A Little Taste of New Zealand For Ya

If you don't know who Flight of the Conchords is, they're a folk-singing-comedy-duo, or at least something like that. They do stand-up type stuff but with music and they have a TV show now (which I'll admit is a little wierd)

But they are HILLARIOUS. Ｉ can't get enough of them. Their first song I heard is called Jenny and my roommate brought it up the other day so I got the inclination to youtube some more of their stuff and found this little gem.
I've watched it probably about 20 times and I can't get enough of it. oh my gosh, I seriously can't get enough of it.

oh yeah and their accents are to die for. mmhmm.

enjoy:

We Tried..

We've been trying to do this for about 3 FHE nights and we finally did it. Every winter they build an ice-rink by the upper fields here on campus. And we've talked about going ever since the beginning of the semester. First it was too cold, then people didn't want to and finally FINALLY we committed. But alas.. it has been a little bit warmer here lately (which means in the 30's not the 20's) and we go up to the rink and they tell us that the rink is a little wet and that it's not ideal to skate on. But we went all the way and we weren't about to bail out yet again so we go for it.

It was more slush skating than ice-skating, snagging your skates on a soft patch of ice every two feet. But it was fun. We got some good trains going and pushing each other around.

I call it a success just not when it came to the actual ice-skating. I got my pictures and that's all I needed. We then retreated back to our apartment when our feet felt sore enough for some good ol hot cocoa.

headed to the rink

i found this amusing

the fam

emily and kelly (above) emily and me (below)

holly, emily, jeanette, me and kelly in front

she fell on purpose

the brothers

random cat photo: this one wins for most what the heck random

happy valentine's day...if you have a date that it..

Highlights of Valentine's Day:

-Played a JV game because only two of their players were in town.
Turns out Sojin and me have player connection. Every time she passed me the ball in the second half I scored. I got around 23 points (with the help of no defense of course). We were cracking up the whole time. At one time they even had me double manned.

-Ate lunch at Quizno's
If you haven't had their sammies yet I suggest you run out and try them immediately. I get the Italian with the vinagerate (i know i spelled it wrong) not the pesto sauce and the roadhouse steak. Oh my heck. They're to die for.
-Watched Gilmore Girls
It's what Cody got me for Valentine's day. The Taylor sisters (and boyfriends..and even Connor) have found a new infatuation with this show
-Left at 5pm to go to Idaho Falls to eat at Olive Garden
We're on a limited supply of them "fancy" restuarants here in Idaho. We just wanted something we knew was going to be good. Thanks to planning ahead we predicted the 75-80 minute wait.

-Went to Starbucks for Hot Chocolate
We figured if we were going to wait for 75-80 minutes we'd rather do it in comfy chairs with some raspberry hot chocolate next to a fireplace listening to oldie's music (the record sounding kind that i love) This was actually a surprising highlight to the night
-Ate at Olive Garden
Cody had the Chicken Con Broccoli, I had the Shrimp Mezzalunas. We held hands, we talked and had a delightful dinner.
-Went to Subzero
Chantelle showed me this awesome ice-cream place where they make the ice-cream right in front of you using liquid nitrogen. It's pretty neat.....and extremely tasty too :)
-Went back to the Apartment...
Only to find that the roommates were throwing their own party. We could barely fit ourselves in. I've never seen so many people in our apartment before.

-Got Claustrophobic and went and saw He's Just Not That Into You
A good movie but actually seriously depressed me. If that's what people think life is and love is, I honestly am sad for them


-Said goodnight and went to bed :)


Probably my best Valentine's day ever. It could be because I actually had a date this year or because Cody came into town or that I got a good dinner and movie and hot chocolate out of it. But i'll give all the credit to my boy. ♥

cat picture of the day:

i love cats

If you want to know one thing about me, its that I love animals. Like way more than a normal people should. Cody and me joke that I'm three and a half because that's about how young I act when I'm around them.

Mostly though, I love cats. I don't know why they are just so cute and I can't get enough of them. I joke around that one day I'll go to the humane society, look at the cats, and say, "I'll take them all." The not funny part is though most people think that's just an exaggeration, I seriously would do it. It's probably a good thing that I have Cody to keep people from worrying that I'm just going to be Crazy Cat Lady Taylor. But you know what, I'd be perfectly content with a house full of cats. Don't worry, I know it's socially unacceptable.

