College Essentials

Top 10 things you need to survive the college life:

1. 1989

I'm obsessed. Top 3 songs:

-All You Had To Do Was Stay

-Blank Space

-I Wish You Would 

Ok let's be real all the songs rock my socks off. Way to be T Swizzle.

2. Netflix 

Legit Katy and I LIVE off of Netflix. What we've watched lately:

Every night Katy and I sit on my bed in our designated spots (we tried to switch spots once- it was not comfy) and watch a show. I'm seriously depressed we already finished all 3 seasons of Baby Daddy cuz that was the best. Literally laughed so hard every time. Season 4 isn't on Netflix yet so we're FREAKING OUT cuz who does Riley end up with? Ben or Danny? She HAS TO choose Danny. He's soooooo hot. But who knows what she'll do. We sure don't. It's a struggle. Also we got way too into camp rock hahahaha it's so cheesy but it has the Jonas Brothers so it rocks. Katy never watches the office with me but she hears me laughing my head of to it when she's watching New Girl. Haha we are pathetic. Our record is 7 episodes of Baby Daddy in one night. I don't think that's something you should be proud of but I kinda am. Whatevs. Yolo.

3. Cereal

I love cereal so much. I'm way too lazy to make eggs in the morning and plus eggs aren't even that good. You have to have cereal for breakfast, it's the best. Also it's the best 10:00 snack. I bought a HUGE bag of Honeycomb yesterday. We'll see how long that lasts, I'm betting on 2 weeks.

4. Cheese

Cheese goes with allllllll the easy recipes. Quesadillas, tacos, grilled cheese, mini pizzas. It works for everything. We have to buy cheese in bulk. It probably explains the gas problem Katy and I have. Oh well, it's worth it.

5. Just Dance

Wow all of these are either food or TV related. Oh well. Just Dance is seriously so fun. Katy and I get too competitive. We played it for FHE once, even. Psh, easy competition.

6. Oreos

The Halloween Oreos are WAY better than the regular ones. Trust me. The winter ones are good too. Also brownies. Basically any candy. But if you buy pumpkin bread from Kneaders make sure it has chocolate chips cuz if not it will not satisfy your pumpkin bread needs. Basically, just stick to Oreos.

7. Snapchat

Sadie and Cam send the BEST snapchats. They make my whole entire day. Also mom's library selfies are good too.

8. Coloring

Coloring is the best stress reliever also kills lots of time on weekends when you have nothing to do. But you have to use Crayola crayons, they're the only ones that do the job right.

I give you all permission to sell my artwork when I'm rich and famous.

9. Pinterest

Best easy recipes. Best cute crafts that I'll never have the motivation to do. Pinterest rocks. 

10. Comfy Clothes

Sweaters, tshirts, shorts. You name it. You need clothes for all types of weather because our room is either 10000 degrees or -20. (Or as Katy says... It's ROASTY in here. Or ICY. Depending on the temp.) But really. You're only at school for like 3 hours so the rest of the time you have to wear the comfy clothes. It makes life so much better. Perks of cross country- tons of free tshirts. SCORE.

There you have it.

Now here's a recap of some college happenings. 

Moose boxers. $3 at the Lazy One Pajama Outlet by our house. 

Coloring/ The Proposal/ Oreo/ Popcorn night. (You might be thinking, isn't that like every night? Yeah. Basically.)

Homemade spa day.

Halloween! I feel like we look so cute. We went to the Institute dance and then watched What Happens in Vegas. Party.

Goldfish factory!

Road trip to BYU-I to visit Abbie, Brittany, and Talmage.

Sometimes you just have to go bowling so you feel like you actually did something fun with your life. And it's fine if your only friend is your home teacher, right?

Just photographic evidence that I'm still righteous and stuff.

Kneaders trip for sugar cookies. Best decision.

Finally got a library card, woohoo!! 

Cutest Mike Wazowski pumpkin you ever did see.

XC race in Cedar City. Awful race... but at least it was a fun trip and we got to stay in a sweet cabin!

Saturday canyon drive.

Football game+Free ice cream. Go Aggies!

