it would appear that levi is in pretty much every picture these days.

So good news, Levi likes to build things. One night after FHE he wanted to go to Home Depot which is pretty much his favorite store in the world. It's like if I went to Daylight Donuts or Target or something. I mean, seriously. He loves it. He could go there every day.

Levi is also super into fixing our cars on his own. Which is actually pretty amazing. Saved us a tonnnn (and I mean a TON of money) fixing one of our cars a couple months ago. Had a super sore back after being bent over the car for 9 hours, but still. A TON of money. And we drove the car to Utah and back the week after he fixed it. Oh yeah!

Also, Levi likes to build things and so does Mitchell. Somehow Levi convinced Mitchell to buy a table saw (Mitchell says he wanted it, but I'm still a little worried that Levi may have pulled out some of his bullying tactics from his playground days to get Mitchell to buy it...) Anyway, Levi designed a guitar pedal board and that was their first project on the new table saw. It turned out pretty awesome. Since then they have also built these really cool shelves for me and Heather. They hung ours in our living room recently and I'm so obsessed with it (I'll have to post a picture of it soon!). Seriously, in just the past couple weeks, we've moved our bookshelf out to the living room, someone gave us a couch for free and we hung that shelf. It's really starting to feel like a living room now that we have more than just the 1 1/2-man couch (though we are so grateful for that little couch as well--we've been very cozy in it for the past year!). But now that we have two free couches we can actually have friends over! It's the best.

So now that the worst of the heat is upon us here in Oklahoma, the daily grilling has begun. Also, fun fact: we didn't turn on our A/C until June 4th this year. And if you live in Oklahoma, you know that is a big deal. So, our apartment would be pretty dang hot until like 10 pm, but usually in the evenings we have mutual or we go to the gym or we go to our friends' house. I will admit, I didn't love sweating like crazy in our apartment when it got up to 85 or 86 degrees, but it was probably worth it. We still set it at 78 degrees (#pennypinchers) but hey! I don't want to pay that much money for cold air! Anyway, thank you to Levi who lived without complaining as I slowly melted away without A/C. But even still, we had to buy a little grill so we wouldn't have to heat up the oven or stove or anything. It's the best.

In other news, Levi and Mitchell found a turtle (this was the day Levi was fixing the car--hence the nasty hands and old work clothes).

Also, apparently there is a chair at OU where Levi works that the queen sat in once. So apparently now Levi sits in the queen's chair. ID even K, people. It's Levi. Also, yes he wears shorts and workout socks to his professional job. #summersatuniversities

Utah-apalooza!

To go whitewater rafting on some rivers, you have to apply for a permit. Sometimes you have to enter a lottery and then only some people get a permit. Soooo, my family wanted to go rafting. So we all entered the lottery and guess who won?! This girl!! Oh yeah! The chances were crazy slim, but I worked my magic and luck was mine! So captain Stacy was in charge of the trip! Actually, what really happened was that my dad and mom and uncle and aunt basically got everything ready and I just showed up with the permit. I texted my family a picture of the permit to confirm that we really did have it in the car as we headed out on our long, long drive.

We had such a magical time on the trip except for a little hiccup at the beginning. So, the one thing that I was required to do was talk with the ranger for every little thing. He had to go over all the rules and requirements with me to ensure that we were doing everything right. So I'm going over this stuff with him and I'm like, umm, I have no idea if we have a z-line kit or 50 billion life jackets or where the first aid kit is? I was like, um, can we just wait until we have the boats all set up and then my dad can tell you if we have everything? He was like, yeah that's fine, just come and get me. Fortunately, before I convinced him to stop going over the list, I had heard a couple things. One of the things he said was that we had to have 5 extra life jackets (one for each boat). So later while they were still setting up, I casually asked my uncle how many extra life jackets we had and he said we had two. I told him what the ranger had said (not expecting it to be a big deal) and then people started to get concerned. Five extra life jackets?! We've never had to do that before! Anyway, we go talk to the ranger and he confirmed that yes, you have to have 5 extra ones and there are no exceptions and the closest place to buy new life jackets was THREE HOURS AWAY, six hours round trip. It was so sad and it was set to ruin the day and potentially the trip.

