Day 3- A London Adventure!

Today I went into London!  My Aunt, 3 year old cousin, 12 year old cousin, his friend, and I all took the 30 minute train ride together into London this morning.  Together we all visited the National Gallery which is a phenomenal art museum.  There were thousands of paintings and many from many famous painters.  Some of their most famous paintings that I saw were "Virgin of the Rocks" by Leonardo da Vinci and "Sunflowers" by Vincent van Gogh.  It was really neat to have my Aunt show us around because she is a great artist and knows sooo much about art history. After that, my Aunt and cousins left to go back home and I stayed in the  city.

Me outside the National Gallery standing in Trafalgar square

After they left I bought a handy dandy map (it is said to say that because of technology this was the first time I had actually used a physical map) and made my way to the British Museum.  It too was amazing!  It was humongous and filled with all kinds of artifacts and things dated all the way from thousands of years Before Christ to present times.  The galleries I liked the most were the ones about the enlightenment, Greece (they even had pieces of the parthenon), and Egypt (they also had several mummies including Cleopatra).  

Greek vase from 3rd century BC that reminded me of the movie Hercules (and Lauren and Hayley)

Zeus!

Ptolemy I- 3rd Century BC

Nereid Monument- (real life sized temple tomb) 390-380 BC

Unknown Mummy

After the museum I walked by the Royal Opera House and then stopped to get some authentic fish and chips!

After eating my fish and chips I started the long walk down to Buckingham palace and passed the Canada Gate on the way.  It is too bad that it gets dark by 4:30 here because by the time I got to Buckingham palace to take pictures of the awesome fuzzy-hatted guards. 

(Canada Gate)

Buckingham Palace ( a little fuzzy I know)

After paying a visit to the Queen, I headed around towards the Parliament Building and Big Ben

Next I was on to Westminster Abbey!

At that point I headed back towards Trafalga Square to do some gift shopping, and then on to Chinatown in Soho.  After a very long day I finally headed back to the train station around 6:30

My adventure around London (not completely accurate to the routes I took)

It was a great day and beautiful city filled with interesting things! Here are some more pictures:

 (Trafalgar Square)

Day 1 & 2 in England

Day 1

For those of you who didn't know, this year I am spending Christmas break in Europe.  My Dad's sister lives here and I am staying with them in England and then helping them with their four kids on their trip to France.  I started traveling on Monday the 17th and finally reached England Tuesday the 18th very early in the morning.  Most of my first day I was out of it because I was completely knackered (a British term for extremely exhausted) since I only got 2 hrs of sleep on the plane.  My Uncle told me the best way to beat jet lag and jump into the time zone (England is 7hrs ahead of where I live) would be to stay awake the whole day without taking any naps and then go to bed at a normal time for England.  From what I do remember I went to the grocery store with my Aunt, helped her wrap presents, went through a walk through town, walked to pick my cousins up from school, and then went to my 9 year old cousin's Christmas play "The Late Wiseman."  By the time the play rolled around I was dozing off like the guy in my Rel 333 class (Hayley would appreciate that reference).  I finally made to 8:30 pm when my 9 year old cousin waited by my bedside to tuck me in bed.  Here are a few pictures from Day 1:

The neighborhood I am staying in- it reminds me of Privet drive from Harry Potter.

My roommate Lauren made this paper doll of herself (she is so crafty and talented so you should check out her blog here) and she sent it with me so she could "go" to Europe too.  

On my walk through the town I came upon the "St. Nicholas" church (fitting for Christmas time) 

London Road running through the town

Day 2

Luckily I slept straight through the night (which is apparently a rare thing to do in a very different time zone) I was awoken around 7:45 am by the sound of a the pitter-patter of my 3 year old cousin's feet outside my door and the repeated sound of her music box.  She repeatedly wound it up until I came out of my room. After sending the kids off to school, My Aunt, her friend, and I headed off to Tombridge and Tumbridge Wells to do some shopping.  I got a lovely British jumper (a British term for a sweater) and quite a load of chocolate (which my roommates requested I bring back for them.)  The rest of the afternoon I mainly spent entertaining and playing with my little cousins. I didn't really take too many pictures today so here-

 My cousin and her friend in their school uniforms- again this reminded me of Harry Potter. (To protect their identities I made them Harry and Ginny lol)

Lauren eating some classic English Cadbury chocolate

My first lot of European chocolate- I will try to restrain myself from buying too much more, but I might not be able to- the stuff is dang addicting!

Good Food and Good Words

Man I am slacking on my blog posting this semester!  I just withdrew from a class though so my schedule is going to be a lot less busy which means more time for blogging!  Last night I decided to try my hand at some Thai food and I made coconut shrimp curry with zucchini.  Although it doesn't look like it in the picture, it turned out pretty delicious!

