Lugazi or bust!

I got accepted to Help International's Lugazi, Uganda Team this Monday, and had training from 9-5:30 on Friday and Saturday... super long but really good stuff. I'm so excited! I'm scheduled to leave in the 3rd wave from July 13-August 24. But I will probably try to leave a week early and roam around Europe for like a week before I get to Uganda. I have been wanting to do this since I was in 9th grade, and its FINALLY going to happen! i'm psyched to go help the people and grow and learn from them myself. Its going to be an incredible experience.

Rachel came for the weekend!! She was supposedly coming to check out campus, but everyone knows she was just here to see me :) We hooliganized a lot, going to Festival of Colors, Ihop, Cafe Rio, and a bunch of other random places. I love her so much and I am so happy she is coming to BYU next year!! It's going to be a PARTAY AND A HALF!

Also... festival of colors. It was like half-raining/half snowing when we were driving down there... so i wasn't super excited, but it always turns out to be fun. We didn't even have to buy any chalk, cause there were just a couple packets layin around on the ground. Got to see some llamas, explore a desecrated Krishna temple, and be inducted into the Hindu religion... just kidding. I'm Mormon and proud of it. Afterwards we hit up IHOP. SO GOOD. Its been way too long since i've had me my NY cheesecake pancakes. to. die. for. Cept everyone was lookin at us kinda weird cause we were "Queen Elizabeth's runaway orphan step-children" (Krista Roy). The things she comes up with haha.

There is love in the air! The boy that wrote Kim on her mission is here for a couple of weeks, his name is Josh, and they are precious! I love to see Kim happy and twitterpated!! :) Didn't get to see John very much this weekend... After getting out of a half hour shower trying to scrub hindu paint off of my scalp, he had called me up, leaving a message of him singing his alternate lyrics to "Fallin for You" by Colbie Callait ("why aren't you answerin your phooooooone? Why arent you answerin your phoo-ooo-ooo-ooone?") So I headed over there for the rest of the allotted time before curfew... 20 minutes. haha. But worth it :) Oh and grandma invited us to go to the sizzler with her! surprise surprise! when i told her we were going to ihop, and that she could come with us she's like... 'no... thats ok." :) gotta love my grandma. I've eaten out so much this week... that I don't want to eat out ever again. barf. Too much food. Speaking of FOOD!! Me and rach, and hopefully Kris & Sum-bum are going to take an intro to cooking class next fall! I'm psyched! Yesterday when I was walking down to the sewing lab... I saw three people walk by one after the other... all holding apple pies. I was like DANG I NEED TO TAKE THAT CLASS!! excitement!!

Also this weekend... went over to Heather & Alyssa's for Heather's bachelorette party. CRAZY. She is getting married!!! Still can hardly believe it. It was fun to see all the flo mo's, and eat some reeses haha. Lys... dating someone?! Crazy!

I AM GOING TO GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!! My momma got me tickets from our Stake President in Lewisville, so I am GOING!!

Anyway.. the point is... I'm gonna go. k bye.

Babies.

So I got this call from Kris this morning, and she was panting and sounding really stressed. You know why? CJ's water broke. and Krista was going to go down and watch her give birth. sick huh? But also pretty cool. So she drove and drove and drove down to Monroe, and witnessed the birth of CharlyAnne Jill Carter! Such a joyous occasion.

Also, today there was an Earthquake in my motherland. Japan. Thoughts are going out to all the victims.

But the point is.... UGANDA!!! I applied for the Help International Program to Uganda this summer, and I got a call today asking for an interview! I'm so psyched! Man, if I get in... it will be the best adventure of my life to date. I have been wanting this since I was in 9th grade, and it might actually happen this summer!! What the heck?!

John found out that he is jobless in Utah, which makes him happy, because that means he gets to go to Alaska this summer, haha. He said he has never been so happy to hear that he isn't getting hired. He will have a blast catching birds, growing facial hair, and building trails, or whatever the heck he is doing. A whole summer is such a long time to be away from each other!! But I think sometimes distance is an important thing. You get to see if things actually will work out. So I am happy, with reservations.

I am going home. In like... 7 weeks. CRAZY. I get to see my family, and hopefully get a job somewhere cool, and see my family, and maybe take an online class, and see my family, and watch Rachel graduate, and see my family. oh yeah, did I mention I get to see my family?! What's super cool, is my cousins from Missouri are coming down for Rach's grad, and I haven't seen them since I was 6. That's FOURTEEN YEARS, PEOPLE! It's gonna be a party and a half!

And in other news from the past...

On Valentine's day we didn't really have time to do much... John had a test the next morning. So we went to Cafe Rio, and then headed up to campus to study! The weekend before we actually did some fun stuff though... We went up to Payson to ride horses. It was a little snowier than the last time however, and my horse started slipping down the side of the mountain we were riding on, and I fell off, miraculously above the horse, and not below it where I would have gotten trapped under. A couple weekends ago, I went up to Rexburg with John, and three random Asians that didn't speak very good english that we found off of the rideboard in the wilk. what. an. adventure. The weather was nasty and cold, but the experience was great! We stayed at John's brother & sister-in-law's house (Dan & Anne). They are awesome! And so funny! And Anne makes the best food ever! We got there, and she's like, 'how bout some chocolate pizza?' what the heck? haha. OH YEAH and we ate at this taco bus thing... It was like a Mexican restaurant... in a bus. Way weird. but such good food. I got to go to my 11th temple- Rexburg. I did baptisms with my favorite cousin, Ryan, and we chilled at his house for a bit and went to Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe, which is super good. We climbed a butte, and Dan told us all these random facts about rocks (He's a geologist), and then I accidentally threw a rock at John's face... and hit him in the head with a tree branch... He wasn't very happy with me haha. And that's... pretty much it. Rexburg is like a ghost town, but it was just fun to get out of p-town. The next weekend, the wildlife club was having an activity up at an Alpaca Farm owned by one of the BYU professors in Moroni. We stayed in wood-stove log cabins, and ate llama burger for breakfast, and john taught me how to drive a stick-shift tractor. Weird, but pretty cool. And we tried to cow-tip in the middle of the night, but the cows had tags on their ears and we thought they were horns so we (John) got freaked out and ran.

Today

• Song of the day: Paperweight by Joshua Radin
• Quote of the day: "I love Mark Ruffalo. He reminds me of my future husband." (Krista Roy). Also, "Buffalo! You know what rhymes with Buffalo? Ruffalo!"
• Bird of the day: Wood duck. they are freakin good looking
• Dessert of the day: donuts topped with oreos or butterfingers
• Tree of the day: Chinese Elm Bonsai. Named Fawkes.
• Boy of the day (and of the day before today... and the day before that... etc): John Hill.
• Roommate of the day: Krista Roy
• Craving of the day: Pirate booty
  
• Favorite Moment of the day: Seeing Krista Roy's face when she saw my face... under her bathroom stall
• Picture of the day:
• 
• Sandwich of the day: The Satisfier from Sensuous Sandwich
• Sister of the day: Nicole, for saying that she wanted a country for her birthday
• Sticky item of the day: my pantry shelf... somebody spilled their honey all over it...
  
• overheard conversation of the day (some lady talking on the phone): "Well I'm sorry that I grew up being taught to love other people... I'm sorry I show love to others... I'm sorry that I show emotion... and I'm sorry that you obviously suck at it."
  
• Shoes of the day: gray converse. with purple & yellow socks.
  
• Waste of time of the day: looking up Harry Potter names on babynames.com
• Dumbest video of the day: The Mean Kitty song... as posted by Rachel. oh dear rachel...
• Lie of the day: Brock Solomon saying that he can beat me up... as if... he's only like twice my weight...
  
• Surprise of the day: John bringing me lunch!
  
• Scream of the day: when I tried putting a sweetheart in Krista Roy's mouth and she thought it was a soybean.
• Accomplishment of the day: Applying to a Humanitarian Aid Project in Uganda with Help International
• Motto of the day: "Live (until you die) Laugh (until you cry) Love (Until you hate somebody a lot) (I just made that up... hahahaha dumb. and dumber.)
• Shock of the day: I spent twice as much $ as i should have on groceries last month... heh.
  
• Most beautiful thing of the day: watching the sunset (with Johnny boy)
  
• Best food of the day: Homemade cafe rio sweet pork, rice, and bean burrito. (with my roommates cheese and tortillas)
• Biggest disappointment of the day: discovering that there was blood coming out of my...
• Missionary of the day: Jim White, because I saw his brother, and thought it would probably be a good time to write him before he comes home in 3 months...
• Awkward moment of the day: Went to work. "How are you doing today, Elise?" "Oh, I'm super." "Well that's weird" "Oh... well I'll try to tone it down..... ohhh i guess today's ok I guess...." (Silence...) "Uhh what are you talking about?"
• Best advice of the day: Consulting an online 8-ball, who we asked if the Krispy Kreme light was on. he said "absolutely" and it was.
• Pain of the day: When I went to lay on Brenda's bed on my side seducingly and serenade Kelcey with a song... and i slammed my already bruised shoulder and messed it up even more.
  
• Wish of the day: that it was windy enough to fly a kite.
• Best overall thing about today: The BEAUTIFUL WARM WEATHER!!
  
• Biggest insult: Krista telling me that no one reads my blog except her...