Hello from the August Side.

Wow, so neglected doesn't even begin to describe this poor little internet space of mine but here's to improving! Hopefully everyone is having an eventful summer. Mine has been a party to say the least. Lots of exploring around Los Angeles areas and spending too many nights out way too late. Anywho, here are some of my goals and plans for fun and life in August: 

 -go to the temple (Newport Beach or Redlands or maybe San Diego?) 
   *As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am able to enter our temples and       
     worship there and since the Los Angeles temple in closed right now, a mini road trip is in order.
-blog 2x/week
  *writing down your goals helps you be more accountable so fingers crossed this helps me!
-instagram 2x/week
  *I love taking pictures and take a ton every week but am horrible at posting them despite the fact that I'm on instagram 5+
    times a day...#HELP (snapchat is my love RN: lalynnauten)
-exercise 3x/week
  *If you've seen the current state of my body, it really needs to be moving 7 days a week, 3 times a day but baby steps to 
    start.
-study spanish for 15 minutes/day
  *As a missionary for my church, I was blessed to preach in the spanish language. You know what they say: USE IT or 
    LOSE IT. (I'll keep it, thanks.)
-find somewhere to volunteer
  * I love to stay involved in the community so I want to find somewhere local to volunteer at least twice a month.
-list 43 things I like about myself
  *I have this book that had a suggestion of ways to improve ones happiness so I want to try this :)
-color a page once a week
  *I got myself the Lisa Frank adult coloring book and I want to complete one picture a week so I can say I FINALLY
    finished a coloring book!
-visit the Broad Museum in LA.
  *I've been dying to go here since it opened but because of work and the difficult process to get reserve tickets, I haven't
    gone yet but I scored tickets for this month!

Other plans will be going to the beach with my family, seeing Nick Jonas and Demi Levato in concert and going back to Disneyland (finally!) Here's to soaking up the rest of summer!

Free things are my favorite.

In case you haven't picked up a fact of my life, I live to shop (and eat and sleep but that's not the point of emphasis). I love it so much. Thank goodness for my bank account, I've perfected the art of window shopping and trying things on and buying them later when they're on super sale. No shopping day is as hallowed as the starting day of the Nordstrom anniversary sale, aka Black Friday for the wealthy. It's tradition for all the women in my family in the area to gather at an unearthly hour and make our trek to the best Nordstrom in the area and wait for those "golden gates" to open at 8 am. This year, my sister and niece where not able to attend in person and mi madre was driving up to Utah but wouldn't be anywhere near me so I had to go on my own. Normally this isn't a big deal given that the nearest Nordstrom was in Orem, a mere 10 minute drive. Since that one shutdown, I had to drive to the next closest one in Murray adding another 30 minutes to my drive. I debated whether or not to go when my inbox received an email from Nordstrom. It told me that if I printed out the email I would get a mystery gift card with anywhere from $10 to $200 to spend as I'd like. I'm a girl who loves free stuff and decided that if nothing else good came of the sale, I would have $10 to put towards my purchases of the day. Imagine my surprise as I cashed in that glorious email and received this:

Saleslady: "Congrats, you get a $100 gift card!"
Me: "Wait, what?!"
Saleslady: "You have $100 to spend as you please, happy shopping!"


Umm, greatest day of shopping ever! I love when shopping involves me not spending a cent out of my pocket. Who knew Nordstrom would love me so much!

It doesn't seem like much for $100 but I'm a happy little camper. Oh so needed shoes for exercising, rockstar smelling body washes, cutest pink nail polish ever and much needed blush and some samples. Lessons to learn: read yo emails kids. Sometimes there are gems in the 5 billion messages you receive from stores.

CA Loving.

This bear proves that vacations in California are the beary best! (Really does life get any better than sun, swimming, food, family and the BEST shopping ever? I think not!) Recap when I get back to Ewwtah.

Long Weekend Festivites.

Memorial day weekend means summer is just around the corner. Mine was spent whooping it up with family in Wyoming working hard, having loads of laughs and eating a crap ton of food. There was never ending raking and mowing and brush burning but the yard looks 500 times better than it did with the long grass and weeds everywhere. I discovered than raking >weeding(so many bugs live in the dirt...sicknast) Raj and I died laughing at the little boys taking water breaks every 5 minutes and only fishing for 20. I was sad we didn't get to have cute little Ella bug with us but we will see her in a few weeks when we head down to California. Hopefully the next few weeks will fly by!

Just a typical lovely day in the lovely Star Valley.

 Loveliest smokebombs I've ever set off. Who knew fireworks could double as art?

 We won't even get into the horrid state that is my face and outfit but I held that snake and didn't even drop it like some people. Snaps for me.

Monday DP's should be mandatory.

