i lead a simple life

i interrupt our normally scheduled programming to tell you about one of those beloved simple pleasures that sometimes take you by such enormous surprise that you just can't help but inform everyone.

i've been meaning to wash my car for seriously weeks. things that have preventing me from completing this task: 1) utah springs are unpredictable--it could be totally sunny and then raining five minutes later; 2) murphy's law is a very really thing; and 3) i'm lazy. but today, the stars aligned and i headed to the carwash. i decided to go to the self-wash to really get all that grime off. best decision ever! i literally giggled with glee when i was wielding the power washer.

in short, it was awesome. if you had told my ten year old self that i would one day love washing the car, i would have laughed in your face and then quickly gone back to my baby-sitters club super special.

but i guess this is another sign that i'm growing up. what's next--i'll want to start weeding the yard regularly?

thoughts on tuesday

--i just finished alma in the book of mormon challenge--i'm on track to finish at the end of the month, and it has been pretty awesome. one thing i've learned is that it isn't impossible to be spending a good amount of time in the scriptures every day. i think eventually i won't have this much down time, but setting aside time will be doable.

--i'm obsessed with
 this song:

this video:

and this album:

--when you move, you care a lot less about the stuff you've been carrying around for years. things that had significance at some point, or especially the stuff that had little to no significance, seems fit for nothing but the dumpster or, for the lucky ones, the d.i. box. but even after getting rid of bags and bags of my stuff, i still had so much to move.

as for moving itself, it wasn't as emotional as i thought it would be. if i start thinking about it too much i tear up, but i've been okay. probably when i don't go back to provo in a few weeks or when i move to a completely new place in salt lake it will really begin to sink in. but, i did try to celebrate provo life by going to some of my favorite haunts, which were mainly restaurants. you know how it is. my last meal as a provo resident? brick oven. my mom thought all of these "last meals" were pretty silly, since there's a 100% possibility that i'll go to all of them again, probably in the next few weeks even. but it won't really be the same.

i don't live in provo anymore.

--i've been doing some creative workouts the past couple days, including some treadmill time, some ab work, and, my personal favorite, the exercise ball aka fitness orb.

here's to getting toned!

--i meant to write a bunch of great flashback type posts about study abroad, taking things from my journal, especially that day that i was stranded in the dublin airport, which was also, obviously, pre-blog. but, that didn't happen, at least not in the timeline i planned. so maybe that story will be told sometime.

--also, today's my half birthday. how did it get to be august, the middle of august no less? time marches on.

family life

a couple weeks ago, we played mom to two different families. being a single person living in an apartment complex full of single people, i don't get to be around kids all that often. and while sometimes kids have meltdowns and it isn't easy, being around families of little kids is really fun.

something i noticed with both of these families is how there was a definite and visible focus on the gospel in their homes. they read scriptures, say prayers, have family home evening, make family goals, talk about modesty. i think about parenting a lot, as is probably evident, since i think the challenges facing kids these days are really scary and unique. so it's cool to see how modern families are working to combat these challenges.

it's also interesting to see how different families can be. different things work for different people, and that's fine. you need to do what's best for your family, your situation. 

another observation i made: i want my home to have a nice big common area, with lots of couches and chairs, so the whole family can sit around. for some reason some houses don't really have that? it's weird when the only place you can really sit is in the bedroom. although, probably when i'm a mom i won't have a spare minute for such things as reading. but it would be nice to have a place where we can all be together.

basically, the week of nannying just made me long to be a mother. does that sound weird? yeah kinda. but oh well. holding a baby is the best. bathing kids, playing games with them, eating together, driving around--all of it is pretty great. good thing they can be forever, right?

girl's trip summer 2013: tuacahn

i've been saying for years that i want to go down to st. george and see the shows at tuacahn. we saw south pacific down there one year during girl's camp (girl's camp at a condo with a pool is pretty much the only way to go, by the way), and i loved it. i've wanted to go back ever since, to that amphitheater nestled in a red rock valley.