Attempt to do a double header temple trip... But Ogden was way too busy. Brigham City temple is SO CUTE inside. We also went shopping at City Creek and ate dinner at JCWs. We are such cute roomies.

Football round 2.

Bring on the cold.

And there you have it. Peace out, girl scout. 

-Kenz

To my little brother...

Guys my brother is 15 and he's a stud. He doesn't know this but I seriously think about him all the time and how he's going to do great things and have so much fun in life. He doesn't really like talking to me that much but there's so much I want to tell him so I just decided to write some advice for that little sophomore brother of mine and hopefully someday he'll realize that he has a freaking awesome older sister and he'll want to listen to me. I'm hoping in a few years when I sit on his bed and ask him how life is he won't run away but instead he'll actually want to talk because we're homies and stuff. Someday. Until now... Here's some advice, bro. I love you.

(See how he's on the opposite side as me? It wasn't originally like that)

-High school is so fun. Don't forget to live it up every moment. Go to all the football games, go to the basketball games, and I promise it's ok if you talk during class sometimes because you'll make some awesome friends.
-Don't worry if you don't understand ANYTHING Mr. Ed is saying in physics because you can still get an A in the class, easy.
-I know you're not 16 yet but you will be soon and seriously go to all the dances and ask girls on dates. I promise they'll love it. They'll think you're cute and someday they won't have cooties and you'll have tons of fun and it doesn't even have to be expensive but just make a girl's day and ask her to the dang dance.
-Choose good friends. Choose people that make you laugh every time you're with them and that genuinely think you're an awesome person because you are.
-You're really good at soccer. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There are going to be dumb coaches and dumb teammates that don't give you the respect and encouragement you need but as long as you love the game and as long as you're giving it everything, it's all worth it. And if you don't love the game anymore, that's really ok. Find something you do love because that's really what matters.
-Be patient with mom and dad. I know sometimes they're kind of frustrating and mom likes to take tons of pictures and hear every detail about your life and all your friends lives and all your friends parents lives and sometimes you really don't know as much as she wants to know but just pity her and talk to her about your day because if you think about it she's the best mom ever and she does so much for you. And I know dad is sometimes hard to talk to and he's intimidating but he works so hard for our family and all he really wants is someone to laugh at his jokes and go to him for help with homework cause he's usually right. I know that sometimes it can seem like they don't understand and they don't love you and they make rules that are annoying and just don't make sense but just be patient and know that they really do love you and someday sooner than you think they won't be there anymore to make the rules and you'll miss them tons.
-People are going to make a huge deal about going on a mission and where you go and how early you go and when your papers are in and everything about it. Missions are a big deal and they're great and Heavenly Father wants you to go but it's not really about the mission itself. It's about becoming the type of person Heavenly Father wants you to be. It's about learning to serve others and love the gospel and work hard and I think sometimes people forget that. Don't get so caught up in the what of missionary work that you forget the why. It doesn't matter if you go to South Africa or Bakersfield, California (coolest mission ever...), it just matters that you're living your life in a way that would make God proud, and I know you are.
-Take care of the girls for me, they look up to you so much and they're the greatest best friends you'll ever have. They love you and they care so much about you, don't forget to show them that you love them and you'll take care of them, too.
-Lehi is a great school and you'll learn tons if you want to. You have to put in some work if you actually want to get anything out of your classes but it's ok. You're going to have to take some stupid classes but just suffer through those and play 2048.
-Have so much fun in high school, Mase. Not a day goes by that I don't miss my friends and all the memories I made over the years at Lehi. You're going to go on and change lives on a mission and in college and someday you'll make a girl very very happy but for right now just focus on these next few years and the good times you'll have and the people you'll meet. Make them the best years of your life!

I love you, Mase man. Can't wait until the day when we hang out all the time and you actually think I'm funny. :) Until then, we can just watch psych and call it good :)

Expectations vs. Reality

So moving away to college I had this idea in my head of exactly how everything was going to go and what it was be like. As I've been living the college life for around a month now I'm figuring out that it's really nothing like what I've expected. It reminds me of 500 Days of Summer... maybe cuz Katy and I watched this movie last week but also because it's just really life:

Here have been my thoughts on college:

First off isn't campus so cute??

