In a Galaxy Far Far Away...

 Our living room

 The bedroom finally unpacked 

 The kitchen plus Laura

The bird that lives right in front of our door

   The view from our window 

...there lived a girl going to school. In fact, she was just returning for her Sophomore year after a glorious summer holiday in a neighboring galaxy with her family. 

     Well, the move into the FLSR (Foreign Language Student Residence) is over, as is the first day of classes. We found out on our first day that there are only three girls in the German House. Three people in a six person apartment--a six person apartment that is actually big enough to house six people.  Alhyaba is my only new roommate and she's quite wonderful. She lives in one room, while Laura and I share another. The third room is being turned into a gym with a stationary bike and everything. The FLSR is pretty much amazing although definitely challenging because of how much I still have to learn about the language. All my fellow German House residence are very patient and helpful. They're also all very interesting, so I'm excited for the term to unfold. The ward is pretty much awesome too.

     Classes are somewhat intense, because we're doing an entire semester in 6 weeks, but both PSYCH 111 and ELANG 322 seem very promising and I'm looking forward to how much I'm going to learn!

     That's it from this galaxy. To be continued in later installments of the saga. 

A Thanks to Abby and Bekah

For an early birthday present the girls played with my hair and gave me a foot massage. It was loverly. Here's a post for them, showing off their mad skills. ☺

The girlies hard at work

Their beautiful final products

Mangy Mongrels

As a students of BYU, we're admonished to, "enter to learn and go forth to serve." Taking this to heart, I decided to put my recently acquired university skills to work in one of my first acts of service at home... washing the dogs.

First, I protected myself by donning an old girls camp t-shirt and arming myself with dog shampoo and a towel (as I learned to do in some class somewhere) and then it was off to work!

It was funny because the dogs reacted in very similar ways. First they dragged me to the location of their filth's demise.

Next they queried, "What is she doing?"

Followed by a, "I think I've seen as much this as I want to, thank you very much," before they fled in terror.

And then they were caught.

They endured scrubbing for a little while

(look at poor Melissa's tail)

before trying to flee again.

"This is a most unnatural smell." - Little Ann

Trying to get it off.

But their efforts to thwart my valiant mission were to no avail and I successfully rid them of their nastiness for 1 minute. For Melissa a little longer then Lil' Ann because the little mutt, who claims to be pure bred, rolled around in a pile of dirt not long after I bathed her. I suppose she couldn't stand not smelling like pee and dirt was the next best option to wetting herself.

Freshman Year

Freshman year is mercifully over. Just wanted to announce that I'm alive! And I managed to survive in fairly good academic standing--wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles... Lots of goofing around and having fun took place over the year; however, I feel as though even more learning has occurred. I'm at a loss for truly descriptive words, but it's been interesting and very surreal, especially now that it's over. Not to fret though, I only have a month and a half left before heading back to the grind stone and faithfully fulfilling the requirements for my officially declared English Major. Well, there isn't much else to say on the topic! A couple highlights before the

This is my roommate, Cara, during the snowball fight we had Easter morning.

Model shot with traditional, chocolate-covered, coconut, candy Easter Eggs made by yours truly.

Me with my lovely roommates being our usual goof-ball selves before hiking to the "Y" during the later hours of the evening...

This was one of the last nights we (meaning a foursome created this semester with me, myself , and I, with Jenny, Laura, and my FHE father Bryce) had together. We camped out in the great outdoors of Heritage Halls (because of the honor code) until 4:30 a.m. What a marvelous adventure.