thanksgiving

So, we just had the best Thanksgiving ever!  We took the quick little flight from Oakland right into the Provo airport - talk about hilariously little and cute and totally convenient!  One of the things we were most excited about about being in Utah (besides the family, of course) was the food, and within 30 minutes of landing, we had J-Dawg's in our mouths.   Ben's sister, Ashley, hosted Ben & I and Randy & Sandra for the week - it was so fun!  

Monday evening before Ben's parents arrived, we went out with the Pattersons.  Professor Patterson was my study abroad director in Paris and we have missed seeing them for our monthly Sunday dinners.  It was so kind of them to drive all the way down to Provo, pick us up, and take us out to dinner!  I can't believe that Kate was just a little 13-year-old babe when we were on study abroad and now she's a freshmen at BYU!

Ben and Ashley's husband, Jon, spent the Tuesday skiing at Alta and they had a blast!  Ben took a ski class our last semester at BYU and it was so fun for him to be back on the slopes!  And of course, while the boys skied, the girls shopped!

On Tuesday evening, Ben & I got together with 2 couples that we are good friends with and just chatted and laughed all night.  Then we hit up the BYU Creamery with minutes to spare before they closed.  We needed our Graham Canyon fix!

Wednesday morning we all had breakfast at Kneader's - I think Ben was looking forward to this the most - and it did not disappoint!  It was also really fun to look at all of their Christmas decor and Randy purchased our first Nativity set for us there!

After breakfast, Ben & I made a quick trip to the hospital in Provo because I needed to have a procedure done on a certain day, which happened to fall during Thanksgiving week, of course, and luckily they could do it for me while we were in Utah.  I was so grateful!  Doesn't this room just scream "Happy Thanksgiving!"?  Haha.

Wednesday afternoon we all went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point and Ashley's two kids had a lot of fun.  Ben, Randy, & I had an epic game of Jenga, as well!

On Thanksgiving morning I woke up with the flu - that is just such a typical day for people to get sick!  I know multiple people who were sick that day, too - all the traveling, I guess.  But anyway, I hear that everybody had a really nice day and that the feasting was most excellent.

Friday morning, we made a big trip to the BYU Bookstore and did some major damage (thanks, Randy!).  It was awesome to be on campus again - it really felt like we had never left.  We lunched and ice creamed at the Creamery afterwards, and all left feeling majorly full.

On Friday evening we went to see "Frozen" and it was so fun!  I totally recommend it.  Two thumbs up.

Saturday morning was time for Christmas cookie decorating, and then we hopped back on the quick Provo-Oakland flight.

The week went by really quickly, but we had a lot of fun!  Thanks to Ashley & Jon for hosting us and to Randy & Sandra for coming all the way from Indiana!  We sure love you guys!

super saturday & visit to the dorffs

I started a new job yesterday!  I am doing the same thing - activities with the elderly and those with dementia - but now I am working at Mt. Diablo Center, part of Rehabilitation Services of Northern California.  Instead of a home where people live 24/7, this place is a day-care facility where families or board-and-cares can drop off their loved ones for a day of activities from 9:30 to 3:00.  This means that I won't have to work evenings, weekends, or holidays . . whoooo hooooo!!

But before I started this new job, we had a fabulous weekend!

Ben went on a long bike ride on Saturday while I went to ballet class.  Then I had Super Saturday - a many-hour-long Relief Society event where we craft, eat dinner, and do service projects.  Apparently everybody knows what Super Saturday is, but I'd never heard of it until we moved here.  The theme this year was Super {Slumber} Saturday so I got to craft, etc. in my sweat pants!  Best.  Here are the two cute things I made - 

On the left is a wreath made out of paper flowers made out of old book pages.  Let's be honest - Shelley made most of my flowers because I am not that talented . . but I glued them all to the wire-hanger-turned-wire-circle!

On the right is a Christmas advent calendar made out of/on to a 24-count mini muffin tin!  Each muffin space is covered with a square piece of cardstock, with Christmas patterned scrap-book paper glued on top.  Then we stamped numbers on and added any embellishments we wanted.  To secure the cardstock, we cut sticky magnet strips really small and stuck them on each corner.  To count down to Christmas, I will put candy and/or a Christmas-related task like reading a scripture, watching a Christmas movie, etc. in each square.  I'm excited!  It turned out way cuter than I imagined!

~~~

Some of our very best friends, DJ & Laurel, moved to California to attend Stanford Law and we are so stoked to live nearby again!  We spent all of Sunday after church down in Stanford with them.  What fun!  We enjoyed a lovely lunch, a delightful walk around campus, and some good old catch-up chatting.  Oh, and let's be frank - little Lincoln was terrified of Ben, but he sure loved me!

 We also discussed what personality types we are according to the Myers-Briggs test and how they match up to the Harry Potter characters' personalities charted using the Myers-Briggs test.  If you're trying to figure out what I'm trying to mean, look here and here.  Well, Ben & I hadn't taken the test so we did, and it turns out that I match up with none other than . . . Neville Longbottom!  HA!

BYU vs. SJSU

BYU football came to San Jose!  Ben said it's like we're being slowly weaned off our BYU experience.

We were on TV!

Ben is cute, even when he photo-bombs.

it's official!

farewell to provo

A post that is obviously out of order, but important nonetheless.

During our last week in Provo . .

We took our last final exams. I had to take a picture of the waiting area for results because it is both classic and humorous. I am here waiting for the result of my very last BYU final.

We went to J-Dawg's. Did you know that J-Dawg's is rated #1 on Yelp for Provo restaurants? True fact. Ben is requesting a J-Dawg's t-shirt for his birthday in a few months.

J-Dawg's will never cease to be a beautiful thing in our mouths.

We packed our apartment into a pod. Awesome, huh? Blue and Sami happened to be in town our last day there so we solicited Blue's help and then went to lunch together.

And then, we drove to California - our new home! As we drove through Provo we recounted memories of everything we passed and said "farewell."

Provo, you have been good to us and you will be missed. :)

my last day

I just got home from my last college class ever and I have to admit I am sad! I have loved the past 4 1/2 years at BYU.

I love that I had a fun freshman year, made so many friends, and stayed up so late.

I love that I took full advantage of "Dining Plus" - it rocks.

I love that I stayed for Spring and Summer after my freshman year - that was such a fun time staying up late, studying a little, and working at The Pita Pit - "fresh thinking; healthy eating."

I love that I learned so many things in my general education classes - I loved geology and I had some great music civilization and humanities classes; I am grateful that I made it through stats.

I love that, with help, I have overcome significant personal challenges. I love that I have learned to love my self and my imperfections.

I love that I lived in Paris for a semester, ate way too many pastries, traveled throughout France, and loved every minute of it.

I love that I became such good friends with my study abroad directors and have continued to have Sunday dinner with them once a month since we got home.

I love that I got to live at the infamous "Liberty Square" and, true to it's reputation, met my husband there!

I love that Ben & I found each other, went on three dates and fell in love, and have been sealed for time and all eternity. I love that we got to be married during our college years and live in classic Wymount Terrace. Being married at BYU is the best.

I love my major. I love how applicable it is to my life and how I will use it in my future, no matter what I am doing.

I love how I have sincerely loved most all of my classes. I am sad to no longer be a "college student."

I love my internship, how much I have learned in regards to my schooling and my future career, and how much personal growth I have experienced.

I love that Scott and I have been able to share at least one semester here at BYU; it has been such great fun.

I love being surrounded by so many people who share my beliefs. I love how I said I would never want to live in Utah and how now I really would like to live in Utah.

I love how I have become a professional nap-taker.

I love how I have moved ten times while I've been at college.

I love how I have taken a dance class every semester except this last one.

I love how I still can't breathe at this Utah altitude. I love how I still and will always hate the winter here!

I love that I have loved BYU! :)

the same dilemma

This happens at the end of every semester!

I like to check things off my to-do list, I like to "get a lot done," and I like to stay away from stressful situations (i.e. lots of reading, homework, and projects at the last minute).

Thus, I am done with all of my reading and homework for the rest of the semester! I signed up to give my final presentations yesterday and today and to have my internship exit interview yesterday. I am done.

"Oh yay," you think. "Good for her," you think. No, not so. Because this happens every semester and every semester, for several weeks, I am bored out of my mind!

There is still a week and a half of classes left, plus a week of finals which for me this semester will be a breeze; I'll be done on the first day. But, Ben, like every other student in Provo, still has so much to do!

