Little Black Dress

On Saturday, Kalie and I went shopping with her mom, trying to find her a dress to wear to Katie’s reception in June. Whilst browsing the dress section at Lord&Taylors, I stumbled upon the “Little Black Dress” section. Some of the displayed dresses were, of course, hideous. But there were a couple that actually looked pretty cute. So I grabbed one to try on for fun. It was perfect! A great length, just the right size, classy and elegant. I didn’t want to be accused of impulse shopping, so I took a picture, put the dress on hold, and asked several friends (via text) what they thought. As the answer was a resounding yes. So with Momma’s help, I bought it. I can’t wait to have an opportunity to wear it!

And Summer Begins...!

Now I feel as if I have finally begun my summer. One week ago Dad and I set out on our cross-country journey, from Providence, UT to Broad Run, VA via Mammoth Cave, KY. Abotu 2,220 miles (very roughly). It took us three days, so we arrived the evening of Tuesday the 4th. I don't have too much to say about that - it was a road trip with a LOT of driving involved.
Thursday I went to work at 6am with kalie, did paper work and had some basic training, then went home early. Friday was my first real day of work, and I worked with Jose and Matt Barker. It was quite fun, actually. I'm looking forward to this summer. I'm already being teased for falling asleep at the send out meeting (what can I say, it's at 6 am!), and in the truck as we drive to our next job. I'm hoping that early bed times and being adjusted to Eastern Time Zone will fix that problem. Knowing me, it probably won't. Oh dear. I'm sure I'll learn a lot this summer and have a lot of fun. But right now it's 8:30 and I should get ready for bed. :)

The final hurdle

I'm near the end of this great long race known as the 2009-2010 school year, and I'm almost done with it...but there's one last hurdle in between me and the finish line: the last three days of finals. This is truly how I feel. I'm so excited for the semester to be over and go on to my summer activities at home in Logan and in Virginia, but I just don't know if I have it in me to get over that last hurdle first.

Four Finals left:

Econ (the beastliest - will kill me)

Arboriculture - I'll study for it and do ok.

Plant Prop - I'll probably study a little

Design - I get to draw all day tomorrow

Other than those four obstacles, I just have to pack and stuff and I'm home free!!!

But there are people and things that I have loved about this school year and will miss dearly:

Mindy Hall - We've been roommates for almost 20 months. But Hooray! She's getting married!

212 girls - Erilyn, April, Sarah, Stacy, Claire, and Mari - they have let me be their adopted roommate all year! Love you all!

The BYU Tree Crew - Max Darrington (boss), Nate, Preston, Michelle, Andrew, Katie, Matt, Jason, Kalie (but i'll be with her all summer, so that's HAPPY!), and the work in general!

Landscape Mgmt people, esp. those graduating - Benji, Cecilia, Meghan, Preston, Cameron, Jason, Brooke, et al

Blues dancing - dancing!, Dave, David, Andy, Kaitlyn, Laura, Hales, John, Anneke, Amanda, et al

It's been a great year, and next time I post, I will not be in Provo or my sophomore year anymore!!!

Weather is bipolar, but spring is definitely here!

The warm spring weather makes me so happy! The cold and wet spring weather not as much. Unfortunately it seems to go between the two types very often, and very drastically. For example, I was at work on Friday, and we were cutting down a spruce tree at the MTC. When we started this job at noon, it was sunny and quite warm. By 1:00 it was snowing like crazy, so we took an extended lunch break. By 2:00 it was cool, but drier, so we finished that job. Around 3 or 3:30, it was sunny and started to get warm again, at which point it also began to snow again. Craziness.

Lately, I've been very aware of the little signs of spring. Leaf buds forming on the elm trees, flower buds breaking on the silver maples. Crocus flowers popping up everywhere, daffodils and hyacinths coming into bloom. The little splashes of flower color and new leaves make me so happy! I'm SO excited for it to be spring/summer again! Today I went for a walk in the sunshine for like, 2.5 hours, and got a little suntan line - yay! It's all just very happy.

Swing Champions!

It's already on facebook, but i thought i'd put a little something here on my blog anyway. This past weekend BYU hosted the National Amateur Dancesport Championships. Included in this awesome event were the class events, so the kids from the BYU ballroom and social dance classes got to compete against each other. I danced in the quickstep and the triple step. You won't hear much about the quickstep because I didn't get called back even once. The triple step (aka east coast or american swing) was a different story though. Briggs Alsbury and I practiced every day last week to get ready for this, I was pretty confidant that we would do well. We kept getting called back round after round, getting more and more excited.

Every time before we walked out onto the floor, we'd go over what we needed to focus on: high energy, high knees, smile! Our goal was kinda to steal the show, to have so much energy that people would find it hard to watch anyone but us. I think the orange shirt and tie helped as well. And from the feedback we got from friends and random strangers, I think our tactic worked quite well. :)

The final round was very exciting, especially since 4 out of 8 couples were from the same class. We did a cheer for our teacher Giovanna before we went out for the final round. It ended up that all four couples were in the top 5 - Giovanna is amazing! Briggs and I took first place and each got a special trophy. I was so incredibly happy and excited! I've never won something like this before, and it felt so good!

Landscape Major

I know you all think I'm slightly ridiculous, with all of my trees and plant classes and such, but I just have to say that I love my major, my job, all my friends from work and school, and I love life. I'm getting ready for my big competition in Atlanta in April - the PLANet Student Career Days, where I will be competing in Woody plant ID and Arboriculture Technical skills. Before you start making skeptical faces at the screen, let me explain that the most important part of this trip is not the competitions, it's the networking with major green industry companies from all over the country, which will help me get internships and jobs in the future. And one of the best ways for me to make a good impression on these potential employers is to do really well in my competitions, so I'm putting forth a lot of effort to do well. Actually, I also just want to place 1st. :-)

Also I've been spending more time with people in my major, and it's been great. I love being friends with these people! We have such common interests and understanding and future, but still so diverse in our options, that it's so much fun to talk to everyone! I look forward to being good friends with them all.

So really, Landscape Mgmt major describes about 2/3 of my life - school and work. Dance and econ and hanging out with apt. 212 is the other 1/3. I'm really enjoying life right now.

Latin Dance Competition (finally posted!!!)

The other day (now long past - like almost a month) I competed in a latin dance competition for my dance class - the rumba! We danced against all the other couples in the 185 level of dance. I was very excited for it, besides the thrill of competing, got to wear my crazy leopard print shirt from Europe, have two of my besties there cheering for me, and I got to dance with Johnny Freshman. Ok, so his name is Johnny Wilson, but I didn't know his last name for a long time, and he's definitely a freshman, so it just stuck. And no, he doesn't know I call him that. He's a great dancer. (As a side note, he also placed 2nd in the standard waltz competition which took place alternating rounds with our competition!)
As we kept making call back after call back, I got more and more excited! In the end, we placed 5th, out of more than 150 couples! It was awesome! Because my lovely friend April was there cheering for me, we have video coverage of the event! Except that i've tried uploading SOOO many times, and it never works. Even after waiting 12 hours. So i'll just post another picture instead.