both the PH activity (with burgers and men) AND the RS activity (with waffles, ice cream, and women). It was a good time and about all I had energy for.

Saturday was free national park day, so I took Brandi up to the Sunset Crater trails and we did some shooting for a music video in the "vastness" of the igneous rock. We also hit up our stake Native American cultural celebration - mostly for the free Navajo tacos, but we also enjoyed the show.

Shoot Fire Boy

Since all I do is school, this forum will be much less interesting for the next 2.5 years. I study all the time and sometimes I do homework or take tests. Riveting.

Nobody played basketball again on Monday, so I was mad. And I spent all Tuesday at volleyball recruiting. We should have numbers this week. But I did find a group that plays ball at the gym 11-1 every MWF, so depending on my clinicals, I should be able to make Wednesdays sometimes.

Also, volleyball this week was LIT. It was so good. The last hour we had 2 solid teams and some solid volleys and really close games. And hopefully I'm also joining my teacher's community volleyball team that plays on Wednesdays who are pretty competitive.

I went to a free movie with Brandi this week - Jurassic World. Soundtrack is pretty solid, the movie was expected. Also I broke the first chair I sat in at the theater, so the diet starts tomorrow.

I debuted the first track on my DPT rap album, "Wk On3", which was well-received. And one of my teachers volunteered to help us with a music video.

Most of the crew headed down to the valley for the weekend, so instead of dancing, I went hot tubbing at my complex (since I just found out we have one of those). And I met three guys who were trying to tell me all the cool things to do around here, which all involved finding bodies of water. Since they're from Arizona and those are rare.

Remember that time that I got tricked into going on a date with blonde Kylo Ren? Because that happened. The museum was fine; there was a sweet dinosaur exhibit that I was into. And we got Cafe Rio afterwards, so not a total loss.

Notice the water feature. 

Then I headed up the carpool to the Snowflake temple so we could do some work and then do some work. And by the latter, I mean clean. There were so many people there that it didn't take too long - and the coordinators were super grateful because they got the dates mixed up and had to send out a last-minute plea for help with little hope of response.

Brandi has been chatting up a kid on Mutual who happened to be in a wedding in the same town. So we met up with him and his friends at Sonic afterwards. I didn't understand half of what they were saying because they kept talking like super southerners, but I guess that's kind of how Brandi's people talk as well. She does come from a cattle farm. Although they use electric branders, so is it really legit?

I've Got A Good Feeling About This

These weeks are the longest of my life, but somehow I made it past the second of PT school. My FHE continued our survivor theme by having a cake decorating contest - in which I participated in the planning only, and then stole supplies from various tables and also one of my old lady friends gave me some pasta and rice.

I played volleyball and shot some hoops at the institute building. I worked out a good amount. I'm slowly getting a routine. I even tried getting a part-time job - with little success due to the need for extreme flexibility in my hours.

Look at this goddess; starting her first day of work!

My program threw a BBQ - during which I ate a ton and socialized for like 3 hours. THEN I went to a church activity where I won a free date to the Native American museum with a blonde version of Kylo Ren. THEN I went country dancing - which was 50% real dancing and I loved it. But I was so tired of people and being awake.

I did a lot of HW. Watched a lot of B99. I went solo to Solo - for free, with free popcorn and drinks. Hit up Stake Conf and the Face2Face event where I ate at least one slice of every pie/cake known to man. So all in all, not a bad week.

Week One Done, Hallelujah.

It took me three days to get over my intense rage about being back in school with no money in this backwoods town in a freshman ward. I'm mostly okay about it. My best friends in the ward are the bishopric and service missionaries and I'm really good with that since they fed me every day this week.

Some of my DPT class showed me where to find the gym, day 1. I'm a little disappointed at how far it is. At my undergrad, all my classes were in the building with the gym, which was 5min from my house. But its still very walkable, lol.

This is Jeremy, a pallid bat that eats scorpions. (Thanks Planet Earth II).
Unfortunately, you can't keep him as a pet bc the emotional trauma will cut his lifespan to 1/25 normal.

The FHE grandparents split us into tribes Survivor-style and tried to have us do a 5-way tug of war (which I did not participate in bc my knee was still pretty sore). Turns out that was good since all the carabiners SNAPPED - at different times, and they just let them keep going... One girl got hit in the head with one of the broken shards of metal and had a nice goose egg within thirty seconds.

I also played some volleyball with the crew and wasn't overly disappointed at the competition. Plus a kid offered and tried so hard to order me a pizza - the delivery guy just couldn't find us. And I was sleepy.

Basically all my spare time has me studying or avoiding studying. But I have a lot of anatomy to review. And the rest of B99 to watch.

Real food, real effort. 

Friday was a nice release of my frustrations. I went to a party at the institute with snacks and games for a couple hours. Then I met up with the crew at country dancing lessons WHERE SOME GUY LIFTED ME OFF THE GROUND. So that was terrifying. We hit up another bar for some real dancing and ended with Hawaiian BBQ. And I feel much better about life.

These guys already got my back and showed me Eminem's new FIRE album. I'm HYPE. I listened to it all day and even wrote some stuff myself. And used my instapot for the first time. #Adulting