Utah Trip

Last Thursday afternoon I went to Utah with my friend, Casey Poetker. It was supposed to be a Halloween trip as well as a time to take a linguistics test for the Navy. We stayed til Monday afternoon with Casey's friends Jessie and Sean.

Some highlights of the trip:

• Going to In N Out Burger with Casey as our first and last stops in Utah. I love that place, and now I see the hype. I just barely lost my In N Out Burger virginity this summer when I went to Lagoon with my friends Mike, Lacey, Kira, and Brittany. 
• Lunch with Kelli at a little Greek hole-in-the-wall place. She filled me in on her really awesome and crazy romance with a Dutchman. It is quite the story. If you know Kelli, that girl has some great stories. I guess even if you don't know her she has some great stories, regardless. The food was really good too. It was my first time ever having Greek food.
• The Haunted Forest with Jessie, Sean, and Casey. It was quite the setup. They had a Freddie Krueger that was really intense and got into his role really well. And I was in the back so I got the joy of being followed. 
• Jessie and Sean. They were entertaining and just really great people. It's always great to make new friends. 
• The Gateway mall. I love going there just to look around. I know where I'm going to shop when I have lots of money. 
• I bought three sweet new ties. 

While the trip wasn't exactly what I envisioned, and I was slightly bummed about it for awhile, I thought about it and it was probably for the best. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason or, in this case, they don't happen for a reason. Just take things like that in stride and move on. Now it is back to reality for that was my last hoorah before Christmas retail season. Yay!

Randomosity

It has been awhile since I've blogged, so here is an update on my life:

I went on a random trip to Utah this weekend and it was amazing. It was really nice to get out of town and not be in the same mundane routine.

I'm reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. So far, so good. I'm reading them backwards because I've never read his other two books, but now I really want to. You should see a review of this book soon enough although it's taken me awhile to get through for some reason.

The revision/rewriting process of my novel Befall is still very frustrating and still at a complete standstill. However, I do have ideas and I'm going to see if they work. Time to just bite the bullet and just write no matter what.

Operation: Fabio is coming to an end. The longer hair has been fun, but I think I am going to cut it short again. This time, however, I may try something a little different. My friend, Kym, will be able to tell me if I can pull it off. I was going to see if I could find a picture of it, but I think I will just keep it under wraps for now. My next haircut appointment is the beginning of June.

I am seriously considering going back to school now. This means I have to study for the GRE and then take the dreaded test and ace it and then find a school that will take me. This also means more debt and whatnot, but it also means my brain won't be turning into mush anymore. I'm very excited for the opportunities this presents for me, and I hope I can hack it. As far as schools are concerned, Utah would be great, but I would like to go somewhere different and new, get involved in a different place culturally. Ideal spots would be California (very expensive, but the beach is right there!), Denver (random, but I hear it is a great place), Seattle, somewhere on the east coast like Virginia or North Carolina, or head south to Florida again. As you can see, I have not narrowed it down very well, but I have plenty of time for that.

Still obsessed with Zumba. It really is a great workout. My kettlebell class is cancelled for the summer which is a huge bummer. I also want to see about certifying to be a Zumba instructor and/or a kettlebell instructor.

That's all I can think of for now which is probably a good thing because I need to go to work.

Peace out, ya'all!

Hilary & Tom's Wedding

Last weekend I went to Utah for my cousin's wedding. This was my first trip out of town since the frantic, hectic, tiring, and somewhat stressful (not to mention the drama) Christmas season at Deseret Book. Needless to say (I hate that prefix simply because if it's really "Needless to say" why say it? That's beside the point) I was seriously in need of a break. So I was actually more excited about the getaway than I was about the wedding. But it turned out to be a good time even with the wedding. ha!

We drove down Friday morning. Gigi was a good girl even though she was suffering from stomach problems. She kept entertained watching Snow White and sleeping on the trip down to Utah. I was happy as a clam because I just read most of the way and never looked at the road. It's amazing how un-stressful it is to be the passenger.

