Banana Muffins and a Rope Swing

Miscellaneous Moments: 

Left - running up a hill and through sprinklers to get to work.

Right - The most annoying thing to break in our apartment thus far. I see the maintenance guy so much I ended up flirting with him. Then I realized he is married. Oops. Sorry nice maintenance guy. Thanks for fixing every freakin thing that breaks in our apartment.

All right, now to the real news.

August 1st I drove up the canyon with some cool people form the Elms to celebrate Genevieve's Birthday! I hadn't seen Gen in awhile and the bonfire was a blast. Everyone is always so nice at BYU. I am thinking I should invest in a camp chair for these spontaneous adventures.

August 2nd - Evelyn and I combined our ingredients to make a platter of banana muffins. The recipe I found on the internet a couple weeks back has received nothing but praise.

Evelyn!!!!!

Evelyn totally made fun of my giant batman pen as I wrote missionary friends and my family while we waited for the muffins to finish baking.

Lovely. Our tower of muffins was devoured in less than three days.

Camping trip with the ward? Okay! Thanks to Evelyn I had a sleeping bag to Mona. I didn't bring my phone with me on this adventure, so I don't have any pictures. We swam in the lake for a few hours and lots of people in our group went off the rope swings when the crowds died down. Later that night we feasted on bbq and snacks that we bought on the way up. That night we slept under the stars and, thankfully, weren't devoured by bugs. People came and went, but we had at least a dozen wardies there the whole time. I really enjoy this ward.

August 4th - We promised Alden we wouldn't have parties at work without him, but that doesn't mean much to the Imaging Office. This time it was someone bringing us food though. These cookie bars were heavenly. I'd also like to shout out Kristen from upstairs who always tips us off when there is food somewhere in the building. What a keeper.

Kristen and I went to try Slab pizza that night. I had this potatoe, bacon, rosemary stuff. I wouldn't really call it pizza, but it was good! I had to snap a stalker pic of the Studio C people too. Oh the things that happen when you live in Provo.

That night we had a very Colton-approved FHE activity. A handful of people went after the lesson on the stoop to the dollar theatre to see Godzilla in 3D. The movie was not terrible. If anything, I thought it was pretty funny. Major similarities to Pacific Rim. 

Not a slow weekend of beginning of a week. Keepin summer real. 

~Emily 

Happee Birthdae Harry Potter!

Time to celebrate everyone's favorite book series!

July 30th - Emmy and I prepare for the party at work be baking a birthday cake. The goal is to make it look exactly like the cake Hagrid brings Harry in the first movie. 

(Side note: Emmy's aprons are the best.)

How did we do? Excellent! I'm proud of this haphazard looking cake. Underneath the frosting we made from scratch is a two-layer German Chocolate cake.

July 31st- Having to wear our OneStop polos didn't stop us from going all out. Emmy did the honors of cutting the cake after everyone admired our master piece. Just like all good office parties, we dressed up the Office characters too. From left to right: Dwight as Voldemort, Jim as Ron, Pam as Hermoine, Ryan as Harry, and Michael as Dumbledore.

This isn't my apartment that is all crazy decked out with Harry Potter gear. I was pumpes when Anneli called invited me to go with her to another party that night in honor of the Chosen One. I have so much respect for whoever lives here. Their apartment was brilliant.

Anneli and I even ran into Rupert Grint at this excellent birthday bash. lol jk. There were lots of real life look alike besides this cardboard cutout though. The costume contest was just as impressive as the decor. I should have pulled something cleverer together besides, "a girl from Ravenclaw."

I will happily accept all Harry Potter props anyone feels inclined to send me, specifically these potions, the Ravenclaw diadem, and a time turner necklace. Thanks in advance.

Happy Birthday Harry!!! We miss hearing about your adventures that defined part of our childhood. An entire generation around the world followed your quest. I love that literature can bring people together like this. There are only a handful of people I've met that don't love Harry Potter.

Brianna "Love Of My Life" Baxter

That is literally Brianna's name in my phone and has been for awhile. It goes without saying that I was excited for her to spend the weekend with me in Provo. The Baxter's were hiking, biking, and visiting family in Utah after picking up Logan from EFY. Hooray for Brianna being able to go on adventures with me!!!

July 25th - Foreshadow for this day being sweet. Kris was out of the office so Emmy, Tanner, and I bought a gallon of Graham Canyon ice cream at the Creamery. Delicious.

After work, Brianna and I went to Chinese food with my roommates. We were going to order take-out, but there was a freak wind-rain storm going on.

Slumber Party! My giant polar bear loved it the most. ;)

July 26th - Olivia dropped us off at the Farmers Market. I bought a ton a apricots and then we walked back. The Provo City Center Temple and Nuskin building made a road block for us so we had to detour a longer way back to Regency.

Rest stop in front of Provo Library. Once we made it home we made a Chocolate bundt cake with the pan my mom sent me with the Andersens. So sweet. While the cake baked we play frisbee on the hill. Neither of us are pros. Brianna had to retrieve my awesome Captain America frisbee from the other side of the grass even though it politely asked her not to. Oops.

Bowling in the Wilk. We suck. lol Our goal for game to was redemption by doubling or tripling our score. This was just a warm up.

No joke, we both bowled strikes the first round of our second game. Proving we're really hot stuff and super stars. ;)

I had to. Look at that score!

Mission Complete! We nearly tripled our first scores.

First strikes and then number of strikes at the end of the game. lol I don't think I have ever done that well in my life. Usually Brianna is better than me. If we were playing WiiSports Bowling though, you would have to beg for mercy.

Bridal Veil Falls! Sister Baxter drove the two of us, plus Lyndsee, up the canyon to chill by the waterfall while she picked up the guys from the biking. It was gorgeous and we had fun even though we weren't getting wet.

Since we are incompitent, we climbed up the hill on the left rather than walking up the nice little path on the right. We felt pretty silly, but at least we found the way down. 

Just one more friend picture on the bridge.

After we finished at Bridal Veil Falls, Brianna and I went to eat dinner at The Wall. As we waited for our scrumptious burgers we played on the touch-screen table. I killed her at the racing game, we weren't very good at the connect-the-dots, and the aliens sadly invaded earth on our shooting game.

The Sorting Hat was sitting on top of Cosmo to promote Harry Potter's birthday, only a week away.

That night Brianna and I made Monkey Bread with Olivia with a recipe we invented. It turned out beautifully. The Baxters picked up Brianna around 8am to head back to Arizona and make a pit stop in southern Utah to see grandparents. I love visitors. I can't wait till Brianna comes back to visit me and eventually lives in Provo while going to BYU with the rest of us. I started missing her just hours after they had driven away.