It begins again.

The summer has come to an end. A terrible, tragic end. I have a feeling that this next year is going to be a relatively defining one for me. You know, with the whole "graduating from college and finding something to do with my life" thing. It's kind of terrifying.

This summer has been one of the best in the history of summers (which is a pretty long history, in case you were wondering). We created a list back in the first of May of all the things we wanted to do this summer. I must say that I am please to announce that we did EVERYTHING on this list, minus white water rafting, which I was fine with because that slightly frightens me. We took a road trip to California (one of the highlights of my summer), saw all of the awesome movies that came out this summer, ate lots of delicious food, made some incredible friends, went on lots of adventures, took pictures of most everything, and just laughed our heads off because we are that funny. We really had so much fun! I really do have the greatest friends in the universe.
As just an example of the excitement that is our lives: the other weekend, we watched 7.5 hours of Anne of Green Gables in one night. I can't explain to you the love that I have for Gilbert Blythe.

Anyway, so now it's over. On the plus side, everyone has returned to Provo, including pretty much all of my friends who went on missions. Can you believe it's been two years? I can't. I am THRILLED beyond reason to be able to hang out with those wonderful human beings again. They were greatly missed.

Ok, here's the real reason this year scares me: I am a senior. A senior in college. Remember back in the day, a full 4 years ago when I was a senior in high school? That does not feel like it was that long ago, but alas, it was. WHat am I going to do after I graduate? I have many potential plans, but they all require me to be an adult and move on with my life. Change, especially big change like this, scares me so much. Once I get going, I love it, but the anticipation of change scares me to death. Welp, we'll see what happens in this next year. It will be fun, that's a given because I always have fun. It will be difficult. It will be scary. But I'm excited for it. Life is fun... I just have to keep telling myself that.

Olympian

So there's this amazing thing called the Olympics. And it's kind of taken over my entire life. This is terrible timing for 2 reasons.
1- The two weeks of olympic excitement are also the last week of classes and finals week for summer term.
2- I work in the afternoons, and thus I miss a lot of olympic action. I hate being an adult.

Every 2 years the world has the amazing privilege of coming together peacefully and competing in historic athletic events. We get to watch the best of the best in the world perform in their specific events and there is no one else in the world that can do it better than them. That is incredible to me. It is also incredible that all the countries in the world can come together and be in complete peace regardless of the events and arguments and even wars that occurring throughout the world. We, as human beings, have a sense of tradition and a desire for peace that is unequaled. I love the olympics for this reason and a hundred more.

I can never decide whether I like the summer or the winter olympics better. They are both so wonderful and have these incredible sports. Every four years we get to see the summer olympics, specifically some of the best volleyball playing in the world. I will play volleyball in the olympics, I've been saying this with my best friend for years and years, but it will happen. Rio 2016: Lever and Maeda beach volleyball champions. Can't wait.
If I were to be in the winter olympics, I think I would want to be on a four-person bobsled team. How sweet would that be? Maybe something a little like Cool Runnings. Yeah, that's definitely my second goal, incase the volleyball playing doesn't pan out.

The olympics inspire me and I am left in awe of the talent and the hard work and the athletes. Let's just take a step back sometimes and acknowledge the amazingness that is humanity.

The time has come.

There is a time in everyone's life when she just has to throw on some sweats and a tie-dye t-shirt, throw her untamable hair on top of her head, listen to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, find a cozy corner of the library, and buckle down and write her term paper.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is that day.

Parade people.

I know I say my family is the best a lot, but I only speak the truth.
We are a type of people that you might not have encountered in your life, at least not at our level.
We are parade people. Weird, I know. But that's what we do.

I've grown up always going to parades and I didn't realize that this wasn't normal until I was in high school. I also didn't realize that it wasn't normal to lose your voice every time you go to a parade. You see, we cheer for EVERYONE that passes by, whether or not they are interesting or even in the parade. I mean, we cheer our lungs out for the little kids pulling the wagons and selling popsicles just as much as we cheer for the scottish pipe band or the sweet floats.

And when I say my family, I mean my WHOLE family. This is a lot of people. It's not surprising when we have a solid 40 people there on the street with us at any given parade. Uncle Frank is always shouting in the back with his wooden noise-maker that makes us all deaf. There's some specific cousins that I can always rely on for witty, hilarious comments shouted at the floats, particularly those with the pretty girls on them. The youngest brother pulls some ridiculous dance moves in the middle of the street  in the long spaces between floats. It's just plain fun.

July is prime time for parades. The Pioneer Day/24th of July/Days of 47 Parade is the ultimate of all parades. For 35 years my family has been going to downtown Salt Lake on the night of the 23rd and setting up camp on the street to save our spot for the parade in the morning. Sleeping out for the parade is my favorite extended family tradition. Like, we legitimately sleep on the streets.

Lay the blankets out in the gutter, and then party all night. We play all sorts of games, we talk, we laugh our heads off, we walk about down town. And we don't sleep. Some people try to sleep, but aren't particularly successful.
This year was a strange one at the parade for me. For one, I was missing some brothers. Ryan is on a mission. And Kade was at scout camp. Also, just lot's of other relatives weren't there. On the positive side: I brought friends. This was a new experience for them and I was thrilled. Sadly, they thought it was a good idea to go to sleep at 2 or 3 in the morning. Luckily, my cousin, Jason and I remained stalwart and stayed up the entire night, talking about absolutely nothing and it was hilarious. We were unashamedly the only one's that did not sleep a wink, though Jason did sleep through the entire parade, but that was to be expected.
So this years' parade can be marked off as another supreme success. I got zero sleep, cheered my lungs out for all 120+ parade entries (particularly the BYU float which contained my good friend and future roommate, Jessica), and just had the time of my life.
I love being parade people.