So You Think You Can Dance?

So there's this show that I love. It's called So You Think You Can Dance. And is you might recall, I"m incredibly obsessed. Seriously, I wish it aired throughout the entire year, because I could never get sick of watching these incredibly talented people push the limits of their bodies and their dance abilities. True, it often happens that there are lots of so-so dances, but every once in a while you get these amazing dances, and that makes watching the mediocre ones completely worth it. These amazing dances are the perfect combination of musical genius, skilled dancing, and brilliant choreography. There have been moments when I have been brought to tears with how good a dance is or with the story that the choreography is portraying. Clearly, I am passionate about this show. I have never loved a bit of television so much in my life. You know what's even better than television? Seeing these dancers LIVE! Which I got to do on my birthday this past October. In case you forgot, I gushed over the experience here.

Now that I've explained my love for SYTYCD, I must now reveal to you when this new season premieres. None other than TONIGHT! I plan on having So You Think You Can Dance celebrations on a weekly basis. Oh how I love that show.

Here's some of my favorite dances from past seasons:

Twitch and Alex. Outta Your Mind. Choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon. Season 7.
Twitch is just amazing. No need to explain that. But Alex (the Asian one) is a BALLET DANCER. And then he just threw down this absolutely amazing bit of hip hop masterpiece. Probably the best dance I've seen on this show.

Chelsie and Mark. Bleeding Love. Also choreographed by Tabitha and Napleon. Season 4.
So emotional and excellent. Story line: the husband is a workaholic who's emotionally attached to his work and the wife is trying to convince him to stay with her instead of leave for work.

Kayla and Kupono. Gravity (Addiction). Choreographed by Mia Micheals. Season 5.
This dance is about people who are struggling with addiction. Kupono is the addiction who just keeps the addict (Kayla) always in his grasp and no matter how hard she tries, she can't get away. It's so tragically sad and emotional and I can't watch it enough.

Robert and Allison. Fix You. Choreographed by Travis Wall. Season 7.
This dance. Oh this dance. It is so good. And meaningful. Travis Wall was the runner-up on SYTYCD season 1, and now he has become one of my favorite contemporary choreographers. This dance was very personal to him and is about having loved ones with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses and trying to help them. It's that feeling of helplessness while still trying to help them yourself.

As of late.

Sometimes life can be a very surreal experience.
I can have a serious conversation with someone I hardly know. And the next moment I will have nothing to say to a good friend.
Maybe it's just me.
It's probably just me.
But life is weird.
Somedays your brother is a normal human being, and then the next he is a missionary in Provo, and the next day after that he is on a plane to England. Yeah, this is real life.
True that. My brother became a missionary last Tuesday night and it was amazing experience. I know that the gospel that he will be teaching is the truth and I'm so stoked for him to teach it. Then on Wednesday, due to the lack of visa-arrival, we dropped him off at the Provo MTC (missionary training center). It was sad, but it would have been way more sad had my family not been the most ridiculous and hilarious individuals in all of Provo. Then, blessings of the Lord, his visa arrived Wednesday afternoon and they threw him on a plane and shipped him off to the Preston, England MTC on Thursday
He leads quite a life. And because he is the luckiest person in the world, things just tend to work out for him.

So that's been an interesting adjustment without him. Thus far, I'm not a fan. Though I am a fan of him being abroad. Missioning and things.

Also exciting in my life: Spontaneous road trip to St. George this past weekend to the the solar eclipse. Yeah, it was sweet. My fabulous roommate, Jenna, and I were just sitting in our apartment on Saturday afternoon and within a matter of 30 seconds, we went from having no weekend plans to deciding to go on the 3.5 hour trip down to St George. SO FUN. We also went with some fabulous human beings. This is us looking at the eclipse (as stolen from Josh's fb album):

This is all 8 of us (Josh is in the picture via shadow). We were a little short on astro-glasses, so some of us went blind. Also, our names were a treat to list off: Jake, Jenna, Jennie, Jared, Josh, Kaylee, Halie, and Spencer. Someone stands out like a sore thumb...
Basically, it was an excellent 24 hour trip filled with laughter, games, banana stranglings, accent speaking, piano playing, singing, mission call opening, sun staring, driving, accent to apple inventing, and other shenanigans. I have good friends.

I'm a fan of the summer in Provo; people are always outside doing fun things, and craziness is always right on the brink of occurring. I don't even mind that I am taking a class right now. Though studying outside isn't nearly as productive as one would think.

Also, I love my job. We get some crazies up in there.

Pictures of Elder Lever departing are forthcoming. Prepare yourself.

This post was a random culmination of thoughts and events. Jumbled, it may be, but that's what my brain is like right now, so you're just experiencing my real life via blog.

Elder Lever.

I have a brother. Well, actually I have a lot of those. But this particular brother of whom I speak is the eldest of the five and he is going on a mission. Well, hopefully all of them are going to be going on a mission, but his mission is actually here upon us. And by that, I mean he leaves in ONE WEEK.
And to decode this message for you: Ryan is out. To Scotland/Ireland. To share the truth and help bring eternal life to these great people. He will be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,  the Mormons, if you will. He's going to be amazing.

So, Ryan and I are two years apart in both age and school. But age has never really separated us. Maybe I'm just remember the good times, but honestly, I feel like we've been best friends for a solid 19 years - his entire life. Especially through high school. We are friends with each others friends. We hang out. We used to attack each other in the hallway of the high school. Basically, he is wonderful. This is us back in the day...

But lets get real, obviously there is no way that we've always gotten along.. true, we fight sometimes. Actually, he's probably the one of my brothers that I fight with the most, but in the end, we stop the madness and end up just laughing our heads off at some ridiculous bit of humor.
We have the same sense of humor. All of my brothers do. Apparently our humor is unique and most don't understand it, but we do and we have WAY too much fun laughing at our jokes. Ryan and I can just sit there going back and forth, beating the same jokes to death for hours. It never gets old.
We even look alike. Lets get real, anyone that has ever seen us thinks we're twins. We are the same person. Check this pic, we even laugh the same:

Ryan is the best. I don't know what I would do without him in my life. He listens to my ridiculous stories; rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but listens nonetheless. He has always been my shoulder to cry on, my bodyguard, my source of advice, my own personal comedian, my best friend. He is adventurous and kind and would never admit it, but is just adorably sensitive as our dad. Ryan has a testimony that is obvious through everything he does in his life. He is an example to me and inspires me to be a better person. I just love him with all of my heart.
I can't even put into words how much I'm going to miss this boy. But I also can't express how proud I am of him. He is going to touch so many lives. I can't wait to write to him all of the time about the craziness that is my life.
When I look at him, I still see this cheesy, adorable little kid:

But really though, he's like a man and I'm so excited to see him grow even more spiritually and emotionally these next two years. Not going to lie, it's going to be sad when Ryan leaves and I'm not going to know what to do with myself, but I wouldn't have him doing anything else with his life right now. Go get 'em tiger.

One more picture, just because I love this one: