The Sundance Fair

 This past weekend Sundance Resort had their annual craft fair/farmers market, and so my madre, my cousin Lucy, and I decided to drive up and have a look around! 

It ended up being super fun -there was an inordinate amount of large dogs (which I loved), some deliciously organic food, and a random booth that had real-life OWLS, which was awesome,  along with booths of all sorts of interesting artsy crafty things. 

And I had the opportunity to get in touch with my inner 5 year old and decorate a Halloween cookie, so it was win-win all around!

BYU Fashion Show

Haha, doesn't the title seem a bit like an oxymoron?

But this really happened. 

Over at the law school, Dillard's sponsored a fashion show for the law students with the purpose of educating them on the proper attire to wear to things like interviews, the courtroom, the office, cocktail parties, etc. 

The reps from Dillard's taught the students things like:

"You only get one chance to make a good first impression"

and

"don't wear jeans to an interview"

and

"dress to impress- you never know if your boss or a potential client is going to be there"

Things that may seem common sense to some, but you never know! 

For others, this little fashion show might have saved them from a lifetime of wearing bad ties at the wrong time or getting fired because they showed up to a company BBQ in basketball shorts... 

(that's never a good move, by the way)

Why am I even talking about this at all?

Because Mr JP was one of the cute models for the examples-of-what-you-should-wear clothes.

Aww... look at that model stance!

Big Kids Now

Over the weekend, Mr JP and I decided to take the plunge:

We signed up for our very own Costco Account!

You see, up until now we have been content to borrow someone else's card if a trip to Costco seemed necessary (I mean, how often do two people need a 4-pack of lunch meat or 2 gallons of milk at one time?) but there are certain things we like to buy there and it was becoming a hassle to keep borrowing other people's cards -- not to mention one time they wouldn't let Mr JP check out even though he had a full cart of groceries... he was a little angry, so we decided to avoid that ever happening again and now we have our own cards! Yay!

Our first purchase? A life size Minnie mouse for our niece Gwenna  haha

(she is turning 2 years old)

Aaaand I am pretty sure she thinks it's real and it's her best friend...

Friday Favorites

This story-in-pictures just about brought me to tears (I think the only thing holding me together was the fact that I looked at it while in class haha)

If you have a facebook account, and are friends with some particularly political-minded people, you will find this absolutely hilarious. 

I'm a huge fan of this website I recently discovered, and have spent wayy too much time in class clicking through its pages and posts. 

For the past three days I have had this album playing in my ears pretty constantly. Download it. I'm in love. It's my favorite of theirs since Hot Fuss came out a million years ago.

Along that same thought, I am so-excited-I-can't-adequately-express-it-in-words for this album to come out!! ahhh!!!

My gorgeous cousin just left for a study abroad to London (I know, rip my heart out) and is keeping the cutest blog about her adventures! I check it daily so I can live vicariously through her.  

I also might have just ordered these shoes in brown from Urban Outfitters... they were on sale! And then my friend Rachel ordered them in black, so we can be twinsies!  (and split the cost of shipping haha)

Speaking of Rachel... 

I believe some congratulations are in order for her and her new fiancé!!

Aren't they a freakishly good-looking couple? I know. 

And the best part is (besides them living happily ever after) that I set them up!! 

I am so proud. It will be my greatest accomplishment until I have a child or something. 

Have a fabulous weekend!

I have 4 tests to study for, so chances are yours will be more fun than mine :)

Law School Apparel

If anyone was wondering how to tell which law school Mr JP is attending... well, you're in luck! 

There was recently a "BYU Law Apparel" sale and the amount of clothing we now have that has "BYU LAW" printed across the front should clear up any confusion...

We literally have:

2 sweatshirts for me

1 Tshirt for me

1 sweatshirt for Jean Paul

2 Tshirts for Jean Paul

1 Sweatshirt for each of our mothers

a BYU magnet

a BYU mug (obviously a necessary purchase)

oh and a baby Tshirt for our niece, Gwenna.


Obviously we're pretty excited about it. 

Utah State Fair

Let me tell you a little something, I think the Utah State Fair is one of the best kept secrets around. 

Well, it's not exactly a secret, but Mr JP and I had never been so to us it was a whole new experience!

We went with our friends Markell and Jared, who are hilarious, and so basically I didn't stop laughing the entire night. 

I think the night can be divided into 3 main categories: 

Food, animals, and rides. 

(you might remember mine and Markell's love for animals from this post)

Between the chocolate-covered donuts, 
shredded pork, 
funnel cakes, 
scones, 
peach/salted caramel ice cream, 
deep-fried cheese (we had to, right?), 
frozen lemonade (worst purchase of the night), 
$3 bottles of water, 
cotton candy, 
and sugared cashews 
I really think we managed to sample a wide range of the delicacies the Fair had to offer. 

As for the animals; we frolicked with the pigs, Markell and Jared held a bird, a lamb tried to eat my hair, we all paid $1 to see an alligator that I am 65% sure was dead... Mr JP attempted to milk a cow,  and we saw a MASSIVE bull. 

Which I was just a little afraid of. But only because its head weighed as much as my whole body. 

