ouch.

i've always thought of my life as pretty uneventful. never had stitches, never had any serious injuries, never broken a bone, etc. the most traumatic thing thus far was hearing oprah talk about ending her show.

and then last night i was just having a normal time, like any other night. special roommate bonding time with dew, stuffed our faces with ice cream. the usual. then she's driving me home, we're cruisin' along on university pkwy, fighting over some stupid miranda cosgrove song on the radio, i look up and we're coming up to a red light! "hey... you gonna slow down?" haha. but it was too late. she pushed on the breaks but we were too close to the car and we smashed right into it.

we were both wearing our seat-belts, which is awesome because sometimes i have a bad habit of forgetting to put mine on. and i am happy to report that her airbags were in top shape and smacked the living crap out of my face.

we're still not entirely sure what happened with my hand here haha... i have a really deep cut between my index finger and middle finger. i think when i put my hand up to stop the airbag (brilliant idea) my fingers were spread and the force just ripped them apart. no idea.

so we took a little trip to the emergency room and i now have 15 stitches in my right hand! (and two hannah montana stickers)

i got pretty burnt on my arm from the airbag. katherine's whole chest and neck are burnt :(

good thing it was my right hand and school starts next week haha! i can barely even type. i guess its time for me to work on one of my life goals- becoming ambidextrous!

i'll keep you posted on how that goes.

ash

busy bee

ooooooh my gosh this past week has been freaking nuts.

where do i begin?

moving in was a nightmare... see:

i have so much stuff i dont know what to do with it! at this exact moment... i think i am satisfied with my room (area by the sink doesn't count!) but give me another week and that may change. i finally have every box emptied and organized. this is what it looked like at the beginning haha...

i found this while unpacking. very exciting to say the least...

so once i got myself all settled in (somewhere inbetween my ridiculous hours of training... some days it was like 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM. i need my sleep!) it was time to decorate my floor. it was weird being the only one on my floor for the whole week! kinda creepy at times.

the theme i chose for my floor is "BEE all that you can be" stupid, cheesy, spiritual, perfect for byu haha!

yesterday was nuts. residents were coming for early check-in at 5:00, and it was the first day that we had specific time allotted to decorating. so of course i had nothing ready at all. hooray for procrastination haha! you'd think after 19 years, i'd learn to do things early. luckily, most of the girls are coming on wednesday.

in one day i went through 11 yards of butcher paper, 2 whole glue sticks, a full pack of sticky tack, cut out 96 flowers/stems/middles (and also managed to cut a hole in the middle of my shirt in the process), and made 3 different trips to the bookstore.

yesterday reminded me of being in student council and decorating the halls for homecoming... except this time i was all alone. which was nice because i thrive off of my own work. it gives me some weird sort of satisfaction knowing i did all of this by myself hahaha. i guess i'm independent. maybe not since i called my mom 50 times this week. but anyway, here is the beautiful result of my hard labor!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Now multiply that by 24 haha.

here is my awesome work station:

the hall looks so good. a mom came in last night and was like "oh my gosh ashley this is so cute, i'm gonna cry! i'm tearing up! you are so awesome! we're so lucky our girl has you as an RA!" hahahaha. and she asked for my phone number. not sure if i should be concerned or not.... :) just kiddin.

OH, how could i forget my beeeeeautiful door tags. they have each residents name on them.

lovely.

i feel very accomplished today. my floor is decorated, my room is moderately cute now (today i hung my whiteboard up, pictures, decorative stars, painted letters of my name and hung them on my door, organized my shoes, put away laundry, took out trash) and for the most part i am happy! i forgot how green and luscious byu is in the fall. it was so ugly last time i was here haha.

despite what it may sound like, i really am excited to be an RA. i've already met 5 of my girls and they are awesome. hopefully the next 37 are the same!

have a fantastic week.

cross your fingers for me and my sanity.

xoxo

ashley

my weakness.

i just love shirts.

i unpacked all of my clothes and laid all my tops on my chair. then i tried to lift them over to my bed. it was quite the experience haha. i couldnt help but document the precious moment. my arms were shaking after... i need to go to the gym!

i can go a whole school year without repeating a top.

(here is 1/5th of what i need to fit in my closet)

and i color coordinate my closet.

i need to write about moving, utah, and boyfriend! but i have r.a. training early in the morning... so i'll save all those fun stories for another day :)

xo

hello beaches

Last weekend, my three best friends and i took a road trip to CALIFORNIA!

it was definitely the highlight of my summer so far. i love these girls more than anything! i wish so much that alex could have come with us... but she's busy rockin her job at tuacahn.

leah's mom took this cute picture of us as we were heading out of town... notice the adorable matching sunglasses we bought specially for the trip :) hahaha. $10, nordstrom. i'm in love. we planned to leave around 6:30... but being girls and being forgetful caused us to leave at 7:40! (i think? i cant remember) i couldnt find my stupid ipod with the 250+ song-playlist i made for the trip. it was a big deal. but i of course found a solution.

me and leah having fun on the drive haha... we had so much fun! the whole time we were all cracking jokes and singing obnoxiously loud and talking in accents or acting stupid. i really can't explain how much i love these girls.

we stayed at kristine's aunt's house the whole weekend.. it was so nice! she is the cutest thing ever. but on friday we met up with my family at oceanside... they were staying at a beach house. so that was nice to see them! (and use their stuff and eat their food!)

we're pretty cute, i know.

this one is my favorite. i forced everyone to stop because i couldnt pass up this cute picture spot. this was at del mar, super pretty beach! but.... we had to climb down this steep cliff to get to the water, and then the tide was in so there was no room to lay out or anything! all of our stuff was getting wet. so we went back to kristine's aunt's house and laid out by the pool :) hahaha. it was the perfect weekend with perfect company, perfect weather, everything!

let's start making plans for next years trip!!

an eclipse

first of all, sorry i suck at blogging.

second of all... eclipse may or may not have been the best movie i've seen all year. still debating. all i know is that it was amazing! leah, kami, kristine and i bought our tickets like two months ago and ever since then we have been anxiously awaiting june 30th! haha it was great. our showing was at 12:05. we had our traditional dinner at BJ's and then headed over to the red rock for our movie.

kristine and kami made us all matching t-shirts! we felt awesome in them.

kami and leah in our sweet shirts. they have jacob and edward on them... even though it really should just have edward...

kristine and me all giddy before the movie started. hahaha.

it was an intense movie! i am excited for the next one.

fun fact: i peed my pants a little bit for the first time in who knows how long! i drank a huge dr. pepper before the movie and about halfway through i had to pee so bad. it hurt. i kept telling myself i could make it one more hour because i didnt want to miss any part of the movie... but i hit the limit and either had to choose peeing on the floor or in a toilet. luckily for the fellow twilight fans around me, i picked the toilet.

twilight is so fun... one of these days i will reread the books.

and to all you haters out there: bite me.

beautiful day.

today was the day i have been imagining in my head for the past six months. at school, when i wanted to drop out and burn all of my books, i instead pictured days like this and they made me hopeful.

i LOVE summer!

i woke up today, changed from my pj's into my swimsuit, and headed over to leah's house. we picked up cafe rio. i had a free meal. cafe rio got new sphere-shaped ice. the salad was perfect. we got it to-go and then set up our tanning area and ate and talked and tanned!

i love living in las vegas and being able to count on the sun shining every day. even though all it takes to lay out is a swim suit and the sun, i feel completely relaxed and content haha. like my own perfect little world.

photo courtesy of zoe jane. haha. zoe is the cutest little thing. we hung out with her for a little bit...

THEN, i came home to my lovely family. my family is the greatest. we went to farm basket for dinner-which was amazing as usual- and i got to say hi to my three favorite workers there! and we are watching AFTON for a couple 0f days. she let me carry her into farm basket... it was kind of a big deal. she doesnt let anyone hold her besides her mom or my mom. but i got her out of her car seat and walked her in. very exciting moment in my life.

she would be so much cuter if she was nice. but even when she screams and cries, i still like holding her. i love her.

then the cherry on top of today was my grandparents came into town! they are so cute. i like having them around :) they're always keeping us laughing.

i loved today!

t-boy

(i cant sleep. heres whats on my mind...)

i LOVE tanner.

he is the funniest little boy i've ever met.

he makes me laugh so hard sometimes that i cry.

he is forever talking, singing, telling stories, or cracking jokes.

i missed tanner a lot while i was at school! luckily we had skype and phone conversations weekly. his skype chats always made my day. whether he's telling me about a "hot chick in second period" or showing me new origami creations, he's always got me laughing.

here are a few favorite memories:

1. when tanner found out what a tampon was, he literally passed out. i dont think i will ever forget that day haha... cant wait to tell his future girlfriends!! :)

2. this is a family favorite. one night my family was talking about something ironic, and tanner asked what "irony" meant. my dad explained that irony is like when mitchell is absent on the day that he gets a perfect attendance award in seminary. tanners response was "they made up a word for THAT?" hahaha.

3. lately tanner has been singing every night. the past two weeks have been "what do you want from me" in a deep opera voice. i snagged a video of it on my phone.

i really hope you can hear it haha! sorry its sideways.

4. tanner has gained quite a bit of weight in the past year. he loves to show off his new belly haha. i remember one night my mom was sitting at the computer and tanner would go right up behind her and lift his shirt up and dance and then when she turned around he would quickly put it down and act normal. this went on for at least five minutes!

5. i dont even know how many times he's made me spit water out at the dinner table. its like his never-ending goal. i take a sip and the challenge is on!

6. one thing i will never forget about tanner is "the butterfly moment"... he was playing a game with my aunt. she would name an animal and he would act it out. she said a butterfly, and tanner jumped up in the air and flapped his wings. not quite sure what he was thinking, but he kept flapping until his forehead SMACKED the ceramic tile in the front entry way. he had a huge goose-egg for weeks. there's still a little mark if you look close.

he's a funny kid. i love him!!