Why do I do this to myself? I always think it's going to be such a great idea and that I will love having everything done. But no. I am bored. This is my last semester, so obviously I never learned.

I've gone through my entire GoodReads To-Read list and BYU has not a single one of the books I am interested in. I have two books in our apartment and I've started both but neither grabbed my attention.

You can only watch so many episodes of Parenthood on Netflix.

You can only exercise so much.

You can only cross-stitch for so long.

I've already re-named and re-organized all of my Pinterest boards.

I need some ideas here!! Preferably of a good book . . . as good as "The Help" or "Sarah's Quilt" . . . After my run of amazing books last semester nothing seems to compare.

Ideas, anyone?

;)

cha cha cha!

Early yesterday morning I got to go see Scott compete in DanceSport. He competed in the Cha Cha and he did FABULOUS! He made it all the way to the fifth round! Seriously, that's pretty dang good! I was very proud to be his sister.

This is him and his partner coming off of the dance floor for the first time. He didn't know I was going to be there - SURPRISE!

His partner's sister and I happened to be sitting really close to each other, so for one of the rounds, they gave us a great view!

Doesn't he look so great!??

driving the alpine loop: a big fail

Before coming back to Provo for our last semester, Ben and I made a bucket list. I was adamant that "driving the Alpine Loop in the Fall" be on there - in fact, it is the first one listed. I have heard from numerous friends and cousins how beautiful the fall leaves are, but for one reason or another, fall after fall I have failed to drive the Alpine Loop! This fall, our last fall, I made absolutely sure that we did not neglect this item on our bucket list. And we didn't . . . we just did it a little too late.

Take a look:

Nope. Not a single leaf!!!

. . .

I finally managed to take this single picture of some leaves on a tree. Only part of the tree is showing because the rest of the picture would be dead leaves. Ha!

Who would have thought, because this is what the trees look like down in Provo! I guess you just have to be smarter than the trees. :-/

just a few bits

Not a lot is going on in the Myers household . . . we are just busy-busy-busy!

A few exciting things:

Ben is done with his GMAT prep course. No more 8 hours of class per week! Go Ben!

I got a 99 on a midterm last week and the screen at the testing center said "Fantastic!"

The fall leaves are so vibrant and so gorgeous - loving it.

I found this on the internet yesterday and Ben & I laughed hysterically:

not a loser

Sometimes it's not about being a winner, it's about being a not loser.

This is what Ben told me as we walked out the door to the football game and I was wearing my marshmallow jacket. It is not a winning jacket because it is not cute; never has been, never will. BUT, because I was warm in the 34 degree weather - I was a not loser!

Speaking of winning and losing (but not really), yesterday I created AMAZING homemade chicken fried rice! Who is the bomb?!

windows

If you have seen this picture -

then you know that I once tried to kill a bee by swinging at it with a broom. You probably remember that I missed the bee but killed the window.

I am now pleased to announce that we have a new window!

The window man (who called me Sister Myers because he couldn't say Karin - gotta love the Church) told me that this glass has surface strength that is 4 times stronger than regular glass. I thanked him and told him that, still, I would try to keep my broom away from all windows.

[Although, I have to admit that last night I dreamt there was a giant spider above the window in our apartment and we were trying to kill it by throwing bricks at it.]

great sunday

This is how you know a Sunday is a good Sunday.

This is how you know a good Sunday is a great Sunday.

slides, ziplines, and coasters, oh my!

There's always something to celebrate - right Randy & Sandra?! So today Ben & I celebrated Labor Day/a-day-with-no-school by hitting the slopes in Park City and checking an item off our Utah Bucket List!

We rode the Alpine Slide first, the ZipRider second, and the Alpine Coaster third - we had to save the best for last! If you have never ridden the Alpine Coaster (I had never even heard of it), then you must add it to your bucket list. It's like the slide, only ten times more cool!

We weren't expected to spend hours in line, but we did have more fun and better weather than we could have ever expected!

first day(s) of school

In college there are technically two first days of school. Monday, with M-W-F classes, and Tuesday, with T-Th classes. Both went great for Ben & me.

We only took a picture on the first first day - Ben is about to head off to his first class and I am getting ready to leave for the first day of my internship.

Here's the run-down.

Karin

SFL 240 - Parenting and Child Guidance. This is so I can learn about everything my parents did wrong. Haha - JOKE! I think this is going to be a great class. My teacher is a young and bubbly Marriage & Family Therapy grad student, but I can tell that she really knows what she's talking about. She is going to make class really fun, interesting, and applicable. I'm excited.

SFL 354 - Cross-Cultural Family and Human Development. Basically this class is about different families and different cultures - could be very interesting, but so far the teacher has been a little boring. Still, I think it will be okay.

