Let the Games Begin

Today at lunch was the first official celebration of National Jill's Day. I thought this was going to be a little get together with my sisters, but I guess I forgot the hoard of kids that comes with all of them. Let me illustrate the recipe for a birthday celebration...

Take three little baby girls...

Add four crazy boys and one little Oakley...
Mix in Amy, Maga, and Heidi...
Combine the Birthday Girl, Mom, and Jamie...
And you get one crazy experience at Pei Wei!
Thanks to everyone who came (especially with kids in tow) and putting up with all of my crazy birthday excitement.

The End

I finally finished my last test tonight, and despite not going to class since our last test and not getting time to open my book before the test, I think I did really good. I guess that is the joy of a major when you learn the same thing in a lot of classes. The most exciting part really is that I am all done, what better birthday present is there?

Good News Minute

You know in Relief Society during the announcements when they have the "Good News Minute"? Well, I don't particularly like this moment in RS, but thought I would still the idea to share with you my little bits of good news I had today (nothing overly exciting mind you):

• Tomorrow the celebrations begin for my birthday
• I only have two more tests until I am done (this will be a much better "good news minute" tomorrow night)
• I found out that summer semester starts a week later than I expected (YEAH!!!)
• My one class I have to actually attend is not Monday- Friday like I thought, but only Monday - Thursday (LOVE having Fridays off, especially from a 7:30 class)
• And of course we can't forget, only ONE more day until my birthday!!!

Gangsta's at the U

Apparently there has been a recent crisis of "gangsta's" pushing people onto the tracks at the U. So much of a problem that they have spray painted these signs on the sidewalks by the tracks. Note that they are not gangstERS that we need to watch out for it is gangsTAS.

When I was walking to class and passed this for the first time I literally laughed out loud. What kind of warning is this? Seriously. What is this sign supposed to even mean? Are there really people pushing people on to the tracks? Is "gangstas" the new term for people who jump in front of trains? I have seen it a couple of places on campus and I'm still not sure what to think of it, but I still think it is funny every time I pass it.

Studying?

Studying is one thing I have never really learned to do. I'm not sure how I have made it thus far without this skill, but my current method of cramming seems to be working for me. Why change your methods when what you are doing is working? Now granted I could probably do better if I did study, but I am still passing my classes, and that's what counts right? Also, why change now when I such little time left in the realm of tests?

How do you study before the night before the test? It seems like you would forget everything if it is more than 24 hours before the test. I have really come to realize how much of a procrastinator I am with my current finals. All of my classes are only two test classes, so the final is a big deal, and yet I still can't bring myself to prepare more than the night before or take my test until the very last minute possible.

I think I am going to blame this bad habit on high school and how easy it was to get through school not having to study.

Finals

In true Jill style I am up late doing some last minute cramming for my first final tomorrow. It is my first of 5 finals and I can't remember the last time I had a final in all of my classes. I know it's not that unusual, but it seems like a lot of my teachers take the route of a final presentation or project. I can't decide which I like better, procrastinating studying or a project. Either way nothing happens until the night before. Maybe I will have a wave of responsibility and study this weekend.

On a huge side note: I was so happy that Grey's Anatomy was new tonight! I have missed the drama and excitement of the show and getting to watch McDreamy. I just can't get enough of him. I was also so excited to hear from a friend (and then confirmed by People) that Shanda (the writer) intends to have Meridith and Derick together by the end of the season. It's about time they get together and just be happy! Meridith doesn't deserve him, but I like them together too much to not want it to happen. I am also really excited for Addison to be back for next weeks episode. Needless to say, this didn't help in my jump on studying tonight.

ONE WEEK... and counting!

My birthday is officially one week from today! I know you are all anxiously awaiting this blessed event and have watched the count down to National Jill Day. The wait is almost over, 7 DAYS!!!

Best Day of Work

Friday I had the best day of work EVER! I flew down to St. George the day before to go represent DFCU at the golf hole they sponsored in a golf tournament. So not only did I get to get away from the cold and out of the office, I got to sit in the warm sun ALL day!!!

I got to sit here with everything I needed: a little sun, a little shade and a cooler full of Diet Coke.

I got to look at the pretty golf course...
I got to work on my tan (but I ended up getting a pretty nice Farmer's Tan)
There were several highlights of my day and had a lot of fun meeting the people who stopped by, as well as the peaceful morning I had. It took about 2 hours for the first group of golfers to reach our hole #18, so I had this time all to myself. Sitting on the course gave me a new appreciation for golf. It makes sense why so many people like to get out there where it is so peaceful and beautiful. Maybe I'll take up golfing...

