Buffalo Princess!

What do you call a girl who can eat her fair share of really spicy wings? Buffalo Princess!

On Saturday night Deneal, Jessyca and I went to a buffalo wings restaurant with some friends in the ward. After eating wings that were too hot, getting car sick, almost being abducted by a ghost on a motorcycle and laughing the entire time I can honestly say that being a buffalo princess isn't too bad!

Such a fun night guys, thanks!

Happy First Day of Fall!

Yay! Fall is here and I am so excited. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy summer, adore spring, like winter, but I love fall! Nothing is better than watching the leaves change colors and the crisp cool nights. Plus, fall brings Thanksgiving which is the best holiday of all. Not to mention - dressing in the fall is the absolute best. I am a complete sucker for fall colors and obsessed jackets and boots!

So here's to learning to accessorize with umbrella's and hoping Oregon's fall is as fabulous as Utah's!

Happy Fall everyone!

Attack of the Birds!

Ok, that was over dramatized, but tonight we watched as hundreds of Swift's made a home in the small chimney of a school. Swifts are the most aerial of birds and look similar to Swallows, but apparently are a member of the hummingbird family. As they migrate every year they spend about 3 weeks sleeping in a chimney in downtown Portland. Every night hundreds of birds gather together and funnel into this chimney while hundreds of people sit on a hill for a couple hours, eat dinner and watch the show. Here are some pictures, but you must know that the pictures don't do the whole production justice. There were birds everywhere, it was crazy and a little bit frightening knowing that at any moment one may need to go to the bathroom. Don't worry - we came out clean!

All the little black dots, those are birds
Here they are beginning to funnel in

And a short video for your viewing pleasure


Also notable, I wore the shoes tonight that Shannon and Dan gave to me for my birthday! They are TDF(To Die For). I love them, thanks again guys!

I heart WalMart

I know - people think WalMart is awful because it stops people from shopping local, but let me just say, you don't know what you have until it's gone! When I moved to Oregon and made my first trip to pick up some essentials that I had run out of (ie. soap, Q-tips) I had to go to the nearest Fred Meyer where I paid $5.00 for 18 FL OZ of body wash and $3.50 for a box of Qtips. You see, WalMart is not a dime a dozen here and even the word makes people cringe. The closest one to me is about 30 minutes away, certainly a change from the supercenter just around the corner from my house in Salt Lake. Needless to say the cost of such essentials has gone up.

Well the other day as I was making a 'quick trip' to Nordstrom Rack I missed my connecting freeway (without noticing) and went 20 miles in the wrong direction. As I was driving I kept thinking 'this doesn't look right, I think I missed my turn', but I continued on. It wasn't until I saw Popeyes chicken restaurant (equivalent to KFC)on the side of the freeway that I knew I was in the wrong place. (Sidenote: I remembered that same Popeyes restaurant from a trip I had taken one summer to visit Shannon. We were on our way to an outlet mall and that restaurant stuck in my mind.) I took the next exit to turn around and to my surprise - there stood a WalMart. I figured since I was there, I may as well go in and grab some things that I needed. When I walked in it was like a blanket of security - there were the prices I remembered! $1.88 for Qtips and $2.68 for body wash. Whoo hoo! I stocked up on the essentials and bought myself some cookies for a job well done! So, I know everyone thinks WalMart is the root of all things evil, but honestly - you can't beat the prices.


Also, something very cute to note... my family had our monthly birthday party/dinner yesterday. This month mine and Nate's birthday were being celebrated. My brother, Shane, sent me a picture of the cake which read, "Happy Birthday Amber and Nate" while my dad called me on speaker phone so I could be there as the whole family sang us happy birthday! It was really cute! What a thoughful family - thanks guys -that made my day!

I Remember

I remember being on a treadmill watching a big TV. I remember seeing a building on fire while a video played over and over showing a plane running into another, similar looking building. I remember not being able to hear the voices of the anchors and not being able to comprehend what was happening. I remember going home, seeing my roommates around the TV and sitting next to them to understand the horror. I remember being a freshman in college, being away from home for the first time, calling my parents longing to be comforted. We watched as people jumped from buildings while others stood on the ground covered in ash. We watched as police tried to help and firefighters went into buildings. We watched, we sat terrified, we tried to understand, I cried. I cried for the children who lost parents, wives who lost husbands and husbands who lost wives. For parents, cousins, friends and everyone being affected - for the world. I cried because I couldn't imagine being there myself, suffering as they had to. I promised to be grateful for my days - to not forget. Thank you to those who gave of themselves to help that day. Thank you to those who give their lives to protect our country and to their families who stand at their side. I remember and I won't forget.

Incredible, awesome, amazing, fun weekend

We had such a fun time in Seattle this weekend. It was packed full of food, presents, sports, silly jokes and a whole lot of laughing! It just so happens that BYU had their first away game in Seattle the weekend of my birthday. Luckily for me, Bryce, Lynn and Brandon planned to travel to the game and were nice enough to invite me along (thanks again!). We all arrived in Seattle on Thursday, which also happened to be my birthday. I love birthday's - I think it should be everyone's favorite day of their year. I mean, how can you not love the day that you were born?! This year was no exception, thanks to my wonderful parents, family and friends. Thank you for all the calls, texts, emails, packages, cards, presents and warm wishes. Twenty -five really doesn't seem so bad even if I do have a gray hair.
Thursday after we all arrived we went to dinner and had enough food to feed a small army and singing and chocolate cake to top it all off!



