now and forever my go to "most embarressing story" story

When signing up for classes last march(ish?), my fun friend on the football team recommended I take a certain section of M COM 320 (advanced business writing).  He told me stuff life, “All the athletes take it,” “the professor does the stats for the football team so he is (unfairly) forgiving…”  yadda yadda yadda…SOLD! I registered for that class with out looking back!

Fast forward a few months and it’s the first day of class.  It is a night class, only one day a week! I had coaching and ran on my own right before class so I only had time to throw on my outfit I was wearing earlier and had to disregard my oh so greasy appearance.

I walk into class and sure enough, nothing but football players.  The energy in the room was through the roof with all their comments, “it’s a team meeting!” “this is going to be the best class ever!” “all my bros!” So, obviously I was working off those hyped vibes too!  I was chatting away with all these gorg muscley men, just loving the fact I was one of 2 girls in the class.  After meeting most of the players around me, and giving the sexy man behind me my pen, class begun.

Being a once a week class, it goes rather long so a stretch break is more than necessary.  This 5-minute break came and boy I had to pee! I had a 2 second decision to make, stay and mingle or relieve myself.  I chose to mingle.  And mingle I did!

With a minute left of our break, my bladder was about ready to explode. I ran out to the bathroom, quickly got the job done, took a quick look in the mirrors above the sink and ran back to class.

The class had already begun so I had to silently shuffle across the class, up the stairs, then squeezed behind the other chairs in my row to get back to my seat.  Darn it all that I choose the seat the farthest from the door and way up some stairs in the top right corner (the door is on the bottom left). I sat down and felt something unusual.

I felt my bare bum on my seat and my skirt completely and totally bundled up on my right hip.  With a quick butt graze via my hand, I felt nothing but butt check.

I flashed the football team.

“Do I laugh loudly, showing I can laugh things off?”

“Do I pull my skirt out and look oh so guilty?”

Do I pull the oblivious card and pretend I’m not aware what just happened?

“Will the cute boy behind me never give me my pen back/ not talk to me

I sat there half humiliated, half in hysterics.

And how does this story end?

The cute football player behind me asked me for my number.

a little lake lovin

i grew up on the lake
lake powell, lake mead, lake mohave, you name it!
our family is a boating family
our houseboat, wake boarding boat & wave runners
has been a summer highlight my entire life.

however, sadly this hasnt been the case for the last two years
ive missed out on multiple lake trips for multiple reasons:
summer semester at BYU, europe trip & study abroad.
ive been missing out and its sorta really stunk but
i finally got my day at the lake!!

madeline, erika, michael, me and my family headed to silverwood lake,
it was a perfect day
perfect weather
perfect company
& perfect snacks (thanks mama!)

we started out wake boarding and i was assuming i was going to struggle...
due to my two year lake leave.
i was a little rough on the edges but i was able to get a feel for it again
i was so happy! i loved it, so so much.
erika & mad got up their first time!
they did awesome!
then michael was totally a natural!
it was so funny watching everyone board!

we took a break and lounged on the beach
talking politics and eating our weight in snacks
the sun was shinning and our skin was taking the effects

tubing time!!
erika was hysterically afraid,
and we were all being so entertained by her.
she made our tubing experience.
we went crazy! papa goes nutso and we were all laughing so hard
i cant even begin to explain the severity of my soreness!

we ate cute sandwiches on the beach
and some of my jichan's (my grandpa's) home grown fruit!
we enjoyed each others company and basked in the beaming sun!

i had the most wonderful day at the lake!
i love my family so much and i had the
best time with my friends too!
i was so happy to finally get out on the lake again,
i was back where my roots are and loved every second of it!
thanks fam for being the coolest family ever
i love you

 

wedding wonderland!