I found this website a while ago and I can't get enough of it. I think these people made it for people like me. Its just a site where you click a button and it generates a random cat picture. I have come to love this site. Whenever I'm feeling blue I can just go here and seriously about 5 pictures in I forget whatever I was sad about. Some of these captions are in poor English or broken English so now I kind of think that that's how cats talk. Its hillarious. I don' know why, I can't explain, but I. just. love. it. I have to stop my impulse to take them all and save them to my computer.

here's the link to the site: http://blog.esaba.com/projects/catphotos/catphotos.php

And here's some of my favorites: (and believe me when i say i have to hold back from putting up all of them because they're all hillarious)














and for your entertainment and mine i will put one of these delightful pictures at the bottom of each of my posts. enjoy :)

goodbye january...

January..you were a good month I have to admit. Not the best but there's nothing to complain about. You were full of the good and the bad but I learned from those bad so it makes it worth it. So thank you January. Thank you.

If I could use three words to describe this week they would be cold, freezing and hey just for fun let's go with cold again. We had gotten a good amount snow since we've been here but not this last week but the week before things started to warm up. We had our huge piles of snow on the side from when the snow was plowed but all the ice and snow from the roads and sidewalks had melted. We even had 3-4 days with blue skies, still cold but BLUE SKIES! without the snow everywhere it almost tricked me into thinking it was fall.
But alas this last week Rexburg has killed my optimism. We got a huge storm over the weekend and the couple days after that the snow just kept coming. We got 3 inches one day, then another 3 inches and more and more. But probably the worst day was when it was -7 outside walking to classes. I have never been somewhere where it has been so cold that I got a headache walking for 10 minutes in it. It warmed up to 6 degrees that day (yay??). It's gotten a little better but now we have a good inch of ice underneath everything which isn't going to go away anytime soon.
One good thing came out of it though. Right outside our apartments there's a round about and out one side of our windows is a street leading to it. This was right after it got freezing and the roads were way icier than people thought... so we may have spent a Sunday afternoon huddled around a window watching people crash around the round about. Some guy just went straight into the snow drift. There were a couple close calls with cars coming in too fast and breaking too late and almost hitting people coming around the round about. Some guy in a little bitty car almost went sideways through the round-a-bout. And we got to laugh at a couple goober pedestrians who fell on their butts walking across. We got pretty good at judging if they were going to fast and if they could break in time. We're not bad people I promise.

bless their hearts
construction on our new auditorium continues through the cold

the view from my bedroom window

we were going to go ice-skating for FHE but our brothers said it was too cold...
(L-R: Holly, Kelly, Me and our new roommate Jeanette)

Yesterday we had our second basketball game and although I think I did fairly well, not awesome, but not bad our team just couldn't put it together. It was just a combination of bad. Our girl that can't miss a shot kept traveling, we just couldn't get a good grip on the ball etc etc. We lost 88-68 but we knew this team was good and they were a bit stacked. Their star player (who's a really dirty player) is actually engaged to the coach so you know... whatever. We brush it off and we learn. I liked a quote my coach used at the end. He said you can learn a chapter from a win, but you can learn a book from a loss. We'll figure it out and rock the rest of our games. When we see these girls again they won't be able to recognize us. Oh yeah and I randomly have a ton of bruises everywhere. 1) inside left thigh 2) right leg inch below my knee 3) right leg inch above my knee on the outside 4) a major one on my right knee 5) on my right bicep. I never use to bruise this easily... oh well battle wounds. :)

ps. I miss my family.

This one's for you mom. It's little squirrel prints in the snow!! CUTE!!

Go Green!

See this jersey,



this is no ordinary jersey.





This is the jersey of a winner.

I had my first basketball game today. I am on the Spartans in the competitive league here. I was a little nervous about getting into basketball again, for one because it was the last game of my senior year of high school that I tore my ACL and I hadn't really done any competitive sports playing since high school. (sorry dad, thursday basketball at the church doesn't quite do the job). But I have easily fallen into the ol routine and let me tell you, it. feels. good.

