little things

1. Today I bought a BODY PILLOW.
2. I was able to hang out with both Grandma Janice and Grandma Colleen this weekend. They both just kept cracking jokes!
3. BYU basketball is my fave. Tyler Haws.
4. Still in love with that ginger. See below.
5. Amy came to church with me yesterday!
6. Awkward situations are best dealt with unawkwardly.
7. Anyone want to go to a monster truck rally with me on Saturday?
8. I tried to win tickets to OneRepublic on Friday. Apparently my text to the radio station that said, "PICK ME! RYAN TEDDER IS MY FAVORITE GUY!!!!!!!" wasn't enough.
9. Read a little book on Friday called, Lola and the Boy Next Door. I love boys next door. And I love chick lit. But this week's target is 1984, because I have never even read it. I'm reading a book a week this year, ps, alternating between real literature and sugary desserts.
10. this picture was finally posted to facebook:

read: I was in an interesting mood this evening.

11. and this one:

read: water balloon smacking me in the face, mid-cartwheel. And you can see the water splash.

12. Oh, and this one:

read: the dream team.

13. And, just for fun, let's hearken back to this gem:

just because there was a giant walrus. btw, drake's pants are about to rip.

ciao.

Day 3: I love Sunday, Day of the Diners.

I've been SO excited to post this day, but I just now have time! YAHOO! I realize that I am taking way too long to tell about New York, and I just need to hurry it up already.

SO, we got up at around 8 and checked out of The W by 9, got breakfast, then met up with the boys and started our walk to church. We made a few stops along the way: The Plaza Hotel, and Central Park. Well, Central Park wasn't really a stop- we just had to walk through it to get to church.

The Plaza was beautiful--and so fancy! There was a giant grand staircase, a ballroom with fancy golden chairs, and doormen dressed like in the movies! They also had a giant picture of Eloise (you know, the little girl books?), so here ya go, Elise, I know you were excited about that. Me and Ashley felt all fancy because we went there. And it was perfect because we were in church clothes, so we felt appropriately dress for the place.

Me and Ash outside the Plaza.Stopping to smell the flowers. :)Eloise. This is for you Elise.

I LOVED CENTRAL PARK. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. Honestly, I imagined the park to be kind of gross and run-down. I imagined there to be lots of homeless people and grubby shopping carts and craps all over the place. I was given the impression, somehow, that the park was a dangerous place to go. I didn't think it was ALL going to be gross, just some of it, and that the rest would just look like your average park. Well, I was dead wrong. It was by far, hands down, the prettiest park I have ever seen. There were lots of ponds and bridges that were covered in vines and lots of cute park benches and big, pretty trees. And lots of grass that was mowed just perfectly, and fountains, and sculptures. We were there pretty early in the morning, though, so there weren't a ton of people out yet. When we walked back through after church is wasn't as awesome because it was more crowded and the weather was hotter. But I loved it.

I love park benches. An example of the gorgeousness.This is my frolicking through Central Park. :)

We went to church in the Manhattan Temple. There is a meeting house on the 3rd floor of the temple. It was really cool to see the Angel Moroni suddenly poke up out of nowhere in the middle of New York City. The building was really pretty inside, too, but the air conditioning wasn't working, so pretty much, I just sat there as baked for an hour and a half of an extra long sacrament meeting. Really, it was probably the longest sacrament meeting of my life. We only stayed for sacrament because we had too many things to do! And, since we had met up with everyone for church, there were kind of a lot of us to squeeze in as visitors in their Sunday School classes.

So, instead, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art! It was FABULOUS. There were lots and lots of statues and paintings and every kind of art. The museum is enormous, so we had to pick and choose what we wanted to see. My favorite part was the Greek and Roman art section. I pretty sure that any faithful reader of my blog could have guessed that. I love Greek and Roman things. Especially Roman things, and even more especially things from the Augustan period. The Met gave me exactly those things-- There was a TON of stuff from the Augustan period. Do you realize what that means? Augustan means that it was made during the time of Augustus, aka OCTAVIAN, my favorite guy!! I told everyone, "This is my favorite emperor. Do you have a favorite emperor? Mine is Octavian/Caesar Augustus. And my second favorite is probably Hadrian. But that's mostly because I like his name. But do you know how cool Augustus was?" A lot of people actually wanted to know what he did that was cool. So I told them, and I enjoyed myself. :)Caesar Augustus himself!!!

