too good not to share

I’m so done with the days of backpacks!  (At least I think I am, but I still own my trusty and very dusty North Face backpack.  I’ll always be a student at heart).  Now that I’m in the world of grown-ups, I decided it’s time for a bag!  But not just any bag.  A classy, big but not too small, short straps, and goes with every outfit sort of bag…  This is what Nine West sale rack came up with for me:

I LOVE IT!  Thank you Nine West sale rack, you’ve made a very happy new professional.  Please also notice the beautiful yard in the window.  It’s so green!

one up on the mac

So I figured out the most backwards way to upload a picture, but it works!!  Here are some pictures of the move to Georgia, and whatever else from the summer.  Who’s smarter now Mr MacBook?

This is my good friend Christina who is serving in Independence, Missouri.  I didn’t tell her when I was coming to set up an appointment because I was SURE that wasn’t ok to do, but I was so glad to see her!  We talked for a while, and it made me miss her all over again…

The Liberty Jail was rebuilt as close of a match as they could make, and they think the foundation is the original.  They built the visitors center around the jail, so it was interesting to go inside one building to see another building.  The Prophet Joseph went through quite the struggle to start the LDS church.  My mother and I were reminded of a great talk by Elder Holland about Lessons From Liberty Jail.

Then we headed out to Nauvoo, IL.  This is really not on the way to anything.  Unless, yeah, it’s just never on the way.  We got there at dusk and saw the beautiful temple at sunset and also the Miss-iss-ippi with the spectacular sunset!  It’s really pretty out there, and the cicadas are LOUD and the misquitoes are plentiful.

At night the temple is light up all the colors of the sunset:

And the river is glass and colorful as well:

Mom and I were able to go into the temple and participate in a temple session.  The temple is beautiful and teaches eternal truths that are essential to everyone.  I love the temple and the blessings that come from being worthy to be a regular attendant.  I am so grateful for the sacrifice of the early saints to allow us to ‘dot the earth’ with temples.  We also went to the Carthage Jail, but for some reason I didn’t take a picture there.  One of my only regrets of the trip.

Last stop was to the St Louis Arch.  They say it was a visual representation of the hopes and dreams of the people in that time.  It was an engineering marvel at that time as well.  To get to the top you have to take this special elevator that goes around the curve of the arch.  The guide said it is a mix between a roller coaster ride and an elevator, and the only one of it’s kind.

I’m glad to not be on the road any more!  At least 8 1/2 more months before I have to think about making that trek again…

Cheapaholics anonymous

In light of college football starting, Chick-fil-A sponsored a “wear your favorite team shirt and get a free chicken sandwich” day.  I live with two other newly graduated kiddos and we decided to partake of this amazing FREE deal!  We went to lunch to 3 Chick-fil-A’s and later went to 4 more for a total of SEVEN stores to get a free sandwich each.  We rounded up 15 free sandwiches!  It was funny because the girl kept saying things like “did you remember your wallet at this one?” or “this one is empty, not like the last one we went to!”  A few freudian slips, but no harm done.  Here is a picture of me sporting my team gear and the sandwiches.  (Yes, I did get a few remarks from the kind southern folk since they were in denial that Oklahoma didn’t just lose, but lost to BYU!).

And… a close up

sweet southern comfort food

Really?  No more caption necessary:

More pictures to come, right after I figure out how to use a Mac…

if you’ll be my cotton picker, I’ll be your Georgia peach

Thankfully I do have a home sweet home, an unfurnished newly remodeled home situated perfectly between Marietta and Atlanta.  I’m living with my friend Jena who graduated in the Dietetics program with me and is also in the same internship!  She’s married and they are expecting their first in February.  I’m glad to have some familiarity in a far away land.

The lady whose house I’m moved into just moved out a few months ago, and I’m living in her room.  She had her dog living in the room, and I understand that some serious carpet cleaning took place a few months ago.  Everything from the carpet pads has now soaked up to the surface.  My mom and I did some serious carpet cleaning only for the smell to linger.  Today I took some carpet powder and sprinkled it liberally to the carpet, I think I’m making progress.  It looks like a cute little neighborhood and I’m very close to my school for the internship.  I’m excited to go to my new ward on Sunday and meet some friends out here!  I really miss my Provo friends, this has been a harder transition than I thought it would be.  And I really got used to living at Melissa and Jake’s house with cute little Rushton!  Please don’t forget about me over here!

Funny story: dad helped us make hotel reservations a few times along the road trip.  When we he made one for us near Nauvoo, he told us the name of the town we were staying in.  Mom wrote down what she thought she heard: Noahsville, USA.  She thought that was a funny name so she asked him where the town was.  His reply was of course ‘I dont’ know!’  Really?  Because you’re going to have to help get us there, Dad.  After a lot of giggling we realized he said that we were staying in NOWHERESVILLE, USA.  Haha, dad.  Joke was us on us because it was the middle of nowhere with nasty pizza on the floor.

2300 miles later…

I’m coming to you from Smyrna, Georgia!  My mom and I drove 2300 miles from Provo to get here.  That was 8 tanks of gas, 6 hotel rooms, 9 states, 2 encounters with the highway patrol in 2 states, and about 1 pound of chocolate later.  I’m glad to not have to drive a long distance for a while!  The summer was wonderful, and I could give you a short synopsis of that: camping, painstaking summer job, frequent trips to the temple, Def Leppard Concert, demolition derby and a road trip to SoCal!  I also turned 24, which was pretty traumatic for me.

Back to the big move.  I packed up the car with almost everything I own.  I didn’t use boxes because those are confining.  My friends in Provo can attest to how FULL that car was!  We started the drive south to highway 70 and fell in love with the Rockies in Colorado.  I’m seriously contemplating living around Denver when I’m done with the internship here in Georgia.  I couldn’t find the CD holster to go in the CD player, and the radio stations are dismal traveling.  So… mom and I had some good conversation!  I did think it was pretty funny that highway 70 has elected to let us know every .1 of a mile how far along we were.  Thank you for that, Colorado.

The next day we drove through Kansas.  And then we kept driving through Kansas.  And it never ended.  Corn field and soybean field after corn field and soybean field.  Mom was tired of sitting in the passenger seat so she got behind the wheel and found the only highway patrol man around and he so graciously gave her a warning.  He told her that she was going too fast and drove off faster than he got behind her (we took the warning seriously, officer).  I didn’t believe Kansas ended until I finally saw the sign for Missouri, which happens to be in the middle of Kansas City.

Since we had stopped at EVERY tourist visitor center at the borders to get free maps, we picked up a brochure for Kansas that said to go to Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ place.  We were not disappointed!  It was just like the Southern boys told me it would be.  Delicious pulled pork with a taste of tangy BBQ sauce and a little bit of coleslaw all on a fresh roll/bun.  I’m ready to go to the South!

Next we went to Independence and went to the LDS visitor center where I saw my friend Christina who is serving there!  It was very nice to learn about Mormon history and also catch up with her a little bit.  Then we headed out to the Liberty Jail and out to Nauvoo.  Interesting enough that the only state that we didn’t have a map of happened to be the state that we made the most freeway interchanges on: Missouri.  Somehow we made it to Nauvoo from these directions:  Go out to Hannibal, then head up to Keokuk.  Mom was sure she could get us there because she’d heard of those towns from Huck Finn.  Needless to say, we had to stop to ask for directions a few times.

This trip is wonderful, but I think I’m a little emotional about moving so far away from the life I’ve always known and not knowing anyone where I’m going.  So, naturally when I was worried about the car that had all my possessions would get broken into by the cruisers on Main Street in Keokuk, I started bawling my eyes out.  On top of that, the hotel that we went to was the pits.  There was a half eaten piece of pizza on the floor along with remnants of the rest of the meal.  I was not excited about being there.  Good thing the Nauvoo temple was beautiful and lifted my spirits.  We stopped at a few of the historical Mormon places there, but the town was deserted and the lady missionaries wanted to talk our ears off.

Finally to St Louis we got pulled over AGAIN, this time because our rear lights weren’t on in the dark, and mom needed to blow her nose causing her to swerve between lanes with the cop right behind her.  The cop found it humorous that she had to blow her nose, and also that I had to dig through the back of the car to find the registration.  Both of these things were so preposterous to him, I mean who blows their nose and has a jam packed full car?  How we got off without even a warning is beyond me but I’m glad we did!  We didn’t drive after dark after that, so we learned our lesson there.  We also got to stop and see Jessica and she toured us around Lindenwood University as well as the good breakfast eats in St Charles.  Thanks Jess!

I was anxious to finally stop driving, so we hurriedly went to the St Louis Arch and on to Nashville for the night.  We knew we had to find somewhere to stay quickly because daylight was running out, so the first Quality Inn we found had to suffice.  We were famished because the only meal we had was breakfast many hours ago.  I thought it would be a great idea to stretch our legs and walk down the street to Taco Bell (yes in fact my major was dietetics).  That was a TERRIBLE idea!  We had to cross 3 busy intersections without crosswalks, and go by an abandoned gas station that had an eerie feeling and did I mention is was pitch black outside?  Yeah, dark as night gets.  We got to Taco Bell at 9:05 and the lobby closed t 9, just the drive in was open.  I was tempted to go through the drive through as a pedestrian, but didn’t think Mom would appreciate that.  After walking back to the hotel to get in the car because what we were doing was such a dumb idea, we started to DRIVE around the tenderloin of Nashville.  This proved to be as dumb as walking around because we didn’t know where we were going and didn’t know what we were looking for.  Mom insisted that we find some sort of Applebee’s but when all that’s around is fast food and scary people, I was certain there was no Applebee’s around.  Somehow we ended up right back with our friend at Taco Bell, this time in a car going through the drive through.  Wow, glad we made it through that night in one piece with the car unscathed.

Arriving in Smyrna, GA on Wednesday afternoon was not a moment too soon.  I was glad to see my friends Jena and Jason ready to have some friends around.  Moving in can be another post…

back back to cali cali

I went to Colorado a few weeks ago with Mr. and Mrs. Horton for the weekend!  They got married a few weeks ago and had a reception in CO, and I figured since I’d never been there that I’d invite myself!  I didn’t break out my camera once while I was there, so no pictures.  I’ve only been a part of 2 weddings that weren’t in my own family.  I love them because the familys of the bride and groom are so nice to be around, and I ususally feel like the family for a few short days.  The car ride really wasn’t that long considering it only took 7 or something hours, but toward the end I was getting delirious and so tired of being in a car.  I let out the ridiculous side of myself that I usually keep in check, and I think that the bond we share now is quite special.  It was a pretty short trip because I flew home on Sunday, but I think I a little bit fell in love with Colorado and just might have to move back for a little while.  Saturday was fun though getting ready for the reception.  I vacuumed the church building and broke my sandal doing that, and a special thanks to Jared who let me borrow his prized sandals he bought on their honeymoon.  Then Emily’s mom got a hair stylist to do Emily’s hair, and it looks like she specialized in high school prom hair.  Not only did it take the lady about 2 1/2 hours to make her look hideous, but Emily had to come home and do it all over herself (which she wanted to do in the first place).  She ended up looking amazing anyway, as she always does.

Then I headed home for a week because my mother was putting on the notorious Book Fair at Brookvale.  I still think it’s funny that my mother works at the same elementary that I went to so many years ago.  We set up early on Monday morning so the little twirps, as my mother calls them, could come in with their sweaty moist one dollar bills.  The most common question I had was “what can I buy for a quarter?”  Seriously?  You think you can get anything in this world for a quarter?  That’s cute.  Or there was the occasional child that still can’t count money and brought $50 worth of merchandise and wanted to pay with a $5.  I remember those days, when having a bill even if it was a dollar, you felt so rich.  Then I learned to look at the number on the bill and realized how expensive it was to grow up.

I did get chewed up and spit out a few times while I was there.  Scholastic has changed their motives for making money since I was in elementary school.  We unloaded about 5 or 6 boxes of foo foo aka glittery pens, pencil sharpeners disguised as a nose, $5 erasers and such.  Then there are every kind of uneducational books such as cheat codes for a playstation.  Wow, I sound like a prude…  The kids of course don’t care because they scrounge up money to buy these useless things, and we even ended up selling out of them!  Two parents that I can remember came back IRATE that we allowed their kids to buy such garbage.  One guy wanted us to have some sort of authorization to allow kids to buy something.  I’m pretty sure that a kid with cash is a much authorization a book fair needs to take money from the kid.  My mother proceeded to tell him that we don’t deal with family affairs and that’s something he needed to take care of before he gave his kid money.  Another parent came in and basically threw the Jonas Brothers poster her kid bought at me because she said he couldn’t read it.  After about 5 minutes of me smiling and nodding, she left.  Wow, really?