We played the Bruins today all in their nice blue colored jerseys and their tallness and stuff. But boy howdy did we rock their socks right off their feet. It was tied up for the first half but then the second half came and we turned it on. The final score was 77-63 (that's a pretty high scoring game for a girls team and the first game of the season). Our team chemistry was amazing. Our coaches said they had never had a team play so well the first game of the season. I scored 6 pts which were all in the last 10 minutes of the second half. I contributed more to the defensive side of the game for the rest. Tall girls ain't got nothing on me. I'm the tallest on my team at 5'9'' and this other team had a couple girls that were at least 6'. Oh and how bout this for a mouthful, three girl's names on my team Chanel, Shandy, and Sohjin, we just call her Sohj and Stacy. For the love.

aaaaaaaaaand its snowing. Last week it was blue skies and all the snow had melted except for the piled snow on the sides. Naive poor Jessica thought it was going to last. But alas it has been snowing all night and all day and we now have 2 more inches of that pure white cold stuff.

My Apologies

I think I spend more blogs apologizing for not keeping up on the latest happenings in my life.
I just get busy and forget and then a parent nudges me and reminds me that I need to update my blog. So I'm sorry and I promise to try and keep up.

So since you last heard from me I have gone to disneyland and back for the New Year. I'll put up some pictures but there won't be a whole lot of new info if you keep up on Megan's blog. (She's always making me look bad...keeping up on her blog all the time.. psh.)

And now I find myself in my beautiful Rexburg. Chantell and I cannot believe that it was a year ago that we left for China. FOR CHINA. What am I doing here. Sometimes its this overwhelming feeling of insignificance and sadness in remembering that we were actually over there. We were part of something so much bigger than ourselves. But then we remember all of our good times and we know that they had to end sometime and now is our time to focus on other things in our lives, mainly education. I just look at pictures and can't believe that I got to see those kids and people every day. There will always be a string attached to my heart and China that is always pulling me there.
But all is well. I'm where I'm supposed to be. This is my first winter here in Rexburg (since last winter was deferred for China) and let's just say I wish I was on Summer/Fall track. I have gotten well acquainted with ice and snow, and an expert walker on ice without falling. :) I'm proud to report that I have not fallen yet.
My schedule is good this semester. It spaced itself out very well. I'm in my second semester of Chinese and we all got a rude awakening the first day of class that we were not in fact in 101 anymore. I do not have Shen Laoshi as a teacher, this year we have Bao Laoshi (Michael Paul). He went on his mission to Taiwan and then worked in China for a couple years. He is an excellent teacher and I feel like I'm going to progress a lot this semester. He is introducing us to a new routine of how class is going to work. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday are ACT days where we speak the language, go over dialogue etc. Which makes Tuesday our FACT day where he teaches the lesson and we get to ask all of our technical questions. Did you catch that? Tuesday is the only day we are allowed to speak in English. We can ask how to say things in Chinese but we have to ask it in Chinese. Zhongwen zenme shuo...? So its intense but I absolutely love it. I have a good study group of about 5 of us from our 101 class and we're all pretty good friends. There's just something that attracts me to this language (couldn't be because I lived there for 6 months could it? ;) But for some reason I retain these things amazingly well. It's that reason that I'm taking it and want to go farther with it. Sometimes I can't explain how I remember what this word is or what this means... I just know it?...
Other than that I'm taking a New Testament class from my Book of Mormon professor who if you don't know I absolutely LOVE his classes. Then I have a design and color class, the next step in being able to take higher level art classes. The professors good he's the kind of outdoorsy guy that likes fly fishing and I would assume painting pictures of Idaho landscapes. Just a chill guy who loves his red plaid flannel shirt. But he knows his stuff. Then I'm also taking Eng311 which is advance writing and reading but as I've come to find out this class is more about insightful learning, reading, re-reading, writing, re-writing. It's an awesome professor focused on us actually learning in a way that will change our lives forever. I'm also in an Art Seminar class which is required for art students to take 4x where you attend 4-5 seminars from different artists in different categories. And FA100. It's required for every BYUI student. You can take it for 0 or 1 credit. I'm doing 1 credit just because I didn't have enough for my scholarship. This class is going to concerts, dances, art galleries etc. It's to get you to experience art in many different forms. So I go to the events taking place on campus write paragraphs about them and turn them in and I'm good to go.

There will be more to come. Again I'm sorry for the crunch blogging trying to cram huge periods of time in a little paragraph.

Just know that I'm alive and happy. :)