Updates all around, with a side of snow and ice cream

Today is too awesome of a day not to write about. I woke up slightly not on time, but I got dressed, and started painting the basement door for my 1 hour of chores (mandatory in the rennovating Sieber house project) and I listened to Elder Eyring while I did it. I love that man. I listened to all of "Waiting upon the Lord" and the very beginnings of "Always." I feel like Elder Eyring really speaks to me in a way I can understand about the gospel, in a way I can relate too. He'd so awesome. It was great.

Then I showered, got ready, and after setting up the facebook event for Mr. Walker's party tomorrow (We're having Mr. Walker over for dinner, and inviting other former east high kids to come have desserts with us) Mom and I went cross country skiing. That was fun, even though I kept falling down. Eventually we got Mom to try to take a picture of me fallen down, but she was having technical difficulties. We did take a BFF picture though.

We ran to st. vinnie's real quick where i found a new formal jacket I like, and new pants, and four new books, and by new I mean old. Collections of Short stories and stuff, it's great. But by the time we were done there I was late for meeting Travis and Craig at Hansens. It wouldn't have been a problem for me to have been dropped off at Hanson's by Mom, except that I was wearing ski boots. Now, wearing ski boots in st vincent depaul--hey, who cares, right? But wearing ski boots at Hansens? Problem. Luckily, we happened to buy Louisa a new pair of shoes while we were there, and so I switched those for my ski boots just before we hit Hansen's.

Ice cream at hansen's was the best. I'm finally getting used to Craig's beard I think. We talekd about life and school and stuff. He's actually graduated, a real adult now. Gosh. We had finished the updates pretty much by the time Travis showed up (at which point I got another serving of ice cream) and then Travis filled us in on his life, we reminisced a bit more and then Travis took me home.

Came home, had dinner, and then we had family night. For lesson I shared an mp3 which is a collection of quotes from the Prophets and Apostles bearing testimony of the Savior, it was amazing. It is such a great track. It was even better to sit there with my parents because they could say "Oh, this is President Bensen" like they actually knew who was who on some that I didn't know (although I did recognize President Kimball, and Bruce R.).

For activity we played a game where one person writes a sentance on a piece of paper, passes it to the next person, who illustrates that sentance, and they fold over the written portion, so the next person they hand it to only sees the picture, and they have to write a sentance from that picture. Rinse and repeat.
Example:
Written: Mom wants to go to France.
Illustrated: a feminine stick figure/airplane/the eiffel tower.
W: Betsy wants to fly to the eiffel tower
I: Heart/ plane/a bunch of lines that look like a narrow upsidedown fan. teepee ish almost.
W: I love flying poles
I: Heart/long rectangle horizontal things with lines indicating rapid movement
W: My girlfriend betraed me and threw spears at my heart.

And that wasn't even the best one. I think I'm going to scan them all and make a facebook album. That way our children can see how wacky we were. They were hilarious.

Then I went out with a friend for hot chocolate at Kavarna, although we had initially planned it at the Attic, but they were closing, so we went to Kavarna, and then to Cafe Express till close. It was fun. I swear I could talk to that kid forever.

Ah, me...

So today, I totally walked into the wrong religion class. I heard what I assumed was my professor's voice out in the hallway, and I'm not very good at remembering classroom numbers anyway, so I went in, sat down and started pulling out my laptop before I looked up and realized that it wasn't my class. And because I'm such an undeniably expressive person, I'm pretty sure I said that aloud, in hushed tones, put my laptop back in my bag, and walked out. My class was next door. Ay carrumba.

And THEN in my CompLit 201 class, I was kind of sitting back, minding my own business, and making the usual sarcastic comments in the background, and then my Professor called me on it! Apparently he heard me, and stopped teaching the class, looked directly at me and asked "Is there going to be mocking of me today, Betsy?" I was like "It's Monday, I gotta do somethin'" And he was like "I'm just teasing" so I didn't have to reply anything anyway, but WOW I've never had a professor throw down the gauntlet like that before! Sha-ZAM!

