Change.

I've kind of turned my life upside down lately. I'm not exactly sure what's gotten into me and why all of a sudden I've turned into a rebellious teenager of sorts, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. 
I'm on this self-discovery bender and I've kind of decided to stop wishing things would happen, and just make them happen. 
Living alone does dangerous things to me. And I've lived alone a LOT this year. Being alone makes for a lot of quiet moments and a lot of thinking (read: daydreaming). I find myself late at night on my laptop scouring the internet for travel deals and planning trips all the way up to the point of booking them. I also find myself looking up prices on different classes I want to take and online shopping like a boss (actually not really- online shopping terrifies me and I work right by the mall so I tend to shy away from buying on the internet).
Let it be known though- I've turned into this free-spirit freak and I guess working all day and being alone at night will do that to you. It makes you want to be a little more free than you can actually be. 
This blog post will make sense to the rest of you in a little while, trust me. Just be aware: I'm not sitting in the passenger's seat of my own life anymore. I'm in the driver's seat going 150 mph.

What I Want To Do

For the past month or two, I've been helping to plan an event for my event planning class. 

At times it was really stressful.

Our class was split up into groups of 8, and our group was assigned to create a "family" event.

Other than the fact that the event had to be held on campus, we were left on our own to create an event from scratch.

Our group of 8 amazing girls decided to do a sweet 16 surprise birthday party for our teacher, and it ended up being a blast. 

It was difficult to somehow turn our classroom into a birthday venue, but we worked with what we had and we liked what we came up with.

At the end of yesterday, when I walked through my door of our apartment, exhausted at the event, all I could think was, "this is what I want to do!"

Here are some shots from our event, all courtesy of our event photographer Ali Ann Kirk.

Our color scheme was black, white, and mint.

We purchased mint colored twine and black and mint striped straws for our mason jar drinks.

Our birthday banner was made by Lindi from Love the Day. She is AMAZING. I love all of her stuff!

My mom helped me make this pom pom tulle garland, that ended up being one of my favorite touches. The tulle was found at hobby lobby.

Our teacher was so surprised and confused! Our TA's told her that there was a last minute room change, making her late (and according to them a little frustrated), but that all changed once she walked in the door. :)

The birthday girl!

Our food ended up being amazing. One of our group members, Kimmi, made over 60 cucumber sandwiches, we had fruit salad, water with lime, a candy bar, and Cocoa Bean Cafe graciously donated 70 cupcakes for our event!

Yum! We had better than whatever, grasshopper, and vanilla bean mini cupcakes. They were so cute.

We wrapped "presents" and had chevron treat bags for the candy. It really gave it a birthday feel.

We even had a special appearance by Justin Bieber! He showed up to surprise our birthday girl and do a little dance number for her.

Last but not least, we surprised our teacher with a "new car" for when she gets her license! We're pretty sure she loved it.

Overall, the event was a success and ended up being so much fun.

Thanks to everyone (vendors, photographer, entertainment, caterers) who made it all possible! 

Sick of Waiting: A Med School Update

This might not be a relatively relevant post for many people... But for friends, family, and anyone who keeps up on our life, I thought I should talk a little bit about medical school some more.

Because you all love that right?

But just a small update on what's been happening the past few months as far as the next four years of our life goes:

Chin interviewed at 4 schools: University of Rochester, University of Utah, University of Colorado, and University of Kentucky (in that order).

Last weekend was Chin's interview at UK, but before that, he hadn't been to an interview since November.

So in other words, it's been a long long wait that's still not over.

Within the next month we'll hopefully begin to hear acceptances/rejections from the schools we applied and interviewed at. 

Sometimes I get really frustrated when people ask if we've gotten into any schools yet.

I just want to yell, "TRUST ME YOU'LL KNOW WHEN WE FIND OUT."

But then I remember that everyone is just trying to be polite and ask about what we're up to.

My top choice?

In my heart, my top choice is the University of Rochester (we're currently on the waiting list there). I would love to be home and close to my family. And no matter what, I want to live on the east coast eventually.

In my mind though, logically, it makes most sense for us to stay in Utah, and the U of U (assuming we get in there but who knows). We could live in Salt Lake and I would commute to BYU next fall just a few days a week.

I love Salt Lake. And even though I don't want to stay in Utah forever, I'd be happy here for another four years.

I'm still looking forward to our future, but I'm ready to be done with this waiting game of not knowing what we'll be doing for the next four years.

So bring it on March! And be ready for a few more updates (hopefully) on med school.

mixed emotions

last night we took a big step concerning our future. 

after days and weeks and more days of working on this beast,

with one click of a button we whisked away the application that will most certainly change our lives.

scary.

and so it begins.

...we then proceeded to get ice cream at smith's at midnight, stayed up till almost two reading The Hobbit, and talked until 3 a.m. it was the best night of my life.