Pamela's Birthday!

Kylee & Pamela 

For Pamela's birthday she invited some of her friends and instead of us giving her gifts she made us all an authentic Italian (she served her mission in Rome) feast!

Happy Birthday Pamela!

Conference Weekend

I love the mountains!

Jodi & I played with Kris' nieces and nephews while were watching the BYU game! Go Cougs!

Miranda & I at Temple Square! It rained the entire weekend we were in Ut. It had been 106 in Mesa so I didn't even think about bringing an umbrella or coat or anything.

Miranda, Kris, Karen, & I had tickets to the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference!

Mirand, Karen, & I at the Joseph Smith Memorial building. I had just finished watching a photographic portrayal of the life of Christ. It's called, Reflections of Christ, by Mark Maybry (he lives in Mesa, AZ) and it is truly incredible. It will be touring the states soon but if you don't get to see it live be sure and go to the website.

Meet Deja & Kiki, my best friend's new little "Girls".  I was afraid they wouldn't like me but they did and I enjoyed watching conference with them on my lap. We got along great and I think I will make a great auntie!

"In our lovely desert..."

Amazingly on our way home we stopped at a Wendy's/Gas Station and I ran into my brother's best friend from when they were kids. It was so great to see Jason again!

September

My good friend Kris (on top) just recently moved to Arizona and Alex helped him out. It was great to have a few familiar faces around!

(L-R) Whitney, Tyler, Kirsten, Kylee, & Cory.

We went to see Rob Gardner's "Black Beard: The Musical" and it was fantastic!

Whitney, you are too cool!

Tyler & Whitney (some of my new greatest friends ever)!

It was great to have Cory come visit from Kingman, AZ for the weekend!

Cory & I found this crazy secret device in my room--a red light blinks whenever there's a sound but it doesn't react to motion???

The Porters took us all out to dinner at Carrabas for Jodi's Birthday!

(L-R) Top: Kylee, Steve & Liz Porter. 

(L-R) my roommates: Becky M., Katie F., & Jodi C. (& Catie Porter)

Cory & I played Basketball @ Golfland and then with our tickets we bought bouncy balls!

A day in the life

My sister Chelsea and her husband Mike currently live in Ghana, West Africa. It is unbelievable to hear about life where they live. Check out a day in their life!

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

You know when discover something you really love and you can't wait to share it with everyone. Well I want to share some great music that I am listening to these days. I know many of you have already discovered these songs and great musicians-but for those of you who see these songs or names of artists and have no idea who the are--please check them out!

My current Playlist called, "Thursday"
1. "Near to You" by A Fine Frenzy CD: One Cell in the Sea
2. "Home" by Scott Alan CD: Dreaming Wide Awake
3. "Fall for You" by Secondhand Serenade CD: A Twist in My Story
4. "Hymn" by Brooke Fraser CD: Albertine
5. "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles CD: Little Voice
6. "If I own Today" by Scott Alan CD: Dreaming Wide Awake
7. "This is Me" (Acoustic version) by Demi Lavato CD: Camp Rock
8. "Sampson" by Regina Spektor CD: Begin to Hope
9. "Shadowfeet" by Brooke Fraser CD: Albertine
10. "Say" John Mayer Single: Say

My advice would be to check the links on here or check them out on itunes to see if you like their stuff but I love these artists. Here are a few more random things I love:

Black Beard: the Musical By: Rob Gardner
I have talked about my friend Rob many times on this blog. If you don't know about him you should. Check out his music at Spire, his non profit. Aside from some very moving religious music Rob has also written the book, music, and characters for a new musical called, "Black Beard." It is most likely headed to Broadway so if you are in Arizona area don't miss the chance to see this amazing show. I went and was blown away by the music! If you are interested let me know and I can get you a HUGE discount as I'm part of Spire.

Big Bang Theory By: Shaun Barrowes
If you love jazz, like I do, then you will love this new CD by a friend of mine. He is up and coming and you will soon be hearing his name all over the country. His music is playing all over the world on the radio and he is getting ready to go on tour very soon.

The Sum of All Grace By : Mindy Gledhill
Beside being a friend of mine Mindy is a mother, a wife, and an amazing artist and musician. I own many LDS CD from various musicians but when it's Sunday and I need some inspiration I keep coming back to this CD. Her lyrics and voice are mesmerizing!

Quiet Hearts

"In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see."

I've been thinking a lot about hearts lately. It's a topic I love to read about, study, and ponder. This morning the above line from a song kept running through my mind. I don't know if you are like me but it seems that in this noisy world we live in it is hard to "hear,"see," or even "feel" the sorrow in other people's hearts. Yet it seems like when my heart is aching, burdened, or broken--it seems to hear the quiet hearts around it. Shouldn't it be the opposite. Shouldn't my blaring broken heart drown out all others?