spark note version of the week... (mind you my family is at Lake Powell)...
Tuesday-i flew from Fiji to LAX and arrived in the afternoon, olivia and madeline picked me up (bless them!), an hour later lily and rach arrived at my house and we settled in.
Wednesday- 10 other girls arrive at my house, move into my family's vacant bedrooms and prepare for the bachelorette party (rach &lily planned the kinkiest but classy party!). more people come over and we played games, ate, swam and died of laughter all night long.
Thursday- last minute shopping and preparation for the wedding, bake 180 cupcakes (thanks to morgies!), and made it to a BBQ ("rehearsal dinner") at the Stapleton's! I think i rode down their massive slide one to many times with B's little sister kenzie...i have scabs on my hip bones! whoops! it was so much fun!
Friday-WEDDING DAY! early rise to prepare for the day, get all fancy, go to the temple, cry, take pictures, cry, decorate their hotel room they would be staying at the night, cry, head to reception and eat, cry a little more, give my maid of honor speech thingy, cry, dance like cray cray and eat my weight in funnel cakes, say goodbye to my soon to be deflowered best friends, head home to have another massive sorority house like sleepover at my house.

I've had quite the week to say the least! adjusting back to life not on an uninhabited island would be one thing but hosting 13 girls at my house, having all the duties as brooke's right hand woman and doing it all with out the help from my mama was a rather intimidating task to come home to.  but it was perfect. everything was perfect! This week was about my sweet Brooke.

Brooke looked like an angel from the heavens on her wedding day.  Seeing hers and Jeffers glowing smiles made as all emotional.  They were honestly just flawless and flawlessly meant for each other.  The entire week was so stress free and Brooke had to be the most calm relax bride there ever was! My slight anxiety I felt on the plane ride home for the week to come was silly! I had nothing to worry about! I was dealing with Brooke (Stapleton) for heavens sake...the most easy going girl ever.

Friday was a beautiful day! The sun was out and the skies were clear and the heavens were cheering for the sealing of Brooke and Jeff! In our church, we believe that if you are worthy, you can enter into the temple and be sealed to your spouse for time and all eternity.  none of "till death do us part crap." We believe in forever families...and those are created by the power of sealing ordinances that Brooke and Jeff made inside the temple.  There was so much happiness being felt on Friday!...Whether it was seeing their faces when they came out of the temple, taking goofy pictures or watching Brooke dance with Jeff and her father, we all felt it.

To my dearest friends, Brooke & Jeff Stapleton, i am in awe by you two.  The way you see each other-your strengths & weakness, funny quirks and the respect you have for each other is undesirable.  We all can see the selfless care and concern you have for each other and its inspiring! I look up to you two more than you'll ever know and look forward to the day that your kids will know me by "aunty avery." I cant wait to continue watching your love grow! Thanks for a perfect week and a perfect friendship!

SHOUT OUT:
to the girls that stayed at my house, i had such a blast with you! the house just isnt the same without all your energy! thank you so so much for those who helped me clean as well!
to kim mosman for being (hot) super mom and showing me a perfect example of motherhood
to the mosmans and stapletons for putting on a stellar wedding experience
to rach and lily for doing the bach party and being such wonderful friends 
to the hired dancers at the reception for that comedic relief my emotions needed!

cheers to the freaking weekend & mr. and mrs. jeff stapleton!

advice ill never forget

I feel as though I've grown leaps and bounds within the past few months of traveling.  Not that I've magically transformed into a mature adult or my personality has been altered...its the way i think and see things that have changed.  You always hear people saying "i want to travel the world and find myself." I guess that statement is accurate but its so much more than that. I believe that I "found myself" these past 3 months by not thinking about myself.

I learned a great deal of valuable life lessons while backpacking Europe and i already attempted to post about it in a previous post so this one about my "lessons learned" while on study abroad in the south pacific. 

one the first day of our trip, our instructor was briefing us on the trip, his expectations, yadayadayada...until he wrapped it up with something i needed to hear, something that kinda shook me.  Dr. T, the wise man he is, said something along the lines of, "this trip isnt about you.  sure you paid 8 grand to be here but this isnt about you.  God wont care what you checked off your bucket list but he will care how you effected the people and influenced others while on your journey to check things off.  so, this trip is about others, not you.  serve your fellow friends on the trip, serve the people you meet, be someone who will be remembered...and then you will find yourself more changed than you could have ever imagined." 