So the other day my Dad called me (which is kind of unusual)
Dad: What's the name of that museum you work at?
(pause)
Me: Um...the Museum of Art? But I don't work there Dad. I used to volunteer there.
Dad: Oh. And how long ago was that? How far out of date am I?
Me: Like a year?
Dad: (starts to laugh) Oh, is that all? (more laughter) Well that's not too bad, is it?

That's basically my Dad.

Almost as fun as the time he called me me six times in within 20 minutes one morning (at 6:30am) b/c he kept sitting on his phone. I had to call Mom to ask him to stop. It was pretty funny.

"Wish your Mom a happy 31st for me."--Taylor

Wow, what a great day today was! My morning was all right, I didn't get enough study time in, but isn't that the way it always goes? Then I went down to campus to run a few errands, and I called my Mom on the way down there because it was her birthday today!!! She informed me that in honor of her birthday she was taking all of the kids (my siblings) and their friends bowling, so if I wanted to take some friends bowling in honor of it as well, she would fund it. I said "Ok! If i have time." and it turned out I did have time, but I'll get to that later.
Post-errands I came home and cleaned my apartment, which was a great feeling. I made myself an excellent lunch and then post cleaning took a nap; supposed to be only 20 minutes, but ended up being more like...an hour. Go figure. It's vacation. Then I posted about Thanksgiving, Diana came home and I talked with her, and I will admit (much to my everlasting shame) I started to watch "America's Next Top Model" with her. I loathe every principle of that show, but somehow I can't stop watching it. We all have our crosses to bear I guess...
Then I called Dad to tell him I saw William Shatner on TV hawking World of Warcraft III, which is just incredibly weird to me, and Dad laughed, and of course we ended up talking on the phone for an hour or so, getting updated on all of the family news/Green Bay happenings. I get to hear more about my siblings that way. I also worked on my author presentation for ENGL 420 a bit.
Then Taylor Kelly came to pick me up, and he, Nicole, and Dylan went bowling as per Mom's request. It was a really good time, I wish one of us had thought to bring a camera to document the event, but alas, we did not. I know for a fact however, we mentioned it was Mom's birthday and how glad we were that she was born, and cool enough to sponsor fun on her birthday at least 4 times throughout the evening.
Post-bowling (the bowling place closed early, like it's a holiday weekend or something) we all came over and had a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders, narrowly won by Taylor. Much to Nicole's chagrin. He was kind of beating her all night, because she went right after him in bowling too. However he did it with such class, I don't think I would have minded. It was a fun talking point. While we played, everyone looked over the books I brought home from the library; I have this really amazing one called "Go! A guide to the world of transportation," an informational text about EVERYTHING transportation, "Robot Dreams" which is a wordless graphic novel, much enjoyed by all, and "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick, who is a Caldecott award-winning illustrator who decided to write a book, but he was so used to illustrating that he would want to illustrate instead of narrate sometimes--the end product being a hybrid picture-chapter book, which is amazing. I recommend all three. Dylan had me write down all of my favorite books for him, no mean feat; and I even ranked them for him.
Then Dylan discovered that I owned the movie "Little Manhattan" which apparently he dearly wanted to see, but of course him wanting to see it prompted me and Nicole wanting to watch it, so we agreed to watch it, and Nicole would bring it to him tomorrow (by the way, I forgot to give it to her).
So Nicole and I watched it, and for those of you who don't know, it's pretty much the best movie ever, with the most likable narrator/protagonist I've ever met. I think it's excessively well-written, but I am kind of biased because I like it a lot. Nicole liked it too I think. Diana made us peanut butter cookies and I erroneously let Nicole have some ice cream, which is really not good, but I quickly realized that was a problem and took it away (with much grumbling on Nicole's part).
Nicole stayed over for a little while talking, and then hugged and parted ways.
It was a really, really, good day.