Will Be Better at Posting I Swear!

Hey sorry for the lack of updates everyone! Life has been crazy lately lol. I have been super busy, but I will try to highlight the important events. Its funny actually having things to write about makes it so you can't find time to write.

Festival of India!

A couple of Saturday's ago...(I know I apologize for the lack of updates, the "private blog" life is dull...) I went to the Festival of India at the Sri Sri Krishna Temple. Can I just say amazing? My friends and I got there when it started at four. At first I was a little skeptical when it we were pretty much the only people there and it was blazing hot! But as five thirty rolled around things picked up. To start the day off I got a henna tattoo of lotus blossoms done on my hand, I thought it was pretty sweet, lol. The girl who did my henna was really interesting too!

After waiting in the ridiculously long line to receive my dose of henna, I walked over and watched a band playing traditional Hindu music. The melody though foreign and strange to my western ears were still beautiful. The early performances were divided between Indian dancers and musicians, sometimes they combined. One dancer was incredible! She preforms all over the world. One of the head honchos of the temple said how lucky we were to have her here, and how they try to recrute her as often as possible. After watching the performances for awhile I journeyed inside the temple to look.

Sorry I have to start a new paragraph for this part, the man I met on the top floor was so cool he deserves his own paragraph! Anyway, when I walked up the stairs I discovered a peculiar room with a man (the guru) sitting...lets see I will try to describe this....people sitting formed an angled fan shape around him and it was like he was sitting where the handle would be...? Lol, I know, I know crappy visual but its the best I could come up with at the moment. Anyway the room was designed to make everyone sitting feel included. The guru sat lotus style and read ancient Hindu text and answered questions people had. After that we all started dancing, and the guru who mind you looked very old, small, and frail had a wide grin on his face and was jumping higher than any of us combined!!! He yelled: "Come one dance!" "Dance!" as he thrust up his arms and beckoned to us! I couldn't believe it, I was inlove...(not in a romantic way mind you) with this man by the end of the night. I was blessed to meet with him later that night when things inside had settled down and people were flooding outside for the Ramayana pageant and have a good discussion with him. You could tell that he honestly believed in what he was doing. He sacrificed everything to come to the temple and help bring enlightenment to people. I am not of Hindu faith, but I can respect that. He was such a cheerful happy man. When I go back for the Festival of Color I hope to meet with him again.

Even though we were late exiting to get seating for the pageant, my friends and I were able to weasel our way up to a really good spot. I'll give Adam credit for that lol. Before the performance began there were several dance performances! It was beautiful. Then the pageant. Well...aside from the small town feel, was really good. And at the end Ram shot his arrow (a firework!) at the 10ft wood statue of Ravana which then lit on fire and literally exploded with fireworks! A new feature this year! I hope they can keep the tradition up.

I love learning about cultures and religions. I would recommend this festival to anyone, but don't show up till about six. We were two hours too early, lol. After that it was fantastic!

(Here is the Guru!)
(Here he is again!)

(Oh! I forgot to mention this, after the pagant they had a Hindi rock band perform! Pretty much was a blast!)
(The lady above is the one that has preformed everywhere.)

(Big Statue they burned!)
(Pageant)
(Main performers! Woo-hoo!)

Thank You For the Music

Have you ever had a song play that fits your mood so well that it almost seems eerie? This happened to me today, I put my ipod on shuffle and Bob Dylan's song "My Back Pages" began to play. Lipping the words while I finished something in the kitchen, I felt my heart relate with each rattled word he sang out.

Happy Birthday Lincoln!

----------------

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Lincoln!

Woo- Hoo new blogger friend!

My Friend Corinne just started a blog too, so be sure and check it out. And of course her picture is a thousand times cuter than mine...I really am NOT photogenic.

Here is her blog link:
http://love-forever-and-always.blogspot.com/

Its List Time!!!

Hello, I've noticed it's been awhile since I have posted a good list. If you have noticed I have been more in the mood to post pictures than actual writing posts. However, with many English papers due this term I have much need of the practice. (For those of you who have read my entries I am sure you understand, lol.) Still not quite in the writing mode, I thought a list would be a perfect solution for getting me back in the swing of things. So here, in no particular order, are a few things I am feeling grateful for today.

1. Nature - There are many in this world who receive their energy from being around people, and people orientated things. Though I love a good party, and I do love to be around people, I am not one of those people. I am one who obtains my energy from nature. No matter where I am in the future, New York City, San Francisco...etc, I will always return to nature. To my waterfalls, my mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, lakes, oceans. Any place where trees and plants are not strategically placed.