This study abroad has been on my "bucket list" for 4 years, since sophomore year in high school! That advice spoke right to me. I believed what he said and sure i was in those efforts already this summer but to have it put into words so perfectly struck me. so, i was to try, day in and day out, my hardest to put aside my needs and look for the needs in others.

With this mentality, my days were the happiest & i genuinely grew to love the people i was associating with.  This allowed me to see people with the kind of love that God does and see them as my heavenly brothers and sisters.  I totally believe that the people I traveled with and the people we met along the way are my brothers and sisters and we all have a Father in Heaven who has created a perfect plan for all His children to return to him one day.  The villagers in Fiji, the Maori people in New Zealand and the aboriginals in Australia, we will meet again.  These people were a tangible example to me of living a Christlike life.  I feel like I was blessed with a small sense of our Savior's love for them by serving them.  Their loud laughter, humility and faith they abundantly possessed have made me sure of a few things: people are innately good, the Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter day Saints is the only gospel on the face of the universe that is 100% correct in every little way and that selflessness is the key to happiness.

Underground river cave rafting!

This was quite possibly one of the craziest things ive ever done

We left our lovely cabin in Rotorua early in the morning to drive 2ish hours to Waitomo. It's a small town in New Zealand that is famous around the world for one thing-their caves!

It's the only place in the world that has just the right climate to be home to a million glowing worm. We later found out they're more like larva but still, so random! All I knew about our activity for the day is that 1. the company was called black water rafting and 2. We were going I see these glowing worms. Keep in mind it's freezing in New Zealand right now!

We arrive at the place and are lead down to be suited up! We put on a full wetsuit, a thick long sleeve, a wetsuit jacket, booties and then rubber boots. We all were already frozen before we even headed down to the caves. (I still don't know what to expect, like at all). We drive down, fully dressed/fully restricted and pick up black inner tubes. Then we're told to get back in the car with our tubes.

We drive more, park, and begin trekking it down the rainforest (inner tubes in hand). We see this itty bitty opening to a cave and river water flowing into it. We individually crawl down and get into the river. The guides send us one at a time into this cave, butts in the tube. We are then told to flatten out...we are floating far down into this cave and the ceiling/the top part of the cave (that takes a year to grow an inch) is maybe two feet from the water. We are floating down a river into this cave and I'm literally laying flat in my tube and having to follow the ceiling with my hands so I know I'll have air to breath. Finally it lets out and we are now 200 feet below ground. The river is rushing, rocks are obviously everywhere and i can only see because of the head lamp on my helmet.

I was in shock at the intensity of this and totally loving it. As a group, we all were freaking out. It was honestly nuts! We reached our first water fall and our guide casually tells us we are going to jump down, backwards, land in our tubes and keep floating until you link with the rest of the group at the bottom. Bombs away! A jumped off and was enveloped by the wave I caused jumping with the tube. The water was 5 degrees celsius. I'm not entirely sure how cold that is in fahrenheit but all I know it was dang cold! A kind of cold I've never really felt before, I felt like jack in titanic! Anyways, away we floated down the cave! Some parts you had to stand and walk cause it was too shallow and in other parts it was hundreds of meters deep.

We jumped down our second water fall that was higher than the last and formed a giant "eel" at the bottom. We faced backwards in our tubes and were all linked, foot to armpit. We turned off our lights and floated backwards down the cave, looking up was little glowing green specs covering all the cave! It reminded me of what the sky looked like in the outback, yet these were glowing worms and not stars and planets. It was magical!

We looked up and saw a tiny little dot of light that water was coming down like rain...that tiny dot was where the surface was! It was chilling; figuratively and literally. I was frozen because of the temperature and in disbelief I was so freaking far from the surface! We sang Disney songs, well, screamed Disney songs through out the cave. It was such a moment!

