Enough Said. . .

Last night I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, which is my favorite TV show in the summer. I'm sure you can tell because I have already made a previous post talking about it, haha. Last night the episode showed us the 200 and some odd individuals who made the first cut of auditions and had the opportunity to participate in an intense week of auditioning in Las Vegas for one of the Top 20 spots. The judges weren't messing around, they immediately began cutting tons of people left and right. They were on a mission, they were looking for the 10 best male and the 10 best female dancers. They knew exactly what they were looking for: performance, talent, technique, poise, personality, and especially coach-ability. The dancers were put under tremendous amounts of pressure. Not only were they being physically exhausted, but mentally too. As the group was narrowed down to fewer and fewer dancers, it was amazing how individuals true character and ability to be coachable really shined when they became tired and stressed out. There was one girl in particular that I am thinking of who made it through the entire week without being cut. When it came to auditioning the last piece of choreography she actually did well. The judges complimented her to reassure her and then told her that they noticed her getting overwhelmed while learning the routine. Rather than saying, "thank you, yes I was overwhelmed for a minute but I learned a great lesson," she began to rattle off a whole long story full of excuses. The judges were completely turned off and actually cut her because they didn't like her attitude not because of her dancing abilities. If she hadn't said too much, she would have had the opportunity to do her solo and be considered for one of the Top 20 spots. At the very end of the episode there was another situation where a girl said too much. She was asked if she didn't make the Top 20 if she would come back and try again next year. She said no and explained that the rejection was too hard on her emotionally. The judges, again, were turned off by the attitude of this girl. They didn't like that she would be willing to give up at age 19 when she has so much talent. After her comments the judges decided to recast the vote to see if she should make the Top 20. Despite her negative comments, she still made the Top 20. But she almost missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime because she said too much. I felt really bad for both of these girls who gave really bad impressions of themselves because they said too much. It made me think of how many times we say too much, and later find ourselves regretting it because of the consequences. Sometimes less is more, enough said. . .

When I was in 9th grade (junior high) I was in an audition choir. At the end of the year I, along with many other girls, performed a solo for our high school choir teacher, Mr. Tortorica. We were given scores on our solos and they also counted as our audition for varsity choir our sophomore year. Very few were given an 'A' rating on their solos, and even less made it into the varsity choir as a sophomore. I was nervous to perform in front of Mr. Tortorica. After my performance when I went to receive my critique from him he told me that I did very very well. I said, "thank you! I was really nervous because I've had a cold so I was worried I wouldn't be able to sing." He set me straight so fast! He told me that all I needed to say was "thank you" and that no one likes working with anyone that makes excuses. I apologized. A few days later I found out that I did receive and 'A' rating on my solo, but I did NOT make the varsity choir. I had said too much. It was one of my many lessons learned on saying too much. I actually spoke to Mr. Tortorica about it and because I did he allowed me to be in the A Capella varsity choir (the only sophomore in the choir) which I was extremely grateful for, but I would still have to wait until the next year to re-audition for our women's varsity choir. I said too much, and there were consequences! Has something like this happened to you before?

It is not just in auditions that we miss out on opportunities if we accidentally say too much. I think this happens to us a lot, especially in arguments. Why is is that people always want to be the one that gets the last word? Only to find that their last word caused some serious heart ache. How often when we are tired and under serious stress do we say something that we didn't really mean in the first place? Think about how frustrated it makes you when you let someone else tell their side of the story without interruption and then the second you start telling yours they interrupt you! They said too much! Or how about when someone gives you a compliment and instead of simply saying, "thank you," you disregard the compliment? I think everyone makes these mistakes. I think it is one of those life lessons that you you learn over and over again.

However, even though everyone makes these mistakes you still feel bad for them when they do. I am going to try to be more aware of when I am saying too much. I recommend everyone else do the same. Sometimes it is best just to say "ok" or "thank you" . . . enough said.

A Day Downtown With Mom

Today was a great day. Mom and I went out! We dropped by Dad's office to say hello and invite him to lunch, but he wasn't able to make it out with us. Mom and I went to PF Changs for lunch. It was fabulous as always, especially the lunch menu prices! We got the chicken lettuce wraps (if you have not ever had them, then you need to!). We also got the almond and cashew chicken dish which is my favorite. It was nice to go out together and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and good conversation. After lunch we walked across the street to Magie Moo's Ice Cream Shop. Mom got chocolate ice cream with chocolate, of course. I am a vanilla girl myself. But I held back on the ice cream. Don't worry I made up for it later with a Cap'n Crunch milkshake from Carls Jr. haha. After dessert Mom and I got back in the car. We were downtown--I love downtown Boise by the way--so we were close to South Jr. High. That was my Junior High. They are building a new one right next to the old one right now and then they are going to tear down the old one. Mom and I critiqued the new building and had no problem finding all of the things that we DON'T like about it, of course haha. I am going to miss my old building. I have a lot of good memories there. Anyone that knows my mom will not be surprised when I tell you that after we drove past that school we had to drive past all of the other new ones being built on our way home. I love my Mom. I'm glad I get to be home to drive around and check out the Boise scene with her. Today was a great day.

