so my brother just became a state champion. i am so excited for him.

it's kind of crazy, i remember playing for a state title my senior year. it was awesome, seriously words cannot even describe it. but there was something about watching my little brother do it that just made the whole thing that much better. i love watching my siblings succeed! it was so fun to see how big the smile on his face was. i was so excited for him that i started crying. it was such a neat experience and i could not be more proud of him.

now for a picture overload...

i got to hang out with these hooligans the whole game. my ice cream was shared by 5. my camera was terrorized by a two year old, and i laughed until i was in tears. i love being home.

alice made this shirt for hunter...seriously hilarious. and also how pretty can one girl be?! makes me jealous every time i see her. yes folks, that's my sister..she will have those boys lined up out the door.

ok so these next few photos are form right after they won. they make me smile so much. i was up in the stands, so they're not great, but still. seeing my brother this excited was probably the best part of the whole thing. made me tear up. i thought it was cool playing for a state title...trust me, it is so much cooler watching your brother do it...and win.

state champs.

look at his face. if that doesn't make you happy i don't know what would!

of course while we were waiting for the boys to shower we took pictures. i love my family.

hugs for all

congrats hunter, you deserve it! i am so glad that i got to watch you play, you did amazing!...aaaand now lets cut the mullet!

provo got it's first snowstorm! i didn't get any pictures but trust me, it looked gorgeous. i was over at dal's the night it started snowing and there was a group of us watching a movie. we were inside, warm and cozy when the movie ended. nobody wanted to go home and so we started thinking of different things to do. of course a snowball fight won in about thirty seconds and so we all ran outside and started going crazy. two minutes into the fight alliances were formed. i ended up being on dal and bryce's team.

now for all of you that know dal he's a competitive overthinker. he totally turned this snowball fight into a complicated war. after our alliance was formed he made our team run inside, sit down and make a game plan, and then handed out supplies: shields and bowls so that we could have extra snowballs at all times. seriously that boy makes me laugh. nothing is ever done simple with him.

our team ended up winning...i mean how do you not win when you make a snowball fight game plan? the other team barricade themselves in the apartment, they locked the door then shoved both couches in front of it. my team of course had about a hundred extra snowballs because dal made up make way too many so of course dal and bryce threw them all at me once the other team quit.
gems.

post snowball fight photo:

the next day was byu's last home game. of course we went. we showed up at the stadium to see that our seats were covered in like an inch of snow. awesome. it was the coldest game i had ever been to.

we were miserable and trying to act happy about it. by halftime i was done...i don't even go to byu, why was i sitting on snow freezing my bum off? plus we were killing the other team. but of course dal informed me that we were "true byu fans"..we didn't leave until the clock ran out.

just a little group photo, trying to cuddle and stay warm.

on the bright side, my uncle has season tickets and so the second half of the game i went over and say by them. i got to catch up with my darling cousin.

i'm so glad football is over and basketball has started, it's too cold outside these days!

i'm grateful.

i'm grateful for so many things. i have been blessed with a good, good life.

 i have a dad who would literally do and give me anything i ever needed or asked for. i have a mom who is more amazing than words can describe. she supports me in everything i do. i have three awesome brothers who i would never trade for the world. they have my back, and they make me happy.

i have the three greatest friends in the whole world. they're gorgeous, talented, and have some of the sweetest spirits out there. most people are lucky to have just one best friend as great as my three best friends are.

i'm blessed to have been thrown into a whole new environment this year. it's helped me to find out who i really am, what i really want. it's made me way more independent, one hundred times more out going. it's helped me make so many new friends. friends that i do not know where i would be without them.

i'm grateful to have been born into the gospel, heaven knows where i would be without it. it's helped me through some really tough times.

i'm grateful for the opportunity i have had to be poor...seriously people, you haven't lived life until you look at your checking account and see one hundred dollars staring back at you. twenty years down the road i will look back on that and laugh, it's really quite comical being poor, and i'm glad that i have to experience it.

