Tremonton.

Tremonton. Noun. Pronounced [Tree-mon-en] the T is often forgotten. Also known as Tree-town, land of few trees, Bear River Valley and as I like to refer to it, God’s country. Now I may be a bit biased, but I would argue I grew up in the best little town in the state of Utah. Never mind it is in the middle of nowhere, you blink and you may miss it, and is often referred to by tourists as the “potty stop.” I absolutely love my hometown and coming back and visiting. Here are a few reasons why I love Tremonton, Utah besides the obvious “I love it because my familia and friends still lives there and all the memories associated with them…”
Bear River High School: I spent a huge chunk of my time at the fine institution. If I wasn’t in class, I was at practice for one of the sports I played. If I wasn’t practicing I was cheering on my state champion basketball team or the semi-average football team. If I wasn’t in the bleachers cheering I was there for a dance or a club activity. The list goes on and on. The one thing about the lovely Bear River Valley is there is a plethora amount of school spirit, not just from the students but from the community. A sports team makes it the state championship and the schools, stores, and whole town shut down for a few hours.
Garland Tabernacle: Yep, this immaculate building is where I go to church. Not only do we have 2 pulpits in our chapel, we also have an upstairs balcony and a wall filled with glass stained windows. This is an ancient and beautiful building. So ancient I wouldn’t be surprised if the benches in the chapel were the originals that the pioneers built. The only reason I say that is because they are hard and almost impossible to fall asleep on. This also the building where my ward continually kicked everyones trash in churchball. G2 Forever!
PizzaPlus: Not only does this pizza joint have the world’s best breadsticks but they also have the world’s best employees. Or at least that was the case when I worked there. This lovely building is where I worked all throughout high school. It was a pretty amazing job filled with lots of fattening pizza. During my long stay at PizzaPlus I met some of my best friends. Good ol’ Jake, Alex, David, Austin, Chantry, Annalee and I had some pretty wild times from smashing boxes, creating cotton candy creations, to peanut butter pizza and silly convos from sleep deprived workers.
Pie Dump: I just had to throw this in because of the amazing Hot Rolls. You haven’t lived until you have tried one of those little pieces of heaven. The doughnuts and chicken strips are also highly recommended.
Garland City Building: I often refer to this building as the Party Building. Not only was my surprise 16th birthday in the building but this is where our youth city council meetings were held and they were a party every week. We never got much accomplished during these meetings. Most of us were too concerned with the after-meeting party: milkshakes at Artic Circle.

And my most favorite part of Tremonton…the big empty spaces: this is a picture I took once of the drive from the school to my house. There are a lot of empty fields, tractors, horses, and not a whole bunch of trees (the main reason why I think the name Tremonton is so ironic). This town full of bare spaces results in the use of some very creative weekend adventures. Cow tipping, swimming in canals, ghost hunting, and movie nights in motor homes to name a few.

As you can tell Tremonton is an amazing place and i am proud to call this lil piece of earth "home"

Christmas.

CHRISTMAS! By far my favorite holiday. What is there not to love about food, presents, family, parties, and did I mention food? This Christmas was a bit different from previous years. My mom had surgery on Tuesday and then again the day before Christmas Eve. So the role of mom was placed on my shoulders (not gonna lie, I made some pretty good looking rolls). My mom is a trooper though. Every Christmas Eve we have a tradition of going to Logan and going to a movie and then out to dinner. Even though my mom was in pain and on drugs from the surgery, she still came with us. I was amazed! I think she was sure feeling it the next day though. This was also a weird Christmas because Courtnie wasn’t around to open presents with us now that she is married and all. It was odd because my turn to open a present came so much quicker. Anyway, here are some pictures documenting our festive day, please just pretend I did my make-up and hair for the day. I know I am not looking the prettiest….


Rockin' my new Jazz Shirt and Jersey Shore PJs. Thanks Markellie

All my Presents...Santa spoiled me this year.

One of my favorite presents...my jazz parties will be complete!

Jazz Toast Anyone?

Carlie Jo.