so, after a week at aspen grove, we decided we needed a vacation from our vacation, hopped in the car, and headed down to st. george, tickets to mary poppins and thoroughly modern millie in hand. i love both of these movies, and i'd been reading the mary poppins books in preparation, so i was pretty psyched.

overall, the trip was pretty laid back, we did what we wanted, hung out by the pool, did a little bit of shopping, and saw the shows. while i love mary poppins, it's not quite as entertaining as a comedy like thoroughly modern millie. both were great, but i think we all enjoyed the second night a little bit more. we lucked out, though, that it wasn't boiling hot--but we were right under the handy-dandy misters for portions of the performances.

then, on wednesday morning, after a filling breakfast at cracker barrel, we made the drive back home, where we slept for two nights before embarking on other adventures (more to come).

i'm so glad we finally made the trek to tuacahn for our girls' trip, especially during the summer when they were playing these two lovely shows. i love you mom and sisters! (and a special shout out to the littles, who so kindly let us stay at their home.) who's in next year for the wizard of oz and joseph?

aspen grove 2013

last week, we had a family reunion at aspen grove, a byu family camp up provo canyon. we went to aspen grove 15 years ago when i was 10, so it was a coming back of sorts. the first day, i realized that i remembered almost nothing from that long ago experience at camp, which meant it was almost like i had never been before, though i think coming back as an adult made the experience a lot different anyway.

i could write a huge long post about every day and what we did and what we ate and the fun we had and the things that maybe weren't so fun and how much i miss everyone and how i didn't expect to. but i'm not really in the mood for that, so how about just the highlights and maybe a few pictures?

things about the solomon family reunion at aspen grove 2013:

this is berg, btw. not me :)

--i pretty much lived in the arts and crafts cabin. i just wanted to paint! i made a bowl and a round box, and i also made my very own wood pen, which took me right back to middle school wood shop, which also meant things kept going wrong. i was always having issues in wood shop.
--the food situation was not looking good after the first couple meals--dry enchiladas for dinner, eggs and toast for breakfast?? no thanks--but things really started to pick up around sunday lunch, and pretty soon i was sold.
--our little cluster of cabins played games every night, and those were some of the most fun times for me.
--aspen follies, one of the few things i do remember from our first outing at aspen grove, were hilarious. 
--i somehow ended up sleeping in our cabin's little loft every night, and let me tell you, those things were not made for a grown person. the actual sleeping was fine, for the most part, but getting in and out, up

and down the ladder caused me a certain amount of dread each day. anything for the experience, right?
--it felt weird to be older than the staff, which is made up mostly of byu students. have i mentioned that sometimes i feel really old?
--i love being around kids, especially when they play games with me or imagine their own fairy worlds or come around and give everyone random hugs.
--even though our cabin quarters were tight and our stuff was everywhere, it was fun to be with the family all week. and it really wasn't that bad to walk down to the communal bathroom everyday. it felt like we were the only ones using it anyway, since we weirdly never saw any of the other families who were supposedly using it, too.
--the aspen grove schedule helped to get me into a better sleep schedule. i was super tired at night, but i also didn't want to miss breakfast, so i was up at 7:30 each morning.
--even though our family reunions are getting further and further apart, i am glad we have them. we celebrate nana and bopy's 75th birthdays this year. i 'm grateful for them! it was so fun to reconnect with everybody again, aunts,
 uncles, cousins, cousin's kids alike. should we start planning for norway 2015?

a full fourth

this year, the holiday was dedicated to spending time with family and generally having a lot of fun. we went to the north salt lake fireworks extravaganza, like always, and they were amazing. a little girl in our ward, and one of mom's best friends, ruby, sat by me during the fireworks show, which made it all even more entertaining :) can we add some kids to our family already or what?

on the morning of the fourth, we crawled out of bed for the annual foxhill ward fourth of july breakfast. the food was plentiful, and we had a beesley family first when five of us, everyone minus dad, performed the star spangled banner. i think this could be the beginning of a wonderful and successful career for the star spangled beesleys.