and since i'm honestly dirt poor i'm grateful for the opportunity i have to work. i got a job today, and i am so excited about it. i get to work in a home with disabled people. i get to help them accomplish every day tasks. i get to take them out on the town to have fun, grocery shop, and get exercise...and quite honestly i am SO excited for it. i cannot even wait for monday to come so i can start.

i'm blessed daily. thank you all for your examples, your prayers, and your friendship. i would not be here without you.

this november take the time to reflect on all of your blessings. it's really a neat deal this thing called life.

so provo house this crepe restaurant and i had been dying to go. i love crepes and i pass this restaurant everyday on my way to and from school. i was almost ready to just go by myself when ryan asked me on a date...and we were going to go to the crepe place! i was so excited! and let me just say, it's as good as it sounds.

seriously don't those look delish?! ryan got raspberry mint and i got strawberry banana with nutella...and it came with ice cream. just thinking about it makes me want to go back. after that we were going to go hit golf balls on the driving range but it was already closed, so we changed our plans and decided to go to jump on it.

we carpooled with some friends and it was a squishy ride. five of us rode in a convertible. we're cheap college kids.

ryan got the front, he's 6'4, we will give him a break. the kid sitting next to me has his legs under me, i sat halfway on him with my feet resting on ryan's shoulders. and natasha sat with her knees to her chest. by the time we arrived none of us could feel our legs.

after a few minutes and a little bit of blood flow we were fine. we spent the next three hours bouncing away. it was so fun, i was doing double front flips into the foam pit, side flips over huge blocks, i was in heaven. i have always loved trampolines and so a room full of them was fantastic!

we tried to get a jumping picture but my camera just wasn't having it...and also don't mind that i look like a midget.

we met some great new friends that turned out to live right next to us...we're planning a bonfire as we speak. our new friends were even generous enough to give us a ride home, hello bigger car. we were traveling home and things were great until we got off of the freeway. we heard a huge boom and then metal scraping and sparks were flying everywhere. we pulled over to this.

how that happens i have no idea, but it was scary. obviously though, we're fine. we got a ride home and the car is the only thing with damage done to it.

last year in order to get residency i had to be a registered voter. i lived in logan, and i planned to be in logan for a long while and so my voting card came through logan. well then obviously plans changed and now i'm in provo. with elections coming up dallin was all over me about voting. everyone i talked to thought that i would be fine with the voting card that i had.

well election day came around and everyone was wrong, i had to vote in logan. sean, breanne, and i were in the math lab doing some homework when sean mentioned that he had to go to bountiful to vote. i begged and pleaded, ok not really, all i had to do was ask nicely and sean decided to make a little road trip with me.

once we were getting ready to leave ryan decided to join along. we shoved three poeple into sean's mini. i wouldn't recommend it, especially when one of you is 6'4. we made it to bountiful, stole some snacks from sean's house, and then he went and voted. then we headed to logan. we arrived, i voted, and we were proud americans.

and of course you can't go to logan without visiting friends. we went to dinner with sean and ryan's buddy and after that we went and visited mel. it was so good to see her! i miss that girl. once it started getting late we headed out. we sang our lungs off on the ride home and then found out that obama won. sad day, but we tried.

i hope you all embraced your freedom and voted...even if it meant roadtripping in to logan.

weekends are my favorite, but aren't they everybody's?

last weekend was definitely a favorite...and i'm pretty sure i say that every weekend.

friday i was over and sean, greg, and ryan's...no shocker there. we were going to go rock climbing, but i had been with dallin and we got home too late, so instead greg decided to play monopoly. i hate monopoly. probably because my whole life i have had to play with dallin and he kills me everytime. mix that with my competitive side and it's just not a good mix. but in the end greg won and so we played. 

i could give you a play by play to how the whole game went. but as interesting as that sounds with a three hour game of monopoly, i'll make the story short and sweet. due to ryan's weak bladder, greg making an awful trade, and me having no mercy on sean because he had no mercy on me, i ended up winning my first game of monopoly. ever. now that's a good day. after that we just hung out and stayed up entirely too late.

i went to bed at three and was up at seven to drive home to watch kk play for regionals and to see alex.   alex just got home from germany on his mission and boy did i miss that kid. and soon as i saw him i attacked him with the biggest hug of my life. we chatted the whole way to twin and got caught up on each other lives. now i just hope he decided to go to byu.

