I designed and made these centerpieces for the luncheon. Gotta admit it, I love them!

This is Jeff's personality captured on film- makes me laugh so much :)

"We love our chothers" even if Chris and I look like we hate each other lol

I made this super cool rose ball for the reception too

Kim and I sang Unchained Melody at the reception

Even Santa comes to our parties :)

Two days after the reception, we all packed up and flew to Hawaii for Christmas! Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Here's the story:
We were just sitting out by the hot tub, and Ryan randomly thought of the “Ohana Walk of Doom.” The pool and hot tub at the house we stayed at are separated by a tiled wall, which a thin sheet of water flows over, and the Ohana Walk of Doom consists of crossing the water covered tile while supporting one’s self on one’s hands. That turned out to be pretty easy, so Ryan altered the idea a bit. The new idea was for each brother to approach from either side until they met in the middle and then one had to cross over the other so they could both continue to the other side. This presented a much greater challenge, and when Ryan tried to cross over Chris he quickly fell down into the cold pool. They tried it the other way and both fell down so their legs were dangling in the water and they were hanging on by their fingertips, laughing all the while and trying to pull themselves back up. Finally they figured out they had to help each other, so they attempted pushing each other up while Ryan repeatedly shouted, “Ohana means family! Ohana means family!” Classic Rush brothers antics.

The Christmas tree my dad ordered didn't arrive in time for the holiday, so we made our own!

Nearly all of our family are certified scuba divers, so we scheduled two dives during the trip. Unfortunately, I missed the first one because I was busy puking up my guts (the illness slowly worked its way through the rest of the family too), but I got to do the night dive with manta rays.

All in all, the trip was a success despite illness and less-than-perfect weather. I loved being able to hang out with my siblings because for the first time in my life, I'm old enough to really be friends with my brothers and sisters, and I love it :)

I bought an adorable tea set at Cracker Barrel and we couldn't help but try it out. We decided to go all out and wear our favorite fancy dresses from high school. Val's dresses are in Washington, so I just made her wear a tiara and called it good :)

Pinkies out!

For our friend Heather's birthday, Val and I threw a spur-of-the-moment surprise party complete with party hats and balloons.

We could only find Dora the Explorer party hats, so we just went with it. We decided when you wear your party hat like this, you are a "Dora-corn." This rare breed of unicorn is "a-Dora-ble"... or do I mean "a-Dork-able"?

When the party started winding down, we discovered an interesting fact about my roommate Shantae: when coming down from the high of party time, Shantae goes a little weird. Specifically, she starts doing impressions of various guests and party objects. She was a paper plate, a candle, and a balloon, among other things. Of course, we could never guess what she was impersonating unless she gave us a hint. This picture came with the hint, "I'm dripping with frosting!" Can you guess what she was?

Yup, she was the cake.

Don't ask- I didn't.

Val and I invented Balloon Boxing (i.e. hold the bottom of a balloon in your mouth and bop your opponent by shaking your head)

USU has a somewhat odd rite of passage, namely that of the True Aggie tradition. To become a True Aggie, one must stand on the Block A statue, pictured below, under a full moon at midnight and kiss someone who is already a True Aggie, or, on special days like Homecoming and A-day, two Non-True Aggies can kiss and recieve the title. You haven't seen anything until you've seen eight zillion hopeful college students waiting in a line that stretches around Old Main twice, just so they can kiss someone, probably a stranger, and become part of USU's history. We went on January 23rd's full moon, purely as spectators- or so I thought. My friend Val volunteered her lips at the last second; the photo below captures her excitement at being a part of the True Aggie legacy.

I was also able to go to the Rexburg temple open house with Val and her grandparents.

February

February was when I sang the national anthem, and I have edited the previous post so it has the whole story as well as the video. Scroll on down if you want to read it.

Shantae and I had our first teeth-brushing party, which isn't to say we hadn't brushed our teeth for months, we just didn't make a party out of it before.

We had a big sleepover movie night in the lounge on our floor in February too. We pulled in my TV and Lovesac and rearranged the couches and chairs so we had adequate sleeping space. I put this awesome sign on the door to let everyone else know what they were missing.

My friend Matt had the brilliant idea to cover the lights, which are on a timer and can't be turned off, with paper so movie night would be properly lit. However, the tape wasn't super sticky, so the papers fell off after a couple hours, startling all of us movie watchers. This is me being scared, and below is Matt and Shantae fixing the papers.

And this is Matt the morning after (no one got much sleep, as you can see)

March

March's main event was, of course, Lani Rush's Fourth Annual Green Party!

This is Matt impersonating Venus de Milo

This year's party was a smashing success! Still, I'm very glad I have another year to recuperate before the next one :)

April

Our last month at college began with dinnar at the Indian Oven for my friend Lauren's birthday.

One of my favorite bands, MXPX, came to Logan, of all places. A bunch of us went to the show, but only Lauren and I got to meet the band afterward. Here I am with Mike Hererra :)

Where do I even begin explaining this next series of pictures. Well, I suppose it started with Matt. My dear Matthew is known to randomly burst out with a ridiculous or nonsensical plans, and this was one of them. Go to DI, find an ugly armchair or a couch or something, and then cart it and a camera all around Logan. Our orange armchair and octogonal end table have been on many adventures, and here's the proof.

"Behold, thou hast a gift, or thou shalt have a gift if ye desire of me in
faith."

Eat your heart out Francis Scott Key.

For those of you who haven't seen it, this is my house in Logan. It's cutsie and homie and everyone who comes in comments on how it feels like a home cuz of the decorations, which I take great pleasure in.

My bedroom...

My kitchen...

My living room...

We have recently become addicted to a show called Pushing Daisies, the main character of which is a pie maker. Being the brilliant lover of pastries that I am, I made the fairly obvious suggestion that we have pie while we watch our weekly show. My roommate and I carefully selected the Dutch apple pie Tuesday night and eagerly awaited seven o'clock on Wednesday when we would watch the Pie Maker and be the Pie Eaters. No one was more excited than Matt though; in the hour that the pie was baking, he repeatedly asked, "Is it pie time yet?" When the timer finally went off, I told him he could get the pie out of the oven. He scampered off to the kitchen, quickly followed by the clatter of pie being dumped all over my oven. He had burned his hand through the damp cheesecloth he was using as a hot pad (honestly, and this kid got a 32 on the ACT) and his natural reaction was to drop the cookie sheet, which then allowed the gooey pie to splatter all over the door and hinges of the oven.

My roommate and I spent half an hour scooping hot blobs of pie into the trash and scrubbing at the caramelized filling in the cracks and crevices of the door hinge. To his credit, Matt wanted to help, but since the oven was still warm and he was already injured I wouldn't let him. He felt awful and refused to go home until it was clean even though he couldn't help. When I opened the drawer beneath the oven, saw that the pots and pans in it were drizzled with pie juices, and realized we would have to wash them all, I sent him home to nurse his wounds. When we went to see him an hour or so later, he was already showing off his blisters and reenacting the event. He plays his role as a pity monger very well.