Yesterday was just the kind of Monday that I needed to make my week be even more rockstar than usual. First shout out to the little brosef Dos on his 22nd year of life. I finally got my amazon gift card and ordered some cookbooks I've been lusting over for months. For FHE, we went to this assisted living home for young adults and they had a dance. It was pretty much everything I love about dances combined into one fab event. I saw some other EFY people there and that always leads to a joyous experience...pssht. I love that moment when you are dancing on the dance floor and feel self conscious because you have no friends and then all of a sudden your friends come in out of nowhere and chaos happens! This happened to me and I went from awkward friendless dancing girl to watch out Beyonce, I run the world (err...dance floor? yep.) We whooped it up for 2 hours and I loved seeing people's inhibitions fly out the window while they got down and dirty on the dance floor (Not to dirty though...this be the 801 yo) After dancing, I went to the market for much needed supplies (sour licorice belts and watermelon jelly bellys...what the unhealthy?) and since I was out, Yogurtland sucked me in to buying froyo even though I had Ben and Jerry waiting on me at home #sorryhombres. I had quite the feast while watching Beauty and the Beast and then killed myself doing arms and a squat challenge. I partied like it was my birthday and want to have a dance party every day now because it was tres fun. If only Nikki and Katherine would have been there too, it would have gone to even higher levels of awesomeness. 

These girls wish they went as hard as my girls and I went tonight. I think some people may have judged my dancing/wondering who this other side of Angela is...whatevs #alreadyoverit

Plans for the Weekend.

Today was the birthday of Father Auten and I called him in the early hours to wish his day well. How I love those parents of mine! The activities committee met and had a snowflake making fiesta while listening to some Justin Bieber christmas jams. The best is when the boys decided to change all the lyrics to the songs and it was all kinds of ridiculousness. Last night, I went out with Shellie and crew to deliver gifts for the Angel tree program and it was so fun. I had only wished more people had answered their phones since we only went to one house! We got to see the pictured house in its decked out glory. I'm just loving the season right now! My friday night will be spent going to the temple and then indulging in the 12 days of yumminess at yogurtland. Please have cran rasp tart again. Also on the agenda is an evening of christmas movie watching and craft making with the aid of my dear friend pinterest. Saturday is our ward Christmas breakfast at 9 am! Kill me now for being on the activities committee and having to go early. At least we get to wear our pj's. Even if we weren't supposed to, I would have rocked them anyways. Christmas light looking might be on the agenda too. I love me some christmas lights!

Low Key.

Halloween this year was probably one of the greatest that I've had since moving away from home. It started Thursday when Sister Glozell came into town and I got to meet her and Flavor Flav and Antoine Dodson. Such a fun afternoon! Friday, I made the most delectable caesar salad dressing and wanted to die partied it up all weekend long. Sunday we had the most amazing ward conference this past Sunday even though I was sick and just wanted to stay in bed all day and I finally made pumpkin bagels. Monday/actual Halloween, I got really sick and stayed in bed until I hung out with mis padres when they came into town for an hour. Even though I had about 5 party invitations, I wanted nothing more than to sit at home and carve my pumpkins while having a movie marathon...lame? Kind of but it rocked. Relaxing on the couch all night is great! I don't think November could have started any better than attending a devotional with my roommate that our dear President Monson spoke at. It's going to be a great month (despite the snow on the way to devo...talk about freezing!) I can feel it!

Can we talk about how cute the spooky face one is? I wanted to die over the crooked smile.
Pumpkins + lights + The Goonies + pjs + blankets + treats = best halloween setup ever!
Toasted seeds and candy pumpkins and the halloween cups.

Rainy Nights.

Even though I don't love the cold, I love that nights are chilly enough to throw on a sweater and make a cup of hot cocoa and have it in bed with the window open...heavenly! I wish I had a beignet or ten to eat to but I don't plan on becoming house size anytime soon.

Fall Wardrobe Staples.

Hello stripes and plaids. Please cool down soon so I can finally wear you all day errday...kthanksbye. My life be like the bomb. Teacherlyness is the bestest. So we finally got our hot water turned on today and I don't think I've been more grateful for anything in my life. #coldshowersareforcrazies. Can we also mention that one box of my jewelry got lost/accidently donated to DI during the move and I want to cry a little. Goodbye juicy couture earrings that I've worn for half of my life and also most of the rest of my hoop earrings...gross. If you see me and I look totally under accessorized, you now know why and can't judge mkay? Can't it just be Friday already and time for the ward tailgate party? My bishop owns the Harley Davidson dealership around here and he's bringing the Marley's trailer and I thought I was going to cry when that was announced during church on Sunday. #Idieovertheirsliders. I'm so excited to have a steamy hot shower tonight with super hot water. Seriously so grateful for hot water!

