N is for New York

Last Wednesday, I decided school would be over for me (even though it didn't officially end till this week). I needed to get out of Provo, so I convinced my mother to fly me out to New York to go to my dear friends beautiful wedding, make contacts and do interviews. I then emailed my teacher, Professor Kelly, asking him how mandatory the only mandatory class all year was. If you are a Comms major at BYU I highly suggest taking every class from him, he's great. Also Dr. Mouritson, but he's retiring. Here's a sample of what I did.

Thursday -- I travelled half the day, then went to my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Gary's apartment in Manhattan where I met up with them and my cousin Kelli, her daughter DeLaney, and two of their friends. DeLaney badly wanted to go on a carriage ride, so we walked to the carriages at Central Park and had a pleasant ride through the park. It is always interesting to see how people use Central Park as their back yard. It's as if they have no shame. For example, here is a man waving flags in the park last year. What the heck?

After the carriage ride I headed directly to Madison Ave to meet up with Ashley Burnett. We then went down to the Shake Shack to meet her friends for dinner, and were exasted when we got home, but stayed up to watch American Idol. Ashley fell in love with the Daughtry video, and we may have watched that 100 times this weekend. Love you Ash :)

Friday -- All my friends had to work, so in the morning I ran from Ashley's apartment to the park and down to my Aunts. Below is how far I ran, but it was in the park, not a straight line as shown.

I showered when I got to my Aunt's, then went shopping and to lunch with Kelli and DeLaney. Then we all took wonderful naps. DeLaney slept on the bed, but ended up sleeping on the couch with me, so everyone was on the couches and no one slept on the bed. After that we went to my favorite place for dinner, Patsey's (on 74th and Columbus -- check it out if you live in/visit NYC). They went to see The Little Mermaid and I went to spend time with Ashley.

Saturday -- A WONDERFUL day! Amanda Johnson married Matthew Dalton in the Manhattan Temple in the morning and had a beautiful reception at Battery Park Gardens in the afternoon. It was a great time with good friends. Sad story from the day--I had two really cute pairs of earrings that really helped to pull my outfit together, and I put one in each ear to ask Ashley which one I should wear. It wasn't till I was on the subway half way to Battery Park that I realized I still had one in each ear. I then debated which was more embarrassing, going to a wedding with clearly mismatching earrings or going naked (without earrings). After much deliberation, I went naked.

This is me with Amanda. see-no earrings :(

Amanda had beautiful fake crystal decor at all the tables. Unfortunately, later we found out these had lead in them! But, good news, we are all still alive and kickin it! Below are examples of some of the fun easily entertained girls had at the wedding:

Crystals. Everywhere.

Fun at the air vent.

Sarah's Great.

The Drunk The Stoner

The Beautiful Bride Amanda

Bottoms Up The Delicious Cake

After the wedding, I met up with Bridget (who just got back last week from playing professional volleyball in Spain) and we went to Whole Foods and chilled in Central Park. The pic below was taken at One Central Park West, but sorry the pic is bad and you can't see the amazing view of the Park and the East Side. I miss my Bee! What happened to Florida for grad school 08?

Bee left the city around 8 and I spent the rest of the night with my old roomie Natalie. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pics.

Sunday -- Ashley and I went to church and then to Cathy and Gary's to break in the dining room table. We made delicious salmon, red potatoes with rosemary, and green beans. It was so good, I'm thinking about making it again this week. That night, I just hung out with Ash and Kimmy, and then their friend came over and we had pazookie. And man, I'm dang good at making pazookie.

Monday -- I job shadowed my friend Jane at Mindshare for a couple hours to see a media planner in action. Then I met my friend Kenton for lunch at Union Square, where I went shopping for a little bit. Then I met Ashley to go see Rent. It was amazing. I love the soundtrack! I'm actually even listening to it right now... The only thing that sucked was my allergies started to get bad and my eyes were itching? and we tried to take a picture and I looked nasty, then we took another one but my eyes were closed, and then we took the one below but I look goofy. So I gave up. Some days are just bad picture days. Aren't Ashley's eyes such a beautiful peircing blue? I'm jealous.

Ashley and I at Rent in New York

Tuesday -- Hung out with Cathy, lunch with Ashley, went home.

Well, that was a little sum up of my trip to New York. I'm so excited -- I leave for Jerusalem in ten days!!!

H is for Homely

Last week, my mother told me that homely people need to get married too.

Thanks Mom.


Below is the definition of homely provided by urbandictionary.com


Homely:
(Adj.)

Not attractive or good-looking: a homely child.
Lacking elegance or refinement: homely furniture.
Of a simple or unpretentious nature; plain: homely truths.
Characteristic of the home or of home life: homely skills.

Examples:
That is one homely child.
Your trailer is homely!
You are kinda homely aren't you?
You are one homely dresser!

elle is for lemons

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

As you can imagine, this week life dealt me lemons. Literally. My roommate went to CA and brought back lemons from a lemon tree in her yard.

So what do you do when you get lemons? That's right, make lemonade.

16 lemons + 2 girls + homemade simple syrup = delicious lemonade

Whit found the recipe online recipe and mixed the "simple syrup" to perfection.

I squeezed the lemons. Not as easy as it looks.

Proof it's from Whit's yard--it still has its umbilical cord attached!

After hard work, twenty minutes and starting from scratch, we finally achieved our glorious lemonade. Boy were we happy! It's delicious, if you live in the Provo area, you should come get a glass of our hand squeezed ice cold lemonade. Maybe we'll set up a booth or something.

