Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Christmas Present... Christmas Past

My ward Christmas party. I was 'Charlie Brown' in the play. Or Amber Brown.
We built a ginger bread fort.

This is the last Sunday of the semester, and the first time all of the roommates went to church together.


The rest are all from last year. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!


Some of these were taken early in the am at Utah Lake with Heather
This was a little berry tree just outside my kitchen window

The Family ( - Pep and Arch) and Temple Square, Unfortunately Dad is taking this picture as usual and is therefore not in it :( Relaxing after a rough trip to temple square (see previous blog post)

The magnificent Salt Lake temple






Rock Canyon Park

Provo Temple Nativity


My mom has owned this nativity for as long as I can remember. It is my favorite! I always loved playing with it (especially the little sheep) when i was little and... i still do. I was so excited that she brought it out to Provo when my family came.

Monday, December 1, 2008

360s on i 15

At about this time last year, Danny and I decided to go see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. It had been nice and snowy so as to add to the Christmasy atmosphere. What a perfect time to go. So, we jumped in the jeep and hit the road. As we were driving on I-15, we noticed a few slick conditions but nothing the jeep couldn't handle. Up a head, there were lots of cars stopped and spun out and wrecked all along the highway. We gently cruised by, thankful we were not the poor schmucks that had slipped on the ice.
"Shoot." Danny mumbled quietly. (This is the edited version obviously)
"Whats wrong?" I didn't feel the tires spin on the ice.

"Shoot.

Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. SHOOT. SHOOOT. SHOOOOOT!" (Still edited so as to keep a G rating)
These 'shoots' happened in sequential order:

'Shoot.' indicates tires spinning on ice

'SHOOT.' indicates losing control and starting to drift uncontrollably into another lane of traffic.

'SHOOOOT.' indicates the jeep beginning to spin around facing the wrong direction of traffic.
'SHOOOOT!' indicates the part where we were FACING traffic head on, 2 lanes away from our original lane of traffic.

Thats right.

As the car turned I saw nothing but 2 big bright headlights from a semi truck (though Danny claims otherwise) right in my face. We were probably 15-20 feet in front of it. The jeep continued to turn so that we faced traffic head on for a moment, and then it continued rotating all the way facing the forward direction again... all the while keeping a nice steady pace of about 30 mph.
Some how we didn't get hit by a million cars. Danny quickly scooted into the far right lane where we proceeded onward to Temple Square at approximately 25 mph. On I-15.
I started dying laughing.

Danny's face was completely white as he gave me a death look. What on earth could possibly be funny right now?

That made me laugh even harder.

Better laugh than cry!
We arrived safely to Temple Square. I jumped out of the car as carefree as ever and started walking towards the Temple. Danny stopped me. "I need a hug." Oh... right. That was a tad traumatic. And being the driver was probably the scariest thing ever.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Its Gettin Hot in Her'

This spring Danny and I went on what we thought would be a little hike. We at least had some peanuts and water in the car (which was quite an upgrade from previous adventures we have embarked on). After about 4 ish hours of hiking around in the rain and mud and rocks and mountains, we decided we were famished and headed back into town. We stopped at the store and bought lots of yummy things so that we could make some delicious orange chicken. Some of our items included ice cream and a pineapple (for dessert obviously), Orange sauce and a few spices for the chicken, including 2 very small orange peppers (thinking that we didn’t need a whole big pepper since there were only 2 of us eating the meal. So to be economical, we bought the small ones. It seems logical right?
We finally got home and started making our delectable chicken. As I was cutting up the peppers, my eyes and throat started burning. I thought maybe that was kind of normal, since I am really sensitive to onions. When I chop them up I cry like a baby and just like totally whig out all over the place so I thought I was just weeniery about peppers as well.
I started sautéing the peppers. My eyes and throat burned like never before. But to my surprise, Danny was freakin out now as well as they were cooking. Why wasn’t this a red flag to us?
We cooked up the chicken and added the sauce. We also had some rice and vegetables as well. It looked beautiful. We were quite an hungered seeing as how we hiked all day and hadn’t eaten.
We sat down to eat. I took a huge bight of chicken. So did Dan.
It really felt like smoke was burning out of my ears. My throat was FREAKING out; my eyes and nose were watering. I drank about a gallon of milk and water and consumed all the rice I could stand. When my eyes quit leaking all over the place I saw that Danny was whigging out as well (thus confirming that it was not an allergic reaction nor was I a total wiener).
That was the hottest dad gum pepper on the face of the earth. We found out later it is called a “Wild Desert Tepin” aka THE WORLDS HOTTEST PEPPER. Literally. Why do they even sale that at Albertson’s? Freak.
Luckily the night ended well—we had cut the pineapple in half and hallowed it out and put ice cream in. Now that was downright delicious and a perfect way to cool off our scorching blistering mouths.

Lately

Halloween! A couple of ninjas and a couple of 80s burnouts :)



The Scooby Doo clan






an overdue old roommie reunion at cafe rio



Dress up dinner date





Saturday, October 18, 2008

Squaw get some firewood!