On the way down we ate at a diner in Flying J. It was really questionable but I told myself not to be a pain. The sandwich was pretty good that I had there but I kept checking to make sure the chicken was all the way cooked and such. Yeah, it was that kind of establishment.

Once we got to the hotel we got settled in and then did a quick shop at Target. Then we went to my Uncle Brian's house. I got to see Ashley, Brian's son and my cousin, whom I have not seen in at least five years. He is in the Navy and is now back in Utah as a recruiter. I've always been really impressed by Ashley and have looked up to him for most of my life (not because he's taller than me. He really isn't much taller than me). So it was really good to see him again. I hardly get to spend a whole lot of time with Brian and his family. They are an awesome bunch.

That night we had a big dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was really good food. I was slightly worried when we got to the hotel because we were just going to go to bed. Spicy food then immediate bedtime? Never a good idea. So I passed about an hour or so just reading until I figured it was safe to sleep. (I'm weird, I know).

The next day was the wedding day, but the wedding wasn't until 3PM. We killed time by going to Cabela's and Costco.

The wedding ceremony and reception were both at a country club where Hilary works. It was a really nice place, certainly one of the nicer places I've been in a long time and I think it was mostly because of the formality of it all. I thought that was interesting because Hilary and Tom and the rest of the family/friends were very informal about the whole thing.

Hilary looked great. She looked very happy. I also got to see Hilary's mom, Brian's ex-wife, Tracy. She also looks really good and seems to be happy. I had seen her a few years ago when I randomly stopped by her house when I was in St. George. Good times. My dad did married the couple and did a really good job.

I took some pictures of the wedding. We stayed for about an hour of the reception and then hit the road, heading back to Idaho. It was too dark for me to read on the way back home so I ended up watching The Neverending Story which I haven't seen in ages. That's a great flick.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding.







Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Hilary Nunnelly!



Aunt Tracy with her sons Ashley (left) and Reggie (right).



The whole crew.

CONGRATULATIONS TOM & HILARY!

2009: A Year in Review

January:

I was living at Mike's house in Rexburg and started my final semester at BYU-Idaho. During this month I began reading The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde for my senior capstone English class. Also, on the 16th, my sister gave birth to two beautiful twin boys named Morgan Rico and Wyatt Bruce Chacon. They are an awesome addition to the family.

February:

Still plowing away at the last semester of school. Another Valentine's Day without a significant other to profess my love with flowers and chocolates to. Oh well.

March:

This was a great month. We had Giselle (Gigi) sealed to my parents and also did Brittany's temple work. It was a very special and spiritual experience that I will not forget. It was after this that I finally felt at peace about the whole thing. We have also continued the tradition of going out to eat as a family on birthdays, so we went out for Britt's birthday.

April:

We celebrated Kate's 27th birthday on the 8th. And I graduated from BYU-Idaho FINALLY! My degree was in English, professional writing, with a minor in public relations. The world was my oyster and I was ready to hit the road running!

May:

This month found me moving out of Mike's house and back in with my parents and Gigi. It has been a good move because I have been able to save up money while looking for a big-kid job.

June:

Gigi had her second birthday. On her birthday we took family pictures which would eventually be the motivation for me to lose weight.

July:

I started a workout regimen using my parents' Bowflex and their elliptical machine and saw immediate results. Also, this was the month I went to Tori Amos' concert in Salt Lake City. She was AMAZING and by far the best concert I've ever been to. Somewhere either in June or July we had a big Art Taylor family reunion up here. We had a big bbq and then the next day we caravan'ed up to West Yellowstone and other hot spots. It was great to be with the clan again.

August:

I turned 26 on the 4th which puts me closer to 30 than 20. It's hard to think of that simply because I thought I would be in a different place in my life at this point, but what can ya do? It has been hard for me to get out of a jaded funk about girls and dating.

September:

Still plugging away at work at Deseret Book. They were starting construction on the remodel. We added a distribution center to the store which was a big undertaking for all involved.

