What I've Been Up To

I've been up to a lot lately.  It's mostly been work, but there have been a few fun times as well...

Toy Story 3
I saw Toy Story 3 on opening weekeng, and let me tell you (if you haven't given in and seen it yet), it's the BOMB.com!  I'll be honest, I cried (HARD) several times.  It made me really nostalgic for my childhood, and it also reminded of how bittersweet it was to leave for college.  I highly recommend it.  Pixar has done it again!

Aeropostale Sale

Later that day I went shopping at the mall and ran across a sale that Aeropostale was having.  Just about their entire store was on sale.  I got a lot of cute polos and graphic tees to replace my crumbling old t-shirts.  Plus a super cute swim suit cover.

Fun, huh?

Census

Things have been wrapping up at the Census office for our big NRFU (Non-Response Follow Up) operation. We got an e-mail the other day that said Provo and Ogden were some of the last offices to finish it up, but that we had done a better quality job in several specific categories.  It was nice to hear some praise after weeks of being told to "just get it done." 

On Thursday, Davy Jones and I FINALLY finished up the last questionnaires from our big project!  It was a good feeling, but after that we sat around wondering what to do next.  Haha, guess we'll have to do some of the grunt work for a while.

Here are some of my buddies from the office:

Top: Soup Dave, me, Sammy, Dick

Bottom: Davy Jones, Nancy

And a comic on our bulletin board that is only too true...

Getting Ready for Eclipse

1. Read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. 

(Entire book is FREE online until July 5th at www.breetanner.com).  

It's really good! And it's a fast read, only 178 pages.  Thanks, Mom, for sharing.

Check!

2. Re-read Eclipse, since I forgot the entire story.  (Currently in progress)

3. Re-watch Twilight.

4. Re-watch New Moon.

5. See Eclipse!

Coming Up This Week:  Provo's Freedom Festival and Stadium of Fire!

Father's Day

My dad is pretty awesome.  Not gonna lie.

See?

He was always there to support me through the years.

I especially remember him always helping me with my math homework.  He spent just about every night of my 8th grade year up late helping me do my math homework.

Without his help, it would have been a lot harder to make it to this point:

And eventually this point:

(BYU!)

He came out to help me get settled when I came out to BYU.  It really meant a lot to me.  :)

And did you know he's my favorite DJ?  

We have pretty similar taste in music.

(The blog background music has a few songs that he likes/remind me of him)

And did you know that he's been really involved in scouting, even though he only has daughters?

Here he is getting his Wood Badge- the highest training available to scout leaders.

Woo!  Go Dad!

He doesn't really like the beach.  Or camping.  

(Sometimes I can't believe we're related... lol)

But he does love Blizzard Beach.  And so do we, even if he does wear those old, holey shoes--his "sandals"-- that embarrassed us as kids.  :)

That's my dad! 

(Oh, and he's also a goof-ball, hehe)

Love you Dad!

David Archuleta

One of my favorite perks of living in Utah is opportunities to see/meet all sorts of LDS celebrities (and General Authorities, who are just as exciting as celebrities).  Some others I've seen and met are John Bytheway and Kirby Heyborne.  Fun times!

This week, I had the chance to see David Archuleta up close and in person at his book signing in Orem.  (He wrote a book about his life/inspiration.)  I went with this fun lady from work, and we got there at 6 am when the line started.  I know, we're crazy.

She's a hardcore David fan, and so were the other ladies who showed up that early.

I was a little surprised HOW intense some of his fans are (like, several of them had flown to Utah just for his book signings).  I felt a little out-of-place, since I hardly even know David's music.  Yikes!  But it was still fun, I got a lot of sun and got to eat at Five Guys-- yum!  

The great thing about getting there early was the fact that we were right up front and center of the stage where he performed two numbers before going in for the book signing.  I got videos of both songs, and they were really great!

Playing piano and singing "Crush":

A capella version of "Lean on Me" (this is also the song that he sang at the White House the next day when he met the president):

After the songs he went into the building and we all followed in line to get our books signed.  I never realized how tiny he is.  He really looks like he could be 12.

Here he's reading my name off the sticky note in my book as I walk up.  :)

Sadly, when it was my turn to meet him at the signing table, a lady outside tripped off the curb and twisted her ankle, so he was concerned about her and distracted, so he just signed my book without looking to speaking to me.  He did read my name off the sticky note when he wrote "To Alexa" in my book, so that was kind of cool.  Plus the fact that I stood just 3 feet away from him!  His performance really was the best part of it all, though.  Enjoy the pics and vids!

