holiday # 1: thanksgiving

so turns out this year I had three thanksgivings. lemme tell you that is a whole lotta food. that means I will be dieting this week haha. but seriously it was way fun. so the first was on tuesday evening. some people from my ward had a 'thanksgiving festival' for a couple people who weren't able to go home. one of the guys cooked a turkey while everyone else helped with pies & sides. it was TASTY! 

on wednesday, Jen, Homi & I headed to Idaho. the road trip there was awesomely fun. mostly because we are crazies. haha i loved it. anywho we arrived there and had thanksgiving on thursday with my dad! It has been a year since I've seen him which I know sounds terrible but honestly I really miss him sometimes & I'm so glad we got to see him for a bit.Thursday night we headed back to Logan because I had work on Black Friday. 4am-12pm. It was a long morning but it went by pretty fast and it wasn't as crazy as I'd expected.

Friday evening we had a tasty Thanksgiving dinner with my mom. We had delicious homemade rolls & some great pie! I loovveee me some pumpkin pie. I was going to take pictures & I totally spaced it. SHOOT!. Anywho so this week has been fun, crazy & I meant to do homework/work on my portfolio every day buttttt I didn't. soooo now the next three days will be chock full of getting stuff done for this week. i am the worst procrastinator ever. seriously. kayyy I gotta keep this short so I can sleep/ get my stuff done. also i LOVE Christmas wooo hooooo. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO US ALLL!! : )

love my zekey boy so much!

dad & homi hanging

homi loves having 2 older sisters!

hanging on the porch. it was a lovely day.

jen & zeke

grouchy padre & myself.

winter 2011

well it's official. it's pretty much wintertime. okay it's not official because the winter solstice isn't until December 21st, but with all the holiday cheer I think it's winter. first off...i LOVE the holidays. yup it's true. I am one of those people who can't get enough Christmas music, thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year's decorations, caroling, hot chocolate, Santa's outside stores ringing their bells. any Holiday thing you name it & I probably love it. this is the MOST wonderful time of the yearrrrrrr. I LOVE IT. I can't wait to have a home where I can decorate all cute for each Holiday. anywho so here's to a Happy Holidays to everyone out there including myself!

annnddd here in Logan it snowed a little last week but yesterday was the first big snow of the year. below are a couple of pictures. I am pretty sure it snowed almost a foot if not a foot. it was beautiful, cold, annoying, enjoyable and wonderful all at once. the thing is, i hate walking and driving in snow to places. however i LOVE playing the snow and watching it gracefully fall. anywho some people were building snowmen and it was adorable. 

it can be quite beautiful.

i walked home in this. no bueno

on that note. our Relief Society had a super fun amazing retreat yesterday evening. it was a blast & such a great way to get to know the girls better and bond with them. There were about 30 total that came and while I didn't get the chance to talk to them as much as I would have wanted, I think everyone had a pretty awesome time. we did the following:

-painted nails

-facials (where we looked like skeletons)

-murder in the dark in the gym (complete with a creepy man who walked in, stood around, and walked out)

-partner tag

-pizza, chips, desserts, drinks, ice cream, cereal, bagels all sorts of food!

-Wii Just Dance games!

-Movies & lots of board and other games!

-andddd our amazing Stake President even stopped in & took pictures with us & donated ice cream to our event. can i just say..i LOVE my ward & everyone in it.

until next time...

RS retreat. best girls & relief society ever!

RS Presidency & President Woodland. i love these gals & i love him. he's my hero.

a quick thought or two.

so it's sunday night & i should most certainly be asleep by now so I won't be exhausted in my practicum tomorrow. butttt I gotta write some quick stuff down that i don't wanna forget. so here it is. first of all, i feel like my weeks are so crazy that by the time sunday rolls around i've lost it. seriously i am always laughing during sacrament meeting and ward prayers these days. i feel horrible and most of the time it's stupid stuff that isn't even funny but to me and yet i continue laughing. and then i look crazy to everyone & i'm sure i'm being judged but by that point of my week i'm pretty sure i've just gone mad. good stuff like today in sacrament when i smelled something cologney & i leaned closer to the guy sitting in front of me to see if it was him and looked back & emilee was looking at me like i was a lunatic. anddd then we both started laughing & i just had to explain what i was doing. awkwardio. poor ben who was sitting by us was probably like ' yup. i'm never sitting by this irreverant crazy person again'.

moving on. so lemme just give a quick rundown of how today was for me. seriously i've never had a sunday like this one. so one pm rolls around & CUE: church. I was at church till 4 & then we had a linger longer. of COURSE i went to that. & because i love singing & i love our adorable choir director I headed to ward choir around 4:30ish. I had to leave a little before 5 though which was when I rushed home to my apt for a full 10ish (if that) minutes to look over a list & then i headed out to do visits with Emily. We went on a couple of visits which took up just about an hour. we finished just in time for me to run upstairs for about another 10 minutes & then I went to the fireside with a different Emilee. after that? oh I just hung at the church for awhile because we had ward prayer shortly after & then our wonderful presidency meeting right after. i think about it & i laugh because it was crazy how the day flew & how much was accomplished. okay soooo not the point of this post. the point comes from Emily (who I went on visits with) & mindy our amazing RS pres.

