Love is in the air...

Over the last few years since I have been out of high school many of my friends have tied the knot and gotten married! Which I think is great! I love weddings and am so happy to have been a part of so many of them!

Katie and Josh Tompkins

A few years ago on August 10, 2007 my cousin Katie Judd and her husband Josh Tompkins got married! I was the Maid of Honor in their wedding! It was actually the first wedding I had been to and one of the most beautiful! I love you Kate and Josh!

Angela and Andrew Block
On September 20, 2008 Angela Rassmusen and Andrew Block got married. I met Angela while going to school at Concordia University, and although we didn't know each other for very long then I was so happy she thought of me to invite to her wedding! She is a great friend and helped me out through a lot at Concordia.

Gina and Steven Gandee

This last year on October 24, 2009 my long time high school friends Gina Ellis and Steven Gandee were married. I met these two doing theater in high school freshman year and we have been friends ever since! This wedding was great not only because it was Steven and Gina, but because it was sort of like a mini high school theater group reunion! We all got to be together again for a great night and it was so good to see everyone!

Amber and Matt WestfallJust last month another friend from high school had a wedding. On May 14, 2010 Amber Drape and Matt Westfall got married! I was a bridesmaid in this wedding and so honored to to be a part of such a great friend's big day! Amber and I met sophomore year in high school and have been great friends ever since! I love her to death and couldn't imagine a life without her in it!

Megan and Ted Moore

Just yesterday on June 26, 2010 my two good friends Megan Petrie and Ted Moore got married. It was a perfect day for a beautiful outside wedding! I met Megan when I went to school at Mt. Hood Community College. We were in the musical "Drood!" together and instantly became great friends! Plus Ted is hilarious, they are perfect for each other! And guess what?! I caught the bouquet at this one... you know what that means!

Congratulations to all of my friends and family who have gotten married over the last few years! I love you all and wish you nothing but the best in your new lives together. You are all perfect for each other in every way and am grateful to see you all so happy! Can't wait for the next wedding, who knows who it will be...? Congrats again, I hope you live "happily ever after!"

Moved Out... 6/12/10

Bellarmine 740

Everyone is now officially moved out of SU and finished with the 2009-2010 school year. It has been a great one, with many stories to tell (which will be coming in the next few posts most likely).

Move out day is both exciting and depressing at the same time. As well it is stressful, overwhelming, and a time to hone your organizational skills like none other! About a week and a half before school got out it was time to start collecting boxes to put EVERYTHING in to get it all out on time (approx. 9:00am on 6/12/10).

So here's a little story on the box collecting extravaganza Alyssa and I went on. We decided that we were going to meed quite a few boxes so we went to Safeway to ask if they had any left over that we could have. They gave us about 4 boxes which was nice. Next we went to another Safeway because we were going to need a few more, but we were a few minutes to late and didn't get any from them. Feeling a little defeated we went to QFC up the street from the school. Little did we know when we got there this guy in the produce area told us we could, "go downstairs to the back and go through the 2 black doors, then take what we want." Through those two doors we found a mayhem of boxes so naturally we started piling them into our cart. We probably came back to school with a good 20+ boxes including a giant "Pistachios" display box we probably weren't supposed to take, which was way more than we needed! We jammed them all into my car, and barely was able to fit them all. We took them up, dropped off a few in Alyssa's room then somehow managed to stash the rest of them into Lisa and mine. Needless to say it was very cramped in there for the remainder of our stay at SU. Little by little we got all our stuff packed away into storage but let me just say, the process took forever and we were climbing over boxes for days!

Here take a look at some before and after pictures of Mine ad Lisa's shoebox of a dorm room during the process of packing and after we got everything out...

Before

After

It was quite bare, sad, and depressing to see our once lively room looking like such an empty little closet... But it was time to say goodbye to good old Bell 740... and everyone in it. That's always the hardest part of the end of the school year is saying goodbye to all your friends. (And I have to say, it is extremely lonely sleeping in my room all alone every night). However as difficult as it is we know we will all be together again in just a few short (well kinda long) months. By the way... Thanks to all of my wonderful friends (Lisa, Alyssa, Allie, Courtney, Connie Rae, Angela, Morgan, etc... etc..!) for making my first year at Seattle University a fantastic one!

21 years ago...

I have realized that it has been far to long since I have written a new post. Due to the busyness of the last month of school before we moved out I literally have had no time to myself (although I know that is a terrible excuse) so I think now it's time to PARTY!

