Guess who's 22?

Sooo.... today is Alyssa Kate Smith's 22nd Birthday!

Alyssa has been my roommate since my freshman year at BYU. I thought I would take this time to tell you 22 reasons why I love Alyssa! (There are tons more but these are 22 of my favorites)

So here it goes... in no particular order :)

1. She's the BEST friend a girl can ask for

2. She loves the gospel and shows it everyday

3. Most of my favorite memories are with her.

4. I can talk to her about anything, absolutely anything.

5. She is the kindest person I know

6. She is a friend to everyone that she meets

7. She always thinks of others before herself

8. She helps me be a better person

9. We have the most wonderful lunch dates all the time!

10. She's crazy and can be crazy with me!

11. She always finds the good in everyone

12. She's a blog stalker like me, we love nie nie and reagan :)

13. She dances to the beat of her own drum.

14. Her favorite movie is Parent trap and twister

15. We have fun no matter what we are doing!

16. She is a good sport when I make fun of her, even when i'm exaggerating.

17. She loves her family so much

18. She is ALWAYS there for me no matter what I need.

19. We can spend 35 hours in the car together and never get sick of each other (that's a true friend :)

20. She's so funny and keeps me laughing all the time.

21. She loves sailors, the name and the profession.

22. We will be friends FOREVER.

Alyssa, thanks so much for being my friend. I hope you have the best day ever cause you deserve it! Happy Birthday! Love you!!

bYu

So I've been at BYU for three full years and have yet to attempt to climb Y Mountain. It is a BYU tradition and something that has to be done at least once while you are here. Well.... I can successfully say that I have done it!! It took me long enough, right?

This summer I decided that it was something that I really wanted to try to do this year. I mentioned it to my roommates and they were on board! Last Friday Alyssa, Erin, Eric and I decided we would hike since we didn't have class in the afternoon. It was a nice day and wasn't too hot outside.

When we started the hike I thought that there was no way I would be able to finish it :) It was steep and I was not used to the altitude yet. There were 11 turns on the hike and I made everyone stop at every single one :) They were all really good sports and helped me keep going. During the hike it was hard but it was so worth it in the end. The view was amazing and the hike was so rewarding.

Alyssa and the view!

Me and Erin

Check out that view!

Alyssa really wanted to lay upside down on the Y since it was so steep. I was too scared to try.

My Roomies!

The group on the way up to the top...

Alyssa sportin her Maryland gear

Eric dedicated the day to embarrassing me...

it didn't work...

okay maybe just a little :)

A Start to the End

On August 30th I started my Senior year at BYU!!!! I know, it's hard to believe. I feel like just yesterday I started my freshman year. So far the semester is great. I only have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and I love it! Our new apartment and ward are great and we are really excited about this next year. Last Saturday was the first home football game. I got my tickets with a group of friends and it was so much fun. We won the first game, the second game not so much. That's ok, i'm still really excited about the rest of the games. So far the end is off to a great start!

GO COUGARS!!!

We're world travelers, Okay?

So school is officially back in session and I thought I would update you on my end of summer extravaganza. As I mentioned before, my friends Alyssa and Josalyn came to visit me and spend my last week at home with me! We had a BLAST and I really loved getting to show them around my stomping grounds.

Alyssa was the first to arrive! The day after she came in town we went to the DC Zoo. Alyssa loves pandas so I figured that I had to take her to one of the few places that has them. It was a long hot day but we had alot of fun!

Then the next day we went to Annapolis. Carly came with us and we just walked around downtown. We went in all of the little shops and Alyssa just ooed and awed at all of the sailor stuff around. Here we are standing on the pier. It was a nice day.


Alyssa got to experience a party, Crumback style, with food, fun and games. I don't think we scared her off too much.

THEN, Josalyn came in town and the craziness began. Alyssa and I woke up super early to go pick up Josalyn in Virginia from the airport. Then we drove back to my house, re situated all of out luggage to one suitcase and hit the road for NYC. (concrete jungle where dreams are made of!)

After getting to my Uncle's apartment, we headed to DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) It was so cool and was somewhere that I had never been when I visited the city in the past.
The view was awesome and we loved snapping some cook pictures while we were there.

Alyssa lookin pretty in front of the Big Apple

Yep, This is all of us :) *note the monopod

We got to eat some of the best pizza in Manhattan and got caught in a huge rain storm, which was actually kinda fun!