I think I need to find a job where I can get away and do stuff like this more often, any suggestions as to where I could find that?

What Kind of Weather is This?

This is the weather gadget on my desktop and it just made me realize how crazy our weather really can be...

Today: Sunny - but COLD
Tomorrow: Warm - but cloudy
Saturday: Warm - but thunderstorms
Sunday: Cold and SNOW!!!

I don't think there could me a more random 4 days of weather!

Away, Away, Away Down South in Dixie

I'm on my way to Dixie Land today and I couldn't be more excited. Good weather, good company, and good price! What could make this weekend any better?

Top Ten

To no one's surprise, I like food. So, I decided to list my Top Ten restaurants. I am very particular about my food, but when it's what I want, I love it! So here are the Top Ten places that I like to eat (not in any order because that would be to hard to rank them):

Texas Roadhouse: Does it get any better than the rolls with the cinnamon butter? I just love it! And who can pass up on their great stakes and probably the best bacon cheeseburger ever.

The Pie: I love pizza, and this place is one of my favorites. I'm not very picky about pizza places, but this place wins out with the atmosphere, cheese pull-a-parts dipped in their ranch, and the awesome company I usually go with.

Melting Pot: I can't afford to ever eat there, but both times I have been it was amazing. The food is so good especially freshly cooked at your table. I also love the intimate tables and feeling like you are the only one in the place. My favorite is the French Quarter, chicken, shrimp, steak, and sausage with Cajun seasoning and cooked in oil, it's to die for!

Training Table: Home of the Utah Original #25 Turkey Bacon (no tomato). The ranch on this sandwich along with their bacon is one of the best combinations. I don't know how they make their ranch so good, but they do. Add a side of cheese fries (also dipped in ranch) and a diet coke and the meal is complete!

Molcasalsa: I must say that one of my favorite indulgences is driving all the way to Molcasalsa on 3300 S for a breakfast burrito and a diet coke. These burritos are so good especially with lots of their hot sauce. It just makes me happy every time I go.

Chili's: Some of my avid readers might remember my several week stint of going to Chili's at least twice a week (things will never be the same without you Steph). I don't know what it is but I love Chili's. From their chips and salsa to mozzarella sticks to big mouth bacon burger to the smoked turkey sandwich.... The list goes on, but the crowning achievement of Chili's is the Molten Lava Cake, need I say more?

Cafe Rio: Anyone who has known me for longer than a week knows of my love for Cafe Rio. My obsession for Cafe Rio peaked my senior year in high school when our daily ritual became going to Cafe Rio instead of our lunch period class. I went so many times the workers knew me, and that was the day of the worlds longest lines. My new discovery and love at Cafe Rio is the soup, its good. You should give it a try if you haven't already.

Pei Wei: I have never been a huge fan of Chinese food but Pei Wei does it right. I love LOVE the lettuce wraps and could probably eat about 10 orders of them by myself. But when getting an entree, the Kung Pao Chicken with fried rice is where its at. The peanuts and snap peas make this dish amazing!

Farmers Market: One of my favorite things about traveling is finding farmers markets and eating all of the good food. Usually the baked good are my favorite, especially if it included Palmer's (aka elephant ears). There is nothing like being on a trip and finding these little treasures!

The Coppermill: It has been years since I have been in Logan to enjoy this treat. I can only go at lunch because that is when they serve my delight, a turkey bacon sandwich with two kinds of melted cheeses on a croissant. Along with their delicious fries, this meal is incredible!

I thought it might be hard to come up with 10 of my favorite places but as I started thinking about it, these truly are my top 10. There were definitely some honorable mentions such as: Yanni's, Rumbi, Noodles & Co., Pita Pit, Market Street (breakfast), etc. But even those are a far cry from these top 10. I don't know if you noticed my love of bacon, cheese and ranch, as well as my particular way I need my food. I don't usually branch out too much, but I love finding a place that I like a lot of their things on the menu, like Chili's or Cafe Rio.

I am blaming my failure of "Fat Jill No Mo'" on the existence of these establishments!

Narnia?

After a beautiful weather day like yesterday, where does a cold day like today come from? I am so ready for this winter to be over! I feel like we are living in Narnia or something that the winter never ends!!!