-I just assumed that once you moved away you'd all of a sudden have tons of friends and have stuff to do all the time for fun. Not true. The number of people I've met and introduced myself to amounts to about 1000. The number of people that I'd actually consider my friend: 4. They don't just come naturally and that's ok, it's just different.

(This is like the only social thing I've done all semester haha... Institute party)

-I imagined myself writing papers every night and being super overwhelmed with school. Honestly school hasn't been too hard for me yet, I feel like I took hard enough classes in high school that I was prepared. It's just a completely different learning style in college, there aren't many assignments actually due, you just have to self motivate yourself to study and actually read the book or you'll totally fail the tests. The classes have like 200 kids in them which is kind of hard to adjust to and it definitely makes it hard for me to pay attention cuz I'm like well the teacher doesn't care, he can't even see me. But yeah, school is different but good. It's boring, but I feel like I'm doing pretty well so far. Now I just need to decide a major... Hmmm...

-I thought that cooking and shopping would be a lot harder than it really is. It's come pretty naturally to me to make my own food. Shopping is stressful mostly because I know every time I swipe my debit card there is no income coming in which freaks me out. And groceries are just really really expensive and it's hard to know what to buy. But overall it hasn't been too bad. And Katy and I have a goal to bring all the groceries in in one trip every time... so far so good :) Also we are becoming pro chefs. We had hamburgers this week and zucchini pizzas. We seriously eat zucchini like every day. 

-I've seen my family a lot more than I thought I would which has been so good because my biggest fear about college was leaving my sisters. I love those girls. Thankfully they send letters all the time and I text my mom like a million times a day. Also the girls send the best snapchats: 

-Living with a roommate is actually really fun. Katy has been my lifesaver. We have the best late night chats, she makes me laugh so hard. Last Monday we watched 500 Days of Summer and Dear John in one night and ate so many Halloween Oreos. She makes the hard days a lot easier. 

Late night froyo runs looking like homeless ladies are always a go.

Movie night= chick flicks+ oreos+ cheese its 

We tried the new iPhone self timer. 10 seconds is way too long hahaha 

Also our household rules consist of not wearing socks unless it's snowing because we always get so sweaty at night haha and not ever having macaroni and cheese after 10 pm because we tried that once and it was a bad plan. I love Katy so much and especially that we listen to country music all the time and have dance parties and we can talk about anything and she's just really fun.

-Having other roommates doesn't guarantee having other bffs. Sometimes your roommates are a lot older than you and just have different personalities than you. But they're all nice and they don't steal any of my stuff so really they're cool I just hardly ever see them.

-Cross country has been a HUGE adjustment. I went from being one of the fastest runners on the team and knowing literally everyone and being best friends with the coaches to being near the back of the pack and knowing no one, especially not the coach. It's been hard because I'm one that needs individual coaching and feeling like my coach is invested in me and knows me and wants to help me not just as a runner but as a person. But I've learned tons about running from just this one season at USU and I have super buff abs and I met Katie and Emily who have become some of my closest friends here. It's been a really good experience, just a lot different. Not going to lie, I miss my Lehi XC. But that moment putting on the Utah State jersey realizing you're actually running a college race- that's pretty cool. 

(Emily McDonald, Katie Hill, me)

So... this post was kind of short and lame but it's getting late and I'm tired. When people ask me if I love college I never know what to say because honestly I've had some of the most emotionally, spiritually, and physically difficult days of my life since I've gone to college but overall I'm learning and becoming more independent and blah blah blah it's been good :) 

But just a tip: Don't have your best friend leave on a mission your first month after college because that makes things really rough. It's tried my faith a little (ok a lot) and there have been many tears shed. But I'm getting better and someday it'll be ok. That day might be in 2 years but that day will come... God is good and He always blesses his children. 

I am thankful for college and the lessons I'm learning and for my laptop because I love it and for Keith Urban pandora station and for Aggie Ice Cream and for institute and for getting letters and for watching too many movies and for passing my first test and just for going to the greatest school there ever was.