October:

We moved the store out into a tent for a week while they finished up the store's remodel. I went down to St. George for Jeremy and Megan Young's baby boy's blessing. They named him Hadley Taylor Young. It was great to get away and to see my friends there, so much so I really didn't want to leave. I even toyed with the idea of moving down there. It is still a possibility.

As soon as I got back I pulled a 14-hour day at work putting the store back together. What a mess!

November:

I officially lost 20 lbs. this month. What a great feeling to be in shape. I forgot what it was like not to cringe whenever I looked in the mirror. :)

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house near Rexburg. I was good and didn't overindulge even with all the yummy-yummy food to eat.

December:

Insanity! Deseret Book became my second home because I was there so much. Tension was high the last couple weeks but we survived the Christmas rush. Now we get to take a sigh of relief as January comes and gives us some time to think and recover from the madness.

Also, I finished the rough draft of my novel! What an awesome thing to have that done. I have already started the rewrite and am very happy with the results thus far.

I am in a much different place in my life now. Much more at ease and comfortable with where I'm at. It's not that I'm getting complacent. I just know that I'm not going to sit around and wait for life to happen to me anymore. 2010 will be a year of changes, travels, and LIFE!

Namesake

This weekend was amazing! I got to go to St. George, Utah to see some really good friends of mine and meet my namesake. His name is Hadley Taylor Young. He's an awesome little baby. I am so used to my niece and nephews who are now getting so big that I was stunned at how tiny Hadley was. He's a beautiful baby with a great head of hair thanks to both his parents who both had full heads of hair when they were born as well.

I left for St. George on Friday, but I stayed in Sandy with my mom, sister, niece, and nephews that night. It was nice to split up the long trip into two days, but I totally could/should have just gone all the way on Friday. Oh well. Live and learn. Besides, I did have fun with my family that night. We just went out to lunch, shopped for a bit, then ordered pizza in at the hotel.

The next day I drove down to St. George where it was sunny and beautiful weather. I have completely fallen in love with this city. It's a great place to be.

Once I arrived, I called Jeremy (Hadley's father) and then we went to lunch at Arby's. At Arby's we met some interesting people including a pregnant girl who was not shy to tell Jeremy how great he smelled, a guy who told us the history of vampires, and an odd but friendly employee at the fast food joint. I began to question the sanity of St. George residents, but Jeremy assured me they're not all like that.

After lunch, we went to another lunch (not because we're pigs but because we weren't sure about the plans) at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. This was my first time at the new chain. We do have one in Idaho Falls. I was not too impressed. They don't even have milkshakes. What kind of burger joint doesn't do milkshakes? And, while there, I randomly saw an old friend, Chelsea, who was working there. It's a small world.

Also, at Five Guys I met my namesake. Pictures don't do the little guy justice. He's awesome. Maybe I'm just biased.

The rest of that night we just hung out at Megan's parents' house (Megan is Hadley's mommy) with her parents, siblings, and nieces and nephew. Somewhere in there we watched the BYU game. By the end of the night I was so very tired.

On Sunday we had the baby blessing. It was a great experience and Jeremy did an excellent job as voice in the blessing. After that they had a great testimony meeting in which I got to hear both Jeremy and Megan's testimonies, both of which were very powerful and spiritual.

We had lunch at Megan's parents' house that afternoon. I got to meet Megan's grandparents and Jeremy's mission president.

That night I went to Matt and Meree Hadley's house for a great Italian dinner and then we just hung out. Matt's mom made some amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. My head was spinning during dinner because of all the different conversations going on. It reminded me of the dinner scene in While You Were Sleeping.

The next day we had lunch at Cafe Rio and then I hit the road with abandon. The miles were a blur to me, but I clocked them. It was 518.5 miles from St. George to Rigby, so I did 1027 miles (approximately) in one weekend. It was all worth it. What amazing friends I have in St. George! Jeremy, Megan, Matt, Meree, and crew I love you all. Thanks for everything!

