Engaged!

Okay, we all know I'm the worst at blogging. I can't even pretend anymore. That's probably what I get for promising to blog while on a roadtrip....ah well.

As you all know, something pretty rad happened in my life just this past Tuesday....

I got engaged to Jordan! It was amazing, and I was surprised at how elaborate of a plan Jordan came up with.  I originally didn't think he'd propose until early or mid-December, but he ended up telling me a week or so ago that he'd be proposing to me by the end of November.

He definitely kept me guessing which day it would happen though. We made plans the previous week to go to the zoo for a little bit after he got out of class on Tuesday, and then he later asked if I wanted to go to dinner afterwards. However, I had also made plans with my friend Audrey to make some cupcakes, which Jordan said was fine because he had a lot of homework to do. This isn't unusual for him, so I thought nothing of it. Earlier in the day, Audrey asked if I wanted to go to this fancy hot chocolate place after we made cupcakes, and this is where I started to get an inkling of what was going on...I asked her the name of the place, and she said it was called 'Paletas Betty'. Paletas Betty is an ice cream shop, and it's where Jordan and I had our first date.

Halfway through making cupcakes my roommates came home, though one left quickly, saying she had to meet up with a friend, and the second left shortly after to go to the grocery store. So we decide to go to Paletas Betty, and Audrey takes us in her car. A few minutes away from downtown Chandler, Audrey abruptly changed the music in her car to one of my favorite love songs...

As soon as she did that, I knew IMMEDIATELY what was happening, and my heart started beating super fast and I jokingly yelled at Audrey that I knew she had been involved in it. So we pulled to the side of the street in downtown Chandler just as the song was ending and Jordan was waiting there for me. I got out of the car and he walked me to this old hotel nearby (another spot we had visited on our first date) and into the garden area there, where my roommates were waiting with cameras. He got down on one knee, and honestly happened so quickly I didn't even have time to cry, haha.

We stuck around for a little bit so Chelsea (my photographer roommate) could take a few more pictures, and then they left us to call our families. Then Jordan asked if it was okay if we drove to the Mesa Temple so he could give me something else, so we drove out to the temple, surprised my friends who lived right across the street with the news, and admired the Christmas lights. Once inside the visitor's center, Jordan handed me an envelope containing his journal entries about me, starting from the day he purchased the ring, up until that day. It was wonderful and sweet and I'm almost tearing up about it again just thinking about it.

Anyway, moral of the story, I love Jordan so much and I'm so excited to marry him! And I'm very excited for the rest of the family to meet him (sorry Nicole, you're the last sibling!). I should probably change this blog address soon to something more fitting...

The Return to Florida 2015: Day 1

So I know I should have put a blog post about my new apartment first, but I delayed a little too long in that, so I thought it'd be a fun idea to try and blog every day of my Florida trip!

Backstory for those not fully in the know; my friend Audrey got back from serving her mission in Orlando, Florida, at the beginning of February. She told me she and her brother were planning to make a return visit the last week of May, and asked if I wanted to come along. How could I say no? Best part; some of the people in one of the wards Audrey served in worked for Disney World and Universal Studios, and said they could get us tickets for a day in each place for free. A chance to ride Kilimanjaro Safaris again?? I definitely couldn't refuse that :P

Audrey's brother ended up not being able to come with us, so we recruited abother girl in our ward, Haley, to help with gas and driving.

We left Saturday morning at 5:30, with plans to not make any overnight stops on our 31 hour trip.  Audrey went first in our driving rotation, and we decided to switch off every four hours. This worked out really well, and we had a smooth trip until we reached that terrible wasteland of Texas....

Nah, I'm kidding. Texas was fine....during the daytime. We were about halfway through our 12-hour drive of the trip, when it started to rain a little. We stopped in the adorable town of Fredricksburg for some food, then returned to start driving again. But it had started to rain even harder, and we were beginning to pass sections of road that were partially submerged.  This made for some tense driving, as you can imagine, but it was just the beginning of our trouble.

We had been making our way towards Austin (a slight detour made by the GPS; we had planned to drive through San Antonio instead) when we found the highway blocked by two police cars. We couldn't tell exactly what the issue was, but they were redirecting all cars to turn around and go back the way we came.

Obviously this was a problem for us...we had no idea how else to get through, and it had been raining for the past four hours. Eventually we were able to find a different road to get us back closer to San Antonio, and we got back on our way! It only set us back about 45 minutes, so it wasn't too bad.

Eventually it stopped raining around Houston, and I was able to sleep for about an hour and a half before I switched to drive. This is where it turned into Sunday, so I'll have to pause for now, before I regale you with my tale of driving solo through Louisiana and seeing....nothing. :P

A zoo-nique experience

So, I knew before starting this entry I hadn't written in a long time, but it was a little embarrassing to realize exactly how long it's been!

When we left off, I had just gotten a job at the zoo! As I'm sure you've all seen on Facebook, it's a lot of fun. Lots of interesting animals, interesting experiences, and weird people.  Most of the pictures I've taken of the animals are already up on Facebook, but here's a few newer ones :)

 I've learned a lot already, but I'm learning new things every day! Did you know that river otters are highly effective hunters? They catch a fish, then immediately pull off the fins, so if they drop the fish (or decide they don't want to eat it right away), the fish isn't going anywhere. Because they're such good hunters, they have a lot of free time, so they're actually one of the few animals in the world that, as an adult, will play just for the sake of playing. Cool, huh? I have all sorts of useless facts like that stuffed in my head now. I bet I'll be really good at trivia games from now on.


Nothing much has happened, other than that. I'll be going back to school at MCC in the fall (nothing but science and math classes....I can hardly contain my excitement), so I'm sure that will take up a lot more time! I'm hoping to go back to Deseret Book for the summer as well, since the zoo closes much earlier in June and July, as I'm also going to move in with a couple of girls in my ward fairly soon!

Their current roommate is married, but her husband was in basic training for a while, so now she's finally moving out to join him. They're not sure exactly when she's moving out (it could be two weeks or two months), but they're definitely planning to have me move in when she goes, so that's exciting! I'll make sure to blog about it ;)

Also, another friend in my ward got back a few months ago from her mission in Orlando, Florida, and she invited me on a road trip to go back the last week of May! There's three of us going, and we're going to drive (ugh), as we need a car and all of us are under the age of 25 We're staying with some members she knows, and other members of the wards she served in are getting us in to Universal Studios (!!) and Disney World (!!!!) for free!

We'll only be going to each of them for a day, as we're also planning on going to Cocoa Beach and a few other areas, but I'm very excited :) I'm sure I'll post photos on Facebook before I blog about it, but I'm planning on making a log of each day so I can blog about it when we get home.

Of course, I'm also very excited for the family reunion, but there will also be four family bloggers there, so I'm sure you'll read their reports of it before I write mine :P