So we go back to where everyone is setting up and we explain the situation and RANDOMLY the other group that was also setting up just so happened to have tons of extra life jackets and offered to let us use them. Talk about a huge blessing! As it turns out, they had actually forgotten something that they had to have and so they had to drive the six hour round trip to get the stuff. If that hadn't happened, they would have been long gone by the time we realized our huge problem. So it was a bummer for them, but a huuuuuuuge supersized blessing for us.

We were then able to start our trip on time and had just the best time. It was so fun to spend a week with my family out on the river. And even though it was still super hot at night, it was still such a blast and so beautiful! Plus, it was Levi's first trip and homeboy looks good on the river. Please note his mega short shorts in the picture above (they're somewhat hidden by the backpack he's carrying, but they're there). Plus, he got way mega tan.

Oh, and I forgot to mention; we were able to stay with Levi's family the weekend before the trip and as luck would have it we got to Utah the day before good ol' Rachy face and her family left Utah (back to South Carolina). It was so awesome to get to hang out with her and Kenneth and her two adorrrrrrable little boys. It was awesome because little Kenny loved Levi and convinced him to play with him the whole time. Although things got slightly out of hand when Levi convinced Kenny to crawl through the cat door. Haha, but seriously I was so stoked to see Rach. You should seriously consider going through the "Rachel" tag on my blog because there are some quality gems in there...one of my favorites being this one when she thought she was doing a "polishing" service project. Literally, I die.

And then finally, the picture of breakfast. Free continental breakfasts at hotels are what I live for. Truly the best. Bagels, donuts, ham, golden. Best start to the last leg of our trip home.

And last but not least, 4th of July shenanigans. Basically we spent the whole weekend with the Walsers because that's what we do. The 3rd of July included an awesome trip to Lowe's to buy wood (this was the day they built the shelves!) and then to the Walser's house to build the shelves...or if you're me and Heather it was the time to make homemade oreos because duh. Later we grilled and then we did fireworks! Mitchell and Levi looooooove fireworks, but were so kind as to buy some sparklers and "tro-its" (I think most people call them pop-its?) for Heather and me.

Then the next day we went to a friend's house to have another BBQ and more fireworks and of course, for Levi to sit on the children's toy horse. Obvi. We ended the night by watching the town firework show from the roof!

I love America.

And that's a wrap.

crafting with the craft-less.

Crafting easily makes it onto my list of top ten things I’m incapable of doing. Other things on said list include using a remote, surviving a haunted house without screaming and attracting every stupid zombie and ax man in there, and waiting until someone’s birthday for them to open my gift.

But the thing is, even though I can’t use a remote I still try. And yes, I end up deleting DVR’d shows and get stuck on the fishing channel but still. I try. And so obviously I still try to craft. And so far, after nearly 25 years, I’m still straight terrible at it. For the life of me, I cannot come up with creative ideas. I could never just think up something cute and crafty. What I can do (sometimes) is copy. I can copy things that more talented crafters have done as long as it doesn’t include anything complicated. I can tie ribbons, I can paint squares and I can use a toothbrush to splatter paint anything you put in front of me.

But a couple weeks ago I decided to stretch my craftabilities and paint pumpkins. Note that the thought of carving pumpkins did not even cross my mind because using a knife on a hard vegetable isn’t on my resume. So I spent like an hour looking at ideas on pinterest for pumpkin painting. Turns out some people can paint complicated things on pumpkins. Jealous. Anyway, I finally found a few things I liked like a simple zig zag or some polka dots. Those seems straight forward, am I right? How could you mess those up?

Obviously you can or this post would be over by now.

So I went to tape off the zig zag for the pumpkin and all was going well until I finished painting it and realized that the whole spherically-shaped pumpkin thing had apparently thrown me off because dear old zig zag was practically at the bottom of the pumpkin. I look at that pumpkin every day now and I cannot figure out how that happened. Spheres, man. They’ll get you.

Polka dots. I only had those foam brushes (you can only invest so much when you’re a self-proclaimed non-crafter) and turns out those are not the easiest brushes to paint circles with. Totes cray, right? So after attempting like three circles and realizing this was a no good situation, I tried to wipe them off. Also a bad idea. Mostly I just smeared white paint all over one side of the pumpkin. So that pumpkin was off to a great start. Next, I tried making a potato stamp. I had read that you could cut the shape you want into a potato and then use that as a stamp. Again, spherical issues. So I ditched that idea real quick and said sorry to the potato for wasting it. Then I spent about 15 minutes looking for something that could be used as a stamp. Searched the whole dang apartment for a small circular item that could survive having paint all over it. After 15 minutes of fruitless searching (apparently the Heperi’s aren’t much into having small circular items laying around…could have something to do with Levi continually purging my piles of random things, who knows), a lightbulb finally came on in my head! The other end of the foam paintbrush! So I mean, winning. Once I realized I could use the end of the paintbrush, ol’ polka dot pumpkin was done in 2 minutes flat. (Except don’t look at the back of it because it’s still a white smeary mess from the foam and potato polka dot attempts).

And then finally, I had one more pumpkin. I had already done the zig zag and I had already done the polka dots. I was pretty sure there were no more shapes I could confidently pumpkin-ify. I scrolled through the ol’ pinterest and saw that some people would tape off and paint the shape of the state they lived in and then put a little heart on it where they lived. I thought about it for a while and then decided I could challenge myself. I mean, Oklahoma is a fairly simple-shaped state. And so I did it. And after a number of tape recalculations after having made the skinny part of OK way too skinny and almost falling into the spherical trap of putting the state too low like I did on zig zag pumpkin, I succeeded. And I painted. And I hearted. And I won! Then I put the shape of Utah on the back because I mean, I lived there for six years and also it’s practically just a square. And I won at that one as well! I maybe would have liked to do California on there, too, but who are we kidding? My crafting capabilities had been maxed out.

And so there you have it. An adventure in crafting for the ultimate non-crafter. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to decorate the rest of my apartment using Oklahoma-shaped items. Which is truly a bummer.

the pre-Christmas part of Christmas Break and also I don't know which words to capitalize in a blog post title.

Christmas break.  The time of the year that basically everyone looks forward to, but I would say especially students. You know how it is. You've been going crazy with approximately one MILLION projects and tests and presentations and then finals and too little sleep and too much time at the library and too many times that you forget to eat dinner. Actually, scratch that last one because I never forget to eat food.

I suppose now is the part where I mention that I'm not actually a student anymore. I graduated but I still live near the school because now I work at the school and so basically since I'm surrounded by students I feel that gives me the right to still feel like a student. Except I guess all those things I mentioned in the previous paragraph don't actually apply to me. But they did! And sometimes it still comes back to haunt me which is why I will continue this post pretending like I'm still a student. It's totally unfair, but I'm doing it.

Anyway.

Yes, the life of college student definitely makes you look forward to the time when all you are required to do is sleep and eat and occasionally help around the house. Your mom makes you dinner and you can eat food out of any cupboard instead of just the one shelf that is yours in your apartment. It is glorious. It's Christmastime and the counters are essentially covered in candy and all you can think about is how you don't want to go back to school because when you go back that means you have to go back to work and studying and you have to do your own laundry and it's the pits, yo.

But let's not focus on the fact that I'm already back and have already gone back to work and also I might even be getting sick so that's really cool. No, let's go back to the very beginning of break. The before Christmas part of the break.

Yes, before Christmas was a glorious time.  When I first got home, it was just me and my parents and my two younger brothers so baaaaasically it was a party. I convinced my parents that we absolutely NEEDED to go see the new movie Frozen (seriously, I'm obsessed. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie twice in theaters, but this one was worth it).  And I mean, since we were going all the way over to the movies, we might as well go to In-N-Out, am I right?  So that was awesome, and yes, the movie was also awesome. But for real.

The next day was church so we got all dressed up and off to church where e'erybody was so friendly and was happy to see me but let's be honest, they were mostly all wondering where Levi was. Oy. But it was cool.  Then Tom drove me home and was apparently a little ashamed to be driving a minivan home with his crazy older sister because wasn't too stoked about having his face in the picture. Hmm.