Next we went home for a much needed nap to prepare us for that nights' festivities.

Here's Josalyn hailing her first ever cab ride. She loved every second of it. (Alyssa wasn't so sure about doing it so she let Josalyn handle it :)

As you can see, Josalyn was successful

Here we are riding the Staten Island Ferry. It is a free boat ride and has an awesome view of the city. Too bad it started raining and blurred the view a little. We had fun anyway. This is a glimpse of us on the ferry outside in the rain trying to keep dry (yes, we were the only one's out there. Everyone else was smart enough to go inside)

Later that night we headed to times square. I love to see it all lit up at night. We visited M&M world at ate dinner at Carmine's. We have been going there for years and this visit reminded us why we kept going back, the food was delicious!

The next day, I took the girls to see where I had worked when I was interning in NYC. I loved showing them so that they could see what I did and who I was working with. It was also really nice to visit everyone there!

Next we decided to head to Coney island and it was DEFINITELY worth it. The view of the city on the way there was awesome and it was really a nice drive. When we got there we rode the famous Coney Island roller coaster, "The Cyclone". It was probably the best roller coaster I have ever been on and was totally worth the EIGHT DOLLARS we had to pay to ride it.

Then we went to the fun park on the boardwalk to ride some more rides. Alyssa feels sick after riding too many rides so she was our designated photographer. We loved the rides, I think alyssa liked taking pictures too though.

The teacups :)

Nathan's hotdogs originated in Coney Island so naturally we HAD to eat one from the birthplace. Josalyn hates hot dogs but she got one just so she could say she ate it.

Later that day we took a long walk through Central Park. The park is one of my favorite parts of the city, It's just so pretty. We walked until we met back up with the city. Then we walked down fifth avenue and went to Rockefellar Center. It was really pretty. Next stop was SOHO. we walked around SOHO and found some I <3 style="font-weight: bold;">Thanks Uncle Jon!!

Our next destination was Washington, DC. Since we only had one day to see everything in the city we decided to take a tour mobile around everywhere.

Here we are in front of the Jefferson Memorial

One of the stops on our tour was Arlington National Cemetary. We got to see the changing of the guard by the tomb of the unknown soldier.

After the tour we went to see a show at the Kennedy Center. This s a picture from the roof. The little building in the background is the Lincoln Memorial.

After a long day in DC we went home to rest up for our long adventure the next day.

August 26th started our excursion out to Utah. Our plan was to leave on Thursday and drive to Kirtland. That part of the plan stayed the same...

We got to the temple just as the last tour ended so we didn't get to go in but it was still fun to look from the outside. We did get to go to the church owned sites though. We went to the Whitney store and got to see alot of parts of church history. None of us had ever been there before so it was alot of fun to experience it together.

After staying in Kirtland for a little while we got back on the road. The plan was to drive for a little bit longer and then stop at a hotel for the night. It was a good plan but once we started driving a little bit we decided that it might be cool to get to Provo early and surprise everyone. That was it! we decided that it would be so much fun to surprise everyone so we just kept driving, and driving......

and driving....

And DRIVING!!!

We decided to take 2 hour rotations while we were driving. While I drove, Alyssa sat in the passengers seat to keep me awake and Josalyn would sleep on the back seat. Then after two hours we would rotate and do it all again. It was harder when it was dark outside but we drove that drive like we were champs! We made great time.

Alyssa napping on the back seat with all of the luggage and snacks :)

When the sun came back up we decided that it would be a good idea to stop and get some breakfast and freshen up a little. We were in the middle of nowhere and couldn't find any breakfasty places to stop so we decided to use a walmart bathroom.....

Alyssa decided that she would feel much better if she washed her hair, so.....

SHE DID!!! Kinda sick but she was right, she felt much better. Thank goodness Josalyn had shampoo!

We changed clothes and hit the road again. We were in the home stretch. We had reached the part of the trip that we had planned to make on the third day but it was only 24 hours after we had started :)

Not feeling the picture session i guess.

In the end we MADE IT! We are back in Provo safe and sound. It was such a fun trip and I can't imagine sharing the adventure with two better people. We loved the time we had to spend together and we think everyone was pretty surprised to see us. Now back to normal life and school and such....

Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to fill everyone in on our great trip!!!