Luckily I will be off for St. George on Thursday to incredible 80 degree weather!

I Vote John

This past weekend I went and saw "Leatherheads." The show was pretty good, but this is not a movie review. The show stared one of my favorite men, John Krasinski, or Jim Halbert. He is definitely on my top 5 "Movie Boyfriend" list, maybe even top 3.

While watching the movie I was reminded of one of my favorite conversations of my recent trip to Seattle. It all started when we were walking past the Adidas store with a very large picture of the handsome David Beckham. Stephanie randomly says, "I would have sex with David Beckham. I would give it all up for him." I nearly died laughing at how funny and random it seemed. Later that night Lindsay had received the new edition of "Entertainment Weekly" with an article featuring John. So the conversation continued the next morning at breakfast. The conversation went on about who we would rather be with, John or David? I hands down would take John. Not that David wouldn't be quite the trophy, but John seems like just the type of person I would love to end up with.

I think that Lindsay put it best when she said "He is just the dorky, white boy." It sounds dumb, but that is what he seems, the funny, charming, good looking, tall, white boy. I vote John!

Monday's

I think that Monday's are the worst day of the week on purpose, your week has nowhere to go but up.

All the Seattle Adventures

Seattle in a Nutshell

Here it is, the post you have been waiting for. I have finally got all my pictures uploaded and I am ready to share with you all my fun stories. I won't overload you and give you all the adventures now, but I will share with you my favorite photos, as well as a slide show at the end of my whole trip.

The first (of many) purchase of the trip.

The Three of Us

My lovely living arrangements
My self guided tour of Seattle
Fountain by the Aquarium
The Space Needle and Us
Eyes in Seattle, down on the Waterfront

Pretending to Play the guitar
The mean bunny at the diner
Driving to the Tulip Fesival
The pretty "Tulip Festival" Although, these are daffodils
Rebels
Largest snow banks I have ever seen, you can see the street light at the top, that is how high they were.
My first view of the Space needle (sorry, its a little blurry)
I loved Pike's Place market!
The Troll under the bridge
Gasworks Park to see the Seattle skyline

Riding the ferry, I was hoping to see McDreamy, but no such luck.

These got out of order a little, but I am too lazy to worry about it. The slide show is in order and is better documented. Stories and correlating pictures will still be coming...

Back to the Grind

Today I got back from Seattle and was dumb enough to plan on going straight from the airport to work. I hit real life like a brick wall. I forget that I usually need a vacation from my vacation when I get back.

Regardless of being back in the real world, I must say that flying is definitely my preferred mode of traveling. After the longest drive ever to Seattle, flying back was refreshing. It amazes me that the same distance that takes 14 hours by car only takes 1 hour and 30 minutes by plane. Those Wright brother's sure knew what they were doing!

Since I have yet to go home, I don't have pictures to illustrate my adventures. The stories are yet to come, so stay tuned...

Seattle, I've Arrived

This morning I am so grateful to not have to really drive anywhere. Yesterday was a very long driving day and I was so happy to finally get here, and safely. 

Our drive took us just under 14 hours. This included two blizzards, one extended stop to keep us from going crazy, and a whole lot of ugly desert. Needless to say, we actually made it really fun and had some good times on the way. We stopped for some photo ops (to be shown later), had the good sayings, and kept each other from going crazy (or added to the others frustration, poor Stephanie had do deal with me).

Some of the my favorite moments:

 - Stephanie getting yelled at for trying to pump her own gas in Oregon (it's against the law)

 - Stopping at the top of the windiest bridge to get a picture of the "Welcome to Washington" sign (good pictures to come of this one!)

 - Eating junk the whole way (Thanks to Mom for the Party Mix!)

 - Singing really loud and dancing crazily to our favorite songs.

 - Seeing the largest snow banks I have ever seen (yet again, pictures to come)

 - Driving into the city and seeing a new city for the first time, always one of my favorites!

It was fun, long, and sometimes stressful and I am so glad I get to be flying back to Salt Lake instead of driving!

St. George... Here I Come!

Today at work I found out that I get to go on a little business trip. It sounds so official and grown up, and truthfully I am really excited.

In my new department we work with car dealerships through a third party company, CUDL (pronounced like "cuddle" and it stands for - Credit Union Direct Lending). CUDL is putting on a golf tournament in St. George and I get to go down and represent our credit union with my manager. Basically, I am going to get paid to sit on a golf course in the sun all day and talk to people as they come by.