My mother pays very well for help.  I thought flying me home for a week was great payment, but then she took me to see Wicked!  I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for the last 4 years and have it memorized.  It’s a little ironic that I got my parents into it and they went to see it years before I got to.  We shopped for a few hours and then headed into the tenderloin of SF to the Orpheum Theater.  I was juiced.  It was just as wonderful as I dreamed it would be, but all the spoilers were spoiled for me.

It’s lucky we got this picture.  My camera isn’t all that high tech, and my mother didn’t realize that you have to point and shoot instead of shoot and move the camera anywhere (is that how it happened mom?)

Then on Friday I went to see Star Trek with my dad and Cecilie.  I loved it, but probably because Captain Kirk was very pleasant on the eyes.  And to finish the week off, I went to an A’s game on Saturday night with my family and got to see fireworks.  I’d say it was a pretty amazing week!  Thanks for the fun fam and Em!

Now it’s back to real life.  I finally found a summer job at Pinnacle Security in the customer service department.  I know, I know, not the ideal job, but it will be good because I won’t feel bad about leaving after the summer is over!  Georgia, here I come!!

ACCEPTED!!

This morning I was officially accepted into the Dietetic Internship Program at Life Univeristy in Marietta, Georgia!  It starts on September 8, 2009 and hopefully I’ll be in Provo working until my contract is up in August; I just need to find a job now.

It took seriously the longest time to get to this point.  I’ll have to explain the application process to let you feel the full effect of what I’ve been doing with my life for the past few weeks. The process goes something like this: send in my blood, sweat and tears (aka application) in by Feb 15 and also register online with a certain website and rank the internships in order of preference.  Then, go through interview process if required.  Wait, hopefully patiently, until April 19 at 11pm when the server crashes and it takes hours to find out where you weren’t accepted.  Sounds fun, right?  (I guess it goes a little differently if you were accepted on the first round, but I wasn’t so I don’t know what that’s like).

Wow, what a process that was!  I visited my top choice in Napa, CA over Christmas and flew out to my next choice in Tucson, AZ in January to try and make sure I’d made a good impression and that they knew who I was when looking over my application.  Figuring out where to apply was stressful enough, and filling out the application was so detailed that my program even had a class dedicated to it.  I figured I’d get SOMETHING after all that hard work.  No, not the case.  April 11 came and left and my pride and future left with it.  My program director assured us that we would be able to scramble for the few internships that still had openings.  It turned out that over 4,000 people applied and only about 2,000 were placed, which left about 2,000 people to scramble for only 39 spots.  After 3 days of hard core crying and feeling disapointed, I got the dusty application together again.  I knew I shouldn’t give up because I really felt like not getting an internship was what not what my future really held.

So I applied to about 10 out of the 25 places that had openings.  I needed to get my letters of recommendations together again only to find that one of the letters was deleted and I couldn’t get a copy of it to send out that day.  By divine intervention one of my professors was in her office that day and offered to write me a letter, well I guess it went more like me begging her through sobs if she would even be willing.  I felt a little hopeless that day thinking that I was competing against so many qualified people.  I didn’t hear anything from the internships that I applied to, and I didn’t know where to go.  One of my friends told me that she called every single internship and one said they would hold her a spot if she overnighted the application.  I called every single internship and one told me they might have a spot and they’d call the next day.  Call she did and she said she’d hold a spot for me if I’d overnight my application to her too, and that I would know if I was accepted by Friday.  Friday came and left, and so did Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  FINALLY on Thursday (today) I got the acceptance letter in the mail!!!  I have an internship.

Moral of the story?  Never give up.  I learned a lot of patience with the process and also that the Lord never forgets who we are.  I felt all along that whatever happened was the right thing, and I knew that I would get an internship after a little sweat.  I also learned some confidence in my abilities.  I know how many qualified people are so deserving of an internship, but it took me believing in myself to persist and believe that I was one of those deserving people.