Alpine Loop
My roommates
lettuce

our pumpkin! His name is Choe. Cause he kinda looks like a chubby chinese kid.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

September Sessions

l
Hike up to Big Springs. SO pretty!


why not float the Provo

Kokopelli Triathlon in St. George
A good month.





Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Thank Goodness for BBQ forks and Bishops

Writing my most recent post, I was reminded of another grand experience I had whilst I was still in high school.
My family has a tradition of eating out on Monday nights. One Monday, I got home from work a little after my family had left to go eat. I decided to go for a quick jog around the neighborhood. I came home, cooked up some raviolis, and turned on the tv.
Someone knocked at my door.
I have made it a personal policy to never answer the door when no one else is home. I figure.. I have a cell phone and anyone I care about would call me. Plus I'm just like the biggest wuss ever.
The door bell rang.
I continued watching TV and stuffing my face.
Then, the doorbell started dinging repeatedly, probably like 30 times. I figured it was a) a friend joking around b) my lazy brothers who were too lazy to go around to the other door.
I got up to answer the door.
I looked out the window and what did I see?
A creepy looking dude in his 40's whom I did not recognize who was ringing my doorbell uncontrollably. No thank you.
I thought maybe it was someone weird my dad knew, so I answered. Plus I was way annoyed at all the ringing.
I opened the door.
"Do you own this house?"
"....no" (I was thinking, dude I'm like 16 years old what the heck does it look like)
"Is your dad here?"
"no" (I wished I had lied)
"oh."
And then he just stood there awkwardly.
Creepy. I was like, ok well I'll tell him you came by and I basically just kinda slammed the door in his face without getting his name or anything.
I went back to my TV watching.
I heard a creeking sound come from the front door. "Hm, must not have shut it all the way, wind blew it open...)
I go around the corner and look out the window before I made it to the door. Creepy man stil there. Creepy man has his hand on the door knob. I grabbed my cell phone and darted into the laundry room as fast and quietly as I could. My hands were shaking, I flipped out my cell phone.

No service.

Flipping laundry room.

I wrote a text message to my little brothers and dad.

I leaned out of the laundry room carefully, just enough to get a bar of service, and sent the text.

I bounced back into the laundry room. My heart was racing. A million thoughts were going through my head.
"What is this dude doing?, Are there other dudes with him? Is he inside my house right now? Can I fight him if I have to? What if he tries to kill me? Could I actually try to kill someone back? Why didn't I just go meet my parents for dinner?" etc.
I started getting mad.
Who does this honkie think that he is? He can't just come in here he can't just do this. This is our house.
I looked around in the laundry room for any sort of weapon.
A BBQ fork, you know, one of those big ones. I don't really know what those are even for. I grabbed it. I prayed a ton, and tried to get my head together. I really didn't want to stab someone and I really didn't want this dude around.

The back of our house has these big bay windows with no blinds. Perfect for creepers spying on highschool girls. I slid on my belly past the windows and towards the front door. I had my cell phone with me. I got to the entry way and looked toward the window. The dude was still there at the door! I could not believe it. It felt like I had been in there for at least 10 minutes. He must be on drugs. So, BBQ fork in hand, I slid up right to the front door. I reached up, locked the door, and darted back to the back of my house. I called my family and tried to convey quietly what was going on, and then went back to my hiding spot.
During our conversation on the phone, my dad asked me if I had locked all the doors.
"yes"
And then my stomach sank. I thought I was going to be sick.
The garage. I knew for sure that door was unlocked. There was not a chance I was going to walk through our dark garage to lock the walk in door. I stood next to the 2nd entrance of the garage door (this door does not have a lock on it, I think the builders of our house assumed that you would be smart enough to lock the outside one) I stood, and I waited.
Suddenly, I heard that garage door slam. My whole body was shaking.
The 2nd door flew open.
I felt so sick.

"AMBER! AMBER ITS ME STEPHANIE!"
My Bishop's wife had come to save the day. (luckily I did not fork her when she walked in the door.)
My parents had called our Bishop who lived just down the street. They came, did not see anyone, and my parents were home shortly thereafter. Phew.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

A Walk to Remember

Last night started out as a typical Friday night at the beginning of the semester in Provo. My roommates and I went to a BBQ, followed by a quick Cafe Rio run and a little bit of dance party action.


Neither Danny or I particularly enjoy the awkward Provo dance party scene, so we decided to go on a little stroll so as to ease our stomaches because of the 5000 calories we had recently consumed from Cafe Rio. We left around 10 pm. It was slighty cool outside, but still really nice. Probably around 65 degrees.


So a walking we went, down the Provo River trail. We came to the first park and decided to stop and have a swinging sesh. Then, we started playing on the play set. It had a small tunnel, about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. It was the closest item on the playset to the swings. About, 10-20 ft away. As we were going through the tunnel, I got a really creeped out feeling and we heard some noises. The tunnel had about 6 big peeking holes in it. I dared to look out one. We were now accompanied by a GINORMOUS man in combat boots. He was on the swings, laughing hysterically with himself. He would randomly start talking to himself and changing up his voices. Homeboy was a real creeper, to say the least. He was also making these really crazy noises, hauking loogies, and making a weird hard sniffing noise. I still do not understand how he did not see us, especially since my shoes were sticking out of the end of the tunnel.