Hiking the Y

For those of you unfamiliar with BYU, there's a giant "Y" on the mountain east of campus.

There's a popular trail to hike that takes you up to it.  After making it through my freshman year having never hiked it, I kind of had this mindset that I would never do it.  Especially after hearing Ashley Lisonbee tell me how hard it was, and especially for us Florida girls who aren't used to the elevation.

Well, this activity was pretty much unavoidable.  I'm an FHE group leader and we hiked the Y as a ward FHE activity, so I pretty much had to go.

Me at the bottom of the trail.  Cool view, huh?

Everyone kept saying it wasn't hard.

Well, they were wrong.

I was dead by about the second switch-back, and there are twelve.  I honestly thought I wouldn't make it to the halfway point, let alone the top.  But I forced myself to get to the top since we were doing a little devotional at the Y.  And after nearly passing out from lack of oxygen, I finally made it.

Conqueror!

Dead tired

It was definitely worth it, just for the awesome view of Utah Valley.  Plus, we planned it so we got there just as the sun was going down over the west mountains, and so there was a beautiful sunset as well.  Just lovely.

Me and my friend Brittany

Me and Claudio, my  FHE "husband"

Oh, and did I mention that I love my ward?

We Are The World

[My music player is at the bottom of the page if you want to pause it to watch the vids.]

Last week, I heard the Spanish remake of Michael Jackson's "We Are The World," called "Somos El Mundo."  I loved it!

It'd been a while since I'd seen the other versions, so I went back and watched them all.  I like all of them in different ways.

 I really love the 1985 version, though.  I think I even know more of the artists in it than in the 2010 version.

Then there's the 25th anniversary version they did to raise money for Haiti.  It's great to see so many artists come together.  I mean, you've got everyone from Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus, to Celine Dion, Josh Groban, T-Pain and Kanye West.  The stock footage of Michael Jackson is a nice touch as well, as is the duet between him and Janet.

Then the Spanish version.  I love this one, mostly for the rap at the end, and also because of David Archuleta (his voice just stands out from the others, doesn't it?).  I also love some of the particularly beautiful accents.

So in love!

Reading, Working, and Listening

I've still been reading like a maniac.  I read Ender's Game during the end of last week and finished it up Saturday night.  It was good.  I remembered parts because I'd tried unsuccessfully to read it years ago, after my 6th grade teacher had read it to us.  This time I understood a lot more of it, too.  It's a dang intense book.  I stayed up until 3 something Saturday night/ Sunday morning to finish it.  Bad idea.  I the ending totally creeped me out for some reason.  So there I was, mind buzzing with wars, buggers, alien worlds and all sorts of other creepy stuff, at 3 in the morning, trying to go to sleep.  Never doing that again.
Image Source

So, today at work I started Specials.  I just finished it tonight.  What a disappointing ending.  Still a fairly good book, but the story just... ended.  And it confused me, too.  That might have been partly because I read it so fast, but still, I didn't feel any emotional closure.  There's so much more I want to know!  *sigh*  I'll get over it soon enough...

I borrowed a new book from a friend in my ward.  It's Look Again, by Lisa Scottoline.  My friend said it was really good, and it's a pretty quick read, too.  That's good.  I need that, because with my hectic schedule I hardly have time to get into any deep, slow books, however good they are.

Speaking of my hectic schedule, the work never ends.  Even today, on Memorial Day, I was scheduled for work at Info for 4 hours, then I ended up going to the Census Office for 2 hours so that I can take Friday night off to go to a Tri-Ward dance.  Then I raced home to prepare for an FHE that no one ended up coming to.  Just me and 'Dad' waiting around to see if anyone would show up.  One finally did about 45 minutes later, but we'd given up by then.  *sigh*  I guess we can forgive them, it is a holiday afterall...

Something very happy did happen today, though.  I got a CD by one of my favorite independent artists, a guy I discovered at a Grand Pianos Live competition here at BYU.  His name is Nik Day and he sings and plays the piano and the guitar. He makes me melt.  He sounds a lot like Michael Buble.  Love!  You can listen to my favorite song of his, the one I fell in love with at the competition (the one I recored on my phone so I could listen to it if I never saw this guy again) on his MySpace page here.  It's called "How Could Life Get Any Better."  Seriously, it's melt-making.

That's life.  Tomorrow's back to the grind.  I cannot wait until I get to come home for a whole month!  Beaches, theme parks, and parties here I come!