I’M GOING TO GEORGIA!!!!

BRANDED

I officially GRADUATED!!!  Last week was the best/worst week of my life.  Where do I even start?

I’ll just concentrate on the happy, because overall last week was worth never forgetting!  I mean, how many times do you go through 6 years of college for a bachelors and walk across the stage with an empty diploma holder in hands?  One more year and I should be a doctor!  I finished my finals on Monday, and even though it seems surreal I am officially DONE with classes.  My whole family came out to celebrate.  Priceless.  And let me tell you, my family and the dietetics program knows how to celebrate.  It started Thursday morning with a panoramic picture of all the girls in the program, then to the University commencement where President Uchdorf received an honorary Doctorate.  His speech/talk was so exhilirating because he was so excited to be there!  Seriously, if there’s no other reason to pay $2000 tuition every 4 months to sit in a classroom and work on endless hours of projects and studying, sitting in a University commencement is elation enough for me!  Maybe I’ll go get a masters so I can feel the uphoria again, sound good government?  You’re paying next time   One of the speakers talked about being branded with the BYU logo now that we’ve graduated, and to make sure we live up to par with the reputation established.  It’s great to be numbered among countless stellar graduates, and I am honored to take that name on.

As if Thursday wasn’t enough, there was more on Friday.  Cecilie walked that week too because she finished in December, and the nursing program had a really nice graduation ceremony for her.  The keynote speaker was really interesting to listen to as well.  He talked about how to succeed in the business world and in life.  I wrote notes somewhere, maybe I’ll find them when my retainer surfaces.  I ran from Cecilie’s ceremony to mine in the Marriott Center and in my haste Cecilie had to rip off her graduation gown and cap and let me borrow them so that I didn’t waste any time.  They had cinnamon rolls and orange juice waiting for me at the Marriott Center.  I met up with some friends out side to chat it up while we waited.  I was so excited to shake froth into the orange juice that I shook the lid off and splattered the orange juice all over the gown and my neck.  I called Jake to have him bring me my gown since I so gracefully soiled the other one… oops, sorry Cecilie.  With a sticky neck, it was time to get ready for “the walk.”  Apparently we lined up in the wrong order because the announcer said we were from some other department, it all worked out in the end though.  After the ceremony I met my fans outside.  I was pleasantly surprised that my best friend Erin and her family came to see me walk!  I don’t think she reads this, but thanks for making the long trek Erin & Co.

I had about an hour of a few more pictures and gobble down a small meal until it was time to go to the temple.  For the first time I went to the temple and all of my immediate family including my aunt Carol was there to support.  The temple is an amazing place with monumental blessings, and it feels so good to go there.  Part of me always wants to be there, and I’m convinced that with my whole family being there with me that I know what heaven must feel like.  Thanks for making that such a special day family!

Now I’m on to bigger and better things: still searching for an internship and being jobless.  Maybe I’ll post the whole story of what I’ll be doing soon if I get good news.  In the mean time, if you know of any good jobs (or summer jobs) in the Provo area, please let me know!

Here are some pictures:

All of the girls in the dietetics program.  Yes, I said all girls.

In front of the hallmark bell tower

With the empty diploma holder…  I tried to tell some of the other graduates it was empty but they looked at me like I was crazy

With Cecilie who also walked, and my happy parents.  I’m pretty sure they wish there was something in those diploma holders too, those are expensive little plastic things.  I’m pretty sure behind their smiles they are thinking, “how can I spend all this money I’m going to have now that I don’t have to pay for college?!”

I think we all have a picture in front of this pretty pink tree

All my super fans

Best. Night. EVER.

If you don’t believe the post that is to follow, you’re not alone. I’m not sure I totally believe that this sensational night happened either!!!