Today Carlie moved out. I miss her already and its only been about 6 hours since I have seen her last. We have had some good times this semester, I am just sad this semester has gone by so fast. Carlie is going to be remembered for her amazing cooking abilities. She cooks some mad crepes, tator tot casserole, and chicken enchiladas. She introduced me to this great invention called Wafflecone Wednesday and Yozone too. Carlie has put up with my Utah Jazz obsession, my ability to always distract her from her studies, and my sometimes forgetfulness to make my bed some mornings. The good thing is we both love sleep equally. We both go to sleep super early which makes things easy. She has definitely been one of the best roommates I have ever had, nevermind I have only had 2 roommates in my whole life. Oh how I will miss her. Amigos forever! She better come visit or else…

Here are some pictures documenting our time together this semester...

Christmas Newsletter.

Here is our annual Christmas Newsletter from me and Markel. Written by yours truly. Enjoy!

Dearest Family, Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers, and whoever else may read this,

Even though we have moved out and are now living on our own, we didn’t want to break family tradition. So we decided to create our own little family newsletter to keep the world updated on the events happening in Happy Valley and good ol’ apartment C208. There is never a boring moment in our lives, which I am sure you will agree after reading about our many experiences. So without farther ado let me introduce the roommates…

Cami: is the older and wiser roommate. She is dubbed as the responsible one and is often seen carrying around Markel’s important documents. Cami is studying at Utah Valley University and is majoring in political science. She is hoping to run for president of the United States in 2026, so make sure you vote for her. As she has learned in her classes, it is never too early to start campaigning. Cami is also an ambassador of UVU, so if you want a free t-shirt she will hook you up.

Markel: will also respond to Martha May, Murkell, or Vaca Sucia. Markel is working at the Marriott Towneplace Suites in Orem. She was just named as Employee of the Quarter and won’t let anyone forget it. If you are ever in the Orem area stop by the hotel and check out her picture and plaque. She will even send out autographed pictures of herself if you ask. Markel is known as the home décor. She always has a new design plan up her sleeve. Markel is also known for her lack of sleep. For some odd reason she can run just fine off no sleep. That is definitely a talent.

Carlie: everyone in our apartment would starve without this woman. She is an excellent cook. Unfortunately she has decided she would rather run off and get married so this means that we are going to have to go back and resort to the good ol’ Ramen Noodles and Mac’n’cheese. Carlie has introduced us to this beautiful thing called Wafflecone Wednesday and Yozone which we have greatly appreciated. We all like Ike though, so I guess we will let her abandon us. She better visit though.

Kelli: the convicted felon who served in the relief society presidency. Yep, we didn’t stutter, we lived with a convicted felon for about four months. You can check out her mug shots in the Wanted Magazine if you want to learn what she looks like. It might come in handy so you know when to take extra precautions with your credit cards. She has finally found her soulmate and they plan to wed. We are all placing bets on how long the marriage lasts. If you want to add money to the pool and place a bet, feel free.

Na’Shaya: our soul sista friend. Thank goodness we escaped being roommates with this chica in July. She was known for her 3 am cooking of fried chicken, fried twinkies, and anything else in the kitchen she could fry. She was also known for her sketchy ways of throwing knives (at us), bringing her risky sorority sisters over, and smoking weed in her bedroom (opps, I meant just storing “scented beads” as she claimed).

Now no college experience is complete with random, absurd, and dangerous adventures. Here are a few…
The Utah Jazz: thanks to our trusty security guard friend Cameron F. we have had the opportunity to get to know all the jazz players. We are dedicated and loyal fans. If we aren’t at the game we are sitting on our couch, if we aren’t on our couch we are at Iggys watching it on the big screen, if we aren’t at Iggys we are getting 30 second updates sent to our phones. For lack of a better term, we are obsessed.
Disneyland: We were granted the opportunity to go to sunny California in June with our familia. We ran our bodies dead. We were first in line every morning and the last to leave the park. The employees always yelled at us because we had a tendency of running from ride to ride. We did discover a new favorite ride though, Dumbo! What can I say, we are young at heart.
PizzaPieCafe: our hangout spot. We are addicted. It doesn’t help they send out texts regularly with steal of deals. I highly recommend trying it out. The Spudalicious pizza is the best, as is the cookie dough one.
Concerts: some may look at us and thing we are concert junkies. The truth is we only go because we seem to have good luck and win free tickets. Hands down the best concert this year was Backstreet Boys. Nothing is better than sitting row 3 and jamming out to songs that remind me of my youth. Other favorite concerts we attended this year include Tim Mcgraw, Lady Antabellum, Jason Derulo, B.o.B, and Neon Trees.