Of course the perks of it all is that it is paid for and its time getting paid away from work. But I get to fly down, instead of driving, and the VERY best part is that I get to see Brooke! I am so excited! We were just going to fly home Friday night after the golf tournament but I am changing my flight to Sunday and I get to spend all that time with Brooke, still with my travels paid for! I am pretty excited! As Brooke put it, "This is going to be BIG!"

ABC's Of Me

I normally don't like tags, but I love reading them, and I liked this one. So here you go...

ABC's All About Me
A- Attached or single: Very single
B- Best Friend: I don't have a lot of friends just a few best friends my sisters, my mom, Raul, and Stephanie
C- Cake or Pie: I'm going to have to say pie, but only chocolate (or Oreo)
D- Day of the Week: Friday, I know I still have to work, but the WHOLE weekend is yet to happen!
E- Essential Item: the Internet (I can't go to bed until I've surfed for a good hour) and Diet Coke
F- Favorite Color: depends on what its for, I love green, but I love red and pink too.
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Bears, I'm very particular about what colors I will eat and having the two on the worms eliminates a lot.
H- Hometown: Sandy, Utah
I- Indulgences: Shopping (I just can't help myself), spending a WHOLE day just reading a good book, eating out (I do it way too much!)
J- January or July: July for sure, January is the worst month ever!
K- Kids: Not of my own, but I live with 5 of the cutest kids, they make me so happy!
L- Life is incomplete without: Love, my family, and the Gospel
M- Marriage Date: Hopefully someday..... I'll get back to you.
N- Number of Siblings: Two brothers and four sisters.
O- Oranges or Apples: Depends, I like very particular kinds of both
P- Phobias of Fears: the dark, ending up alone, and bee's
Q- Quotes: I have so many, "Never frown, you never know who is falling in love with your smile."
R- Reason to Smile: Aiden crawling in bed with me in the morning, Oakley singing Enchanted, Amy ready to kill Andrew (sorry Amy, I think it's so funny sometimes)
S- Season: Late Spring, it's just perfect!
T- Tag Seven: I'm not a tagging person
U- Unknown Fact About Me: I am a little OCD, the volume on my car stereo always has to be on an even number. I just think odd numbers are ugly.
V- Vegetarian or Meat Lover: Meat, who doesn't love a good steak or bacon cheese burger!
W- Worst Habit: Popping my zits, I don't know why I like it so much.
X- X-ray or Ultrasounds: Never really experienced both, but I do always get scared that the x-ray is going to kill all my eggs (dramatic I know, but it still scares me).
Y- Your Favorite Food: Can't you tell I love all food? I am a very picky eater, but I love what I will eat: Cafe Rio (of course), pizza (I could eat it all the time), lots of bread (as long as its not sourdough), and anything with bacon or lots of cheese.
Z- Zodiac: Taurus, like it means anything anyways.

The Countdowns Begin

April 1st is one of my favorite dates. One because it is finally April which usually means spring (except that its still cold and keeps snowing) and two because of the prospect of only one more month to my favorite holiday, MY BIRTHDAY! I know that many do not understand my infatuation with my birthday and that is OK. I think that that biggest factor of my excitement is the wonderful birthdays I had all growing up. It was always a special day. The fact that it is also a full day dedicated to me helps too! Who wouldn't like that?

So today I am starting the countdown to my birthday, 30 days and counting. I don't really expect anyone else to share in my excitement of this upcoming event, but I think that helps me to still be excited. If I was worried about others being excited I would lose all excitement really fast. My favorite example of people not being excited is my dad. Every year he just doesn't get my excitement. Especially for my 16th birthday, I nearly killed him with that one.


The other countdown that is much shorter is my much anticipated vacation to Seattle. Friday Stephanie and I are taking the 14 hour drive to the "Emerald City." It is only two days away and I so excited to see the sites like the Space Needle, Pike's Market, and the Tulip Festival Lindsay has heard about. Hopefully I can ride a ferry too, and maybe, if I am lucky, see McDreamy because he does love ferry boats. I just love visiting new cities and getting to see the sights. I also love fitting in as much shopping as possible. Always a must on a vacation (especially when the whole trip is only costing $70).

I have additional countdowns too: end of the semester (29 days - but only 5 school days and then finals), New York (46 days), St. Louis/Michigan/Chicago (~147 days), and Graduation (~261 days). I think that about sums up all that I am looking forward to this year. I know, I'm a little crazy in looking forward to things!