chaaaaaanges...

i'm flying to the provo mtc.

TOMORROW!

so i have to get packed
climb spencer's butte one last time
watch glee
get ice cream at prince puckler's
eat the most delicious salmon dinner eeeeever.
get set apart
say goodbye to mother, father, rachel, and ellie
say hello and then goodbye to jess and cami and grandma and grandpa
and try to find a couple of friends who are still in the mtc...
oh yeah and packed. that's worth saying twice.
and i'm blogging about it?

and had another senior photo shoot with rachel today...yeeeeah.

ps as soon as my visa comes i'm out of the provo mtc and on my way to the preston one.

love all of you so much! i'll see you in 18 months!

after weeks of saying goodbyes

i'm getting closer to saying my last goodbye for a while

except for i emailed my travel person at church headquarters and she said my visa hasn't been issued yet. sooooo...awesome. starting to wonder what's going to happen to me.

there are a few possibilities:

a. i'll get my visa magically on wednesday and go to the preston mtc on thursday as planned.

b. i'll be sent to the provo mtc for a week or maybe all three weeks.
i. they'll call tomorrow and tell me i have a flight on wednesday instead of thursday. awesome.

c. they'll make me wait another week in which case i will go to salt lake for conference with my family.

d. as a loyal friend promised me, i'll be reassigned to boise. gooooooooood.

in the meantime i am shopping for suitcases and my mother is letting down the hem of skirts and rachel and i are planning how we can fit all of our favorite cafes into the meals of my last couple of days. my dad and i are going golfing today, ellie and i are going for one of our last runs together, it is finally sunny outside so i'll probably lay out by the pool while i read preach my gospel. and every night is squeeze-as-many-movies-as-possible-before-they-are-forbidden night. so far it has been: bright star (about john keats. veeery good.), robin hood, coco before chanel (i keep thinking about this one. SO GOOD. actress from amelie...so enough said), and casablanca. i'mma miss all this.

my favorites of rachel's senior picture shoot yesterday:

my fave:

one more thing, my mother has offered to post my weekly emails, or at least parts of them on my blog. maybe even pictures...is that of interest to anyone?

sweet

(found here)

that's what the first blackberry i've had this season
plucked straight off the pokey vine
tasted like while i was running yesterday.
so sweet and juicy,
and perfect whilst running on a trail in the woods.
and then i obviously needed to have another one,
even though the pickings were slim
because it's early in the season.
but the second one was sour.

the results of freaking out:

25 hours of work later:

when i look at certain parts of the window i think either of harry potter seven read in jim dale's voice, or the lord of the rings.

and i'm about to get on a plane to go back to the forest like this and see this girl:

as well as the rest of my fam :)

there is a bag of frozen pees on my knee.

that's why you are not seeing pictures of sunriver, the place we go with some families that is next to a big ski resort. we come here for the snow, because we usually don't get snow in eugene. i went snowboarding and the snow was very ICY instead of wonderful like it is in utah. i fell on sheets of ice and fell squarely on my knee. it is huge and puffy, and i feel like naming that swollen area of my body that jiggles a tiny bit when i walk and makes me go up stairs only stepping up with my other leg. YES.

but here are some pictures to make you smile:

from nottingham. yes, THE nottingham:

thank you tourism industry:

thank you rioters who prevented me from seeing the robin hood statue:

thank you rioters from the seventeenth century who burned down the castle and only left this part of the wall here: