Time to catch up.

Well, it's been a while...and I feel like so much has happened in the last couple of weeks.  Nothing huge, just the typical college stuff, but it all seems to add up.  I trip up the stairs right next to the third floor lounge where everyone hangs out at least once a day, if not more, so that adds up to about 20 trips since my last post.  Emma and I spend an average of five hours a day in the study lounge, so that adds up to about 70 hours of who-knows-how-productive studying.  I'm trying to catch up on How I Met Your Mother (and starting from season one, I have quite the ways to go), so that adds up to around 15 hours on Netflix.  The number of coughs I'm hearing just sitting here writing this has probably added up to about 100 now...gotta love the constant sick always present in the dorms.  And I wish I could say my hours of sleep added up to more than they do, but hey, isn't that what college is all about?  Aaaaand adding up are the number of days I have gone without seeing my family or friends back home.  91 days.  Which means only 3, yes THREE more days until I visit!!  I am so unbelievably excited to see everyone!  Anyways. . . more to come on that next week :)  As for now?  Let me catch you up on what's been happening.

Okay, I guess I lied when I said nothing huge happened.  One thing huge did happen.  My amazing, lovely, stunning, wonderful cousin and my best friend got her mission call!  Sister Shaeffer is going to the San Juan, Puerto Rico mission, leaving on February 12!  Wow, Kay, you are going to be such an amazing missionary :)  I cannot wait to hear all about the many adventures you are going to have.  Puerto Rico sure is lucky to have you.

It may be extremely blurry, but I was so excited to be able to
"be there" to watch Kay open her mission call!

Last weekend, Emma and I participated in the Seattle YSA Wards' annual Turkey Bowl flag football tournament.  It may have been freezing cold and our team may have lost both games...but we sure did have a lot of fun playing and eating free food!  So really, it was a successful night.  (Not to mention, earlier that day H&M was having a sale, so I went crazy and bought four sweaters.  That was a plus too.)

Chris, Me, and Emma

Guess what movie came out last Friday??  Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire.  Of course, I got us tickets to see it the night before at 9:00.  (I say that like it's a super exclusive event or something, but apparently midnight movies are a thing of the past...now it's just "night before" movies.  Which, frankly, I do not mind because I enjoy movies and sleeping.  So this way, I get to do both.  But hey, feel free to think of me as an exclusive has-connections kind of person now that I've moved to Seattle.)

Kennedy, Emma, Javi, Nick, Savannah, Melissa, Lindsey, Me, and James

This describes my exact feelings moments after we stepped out of the theater.  I loved it.  And Emma, Lindsey, and I could not stop talking about how much we loved it and analyzing the movie and the next book and being the typical obbsessed-with-something teenage girls.

Lindsey, Emma, Me, and Javi

Lily and I are part of UW's Student Life team and help run the Facebook page (everyone go like UW Student Life!)  This weekend we had to go out and take pictures for one of our weekly posts.  Of course, we got distracted by the fact that it is Fall and the stereotypical "collegeness."

Doesn't this look like a picture that would be on a "Come to our college!" pamphlet?  Totally candid.  Thanks, Lily!

This is Lily :)

Take a moment and appreciate the fact that it is November and the sky is clear
and you can see Mount Rainier.

For orientation, Emma went on a short camping trip and last Friday, a bunch of them got together for dinner.  Everyone was bringing a friend and Emma invited me to come along!  We all dressed up and headed out for a night downtown :)  Usually when walking around in a city and I see someone wearing heels, I just laugh and roll my eyes at them and think, "It's a dumb idea to wear heels in a city."  But I decided that since everyone was dressing up, it was definitely the appropriate time to wear heels in a city, right?  Wrong.  It's a dumb idea to wear heels in a city.  Just take my word for it.  Other than my lack of judgement in my evening's attire, I had a great night!  It was so much fun meeting new people, eating out at a fancy restaurant, riding the ferris wheel, and just being downtown.  I love downtown.  I love living in a city.

Emma, Savannah, and Nick

So two and a half months ago just at the start EFS, when none of us really had good friends and were just desperate for activities to get to know each other better, Nick found out that a theater close by would be showing Warren Miller's ski video in November.  And so of course, missing home and the mountains and loving skiing and looking for fun activities to go hang out with people at, I jumped right on board and bought a ticket.  Lily, Alex, Nick, and I all had a good laugh when a couple of weeks ago someone remembered that it had finally come time for the movie we had bought tickets to so long before.  So last night, we headed down to the Seattle Center to the Warren Miller event and had a lot of fun!  Before the movie, REI hosted a small (super exclusive, might I add) event with food, prize drawings, and even an Olympian came and talked to everyone!  It was pretty neat.  And boy, oh boy, did the movie get me pumped for ski season.  Once the movie ended, I immediately texting my dad informing him that we would be skiing on Saturday because I didn't know if I could wait all the way until Christmas break.  Our night that we had been planning since August turned out to be a success.  Good call on the tickets, Nick.

Lily and Alex on the ski throne.

Lily, Me, Alex, and Nick