Baking in the apartment...

With the weather getting a touch colder (mid 70s...it feels a lot colder around everyone else in heavy fur coats) here in St. George, I decided to keep up the Kienlen tradition and bake. So far I have tried to make use of what is available in our apartment which includes banana bread from the neglected bananas and a box brownie mix that has been on the shelf for a couple weeks.

Last week, my two roommates - Shiulina and Katie - were out and about during our fall break and we decided to pay a visit to my good ol' Uncle Ed. Of course, they loaded us full of canned and fresh apples and a squash that they salvaged from Wyoming along with an hour of advice on how to live our lives. Since Wyoming is not known for juicy red delicious apples, the grocery bag full of crab apples didn't get touched by any of the five girls in #6. I decided to make an apple crisp, and as I'm typing this very entry, the smell of warm cinnamon, brown sugar, and apples is filling up our apartment.

It's amazing how fast boys from the dorms come over when you tell them you have apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. Good times in #6!

the first month of college

Yesterday, I had officially been in college classes for one month. Here's a brief overview of what I've experienced so far with my classes.

Monday

One the first day I was so excited to learn that even though I have all my classes on Mondays, it was only for four hours from 10:00-2:00 - something I was not used to with High school. Now I dread Mondays because 4 hours of classes seems like an ETERNITY. But I manage to deal with it and go on living.

10:00 Biology

11:00 Algebra

12:00 Freshman Experience

1:00 Psychology

Tuesday

My favorite day of the week now. I get done with class at noon and usually get everything school related done by 2, so I have the rest of the day to do whatever comes to mind (usually skyping with my family or going over to the dorms to hang out with the Seattle boys which includes a lot of football, basketball or video games). Tuesday nights are usually devoted to ZUMBA at 6 p.m. and then a flag football game some time after that. Without knowing exactly how football works, it has become one of the more fun things I do throughout the week. I've learned a lot and even raised my catching average up slowly - we'll exclude the fact that it was zero before. Even though it's "flag" there is a lot contact - proof of the bruises up and down my legs.

Wednesday

Pretty low key, I have three classes and that's pretty much the only interesting thing about it.

Thursday

Biology and Math then my lab for THREE ENTIRE HOURS - it's a drain but it's a pretty amazing feeling when it's done - like my weekend is about to begin. We usually have a flag football game on Thursday nights too.

Friday

I just have Math and Psychology and it's extremely hard to get motivated to go to those classes because everyone else has Fridays off on their schedule.

And there you have my typical college week in a nutshell. All I have to do is survive it for eight more months now!

my favorite new snack

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Super Yummy

My pad

I decided to show you my first home away from home tonight for two reasons: I'm super bored tonight which therefore caused the second reason to be that it's finally super clean due to the boredness. This is where I spend all of my when I'm not in class, taking a test, going to church/FHE/thursday night activity, hanging at the dorms a block and a half away, grocery shopping, or going to the gym. As far as first homes go, #6 is fairly cozy - when it's clean - which seems to be a much harder task with four other girls and no mom to keep everything in check.

ZUMBA

Katie and Lauren got me hooked on this class that goes for an hour every Tuesday night. It's called ZUMBA and you watch the three instructors dance with super high energy to all sorts of fast paced songs and copy what they're doing. One of them is pregnant and she totally goes all out making us all sweat with her dance moves. I've come to realize how uncoordinated I am. But I've also realized just how much fun it is! For an entire hour I get a pretty intense workout while just having a good time dancing (or trying to dance) to the happy, loud songs booming in the gym. Most people here make fun of it...but we don't let it bother us because it's so much fun!

Graduation, vacation, and everything in between...

Sorry this is LONG overdue, but I've been a super lazy blogger for like 4 months now. I just want this all to be documented so here it is - some of my life from May to August '09 in pictures.

Graduation!!!

We had some successful boat trips! I love being a boatin' family and can't wait for Summer '10!

I got to see Lauren, meet her FIANCE, and fly a plane!!



Our trip to ALASKA!

What else are aunts for?

I taught Mr. Q a new trick. Have fun with him at restaurants from now on Cori and Eric!

A drunken game of softball and a drunken date for prom

I had my eyes opened in the last two weeks. Two Saturdays ago, as a last minute deal, Hannah invited me to play softball on a co-ed team that needed another girl. Thinking it was going to be pretty intense since we were on a team with people at least two or more years older than us, I was a little nervous with my softball abilities that haven't been used since I was thirteen. Not knowing what to expect, Hannah and I showed up there half an hour early to get ourselves prepared for the tournament - 8:30 in the morning. We found everyone there with (at least) one can of beer in their hands drinking like it was nothing! I had no idea people actually mixed sports with drinking let alone at 8:30 IN THE MORNING!

We played four games total that day and won one of them. Needless to say, I don't think that drinking boded well for our team. My worries about my skills were calmed however, because they matched those of my teammates (a good thing? I'm not so sure).

Then, just one week later, I volunteered to go to the Bighorn prom as a double with Darcee. Her date, Demetri, was a friend of Mckenzie's but just needed a date due to lack of interest in the 25 girls he had to choose from. My date, was found through a lot of searching and desperation. Demetri actually apologized beforehand about my date...this made me slightly nervous. When we did happen to meet Woodsy (his real name was Brad) he didn't really talk and when I asked him questions he just gave me short, simple answers. As the dance started, he said he usually doesn't dance until a couple of songs go by, so it was a tad awkward trying to look like I was having fun dancing by myself while Darcee and Demetri hit it off.

I lost track of Woodsy a couple of times, but once meeting up with him, he decided he was ready to dance. This was evident to the smell of alcohol he breathed into my face. When I asked, "Have you been drinking?!" He said, "Yeah, there's a flask in the bathroom that I keep visiting. I'm ready to dance now though." Needless to say again, it was already an extremely long night by 9:15 pm.

Anyways, both experiences turned out to be quite the adventures and made me realize just how sheltered I actually am...which I am definitely sure is a good thing...

The Great College Debate

Well, this is a tad bit anticlimactic since most of you well know what decision I have made, but with a lot of consideration and weighing in others' opinions (some stronger than others...) and even making a pro and con list for both places, I have decided to go to Dixie State in St. George, Utah. Among the accusations of it being a party school and just not as "up there" with BYU Provo, the main selling point for me was that it had a dental hygiene program which is something I'm very close if not completely sure what I would like to do as a career. I also got a scholarship that was very generous, making the decision a little more easy. So on August 24, 2009, I will be attending school in hot weather - St George!

The unofficial Pink Week

The high school student council decided to dedicate an entire week toward fundraising and increasing the awareness of breast cancer within our community. From date auctions to change wars, they spent the week collecting to donate to cancer research. They also added a more personal touch the the awareness by having posters hanging up in the Commons Area with the stories of the women - and even one man - who have suffered from and beat breast cancer. At the basketball games that Friday night against Worland, both of the girl teams wore pink uniforms, and the boys wore pink warm-up jerseys. During half-times, football jerseys were auctioned off in support of breast cancer donations. The week of awareness made over $20,000 in donations from the schools and the community! It was amazing to get so far with such a short amount of time. Laura, Hannah, and I went to the basketball game totally decked out in pink to show our support... (half of our faces looked slightly flushed for a couple days after)

Photo Op

Over Christmas break, Darcee's sister-in-law took pictures of the four of us for our possible quad-graduation party. As you can see, we had a lot of fun in the process...