This is Whit and I excited about our lemonade!

Prior to making the lemonade (which happened around midnight), Whit and I decided to work out. We decided to do Boot Camp--a DVD Whit bought at the grocery store last week. And man that was a work out. We were both glistening by the end of the workout and simultaneously decided that we would probably be sore tomorrow.

Not going to lie, this is not the original picture we took. The original consists of us holding this with frightened faces...

Love Lauren

S is for Skiing (and Slacker)

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blogging. I think of all these great posts and when I finally have the time to blog, I forget what I was going to blog about!

I went skiing on Saturday at Brighton. I forgot how much I love skiing. Too bad it's the end of the season. I decided that I will take ski trips every year and teach my kids to ski when they are 3.

Anyways, I went skiing and Meredith and Breanna went snowboarding. I was constantly waiting on them the whole time, well, until I decided to do some runs by myself. Mere and Bre took a break and ran into the Thomas family. It was good to see them and to go down a few runs with them, however, they weren't too happy with me about going down blues and blacks as beginning snowboarders.

Here are pictures from the day.

On the way, early in the morning.

Me and Bre

Me, Bre and Mere

Beginning of the day. I love the mountains. Yes, I am wearing sunglasses. It was such a beautiful day, I decided to leave my goggles in the car and just wear my sunglasses.

Mere, after falling.

Me, waiting.

Bre and the beautiful view.

I was so tired of waiting on them, I decided to take a nap.

Jack, Me and Seth

B is for Bran Muffins

My darling friend, Ashley Q, has the best bran muffin recipe ever. Not only are these bran muffins delicious, but they are filled with fiber--approx. 9 grams per serving -- maybe I'm making that up, I can't remember. Point being, they contain a lot of fiber. After reading my friend Logan's post, I decided this week to finally make the muffins and let him try one to see if they help. And let me tell you, these babies are miracle workers. Logan is forever indebted to me.


To all my dear readers, here is the recipe:

1 cup water
3 cups 100% bran
1/2 cube of butter-melted
3/4 cup honey
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups buttermilk

Boil 1 cup water in microwave for 1 minute, then add the 3 cups of bran and the 1/2 cube of melted butter to the water and mix (set aside to let bran soften).In a seperate bowl mix together the remaining ingredients. Then add the bran/butter/water mix to the remaining mix and mix them together. Poor into greased muffin tins.


Cook at 375 degrees for approx. 15 minutes (sometimes it takes longer)



Love Lauren

M is for Many Things

M is for Marriage

I have lost too many friends to this M word. Marriage, Matrimony, Mating. All mean the same thing. In the past two years, the majority of my friends have taken a dip into this word. Today I called five of them asking them to be single for the night and hang out with me. They all "have plans". Point being, I have been replaced. By men. Quite unfortunate. However, I am happy for them.

Brynn (Knibbe) Edwards, LaRen (Wallace) Johnson, some random guy, ME, Brittany (Hutchison) Eckersly, Janelle (Meador) Isaacson

M is for Moving

If I don't lose them to the one M word (Marriage), I lose them to this one (Moving). Either I move away--like I did when I left for college and left all my dear friends--or they move away from me--like Ashley Burnett leaving me for NYC or Ashley Q Peterson leaving me for Las Vegas. This M word will happen again in April as I move away from Provo for good and leave a lot of friends behind.

Me and Ashley Burnett

Me and Ashley Q

M is for Midterms

It's that time of the semester again that this dreaded word comes into play. So what do I do about? Do I spend hours at the library? Do I pour myself into my books? Do I form study groups? No. I blog. Just kidding. I do study, in groups sometimes, but I don't spend hours at the library, and I don't study as much and for as long as I should. Midterms aren't as bad this year, seeing as I'm only taking 12 credits and these are the last ones I have. Ever. Unless I go back to school.

M is for Movies

More specific than movies -- home videos. I love them. Also, I discovered a program on my computer where I can make movies. I know, amazing. I decided to make a tribute to me and bee and our summer together in New York. I haven't finished it, so don't judge it, I was just so excited about the fact that I could do it! It's so easy, all I had to do was pick the pictures and put them into some program and it did all the work. Easy. Ok just kidding the one I made won't post, but here is another one I tried to make on another program. But maybe it was a lot of work and I didn't finish it...

I also have a great home video, filmed by Breanna and Mere, of Ashley Q and I dancing to High School Musical. I would suggest putting your computer on Mute before pressing play. And don't be too jealous of our wicked dance moves.

M is for Miracles

I realize my pity party in the first part of the post may be slightly morbid, so I decided to lighten things up at the end with M is for Miracles. My home teacher, Steele, came over the other night and shared a message from 2nd Nephi Ch. 4. He had a pity party, but it was just for a minute and then he realized he had so much to be thankful for. I, too, have so much to be thankful for. This month I'm especially thankful for the medical miracle--my Grandfather. Or Gramps as I like to call him.

Well folks, that's all for tonight.

Love Lauren

elle is for lauren

Many of you have been wondering and inquiring about the blog name. My newest nickname "elle" developed this summer in New York with one of my dear friends, Bridget Fuentez. She is adorable, if you don't know her, you need to. Anyways, we have always called eachother "L" and "B" and one day I told her, "ya know, whenever I call you "B" in my mind I think "bee"." Then she commented that "That's so funny because when I call you "L" I think "elle"!" So from then on, we have always referred to eachother as "bee" and "elle" with a whole new meaning.

elle and bee