The next day was Christmas Eve Eve, which apparently we're calling Christmas Adam now because Adam came before Eve? I don't know if I can get on board with that, but whatever. Anyway, as we always do, we headed to my Aunt Stella's house and she made probably the biggest piece of meat I've seen in my entire life. But for reals. Also, it was at my aunt's house that we met up with my older siblings and their wives and the family was almost complete (Jalyn is still on a mission in the Dominican Republic).

Then Jake got a new watch from Aunt Stella for Christmas and it was a little bit too big so instead of going to the watch store or something, Danny decided to fix it himself using various items throughout the house that were small enough. I thought it was funny, but also very smart. But then again, funny and smart are the first two words I would use to describe Danny (not a joke), so I guess it makes sense.

And finally, the next day we headed to my Grandma's house for Christmas Stacy! (Adam also came before me, so I've decided we should change Christmas Eve to Christmas Stacy. Who's with me?!) Anyway, it was glorious and we had a marvelous turkey dinner and my Uncle Brian and Aunt Julie were there and we read the Christmas story out of the Bible and sangs some Christmas songs and read The Living Christ, which I highly recommend you all do. It was great to be with the fam and to think about the real reason for the season.

Afterword, we headed home and I still had to wrap a million presents because I guess I like to leave things to the last minute?  Well that, and also some packages didn't arrive until we were gone, so give me a break, please!  Also, it should be noted that I had to wrap the gifts my dad was giving, too (as I always do). Apparently wrapping gifts isn't his forte. But they were very good gifts, so I'll let it slide.

And that my friends, is how not to write a brief blog post of the days leading up to Christmas. But who's surprised?

thanksgiving like a boss.

you guys.  I just got back from my most fabulous surprise trip home.  That's right, a surprise.  You see, I don't just normal style go home for thanksgiving every year because my home home is many much miles away from my current residence, but you see the thing is, my sister is leaving on her mission to the Dominican Republic in just over two weeks and I wouldn't even get to see her over Christmas break and it came to my attention that this was a very appropro reason for my dad to fly me home (okay, but I just want to say that I offered to pay.  It's just that the guy is such a jolly man and offered to pay for it all himself!  And then my mom let me eat all of the food out of her pantry! (And let's be real, girl knows how to eat.)  I mean, really!  Those guys are neat!)  Aaaaaaaanyway, what I'm saying is that I surprised them!  Dad said he had to pick some global pass blah blah blah up at the airport and they believed him!  And I surprised them!  And so many sentences are ending with exclamation points!

We ended up having a most glorious first thanksgiving on Wednesday with my grandma and uncle and some of their friends (who I'm sure at this point think my entire family belongs in an insane asylum).  It was glorious.

And then we headed down to LA where my brother lives to have another(!) thanksgiving with them and and do a mini celbration of my birth and also to ride bicycles on the beach (or in my case, a tandem bike with Jake---whhhhhich, btdubs, cost my dad one whole dollar less than if we had each had our own bike...I'm still not sure why he didn't make my other siblings do the same thing...).

And here's something--I don't know if it was just this tandem bike, but it turns out if you're the one riding in the back, your pedals are connected to the other guy's and you have to pedal exactly when they are and as hard as they are and when they all of a sudden brake, you suddenly can't pedal anymore and you're left wondering whether or not your pedaling actually has any value.  And so you end up looking like this:

...for the entire ride.  Not actually a joke, guys.  So anyway, we rode bikes and ate one million different food items for thanksgiving (did you guys notice that I just used "one million" in an almost appropriate way?  take that, english language!).  I had a most glorious time just hanging out with the faaaaam.  Also, my siblings played hot cross buns on the water glasses.  It was actually quite impressive.

The next day we headed back to northern California (the land of milk and honey or maybe it's actually just wine) and on our way we we able to stop and visit Danny and Lena who were having thanksgiving with her family and how neat is that?!  They were at this ranch and it turns out ranches sometimes have one BILLION peacocks and a herd of llamas. Also, llamas are weird.  I mean, look at this guy.  Is he really a llama?  Or is he actually a demon?  Or maybe one of those creepy creatures from lord of the rings? Honestly.  Poor guy really got the short end of the stick because he is just unfortunate-looking.