to start this thought i had i need to go back in a time a bit. when i first moved to salt lake i was a young'un. i'd barely turned 19 and i was out in the world as an 'adult'. Since that time i've met a fair share of people who have influenced me and wowed me & who I sincerely say & tell myself " i want to be just like them. I look up to this person so much & i hope I can be half of that someday'. needless to say i have felt so inadequate many times when i see people who are so incredible, willing to serve, loving and know the gospel inside and out. these people have included past & current RS presidents, past and current bishoprics, elders, roommates that i've come to know. okay now cut to this evening. the Emily I went on visits with is freaking adorable. seriously she's the cutest thing around town. so we were on visits right and after we finished up with one she just says so genuinely to me ' you're so great Summer. really I look up to you so much. I want to be like how you are, you just talk to people so easily and you do this and this'. at the time i was like ' oh gosh i'm not that great really it's not a big deal', you know just played it off because i still have a very long ways to go ya know. then at our presidency meeting Mindy played this song for us and told us to just see what came to mind. It was called One Voice. through that entire song i thought of emily and how she said she looked up to me and all the people i know of that i've looked up to for so long. and i realized that i'm slowly but surely becoming like those people that i have admired for so long. i mean little old me. this is my blog so luckily i can talk about stuff like this that doesn't matter to anyone but me haha. but through the years i felt like i'd never get there. i'd never be that person and to realize that, without even knowing it, i've started to really become that person is one of the best feelings i've had in a long time. i'm finally coming to know fully who i am, what i want to do and what's important in life. i really have this current calling to thank for that. i feel like in the past couple months i've had it, i've grown in numerous ways more than i have in the past couple of years. it's amazing what serving the Lord fully and really prioritizing a calling can do for life. sure i'm busier than i've ever been, more stressed than ever, more tired than ever, more out of my mind than ever haha and still needing to work on procrastinating, but at the same time i feel more peace than ever before & more like me than i have in a very long time. i love it. i'm so blessed it's ridiculous. i love this gospel so much. anywho there's my lesson this wonderful sabbath day. the end.

all Hallows Eve.

okey doke. time for a quick update now that I have a bit of time. let's start with last week! okay so last week was my last week of college classes! crazy i know. i was so nervous and I'll take one more class in the Spring or Summer but still mostly i'm done. it was a great feeling. so by thursday i was done and then how did i spend my weekend? oh i did a whole lot nothing on thursday/ friday haha. seriously i was so lazy and it was an amazing feeling. i watched countless Halloween movies and relaxed...and looked for a new car with my mom. that's the bad news. the Beenie Weenie is gonna be a goner soon. i'm officially looking like crazy for a new vehicle. sad days. okay so time to talk about the weekend! yay!

so friday rolllllllled around. friday night i went on a big group date with some peoples from the ward here. it was great fun. had some dinner, had a bonfire, froze my butt off, played with glow in the dark paint (awesome), froze some more, had some delish cobbler and headed home. then it was saturday. i was SO worried i'd have to work but luckily i didn't have too. yay!! so instead i got ready for the HOWL, Nicole & her friend also nicole haha came over and got ready with me. i felt TERRIBLE cause i missed stake conference but honestly i just forgot. so anywhoooo we got ready to go to a party of one of Nicole's friends. my costume wasn't here so i borrowed Sarah's and went as a mummy with Amy Winhouse & Wilma. (pictures will be at the end). theennnn we left. it was pretty fun because they had those awesome little mummy hot dogs and some muddy buddies!! MMMMMM well I left there and headed home to get my actual costume...a 1920's flapper. (thanks to emilee). so i got dressed again haha and nicole & nicole came back and met me. we headed up to the HOWL. i've never been so i was interested in how it would be. turns out it was pretty awesome. we walked in and wow the costumes there were countless ones. i saw wayyy to many men dressed as chippendales, too many slutty costumes and too many shirtless cowboys. okay the shirtless cowboys weren't thaaaat bad haha. 

at the HOWL we did the following: played a couple Carnival games, took off our heels cause they were killing our feet, listened to some WAY to loud music by Cartel (still pretty good though), people watched in the hallways, tried to get our fortunes told but the lines were way tooo long, danced too close to a speaker thus causing some hearing problems, saw an awesome man on stilits and some snakes. it was seriously lots of fun. hanging out with those two gals plus some kirk & ryan made for a wonderful evening. it was so fun to let loose and have some good wholesome college fun. anywho so the HOWL was great. moving on.

sunday i had to get up sooo early for stake conference but it was worth it. i then had to work at ol B&BW from 5 until 11ish. i was way tired oh gosh. luckily there were treats! woo hoo.

monday. i started my practicum @ Edith Bowen the school on campus. it was nervewracking because it was halloween but i had fun getting to know the kiddies. i got home about 4 and was exhausted. butttt i wanted to go to FHE which was a trunk or treat. thus comes in costume numero 3 for this halloween. i was so tired that i just kept thinking of what costume i could wear that would include me wearing pajamas. so i went for a kid/any person on christmas morning getting ready to open a present. i had a robe and present. it was great fun. sarah was a cute leopard and trunk or treated for us both. it was great for all of us 'adults' to trick or treat and have some real fun of our own. okay i could have gone more in depth but i don't wanna right now. so here's some pics and the end.

amy winhouse & myself

wilmaaaaaa, amy & the 1920's flapper

wilma, amy & mummy

brittany from GLEE ( i love lindsay) & myself @ the HOWL

ward trunk-or-treat!

i really loved all their costumes so here we are.

myself & RUFIO & sarah the adorabl cheetah!