we watched kk play, and obviously she rocked it. she's a regional champ headed to nationals. yep, that's my best friend. then alex treated allie and i to cafe rio. that restaurant makes it into my diet way more than it should.

after we made it back home i just spent the rest of the day hanging out with kk. we hadn't been home for five minutes when we realized that my family had gotten a cat...when did that happen?! so as i was unloading my car kk is just playing with the cat. next thing i know kaylee lets out this crazy scream and i glance back her arms are flailing everywhere. yep, that cat made a suicide jump from her arms. funniest thing i've ever seen. after rolling on the ground from laughter i start to unpack again. next thing i know kk says. "look brin, it's my kanga cat!"

she's a gem.

that night my mom stocked me up on more food than i even know what to do with. you see i had been eating ramen once a day for like two weeks. the only time i was eating twice a day was when i had a date. oh i cherished those dates. but now i'm loaded. i feel like the richest kid alive.

and then on sunday i got my patriarchal blessing. best experience ever. i cannot wait to get it in the mail. my mom and dad were there to hear it also. it was seriously the neatest day.

my roommate is disgusting.

seriously people, i could go on for days, luckily for you though, i wont. instead i'll just share a few of my favorite stories.

mainly our relationship revolves around the bathroom. i'm never home, and when i am, the roommate is locked away in her room. our first encounter happened when i first walked in. i was unpacking my things when she informed me that if i absolutely had to she could clear out one drawer for me in the bathroom. but that she would choose not to because she was already unpacked in there.

i wasn't interested in causing a fight and so i just kept all of my things in my own room. even my towel and robe are hanging up behind my door.

that night i walked into the bathroom and i about gagged. there was no way i was going to pee in there. so i called dallin and headed right on over to his house.

now i know i'm freakishly clean, we can all thank my mother for that, but really this bathroom is putrid. at first people were skeptical, sometimes things that are not clean enough to me are just fine with others. so i decided to document this bathroom for proof that it is in fact horrific.

exhibit a.

the sink.

between the hairballs, grime, and leftover makeup...oh yea and the used kleenex, there was no way i was going to brush my teeth in there. i brushed my teeth at the kitchen sink with a water bottle.

exhibit b.

the toilet.

hairballs on the floor, stains that i don't even want to know how long they took to get there, and the q-tip behind the seat...classy.

exhibit c.

the shower.

hair, grime, and stains everywhere.

makes me gag.

i could not take it for one more second and so one day after school i came home and for the next two hours i tried my hardest to clean that little baby up. it looks better, there are some stains that as hard as i try i just cannot get them out. all the tears, clorox, and other supplies in the world cannot remove them. but i tried, and it is now livable.

i'm sorry that it's an instagram photo, but it was all i could get of the before and after.

seriously, how does something get like this?

but don't you worry, the story only gets better...and the bathroom clearly worse.

so i had to go to logan to vote [post to come] so i arrived back in provo late, and i was honestly going to pee my pants. i run into the bathroom only to see that i had a "present" already waiting in the toilet...if you know what i mean.

it was gross, but it was by no means enough to have clogged a toilet. 

[sorry if you're grossed out.]

so i just decided to flush it. as soon as i did that the toilet starts filling up with water. i'm freaking out praying that it will not overflow. lucky enough it didn't. i knocked on courtney's door and when she answered i asked her if she had tried using the bathroom. she said "yea it filled up with water, i don't know what's wrong with it." i asked her if she had told the office..or anyone for that matter, she told me no, then closes her door in my face.

thanks for the heads up roomie.

so i call dallin asking him if he has a plunger, luckily he does, but he wasn't home, the next day i go borrow it in hopes that maybe i can plunge something out. i start plunging, no luck. i knock on courtney's door again to tell her it's still not working and i asked her if she knew where the valve was so that if i tried flushing it again and it filled up with water i could turn the water off. she walked in the bathroom and said just let me do this...flushes the toilet. once again it fills up with water...aaaaaand overflows.