The museum also had this circular room that had a mural of the buildings and grounds at Versailles, France. There were benches in the middle of the room to sit on, and the lights were kind of dark. This was my second favorite place. After we had been walking for so long, Me, Cameron, and Shawn used this room as a relaxation room. We seriously sat in there for like half an hour, and it was lovely. The murals were really pretty. The three of us agreed that they made us feel like we were actually at Versailles.

After the museum, we rode the subway to Penn Station to buy train tickets to Morristown, New Jersey. We were going to stay at Jon's sister's house that night. :) Oh, I forgot to say that after the museum, Ashley took the bus back to Washington with Matt, Erik, and Ryan. So it was just me, Tanier, Tyson, Cameron, and Adam who were together. Anyway, after we got our tickets, we were all VERY STARVING, and even though it was Sunday, we still had to eat, so we went to a diner by the station. It was kind of a 50's-ish dealio with classic American food. I got this grilled-cheese sandwich thing that sounded really good on the menu, but is was super weird because instead of grilling it, the cheese and meat was melted in between two pieces of French toast. It was soggy and dumb.

Anywho, we decided that our last stop for the night should be ground zero. I had been really excited about this too. We thought it was cool that we were going to go there the night before Memorial Day. They didn't have anything special set up, though. I was really surprised by the whole thing because it was just a construction site. There was a path to go up and look down on the site, but there was nothing to see but construction for new buildings. They are building new towers. The new towers are going to be really cool, but I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the wreckage from 2001. I guess that was dumb of me, because, well, 2001 was like EIGHT years ago. Obviously the wreckage wouldn't still be fresh. I don't know, I just thought it would be preserved some how. That's what I had wanted. It was still really cool, though, and we saw the big steel cross that some firemen had built and stuck on the heaps of burned down/collapsed building. And they had a small exhibit with a timeline- hour by hour- of events. I liked that.

By the time we were done at Ground Zero we realized that we only had about 40 minutes to ride the subway all the way back to the hotel, get our luggage, and then right all the way back to the train station, go through security, then catch our train. We were in a massive, stressful rush, and my feet hurt so bad. I didn't have blisters or anything, but my feet had been walking on shoes with no support and very thin soles for miles and miles. The bottom of my feet felt like they had giant, very tender bruises covering them, and they pulsed with every step I took. It was very miserable. But, we had to hurry, and I had to run. Somehow, some way, we made it, and plopped down into our seats on the train all hot, sweaty, and bothered. I was still in my church clothes, by the way, and I felt disgusting. BUT, the train ride was very pleasant, and it was supposed to take about 2 hours, but I swear it was faster than that. There were official guys that came around to check our tickets after we made every stop. It was an actual passenger train. I honestly didn't know that those things still existed in the United States. They sure don't exist in the west. Sure, in Salt Lake we have the Trax system, but this is like a long distance, you buy a specific ticket kind of train. :)

So, we got to Morristown, New Jersey, and called Jon, our ride to the house where we were going to stay. Jon and Jeff, his partner in crime, had not followed the plan. They were supposed to have left NYC like 2 hours before us, so, accounting for traffic, they would get back to Morristown before us, and be able to pick us up when we got off the train. Well, I don't know when they left NYC, but they were still like an hour out of Morristown in traffic. The five of us who rode the train were not happy campers. And what does one do when they are not a happy camper? They find a place to eat ice cream. I need to add that at this point it was about 11:00pm. We walked down the block a little ways until we came to a little Diner. (This is Diner #2 of the night--- We decided at that point that it was funny to see how many diners we could go to in different states on the same night). We ordered milkshakes, finished them too quickly, then just sat and waited until Jon showed up. It's just so funny when we are in a public setting such as this. It was late at night, everything in the diner was very quiet, and then we show up, and suddenly the diner was a much more lively place. We get comments all the time about how happy we are. The waitress was a little blown away by us because we dragged our luggage in, and then sat around laughing hysterically under the inlfuence of milkshakes for like 2 hours!

Jon finally showed up, we drove to the house, then went immediately to sleep. :)

Adventures at the Base.

Jefferson Memorial. My all-time fave.

I am way behind. This blog post in informally titled "Catch-Up Post." I have LOADS to talk about, namely, NYC!!! But I have to talk about this first, so we'll get to that later. :( I might have to write about it in installments.

