Once Upon Another Time

Last week was finals week.
Enough said.
Also, I had to pack up everything I own...
Moving is the worst.
I was stressed to say the least.
I was on Facebook doing what I do best, procrastinating (and stalking ;), and I came across a song a friend posted on her wall.
It was a song by Sara Bareilles that I was surprised I had never heard of!
I love Sara, and thought I was a good enough fan to have heard all of her music.
Apparently not, haha.
Anyway.
She is incredibly talented and passion seeps through her music.
So I pressed play... and I couldn't believe my ears.
Music has always touched my soul more than a lot of things can.
But there have only been a few instances where I felt that a song literally changed my life.
This was one of those moments.
I was stressed and crying because of finals, moving, and trying to just figure out what to do next with my life.
When I heard this song in that moment in my life where I felt everything was going wrong, everything seemed so right somehow, and I though of this quote instantly.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
-Dan Auerbach
That quote can't be more true for me.
Music has always done that... Made me momentarily forget all of my problems.
From a very young age music has always been a comfort, a friend.
It is such a wonderful thing, and I wouldn't be who I am without it.
So listen to this song and let it inspire you!
You can hear so much passion, depth, and soul in this song.
I love it and just had to share!
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
:)



C.

General Conference Weekend!

Last weekend I went to Salt Lake City with some old roommates Casey & Anna, along with Anna's fiancé. 

It was such a beautiful day to drive down!!!

Despite Idaho's ugliness in the dead of winter, it really is quite lovely in the Spring!

Casey's cousins were able to get us tickets to the Saturday afternoon session of Conference!

Temple Square is one of my favorite places in the whole world.

It's just absolutely breathtaking!

I'm a sucker for cherry blossom trees...

It was a wonderful experience to be able to be in the Conference center!

It was all of our first times to go to a session.

You could feel the Spirit so strongly.

It was also very cool that I got to go to that session because my home town Houston was represented quite well. :)

Stanley Ellis, one of the 70's who spoke has known me since I was born.

His youngest daughter and I grew up together, and my oldest sister married one of his sons!

They are like a second family to me.

Also, Bonnie Oscarson was called to be the new Young Women's President, and her daughter is one of my oldest sisters best friends.

Whitney Clayton spoke as well, but I don't think he spoke that session.

But when my dad was a mission president in Mexico, Elder Clayton and his wife visited and stayed with us while going around speaking at zone conferences in the mission.

It made me totally homesick for Mexico!

Him and his wife are amazing people, and I'm so grateful I got to meet them!

(Anna, Me & Casey)

(Vinny, Anna, Me & Casey)

I love going to Salt Lake because I get to stay with my grandparents Cy & Neva! :)

I love them dearly!

I'm so grateful that they are always so willing to let me stay with them while I'm in Utah!

I love spending time with them, because I didn't always get to growing up since we lived in Texas.

We only went to Utah once a year, usually during the summer.

So since I've been up in Idaho for school the past two years I've gotten to see them so much more!

It's been such a blessing, and really just so much fun!

I'm really grateful for them and the examples they are to me in my life.

Also, grandpa gave me these awesome old film cameras!!!

I can't wait to test them out...

He told me that if I have more than 6 it's considered a museum... Now I have 8. ;)

C.

Skulls, Bones & Geo Caching

Meet Jenny. She's absolutely darling! We're totally kindred spirits.
(Check out her awesome lifestyle blog! She's adorable!)
So once upon a time Jenny and I went on an adventure!

Well, really we just went out to take some photos of each other since we're both photographers and are never in front of the camera.

I needed a self portrait for my photo class, and I needed to take a portrait for my portfolio.

BUT.

It turned into a pretty great adventure.

We drove to this park by a cute little river off the side of the road, grabbed all of our stuff and went off to shoot some photos!

Jenny took some of me first, but then right as it was my turn to photograph her, it starts raining.

What a buzz kill.

So we grab all of our stuff and run back to her car.

Except Jenny left the keys somewhere in the woods, so she ran back to find them.

By the time she got back, it was basically done raining, so we decided to stay and take some more pictures!

And thank goodness we did.

Because this is when it started to turn into an adventure. 

:)
So we were wandering around this cool little park taking some polaroids, some on my other film and of course digital.
As we were roaming out to this little swamp land Jenny had found looking for her keys, we discovered animal bones!
Kinda creepy, but totally cool to see up close!

And naturally I took some fun polaroids of them!
After examining the bones for a while we journeyed off to the swamp land.
As we were passing these rocks and logs, I all of a sudden hear Jenny yell from behind:
"GEO-CACHE!!!!!!"
I kind of knew what that was... Okay let's be honest I didn't.
I had heard of it before but when whoever told me told me I wasn't paying attention.
So I still don't know what it is completely, but I DO know it's just stuff hidden in a box all over a bunch of different places for people to find?
Okay, that explanation was horrid.
Just go look it up if you don't know what it is.
It's pretty cool.
Anyway, so she found it hidden in between these rocks and logs!
Good eye, Jen.

Jenny was pretty stoked about it too.
So when you find the geo-cache, you are supposed to take an item from the box, and give one.
And also sign your name on a little notebook in there and what you gave.
So, we didn't really have anything we could give away...
But I'm pretty sure we ended up putting the coolest thing in there.
Naturally, a polaroid of Jenny holding the geo-cache box. ;)
Jenny is so good at geo-caching.
She's geo-caching when she's NOT geo-caching.

It really ended up being one of my favorite days of last semester!
It was fabulous.
Here are some other fun pictures from the day!
Idaho skies kill me... SO beautiful.

And of course some panoramas!

Thankfully Jenny was there to document my stupidity behind the scenes... 

Here are some of the lovely photos Jenny took of me! :)

 

I'm SO picky about photos of myself.
I hate having them done... So bless Jenny's little heart.
She was probably SO annoyed with me haha!
I love how they turned out!
Go check out this blog post to see more photos I took of Jenny!

C.