Here is how it did it:

1.) Saute some onions in a skillet with about a tablespoon of oil.
2.) Thinly slice 1 zucchini and add to the skillet with 1 teaspoon of ginger and continue to saute
3.) Pour in 1 can of coconut milk and let boil
4.) Add the shrimp (I used mini shrimp that were precooked and deveined with their tails cut off) and 1tsp of each salt and pepper
5.)  Add the curry!  I used i block (1/5 of the packet) of mild Golden Star brand curry (they just had it in the Asian section of Walmart)
6.) After the curry dissolves continue to simmer until it thickens.  I added some cornstarch to help the process along.

Serve on noodles or rice and enjoy!

And now for some good words.  Today I was on campus for my evening class and I came upon this sticker in one of the bathrooms.

It made me smile so I hope it makes you smile too :)

An Ending and a New Beginning

This week I officially finished my first year in college!  It was a pretty darn stressful and this is kinda how I felt for most of the week.

I somehow made it through though and was able to wind down with a nice weekend of watching movies, playing Wii, and horseback riding.  On Friday I officially moved out of my apartment in Wyview.  It was sad to see it go from looking like this-

to this-

My roommates and I had some great times there, and in memory of it, I decided to make a list of my top memories from our time there (not in any particular order)

-FHE with my awesome group!

-Doorbell ditching random food to Mary, Sarah, and Alyssa's apartment and knocking on their door then running away anytime we walked past

-Hayley dropping a gallon of milk on our doorstep and seeing it explode!

-Girl's Movie Nights!

-Creamery ice cream trips in the snow

-Ward Activities!

-Random Pranks

-Temple Trips

-Roommate Photo-shoots

-Preference

-Lauren getting the toilet brush stuck in the toilet

-Random Crafts at Midnight

-Festival of Colors

And so much more!

Thanks to all the people who make all these memories and this year wonderful!

Easter

What a beautiful Easter day it was today!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and for me it was a day filled with religion, family, friends, and food!  I went to church with my extended family this morning to be there for the blessing of my cousin's baby.  After church we went back to my aunt's house for some delicious food.  My other aunt from England was visiting, and my cousin's husband's family was there as well so there was probably around 40 people there.  It was great to visit with family and I got to help my little cousins dye Easter eggs which was really fun.  In all, it was a great Easter (the best that it could've been considering I was away from my family.)  If celebrated correctly, Easter  is such a wonderful reminder of what Christ did for us.  Here is a wonderful video about Easter.  It is kind of long, but very worth it.

Today in church the lyrics to "I Know that My Redeemer Lives"  popped into my head.  One of the verses that I really like goes like this-

"He lives to silence all my fears,
He lives to stop and wipe my tears,
He lives to calm my troubled heart,
He lives all blessings to impart:"

To find out more of what I believe about Jesus Christ and what he did for us, click here. 

Samsung Brightside Review

With everyone switching to smart phones nowadays, it is becoming more and more difficult for those of us who don't want to pay for a data plan to find a new phone.  I am on Verizon and was do for a phone upgrade a long time ago, but just wasn't impressed by any of the "basic" phones being offered and I didn't want to fork over an extra $30 a month for a data plan.  I'm glad I ended up holding out because Samsung recently came out with a new touch screen slider phone that does not require a data plan!  I've had it for two weeks now and I love it!

It is the perfect phone for someone who wants a nice phone with good features, but doesn't want an all out smart phone.  The first thing I noticed was how light it was! Even though it was bigger than my old phone (Samsung Intensity) it was much lighter.  Another thing I noticed right away was how responsive the touch screen it. It works great.

The physical keyboard is also great and was almost identical to my last Samsung slider phone, so it has been very easy to get used to.  The camera is also an upgrade because it has 3 mp which may not seem great, but is better than the 1mp I had before.  The main menu is easy to use and is customizable with the icons you wish to display.  The one thing that I have had a problem with so far is using T9 on the front touch screen to text.  I almost always use the physical keyboard because it is more convenient, but the few times I have tried T9 on the front touch screen the phone freezes or restarts.  Even though I don't really use the front to text often, this has been frustrating and I am planning on taking it in to the store to see if it is a glitch that can be fixed.  Besides this however, I have found it a great phone and would give it 4 out of 5 stars!

7 Questions: Part 5

To start off this 7 questions post, here is a funny picture of me from this summer.

This was taken at our "Old People Olympics" night at camp.  Although this may sound like just a boring ridiculous activity, it was quite ridiculous, but was not in any way boring.  We had activities like bingo and shuffle board, but the thing the kids loved most was simply dressing up like old people and running around pretending to shake their canes at people.  In case you couldn't tell which one was me, I am in the middle, and my coworkers David and Nicola are on either side of me.

1. If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why? 

If I could have one superpower, it would be the ability to stop time.  I tend to be kind of procrastinator, and it would be nice to be able to just pause time to give myself time to do all the assignments I had delayed doing.