A New Find in Indie Music, Check It Out

So I subscribed to a new podcast on iTunes called "IndieFeed" and it has a new full song everyday by an indie artist. I use to be really into music and always learning about the new up and coming artists, but I have not taken the time to do that in years. This podcast, however, has allowed me to hear about artists that I have never heard of before and it is so fun for me. My favorite one so far is Kaki King from New York. I am as excited about discovering her as I was when I first heard Imogen Heap. She is amazing on the guitar and the music is relaxing. Yet some of it has a good enough beat I could work out to it. I checked out her myspace page and found that she has a ton of full songs on there. Check them out and tell me what you think! Or if you already know her, tell me about it! I am so behind on the music scene, especially the indie scene.

**Disclaimer: I like the song, I have mixed feelings about the music video.

So You Think You Can Dance

I love to dance. I always have, probably always will. Therefore I love watching people who are amazing dancers. I wish I could dance like them. There is this show on TV during the summer. It's called "So You Think You Can Dance" and it is a competition like American Idol.

I absolutely love this show! You see some pretty incredible dancing on it. The audition of Robert Muraine was particularly amazing. You should check it out.

Lacey and Kameron choreographed by Mia Michaels 2007.

Heidi and Travis 2006

The End of May

I absolutely love May! It is my favorite month out of the whole year. Not because it starts out with May Day, but probably because it is my birthday month! haha, so I am a little bit biased. When I look back on all of the May months of my past I have very fond memories. Growing up my Mom always had really fun birthday parties for me. I think every year of my life until my senior year of high school I had a birthday party. When I was little it was always fun to have the neighborhood kids and my cousins come over to swim and play games. Spring is such a fun time to have parties. My best friend in elementary school, Bekah Campbell, had her birthday on May 15th. We use to have to coordinate every year who got to have their birthday party on what weekend because often we wanted the same weekend. It always worked out though, and of course it was more fun because it meant we had birthday parties two weekends in a row!

As I got into junior high I started having a "beach party" theme for my birthday every year. We would open the pool in our back yard and put up tiki torches. Then we would get a ton of leis from a party store and I got to greet everyone that came with a lei and a kiss on the cheek. It was such a fun tradition! There use to be between 30-40 people that came and all of us would have a blast. Everyone would have competitions to see who could do the best trick off of the diving board. We played other silly pool games that were always really fun like colors and marco polo. We even set up the volleyball net and get some good games going. My group of close guys friends had a band so they usually played a few covered songs for us too. It was just a really great way to end the year, get everyone together and ready for summer break!

I have also been very blessed to have some very unique and exciting experiences on my birthdays. For my 19th birthday I was in Paris, France and I got to go up the Tour de Eiffel at night while the lights were all lit and sparkling. That was so cool. I was backpacking Europe with my cousin Brandon and his two friends. Brandon's birthday is the day before mine, so we got to celebrate two birthdays in a row. I bought his dinner on his birthday, then the next night he got mine haha.





On my 20th birthday I was living in Hawaii on the North Shore of Oahu going to BYU-Hawaii. I don't think anything is better than enjoying the island life on your birthday. The day of my birthday we just hung out at the beach. But later my friends ended up throwing me a party. They got me a cake, and we had a BBQ. It was so much fun!





For my 21st birthday I was back in France. This time I was in Lyon with the BYU Business Study Abroad program. It was our first day in Europe. I went to dinner with some girls in my program. While we were eating dinner I was looking around the restaurant at the interior design and taking it all in when I met eyes with two men sitting at a table across the room. I smiled then turned away. I made sure not to look that direction the rest of our dinner, because its always awkward when two people accidentally catch eyes at the same time. So while I was avoiding looking over there, one of the French men had purchased a long stem beautiful red rose. While all of us girls were chatting he came over to our table and singled me out. He said, "this is for you beautiful girl," in his French accent and then kissed me on each cheek. I turned bright red and just said thank you. I couldn't believe that out of five girls I was picked out and given a rose by a handsome French man on my birthday, haha. After we paid the tab I went over to their table to thank him again. They invited us to sit with them and they would buy us cokes (because we do not drink alcohol). We sad for just a few minutes and while we were talking I learned that it was his birthday! When I told him it was my birthday also he didn't believe me, "fate" he called it. It was a funny experience and definitely made my night. I enjoyed having a great story to tell and a beautiful rose to smell for my 21st birthday.




On my 22nd birthday I was actually in Boise. But the next day I moved back to Hawaii, this time the island of Kauai, for a summer internship. So I got to enjoy the island life again. It was fabulous!



This year I celebrated my birthday quietly at home. But it was so great. Kory sent me the most beautiful bouquet of Hawaiian flowers and a cube picture frame with super cute pictures of us. It was the most thoughtful and wonderful gift ever! He really made it a special day for me.




Oh the month of May has so many wonderful memories. I love May because the weather is great, and the flowers smell good and are beautiful. I love May because it means that summer is here, or almost here! I love May because I get to look back at the year I have had and remember my great experiences. I think this last year of my life has been one of the best. I have learned so much, and have really grown a ton as an individual. I have met some amazing people who have been the best additions to my life! I love where I am, and especially where I am going. I cannot wait to have another amazing year.

We're Going to the Movies!

We have seen a couple movies recently that were all very good. The first was Chronicals of Narnia Prince Caspian. I actually still have not seen the first one, but I really enjoyed the second. The small romance story in it was really lame, but other than that it was good! The war scene was really cool, and of course its Disney so it wasn't too graphic. Its an all around feel-good movie.

The second movie we saw was Indiana Jones 4- Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was really good. I liked it. Not as good as the old Indiana Jones movies but it was exciting. I felt like I was at Disneyland on the Indiana Jones ride the whole time! haha.


So that is my movie update!

The Skinny on the Last Few Weeks

I have not blogged in forever, I'm sorry. Things are going really well for me! I am back home in Boise now. The call center job was fun for the last couple of weeks that I was in Provo. After that I went on a really fun road trip with Kory. Then I moved to Nor Cal for a week to do summer door to door sales with AT&T which was fun, but didn't pay me as well as I needed it to. So then I moved back home! And here I am!

After school got out on a Wednesday, Kory and I both packed up and moved out of our rooms. Lucky for me I had Mom in town to hang out and help me. By Friday afternoon Kory and I had the car packed up and were on the road starting our adventure across the country to Virginia Beach, VA. That is where Kory is now, working for the summer selling security. Our road trip was a blast. We went to Grand Junction, CO, Salina, KS, Grove, OK, Owensboro, KY, Cleveland, OH and then finally back down to Virginia Beach. It was the round-about way to drive across the country but we stopped to visit people along the way. Well I visited one person for 10 minutes everyone else was connected to Kory. I got to see Mari my really good friend from Kauai that I met last summer when I interned there. We saw Kory's grandparents and sister, Carissa, which was really fun. Everyone else was from Kory's mission, he served in Kentucky.

We were grateful to have our phones, because both of them have mapping capabilities which really were a huge blessing on the trip. We were also grateful for our new toys that we had gotten at the beginning of the trip, a cigarette lighter splitter (so we could power more than one thing) and the Harmon|Kardon Drive and Play (which allows you to play your iPod through the FM frequency using a remote to navigate and see the songs playing on a screen sitting on the dashboard, its cool). They really helped us stay entertained! If we weren't listening to music then a couple of times we watched movies on my laptop. We were also extremely grateful for all of the goodies that people sent with us to snack on during the drive. I love road trips, the car actually doesn't bother me that much especially when the drive is beautiful. I loved driving through Oklahoma and Kentucky especially.

Can you believe that after being stuck in the car for 6 days straight Kory and I still weren't sick of each other? haha. I stayed in Virginia Beach to help Kory get settled and enjoy a little vaca for 5 more days before I flew to Nor Cal. It was fun to be able to go for walks on the beach and the boardwalk. It was the first time seeing the Atlantic ocean for both Kory and I (other than from planes). Kory even made me run and jump in the water even though it was freezing! haha. I wish I had pictures of that. Over the weekend we just enjoyed hanging out and relaxing. Virginia Beach is kind of a fun little beach town. There isn't too much to do but the atmosphere is fun.




I flew to Northern California from Virginia Beach. I had never been to Nor Cal before so it was exciting for me. I flew into Oakland and my friend Jared Hess picked me up. We have been friends since our very first semester at BYU. He is from there, so it was really nice to have him help me out. I lived in Vallejo with my best friend Karly but we worked in Santa Rosa for the week. It was exciting, and I loved having the new experience. I loved going to San Francisco for the first time! That was cool! I LOVE cities, they give me energy.



On Mother's Day not only did I get to talk to my brother Stephen (Elder Nelson), I flew back home to Boise. Mom said it was a good Mother's Day gift, hehe. Stephen is doing really well. He is training Elder Gunnel and he is still District leader. I think he is really enjoying it. He is such a hard worker, and everyone tells us he's the most amazing missionary. It was fun to talk to him on the phone just like old times. Our relationships haven't changed at all. I sure love him, he is my best friend. I have really enjoyed being home with Mom and Dad too. It is nice to have our little family together, haha.

My cousin Katie Moser was able to come to Boise to play tennis in the state tournament! She is only a Freshman in High School too so that was really exciting! It was fun to be able to see her. We went and got lunch and just chatted while we ran errands. I love her, she is so cute.



After being home for just a few days I was able to take a road trip down to Arizona for one of my good study abroad friend's wedding! It was at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix and was absolutely beautiful. I drove to Provo then picked up some girlfriends and the four of us drove down to Phoenix from there. Two of them are engaged so all we did the whole time was talk about weddings! It was like an overdose on wedding business, haha. Talking about weddings for 10 hours in the car and then going to two receptions! But it was way fun. You can't blame them for wanting to talk about their plans so much since we were on our way to a wedding.







Well, that is pretty much the update on me for the last few weeks! I'll try to be better about keeping in touch!