He would swing for a few minutes, and then stop for a few minutes and make that weird sniffing noise. I tried to sneak another peak. He had a white sack. The sniffing noise finally made sense when I realized he was doing crack.


An hour passed. I had to pee. The temperature had dropped aout 10 degrees. I had been holding myself in a side plank position for this entire time trying not to totally crush poor Danny. I got an idea! We just needed to text our friends and tell them to come here in a big group and be loud and then we could get out. We could also call the police! Hooray for cell phones! I reached in my pocket. Cell phone? Not a chance. Definitely sitting on my coffee table back at my apartment. I whispered in Danny's ear, "do you have your phone?" Negative. I layed my head down and tried to take a little nap. I fell asleep.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of heavy combat boots thumping through the playset ground. Thump thump thump. Thump. Thump Thump. My eyes popped wide open. Had he seen us?

The left side of my body was completely numb. I couldn't lift it or turn to look out the hole anymore, so Danny had to. He couldn't see the man anymore. Our chance to break free? Not likely. Just as we were getting ready to slide out of the tunnel, my body froze, and I said "wait." It really didn't even feel like it was me saying it. I looked up through the front of the tunnel, and saw the man standing about 4 feet away with his back turned toward us. Taking a pee. (This didn't really help my situation considering I had been holding it for about 2 hours at this point.)

He must have heard a little noise from us, and he turned around. It felt as if he were staring directly at me. My entire body was shaking. It was freezing, my bladder was about to burst, and now the crack man was staring at me and my body was numb and stuck.

I am still not sure if he saw us, but for whatever reason he went back to his gay swing. Who swings for this long? I think we were both completely irritated at this point. How long would we be stuck in here? Was this dude going to kill us? I got so cold I could no longer whisper anything to Danny. My entire frame was shaking. For a moment I was honestly considering just letting myself pee so I could get warm.

We had both been praying to ourselves "please get us out of here... please make this man leave" we tried to whisper prayers out loud.

It felt like we were going to be alone on this one.

The freakiest part to me were his sudden bursts of laughter. It felt like he was laughing at us, like he knew we were there.

Everytime the man would take a break from swinging (it was frequently, so he could huff) it sounded like he was going to get up and leave, and then our hopes were crushed as we heard him pump his legs again and continue swinging. It was the most miserable feeling.

I was getting claustrophobic . Both of our bodies were numb. There was no where to move. I had lost all track of time. I had no idea how long we had been there. The only thing I knew, was that with every breath I took, I felt my bladder getting fuller and fuller. I pushed myself beyond my limit of holding it. I could not do it anymore.

I said a quick prayer again. Out of the other side of the tunnel, I saw another creepy man heading our way. Probably to use the bathroom as well. I figured we were less likely to get attacked with another dude there, but who knows, maybe they were friends.

Please don't let this guy kill us, I have to get out of here. Send your angels, we are out of here. And I told Danny what I thought. Let's just get up and leave.

I finally mustered up the courage, slid out of the back of the tunnel. My arms and legs were both dead asleep. I could hardly stand, let alone walk and especially not run. Oh, P.S. i have shin splints so it hurts to walk anyways, but that was the last of my worries. I didn't have time to get my shoes, or even see where they were. I just started bending and lifting my knees and attempting to walk as quickly as I could.

We made it safely out of the park!

I just hugged Danny. I honestly felt so thankful to be alive, we had finally made it through the worst 6 hours of my life. And also slightly angry and the crazy army crack man in the park.

The pee factor was really taking its toll. We had about a mile to my house. I don't know if anyone has held it this long. I definitely set a personal record for holding it the longest. We made it to a gas station. Oh, it was closed. Why would it be open. Freak.

I held myself the rest of the walk or shall i say gallup home. I had never been so happy to see my apartment complex as I was last night. I flew my front door open, ran to the bathroom, and checked the time. 4:30 AM!! we had left at 10.
I was irrate. I was suppose to leave at 5:30 AM to run a marathon that I have trained for all summer. Not going to happen. It was ok, I prob should not have run on shin splints anyways.

The moral of the story.. always use the bathroom before you leave the house.

Friday, August 15, 2008

These are a few of my favorite things


the glorious bbq grill

tie dye

the magical ability i have of falling asleep anywhere anytime

hand stands in the car



Yuba Lake and its sandy beachesshoving things in my mouth
bonfires and camp outs

ted's bakery. oh so delicious.
the oooocean. this is pipeline in the summer.
mountain grandeur. This was taken out of my kitchen window.



Monday, June 16, 2008

Lake Powell with the Masters Clan

Wake boarding, wake skating, wake surfing, skiing, boating, canyoneering, spelunking, cliff jumping, condo-ing, playing cards, walking. A grand ol' time.