SFL 399 - Academic Internship. I am interning this semester at The Courtyard at Jamestown Assisted Living. I have had two days so far and I really love it. Monday mornings I will work in the Enhanced Care Alzheimers Unit and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I will work with the main activities for a total of 10-11 hours per week. When I describe what I do to Ben, he calls it a "Labor of Love." In the Alzheimers Unit, I brush hair, clean and paint nails, push wheelchairs outside, help people eat and drink their snacks, etc. With the main activities, I run activities like Bingo, Family Feud, "Quotes, Jokes, & Root Beer Floats," etc. It is a lot of work and I am always really tired when I come home, but I think I am going to learn and grow a lot, and from what I can tell, absolutely love it! It is such a sweet place to be.

HLTH 436 - Human Sexuality in the Curriculum. This class is for people who will be teaching health and sexuality education - I am taking it for my Family Life Educators Certification. My teacher's name is Parley Cougar Hall - hilarious, right? He seems totally awesome, though. I think I'll learn a lot in this class, and it seems to all be worthwhile and interesting. Even though this class is at 8 AM, I think I'll enjoy it.

JAZZ - Again! Yay! I loved my jazz class last semester and I am hoping for another great experience!

With all of these classes, I will complete the requirements for my major and my Family Life Educators Certification and be ready to graduate in just a few short months!

Ben

(Descriptions in the words of Ben, mind you.)

ACC 241 - Business Law. Something about business and the law.

CHIN 325 - Structure of Chinese. Something about the grammatical structure of Chinese.

REL C 324 - The Doctrine and Covenants. D&C Sections 1 - 76 according to the gospel of Brother Bott.

BUS M 430 - Intro to International Business. Something about doing business internationally.

MUSIC 160 - Voice. Hopefully learning to sing a hymn without only mouthing half of it.

And there you have it, folks. Our largest goal this semester is to ENJOY BYU! We love it here.

Oh, and

Whoo! :)

back in provo.

Whooo-hooo we are back in Provo!! Oh, how we have missed it, and oh, how happy we are to be back! We drove from Merced to SLC on Monday and listened to Dreams of Joy by Lisa See the whole way. A book on tape makes a long drive very short. We spent the night with the Pattersons and then came to Provo and moved in on Tuesday. Our very same apartment as last year happened to still be available so we claimed it! That made our move-in way easy because we know where to put everything! We only had a couple of funny/scary moments.

We borrowed a real big truck to move our bed back in - watching Ben drive it was worth a little chuckle and a little worry. We were worried that it might fall out. I took a picture of him in my side mirror.

We had been back in our apartment for about 30 minutes when a giant bee appeared on our living room window.

Karin: "Ben-there's-a-giant-bee-on-the-window-ahhhh!"

Ben: "Get it, honey!"

Karin: grabs the broom and swings it like a baseball bat at the bee.

"I am . . . such . . . an . . . idiot."

I missed the bee, but killed our window!

Honestly, all we could do was laugh! And now I have an excuse for Ben to always be the bug-killer in our home.

On Wednesday we bought our books, picked up a few things at Target, and visited Ashley, Jon, Zach, & April - we are so excited to be in Utah together!

Cousin Call got married on Thursday - it was beautiful and happy and wonderful. We are so glad that we were able to be there and so happy for Call and his beautiful bride, Whitney. I didn't take any pictures all day - bummer!

Dad and Scott flew in for the wedding and on Friday we helped Scott move in to his new dorm room. He had an awesome summer as a freshman and is way excited to be back for the school year. And Ben and I are way excited to be here with him!!

Our day Friday was packed - we bought Scott's textbooks and saw a lot of people on campus, including Dad's mentor, Dr. Braithwaite - picture below. Then we got lunch, went to see Harry Potter, got dinner, went to the women's soccer game, and then got ice cream at the Creamery.

On Saturday we all went out to breakfast at Kneader's - Ben's all-time favorite, hung out a bit at Wal-Mart getting some things for Scott's dorms, and then we said good-bye to Scott & Dad. Scott is back in the dorms - having fun, we are so sure - but we cannot wait to hang out with him!

It was nice to be back in our Wymount ward today - although next week Church switches from a 12:30 PM start time to an 8:00 AM start time . . . maybe we should have moved back into a different ward. Haha.

We are excited to begin our last semester at BYU tomorrow! News on classes to come soon. :)

so long, farewell

Last night, we had our last, final bash with our best friends. We are going to miss them so much! After we left last night, all I did was avoid my emotions-avoid my emotions-avoid my emotions! It's just too sad! We love our crew!

Sami gave a hilarious and perfect description of our evening, so I will let you read that by clicking here.

I'll just give a quick re-cap!

This is our group.

We do so much together!

Here are the boys. We love them all.

And here are (a few pictures of) the girls. I love each of them and will miss them dearly!

We ate some yummy snacks and played a game of charades-of-sort. It was hilarious! A wonderful way to remember everybody. Ha.

Sami edited and put this picture on her blog - I love it! It's like our little family photo!

Anyway, we are so grateful for the friends we have been blessed with. These will be lifelong friendships! We love you all and wish you the best of luck!