Movies

This post is gonna be about some good, and some not-so-good movies that I've seen lately. Best ones first!

How to Tame Your Dragon. Oh my goodness, this was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I really really liked it. It had suspense, fantasy, vikings, dragons, and a little bit of romance. The flying scenes were really well done, it made you feel like you were almost there flying with them. Dang, I want a dragon so bad now! You all need to see it. I might even buy it, it was sooo. Oh. I loved it. :)

Inception.....this was just...interesting. It was made very well. And really was extremely interesting, you were sucked into the story right away. Instantly having to think and keep up with the story, there was not a moment you could sit back like, "Huh. That's weird." Which sounds stressful, but was actually really fun. I really enjoyed the intricate story and complicated idea. I think I need to watch it again to really decide if I liked it though, which I probably will. Let's be real, I like most movies.

And lastly, Letters to Juliet. It was really fun, just like all typical chick flicks. :) It was dorky, overly cheesy, and the ending...oh my, oh my. :) But I liked it, it was fun.

Africa

I want to go there. Badly.

Life

School! That has been mostly what I have been doing lately....or at least what I've been trying to do. Summer is quite an exciting place here in Provo. I've kinda decided I'm not going to do this again, summer classes are not so fun.

I love Provo in the summer, everyone just plays and does exciting things, and everything is warm and beautiful! I've decided I definitely like heat over cold. Summer can stay forever as far as I'm concerned. Do you hear that world? Winter is not allowed to come this year. Now that we have that settled....

I've been going to FHE this summer, which I've actually never really done before. But when your roommate is the mother and your group is actually pretty cool, you find yourself wanting to go. It's been a ton of fun actually, I have loved it! We played soccer last week, which I actually enjoyed. I wasn't expecting that! But I was somewhat decent for it being the first time playing soccer since the sixth grade! I didn't completely suck at frisbee either when we played that. :) Fun times. I've decided at our family reunion we are going to have to do these fun things...preferably on a beach.

Warning: You May Be Blinded by Pure Awesomeness

I hope you've all seen Kung Fu Panda. Cause that movie is awesome, and also is the inspiration for my sweet title. There are a few awesome things ahead. Don't worry though. There is no charge for awesomeness...or attractiveness. And I'm sure you'll think these next pictures are attractive indeed!

BEHOLD! WE ARE MEN!! (Haha, insert Men in Tights here. That was kinda the type of men we were most like I bet.) Here are all three pictures....yes I know I have the same expression. So I could never be a model, whatever. But Jen is fabulous in them all. It goes from left to right: Me, Heather, and Jen.

First off, those are Jones soda bottles. But now the story. It started when Jen came in said, "Mary, let's dress as men, beards and all!" or something to that effect. I thought this was a great idea, and since Heather was there, we recruited her too. It was way fun to paint on our beards with eyeliner. Surprisingly though, what helped more than the mustaches were the sideburns and especially the eyebrows. When our eyebrows suddenly grew bushy, then we truly looked manly. It was great! We had man-names too! I was Mario (hence the sombrero), Heater was Heath, and Jen was Juan. We practiced walking and talking like men too, which was almost better than drawing on the beards in the first place.

And now for some newly found wonderful things:

Frozen grapes. They are so gooood! They are hard like ice on the outside, but kinda gooshy/slushy in the inside. Yum! Also, it's great when your grapes are about to get too soft that they are no longer suitable for complete enjoyment. (I only like grapes really crunchy.) Perfect solution.

My roommate cooked the tastiest chocolate cookies ever. They are super easy: one box of chocolate cake mix, 1/2 cup of oil or butter, and 2 eggs. Mix it up, and maybe you can add some chocolate chips. Cook at 350. They are so easy and so good!! Yum yum yum.

Other wonderful things: watching Star Trek on a huge flat screen tv with surround sound.

: swimming on a hot day while playing some of the games from when I was a kid.

: FHE on Monday. Family feud. We won. Host in a tux. Commercial breaks that included Julian Smith videos. Awesome.

: Work breaks that last an hour. Supervised breaks I might add. :)

: Mangos. I bought some for the first time today. It. was. epic. ...kinda.

: my newest nephew Luke!!!!! He is super cute and I love him already. Can't wait to go out to CO in a few weeks to see him! Also, Shayla could be born any day now...I'm excited to see her too. I'm going out to CA this weekend to be with them.

Anywho, I think that's it. Life's been good. Summer's fun. School starts in like 3 weeks, and I'm kinda ready. It'll actually be nice to get back to a life that has purpose.

To Be A Leader

Hey everyone, so I'm not in the mood to go to bed, though it is late and I definitely should. I'm just full of hopes, goals, and dreams right now, and since it is too late to call Mom and gush, I'm doing it here. Sometimes I just need to talk and get it off my chest, but if I talk to someone in person (like a roommate) I just feel cheesy, and it's a lot easier to feel cheese-free when I'm writing on here.

I have so many things I want to do in my life...it feels like I will run out of time to do them all! I want to get married and have a family, but I want more than that. I want to leave this world knowing that my life, and the life of my future family, made a difference in the world. I know that being a good mother is a wonderful and meaningful life--I do believe that motherhood is the most important calling I could have. But, I also believe that I can do more than that, and I can teach my children to be more than that too. During my senior year of high school I did a project on extreme poverty throughout the world. It is very real. Suffering is real. As I did that research, I really felt the drive and desire to change the life of at least one person in those circumstances. To give them a chance to help themselves, to not feel hungry or cold, to have the comfort of knowing their child can actually have a better life than they had. And then there is this class here in the College of Engineering that I want to take so bad. For a year you work on teams of engineers (of all kinds) to design things that are needed in poverty-stricken areas of Peru, Tonga, or Ghana. They've done projects like installing bio-filter toilets for sanitation, economical ways to convert coconut oil to diesel fuel, and installing plumbing. I want to do that soo bad! What worth will my knowledge have if I don't DO anything with it? I mean, really. Who cares about some gas company in CA, when these people can't even get clean water?

Tonight I saw The Blind Side. That woman is a doer. She is somebody who sees a need, and fills it. She has made a life for herself that has put her in a place so that she can do something. I want to be like her. It's not quite my nature to be all crazy proactive, but I need to be. I want to be. I want to not waste my time, I want to really work at school. I want to become a doer. I will have to if I want to make a difference.

So, first thing on my list to do to make a difference: I'm going on a mission. It's pretty much decided. I've been thinking about it since the beginning of December. Things happened, God showed me things, uncommon things, just so .... well, I know I need to go. It's at a time in my life when a lot of things happen. I'm giving up school, friends, and family for 18 months. But giving 18 months of my life to God isn't much. And I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and the most important thing I can do right now in my life is to share that with others. It will help teach me selflessness and responsibility, which will definitely help in my goals of changing the world. So for all of you that didn't know. :) Now you do.

If we all just broke out of the bubble of our own little lives, think of what we could do! I am determined. :) Let's do it guys.

Summer's coming!

So, I finally have some of the pictures from the Festival of Colors! I swear, we looked more colored in person. :) It was a ton of fun, good memories!
Here's the group! The girl kneeling on the bottom (Liz), the girl with the crazy bright blonde hair (Tasia), and the girl second from the right (Kim) are some future roommates! It'll be great. :)

The Hindu Gods are so stern! We thought we'd go with that theme...

Um, look at the mountains. Another great thing about Provo.

This has been finals week, and it's been nice to get to go home and NOT go to class. :) Of course there is studying, but there is also lounging. This is a pretty common scenario with Amanda, Jen, and I...and notice that they are both lounging on me (also, pretty common):

Summer will be official in four days! It'll be great...warmth, the sun, swimming, no school.... :)

Starting New

Hey everyone,

So I'm actually changing my blog to this one: www.maryataglance.blogspot.com. This is just because of weird email/logging in annoyances. I've been wanting to do this for a while, so it's finally done! Yes! :)

Anyhow, sorry about the pain. But I won't be using this one at all anymore.