Stolen Identity.

There is nothing like the BYU campus during its regular semester sessions to make you feel more ordinary and insignificant. Everyone seems to have been a cheerleader. Everyone seems to have been student body president. Everyone plays the piano and has more musical talent than Jessica Simpson. And worse, you are reminded of it every minute...as there as lines and lines of these clones EVERYWHERE you go.

I'm making my way to my first classes...




Who am I again?



Kidding.

My summer started 2 weeks ago.

I went about my entire homesick Summer term (I confess. It was baaaddd), with the reassuring thought that I'd come home shortly on the anticipated 14th of Auguest to a flood/parade of "Welcome Back" parties and sobbing hugs, the effect of every Temecula inhabitant direly missing me in my two month absence.......ha.

It's this very image that I had embarrassingly enough, contrived in my head that made me completely take for granted the last week of the term. Everyone began to get all nostalgic.....but me? I began packing up my room a week beforehand. I couldn't wait to be in the warm embrace of my mom and friends who would all say something along the lines of, "Haley, Temecula changed when you first got here, and now it's changed again because you are gone..." It would be then that I'd be 150% positive that I was missed and much as I was missing them. You see, my life took a one-eighty when I left home, it's now sooo different, as everyone soon discovers when they leave the nest. I now refer to myself in the mirror as Holly Walker, not Haley. I fend for my own meals, buy my own shampoo, do my own laundry, and have to worry about BUYING "thank-you" cards, as I no longer have my mother's Willa-Wonka factory-like craft room to make them (Lu, Mom--please don't disown me). For those of you wondering, ya......I may have slept a few HSM script inspired lines in there... :]

I didn't sleep the night before my flight. I was too excited! I had a super early flight and couldn't fall asleep thousands of feet above ground either. I made friends with the couple next to me and pretended to know all about the last season of the Bachelor to sustain a conversation, read through an entire trashy gossip magazine from cover to cover, AND watched JetBlue's complimentary television set--all in a flight of an hour and fifteen minutes. And then, I'm sitting on the curb of the airport for nearly an hour waiting to be picked up.

Turns out life marched on without me. My friends made new memories and were in anticipation of THEIR departure...not my arrival. I don't know where I went wrong and became so selfish as to believe they would. "Life sucks and then you die." That's not a line from HSM. HSM would never be so pessimistic. I know, I'm ashamed!

After a few days of moping around the house, Mom decided I HAD to snap out it. So we decided to go see Julie & Julia. But that wasn't enough, so we had to see Post Grad & 500 Days of Summer-twice. The realistic perspective of the latter sobered me up, because even though it admits that life sucks sometimes, there is ALWAYS something coming up in the works that's even better! Autumn follows Summer. I LOVE THAT MOVIE. Go see it. NOW.

So with only one week left of my two week vacay at home and probably five hundred too many words blogging about it, Haley Walker has appeared in the mirror again. I miss my summer buddies.....even if they did get me in get me in trouble for being creepers at my window.



Adam & Porter are both leaving on their missions in the coming two months. So, they will no longer make guest appearances on my blog....so sad. I'm even worried I wont have anymore "Utah" typical dates!

Wait, WAIT. What was my big epiphany?! Autumn follows Summer. Keep telling myself that!


With the remaining week I had left, I took full advantage of unlimited bowling...





I'll tell you upfront that I'm terrible....but I did get my very own, very FIRST, strike! Woooo!!! Go, go Haley (not Holly). That optimism really does something for you. I even tied for first!.....in a game of trying to knock down the LEAST amount of pins. Yaaaa. That's how we do!

I also was a dancing queen at a friend's 80's birthday bash..



And wake surfed my way across Vail Lake.





I'm heading back up to P-town in the morning for a brand new semester full with the promise of BYU football season, a darling new roommate named Emily, a fun floral design class, the Brutschs, new boys!, a new season of So You Think You Can Dance, and a TON of new Cougars on campus.

Thanks Mom & Dad for a GREAT, AMAZING, WONDERFUL, FUN-FILLED, and $$$ spent visit home. It's no wonder I got so homesick! Love you so much.

Over and out till the next post y'all. Promise it wont take so long...and remember: Autumn always follows Summer.

:]

G.I. Joe- the premiere.

Boys. I got stuck riding with these little ninjas......I didn't even dress up for the HSM3 premiere...that means these kids REALLY are dorks.

Adam kept trying to snuggle. But dude. The mustache was SICK. And not the cool kind of sick....I would have said DANK instead....I'm saying real disgusting sick. I wouldn't go within five feet of him. #1 mistake: that's bear fur....not facial hair. #2 mistake: it's a STICKER. (I'm shuddering right now.)

He guilted me in ONE picture. No harm, no fowl.



AND THEN. OF COURSE....



UGHHH!!! Eww!!! SICK, SICK, SICK. I nearly vomited.

Timp.

I woke up on Saturday at noon. Yes, noon. I never sleep in that late...I'm lucky if I can push 10:30. But the night before my roommate and I decided to stay in together and have a movie marathon, and didn't end up going to bed until 3:30 am. When I woke up, I took a shower...got ready and had full intentions of studying for a few hours since finals are this coming week. But plans changed.... because RIGHT then I get a phone call.....another date. SO not only do boys take four hours to plan dates, they also plan dates for 2 pm in the afternoon. ONLY in Utah. I thought part of a "date's" definition was "outing or activity between two persons at NIGHT"......but I constantly am reminding myself, I'm in Utah.

Three couples crammed into a truck and were driven up Alpine Loop.....where we got out...and hiked. ONLY Utah dates do that too.







On the journey we became one with nature.







And after a what seemed like a long trek.....(I thought the pioneer trek was over?)



We reached this haven.



And then we played!




But I soon found out that the water was FREEZING! I tried to act cool anyways...everyone else seemed to be down with it.



Then we couldn't take it any longer. We were turning blue from the ice cold (supposed to be snow) water...we were at the top of the mountains!







Fun day y'all.

(P.S. And for the record Dad, the only kiss given was the one to the boo-boo on his knee!)....oh, UTAH.

Only in Utah does a boy take four hours to plan and prepare a date. ONLY in Utah. Everywhere else, it's dinner, a movie, and home. Simple. Predictable. Status Quo. Oh, and they always expect a kiss at the end.... Hey, it's the truth!

It was quite the surprise when I was greeted with this:



Hayley and I (funny, huh?) had to solve the riddle attached...which had quite the astronomical twist.



They took us star gazing....but Adam preferred this type of "gazing":



Porter was much more romantic.



Then they took out plain white T's (no, not the band!) and we played war with glow-in-the-dark liquid paint.....like we were making our own constellations!





And as if the night wasn't elaborate enough, they brought out "sparklers" too!





You know what they say college does to you...


Just kidding!