After dinner Bryce was super excited for me to open presents since they had hauled them all the way from Utah! I think you will easily pick out mine and his favorite present of the night...

How did he pick out a purse that would match my shirt exactly? Great minds think alike.

Knowing my distaste for BYU, Bryce thought he was hilarious buying this shirt for me and insisting that I would wear it to the game. You will see below whether or not that happened. Thanks again to everyone for everything, what a great birthday!
On Friday we went around town to Pike's Market and the Space Needle, but before any of that could happen we had to stop off at University of Washington to check out the field. I really wish I would have gotten a picture of this because Lynn was ecstatic to be out on the field making sure the turf was in tact and checking out our seats for Saturday. He was so proud to tell everyone that he had been out there to check it out. Very cute really. After the field passed the test we headed downtown. Pike's Market is always so fun - they have BEAUTIFUL cheap flowers and HUGE fish!


We had lunch on the peir. It was so pretty sitting right next to the water and I even saw seals!!



Friday night we went to the Mariners - Yankees game. It was so FUN! We had fabulous seats and I swear we almost got hit by 16 balls. Thank goodness everyone jumped up to catch them, that sure rose my blood pressure! We almost saw a no-hitter by the Mariners. Up until the 8th inning the Mariners didn't let anyone on base and then it was ruined! Dangit, that would have been cool to see! The whole experience was awesome... I took about 15 billion pictures.


Jeter...


After a 10pm dinner we went to bed to rest up for the game Saturday. We stayed in the same hotel as the Cougar club and BYU coaches and players, so the place was buzzing with blue and white. Saturday morning on my way to the gym, I rode in the elevator with Bronco Mendenhall (He is the BYU coach). We had a little chat and I wished him luck in the game. I am pretty sure it was that conversation that helped BYU win that day so... you are welcome BYU fans! :) Well, I caved. I wore the BYU shirt and even cheered! As I left my hotel room that morning, I looked in the mirror at my shirt and wondered, "what exactly is happening here?" I had a hard time yelling, "GO BYU" - I'm not ready for that! So I kept my cheering mainly to "YAY", "WHOO HOO", "MAKE THE CALL REF"! The game was really fun and road games are really exciting! We had amazing seats and the Marlor's really get into the game. They were SO much fun to watch and cheer with, they sure love this team! BYU won that day 28 - 27 and I don't care what ESPN says - The call against Washington was deserved and Washington wasn't going to win anyway!





I would like to note that I am still a Utah fan, but I will cheer for BYU as long as their not playing Utah.
Our last night in Seattle was really fun. We went to dinner, shopping, to the movie theater just to buy popcorn. We hung out, ate too much candy, laughed all night and Lynn ordered pizza at 9:30 just as Bryce predicted.

What a fun trip and a fun birthday! Thank you again for such a fun weekend!!

Speed Walking

This weekend Shannon, Dan and I did a 10k called the Nike Plus Human Race. It is a race that was hosted all over the world with people running in Italy, Paris, South Africa, Mexico, New York etc. Since Nike headquarters are in Portland, of course they hosted a race here! All the cities ran on the same day and then our times were uploaded to a Nike website to view how you placed in the world. 521,970 people ran and I placed 106,605 - sweet. Anyway, it was an awesome race. Nike puts on a fabulous show! From the goody bags and race day t-shirts to free socks, inspiring videos, post race concerts, even Greg Oden was there. It was a good course and a lot of fun. This definitly makes the list of my top 5 favorite races!




Point of this post - Speed Walkers. While I was standing on the side of the finish line watching people cross I noticed quite a bit of speed walkers.
Speed walking - walking very fast without breaking into a jog or run. Arms swing in pace with the stride, and one foot is on the ground at all times.

HOW DO THEY DO IT?! I watched these people speed walk even down to the last 100 meters. How do they not break into a dead sprint, arms flailing shouting 'I'm free to have both feet off the ground if I'd like!' I know I would and I would probably do a cart wheel over the finish line. And have you ever tried to speed walk? It's hard! Some speed walkers walk faster than people run and it's an Olympic event. I know it has great benefits for your body - and probably not as hard on your joints as running - but I still don't get it. I guess I don't have enough self control to keep one foot on the ground at all times or enough patients to learn. Such an interesting sport. Walk on... haha, like rock on, but walk on...
get it?

Quick update on my hair:
Her name was Jodi, she was really nice and exceptionally cute. She patiently listened to me go on for 15 minutes about how I wanted it cut and colored. The darker color in my hair turned out perfect, I think the lighter color is a little too light. Definitly lighter than what I am used to. The cut is a little bit longer than I would have liked, but the shape is good and I am sure she was nervous about what I would do if it was TOO short. I can't decide if I should go back and have her tone the lighter peices darker or embrace the lighter look. She did tell me to call her if it was too light. She was very knowledgeable and she really did do a good job. So, she's a keeper as my Oregon stylist.