Lady Antebellum!

So since I haven't posted in a couple days, I decided to give my blog a makeover and redesign it. I'm still in the process of working things out, and it isn't completely finished but should be finished in a couple days.  Last night Hayley and I went to the Lady Antebellum concert in Salt Lake city and it was awesome!  Thompson Square and Darius Rucker (lead singer for Hootie and the Blowfish) opened and they were both pretty good, but Lady Antebellum was completely amazing!   Here was my face when they finally came out-

And since it was a country concert, I haaadd to wear my boots...

We were all of the way up in the top row, but it was more than loud enough for us to hear, and we were at a pretty good angle.  Like I said before, Lady Antebellum was amazing, and I would almost consider them to be better live than recorded.  Here is a video that Hayley took of them playing their final song (Need You Now). It's kinda fuzzy because it was so loud, but it is still a pretty good recording.

Lady Antebellum has been one of my favorite bands lately, so I'm really glad I got a chance to see them.  Even for people who don't like country they are good because Hayley doesn't normally like country and she really enjoyed them too.  Here are some of their songs that are my favorite:  

Dancin' Away With My Heart

Hello World

We Owned the Night

American Honey

Love This Pain

Heart of the World

If I Knew Then
Cold as Stone

Tonight however, I watched the music video for "Hello World" for the first time.  It was soo good, and I have to admit, it almost made me cry.  It is kind long but has a great message and is an awesome song so you should definitely watch it.

 In all, it was a great concert, I had fun screaming along to every single song, and I look forward to going to see Ingrid Michaelson in April!

My God is My Strength

So the title of this post says it all.  God truly is my strength.  He has helped me through more hard times than I can count.  One of the scriptures that I really like is Alma 26:12.  It is actually the scripture that my sister has on her missionary plaque.  She sent me this picture of her and her missionary companion the other week I thought it would go along perfectly with the scripture, so I did a little photo editing once again with picnik.

If you let Him, God really can help you through your trials.  A quote that I really like says “When life knocks you down to your knees, just remember you're in the perfect position to pray.” I find this to be so true.  Through prayer I have found the strength to do things that I never could have done otherwise.

Preference Dance!

Tonight my roommate Hayley and I went out to dinner and BYU's formal preference dance.  I went with a guy named Torrin, and Hayley went with a guy named Josh.  Both of them are in our FHE group.  We started the night out with taking some pictures.  (We joined our other friends Mary and Jennica and their dates.)  After that we headed out to Texas Road house for dinner.  It was delicious and we had a good time too.  After that we headed to the dance which was in a cool little restaurant/lounge in downtown Provo.  It was pretty crowded, and loud, with crazy strobe lights, but fun nevertheless.  All in all, it was a pretty awesome night.  Here are some of the pics we took prior to the dance.  (My date and I didn't even coordinate our outfits, we just both like purple!)

7 Brides for 7 Brothers

Tonight our ward had a giant group date valentines activity.  All the girls were asked out by a guy and then we had a picnic dinner.  After the picnic dinner we watched the movie "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."  It was an  old movie made in the 50's, but I absolutely loved it!  It was pretty cheesy, but hey, that's what makes a movie fun.  Here is one of the fun scenes that I enjoyed where they seven brothers are trying to win the girls over at a barn raising through their dancing skills.

It really was a great movie, and you should check it out sometime.  Speaking of dancing... My roommate Hayley and I are going on a double date to the BYU girls' preference dance tomorrow night.  It is a formal, and we both have dates, so it should be fun :)  Pictures to come soon!

Nursing Home Visit

Tonight as a ward Relief Society activity we went and "heart attacked" (put paper hearts everywhere) at a nearby nursing home.  It was such a great experience!  The people there were so sweet and seemed genuinely happy that we were there.  They took the time to ask each of our names and where we were from.  I realized that we have so much to learn from those that are older than us.  I have amazing grandparents and I love them so much!  I was down in St. George visiting my Dad's parents earlier in September, and I snuck this picture of them as we were leaving the restaurant.

Here is a picture of my Mom's mom and her husband.  

My mom's father passed away when she was a teenager, so I never had the chance to meet him, but about ten years ago my Grandma got remarried to a wonderful man named Harold.  They live in North Carolina, so I don't get to see them very often, but I love when I get to.  Enjoy your grandparents, because you never know how long you will have them.

Not everyone can be Da Vinci...

This semester one of the classes I am taking is Art for Elementary Educators (since I'm going into Elementary Education.)  Besides photography, I've never really been an artist, but I'm really enjoying this class so far.  Last class we went over all the different styles of art and I realized that you don't have to paint like Da Vinci to be a good artist.  There are all different styles of art and they are each good in their own way.  The two artists that I really like are Van Gogh and Monet.  Believe it or not, when they first started painting, people didn't like their "impressionist" style.  Here are a couple of their paintings that I really like.

The Church at Auvers- Vincent Van Gogh

Venice Twilight- Claude Monet

The oil pastel of gerber daisies that I posted a couple posts ago was something I did in this class along with these-

For this assignment we had to use contour lines to draw our shoes and then put optical art in the background.

For this assignment we had to use different watercolor techniques to paint a flower, and I decided to do a gerber daisy again because they are my favorite flowers.  Even though these aren't amazing works of art, they were fun to do which is really all that matters!

Big Hair

When I was first born (and actually up until I was three) I was a very bald baby.  When we were living in Ecuador the native ladies there told my mom to shave my head so that my hair would grow in thicker.  All I can say is that thanks goodness she didn't! It may have taken a while to grow, but now I have super thick hair.  It seems like every time I go to get it cut the hairdresser makes a comment about how thick it is.  Not only that, but it also can get super frizzy (especially when I blow-dry it). Luckily I have now learned how to tame my hair and I love how thick it is, but it is because of this lovely hair that my older sister Emily gave me the nickname "Bushkal" when I was younger.  She said my hair was like a bush...  Anyways, just recently Charlotte showed me a video of an exercise lady who apparently used to be pretty famous.  The video is pretty darn hilarious, and because of her hair, Charlotte said I should be her for Halloween next year.  I'll have to think about it, but in the mean time enjoy this video!

Crepes!

So tonight for dinner (well it was really like dessert) I decided to make banana nutella crepes with homemade whipped cream and oh man were they delicious!  Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup of flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs melted butter
Directions
Whisk ingredients together all ingredients until well mixed.  Pour 1/4 cup of batter in circular pan and tilt pan around until it is completely covered in a thin layer of batter.  Cook for 2 minutes then flip.  Fill with ingredients, roll, and enjoy!

Irrational Fears

Tonight I was watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which was a pretty awesome movie) with Hayley and Evan, and I was once again reminded of my irrational fear of living in large cities.  This first started when I watched the Spiderman Movies.  It made me think about how anytime there is something crazy and dangerous where people have to run screaming for their lives through the streets, it happens in a large city.  I know this is all just by the design of the movie producers (because come on who would want to watch a movie about apes taking over Provo?) but it still just freaks me out a little bit. Here are some of the movies that have gotten me freaked out about big cities-

In all of these movies innocent city livers are abducted, taken hostage, or killed!  I mean come on!  Don't get me wrong, I love a vacation to NYC as much as anyone else, I just couldn't ever see myself living there.  Stay tuned for irrational Fears Part II.

Tests, Picnik, and more!

So today I had the lovely opportunity of taking my first exam of the semester in the testing center.  This is our lovely testing center-

It is probably the most dismal building on campus and quite often the people in this building feel like this-

(Yes, I am a Harry Potter geek)

Luckily that was not me today because I got an A on my test! Woo hoo!  Another thing I wanted to show you was how to make pictures of ugly things (like the testing center) look pretty.  I am really into photography and photo editing, and to do all of my work I use a little website called Picnik.  Here is a before and after of the testing center that I did using picnik.

Now doesn't that look much better?  I've used it so much now that it took me less than 5 minutes to do that picture.  The thing that makes me sad about picnik however is that they are shutting it down after April 19th :( I guess I will have to find something new to edit my photos with, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! And since the title of this post is "Tests, Picnik, and more" I guess I should provide you with something more. So here you go, a video that will give you a good laugh! (especially if you are either a Harry Potter fan or Rebecca Black critic!)