I'm 21 now!

Today is my birthday, and I've been such a lucky girl to celebrate it all weekend long! I've had so much fun and have pictures to prove it, and so I'll give you all the play-by-play:

Thursday night a friend set me up on a blind date to see the Alicia Keys concert in Salt Lake. It was an unexpected surprise! I didn't know I was going until the day-of. It was fun though, and the guy was really nice, and we had a great time. Alicia Keys is seriously super talented.. I do wonder, do you think 'Keys' is a stage name? It just seems so cliche that she is such a piano whiz and has the name 'Keys'. Who knows though, right? It was a fantastic concert!

Friday I had the day off of work, which was SO nice. The company I work for is so generous with paid time off. In addition to the amazing amount of PTO we get a year, you get your birthday off paid! (or any day you choose to have off, since I picked Friday instead of today.)
I got to have lunch with my dear friend Morgan, who recently got married. I got to check out their cute newly wed apartment, and catching up with her since the wedding was SO fun.

Friday afternoon, my friend Dan, his brother Ryan, and their friend Luke took me to the Little Sahara Sand Dunes for a weekend of four-wheeling! It was a blast! We camped there Friday night, and then spent all day Saturday four-wheeling. Here a few pictures of our adventures!

Luke, Ryan, Dan, and our redneck rig:

The boys taught me how to use a little scout water to get a good fire going:

Some fun off of the four-wheelers as well!! Here we are doing some dune jumping:

Utah really IS a desert.. I mean seriously, this looks like a different continent!

One of Dan's totally awesome four-wheelers.
This is where I spent most of my time (only seated, of course.)
You can't turn 21 without having a little fun, right?

Haha... Just kidding. It's only Huckleberry Soda :)

On the way home, even though we were dead tired, we stopped off at the most redneck place for dinner to top off our redneck weekend. There is a place called "Porters" on main street in Lehi that is about as redneck as you can get. It is a restaurant dedicated completely to Orrin Porter Rockwell. It's really interesting... you go inside and there is some kind of player piano music rambling in the background, and there are saws, mallets, whips, spurs, guns, and really old western portraits all over the walls. The stools at the bar were made from old tractor seats, and in the back of the place is a real log cabin, (which coincidentally belonged to Luke's great great grandfather.) The food was pretty good (really heavy, but good).. and the boys topped it off with my first 'beer' as a legal drinker... Haha. It's just pretend though, it was just Huckleberry soda. No worries!

Sunday we celebrated as a family and had Grandma Wadley over for dinner. We opened gifts and had cake and ice cream, and it was so fun! I FINALLY got to open my birthday present from Nathan, which I had gotten in the mail last Wednesday. I had been trying to save it for my birthday, but decided to open it with my family's gifts. Inside was lots and lots and lots of gorgeous traditional samoan fabric to make a traditional female Samoan costume out of! (pictures to come!) I am very excited to have something to work on now until he gets home in 34 days! He also had a couple of letters inside, as well as some new pictures. I scanned them in so you can see too. Doesn't he look handsome?! Of course I think so :)
In the last one, he is wearing the shirt I sent him for his birthday! It says "It's Uke and Me, Baby" on it... heh heh :)

Tonight mom, dad, Clint, and I went out to my favorite Thai place for dinner. The food was amazing as always. If you are into Thai food, I highly recommend this place. It is called "Spicey Thai", and is located on North University Avenue in Provo, right next to Magelby's Fresh. It's to die for!

Later tonight I went over to the Ives' house to show Nathan's parents the gift he had sent me. When I got there they surprised me with a bouquet of balloons and flowers and chocolate. They are so incredibly thoughtful! I just love them :)

So as you can see, it has been a fantastic marathon birthday weekend!! Thank you everybody for making it such a great one! I love you all!

Blog Tag!

I have been tagged by Becca

Rules:
Link the person who tagged you. Mention the rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each of the tagged bloggers blogs
letting them know they have been tagged.

