The Greatest Accomplishment of My Day

See Here

Something I didn't think even existed

SEE HERE

Whahooo!!!! I totally "embeded" these videos on to my blog all by myself!! Please... hold your applause. Anyways, these are AMAZING videos made by my friends for the Utah Tap project. The video explains...

I realize their accomplishment of creating these videos is shadowed by my own accomplishment of getting them onto my blog, but please - try to enjoy it. And leave a comment about how good they are. Ok?



Utah Tap :: Here's to the World from Mike Morris on Vimeo.




Utah Tap :: Here's to Doing from Mike Morris on Vimeo.


This one is my favorite -


Utah Tap from Mike Morris on Vimeo.

The Amazing Race

Alexis and I have been planing to be on the show The Amazing Race. We watch all the episodes, and during this we have taken note of what to do and what not to do. So here it is:

Things To Do:

• Wear underwear
• Learn a little bit of each language
• Have a map
• Ask directions
• Be fit
  

Things Not To Do:

• Wear thong underwear
• Leave your bag in the taxi
• Fight
  
• Get lost
• Form alliances
• Be mean to the other teams
• Waste time trying to read the name of the place we need to go
• Get frustrated when something is not easy
• Get mad at other teams for just playing the game
• Think you can do something better than your partner
  

Demain des l'aube

So I have an new favorite poem: "Demain, dès L'aube" by Victor Hugo. We read it in my French Class. I think the emotion behind this poem is sort of lost when it's translated, but I am posting the translation too.

Anyways... this is it:

"Demain, dès L'aube"

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

Here is the translation for those of you who do not speak French...

"Tomorrow, at Dawn"

Tomorrow, at dawn, in the hour when the countryside becomes white,
I will leave. You see, I know that you are waiting for me.
I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain.
I cannot stay far from you any longer.

I will walk the eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Without seeing anything outside, nor hearing any noise,
Alone, unknown, the back curved, the hands crossed,
Sad, and the day for me will be as the night.

I will not look at the gold of the evening which falls,
Nor the faraway sails descending towards Harfleur.
And when I arrive, I will put on your tomb
A green bouquet of holly and flowering heather.

black diamond...? Check

So let me tell you a little story about Alexis and Me.

The setting: Lexi's apartment, freshman year.

Somehow we start talking about things we want to accomplish in our lives, which then turns into things we want to accomplish before we get married. (this is because the things we want to do require us to be quite irresponsible... needless to say the two do not mix well.) So anyways, we have little things like:

• Hike the Y (which we have yet to do)
• Go camping somewhere fun (somewhat done, but not really)
  
• Exercise every day for a month (which we have yet to do)
• Take a dance class (check)
• Have a crepe party with more people than just ourselves (sadly, yet to be fulfilled)
• Test drive an expensive car (haven't done)
  

We also have larger goals, such as:

• Spend the summer in Europe (which will be accomplished this summer)
• Go scuba diving in California (check)
• Attend mass at Notre Dame de Paris (this summer)
• Watch all of the movies Lexi's parents own (I don't know if we will ever accomplish this)

And probably the most unlikely of all:

• Have boyfriends at the same time
  

So this is only a small example from our list of 70 things we want to accomplish (some of which are not able to be mentioned)

Anyways... Lex and I went skiing on Friday and accomplished one of our goals:

• Ski a black diamond

Now let me tell you something about this goal. It has kind of evolved over time, because technically we skied a black diamond last year while skiing with my parents, but to tell the truth we were scared out of our wits an going so slow that it can hardly be called skiing. Anyways, to take the ONE thing we learned in our History of Creativity class, we decided the guidelines for this accomplishment had to follow the guidelines of creativity:

• Value
• Intention
• Novel
• Excellent

So on Friday, we accomplished this goal based on these guidelines.

The setting: Sundance, UT. Bishop's Bowl.

It was definitely of value, we intended to do it, it was new, and we skied that run all day to the point where we got pretty good. Some would say excellent.

So there you have it. One more check on the list.

Here are some photos to commemorate the day:


Lexi and I on the ski lift

It was so warm that day that the parking lot was totally mud! We got our boots all muddy :(

After skiing black diamonds all day, things got a little tricky on the green circle...


Yard Sale, anyone?

a confession of how truely pathetic i am...

So I just got back last night from Sun Valley. Alexis and I met my famly (consisting of my parents, brother, and his friend, Mike) to go skiing for the weekend. It was sooo much fun, and we had a blast! This is our schedule of events:

Thursday: Arrival, Iron Chef (which was both accidental and lame), sleep.
Friday: Ski 9:30- 4:00, hot tub, birthday presents and dinner!, scrabble, sleep
Saturday: decided not to go skiing because we were SO sore, jumped car because we left the lights on :( , shopped (bought two pairs of gloves for $10), lunch, family left, ***Lex and Chelsea's CRAZY night in Sun Valley!
Sunday: Church (good thing we remembered daylight savings time), clean condo, drive home
- for a more detailed schedule, see here.

***This is the part which this post is focused on. Here we are, two girls in a condo in Sun Valley, Idaho. All by ourselves. We could do ANYTHING we wanted. There are a million things to do (maybe not a million, but probably at least 5), and this is what we chose to do:

1. Eat dinner. We really weren't that hungry, but we could have gone to a million different restaurants (this isn't as much of an exageration as the previous one). We even found out later that the chef we watched on Iron Chef was from Sun Valley, and we probably could have gone to her restaurant. But no, we went to Atkinson's market (a small Smith's) and bought fruit juice and a fruit and yougart parfait. Which was good, but not exactly high class.

2. Return back to the condo. Instead of doing something outrageous on our last night in Idaho, we return home and watch a little T.V.. We then decide to watch a movie.

3. Movie of choice: Disney's Horton Hears A Who. AND not only that, we play Scrabble while watching it. If this isn't the recipe for a good time, I don't know what is. After the movie gets over we watch "The Science of Attraction" on the Discovery Channel while trying to decide if they will ever tell us how to be attractive or if they are just going to tell us all the reasons we are not attractive. The fact that I am coming back at the same level or attractiveness should tell you the answer.

So far, I'm sure you've thought, "holy cow, this is so pathetic." . Let me assure you that it only gets worse... or better, depending on how you look at it.

While watching this "Science of Attraction" thing, we fall asleep on the couch. Finally, I wake up, turn off the T.V., wake up Lex and mumble," We need to go to bed." So we come out of our stupor a bit, and I look at my watch to see what time it is, expecting 2 or 3 in the morning. But - and this is where the pathetic level is off the charts - it's 11:15 pm! So we stumble up the stairs and wash our faces and brush our teeth and go to bed.

So that is our CRAZY night... after telling my mom what we did that evening, she said she was worried about us... in a different way than normal parents. Or parents with normal kids...

But really, vacations are for doing things you never get to do in your normal life. And Lex and I NEVER get to watch TV because we don't even have one. And we never get to go to bed early, so that's what we wanted to do.

Overall, it was super fun and we had a great time. We had a wonderful welcome home by two exams, a history quiz, joural entries that are due, and a french quiz (which was due today, and was forgotten. Oh well...) But it was totally worth it. :)