that night, we headed down to provo for the stadium of fire. how we convinced dad to get us tickets for that, i still don't know, but it was awesome. sure, it was hot, and we were packed into the bleachers like shoes in my suitcase, but we still had fun. at least, i did. as the concert approached, i started to get more and more excited to see kelly clarkson. i don't consider myself to be a huge kelly fan, but i realized, in the days leading up to the show, that i know a lot of her songs, and most of them i actually really like. so her set was pretty great--i knew every song, and she even played this duet, originally sung with jason aldean, that we are obsessed with.

 

 she was so good, singing her heart out. it was altogether great. i would definitely see her again, and even though it took us about an hour to get out of the parking lot (and even though we had talked about ways to avoid all of that...), i would totally go to stadium of fire again, depending on the performer.

and that was my fourth! happy birthday, america!

summer is...

sitting on the balcony. any time of day.

lugging a two-person tube up a million flights of rickety old stairs only to throw yourself down a treacherous slide.

strawberries+cream.

hearing and smelling the sprinklers every night at 12:36am.

walking everywhere.

the smell of sunscreen.

keeping doors and windows open all day and all night.

reading whenever i want to.

barbecues and campouts.

here.

five senses: provo walk

smell: laundry+roses
feel: cooling evening breeze mixed with the last of the afternoon sun, bumpy bark at my back
taste: tepid drinking fountain water
hear: star-spangled banner, kid giggles, sprinklers, remix to ignition, linkin park-esque music played by an old man in an old red chevy truck
see: bounce house at joaquin park, red and pink and orange roses, garden rows, long lost pirate ship, old friends white picket fence and clothesline dryer

it feels like a perfect night to hang out with taylor aka the coolest thing to ever happen to us

when we first heard that taylor was coming to salt lake again, we knew that, as with her two previous tours, we needed to go. we got online at the appointed time...and could not get tickets. it was pretty devastating. the concert sold out in like less than a minute, so it felt like we didn't even have a chance. and we said, well, it will be fine if we don't get to go.

after christmas, nana gave each of us a generous gift and told us to spend it on something meaningful, not just food or clothes or something temporary. cut to one of my greatest ideas: we could put that money toward tickets for the concert, which were on sale for outrageous prices online. so eventually we found three tickets together and we were going.

fast forward five months. for the past few weeks, we've been diligently looking up ways to meet taylor, watching videos, listening to the set list, planning our outfits, making posters, and reading all about her and this tour.

finally, the day came. june 1st. we got to the arena way early, in an attempt to catch the attention of someone who might see how awesome we are and let us go to club red, where you get to meet taylor after the concert.

us in front of one of the probably 30 semis/buses lining the block next to the arena.

nothing happened while we walked around for 2 and a half hours before the doors opened except that we saw other fans, though none who were quite as cute as we were. when we finally got in, we went straight to the t-shirt counter--the biggest mistake we made at the fearless tour concert was not getting a sweet tour shirt, and we will never make that error again. then we went up to our seats, which ended up being even deeper in the nosebleeds than we originally thought. but, we were happy to be there, so we settled in, singing and dancing and waving our posters anyway.

a little before 7, the first opener, joel crouse, started his set. he was pretty good, even though we didn't know any of his music. next was ed sheeran, which i was excited about. for whatever reason, we were the only ones in our section standing up and dancing and just basically looking like we were having fun. after ed played "lego house," we were waiting for the next song, and meredith said, look, there's taylor's mom! i looked, and, yeah, there she was a the bottom of our section inside the portal. (we knew all about mama swift from all of our research--she walks around the venue looking for people to bring down to the floor. so it was a big deal to see her.) i yelled, ANDREA! to get her attention, but at the same moment we realized that there was a woman at the end of our row telling us to grab our stuff and come with her.

it happened just the way we had heard it would--we ran down the stairs and there was taylor swift's mom, asking if we wanted to get a little closer. so we were in shock for the next ten minutes as she gathered a few more devoted fans with stinky seats to take down to the pit.

