happy tears and sad tears at the same time!

ERICKA SHAUNTEL AHLEEN IS ENGAGED! Yesterday morning I woke up, ready to head off to work like any other day. Then I checked my phone and found out that one of my very best friends is going to be getting married! That's the point where the happy and sad tears began. I love this girl! She was my first roommate and my first friend in St. George. At this point she really is like a sister to me. It makes me sad because I know that I"ll be in China for the wedding, but I know it will be beautiful. I could not be more excited for her! Brett treats her the best and they are such a cute couple! I love you Er Bear! ;)

Lunch today to see the ring and hear the story with Mama Ahleen

It's a horrible picture but it is hands down one of the most GORGEOUS rings I have ever seen!

CONGRATS ER! I freakin love you! I'll be sending my love from China

Stacia Lynn...

Stacia is another one of the "Hurricane Crew" people. I first met her a few months ago when she came down for Josh's farewell. I found myself sitting by her again today at Ryan's farewell. I freakin love this girl! BUT, we decided today that we can no longer sit by each other at farewells. At both Josh's and Ryan's we could NOT stop laughing! Any little thing seemed to set us off. At Josh's it was a girl singing, a family in front of us and something he said that reminded us of a story he had told us earlier (which at that point he was crying, and we were all laughing hysterically). Luckily we were in the back though so not many people saw and were distracted. The worst part came later at his house when I laughed uncontrollably hard. For those of you that know me well, you know what kind of trouble and attention that brings! Today though, Stacia was singing for Ryan's so we marched clear up to the second row so that she could get up easier. BAD IDEA! When the Bishop stood up to start things we decided that we were going to do better. We were 2 lines into the opening song when we determined that this wouldn't happen. For whatever reason Stacia was having a hard time reading the words to the song, getting down the beat etc.

I loved it though because I realized that it is literally only the times that I sit by her, that I don't cry at farewells! Granted, it's not very reverent that we're shaking the whole bench with trying to keep our laughter under control, but it's a nice break from just sitting there bawling. I love her and I can't wait to see what trouble our laughing will get us in next! By the way...AMAZING job at singing today!

Shay towering over writing our notes to Ryan

Pretty much melting outside in 109 degree weather!

Sleeping on Shay's tramp the night before Josh's farewell. EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL in Hurricane was going crazy all at the same time!

After the farewell at Josh's house after everybody stopped staring at us and cleared out the backyard to go inside

Starting to slowly hit me....

WOW! So for this last week, it has slowly started to hit me that I will soon be leaving St. George after being here for a year. Even though I still am far from fully realizing it, I'm getting sad about it! Right now, I'm laying on my couch watching 2 of my roommates packing up and loading their cars: Kylie and Adaiza. Adaiza I have known since 8th grade when we both moved to Provo and had no other friends. We were on the same basketball team and have been friends ever since. She's moving back up North for 3 weeks and then she'll be back down here at a different complex. Kylie I met back in May when we moved into the same apartment. She is moving up north to get married.... BOOO! ;)

As is true with everybody you live with, I have gotten to know them both SO well. In fact so well that there are definetly some things that I know, that I really wish I didn't. Something hilarious is always going on when we're together! Usually a fight will break out which results in throwing spaghetti, paper towels, hitting with a bag of cheerios, the blind "stick" thingys, or the always classic slap fights with hands and flip flops. We've had many nights of staying up a lot later than we should have, just talking about everything! We've had breakdowns, lash-outs, hysterical laughing and everything else in between. The most common said phrase in our house would DEFINETLY have to be...."SHUT UP!" As much as I joke around, I really am genuinely going to miss both of them a lot! I really have gotten to know them so well and it's going to be weird this next week to still live here and have them gone. LOVE YA!


We were trying to go to Sheep Creek Bridge with a few boys, and I really thought I knew how to get there. NOPE! We got SOOOO lost! We got clear out in the middle of nowhere with roads that winded around everywhere but we were still laughing and of course had to get out and take a picture.

One of the funniest nights with Kylie...midnight trip to the ER. They gave her a ton of morphine and it kicked in extremely quickly! She sat there staring at her hand moving it up and down slowly and just kept telling me how amazing it looked, how I should just try it etc.

We love to frustrate Ryan! One night we went to Malcolms and realized that Ryan had left his truck outside his house so we decided to take pictures on our phones and send them to him of us because he didn't know we knew where he was. He started FREAKING out a lot more than what we planned on. It ended up being a huge 20 minute chase because we threw his back in the back of his car and took off when they got close. Hilarious night!

Once we finally got to Sheep Bridge, it was so much fun! It took all of us a little while to actually jump (except it took Adazia FOREVER! lol) but as always once we did it was such a blast. Good times with Kylie falling off of the rope, Adaiza taking forever to jump and trying to get videos. Lots of laughs and more pictures from this to come!