Let’s start with the fact that I was able to finish the part of the semester long project that I had to hand off tonight ON TIME!! That’s quite the feat with senioritis if that was a question. I brought it to the banquet that the SDA (Student Dietetic Association) put together. It was the most spectacular event they’ve thrown. Did I mention that it was catered by Tucanos (expensive amazing Brazilian restaurant) and I didn’t have to pay? It’s true. I could have invited a date for only $8, but then I would have had to SHARE food? I don’t think so. Instead I stuffed myself with the delectable garlic parmesan beef and amazing penne sun dried tomato pasta. Wow, words don’t do it justice. I was so full I even had to let the tie on my dress lose 3 times! So then we watched a great slide show that featured some candid shots of all of us, classic. If I lost you already, that’s too bad. The best part of the night was when the seniors were “awarded” different awards that pertained to different things we’d done. One girl was nominated to be the most likely to be the ADA President, another most likely to be our program director, most likely to be the General Relief Society President, most likely to be the host of their own Foodnetwork show and so on. She announced the nominee for the “most likely to have 12 kids award” which goes to… (insert drum roll here) LAURA BAIN!! WHAT? Most likely to have TWELVE kids? Has any girl in my program met me? After the initial shock, I go up to receive the award and say, “well… I better get started!” Too bad I won’t be living up to that one girls, sorry to disappoint. I heard the voting was pretty overwhelming and unanimous. I’m not sure what that says about what the girls in my program think of me… Any thoughts?

Then after the festivities and girlfest, I head over to “President Samuelson Senior Celebration Night” with some friends. I was pretty excited at the chance to meet the President of the University I have attended for 4 years. I see him often up on the big screen or in the Marriott Center as a small dot down on the floor speaking, but that’s as close as I’ve come to meeting him. Why not go? They had an insane amount of prizes to give away, and I was convinced. About a half hour after I get there President Samuelson offered congratulations to the senior class of ‘09 and I knew I had to chase him down before he turned in the towel for the night. I search the building for him and see a swarm of people around him. Here’s my chance. I ran into a friend who asked if I had a camera to take a picture with him. Why didn’t I think of that?! I did, but I didn’t want to seem like I was desperate or anything to meet him. So I ran back to my purse to get my camera and take advantage of the opportunity for someone else to suggest a picture! When I finally got my camera and tried to fight the mob around him (ok, it was only like 10 people), someone else kept grabbing his hand before I got the chance! I convinced my friend to cut in front of everyone else to get his attention on us. Once I step in, the conversation speaks for itself:

Laura: Hi President Samuelson, it’s so nice to meet you!!!!
President Samuelson: Thank you.
Laura: I’m Laura!!!!!
President Samuelson: Hi. Where are you from?
Laura: California!!!! (short pause). The Bay Area!!!! Fremont!!! And so is she, and she (pointing to Katy Stovall and Julie Duke)
President Samuelson: Oh, you are East Bayers!
Laura: Oh!! (poking him in the arm matter-of-factly) You know EXACTLY where that is!!!!!! President Samuelson, can I take a picture with you?
President Samuelson: Sure.
All my friends standing around witnessing this pathetic sight: can we take a picture too?!
Laura: (with hesitation) Uh, sure.

Here’s that picture:

As if that weren’t enough I kept going!!!

Laura: President Samuelson, can I take a picture with just you please?
President Samuelson: Uh, I don’t know. (probably creeped out because this crazy girl is acting like he’s some sort of celebrity or something)

Here’s the result:

Yep, I met President Samuelson. I think I really made an impression on him, and he probably will never forget that encounter just as I will never forget it. I stayed for a few more hours in desperate hopes that my night would get even better and I would win something from the raffle. They had every present you could think of except a brand new car. It was better than the Price Is Right because more people were winning, and there was a constant feeling of exhilaration of anticipation for my number to be called. Thrilling enough to raise blood pressure, serious stuff. Each number that was called for a great prize where the owner of the raffle ticket was not there, I contemplated running up there excitedly in hopes they wouldn’t ask me for the matching ticket. It almost got the best of me, but my conscience helped me gain control. They also threw beach balls and frisbees around and the people who caught them could claim a small prize. I stood up on my chair to catch a frisbee and ended up knocking one to the ground. So my friend Christa who was with me got to the ground to try and get it. The girls behind her almost clobbered her with her chair trying to get the frisbee, but we came out strong! I ended up winning “Therapy, V.I.P. Edition!” Here I am with my proud winnings with my friend who risked her life to get the frisbee:

The game was kinda lame, but SO worth the feeling of winning something!  All things considered, I think this has been the best night ever!