2. If you could hold the world record for something, what would it be for and why?

I love baking, so I think it would be cool to bake the world's largest cookie like they did here.

3. What is the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Probably the baby squid that caused me to win the fear factor challenge at this year's Halloween party.

4. Where would you hide something if you didn't want it to be found?

I think it would be cool to have some of those false books on a bookshelf :)

5. What is one of your Spring and/ or Easter traditions?

My family likes to play a card game called "Rat a Tat Cat" and all my siblings and I bet our Easter candy.

6. Would you rather have to make all of your own clothes (including patterns), cook dinner from scratch every night, or walk everywhere you wanted to go?

I would choose to cook from scratch.  I pretty much make all my dinners from scratch anyways, and I hate sewing clothes!  Walking wouldn't be too bad I guess, except that I am always in a hurry to get places.

7. What is your most embarrassing moment? I know, big one.

Hmm... Well luckily I haven't really had any really embarrassing moments lately.  One that I always deemed as my most embarrassing moment when I was younger happened in 4th grade.  Our class was going on an overnight field trip to the natural history museum so we could sleep in the room with the dinosaurs.  When we were all getting ready to go to bed I accidentally walked into the boy's restroom while they were using it, and one of the boys was so embarrassed that he threw up!

Touch Up Paint

So remember a couple weeks back when I got in that little fender bender in the parking lot?  Well it chipped some paint off my front bumper.  My car is my baby and so every time I saw it with the chips in the paint it made me cringe.  Getting it professionally fixed would've cost a couple hundred dollars, which is something a college student doesn't just have lying around, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I got online and found some touch up paint.  When buying touch up paint you need to be careful to find the exact shade.  Although you may just think red paint is red paint, it is not.  They even have a different paint color for every year of the same model car.  The exact shade of my car was "torch red" or D3. To find the color code for your car, look at the sticker inside your door and then look up what shade the code stands for.

  It should look like this.

 

The paint I bought came in a cute little bottle with a nail polish-like brush applicator.  Before painting, you need to make sure the area is super clean.  I even rubbed the area with an alcohol prep pad (I felt like I was preparing it for surgery ha ha).  For the best results, you probably also need to sand down the area, although I didn't do this because wouldn't have had enough paint to cover the area.  It took several coats, and doesn't look great up close, but it looks much better!

Here is my bumper before

And here it is after

Like I said, it isn't smooth or anything, but at least the primer isn't showing anymore.  

Here's one last fun fact for the day: my car's name is Toby.  What's your car's name?

All Things Spring

Tonight for FHE we decided to dye Easter eggs.  In preparation, I decided to look on pinterest for any interesting ideas.  I found a pin that talked about using Kool Aid as dye, so I decided we'd give it a try!  Here are the flavors we used.

They were 5 for a dollar and we didn't even end up using all of the ones that we bought.  You also only need water (not vinegar), so this was cheaper (and better smelling) than the traditional dyes.  All you need to do is add 1 pack of Kool Aid to 2/3 cup of water.  Sometimes it takes a little mixing of packets to get the color you want, but the dye Kool Aid worked much faster than dye, and our eggs turned out great!

Here are the Kool Aid flavors I used for each color-

Red- Cherry

Orange- Mango + 1/2 packet of Orange (this one smelled amazing!)

Yellow- Lemonade + 1/2 Packet Pineapple

Green- Lime

Blue- Mixed Berry

And then our purple didn't really work out, but turned to a cool brown using grape and black cherry.

I also made some fun little birds nest treats.  Normally you fill them with peanut M&M's but we decided to top them with Peeps this time.

The nest is super easy to make!  

1. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter and 4 tablespoons of peanut butter

2. Add 6 cups of marshmallows and completely melt.

3. Pour in 6 cups of Corn Flakes and stir well

4.  Form into nests and top or fill them!

Spring is definitely in the air! Here is a beautiful picture that my roommate took of a tree behind our apartment.

I just love spring!

Amazing Weekend of Surprises!

Just as the title of this post says, this weekend was an amazing week of surprises!  On Thursday my mom called and said she got from free plane tickets from a friend of a friend and that she was flying out Friday morning to see me.  I had already told my friend Enrico that I would take him at midnight on Thursday to pick his dad up from the airport (he is from Italy!) and so I got home at 1:30 am on Friday and then left at 10 am to go pick my mom up.  It was soo great to see her since I'm not going to get to go home until Christmas probably.  We spent most of the weekend just hanging out which was great.  Then Friday was my roommate Hayley's birthday and we threw her an awesome surprise party! (even though she wasn't super surprised.)

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference (which is a worldwide semiannual meeting for my church).  It is always so inspiring!  To find out more about it, click here! (seriously check it out because there are always amazing speakers!)  Here are some of my favorite quotes from past General Conferences.

So there is your advice for the week, no matter what happens, come what may and love it!