(Note: Jeremy Young is an amazing guy. Matt and I taught and baptized him in Bradenton, Florida nearly 8 years ago. In those short years he has become a solid convert to the church, proclaimed the gospel in the Idaho Pocatello mission, married an awesome girl in the St. George temple, and bore a beautiful son whom he named after Matt and me. What a great honor to have a child named after me.)

Sick

Another reason to hate winter time: flu season.

Last week my house got hit with some sickness. My dad got it first and actually stayed home from work one day because of it. It was a cold/flu/nasty thing.

The next day my mom and I were hit. We both complained of feeling achy and tired. We took medicine and I had a couple of bad nights of feverish sleeping. I progressively got better and better, though, because I was determined not to let it get me down. That and I took lots of medicine to kick it.

My Dad is also nearly 100% better. And my Mom, on the other hand, has lost her voice because she strained it when she went to work on Monday. She's missed two days of work so far and probably won't be able to go back the rest of the week. We are hoping and praying that she will be better in time for the weekend because she and my sister were going to go to my cousin's baby shower in Utah. I hope they don't miss out on it because they were both looking forward to it and planning on going for a really long time.

I have been hoping to be 100% better (which it is looking likely that will happen) so that I can go to St. George this weekend for a baby blessing.

Keep us in your prayers!

The Bestest Concert Ever!

Ok, so some would disagree with me about the Tori Amos concert being the bestest concert ever. I, however, could argue the point. But if you're not a Tori fanatic, you probably wouldn't enjoy the concert very much. That goes with any artist though, really, if you think about it.

I went to Salt Lake City to see Tori live at the Abravanel Hall (just kiddy-corner from the SLC Temple, I had no idea it existed). I took a fellow Tori freak, Heather, to the concert with me. We left in the morning, drove down to Layton where we killed time at the Layton Hills mall. I got some items at a bargain at Anchor Blue because they were going out of business.

A highlight of our mall trip was when we got sidetracked by a salesman. He had a thick Hebrew accent so we couldn't understand him very well. I was actually laughing and couldn't stop because he was talking as if we understood him. He was selling this cool Dead Sea stuff that exfoliates your skin. It was really impressive, but I hated the feeling that I was being played. He actually started writing up a receipt and I couldn't recall ever telling him that I was going to buy some. So, somehow we managed to escape, but we left with a great story to tell.

After the mall we went to Olive Garden for some delightful Italian cuisine. Once we were stuffed, we realized we still had a couple hours to kill, so we decided to scope out the Abravanel Hall. I knew it was near Temple Square so I figured we'd be able to find something to do in the meantime.

So as we were driving to downtown Salt Lake, we decided we'd go to IKEA, but neither of us knew where it was. I knew it was right off the freeway so I just kept driving in hopes that we'd see it. Heather's GPS couldn't find it, for some reason, until about a minute before we saw it on the right hand side. Really can't miss that big bright blue and yellow building.

IKEA made me absolutely dizzy there were so many colors and sensations. I really liked it, but for some reason my head was spinning as we walked around.

We left IKEA and headed back to SLC.

We arrived with perfect timing at the concert. Our seats were a mere 13 rows back from the stage and in the center. Couldn't ask for better seats. The opening act was a group from England called One eskimO. They were really good, but the lead singer did this almost comical bobbing dance move the whole time that was hard to watch.

At 8:30, approximately, Tori Amos came on stage. The whole audience jumped to their feet when she came out. She was wearing this grey smock dress thingie with red leggings and a red belt and these incredibly high heels.

She did not stop for more than a few seconds between each song which was amazing. She kept the energy up throughout the whole concert. I recognized every single song except for two of them.

Highlights: The crazy old man in the front row dancing like a freak which distracted me from Miss Amos' performance. The encore when she sang "Big Wheel" and got us all clapping. When she sang "Strong Black Vine", really got into it, and you could tell. Her performance of "China" was fantastic.

Heather and I were both sad when it ended. By the time we got out of the hall and bought t-shirt souvenirs, it was about 11pm. I had Heather home by 2:45 am and I was home at 3:00 am. It was well worth it though, and I would love to see Tori in concert again.

I'm such a freak.