On June 10, 1989 at 5:15 am I was born into the world... So naturally on June 10, 2010 I turned 21!!! That's right, it was my 21st birthday! My friends and I kept up the tradition of going to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner at the end of the term. Great idea, since I was given the most horrible birthday presents by my teachers, called FINALS! Gross. It was an excellent way to end the year and celebrate my birthday! SO once I was done with exams, we got dressed up and went out.

The very first time we went to the Spaghetti Factory we had this awesome waiter named Tyler, who was hilarious because he literally came to our table every two minutes asking if we needed anything and gave us tons of extra ice cream and bread to take home. Throughout the night we eventually became friends and he pretty much just hung out at our table the whole time. We then decided that it was officially tradition to come to this restaurant at the end of every term and have Tyler as our waiter (even though he only was one time we went there). This time however we had our new favorite waiter named Erik F. (who also happened to be a friend of Tyler's, crazy right?) Here he is taking our orders and checking my ID for the first time!

This is me after I ordered an Agave Fruit Punch margarita on the rocks. Which was delicious by the way!

After dinner we went back to school where my fantasticly wonderful friends had a delicious cake waiting for me. It was an ice cream cake with red velvet cake and "birthday cake" ice cream from Cold Stone! Which we then ate off of Spiderman plates and napkins that my mom sent up to Lisa along with decorations and, you guessed it Spiderman loot bags! I am only turning 21 after all...

So to everyone who made my birthday so fantasic, I would like to thank you! It was a great night and I appreciate everything you guys do for me! I love you all and can't wait for the next person's birthday to celebrate!!

RELAY FOR LIFE!!

This weekend I participated in Relay For Life 2010 with my team from SU "Colleges Against Cancer." It was quite and experience, but done for a great cause. All together the event raised over $26,000 to donate to the American Cancer Society to research for a cure! My team individually raised almost $5, 000 making us the highest donating team at the event! I am so proud to be a part of that group!

For those of you who don't know Relay For Life is an event put on by the American Cancer Society organization in which groups of people get together and raise money to donate to cancer research. Many individual teams participate and on "relay day" we all get together and walk around a track for 20 hours celebrating the lives of people who are living with cancer and remembering those who have lost the fight. There must be at least one person walking the track at all times symbolizing that people with cancer never get to take a break. It is a very powerful message that we try and get across, and hope that someday there will be a cure so these people can live their lives in peace.

Although it is a serious event, we like to make it fun as well. This time we had a talent show to win $250 to donate to your team. My friend Alyssa and I thought, hmmm "shoot we have talent, let's enter" so what did we do? We got up in front of hundreds of people wearing big red and black tutu's we made and did the "Line Dance"that I learned at Dance Marathon this last February. Alyssa didn't know it before hand, so I taught it to her in about an hour the day before, and lo and behold we win the darn thing! Are you surprised? Well we were for sure, because there were some really good people there! It was pretty but we were super excited because on top of the $250 we also won 12 liters of iced tea! Probably one of the best prizes I have ever one on a hot summer day!

As it got later and later into the night (keep in mind the event went from noon on saturday to 8am sunday morning) it started to get cold, but we kept on walking. Eventually a few of us decided to take a quick nap to recharge and it was so freezing in the tent that we were imitating lines from the titanic instead of being able to sleep! Luckily our team captain's name was Jack to it made the "Jack, I'm so cold" lines sound more legit.. haha. Not to mention that I forgot to bring socks and only had flip flops which broke on me around 11 o'clock that night, so I had to makeshift a pair of gloves into socks to keep my feet warm while walking around the track... you really just had to see it to find the humor.

However, one of the most powerful moments that keep everyone going is the Luminaria Ceremony that happens at night during the event, where you decorate and write the name of someone you know that was affected by cancer on a bag a they are all set out around the track and lit up with candles that glow throughout the night, representing our loved ones. You look around and see hundreds of glowing bags and remember that you are doing this for them, and that is motivation enough.

It was a very eventful event, but we all had a ton of fun while doing something very rewarding at the same time. If you know someone fighting cancer, or have ever lost a loved one to it you know how devastating it can be so encourage any of you to find a Relay For Life event close to you and participate in it, it's something you won't ever forget.

"En la memoria de mi abuela, Amalia Moreno"

May 26, 1931 - December 20, 2009

Do Work!

So probably one of my (and my roommate's) favorite shows is "Rob and Big" featuring pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek and his bodyguard/roommate/best friend Christopher "Big Black" Boykin. It is basically one of the most hilarious shows ever on MTV consisting of a camera man following them around as they go about their extremely entertaining daily lives.

Along with them in their Hollywood home, is their skateboarding bulldog named Meaty and their mini horse named Mini Horse, which yes sometimes comes in and lives in their house when he's not hanging out in his luxury stable out by the pool.

What makes this show so funny is all the crazy things that they get themselves into on a regular basis. For instance they have tried time travel, brought ghost hunters into their homes, entered Mini in a mini horse competition, bought a net gun like spiderman and were shooting everyone in the city, discovered the art of turtle racing... the list really goes on and on. Just some of the things they say and do are so funny, that I am pretty much laughing for hours after! They remind me of my friends and I sometimes which just makes it even better, and some of the things they say are just hilarious. Maybe one of my next blogs will be "favorite quotes by Rob and Big!" Haha. So if you have not ever seen this show before... PLEASE watch it! It will change your life... well probably not but it will make your day better for sure!

Now get out there and "Do Work Son!"

Just click this link and it should take you to the website to watch full episodes of all 3 seasons!
http://www.mtv.com/shows/rob_and_big/season_1/series.jhtml

• P.S. My birthday is in t-minus 51 days (June 10th) and I would love to own all 3 seasons on dvd! Just a side note :) .... haha kidding, but seriously.

There's nothing like a baby basset hound...

So recently I have seriously been missing my dogs while being away at school. As I have said before my dogs are my life and I truly do love them. Here's a little something else about my basset hound Libby...she loves to chew things. Fun for her... bad for us. I figured I would give you a list of things she has chewed and/or eaten thus far since we have owned her (about a year and a half). Well here goes nothing...

• Her kennel
• Her toys
• Her toy box
• Her collars and my other dog Nikeah's collars
• Her leashes
• My cat Tipper's favorite catnip toy
• The carpet
• My iPod
• My phone
• My mom's phone
• My mom's other phone (after she had to get a new one)
• The remote control
• The charger to my computer ($80 to replace)
• A baseball (literally ate it and we had to take her into emergency)
• Lightbulbs
• Batteries
• My school books
• My sheet music for choir
• The broom
• Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, Quarters
• Garbage
• Got into my 40lb bucket of frosting for cake decorating
• My cake decorating supplies (colored frosting everywhere!)
• Pens and pencils (her very favorite)
• My shoes
• The catfood
• Her bed
• My sunglasses
• Plastic water bottles (full and empty)
• A huge box of dog biscuts
• A box of plastic silverware

As you can see she definitely is a problem grade C kind of a dog. Along with all of these things (and I'm sure there is more but I have tried to block some of the things out of my memory) she eats basically any food she can possibly get to. We can't leave anything on the counter, or out in the living room if we let her stay out there instead of being in the kitchen while we are gone. However, nonetheless there really is no choice but to love her, becaue who could stay mad at a face like this...?

Dance is Music Made Visible

I'm not one of those people that have been dancing since I was 3 years old but it has been a part of my life for about the past 8 years now. It is something I am extremely passionate about and work at on a regular basis whether I am in a studio class or alone in my room. Dance will be a part of me for the rest of my life.

My interest in dance started when I began getting involved in theater. I have been in a few musicals in my time so musical theater was kind of my first experience (other than some sweet swing dance classes I took with some friends) with dance and movement. I loved it instantly and started taking classes in jazz and ballet as well right away. After about 2 years into my high school career I started taking parter style dancing in ballroom, latin, and salsa. Those were so much fun and we took those classes for 2 years. I still love that style, but it's been a while since I've gotten to do it.

I have been taking lyrical, modern, and contemporary classes for about 3 years and have found that this particular style is what I like doing best. It is a way for me to be able to express myself without having to talk about it, or write it down. I can just get out whatever I am feeling right there and put as much power and expression into it as I want. I am a very creative person, I love to designing, and singing as a way of getting my feelings out, but there is something about movement that just takes everything to a whole new level, and that's what I love about dance.

I have recently, as in the last year or two, started choreographing routines. It hasn't been anything big, mainly solos for myself, but I have ideas that I would someday hope to have groups perfom. I've been getting inspiration from my classes and songs I have listened to, but the routines are mainly staying inside my head because it is kind of hard to try them full out in the closet that I live in. We'll see though, maybe someday it will happen. I keep hoping for the opportunity.

Until then I will continue to keep dancing, performing, and loving what I do!