apparently i didn't get the memo that we were doing cute faces, not excited faces.

i still can't believe this happened. and don't we look like we could be part of the family?

 the whole thing was so surreal. we got our wristbands, took a picture with mama swift, and went backstage to get to the pit. ed sheeran was finishing his set, and we were so close to him--i might have shed my first tears at that point.

the rest of the concert passed by in a blur. we were within arm's reach of taylor herself for much of the concert, which was amazing in its own right. but it was made even better by the fact the we had been chosen out of the audience, out of the nosebleeds, by taylor swift's mom. not a ton of people can say that. and it was all because we were dancing and having fun. and maybe also because of a lot of prayer. and also because of nana.

in the pit

that bright white spot behind us is taylor, and once again i ruined the cuteness of the picture.

yeah, she was that close.

bah, looking at these brings it all back again. it was so amazing! sadly, we didn't get to touch her or meet her, but our experience was the next best thing. some things about the pit, though:

1. we were still pretty much the only ones dancing, and some people didn't even know all the words, which was really weird to me. 
2. being so close, you want to document it. but having the camera or the phone in front of your face kind of takes away from the actual lived experience. so we decided fairly early on that we weren't going to try to document everything. 
3. down in the pit we often had a really great view of her back. and often, if we were looking at taylor upstage, we were missing what was happening downstage with the band and dancers and stage. so we weren't always getting the full effect. but, small price to pay for some of the best seats in the house.
4. we were standing the whole time, and it was blazing hot down there. but that probably would have been pretty much the same whether we were sitting up in the rafters or not.

all in all, even with some drawbacks, the show was incredible and we had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. we were up close and personal with taylor, her band, and her dancers, and we met her mom. it was a perfect night!

loving right now

--laughing so hard with my sisters that i can't breathe
--sunshine, particularly of the seven peaks variety
--movie nights
--glitter glitter everywhere
--quesadillas with homemade guacamole
--"national" "days", like water a flower day or national hamburger day. up next: national rocky road day.
--listening to taylor swift non-stop
--doctor who. can't believe it took me so long to get back into it, and that now i have to wait until series 7 comes on netflix.

summertime. gotta love it.

a memorial day to remember

this post will have little to no pictures, because i am the worst at taking pictures. i am positive i will regret this when i am old and start to lose it. but anyway.

this weekend managed to be both relaxing and action-packed at the same time. we were up in midway, so we were close enough to park city to stop by the outlets, close enough to oakley to have lunch with dad's home-teachees, and close enough to midway town square to partake of the annual memorial day pancake breakfast. and close enough to get home in under an hour.

friday night it was just us girls, which was delightful. we shopped until we dropped, ate pizza, and then watched a chick flick. saturday we met up with the guys to head to oakley, where we had a few rousing ping pong tournaments, ate some delicious food, and enjoyed the scenery. and we watched skyfall that night. sunday we went to church, ate cinnamon rolls, burgers, and deviled eggs, and watched another movie all together. and the kids went down to the tennis courts and hit the ball for awhile, eventually settling on a game of tennis-ping pong when what little actual tennis skill we have pooped out. (and the ping pong version was a lot more fun anyway.) monday we got up early for the breakfast, laid out by the pool, slept, and ate at tarahumara to round out the trip. i've been talking about making sugar cookies for months, so i finally did that, with the assistance of my sisters, while we watched dan in real life. (side note: it's been a few years since i've seen that movie, and i actually really like it. i'm trying to fill in the gaps in my "cherished movies"collection, and this might need to be the next addition. after our early dinner, our two cars went or separate ways.

i love being with my family. i'm glad we still have these times to spend together as an immediate family unit. and it was great to literally unplug and not have the internet to distract me from important things. and being up there makes me really want to live in midway, if only so i that i can have an "assignment" having to do with swiss days. i just really like swiss days, okay? but really, can it be memorial day weekend every weekend?