The cave rafting tour took three hours. I can honestly say that in those three hours, I had one of the most epic experiences in my life! There is no other way to describe the ridiculousness of it, you just have to experience it for yourself. We were treated with a warm shower and hot
soup after. It look an hour or so to regain feeling in my extremities but regardless, an unforgettable experience!

Forever my inspiration

The YSA members in the Rotorua ward will forever be my inspiration. I am referring to mostly the woman but of course, the men made a lasting impression. The women were the studs, they had unshakeable faith, and the kindest most humble of hearts. I learned lessons from them that I will reflect upon for the remaining of my life. They showed me what it truly means to live a Christ centered life. Their humility
struck me. It was eye opening to be with such beautiful females, who kicked the boys butts in rugby, who sang Maori songs like angels and were completely happy because they lived a life driven by the Holy Ghost. Three days was all it took to build eternal friendship with these women. If I never have the opportunity to see them again in this life time, I am certain we will have a fantastic reunion in the after life. Thank you, Kath Joyce, Nini Prescott,
Ladette Bradnock and Stallone Edmonds for inspiring me to be better.

Tiro tiro ki taku tau
Kei hea ra kei hea
Kei runga kei
Kei raro kei
Kei roto i taku moe moe a

A day of play!

Today was perfect in every aspect of everything that occurred today...perfection!

1. French toast, bacon, eggs, kiwi and bananas for brekky! Drooling. Now. We've had toast with PB/nutella for breakfast and PB&J or nutella sandwiches for days! So thank the heavens for a hearty breakfast! I think I had 6 pieces of bacon. Whoops. Don't care!

2. Bungee jumping!! We all took the great leap of fear and loved every second of it! Kendall and I decided to go tandem this time around and I'm SO glad we did! It was so fun being able to hold on to each other and scream in each others faces while we plummet down and shoot back up! It was a hoot watching the rest of the group jump. I love our group! We all cheered for each other and showed such excitement for every person. We all were on cloud nine! However, this jump hurt my head a lot more than Switzerland surprisingly. Kenny and I thought our face was going to explode! But I won't touch of the negative parts of the experience. We got a crazy good deal on the jump and the video! 75 for the jump and 10 for the video! Switzerland was 200 for the jump and 35 for the pictures! So my saving account was happy...momentarily, before i spent more money on fun activities!

3. Zorbing! Once we all were a little too high on life after the bungee, we headed to our next activity...zorbing. Some may know what this is, but if you don't, you fly around in a little ball inside a huge ball that rolls down a huge grassy course. I chose not to participate cause it was a little too spendy but it was hysterical watching the others. Such a fun concept!

4. Luge! Everyone I talked to about activities to do in Rotorua would have a minor freak out attack at the topic of this! We bought a 50 dollar deal that included the gondola ride up the mountain and 5 rides on the luge tracks. We all were picturing some sort of an alpine slide in park city but boy were we fooled! This was so legit! There was a scenic, intermediate and advanced course. We say in carts and was just sent down the mountain. We were living a game in super mario cart. It the best way I could describe my experience. Flying down hills, skidding through turns, spinning out, passing the slow pokes, we all were screaming and laughing the entire way down. It was a paved course that was fairly wide, wide enough to be able to pass people and use shifty technique to go as fast as possible! We had 5 rides down and all 5 rides were the best rides ever! Send 20 college kids down a mountain on a freaking fast cart and things are bound to get crazy! Luckily no one was injured but we had some risky falls. We had a cheapo helmet on but that didn't do much. It was insane! I screamed down the entire time! There was multiple places where you literally got some solid air! It was nuts! I was think about my family a lot and how much fun they would all have here! Goodness I miss them if I think about them too much.

5. Hot springs with the YSA people again! They're awesome in every way and I've grown to admire the girls so much!

What a happy day today was! A perfect Avery day!