we. are. fa. mi. ly.

i LOVE family.

although i may not have always shown it in high school, i love being with family. i love big families, small families, funny families, dramatic families. just all kinds of families.

but mostly MY families.

i feel like living in provo allows me to see my extended family members way more than being in vegas does. lately i've just been on a weird family high.

i got to see my grandma barnes a couple weeks ago... i love her. she is awesome. see? she recently moved from idaho to arizona, so i got to see her in passing. even though our visit didn't last more than 15 minutes, i loved it.

next up was dinner with my cousins merideth, kathryn, and sam (and her husband jake). merideth and kathryn's mom annette was in town for the weekend so we all got together and ate at brick oven! mmmm :) i never see annette because she lives in chicago

it was nice to catch up with everyone.

so that was the family fun on my dad's side... but i also get to play with my mom's side too!

this past sunday, i went to my aunt cindy's house for dinner. we celebrated angela's 24th birthday! ang and i have always been way close... for as long as i can remember! we both have brothers so we always considered ourselves sisters. cindy made delicious salmon and and even more delicious ice cream cake :)

it was fun to see cindy, steve, ang, shawn, spencer, kevin, bryce, grandma and grandpa. oh and maggie. we ate and played hearts. (naturally, i won. as usual.)

don't get me wrong, i love hanging out with my extended family... but at the same time it makes me so sad. i miss my real family! you know... john, mom, mitchell, tanner.

look how attractive they all are. i miss john. i miss seeing my mom's face every day. i miss tanner's stupid jokes and random stories! and sometimes... i even miss mitchell.

could thanksgiving come any slower?

conference weekend

this weekend was fantastic!

i loved every single part of it.

FRIDAY: when i got out of school, my cousin angela came down to provo and we hung out all afternoon. we went to chilis to get chips and salsa (and ranch... its tradition) then we went to the mall. i was so good and didn't buy a single thing :) very proud of myself. we were in nordstrom for about 10 minutes and then decided to leave so we wouldn't spend any money. it was kind of a big deal- talk about self control! so that was fun. naturally, we had to get ice cream after the mall, and then she went home. i spent the next few hours either looking at my clock, talking on the phone, or googling random distances from provo until finally... my boyfriend pulled into the parking lot! it was so great having him here. i love this guy!

this picture is from our all-nighter hahaha... yes. friday night we slept a total of roughly 45 minutes. maybe an hour. we were just so excited to be with each other again... had so much to talk about and catch up on. we went to walmart at like 4 a.m., then had breakfast at the cannon center right when it opened, watched ironman 2, went sight seeing at squaw peak, and just talked forever. then conference started! usually my college all-nighters are a little hellish. but this one was so nice. we definitely paid for it later though haha

SATURDAY: i was kind of like a zombie. but we went to scotty's friend's house for morning session of general conference, then drove to salt lake city to see the real deal for the afternoon session! it was a way cool experience. there is something special about being in the same room as the prophet. i love it. i love being able to look across a room and see him! not through a tv or computer. so fun. we had dinner at some mexican trailer on the side of the road haha then went our separate ways for priesthood session and girls night out. angela, cindy and i went to a movie! then scotty and shawn met up with me and ang at their house. we hung out, ate pie, and watched "what happens in vegas." fun night. i wish ang and shawn lived in provo so i could see them more often! and scotty too :) hahaha.

SUNDAY: scotty and i went to my uncle todd's house all day. it was SO fun. i love heber and i love todd and sharolyn and their kids! although they were extremely distracting during conference. it's hard to listen to serious speeches when there are five adorable, hyper, psycho children next to you! as you can see... scotty REALLY enjoyed watching conference. i was trying so hard not to laugh while taking this picture haha

justin is so big now. he walks and almost talks... its crazy! and all the rest are as cute as ever :) i colored pictures with the girls, threw a football around with the boys, and took full advantage of sharolyn's blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry bushes! oh gosh, they were heavenly.

after dinner, scotty and i drove back to provo to hang out during visiting hours (a.k.a. the 4 hours a week that men are allowed in my room)

and then it was time for him to go :( i feel bad he had to drive all night but i really hate it when he leaves so i try to push it off for as long as possible haha. my bad.

it was a fun weekend. but now my little dream world is over and i have FOUR midterms this week... i have work and homework and study groups and all sorts of stuff i should be doing.

so why am i blogging right now? good question.

catch-up

wow i am so behind in blogging. sorry, world.

i have important things to do these days. school is taking over my life.

being an RA is pretty busy too. trying to make all the girls happy. be their friend. kick their butts when they do bad things. its a stressful life i got going for me here.

BUT, aside from being sick, all is well. school's great, work is great, my boyfriend is SUPER great, my family is great. haha. here are some highlights from the past month:

Scotty came to visit me two weekends ago :) way fun. minus his car breaking down 20 minutes after he got here. stupid. but we still had fun... everything we did just had to be in walking distance from my dorm! for example... BOWLING!

mind you, my right hand is still swollen and useless. so bowling with it didn't really work out because a) my fingers and too large to put in the holes and b) i can't hold more than a pound without wanting to cry haha. so i had to bowl left handed. i was bracing myself for an extremely embarrassing display of bowling... hoping to get at least 40 or so. BUT NO. i got freaking 120 with my left hand. that's better than i've ever done with my right hand hahaha. weird, huh? i never break 100. maybe i should start trying other things with my left hand.

my hot boyfriend
we played 3 games... i won 1 :) woooo!
cute cute. he's coming again this weekend for general conference! should be fun. i'm way excited. this week will be the slowest of my life... it feels like i haven't seen him FOREVER! i dont know what i would do if skype didn't exist.

Saturday, i got the opportunity to go to the relief society broadcast in salt lake city! we made a whole day activity out of it haha.

we started the day off at the draper temple with baptisms...

abby, me, heather, and alyssa
then we had lunch and shopping at IKEA :) mmmmm. so good. and so fun! we all decided we are ready to have our own houses and decorate them. so much fun stuff there. then we went to nordstrom rack... very dangerous place for me. but i only bought necessities :)

then i got to see my parents for like 10 minutes in salt lake! they were driving through to take grandma barnes to the airport. i dont have any pictures of that. but it was so good to see them. i miss my parents so much!
then onto the broadcast! it was so good. after every single talk we were all like "wow.. that was so good!" hahaha. and Thomas S. Monson is so cute and so funny. i love him. his talk was perfect for me... i liked it a lot.

my friends are so cute! this is me, abby, heather, alyssa, alisse, and audrey. oh the power of a-names. it was so good seeing all of them.

well, i've procrastinated my homework long enough!

i have books calling my name.

ashley

boyfriend

this is my boyfriend...

his name is scotty...we met in the baptismal font at the temple...

and he is freaking cute.
he is an amazing singer and back scratcher.

he is hilarious, romantic, "like... really strong", sweet, spiritual, and so manly. hahaha.

its hard being away from him, but we're making it work! since our first date two months ago, we've pretty much been inseparable haha. it doesn't even feel like two months, i feel like i've known him forever. i love being around him! he makes me so happy :) we always have fun together, whether its dancing like idiots in his car, going to yogurtland, or having dinner with our families. i miss him a lot. but guess what.... 8 days!! :)

the many stages of ashley's hand

well, well, well. the day finally came! yesterday at approximately 4:15 i got my stitches out :)

lets take a walk down the beautiful memory lane...

these past two weeks have been great.

not.

oh look, here is my hand just minutes after the accident. bloody, numb, tingling. great times.

then i got my 15 stitches. it was pretty exciting for the first couple of days... until i realized how much i missed the sweet feeling of washing my hands, brushing my hair, writing with a pen or pencil, showering with both hands, wiping as i go to the bathroom, unscrewing water-bottles, sleeping without car accident nightmares, brushing my teeth, washing my face, opening a door, closing a ziplock bag..... need i go on? any normal task had suddenly turned into a problem haha.

15 stitches. 12 on the surface, 3 dissolvable ones down deep.

freaking gross.

note the excessive bruising... super attractive. my new hobby is tracing my large hand, and then tracing my small hand inside of it to see the difference.

HOORAY!!! stitches are gone. i was literally bouncing with excitement the whole way to the hospital.
so happy.

its so great. but i do have some points of concern...

1. my nerves might take MONTHS to grow back. suck. i can't even make a fist haha. but its getting a lot better.

2. its been nice having a legitimate excuse to not go to the gym. but now i can only use that for two more weeks :( the doctor said i can't put a lot of weight on it or else it could split back open again (even if i hit my hand on a wall really hard haha... not sure why i would in the first place?).

3. i wanted a really cool scar... but... i'm thinking now that it will just blend in with all the lines on my palm haha. oh well.

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