Just Dance!

The theme for my week has been dancing. On Tuesday, our ward had a Cotillion. We learned proper dance etiquette and different styles of dancing: swing, cha cha and a basic waltz. Rylee, Manju and I went with our friend (and RS president) Ally. It's good that we showed up because the girls were out numbered by the guys. Can you believe that? Usually there aren't enough guys. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. It was fun to see which guys had sweet moves and were capable of dancing. It also gave me a chance to get to know the guys in my ward better. The one I danced with most was Trevor. He's pretty cool. He was in the group I played football with a few weeks ago. We made great dance partners. I've already decided that I'm going to ask him out for a group date we're planing for when the weather is better. It's been freezing here.

The main reason for the Cotillion was because of the dance we our ward had tonight. The dance was pretty fun. It was combined with another ward. We were a little lacking in numbers, but it was still enjoyable. They really wanted us to mingle. They had us do a Cinderella dance, where all the girls put a shoe in the middle of the room and a guy picked one and the owner of the shoe would be his partner for a slow dance. We also did a snowball, where every 40 seconds or so we would switch partners. Then we did a group one where the guys lined up on one side and the girls on the other. We were randomly partnered and took turns dancing down the line. Everyone got to show off their moves. I hate stuff like this because I don't like to be the center of attention and I'm not confident in my dancing, but every once in a while it's fun [and necessary] to do things that get us out of our comfort zone. This was actually the second thing I did tonight that was outside of my comfy bubble.

Before the dance, I asked Matt out for a group date our apartment decided to do next Saturday. We're basically doing a couple's game night, except the only one with a boyfriend is Kristen [We only invited her so we could use the living room since they use it EVERY OTHER NIGHT. We've only used it two other times and she got mad when she got home and saw us with people over. She's the one roommate none of us are close with.] The rest of us just asked guys that we think are cute or friends that we know we'd have fun with. It's going to be competitive. Since it's a game night, we made invitations on note cards that looked like a real UNO card. I came up with this, being the creative little thing I am. THE FRONT: Matt, UNO what would be awesome? THE BACK: It looked like a wild and said, "If you would be my partner for a WILD game night. Saturday February 5th @ 8:30 pm. Please wear a green shirt." I'm really mad I didn't take a picture of it before giving it to him. I'm going to make another one for my scrapbook. We all picked a color for us and our partner to wear, I obviously picked green. We're planning on playing UNO (obviously) with the 7 rule-for intesity, having a JELLO eating contest (in the color of our team), and ending with Wackee Six. It should be a lot of fun. Anyway, I was freaking out a little before asking him. I was pacing around the apartment and asking my roommates what to say because I was the first one to ask. It took me forever to walk out the door and once I did there was no turning back...because Arianna locked the door. Smart girl! But it went well. I was freaking out for nothing (typical girl thing). I could finally breathe again. and then I danced the night away.

Arianna is the only roommate not participating in this group date because she has family events to attend. Replacing her is Ally. Ally and John will be red, Rylee and James will be yellow, Matt and I will be green, Kristen and Brandon will be blue and Manju and whoever she invites will be purple/black-for the guy in case he doesn't have purple. The flavors of Jello follow our colors so the flavors are: cherry, lemon, lime, blue raspberry and grape. Did I mention we're going to be having this contest using straws? Yeah...straws. So we're going to take turns being timed to slurp a whole box of Jello through a straw. Hopefully Matt really likes Jello because I've been kind of put off by it (and pudding) since getting my wisdom teeth out. Between the two of us hopefully we can get a good time. I've actually never been a huge Jello fan to begin with. I can only handle the texture so much before the good ol' gag reflex decides to speak up. Hopefully it stays dormant during the contest. Oh yeah, I failed to mention that none of the guys know about the Jello so it should be interesting. They think it's just a normal game night.

It's going to be a pretty intense night and very competitive because we're going to have awards too. I'll be sure to post pics.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

I went from having no plans this evening to dinner and a movie. I was bored so I decided to make mini cupcakes. I was planning on taking some down to the apartment of the guys in our FHE family (I'm sure you can guess why). The last batch was in the oven and I checked my phone for the time. I noticed I had a text from a number I didn't recognize. It was Matt! Remember him? His text said (and I quote), "Hey this is Matt. I made some Korean food if you want to come down and try it." Obviously I did. I was expecting the Dukbokki he promised me, but instead I got Budae Jjigae. He wanted to try making it himself since he hasn't been able to find a place that makes it as good as it is in Korea. It was way better than the restaurant's (no bias here, really). His roommates agree.

While we were eating he asked if I had seen any Korean movies, but I haven't really. They aren't as good as the dramas so I tend to avoid them. He then asked if I wanted to stay and watch one if I had nothing else to do. What a silly question! Of course I'd LOVE to stay, even if I had plans (consider them CANCELLED). So Matt, Joe and I watched Matt's favorite Korean movie (out of the few he's seen). It's called 200 Pounds Beauty.

It's about this fat girl who has a great voice, but because of her looks she sings behind stage for someone that looks great and cant sing. She ends up getting a complete body make over (Isn't Asia the plastic surgery capital of the world? If not, it's certainly getting there.) and gets her chance to shine. Along the way she loses her best friend and pretends not to know her father (he's mentally ill). She realizes she's lost herself and misses the way she was before (not being fat, but happy with her personality). It was a pretty good movie. After the movie I ran back up to my apartment to frost the cupcakes and I took a plate to Matt. They aren't as fancy as I usually try to make them, but they were still cute and delicious.

Here's what they looked like:

For scale:

The baking cups:

It was a fun night and I was glad to hang out with Matt for the second time this week. I also noticed that we're decreasing in numbers each time. For dinner on Monday there were two other guys. Tonight's dinner was the same (one was a different guy, he's from Nepal and knows my roommate - all the Nepali's [not sure if this is the correct term, but I'm going with it] know each other), but for the movie there was only one extra. If the pattern continues, I'm looking forward to next time. Actually, I'm looking forward to next time no matter the circumstances. I'm still looking forward to the Dukbokki he promised me. I think I might actually ask him to teach me how to make it (I really do want to learn). How cute would we be cooking together? Practice for the future? I think so. Just kidding. Or am I? It's BYU, you never know.

Oh, another thing I'm looking forward to is our ward dance that we are having next Saturday. We are most likely combining with another neighboring ward. It should be fun. Look forward to reading all about it.

Monday Misadventure...Turned Around

For FHE tonight, our family planned on going to some natural hot springs. I was looking forward to it since I had never gone to a hot spring before. Rylee and Arianna were in Ben's car and I was in Matt's car with Joe. We drove for almost an hour before finding where to go and realized it was closed because of it being winter and surrounded by snow (it's in a canyon and you have to hike a couple miles). We plan on going in the spring. It's no surprise that we had a hard time finding it because our FHE family has a history of getting lost. We are just dysfunctional when it comes to following directions.

Since that didn't pan out, we planned on getting ice cream. While driving back, we were talking about how hungry we were since we didn't eat dinner because FHE was earlier than usual. Matt (he served his mission in Korea and he's cute) said, "I think we should just go eat Korean food." He wasn't completely serious but I said we should totally go and let the other three go eat ice cream. Matt asked if I was serious and I was. So, when we got back to our apartments to change out of swim suits and sweats, we told the others about our plan. Rylee and Arianna didn't really want to go and spend more money today (we had gone grocery shopping earlier). It was just me and the three guys.

The restaurant was called Asian Fusion. We were the only people there. Since I'm no expert on Korean food and haven't been exposed to a lot, Matt ordered for us (in Korean, which sounded so cool) and we got three different main dishes and just shared them. There was also rice and a bunch of traditional side dishes. It was a lot of fun! It took us like ten minutes to order because they have a t.v. playing a Korean drama while you eat. We were too busy watching the drama to look at the menu.

The food was so good. We had spicy Dukbokki (rice cake, which I've wanted to try so bad because I've seen it multiple times in the KDramas I've watched), spicy pork (don't know the proper Korean name), and Budae Jjigae (a traditional base soup with lots of random stuff in it). We got a little history lesson from Matt regarding the soup. During the Korean War there was little to eat so they went around collecting what little food was left and made soup out of it. Obviously it's evolved and become a little more Americanized. There's ramen noodles, sausages, rice cake, cabbage, a slice of American cheese (a little weird, but it melts and disappears-can't even taste it) and other stuff. It's not as gross as it sounds.

According to Matt it wasn't that great compared to the kind you get in Korea. Ben said it was because it wasn't made by Korean women and then apologized that Matt was stuck with us instead of being surrounded by Korean girls. Matt told Ben I was Korean. Ben looked confused. We were like, "Are you serious?" Ben was totally serious. After a whole semester already how did he not know I was half Korean? He said, "Sorry, I guess I didn't pay close attention during the adoption of my daughter." He's our FHE dad.

The Dukbokki was delicious! I'm so glad I finally got to taste it. Matt said his is way better and Ben agreed so I said now he needs to make it for me so I can compare. Next time he makes it I'm invited over. The spicy pork was also amazingly tasty. We were blocking each other's chopsticks, it was that good! We definitely became closer, eating traditional Korean style where you just use your chopsticks and dig in. Hopefully none of the guys are sick!

Aside from some typical guy conversation that was a tad awkward, gross and didn't belong at the dinner table, I had great time.Now, I'm looking forward to Matt's cooking.

After thought: So this just popped in my head. There were three guys and me (Nice odds right? Haha.), which reminded me of that movie Three Men and a Little Lady. It's basically the same because they are men and I am a lot shorter than them...and a lady, but it really was nothing like the movie :)

Howdy Partner!

(This was taken after three hours of dancing. Don't we look cute? Arianna is the only one that's not wearing plaid and I'm the only one without a giant belt buckle.)

Last night me, Rylee and Arianna went country swing dancing. We were invited earlier in the week by our neighbor, David. I was hesitant, but I'm glad I went. When we first got there, the optional dance instruction was almost over. I thought I wasn't going to have fun because I had no idea what to do since we missed it. Plus, we came with only one guy and all the guys that weren't already paired up with a girl didn't look to excited to ask anyone to dance. However, once the dancing really started it was a lot of fun. David took a turn with each of us to help us get the basics down. He really knew what he was doing and having a good partner makes all the difference in dancing, especially if you don't know what you're doing. As long as they do, you'll look good because you just follow their lead. It took me a while to get used to the dips, lifts and jumps. It took a few songs before I was really comfortable and could trust that the guys wouldn't let me fall. I kept thinking, "Guys, I may look small, but I'm not as light as you may think I am." But they had no problems. At one point, David tried to get me to do a back flip, but I said NO WAY! I trusted him, but not that much. Plus it was my first time dancing so I didn't feel comfortable. Maybe if the ground had padding. The hardest part for me was the line dancing. They were more complicated than ones I have done in the past. There wasn't one that I was able to completely grasp. It was a fun night and we're planning on doing it again a little later in the semester because we don't want to spend a lot of money. The next time we go we're going to invite more guys (like from our FHE family) so we each have a partner. I danced a total of 12 songs with 8 different guys. It was a great way to spend my Saturday night.

If you would have asked me a few years ago to go country swing dancing I would have said no. I used to hate country, but I never really gave it a chance. Angie's favorite country man Keith Urban said, "I'm grateful when anybody can start to have his or her limited perception of the genre open up a little bit, ... There's a lot of great music in the country genre that doesn't get heard because people say, 'Well, I don't like country.' " That used to be me. I'm glad I gave country a chance, which allowed me to be willing to go dancing and make great memories.

Tonight Arianna and Rylee made salt clay sculptures. I didn't want to, but I joined them in making mustaches. Behold the beauty:

Yesterday was Alina's 13th birthday. Holy Cow! I can't believe how grown up she is. Where has the time gone?

Alina, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you are part of my family. I feel so blessed to be your big sister. When you were younger, you wanted to be just like me and do everything I was doing. You looked up to me so much it drove me crazy (now I'm flattered). Well chica, it goes both ways. You may be younger, but I look up to you too. What's not to love about you? You are AMAZING and I LOVE YOU! Enjoy your teenage years...they're gone before you know it.

Friday Night Football

So tonight I was hanging around doing nothing when I heard a knock at the door. It was a new [cute] guy in our ward, Trevor. He invited us (it was just me and Arianna at home) to play football in the snow. How could I say no? Plus, it's not like I had anything exciting going on. So we had a small group of seven (3 boys, 4 girls). We played in this field at the complex next to us. One girl, Jenny, just wanted to be a spectator. After a few plays, we saw someone walking and invited him to play. Trevor actually knew him. Since the teams were uneven, we convinced Jenny to play. She became the QB of the other team and she rocked it! I think they scored 10 touchdowns. And she said she couldn't play. We scored like 4. It was a little sad on our part, but we did pretty good. Everyone had a chance to be MVP for at least one play. I was the first! I caught the ball (nobody thought I was going to) and then I did a face plant in the snow. But I caught the ball! I guess I shouldn't call it snow because it's pretty much ice. It kind of hurt when I fell. It was like getting a thousand shots at once, but I didn't care because I caught the ball! The guys were pretty impressed with my skillz. The only reason for the touchdowns we did get was because of Dan. He is wicked fast! They would kick off and he would catch it and then run all the way to the end zone. He was unstoppable.

After playing football for an hour, Jason (the guy that joined us) invited us over for hot chocolate and to play wackee six. It's a card game that's basically intense color coded speed with six decks. Since we had 8 people, we just played in teams, which was perfect because one colored deck didn't have all the cards anyway. It was a lot of fun. We're definitely doing it again, soon.

"Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance." ~ Dave Barry

Today I was having Wii withdrawals, more specifically Just Dance 2. It is such a fun game (as well as good exercise) and I'm sad that I don't have a Wii in my apartment (we don't even have a t.v. so I guess it makes sense). I also don't know of any neighbors that have one; I really should look into that. Luckily, these days most anything can be found online. Without a Wii and a boob tube (a t.v. just in case you didn't know), I turned to the next best thing...YouTube! Yep, I was able to find my favorite songs from the game on YouTube and dance to them in my room. I couldn't go all out and do the jumps and foot stomps because I wanted to be respectful of the people below, but it was still enjoyable. I think this might turn into a study break ritual.

Well, that was random.

So tonight was just a night of randomness. For FHE we did a kind of get to know you game where each person wrote down two questions and we put them in a pile. One had to be future based and the other could be anything. Then we took turns drawing one and answering. Some of the questions were very random and interesting. One of my questions was: If you were reincarnated as a dinosaur, which would you be and why? A dinosaur? I said a t-rex because that's pretty much the only one I know the name of and I said it's big, so I could see what it would be like to be tall (for once haha).

Afterwards, we ate cupcakes that I made. I made them identical to the ones I made for Janara's birthday. Can I just say how hard it was to make cupcakes away from home? No mixer, no oven timer, no oven window, and no cookie scoop. This made things a little more complicated than I'm used to. I miss the comforts of home. There were still some small clumps in the batter that I couldn't get out no matter how hard I tried. There was no cookie scoop to measure the batter (2 scoops using the one at home is the perfect amount of batter). On top of that, I didn't have two muffin tins. I had one regular one and one with six. Using a measuring cup as a scoop and having to do two rounds of baking, it was hard to get the amount of batter right. Talk about frustrating when they were done and some looked like they could have used a little more batter. They baked funny. On top of that, I hadn't used this oven for baking before so it I didn't know how it compared to the oven at home. Good thing I thought of this and decided to check the cupcakes sooner than usual. They were done almost five minutes sooner! Not that it's not that hard to open the oven and check on the cupcakes, but I really missed having a little window and oven light to watch progress. I'm spoiled from the kitchen at home. I miss all these little luxuries.

Moving past my little rant for the day, the cupcakes were eaten with love and appreciation. I love that! I always love when my cupcakes are well received. When are they not? Continuing on the topic of random...the conversations that went on were interesting to listen to. One of the guys' apartments that is part of our family talked a lot about Kim Jong-Il. Apparently they watched a documentary on him for fun yesterday [great way to spend the Sabbath I must say]. Then I was asked it I had ever played Black Ops but told probably not unless I turned down the graphic violence (glad you were able to answer your own question buddy). I'm a girl. Why would I be playing that kind of game? Then I was told that if you beat this game there is a bonus one where you get to be Kennedy in the white house and kill zombies or something like that. I guess I'm really good at faking an interested look? Yeah, that conversation lasted longer than necessary.

After everyone left, some of us continued talking outside, despite the fact it was FREEZING. Some other guys from an apartment next door came out and presented me with the perfect opportunity to get rid of the rest of the cupcakes because we girls don't need that many lying around. When giving them away, I was asked to play poker and watch the football game. Football is ok, but poker? Why are all these guys asking me about typical guy stuff? Do I look like I play poker or violent zombie killing video games? Needless to say I turned them down. Oh, the best part of the invite was the way I was asked. We have like an iron gate that separates the guy and girl apartment upstairs, not that it does anything because you can just go down and then up the stairs to get to the other side (there's a landing in the middle so you can keep going down or go up to the guys side). Anyway, it's broken right now so there is no gate. The invitation went like this, "Since there's no chastity gate, do you want to play poker?" No thanks! I'll pass.

Basically, it was a fun and interesting Monday night (pretty typical with my FHE family-the guys anyway).

Sunday morning rain is falling...or is it?

This picture is purely for dramatic effect purposes. Feel free to be affected. Dramatically.

You know when we youngsters like to complain (and we do our fair share of it) older people always tell those stories that go something like this:

Well, back in my day, we had to walk 5 miles, uphill both ways, in the snow...etc? Or back in my day, we didn't have fireworks. We tied flashlights to rocks and threw them up in the air (haha, funny mental picture).

Well, going to church today kind of felt like that. Okay, so it really wasn't that bad, but it did take us a little longer than usual. Being Utah, I'm sure you can imagine why or just look at the picture. If you guessed that cold,wet, white stuff that falls from the sky, then you are correct my friend. If not, I suggest you consult a mental health professional. It unknowingly snowed last night/early this morning and we had to defrost and scrape Arianna's truck, Clifford (like the big red dog) before we could leave. Luckily we made it on time.

It being the first Sunday back, it was interesting to scope out the new potential husbands. Just kidding! Nana, don't freak out :) But seriously, a few of the new guys are pretty good lookin'. Out of one apartment that had six guys, four have been replaced. In my opinion, it was was an upgrade. Okay, I'll stop with the guys now.

Coming back from ward prayer (where I had better luck at checking out the new meat), I opened the gate that separates our complex and the next one (which also has some of our ward members). When I did, Leemur (his real name is Lee, but he won't tell you that...I have inside sources) jumped out and scared me. I did what I do best...I screamed. There was one other guy with him. They got their laugh for the evening. It was pretty funny. I should have seen it coming because Arianna and I could hear voices on the other side of the gate, but I thought they were ahead of us heading back instead of coming. Arianna is smarter than me I guess because she figured they were going to do something when she heard voices (so she says).

Anyway, I hope everyone has enjoyed the first week of the new year!

"The hair is the richest ornament of a woman." ~ Martin Luther

Well, about a week and half ago my rich ornament took on a different appearance. I decided it was yet again time for another haircut. Boy was that a smart move on my part! After continuously agonizing whether to keep it long [and get layers] or cut short [tad bit longer than shoulder length], I decided to shorter. This is pretty much an annual ritual for me. I was able to get rid of split ends, something I haven't had in a long time. It looks really good. I'm VERY low maintenance, so this haircut is perfect for me. I can blow dry it in half the time which is really nice and will help to prevent further split ends from heat damage. Yay for that! I can't say it cuts down on my shower time because I loves me warm showers in the morning. Did that last sentence sound weird? I thought I'd try it, but I don't think it suits me to talk [in this case write] like that. I think I'll stick to what I like, using proper grammar.

Anyway, onto the point of this post. I've been back in good 'ol Utah now for a week. Tonight, my room roommate asked me if I had gotten a haircut. You just noticed that now?!? She's a perceptive little thing, isn't she? Show's how much we pay attention to each other. But she is rather nice. Besides annoying the crud out of me by using my pots & pans without asking, we get along quite nicely.

My first night back, I went and bought a Little Caesar's $5 pizza to last me for a few meals since it's right across the street [it was either that or Taco Bell and I figured pizza would give me more bang for my buck]. We had talked about the lack of food we both had. The next morning, she came in with a box of Wheat Thins and told me it was the only food she had, but I was more than welcome to eat some. Wasn't that sweet? I knew there was a reason we became roommates. Not really, but I was very touched by her gesture.

I guess that's all I have to say at the moment. Three posts in a week, not bad. I'm doing pretty well at keeping up on my blogging. However, the year just started so we'll have to see how I do.

People all over the world join hands. Start a love train, love train.

I came across this picture when I was looking for things I could add to my blog. I immediately thought of the song by The O' Jays. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do what the song says and be more united? Why do we only show love, concern, and become willing to serve our fellow mankind when there is some huge disaster? Why does it take something bad to make us do some good? It's like the Black Eyed Peas says, "Where is the love?" We as people need to learn to become less self absorbed. Just a thought. I'm not thinking of anyone in particular as I write this, I just think it's something everybody (including myself) can work on throughout this year. I also need to remember that there is always someone worse off than I am and I need to be more open to the opportunities for service that are presented to me. This is something my family talked about when we were sharing our resolutions, to do more service this year. Something as simple as smiling and saying hi to someone might make a world of difference to them that day. Something to keep in mind as you go about your daily life:

New Year, New Wendi

So at church last Sunday, one of the speakers said, "Be who you want to be and be who Heavenly Father knows you are." That really stuck with me. I know that I'm definitely not who I want to be or who Heavenly Father knows I am and can be at this point in time. Don't worry, I'm not calling myself a horrible person or anything like that, I just need to tweak the way I've been doing things so I can reach my full potential. That's why, this year I'm making some changes.

I'm also setting the goal to be better at blogging. I would love to blog everyday, but I think that's a little ambitious for me. I plan on blogging as often as possible. Even if nothing happened that day; I will post a quote, a picture, something.

I hope you all are enjoying the new year so far and good luck keeping any goals, resolutions or whatever you like to call them that you have set for yourself.