FML or LOL?

Still unsure of whether to laugh or cry...help please?

Dos Mas.

I have been the worst at writing this summer. I barely have a life outside of EFY but the countdown is on. 2 more weeks until I can have a life again. Well I guess after a magical trip to the happiest place on earth.

Crazy Good Times.

I'm still alive. Just having the craziest greatest time at EFY doing my BC thang. If I don't reply to your calls or texts, I still love you but I have next to no time to respond.

Think Happy Thoughts.

Being happy is the best. When you're happier, you can spread the cheer onto someone else. Since this is my last free week (for a few weeks) this is how I will get my happy on:

1. Reading books

2. Cooking/baking

3. Sleeping in/ taking nap

4. Watching cartoons on youtube

5. Hanging out with my amigs

Food Can Complete Me.

These were some of my most favorite childhood snacks. The days that the madre put Dunkaroos in my school lunch was always a happy day.

I'm pretty sure I almost cried when I discovered my favorite flavored Fuze at the market. I hate all the other flavors and I've only seen this one in South Dakota and I may have busted out a happy dance and loaded my cart full of this sweet nectar of life.

Today was spent schooling and shopping with Vish and eating at smahburger...heaven in a burger! After that I already had a food baby but yogurtland was next dooor so a quick stop to check it out ended with a cup full of divine froyo. Earthfruits is lucky their plain tart is a little bit tarter and they have my popping boba strawberry or else I would have had to end out froyo relationship for the next best thing. I see lots of future dates with all of the mentioned food places and especially my delicious orange mango fuze. I will be sad when Rik, Michelle, Kalel and Vish all move away in 2 weeks. I will miss gathering at their apartment and having birthday parties and talking about old times and cooking together. I love that we tell fat jokes and searching for highly sought after movies at redbox. Tonight Rik almost died when he was let down by a redbox search for Tangled when I said that I had it. He almost cried and was speechless and Mustafa was like "Why have I never gotten a reaction like that in all our years of friendship?"...love them all!

Me Gusto Voleibol.

So last Friday night, I had one of the greatest evenings in the history of my life. Linds and I were going to the men's volleyball game and we were going to have Brian and Musu come too. I told Musu who of course made some dumb excuse so he probably could sit home and eat Panda and play games online...so lame. I was supposed to text/call Brian but I totally forgot and then it made sense why he didn't show up. Sometimes I'm just brilliant and totally absent minded. Anywho, we started blowing up Brian's phone with our calls and texts (I'm pretty sure a "holy F" was said in my angst) and we decided that if he didn't respond to us or show up by 8 pm, we so weren't going to respond to him until the next day. Good thing he decided to respond and show up by 7:40 (he even ran to the Smith fieldhouse...bless his little soul!) And now presenting parts of the fab evening with photographic evidence:

Linds, Ang, Brian...love, love, love us. Not so much love for the man who decided to photobomb the pic.
Linds and I waiting for Brian to respond to us and making all the people behind us jeals that they weren't taking 5 billion pics too.
Linds wanted a kissing face picture so naturally this happened. Pure joy captured on film.
Brian said that he would only do a kissy face if he caught me doing it out of the peripheral of his vision. Good thing he caught that.
Linds and Brian.

The rest of the evening entailed fighting over who wasn't going to drive (Linds flat out said NO and Brian claimed that he has lost the gift since the mish...seriously, I died) attempts to call Musu (who still didn't answer his phone) attempts to eat at Jason's deli, eating at the always delicious 5 guys, talking about dating with Brian, singing in the car, and Linds forcing Brian and I to hold hands (I think he still may be traumatized by this...whoops). All in all, such a great night with the greatest friends! Repeat soon? Sign me up baby!

And it was Love, Love, Love.

Despite being severely single, I love love. Valentine or not, I love this day. Since most of my loves aren't in Utah, I decided to have a "me" day. I went shopping and ate with me and had the best time delivering treats to people. The highlights would have to be finding a pair of jeans I'm pretty sure the fashion Gods made for my body (easier said than done), having my nephews talk my ears of by reliving our Christmas break in Wyoming, trying sushi for the first time, and taking one of my guy friends to get flowers between his dates. I love this day and I love y'all!

Just the Kind of Night.

Where I stay in, make dinner and dessert from scratch and eat it in bed while watching a movie. Loving life right now despite the craziness.

Best Mistake Ever!

Remember how I got a free Starbucks drink for my birthday? Remember how they sent me another card this week? I feel like I won the Starbucks lottery and I didn't even put out money for a ticket. Caramel Apple Spice, let's do breakfast tomorrow at your place mkay? Loving life right now. Remember how I also got a free movie ticket and I have a hot date with the J. Biebs movie Friday morning? Don't be too jeals akay?