And the RIDES. 
Best part of the Fair for sure. 
Even better because Jared gets motion sick and we somehow convinced him to go on every single one. 
Including the GRAVITRON. 
Which was the craziest thing I have ever done. 
That's the one where you are inside an orb thing, standing against the wall and it spins super fast and you can't even tell you are spinning, you suddenly just realize that you are totally pinned against the wall and have to fight gravity to move.

A night out at the Fair would be a complete failure without riding the ferris wheel:

 And this picture sums up all of our emotions regarding the GRAVITRON:

Hahaha. 

We'll be back next year for sure. 

Happy Monday!

Yesterday was really awful:

Yesterday was awful. 

One for the record books, really. 

I have to say it is rare I classify a whole day as a "bad day" but yesterday definitely made that list. 

Exhibit A) I arrive at my 8 AM class that requires a calculator, only to discover that one of the AA batteries (the calculator requires 4, which is an atrocity in its own right) has self imploded and leaked acid all over the other 3, therefore rendering my calculator useless to me. 

Exhibit B) For my 10 AM class, I realized my iClicker is broken as well (an iClicker is a fancy device professors use to efficiently quiz students in large classes) so I ran to buy a new one (see ya $40) and then apparently dropped my brand-new iClicker on my way to my class and, upon realizing I didn't have it with me anymore, had to retrace my steps frantically in an attempt to find it (but I did indeed find it, phew)

Exhibit C) After my lovely 10 AM class, I walk out to my car to find a surprise from the BYU police on the windshield. BAM. Ticket. Kill me. 

Exhibit D) Then I drop my iPhone and the front screen SHATTERS. Completely. 

Exhibit E) In my next class, I am on my laptop taking notes/doing a homework assignment and it dies. And of course I didn't think to bring the charger because aren't laptop batteries supposed to hold a charge longer than 1 hour? 

Exhibit F) Then my phone dies -rendering it more useless than before, which I hadn't considered to be possible.  

So there I was, no laptop, no phone, with 3 hours left of class until I would get to go home, and two assignments to complete before midnight (it is 6 PM at this point).

When I did finally make it home, the only thing that prevented me from bursting into tears as soon as I walked through the door was Mr JP's offer to go buy me a chocolate-chip-cookie-dough cupcake from The Sweet Tooth Fairy, which I took him up on. 

Sorry there are no pictures to go with this post, but I want to block this whole day from my memory, and pictures tend to do the opposite haha. 

How Do You Show Your Patriotism?

Starting about 3 years ago, my family has taken to expressing their pride of being an American by planting an American flag on the very top of Squaw Peak. 

and we end up doing it every year because someone keeps taking it down...

So this past Saturday, armed with a 4x6 foot American flag, 6 bags of cement, a couple gallons of water, and 3 metal rods that would be screwed and glued together to form a 20 foot tall flag pole, we started up the trail. 

Now if anyone reading this hasn't ever hiked Squaw Peak, let me paint a little mental image of the trail: 

5 miles straight up. 

I was dying. 

You'd think that since I have hiked up this trail at least once a year since I was 4 years old that it would get easier, but no. 

In fact I think it keeps getting harder. 

But we made it! Cement and all.

So if you live in Provo, UT and care to take a look up at Squaw Peak, you can just make out a lovely 20 foot tall flag pole with old glory flying at the top.

:)

Where I was When the World Came Crashing Down:

All day I've been reading stories, browsing pictures, and watching videos about 9/11/01. 

And although I was in Utah, not near New York or Washington DC or Pennsylvania, I still feel connected to what happened that day -- probably because I am an American and I believe that, whether we like it or not, American citizens are bonded to one another through that simple fact.

So on that day I cried, in my 5th grade class, as we watched the news for 6 hours instead of learning math or going to recess. I cried because my teacher cried, my parents cried, the news reporter cried, although I was only ten years old and didn't fully understand what or why this was happening, I understood that it was wrong and devastating and life-altering. and tears seemed the only way to express that. because certainly no words could. 

However, in the aftermath, as the horrible details and facts and statistics emerged, something else also became apparent: how truly charitable Americans are, how strong and willing they are to fight back. 

People gathered in Federal Plaza to offer aid on that first afternoon after the Twin Towers fell. Thousands of New Yorkers stood in lines all over the city to donate their blood, doing whatever they could to aid in the relief effort, to say nothing of those incredible men and women who's stories of sacrifice and absolute selflessness to rescue others still make me cry, even 11 years later. 

[I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.]

-Maya Angelou-

A Night with Andy Warhol:

The Museum of Art at BYU is housing an exhibition that will run until February featuring works from Andy Warhol (!) and the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami (if you went to London with me, you've experience some of his works when we toured Versailles haha). 

The exhibit is titled "Think Flat" and connects Warhol's own ideals about society evident in his pieces done in the 60's with similar statements that Murakami conveys through his ultra-modern artwork. 

Last night was the opening night and Mr JP and I were so excited to get to be a part of it and ran into so many friends there, we absolutely loved it! I will definitely be back to take it all in again. 

Read more about the exhibit here. 

Labor Day

I think the best way to celebrate hard work is with waffles from a truck and an afternoon at the pool. 

So on Labor Day, I did just that. 

:)