2. Febreze - A huge 180 degree turn from nature I know. But it keeps my clothes, furniture, room, everything smelling fresh and clean. Lately I have been favoring the scent "meadows and rain."

3. The color blue - I love the color blue, all shades of it. I love the way the sky stretches it over the earth like a briliant Yves klein painting. The way it ripples through water. How it can radiate a strong calming feeling, or in other tints and shades, can give off either a light bubbly feeling, or deep empathetic feeling.

4. The ability to smile - Nothing (except when a smile is practiced over a long period of time) seems so relieving to me as a smile. Like tears it is a reaction to an emotion that really only human beings emit. I love the ability to smile, and I hope no matter how hard life gets I never lose that ability or the ability to make others smile.

Sam's Bridal Shower Part II

The event of the afternoon was when all of the girls had to divvy up into teams and make wedding dresses out of toilet paper! No scissors, ribbons, staples, tape...nothing, just good old fashioned white toilet paper. My team rocked! Our dress was sweet! Some how I got stuck as the model...but I did help with the dress as well! With Doreen on toilet paper flowers, and Shelby and Crystal as the tailors our team got first prize! Ha ha, we all decided that our wedding dresses were going to be made out of TP in the future, we can use it for a napkin if we run out, its cheap, and you don't have to worry about getting it dirty its perfect! lol.

(Dream dress in the making, ha ha)

Sam's Bridal Shower Part I

Today was my friend Sam's bridal shower!

Bored, late, left alone with the camera.....Never a good combo....

Yes I know I am a nerd, I emphasize the bored factor to justify my actions....I will probably delete this post tomorrow when I have returned to my senses.
(.... To think I gave up hanging out with my friends tonight to go wedding shopping for my cousin Devin...which took all of 2 seconds:(....Usually these things take longer with me... I can be quite picky.)

Late as usual:(

Happy Birthday Lacy!!!!! I am so sad that I wasn't there for your birthday:( Thank you for always being there when I needed you. I love you lots!!! Utah isn't the same without you. I miss having my Martha Stuart carnate close by. I was glad that you whipped up your batch of late night chocolate cookies while you were here!

I Love, Love, Love Labor Day!!!!! Happy Birthday Tyler!

Oh Labor Day weekend, I do love you! This weekend was a blast! Almost all of my family was able to come up this year. The Graces (I mean my dad's side of the family, Donahues, Woolstenhulmes...etc) have had a long standing tradition that every year on Labor Day we go to my grandparents house to celebrate both Onion Days and Labor Day. But we celebrate it earlier than Monday. This Year we got started on Friday during the day we hung out and swam in my cousin's pool and at night we played games and made vanilla coated popcorn with blue food coloring (we wanted to jazz things up a bit and watched the Burbs (one of my family's most cherished films), after that we went to Denny's at 1 a.m. (it was more crowded then than I have ever seen it in the day.) Heather randomly whipped out a deck of "skipbo" for us to play while we waited to be served, and Kevin and Clayton tried to shoot the salt shaker across the table gap with out spilling it. Denny's was sweet, but I made the mistake of eating the "grand slam" never a good idea that late...Uh.....

Saturday, despite the fact that I had a MAJOR Denny's hang over was spectacular! ( I am getting bored of saying "things were a blast") My mom and I went up to Sundance, then to Swiss Days. Then in the evening my entire family had a barbecue up at my Uncle's property in the canyon (otherwise known as the "crack shack" in my family, the land is really pretty, but the cabin totally looks like it was owned by druggies). We played games, roasted marshmallows, etc, etc.

Sadly...well sadly to an extent I was at a Dylan concert! But because of the concert I missed out on the Sunday Festivities. It sounded like they had a blast, I know they Hiked the Y.

Then finally on Monday we celebrated Onion Days, Labor Day, and Tyler's birthday! We woke up early to go to the parade as usual. (Our family's spot is right across from the Payson Bible Church and every year they try new ways to convert us, this year it was free coffee and donuts on Sunday, and very craftsy handouts.) Sadly, we were rained out of our parade and normal outdoor activities (No ping pong match this year:( ) So we ate inside and watched Dumb and Dumber, when we were through eating we celebrated Ty's b-day. After that the weather pulled a complete 180 and we were able to go the the Carnival. There Ben and I tried to find matching bracelets (You know the cool woven kind that you can only find at festivals?) but didn't have any luck, the booths weren't that good this year, I am guessing alot left because of the rain. When we left Payson we went back over to my aunts house, and just hung out. Lacy and Heather made their midnight chocolate chip cookies. And that is about my weekend in a nutshell. I can't wait for next year!

( I love how Lincoln claps!!!! Haha)