Then we finally made it home and I watched The Avengers for the first time (all of it!  No sleeping for me! Mostly because Jake sat on one side of me and Jalyn on the other so I couldn’t even lie down which may or may not be a major factor in whether or not I stay awake for an entire movie).  Then on my last day in town I went to church and a lady in the ward told me that she could “see my future husband just on the horizon.  Trust me, you will find him soon!” so that was encouraging.  I also found a baby that is whiter than me and that also provided a good amount of comfort for my albino soul.  Then my mom made me favorite dinner as a little bit of an early birthday celebration. And then I was off to the airport to catch my flight (which, turns out it was actually a ward flight because there were two guys from my ward on the flight).  The flight was fairly uneventful other than the fact that the 18-year-old girl in the seat next to me was on her first flight and the fact that the guy in the row behind me collapsed in the middle of the flight….soooooo, nbd whatever.

And now here I am, back at school and suddenly realizing that blogging is not what I should be doing because I have an insane amount of stuff to do in the next two weeks and blogging doesn’t actually get any of it done.  Weird.

But, important comment!  Christmas season is just about to commence!  (I say, "just about to" because we all know Christmas season doesn't start until after Thanksgiving or after my birthday, whichever comes second.  And for the first time in the history of ever, my birthday is super one million after thanksgiving and has not yet occurred and so the Christmas season must hold on for just one more little minute).

But that doesn't mean we can't have a Christmas tree!  It's so beautiful!

Also, p.s.  The guy that collapsed on the plane was fine.  Just a little light headed, I guess.

puppies and sandwiches.

When I was at home over break, my family went to the Annual Ward Christmas party.

A few things about that:

There were mashed potatoes and I ate them and unlike most mashed potatoes, they did not make me want to locate the nearest puppy to feed them to.  There must have been a secret ingredient because seriously, homegirl has been locating mashed potato-eating puppies since the beginning of time.

As I watched my little brother and his friends, I was eerily reminded of myself when I was his age.  At that age, priorities included locating my friends as soon as I walked in the room, scoping out the food items in order to judge how edible they were (which usually resulted in me eating rolls and a piece of pie), and trying to make a way for the family to conveniently sit next to all of my friends who were not being forced to sit with their families.  Man, what was I thinking back then?

Oh, and that Christmas program.  It's always good, I'll give you that.  But it's always a little funny because it reminds me of every pageant and play and performance I was ever in as a child (some of which seem to live on--Granny, anyone?).  It also gives my family an opportunity to talk about the time Dad was asked to be a wiseman/shepherd along with a man whose wife apparently owned the largest costume shop on the planet...somehow the towel on his head just didn't seem up to par.

Most importantly though, what would a ward function be if Sis. Wiseman wasn't there to take your picture?  There must have been a time when she was not around taking pictures, but I swear, that must have been before my long-term memory fully developed because I'm confident she is responsible for documenting the majority of my life's milestones (for which I will be forever grateful!).

If you think Jalyn is taller than me in this picture, you're wrong.  I'm standing farther back or she's standing on one of those mashed potato-eating puppies or I had an extra-flat hairday or something because she is not taller than me.  I will not admit defeat!

Dad tells me that this last break was probably the last time I will see Jake before he is TALLER THAN ME.  How on earth is my baby brother almost 14?  I can still remember when he was a baby and I was holding him up in the air and cooing to him when he decided to throw up...directly into my mouth.  I was traumatized.  Anyway, what is this world coming to?  Time flies.

Oh, also. Have I told you?  Tom is a giant.  Also, it kills me that a few years ago, I used to tease him mercilessly by giving him hugs or kisses on the cheek in public or talking to his friends about all the girls that were in love with him, etc. Oh how it embarrassed him!  But get this, folks.  The tables have turned because homeboy's favorite game is, "Let's pretend you're my girlfriend"  IN PUBLIC. I swear, if he tells me to make him a sandwich or if I see those puckered lips "beckoning" me toward him one more time, I'll knock him out.

I'm just sayin'.

holly jolly.

{me and bubs with the new scarf he made me!}

Not sure if I told you, but I had a fantastic Christmas.  Christmastime is one of my very favorite times of the year.  Mostly I just eat and hang out with my family and then eat and then roll out the door to go shopping and then I come home and eat and then hang out with my friends and then I usually watch The Lion Movie (the disease exists at home, too!)

This Christmas I didn't give anyone my heart and baby, it definitely was not cold outside (what's up, California winter!).  Most of the break, I've just listened to the She & Him Pandora station and some of my main man The Biebs.  We also seemed to watch a lot of Jerry Rice career highlights on youtube (not actually sure why we did that).

We listened to some old tapes from when were super young and let me tell you, those were straight up gems.  Apparently back in the day (at approx age 5) I did not appreciate being called Stacy Stink and demanded that my family call me "Stacy Star A".  It appears that they needed a reminder about that, and now that we have listened to the tapes, they have actually started calling me by my requested name from so long ago.  I'm glad to see a little respect around here.

It's been a pretty busy break--I've been able to hang out with some of my favorite people (family, friends, etc) and some of my least favorite people (dentist, doctor, etc.).  Santa done good this year.  In fact, I'm writing from my brand new laptop!  So fabulous.  Some of the awesome things about it that are very unlike my old laptop: I can fit all my pictures and music on it, it takes less than 20 min for it to turn on and load up, it doesn't die after just being on for 30 minutes (even when plugged in!), it doesn't always have to be plugged in, and best of all! it doesn't light on fire every time I use it!  A huge shout out to my little brother Thomas who picked it out for me--homeboy knows how to get a good one.

I like Christmas!  and muffins! and family! and fun times!

And now I must psychologically prepare myself for 2012 (which my littlest brother constantly reminds me is the year the world is going to end). I plan on reading a book, making a music video, writing a talk (rude) for church tomorrow, and getting all sorts of new year's eve crazy with my family.

Let's do this.

And now, some pics from Christmas day!

What? Is that me hiding under the blanket avoiding all light sources?  Never...

Tim Tam Thomas was super stoked about the computer program he wrote for Danny.  Just following in his footsteps...

...and of course, a family pic with a missing mom.

p.s. If you aren't already, don't forget to follow this blog over there on the right!  

Shenanigans

I just remembered that my family is hilarious.

I wanted Matthew and Tom to stand back to back so I could see who was taller, but they didn't really want to, so this is what resulted.

 

I just said that #42674

Today at the cell phone store:

Guy selling the phone: So, did you save all your contacts to the sim card?
Stacy: Oh yeah, I know I think I probably might have definitely saved most of them all of them...probably.
Guy selling the phone: I'm not actually sure what that means.

fail.

In other news, this is a picture of when Tom and I cooked dinner for the fam yesterday (for my parents' 30th anniversary!).  I think this was the part where Tom was being artsy, so obviously he had to take a picture of the foil that once covered the most delightful cheesy chicken I ever did have (thank you, pinterest!)

I don't even know.

super miss these cool cats.

But guess what?

Only 5 days until we are reunited! Which means only five days until I get to hear Bub's perfect laugh with the wide open mouth and his eyes closed, and only five days until I get to hear Tim Tam Tom's deeeeeeeep voice and see how much taller he is than me now, but it won't be long before he starts telling me about how our dog was smarter than me and he'll probably ask me what I got on the ACT and remind me that it's the lowest score in the family and then he'll probably dance like Danny and it will make me laugh and it's entirely possible that he'll model for me and then Bubs will show me his hip moves and then sadly tell me about how much he misses Steve Jobs and all the cool new things about the iPhone.

Only five days until Jakey will hug me and tell me how much he has missed me and Tom will pretend that he doesn't like me (but secretly he can't wait to ask me for some fashion advice).  They'll both make me laugh so much and they'll even let me be on their team for Mario Kart even though I'll consistently get 12th place (unless Jalyn or Mom is playing). It's going to be perfect.
 

And I'll get to see my parents!

And only a few days after that I'll get to see Danny and Lena and Matthew and Mykel!

Then the whole family will be together at last and it will be fabio!!

Guys, I'm so stoked.