So, I'm going to start with last weekend. This was actually before the "Going Private Fiasco" involving The Museum that Must Not Be Named. So, May 17-19. And here ya go:

On Friday, after class, we went to Johnny Rockets (a really cute 50's diner with a juke box and a checkerboard floor and everything) for lunch, and then to some museums. "We" means me, Genevieve, Cameron, Adam, and Tyson. The Air and Space Museum is AWESOME. I love it. I secretly want to be an astronaut.This is me and Tyson and a statue sculpted by a guy from St. George. So me and my St. George buddy took a picture with it.

That night, we went to the Pentagon. I had never been there before, so I was excited. We walked over to the September 11th Memorial. It was really, really cool, and I would recommend it to anyone. By this time Genevieve had ditched us, so it was just me, Tyson, Cameron, and Adam. All of the benched represent a person who was killed in the attack at the Pentagon, and the direction that each bench is facing tells whether the person was in the plane or in the building. There was water running under and in between all the benches, so they were all connected and it was all very symbolic. I love symbolic things.

On Saturday we went to the Eastern Market for breakfast again (my favorite thing ever), and then to the air show at Andrew's Air Force Base. It was a REALLY bright day, and I forgot my sunglasses, so I was kind of grumpy. But it was really cool to go in all the old planes and walk around in the giant hangars and hold ginormous guns. And then, the air show was really awesome. The jets did all sorts of cool tricks. We sat on the grass and watched. There were probably about nine of us, and we each had our own umbrella (we had thought that it would rain. It didn't). So, because it was so bright, we set up our umbrellas and lay under them. It was beautiful. The sky was blue, and the clouds were fluffy!This is Cameron's giant umbrella. When you hold it up, you can fit like five people under it. And when it's closed, it's like 3 feet tall. Hilar.

And now for some other orders of business:
1) American Idol is over. I don't know what I will do with my life. And, my finale celebration party was ruined. This is what happened: I had a briefing for my Seminar class on Wednesday night, and my Professor PROMISED me that it would be over in time for the show. I was very concerned. I COULD NOT miss the finale, of all episodes. So, when the briefing ended a little before 9, I ran and changed from my business clothes, then down to the TV in the game room. And GUESS WHAT?? All those stupid people who like to watch playoff basketball games were already hogging the TV. And so I said, "Um, huloo!!!! I am supposed to be watching the American Idol FINALE right now!!" They didn't care. So, I went to the other known TV in the building. It is in one of the institute classrooms. On the TV cabinet I found a sign that said, "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. Love, Elder Blanchard" (He is the elderly missionary that runs the place with his wife.) I set out to find Elder Blanchard to get special permission to use the TV, but he was down in the lobby with everyone else still, and I would have just gone down there in my pajamas, but my professor was still there, along with the United States Representative who had just given our briefing. It would have been muy embarrassing to walk in and not be appropriately dressed. :( And to add to all that, I forgot my room key, so I couldn't even go back up and change. By the time I got Genevieve's attention from the hall way, got her key, got into my room, changed back in to business clothes, found Elder Blanchard, asked permission to use the TV, and got the TV to the right channel, there was a half an hour left in the show. You can imagine that I was just a little bit T.O.ed. Grrrr. I was mad at the basketball boys more than anything. It was that one stupid married guy. Anyway, I watched the last half-hour by myself, sat in shock by myself when Adam lost, and then went in to mourning by myself. The season was over, Kris won, I missed the first hour and a half of the episode, and I didn't get to have a finale party like usual. Sad day. But I got over it.
2) One of my favorite things about life is eating lunch on the National Mall and calling friends and family while I do it. When the weather is nice, there is hardly anything greater in the world. I love it.
3) I love my job. My supervisor made me project manager of the Scurlock collection, which is a really big deal. When the other interns come, I will be in charge of them and what they do everyday. That is super cool. I said in the other post that I was kind of the unoffical head intern, well, spoken from my supervisors mouth, I AM the head intern!!! YAY! AND, I am supposed to take pictures and make a scrapbook of the processing. And we all know that I love to scrapbook.
4) A downside. I have to write a MASSIVE research paper by the end of the summer. Sometimes I feel like crying when I think about it.
5) I love summer and warm weather and wearing shorts. It rained today. No me gusta.

The End. Stay tuned for New York, and make sure you check out the post below this one. It is Muy Importante.

Philly and the Forge

On the bus when we first left- Adam, Cameron, Me, Genevieve

My darling Moe accused me of neglecting my blog, and I will have none of that. I do not neglect my blog! I simply had to wait for someone to comment on my last post before writing a new one! I know that hasn't been my policy in the past, but I decided that it would be best to let everyone enjoy my blog, one post at a time. Here is a small list of things to look forward to: reports on Valley Forge and Philadelphia, orientation at the Smithsonian, my first days of work, and the Air Show. I have a lot to say, so get buckled in and ready for the next couple days of amazing posts.

First order of business: BEST WEEKEND EVER.

On Friday morning, I had to get up SUPER early and be ready by 7:30 to get on the bus with everyone and drive 3.5 hours to Valley Forge! (For all of you who don't know, Valley Forge is the place where George Washington stationed and trained his troops during the winter of 1777. It was a very cold, terrible winter, and the men were very miserable. There was a lot of disease, and many men died. The remarkable thing about the whole affair is that despite the horrors of serving in the continental army, George Washington, with his powerful leadership skills, was able to keep morale up, and even when many of the soldiers' enlistment time ended, they stayed and re-enlisted. Cool, right? Okay, I'm done being a history teacher for the moment). So, anyway, it was a long drive, but we watched a movie about the Constitution.

THEN, we got to Valley Forge!!!! We drove up to this place called the Freedom Foundation. They had three dormitory buildings and then like a center hall complete with classrooms, rec room, and banquet hall. I felt like we were a youth conference or some sort of jazzed up summer camp. Apparently the Freedom Foundation usually runs their program for middle schoolers, so it was kind of odd that we were all in college. We had a guided tour of the park and a Thomas Jefferson impersonator and everything. It was hilarious. And the cook made smiley face cupcakes. :)Part of the gang. This is a bridge in Valley Forge
Our dormitory. It was SO PRETTY there. So green. And lots of trees. Valley Forge was like the epitome of a peaceful place. I wanted to camp-out there for several days.

So, we toured that afternoon, and it was great. So cool to be there. The little history person in me jumped out. That night, after ice cream, we PLAYED NIGHT GAMES. This is one of my favorite pastimes. I love night games. I convinced everyone to play ghost in the graveyard-- the GREATEST night game ever. It was especially perfect to play because we were in Valley Forge, and a lot people actually died there. There were memorials and craps all over the place, so it actually was kind of like a graveyard, and kind of spooky. SO MUCH FUN. We played that, and sardines for several hours, then told ghost stories. Even though we are all over 20, and should act like adults, we figured that since we were at a camp for middle schoolers and were being treated as such, we may as well act the part! I loved being a kid again. :)

The next morning, we drove to Philadelphia. As we rode into the city, I played the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song on my iPod and we all sang along. I'm pretty sure I sang that song 12 times throughout the day. It was quite often that we came upon a ghetto, run-down basketball court that could very well have been the one where Will was beat up and swung around on that one guy's head. We looked for the Fresh Prince and all the people from Boy Meets World all day. It was great. I might have seen Cory once, but I didn't get a picture.

Anyway, we went to the Liberty Bell first, and don't worry, I spackled that baby right up. No more crack (That's what Eric does on BMW). I loved seeing the Bell. I LOVE HISTORY! Next was the Consitution Center. We watched a movie about the Consitution, but I fell asleep. I have the habit of falling asleep EVERYWHERE now. I lead a difficult life. The Constitution Center was really cool. There was a place where you could pretend to be on the Supreme Court, and another room that had a statue for all the signers of the Constitution. I love statues. They are probably one of my favorite things to see. So powerful. I have lots of favorites. I'll post about that some time.

The Liberty Bell!!!

Napoleon?

Me and Sam Adams. I always wanted to meet that guy. He's my all-time fave.

Alexander Hamilton. My other favorite guy.

I don't even know who this is. We'll pretend that it's James Madison, because I love him too.
Me signing the Constitution.

Did you know I'm on the Supreme Court with Genevieve and Tyson?

And THEN, we went to INDEPENDENCE HALL. My favorite place of all. I was super excited about this. My history lover self was GOING CRAZY at this point. I was freaking out. Let me explain. Independence Hall is the place where everything happened. Among others, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution were signed there, the 1st and 2nd Continental Congress, Consitutional Convention, and George Washington's inauguration ALL happened there. Coolest place ever. I stood in the actual room, and the only thing I could think about was that fact that all of the people who I idolize stood at the very same place that I was standing at some time or another. In Washington, DC, it's different. It's not as old as Philly, and the current buildings didn't house the early American government. I mean, DC was sacked in the War of 1812 and everything had to be rebuilt. But anyway, I loved it.

Independence Hall

The Room where it all took place... In case you didn't notice, this is my "really, really excited about life" face.

A summary of the other sites we saw in Philly: B. Franklin's grave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of World War 1, the First U.S. Bank (Yeah, it's the one that Alexander Hamilton was in charge of and Andrew Jackson crushed!), Reading Railroad, Christ Church, Elfreth Alley (the oldest continual residential street in the country. It was adorable), the first Philly Cheese Steak drive-up restaurant (It was muy delisioso), City Hall, the Masonic Temple, and I'm sure there were other places that I can't remember.Elfreth Alley. It was ADORABLE!

Ashley, Kate, Me. Yes, Ashley and I are wearing practically the same outfit. That was an accident.

Items of Note:
1) I rode in a taxi for the first time ever!!! I was excited about the first-time ever thing, but it really wasn't that cool or fun.
2) There were some creepers. See the picture below. The guy sitting on the bench followed and circled around us for like 3 blocks. It was kind of scary but mostly hilarious. He had headphones on and was singing, "bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you..." And at one point he pushed up his sleeves. I think it was so he could show us his tattoo. It was really weird, and quite disturbing when he just kept popping up places.3)Philadelphia (at least where we were) is a very dirty city. Like literally, very dirty. Dirty people, streets, everything. The historical sites were picked up and clean, but for the most part, it was just gross, which is really a shame. The founding fathers would not be happy about that. :)
4) The Philly Cheese Steaks were very, very yummy. They made me very happy. But, they were also very greasy. I mean, very, very, very greasy. Yes, that was a triple "very" on purpose. The moment the guy handed me my sandwich, I tilted the paper down, and grease poured onto my pants and shoes. So gross. But no worries. I didn't get any more grease on my clothes. It just went in my body.
5) We are very excited to see, "Up." We talk about it all the time.
6) Kate braided my hair and tied it around the seat on the bus. It was very comical.
I had an amazing weekend, and I have been SO busy doing fun stuff and working that I haven't had time to post, and I am now a week behind. ACK!!! I just want to remember everything because I love it so much, but it's SO HARD!!!!

But I love you all, and I hope you liked the pictures. I thought they were funny.

Welcome to Audrey's life as a spontaneous person!

I never ever do anything that is against the plan. I always have a plan. And it stresses me out when, for some reason, I cannot follow the plan. Every night when I go to bed, I make a plan in my head, and very rarely will I alter the plan.

However, this weekend, I did something SO against the plan! And it turned out great! The plan was to go home President's Day weekend. It made perfect sense to go home when I had three days to be home instead of two. It made perfect sense to go home when I would be able to hang out with Keith, my friend from high school who just came home from his mission, instead of just going to his homecoming. It also made perfect sense to go home with Rachelle so that we could split gas. BUT, I did not do what made sense, and I did not follow the plan! I went home this weekend instead. I don't know what came over me, I just wanted to go home! It was weird. I called and told my mom, and she was very worried. She kept asking me what was wrong because, like she said, "it's just so unlike you, Audrey." Even my Dad called to make sure I was okay. At least I know they care. :)

I was scheduled to work on Friday night, but two hours before my shift started I called around and got someone to work for me. I was packed and out of Provo within a half an hour. My roommates didn't even know I was leaving! I just disappeared! Isn't that great?

And I had such a good weekend! St. George is seriously SO therapeutic. It was amazing. I slept in and caught up on American Idol (I made sure everything was recorded for me), scrapbooked at Pebbles for a while, had dinner with Moe, and played Scrabble with my family. And then, on Sunday, Me, Moe, Anisa, and Rachelle went to Keith's homecoming! It was like a high school drama people reunion. Great! I love those guys. The pictures were taken at Keith's house after the homecoming.

All in all, I did something spontaneous this weekend. It was very unusual for me, but I think it might start happening more often. Yay for being spontaneous, yay for Keith, and yay for Moe! (just because I love her so much).