courtney decides that she should probably take everything off of the floor and so what does she do?

she takes the plunger, that was just inside the poopy toilet, and sets in face-down on our counter!!! not only that but she also puts the toilet scrubbers on there. all while her toothbrush sits a mere five inches away! who does that?!

but that's not the end. what does she do after that? she says "well crap, that sucks!" walks back into her bedroom. i'm standing in a flooded bathroom, with the plunger on the sink, in tears.

i was furious.

so i cleaned it up and went back in my room to study biology. i decided to take a water break and when i'm in the kitchen my other roommate breanna tells me that we finally got our cleaning check schedule.

the way they do those here is the cleaning is split up in four different sections and each roommate signs up and then they clean their section. breanna told me that courntey got home first and so she got first pick...guess where she picked?

you nailed it, the bathroom.

i once again went and knocked on courtney's door and when she answered i tried to explain to her that i had just barely cleaned the whole bathroom, and i had again like an hour ago. not only that but the only section left was the kitchen, and i don't even have things in the kitchen.

you see when i moved in they basically told me there was no room and so all my kitchen supplies are in tubs under my bed, and when i need something i dig them out, cook, then wash them and put them away. in the fridge i have one small fruit holder space to store all of my refrigerated foods. everything else is once again stored in a tub in my room. 

i told her that i didn't think it was fair that i would have to wash their three weeks worth of dishes when none of it was my mess, and i had already cleaned her part.

she told me she was interested in switching.

what a gem.

i write this down in hopes that maybe a few years down the road i will re-read this and laugh.

 i've been thinking about it and maybe i'm supposed to be in provo to learn patience, because trust me courtney has tested my patience in more ways than one. and she has tested me to my core.

obviously this year my roommates are not my best friends, it's been hard to get used to because last year my roommates were my best friends, i hardly did anything without them. but at the same time i have seen great things come from not living with best friends. i've really had to become more independent and meet new people all on my own. it has helped me form such a great relationship with my brother because for a while he was literally the only person i knew. i go to him for virtually everything.

there's also sean, he also lives at branbury and we have math together and so if i'm not at dal's, i'm at seans. i'm sure he gets sick of me because sometimes i just show up at his house and then as soon as he opens the door i go lay on his couch and tell him that i just need to vent and he needs to listen. he's pretty good about stuff like that.

it's hard to live with people you don't get along with, but it can't last forever. and it's been good for me, i've made so many new friends because i do things to get out of the house. i attend every little activity i can find.

i'm so happy right now, life is good, and now i get to go clean the kitchen.

i'll be completely honest, halloween isn't my favorite holiday. i mean i love the occasional haunted house...after i'm done going through it. and the scary movies are nice....until you're trying to sleep alone. and as for dressing up...i dress up no matter what holiday it is. i'm just not into the whole creepy side of halloween. although i do love the fact that you get free candy!

i had my mind set that i was going to go trick or treating until i got a twix. you guys i have a serious addiction, i love twix. so that night i suited up in some footie pajamas, rocked a nice set of pigtails, and headed to a halloween party.

we arrived at the location where greg was sure the party was at...nobody in costumes was there...pretty awkward when a car full of people ages 20-22 are all dressed up nice. luckily though greg re-read his email and soon enough we were at the right place.

we walked in and there was games/candy galore. i have a sweet tooth, i won't even try to deny it. but i was a woman on a mission, and i wanted a twix. we were walking booth to booth when i soon realized that not one booth had a twix. i was pretty disappointed, but with all of the fun activities going on i soon got over it.

we hit up a photo booth, dal bobbed for an apple. he literally dunked his whole entire head just to beat greg. he's a little competitive. we then posed for a group photo.

the lady told us we looked like one of those awful pictures on awkward family photos.

i think we're pretty cute.

i went home a little sad that i didn't have a twix, luckily jake's face paint gave me a good laugh every single time i looked at him.

and don't worry about me, the next day i did get a twix.

i have such good friends.

breanne's got my back.

she's seriously such a gem.

and halloween is over, i'm not to sad about that. next up, thanksgiving. i have so much to be thankful for.