A fox of Halloween past

The closer I get to graduation, the more I have started thinking about the choices I've made in college that have been life changing. Moving out last January to live with these girls was one of those. I don't live with them any longer, but they are still some of my best friends. So last Friday, when many of my friends had a party at my family ranch, it went down as my favorite Halloween in a long time. There was also the surprise of about 30-40 more people there than expected. The night consisted of a giant pot of taco soup, Daylyn repainting her missing tooth about five times, one weird weird game of Dare, a man dressed as a tooth fairy, two attempts by my cousins of cutting the power out, one VERY broken leg, a game of murder in the dark that didn't work very well (60 people is way too many), and the telling of not-very-scary scary stories.

Ope, I just threw this picture of our cute Jack-o-lantern cheese sandwiches I made with the cute Lake babies because... aren't they cute?

Then I got punched in the face... and other fun events

It's faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllll.

One of the best times of the year! Definitely in my top four favorite seasons. Actually one of my top three, because winter can easily be booted down to #4.

This was a perfect weekend. One of those kind you never want to end. Homework was light, I only had to work a minimal amount and the weather was incredible! So on Saturday Amber, my cute roommate, and I went to Jackson Hole. Just the two of us. Packed a little lunch, and went on this beautiful little pathway that winds through the Jackson neighborhoods. A romantic little date together.

Friday slammed into me with a, "Get me outdoors! Right now!" mentality. So Luke took me and his roommates fishing. This resulted in no caught fish, but in accidentally loosing the top half of Luke's fishing pole in the river, which could only be retrieved by him later stripping down and taking a very, very cold little naked swim. Meanwhile, I enjoyed warming up the car far away from the river.  Henry's fork was beautiful, and was just right for helping my outdoor craving.

And as a final highlight of the weekend: I can now cross off the bucket list item of being full on punched in the face! I'm not sure why this has been on that list. But it sat close to the bucket list item of slapping someone across the face. (Most of my other items are much less violently inclined.) 

We were playing water basketball and it got pretty aggressive. 

Examples: at one point I heard this kind of ripping sound and felt something underneath my fingernails. Then I realized with horror that it was this boy's skin and I had ripped two long claw marks down his back! Fortunately, he thought the gouge marks were really cool for some reason...

He later accidentally got his revenge by winding up to stop the ball, but instead of making contact with the ball, his fist found my eyeball socket. There was a loud bam! of bone hitting bone that exploded in my head. It was a teeth rattling hit. As in my teeth actually rattled. It was strange. And to be honest, I'm very surprised/a bit disappointed that no black eye appeared. This below is all I have to show for it. Three cheers for friendly aggression!

Salt Lake has found favor with me again

Last year I went through this weird phase where I was mad at Utah. The whole state. There were, I guess, reasons to go along with this, but they don't much matter or make sense. All that matters now, is that Utah and I have made up, and my love of Salt Lake has returned.

"A postcard from Kara!"

I love Salt Lake. It is full of some of my most favorite people. This past weekend I spent a weekend there and I couldn't stop thinking how happy it makes me to be around the 248 crew and my other Utah friends.

To be fair though, I think if I had eaten the delicious foods that I ate here in, say, North Dakota, I would have even been in love with life there. And that's saying a lot, because North Dakota is about #50 on my "States I would be willing to live in" list.

"I want a picture like Charlie's!"

Let's build a fire in a cabin

The plan was to hike Table Rock, but when I woke up at 5 in the stinkin morning to leave for it, there was a lot of water falling from the sky, so the hike was called off. 

So we spent the weekend (or Saturday) at a warming cabin in lovely Targhee Forest, roasting hot dogs on the stove, throwing pine cones at each other, destroying one MASSIVE fungus (think soccer ball size, full of something that looked a lot like yellow curry), and watching Jeremiah Johnson on a laptop. That is one strange movie. SPOILER ALERT: It has no plot.

A Saturday morning in Germany

I've been here with this lovely family for a week now. It's felt like six months, but in a good way. 

Saturday's have always been one of, if not the, favorite days. And today's Saturday was one of my best here so far, even though it wasn't spent site seeing.

It started slow- with everyone sleeping in and then making American pancakes, followed by a bike ride in our cute little town.

And it wouldn't be a true summer Saturday without yardwork. So, despite the rain, that is what we did for most of the day. When you live in a place this green, apparently rain is just a part of life that you deal with daily. 

It was one of those wonderful summer days that has just enough fall in it to make you want to get everything you can into the remaining days of summer, but also remind of the nostalgic feelings that always seem to accompany autumn for me.  For some reason, days like this always make me want to clean?

And days like this also need to end with a trip to the park, because Saturdays are also a day to remind me that even though I feel really inadequate watching children, and even though I can't communicate verbally at all with them, and even though this experience has reminded me of about 50 other weaknesses I have, children are forgiving, and Saturday's are for being patient with myself.

By the way, slugs here =huge.

Today I feel full

Today was one of the amazingly beautiful fall days that creep into Rexburg Novembers only occasionally. It was warm, smelled incredible and everyone just seemed happy. I was walking to my car and I felt so full of happiness and gratitude. Rexburg is an amazing place to me. It represents almost every phase of my life. I thought about those phases as I was walking. 

Campus = College life, craziness, friends, stress, journalism, finding myself, learning to love people, breakups, excitement of dating, tests, pranks

My neighborhood = being a kid, walking home from elementary school crunching on the leaves, neighbors that have come and gone and the few that have thankfully stayed, night games, caroling, shoveling snow 

Main street = Junior high, which mostly reminds me of moody days spent in my bedroom or eating lunch in the bathroom but then followed by a happy year of learning to talk to people and make friends.

My room = the sad lonely nights of just needing to stay in and cry as well as the happy funny times of sitting on my bed with sisters and cousins and friends and laughing so hard that I cried but for such different reasons.

Smith Park = Which represents all phases of my life. Every phase has had a good experience here. 

These past two months, although sometimes very lonely, have also been some of my most fulfilling. For the first time really ever since I was 17 I am totally single. There is no one on the back burner to potentially date, no one I am interested in, no one that could come back from a previous relationship to attempt dating again, and I am completely at peace with it. It has been this amazing time to completely focus on the girls in my ward and to be their friend and to help them feel how amazing they are. I have never had time like this to just love people. Today as I walked home, I was overwhelmingly happy for this time that I've had. It is so nice to be there for others. It is also so nice to come home everyday to parents that taught me that that is where real happiness comes from.