Quirk #1: Drinking Fountains

I am not a germ-a-phobe, but I am VERY particular about drinking fountains. It has to be a clean-looking drinking fountain for me to really drink out of it.. Or else a time-tested drinking fountain that I am familiar with and know has good water. It also has to be a very cold drinking fountain, and it has to put out a lot of water at once. I hate those little spitty ones. Usually I'd rather go thirsty than drink out of a questionable drinking fountain.
My favorite drinking fountains: There is one on the main floor of the Richards Building at BYU just inside the North door that is perfect. My other favorites are backstage at the Conference Center Theater, and also the one in my home stake center just outside of the Stake Offices. Yumm :)

Quirk #2: Disney Makes Me Cry
Okay, so Disneyland and Disneyworld are supposedly the most magical places on earth. Well, after our vacation to Walt Disney World this past Christmas, I totally believe it. My parents raised us on Disney movies, and we made frequent trips to Disneyland.. but this was my first time back to a Disney park as an adult. Standing outside of the Magic Kingdom's gates and watching the opening ceremony they have.. I started getting really emotional!! I am even feeling a little emotional right now thinking about it! I don't know how to describe it except it kinda felt like I was feeling the spirit! I think it had to do with so many familiar happy childhood memories flooding back.. and all of the little kids around us who were so excited they were unable to even control themselves.. It was just so touching! I was a little weirded out about it though, and when I talked to my Dad about it, he said he was feeling a little moved himself (and that is shocking, actually!) He said to me "If the Gospel wasn't true, Disney's got it pretty good." Ha ha... that made me laugh pretty hard :)

Quirk #3: Sniffing Milk

I am scared of the smell of spoiled milk, and if it is even a day or two before the expiration date, I pretty much stay away from it. If someone else is in the room, I will make them sniff it for me. If no one else is around, I avoid the milk and find something else to eat.

Quirk #4:Babies, Puppies, and Cute-ness in General
Whenever I see cute babies or puppies or darling baby animals, I get so excited that I experience what I call a 'Cute Overload.' Nathan teases me about this because I squeal and barely control myself, really. I just love cute things, okay?

Quirk #5: The Silent Treatment

I do not think that this is really all that quirky, actually. I know plenty of people who don't like the silent treatment, but I REALLY do not like it. It is not productive, doesn't solve any problems, and basically is outright childish. That's all I have to say about that. Just so you know, I will never give you the silent treatment.

Quirk #6: Nature, Music, and Color Euphoria

Whenever I am out in nature, or I see a painting that I really connect to, or hear a song that really moves me, I feel this deep swelling in my chest, and I feel a pleasant spinny dizziness in my head! I know that may sound weird, but the only thing I can really think of is maybe I am getting some kind of natural high? I don't know, but I think this strong reaction to what I consider beauty fuels my passion for these three things. I always have to shut my eyes and breath in deeply whenever this happens. I'm not sure, but am I high on life?


I am tagging:
Ellen
Tara
Jana
Kim
Jenny
Hillary

School again!

Hi All - I am back in school again, and have been for almost 2 weeks. My classes are going pretty well, and shouldn't be too hard.
I am especially excited for my Environmental Health class. I know I'm a health nerd and it might sound pretty boring to all of you, but we discuss all sorts of awesome illnesses and health threats from anything like groundwater contamination to restaurant sanitation and beyond. Its a good discussion class too, which I thrive in. My professor is an adjunct professor that is a health inspector for the Utah County Health department for his 9 to 5 job.. and I can just tell I'm going to get a lot out of this semester.

Tonight was the worldwide CES Broadcast with Elder Holland, and I got to be part of the choir that sang for it. The Orem Institute (where I do the Latter-Day Celebration Choir) put together the choir and it had about 400 people! It was such great music.

If you missed it, you can check it out HERE!

Apparently from what people tell me I got quite a bit of face time on camera, but of course I haven't seen it so I don't really know.

Nathan's mom called me today and told me that she got his travel itinerary in her email last night! He is arriving around 7pm on October 28th. I am SO excited! 49 more days! Well, life is going alright for now! Love you all!