2014: A YEAR IN REVIEW

2014 was a good year.
Honestly, it was my best year yet! Each year of my life seems to only get better and I hope it just continues on this way until I'm 88. So far, being 22 has been my favorite age! I've never felt more comfortable and happy with myself than I do now. Here's to 2014 and all the fun memories it brought!

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

JULY: I graduated Brigham Young University-Idaho! I graduated with my Bachelors Degree in Communication with an emphasis in Video Production, and boy was it a bittersweet experience! The day of the ceremony, I laughed, I cried, I smiled a whole bunch, I was ecstatic to never have to do homework again, and I reminisced about all the fun moments and friends I had collected from my years in Rexburg. I will forever be grateful for my college experience and all the opportunities it gave me.

AUGUST: A week long trip to Oahu, Hawaii to celebrate graduating from college! One of my favorite trips I've been on.

SEPTEMBER: A fun trip to Yellowstone National Park with my dear friend.

SEPTEMBER: I met, pet, and bottle fed 6 baby bear cubs at Bear World in Idaho. A dream come true!

AUGUST: I packed up all my things from living in Rexburg for 2 years and moved to Salt Lake City, UT!

Turning 22!

DECEMBER: A fun trip to Capitola, Monterey, Seaside, Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Big Sur! I love California, the coast, and all the cute little beach towns. California will forever have my heart.

2014 was incredible and I'm so grateful for all the fun trips and adventures I was able to go on! If I can just keep this up every year of my life I'll be one happy camper!

Happy New Year's Eve!

BURT'S BUZZ

Last night I finally watched the documentary Burt's Buzz. I had watched a trailer for it a while back when I was taking my documentary class and had wanted to watch it for some time now but never had the chance, so you can imagine how happy I was when I learned it is now on Netflix!

(Don't worry, I won't give anything away. Promise.)
This documentary tells the life of Burt Shavitz, the co-founder of Burt's Bees. Burt definitely isn't your typical entrepreneur and I think that's what I love about him and about this documentary. I've always been fascinated with people who reject the modern world and continue to live a simple life. It's appealing because deep down I would love to live a life like this. I want to own a house on a good piece of land on the river and be self-sufficient. I want to grow my own fruits and vegetables, grow trees and cut them down myself for firewood, prepare food from my land, and just learn to truly live off the land. (The other side of me wants to live the other extreme and be rich and live in an apartment in the middle of NYC but that's for another discussion.)

As strange of a person as Burt might seem at first, I found myself relating to him quite a bit throughout the film. While discussing the simple life he has chosen in Maine he said, "A good day is when no one shows up and you don't have to go anywhere" and I couldn't agree more. I still love seeing friends and family but I can definitely relate to longing for alone time without any responsibilities or immediate plans. I like the idea of doing what you love throughout your life but especially for a career, and Burt does exactly that.

If you like the company Burt's Bees, love documentaries, or just don't know what to click on next on Netflix, maybe treat yourself to Burt's Buzz. 

TRAILER

HALLOWEEN

Tomorrow is Halloween!! Let's be real though, it's been Halloween in this house for a month and a half. I may or may not have started decorating in the middle of September. Halloween is my second favorite holiday after Christmas. Nothing can ever beat Christmas, but Halloween comes in a very close second. I love everything about it! The parties, the candy, decorations, costumes, the slightly scary movies. I have a love/hate relationship with scary movies. I always think I want to watch one until I'm about 20 minutes in and way too scared and question why I wanted this. Questions like: "Why are we watching this?!" "Who's idea was this?" always come out, usually blaming everyone else in the room but myself. 

I'm so excited for tomorrow! I have all my candy ready to go for the trick-or-treaters, and I got my costume last weekend in Los Angeles. I'm going to be Snow White this year! Here are some bits and pieces of around my home.

BITS AND PIECES

You can order these awesome creepy sculptures from RevDesign Industries!

And just for funsies, here's an adorable photo of me on Halloween when I was 2 years old! I might just have to make myself this outfit so I can be the devil again on Halloween. I even still have those horns in a box of treasures at home! Thanks, mom, for keeping those!

THE SKELETON TWINS

Last Saturday, I went down to my favorite movie theater in SLC to watch The Skeleton Twins. It's my favorite theater because it shows all my favorite indie movies that never come to any other theater. The Skeleton Twins is definitely one of the best movies I have seen in a long time! It was the perfect mix of hilarious moments that leave your cheeks hurting from laughing so much, and heartwrenching moments that cut right to the core of you before you even know what hit you. The trailer does not do the movie justice in the slightest bit because it's far funnier than it appears to be. I kind of like when trailers are vague like that though; I don't want to know the whole story before I even sit down to watch it.

I don't know if I was in an especially weird state of mind Saturday night or if the movie would have impacted me as much as it did if I had watched it any other day, but something about this movie really hit close to home for me. If you have a history of dealing with depression in your family this might hit close to home for you as well.

So if you find you have an extra $8-12 in your pocket and you don't mind rated R movies (I'm looking at you, Mormons), then head on down to your nearest movie theater and treat yourself to one of the best movies you'll see this year. It'll make you laugh, make you bawl your eyes out, and inspire you. If any of you have already watched it or go out to see it, let me know, I'm excited to talk to people about one of my new favorite movies!

THE SKELETON TWINS TRAILER:

A LOVELY AUTUMN DAY

Yesterday I had one of the best days I've had in a while. My best friend came to town to perform in Deep Love on Friday night here in SLC. (Deep Love is an awesome rock opera written and performed by a lot of my friends from up in Rexburg.)
Yesterday (Saturday) we had a free day to do whatever we pleased and it turned out to be such a nice, relaxing, fun day. We started the day off right by going to the Salt Lake City Farmers Market at Pioneer Park. I actually have been meaning to go since I moved here but by the time I remember about it on Saturdays it's already over. I was pleasantly surprised at how big the farmers market was!
At the end of our walk through the booths I ended up with: a baguette, a blueberry-lemon cookie from RubySnap, and the most delicious freshly made apple cider- the guy was squeezing the apples right in front of us!

After the farmers market, we went to City Creek and walked around the shops for a bit. We had a yummy lunch at Olive Garden; I crave their chicken and gnocchi soup way too often.

In the evening, we grabbed our sweaters and beanies and drove over to Wheeler Historic Farm in Murray, UT. It's such a pretty farm and right now they have it all decorated for Halloween with orange and purple lights along all the pathways throughout the farm. There's a little pumpkin patch where you can pick out your own pumpkin, a hay maze for the kids, and wagon rides! (I've always loved a good wagon ride. When I was little, my parents were always so nice and paid for me to go on wagon rides at all the various fall festivities.) We walked around the farm, went on our lovely wagon ride, helped little piggies scratch their backs and bellies, watched the ducks play in the pond, and enjoyed the nice crisp autumn evening air.

Please excuse these grainy phone photos.

A WEEKEND TRIP: Yellowstone National Park

This last weekend I went to Yellowstone National Park with my good friend Alex Fisher. This is the second time I've been to Yellowstone and I couldn't have asked for a better day! It was overcast, drizzling off and on all day, and beautiful! Luckily, I brought my umbrella and happened to have two ponchos in my emergency car kit. I knew those would come in handy one day.

For some reason, I've only ever been to Yellowstone in September but I can't complain because September is beautiful just about anywhere, but especially in Yellowstone. One day I'll experience Yellowstone in the spring and summertime.

DAY 1: YELLOWSTONE

DAY 2: BEAR WORLD

Bear World is one of the most magical places in Idaho and to think I lived just 10 miles from it for 2 years and just barely went is crazy! When you first get into the park you drive through a section that has more mellow creatures: deer, elk, buffalo, etc. Then you approach a big gate that separates all the bears from the rest of the animals. An employee stands outside the gate to kindly remind you to always keep your car moving, even if there is a bear sitting in front of your car. He also tells you to keep all your windows rolled up.

Almost immediately going through the gate we saw a bear and I may or may not have started crying. Like full on crying. I used to question people who would "cry out of joy" because that's obviously not a thing, right? Well, when we went through that gate and I saw a bear just sitting on his bum to the left of us in the field and another playing in the river with only her head sticking out of the water, I cried out of joy. It was a strange but beautiful moment that caught me off guard. I apologized to Alex saying "I'm sorry I'm crying. I don't know why I'm crying." and he just smiled and said "I actually kind of figured you would cry." He knows me too well, I suppose. 

(For those who don't know, I love bears. If I was going to be an animal I would definitely be a black bear. If I can be picky though, I would be a black bear in the Sierra Nevada. Although I love bears and watch a lot of bear documentaries, if I saw a bear in the wild, I would still probably have a mini heart attack, so watching them safely from my car was a dream come true.) 

...And then we found the baby bear cubs!

Bear World currently has 6 baby bears that are all 6 months old and as cute as can be! Alex and I watched them play with each other, drink from their river, knock each other off this tree branch pictured above, and scratch their bums against just about everything they could find. They were adorable and I could have stayed there for hours watching them, even if it was sprinkling.

I also fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams, I got to bottle feed a baby bear! I actually bottle fed 6 baby bears and I couldn't have been happier. 

This particular bear kept standing up because he wanted to play instead of eat. I was a little apprehensive feeding him.

This last weekend was a perfect weekend that I'll remember for years to come. I mean, how often do you feed little baby bear cubs out of a bottle? 

A refreshing day in nature with a good friend, nothing can beat that.