Here is just a brief outline of our many experiences. Believe me, there were too many to name. If you want to learn more about us, stalk us. Befriend us on Facebook, follow us on twitter, or join our blog. We would also appreciate any advice you have on how to avoid psycho roommates. We seem to get a lot of them and the only normal one we have ever had (Carlie) is moving out. Bummer summer. May you all have happy holidays and an eventful new year. We are all excited to see what this new year brings us. Pray it is marriage (just kidding). If not we will be on leaving on missions or dead because we were stuck with yet another psycho roommate.

Peace, Love, and Happiness…

Cami & Markel

Salt Lake Temple.

Finals Week.

Finals week is here upon us. Here are a few of my suggestions on how to survive. Good luck ya’ll.

How to survive Finals Week
1. Move into the library- just start packing your pajamas and toothbrush in your backpack and spend the majority of your time in the good ol’ library. This is beneficial for two reasons. First, it is quiet, so it is easy to concentrate. Second, if you are looking for distractions, there are a ton of weirdos hanging out getting way to into their World of Warcraft. They can be pretty entertaining to watch.
2. Take a break- now studying for a week straight can get pretty old. So take a break. Go grab dinner (highly recommend Café Rio), finish up some Christmas shopping or watch the jazz game. (go jazz go!)
3. Sleep- ahh, nothing is better than a good nights sleep. Even a quick cat nap can get the job done.
4. Visit your family (or friends)- in my case, I visit my grandma. She feeds me dinner. It’s a win-win situation. I get fed and she gets to see me. You know what they say, its better to think on a full stomach.
5. Study in groups- this is your last time to get to know that hottie in your class. It’s a genius way to get his number, spend some time with him, oh...and study.
6. Reward yourself- if you have survived finals week, pat yourself on the back. Make someone take you out to dinner, bake you cookies, or throw you a little parade. Conquering finals week is not an easy task.
7. Don’t stress- now I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but odds are if you don’t know the material now, you aren’t going to know it later. So don’t freak out. It happens to the best of us. You are going to fail a class every now and again. Its called life.

Darci.

Meet my little sister named Darci. Don’t let the word “little” confuse you though. She is much taller than me. She even looks older than me sometimes. I once had a co-worker think that she was my older sister when she stopped by. Darci is one of the happiest, kindest, strongest, hardest working people I know. She doesn’t let mean comments from others, high school drama, or serious trials damper her moods. She would do anything for anybody. That includes letting me constantly borrow her clothes when I go home and “forget” something, letting me drag her along to the ballroom dance concert at UVU, and letting me pick on her and make fun of her and her love interest (she is my little sister, I got to give her a hard time. Right?). I honestly don’t know what I would do without this woman. I wouldn’t have anybody there singing “Love at Home” when me and my other sister were fighting, I wouldn’t have anybody to tickle my back during church, I wouldn’t have anyone to shop with and pick out the shortest Christmas books, and I wouldn’t have anybody to text me and brighten my day. Darci, if you are stalking my blog and reading this right now…I sure do love you!

(500)Days of Summer.

This is not a love story. This is a story about love.

(500)Days of Summer. Easily makes my list of top five greatest movies in the history of the world. I highly recommend it. It is so romantic. The date scene in Ikea left me speechless… “Darling, I don’t know how to tell you this but…there is a Chinese family in our bathroom?” Don’t get me wrong though. This is definitely no love story, no happy ending, no fairy tale. It changed my perspective on love. I think that is why I absolutely love it so much. This is a movie about reality. Just like the tagline says, “Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl Doesn’t.”