It seems to me that when my heart is screaming to be heard it is screaming above the noise and confusion of the world and it seems to be able to only hear other screaming hearts. I am amazed at how this works in my life.

I have a million more thoughts on this topic but I will leave it with this. I hope that your quiet heart is heard!

Smiling Tears

Sometimes I think that change is hard. Like in my title that are some things in life, some changes you make, that you want to have happen but they are sad. Thus, smiling tears. 

 I wrote a poem years ago called, "Smiling Tears" when I was getting ready to leave for my LDS mission. I had wanted to go on a mission since I was 10 so after and 11 year wait I couldn't go soon enough. With most of my guy friends on missions, my two best friends on their mission in Russia, and my call to serve in San Diego  in hand, I was more than excited to begin that journey. At the same time I knew what I was leaving behind. I would be leaving behind my family, my music, and my friends.  My little sister was very young only 4 and turned 5 while I was in the MTC. By the time I got home she had changed so much.  My mission was a big change in my life that I really wanted but it was a smiling tears moment.

In my life, as with most people, there are many significant smiling tears moment. Recently my move from Boston to Mesa was a big smiling tears experience for me.  Don't get me wrong I am glad to be here in Arizona (will be even happier come October). I love my classes, my teachers, my new internship, and my program.  I like my roommates and my new ward, but I desperately miss Boston!

I think I'm finally getting a bit settled into my new life and I realize how much I've changed in my life the past few months. Change is good but sometimes it hurts really bad!

So for all of you who are experiencing smiling tears with me I wish you well!

Character

"Worthy character will strengthen your capacity to respond obediently to the direction of the spirit as you make vital decisions. Righteous character is what you are becoming. It is more important than what you own, what you have learned, or what goals you have accomplished. It allows you to be trusted. Righteous character provides the foundation of spiritual strength. It enables you in times of trial and testing to make difficult, extremely important decision correctly even when they seem overpowering."  

~Richard G. Scott~

Cages or Wings?

The other day I heard a song that had the line: "cages or wings which do you prefer? Ask the birds?" I didn't think much about it until today. I am curious what you have to say about this question??  To the bird a cage is limiting but it is also safety. Wings create freedom but also mean they an be eaten by cats etc.  So which do you choose...of course we are not talking about birds here!

Give to Ghana

Some of you may or may not know that I am going to Accra, Ghana during Christmas break for a few weeks. I will be joined by a few of my cousins and friends. We are all very excited to go visit Chelsea & Mike. We are also very excited to bring many needed supplies, money, and help. 

My cousins and I have been having many meetings to prepare for our trip. I have put together a website where you can learn more about our trip to Africa and all that we are looking to do and to bring.

I am excited to officially launch: Give to Ghana

You can also join the Give to Ghana Facebook group if you would like!

from "God's University" to the Devil's

I thought it might be fun for you to see my new room and house where I live in Mesa, AZ.  

Well I am officially a Sun Devil and it is wicked hot here in Arizona--but since I am inside most of the time I'm mostly okay! Below is the schedule that I'm getting used to!

Mondays & Tuesdays I work at my internship at Arizona Children's Association working in the Therapeutic Foster Care division.

Wednesday

5:30 am        wake up

6:00 am        drive to ASU Tempe Campus & park at the LDS Institute 

6:30 am        attend my "Principles of Leadership (religion class)

7:25 am         walk across campus to free intercampus shuttle

8:15 am         arrive at ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus (where I have my classes)

9:40 am-12:30 pm     social work class

12:30 pm                      lunch

2:00-4:50 pm              social work class

5:30-6:30                      Cardio Kickboxing (free class at the YMCA across the street)

Thursday 

same morning routine

6:30 am                      attend my "Book of Mormon" (religion) class

7:25 am                       catch shuttle

9:00 am-11:50 am     social work class

12:00  pm                    lunch

1:30-4:50 pm              social work class

5:00-6:00 pm             Body Sculpt (free class at the YMCA across the street)

Being an ASU student come with some perks. The buses,soon the light rail, and the YMCA are free for students. 

Free Fridays!!!

10 Year High School Reunion

Melinda & I

My 10 year high school reunion was interesting to say the least. Not very many of my personal close friends from high school were there. Since I only went to Oren High for 1 year I didn't know everyone in our graduating class. We had a graduating class of around 500 and OHS, at the time was a 5 A school.

Currently they had demolishing parts of OHS and it is now a 4 A school.  There was a really small group of people that gathered and I was surprised that more people didn't show. I guess it is hard to get the word out to everyone.

All in all it was great to see those that did come and the food was great! I also won a gift certificate to Magleby's--so that was a bonus!

(L-R): Marie, Stacia, me, Megan, & Kilee.

I can't believe that it has really been 10 years! I am amazed at how much I've changed and how much I haven't!

Weddings & Family

Wedding #1:  Kasey Holt & Tyler Ahlstrom

I was very happy to see my family this weekend! They decided to come to UT because they had 2 weddings to attend. One wedding on my dad's side of the family (his sister Julie's son, Tyler, was getting married) and one on my mom's side of the family (her brother Dirk's daughter, Stacey, was getting married.

It was very special and important for my family to be at Tyler's wedding. Tyler and my brother Grant were best friends when they were little. Even though I am very happy for Tyler in his life it has always been hard for me when he hits those defining moments in him life. When he served his mission, when he was dating, and now that he was getting married. He reminds me of the things I am mission in my life without Grant.

Their sealing was beautiful and I was doing great but then Mom, Dad & were talking about if Grant was at the wedding and I started to cry. Part in happiness for Tyler & Kasey and part because I miss Grant!

Clay & Camryn at the luncheon before the wedding.

My beauty sisters, Kaitlin & Alexa.

Here I am with newborn Dayton Ryan Ahlstrom. He is the first born of Ryan & Maryann Alstrom ( Tyler's brother).

Here's my beautiful mommy with Shields family.

(L-R): Melinda, Ali, Shane, Carly, & Kati.

We has a few hours between the luncheon and the wedding in Logan so we all decided to go hang out at a local park--that happen to have a Zoo.

Here's Dad & Clay. Dad and his famous hanky hat so that his bald head doesn't burn.

My amazing family!  It was so great to be with them even though it was WAY too short!

Here I am w/ my sweet cousin Timothy, who I wrote about before on this blog. He has HLHS

but is doing really well. He is gift to everyone around him. This summer Timothy & I really bonded and it will be very sad to not see him as much when I move to Arizona!

Wedding number 2:  Stacey Brinkerhoff & Pierce Thiot

Through the years my family hasn't been able to see much of my mom's family.  Most of them live in Texas. So it was really great that my family could come out to Stacey's wedding and we could all be together!

Back Row (L-R): Scott, Dirk (my mom's brother), Dain, & Sandra. Middle Row (L-R): Katie, Jordon, & Me. Front Row: Pierce Thiot, Stacey's fiance.

Pierce's family threw a big family dinner the night before his and Stacey's wedding. It was Olympics themed and it was awesome!

Congrats Stacey & Pierce Thiot!  Their wedding was beautiful and it was so great to be with family and cousins I don't get to see very often!

I don't get to see my Brinkerhoff cousins nearly enough!  Here I am with Dain (R), his wife and kids are in Texas, and Scott (L), who also has a wife and kids in Texas!

Back Row (L-R): Scott, Katey, Dain, Kaitlin, Alexa.  Front Row (L-R): Danielle, Clay, Kylee, and Jordon.  Here we are outside the SLC Temple waiting to take a family pictures for Stacey & Pierce.

Time To Play Catch Up!

Here is Erica Shields & Isaac Workman

Before I moved away I thought it would be fun for my my cousins, Jessica, JC, & Erica to got a big group date w/ me. So I went with John Kane (friend from the mission), I set up JC w/ Heather Barton, I set up Erica w/ Isaac Workman, and Jessica came w/ a friend. 

We decided to go to the Utah County Fair and had a great time. After the fair we all went ice blocking up Provo Canyon (talk about memories)!

Here is John Kane & I. This ride, "The Zipper" was insane!

Here is Heather Barton & JC Shields

Here is Heather Barton , a cow, & Isaac Workman (my summer BFF and new little brother).  We were all in the 7th Ward together. 

Although my ward in Provo (Pleasant View 7th Ward) started out a little rocky I grew to love it and the people I met in that ward.  Jonathan Barton & his sister, Heather, became great friends quickly over the summer!

(L-R) Kelly, Stacey, & Kylee. It was great to be in Utah for my cousin Stacey's bridal shower. Kelly threw a beautiful shower and it was great to be with family and friends.

Here I am with John's niece & nephew

A dear friend of mine from Boston, John Henry, took me to see his ranch and then to a wonderful jazz concert at Snow College. The jazz band was from Julliard and they were amazing! those of you who know me know I LOVE jazz!  It was wonderful to spend time with John!

My American Idol Audition Experience

Registration: Monday

Nothing about this audition was what I expected. I don't know what I expected but it all seemed a little strange and unexpected. 

So you are suppose to show up at registration sometime in the 2 days before the actual audition. In the case of SLC auditions the 2 days before fell on Sunday & Monday. I didn't really want to go up there on Sunday so I just showed up to register around 9:00 am on Monday (thinking I would have to stand in line for hours just to get my ticket & wristband.  So I parked and headed to the E Center (formerly known as the Delta Center).

First thing I noticed or didn't notice is the line--where was this huge line I was forewarned I would be waiting in for hours.  Yeah, are you as surprised as me to know that there was absolutely no line. I just walked up, showed my I.D (to which the lady said, "oh, you just barely made it "-referring to my age), and got my ticket and wrist band.

Day of Audition: Tuesday

I was told at registration to be in line by 5:00 am. I should have listened to my inner self that said to just show up at 8:00 am--that I would be fine showing up at that time, that my body would need those few extra hours of sleep-that it didn't matter what time you showed up or where you stood in line because you would sit wherever your seat on your ticket said!

So there  I was prepared to sit for a few  hours outside and then more hours inside. I had prepared with my ipod, movies on my ipod, a book, my scriptures etc.  Mostly outside I just talked to the people around me.

The line of people wrapped around the entire E center.

If you look closely at this picture you will see John Peter Lewis (mormon from a few seasons ago--I think the 4th season). I recognized him instantly but it seems that no one around did so I started to say--hey look there's JPL  etc. and then some people recognized him. I was a little shocked---being that I can't say I'm the #1 fan of American Idol--that more people didn't know who he was. 

At about 8:00 am they started to send random groups of partitioned off sections from outside into the stadium. By chance my section was one of the first sections of people to get inside. 

This is what it looked like when I first sat down.

Here it is a few minutes later...

And here it is at capacity. I guess that there was about 10,000 people all together. If you think that each person had someone with them that wasn't auditioning then that means only 5, 000 people in the stadium were actually going to sing (more than that actually because I'm sure there were others like me who would never punish someone else by making them come and sit for an entire day just to hear me sing for 30 sec.)

For the first few hours this lovely man (with an excellent voice) directed the crowd to sing, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and some other song I've completely forgotten. I had a little video of us all singing together--but it wouldn't upload (sorry).

Then the MC directed everyone to listen to him whilst he told us all what was about to happen. This is the part of the audition that might ruin the magic of American Idol for some of you so just be aware--I warned you ahead of time.

MC guy told us that we were going to start auditioning soon (it was now about 11:00 am). He said that they were going to set up about 10 different booths with different producers. Then in groups of 4 we would line up and sing one at a time for the producers. Then they would deliberate and let each person know if they would move on or walk away.

They called the exits the loser exit and the winner exit. In the what like 12 hours I was there in the E Center I think I saw about 20 people go through the winner exit and thousands of people in droves go through the loser exit.

It was just my luck that they would start auditioning from the side of the stadium across the way from me. The girl behind me guessed that we wouldn't actually be auditioning until about 5:00 pm! I couldn't believe it.  What were we going to do for the next 8 hours??

There was a lot of filming, a lot of do this, scream this, cheer this. Then Ryan Seacrest came out on the floor ( he's the man in black in front of the crowd) and talked to all of us for a bit.

I made friends with these guys, Dawoo & Seth, whom I played a little bit of Phase 10 with and mostly we just agonized the long wait together.

On one of my many wanderings on the Concourse I ran into an old and dear friend, Todd Michael Thompson. It was great to see him, he came to support one of his good friends.

Speaking of wandering the concourse--it was crazy!  People singing all over every nook and cranny, people sounding great and people sounding awful! What an experience!

Then at about 5:30 pm it finally became my turn to audition. I got cattle herded into a line with 3 other girls who were all very nervous! I am going to be honest at this point--I had heard a gazillion people sing and I had seen a gazillion and one people walk out the loser exit. I had seen only a few people win golden tickets and disappear back somewhere to go to the next level. The strange thing is I couldn't tell what they were looking for at all. They had turned away plenty of AMAZING singers, they had kept some doozies (of course), and so forth. 

So at this point I wasn't nervous at all. I just wanted to sing my best and go home and get some sleep. Since I had been there since the beginning, I had noticed as the day went on the process began to speed up. The producers were also tired of sitting and listening to a gazillion people sing and were cutting faster and more people as the day went on.

As it came my line's turn to audition I was the first one up.  I sang, "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles (the cut I sang starts at 2:00-3:15 ). Then the next 3 girls sang. Then they asked the last girl to sing again-- a different style of song. She was good and since they asked her to sing again that was great. Then the unexpected--they asked me to sing again--I didn't see that coming. So I sang, "Astonishing" from the musical Little Women (the cut I sang was 1:56- to the end but I didn't get to sing the entire thing).

Then they had us all step back while they deliberated. In the end they didn't keep any of us and thanked us for coming out. Then you had to have your wristband cut off and you were ushered out the loser exit (with plenty of company).

All I have to say about the experience is, "Check it off the list, Chalk it up to experience!"