our lovely california trip

so a couple weeks ago we went down to southern california to see these guys get hitched

but also for a little vacation. it's good to get out of provo sometimes, you know? 

the thursday we drove down was pretty fun in itself. we got to hang out in corona for a little while and eat at miguel's and then hang out with our family.

friday was beach day. this included (but is not limited to) a trip to target, lunch at ruby's diner in huntington, walking a ton up and down the boardwalk, some body surfing, lounging on the sand, and an abandoned bonfire. after the beach we decided to go out on the town--amy knew of a swanky bowling alley, so we got washed up and hit the lanes.

saturday was wedding day. it was a super early day because meredith was doing cassandra's hair, so we left the house at 6:30 and thus began a long day of fun and driving and friends and a dumb sunburn that i somehow avoided at the beach but got at the temple. i haven't been to the los angeles temple in several years, and it was fun to go back, even if the awesome stake center which i love that used to be behind the temple is gone now. moving along, here's the quick version of the other stuff that happened that day: we cheered for eric and cassandra when they came out of the temple, we took some pictures with them and james put his hand on my head the whole time which i'm sure will look ridiculous, we went to westwood for lunch and ended with DELICIOUS ice cream sandwiches from diddy riese--one of the highlights of the day was when i was officially christened sandwich master--, we drove back to santa clarita, got there way too early, and parked at a park for a much needed rest, then headed to the wedding dinner/reception. it was a long, fun, happy day and i'm so glad we got to be there.

sunday was pretty chill. we went to church at the old ward, chatted with old friends, then took a drive down pacific coast highway to visit my birthplace. it's always fun to see hoag :)

that night we were freaking out because...rain was in the forecast for monday, which was disneyland day. and, while i had a contigency plan for rain, it ruined all of my outfit plans. luckily, our prayers were answered and it didn't rain on us too much, so the day was still awesome. that night we also headed back to corona for one last stop at miguel's (and kenny's donuts...and rite aid for ice cream) and i also met up with andie martin, whom i haven't seen in like seven years, so that was sweet.

and then tuesday was head-for-home day. pretty uneventful since we left at 4:00am so i could get home in time for work. but, we got home safe, rental car intact.

thanks to heather and fam for letting us crash! and thanks to everyone else who made the trip really fun. 

thoughts on saturday

first of all, it's 45 degrees right now. whenever i write "degrees," i always want to say "dees-grees," like rick dees, the legendary dj, because i used to listen to "rick dees and the weekly top 40" on kiis fm every saturday when i was growing up. those were the days. but i digress. this time of the year is one of my favorites, when it is just starting to warm up and you don't have to wear a coat but it is still breezy and a little chilly so you aren't sweaty and hot. probably it will get cold again before spring really hits, but i'm going with the sun for now.

last night, i went to smith's for some provisions (read: cpk pizza and trix cereal). the provo smith's on a weekend night is always an adventure. as i was walking out, a girl and a guy were walking in. the girl veered toward me and said, "oh, your hair is so thick. it's so pretty." and then walked away. it was really weird and really funny at the same time.

this is a cool essay, because 1) the author ghost-wrote a ton of Sweet Valley High books, which, how awesome is that? and 2) she captures exactly how i feel about graduate school sometimes all the time:

How different were any of us, despite our attenuated lives as graduate students, from anybody else? The darkest of dark secrets: how much I hadn’t read, and didn’t know. How little I felt I had to say that was different, or new, or mattered.
Your task, my thesis advisor in Oxford told my tutorial partner and me, is to be original. Your thesis won’t pass otherwise.
I haunted the bookshops, certain my argument had already been written. Afraid to ask him: is original the same thing as different? As important, or relevant, or even good?

people should watch alias. it's so great. i just finished the fourth season, and i think it might be my favorite. and jennifer garner is awesome, you guys. i'm grateful argo was nominated for stuff this year, only because it meant jennifer garner went places looking amazing.

see what i mean?

and, finally, we heard this song at the cougarettes concert and we've been obsessed with it since then. when i saw the show the second time, i decided the dance to this song was my favorite. (couldn't get the real video to play, so you have to look at teen wolf, apparently.)

have a great weekend!

photo dump from summer

as i was going through my camera last week, i discovered that i had taken a few more pictures this summer than i realized. so, pretty much for my own purposes, here is some evidence that i had fun this summer. which i did.

lake powell sunset cruise. remember how i meant to do a whole post on lake powell? yeah, that never happened.

siblings! also, how you look after you've been at lake powell for a week.

the cave we went in where bats flew around us

me and berk. apparently he didn't want to touch me or something? he's leaning so far!

beach house

at the twilight

joshua james

delightful weekend: part three (down home barbecue)

for some reason, i love spelling out "barbecue" way more than abbreviating it to "bbq." i mean, "bbq" has a time and a place, but "barbecue" looks so much prettier.

anyway. we already knew i was weird about word things. so on to the business at hand.
(note as i am finishing this almost a week later: this got a little away from me. i guess i got really busy last week or something?)

sunday, i needed to stay in provo to sub for gospel doctrine (loved it) and berg needed to teach in her relief society, so we headed up to nsl with emily around 4:30. finally we were reunited with everyone, including meredith and tess. at home, we all took turns at the piano, playing our favorite tunes.

the highlight of the night was our epic taylor swift sing-a-long, followed by watching nearly every t-swift video ever produced. that girl just gets it, man. she is so great. i don't think i'll ever get tired of her, because she knows what's up.

on monday, we lazed around for the better part of the morning, talking to mom and running errands. eventually we started prepping for the barbecue, which for me meant de-shelling hard-boiled eggs and turning them into delicious deviled eggs. brett arrived just in time, and the festivities began.

family barbecues are the best, you know? burgers you buy at a restaurant are almost never as good as they are when they are crafted by mom and grilled by dad. you can't beat that. and then everything else is always scrumptious as well. and then, when we are full to bursting, we sit around the table or around the yard, out in the late afternoon sun and shade, and talk, just spend time together. i love that. i can't wait for my own family barbecues.

this particular labor day i also took a walk up to the golf course, which i'm ashamed to admit i'd never done before, and it's literally (really, literally) right behind my house. then, we topped off the great food with an amazing chocolate bread pudding that mom and i realized we weren't having enough of in our lives.

basically, it was a lovely end to a lovely weekend with people i love. and\, it was a great way to wrap up the best summer. because after labor day, you can't really pretend that fall isn't coming fast and hard.

this picture borrowed/stolen from emily, who was the only one to document this great day :)

summer rainstorms

one of the best things about summer, besides the sun and no school and flowy skirts and sandals and being outside and the sun staying out until 9pm and ice cream and love in the air, is the summer rainstorm. i haven’t been in that many rainstorms this season, but this weekend i got caught in two in two days. 

saturday i walked to the other side of my complex in search of a party. when it turned out to be taking place in lehi instead of provo, i decided to take a walk around the block while i was out. i felt a few raindrops, but i kept walking, and within two minutes, rain was pouring down. i was getting soaked, but the combination of warm air and cool rain made me smile rather than run back inside with my hands over my head. 

and on sunday, i spent the afternoon on the balcony, and as i sat up there in my camp chair, the sky changed from bright blue to light grey to dark, muddy slate. the rain started slowly, again, but soon it fell hard and fast on the awning above me. i was covered and protected from the wet, but then the wind changed and i could feel the rain. 

this is pretty cliché, but i love the smell of rain and the smell of the world after it rains. everything is clean again. it’s exactly how i feel right after i get out of the shower and before i have to decide what i’m doing with my hair, which ruins the reverie.

real life is calling

well, the time has come.

the time for me to snap out of the blissful reverie of summer and get down to business.

as dad said tonight, "the vacation's over."

i need to find a job. 

and also this

oh, and here's another reason these olympics are so good: