blogger's block

i am so over this weather! it's been freezing for far too long. i thought that was bad enough, but then today we had a freak storm that covered all of campus in a sheet of ice. quelle nightmare. (name that movie, please)

anyway, i'm going to blame the weather for my lack of inspiration, because i've totally been having blogger's block. is that a thing? i don't know, if not i'm making it a thing. i really do want to blog more. my sisters are so good at it and they make me want to be more consistent and creative too. (check out my little sister's blog redesign. i'm in love with it. #artsy)

until i come up with some better ideas, i leave you with an instagram photo and a list of what's going on in my life at the moment.

right now i am:

-wishing for sunshine and saltwater sandals
-reading anna karenina and loving it (and by "reading" i mean i was reading it 2 weeks ago before school started and i keep intending to pick it back up)
-still loving the lumineers
-counting down the days until i leave for europe (we're in the double digits—96!)
-craving a cubby's tri-tip steak salad like NONE OTHER
-still obsessed with the mindy project
-also obsessed with these rice krispy treats (they're the easiest and SO DELICIOUS)
-pretending it's already friday

happy almost weekend!

we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year

being home for christmas has been so wonderful. my family has spent a lot of time together at home, as well as visiting philadelphia, new york city, and our extended family in upstate new york. it has been so satisfying to relax and read and sleep in and play a million word games and watch 2 movies on netflix a day. here are a couple photos of what i've been up to.

my friend ali and i at our friends' wedding

traditional mirror pic in the church bathroom

diana mini film camera! my favorite christmas present.

starry night. i love the MOMA. 

at rockefeller plaza with liz

goofing around with my sisters after we took some family photos

my grandparents' beautiful farmhouse

snowing at the farm

i am so grateful for this christmas season, and not just because i've gotten to take a break from school and come home. i am thankful for christmas as a reminder of how blessed i am, of how much i love my family, of the significance of the gospel in my life, and of the gift of my savior jesus christ. i love this time of year and am always sad to see it go, but i love the beginning of the new year and the changes and opportunities that it brings. i am excited for 2013 and i hope it's my best year yet!

san francisco

i am so glad that liz and i took this trip. it was great. i even enjoyed the two 12 hour drives, in which we listened to plenty of christmas music and hilary duff and this song about a million times. as soon as we got into the city, we were walking around and neither of us could stop saying "i'm so happy! i love this place!"

we spent thanksgiving walking around beautiful muir woods and checking out the golden gate bridge. we ate lots of delicious food the whole week, like salted caramel ice cream, mint milkshakes from ghirardelli square, macarons, donuts, sandwiches, pastries, margherita pizza, and our favorite things from trader joe's. we visited the legion of honor (where i saw works by several artists i've learned about in my northern baroque art class this semester!) and the san francisco museum of modern art. we went black friday shopping (i love you, madewell) and explored the ferry building and union square. we stayed at a lighthouse/hostel with the prettiest view on the drive every day. it was pretty much perfect.

i almost left my heart.

thoughts at 2 a.m.

hi. it's been a while.

blogging has been at the back of my mind quite a lot recently, but i always have a lot on my plate, so i'm taking advantage of my insomnia to finally start writing on here again.

school is kind of great and terrible. i was at the library for ten hours today. ten. on a saturday. that is a long time, people! i'm (mostly) enjoying my classes, but i'm really looking forward to the end of the semester. i'm ready for a break and a change of pace.

the other day i had a cool, chance meeting with one of my favorite bloggers, natalie, from nat the fat rat. i went to the wilk to grab some dinner before taking a test and she was there with her sister. she was super nice and totally adorable and we chatted about the east coast and byu and art history and then i was dorky enough to ask for a picture. thanks, natalie!

i'm really excited for the month of november! lauren will be visiting soon (yay!) and for thanksgiving, liz and i are taking a road trip to san francisco. i can't wait! i think i was eleven the last time we were there, and i loved it, so i'm looking forward to experiencing the city now when i can better appreciate it. and i'm really excited to go to the sf moma and the palace of the legion of honor. and bi-rite.

only about three more days until it's kind of socially acceptable for me to listen to christmas music. yessss.

speaking of music, i bought taylor swift's new album and i'm obsessed. duh. i think my favorite song is "the last time." i can't stop listening to it. also, please watch this. tswift and a beautiful man and paris and my other fave song. love.

speaking of being obsessed, i just got this coat in yellow and way on sale and i'm in love, i'm in love and i don't care who knows it!

i've applied for this study abroad program in the spring! i am so incredibly excited about it. between my french and art history classes, i have spent every day dreaming about going to europe, and now it's hopefully going to happen! i cannot believe how amazing the program is—england, france, italy, greece, austria, and germany! is this real life?

also, it's halloweekend. hooray for last-minute costumes and happy halloween, from my biker gang to yours. (mom, please note the tattoo i got for you)

back in p-town

life lately:

new job

new classes

new ward

new friends

also, waffles

i'm diggin' it.

things to do: washington dc

this summer i really wanted to go to washington dc. i hadn't been in a really long time, so i convinced my dad to go with me and we headed down there one saturday. i'm so glad we did it! it's an easy day trip from new jersey and i had forgotten how much i love that city! i would love to go there more often. here's what we did.

first we headed to the national gallery of art (it's free, like many of the museums in washington). i was in heaven. their collection is amazing, especially the impressionist and post-impressionist pieces, which are my favorite. walking through those galleries is so impressive because you already recognize almost every work!

after wandering those galleries and other galleries of european and american art, we went to the other building of the national gallery, which houses many of the modern and contemporary works. it was also really neat.

after leaving the national gallery, we walked around capitol hill and then we ate lunch. my dad got a burger and i got a milkshake from good stuff eatery. it was gooood. and i got a slice of spinach and artichoke pizza from we, the pizza next door. oh man, it was amazing.

also, isn't my dad cute?

after lunch we headed to the national portrait gallery. it was so interesting! i've never been to another museum like it. it's so unique in that it's an art museum but it's all about people. my favorite things were the amelia earhart exhibit and the gallery of presidential portraits.

it was a long day, so after the portrait gallery we decided to head home. but first, we got some gelato from pitango! it was delicious.

we had a really great time. there are so many things to do in washington dc, and as a museum-lover, i am dying to go back there soon! hope this is helpful for your next dc trip!

up next? things to do: monticello, philadelphia, southern california, and los angeles! be excited.

things to do: new york city

this is going to be a long post, and i am definitely no expert, but i love traveling and i've spent quite a bit of time researching things to do in new york city. living only two hours away from one of the greatest cities in the world is something you need to take advantage of! this summer i've gone up to new york twice. neither of these two particular trips was very involved or elaborate, but i had a lot of fun. here's what we did.

somehow i convinced my dad to go up to new york with me in april to see (don't judge me) nick jonas in how to succeed in business without really trying before the show ended its run. he was fantastic, as was the entire show. we drove up to the city that morning and got tickets for $30 with general rush. some broadway shows have general or student "rush" policies where you can get pretty great tickets at great prices the morning of the show. if you want to see a particular show, look up their policy online to see if they have any deals like those. if they don't you can also purchase half-price tickets for broadway shows in the tkts booths in time square and south street seaport.

after we bought our tickets we headed to the metropolitan museum of art. i've been plenty of times before but it's so enormous there are always new things to see! at the time they had a pretty incredible exhibit displaying the stein family's art collection. (if you aren't familiar with the steins, maybe you remember gertrude stein is depicted in the movie midnight in paris!) they had an astounding collection, mostly picassos, matisses, and cezannes. my favorite part was seeing matisse's woman with a hat. it was incredible in person; the colors in reproductions just can't compare. it was really neat to read about each of the paintings and how the steins acquired them. they bought woman with a hat very inexpensively and at first none of them could stand to look at it!

before heading to our show we grabbed lunch at my fave, shake shack. it's a definite new york experience and i think their burgers and shakes are great. in fact, they just opened a shake shack in philadephia and i'm thinking i need to head over there and get a bite.

my other trip to new york this summer was with my mom and lauren. we did a little shopping in soho and then we went to see newsies. they got me tickets for my birthday, and oh man, was it fantastic! seriously, if you have the chance to go see it, go. we were in the second row and it blew. my. mind. the dancing is incredible, not to mention jeremy jordan aka jack kelly. as a long-time newsies fan, it was just about perfect.

here are some other new york recommendations i have based on my own new york experience and my online research.

THINGS TO DO
-go to the top of the empire state building.
-explore times square.
-walk the brooklyn bridge and brooklyn heights promenade.
-shop at the brooklyn flea market or hell's kitchen flea market.
-shop on broadway in soho: zara, h&m, madewell, etc.
-go to a broadway show.
-go to a taping of a tv show. martha stewart, jimmy fallon, and david letterman tapings are all free, but you have to sign up in advance.

-go to a museum. i love the moma and the met, but there are dozens of other art museums in new york, like the guggenheim, the cloisters, the frick, etc. target hosts some free or discounted museum nights like friday nights at the moma. if you have certain memberships to other museums you can often get in free as well. our membership to the philadelphia museum of art gets us into the met for free. there are plenty of other museums in new york besides art museums, too.
-(in the winter) go ice skating. bryant park is supposed to be the cheapest rink in the city.
-go to rockefeller center. do top of the rock or go ice skating or just shop.
-(in the summer) go to coney island.
-go to central park! find the balto statue and that gazebo/pavilion from enchanted
-ride bikes in central park.

-go to ellis island to see lady liberty.-just walk and wander. i like the idea of exploring a specific neighborhood (soho, noho, greenwich village, chelsea, financial district, upper east side, upper west side, theatre district, etc etc)

-check out the manhattan temple.
-ride the subway! it’s a must.

PLACES TO EAT
-shake shack. i’m obsessed. so good and they have locations all over the city.

-in brooklyn: grimaldi’s pizza (under the brooklyn bridge) and brooklyn ice cream factory. i haven’t been to either but they’re both highly recommended.
-levain bakery. supposedly the best cookies in nyc.

-momofuku milk bar. city bakery. sprinkles cupcakes.
-john’s pizzeria and bleecker street pizza. both in greenwich village.
-popbar. gelato popsicles. these were so good.
-more restaurants i’ve never been to but i’ve heard highly recommended so just google them if they sound intriguing? bubby’s in tribeca. eataly. stand. dinosaur bar-b-q in harlem. asia dog. brgr. nooï.
-chelsea market.
-ellen’s stardust diner. singing waiters! a real nyc experience.
-for the chick flick lover: café lalo (where meg ryan gets stood up slash “runs into” tom hanks in you’ve got mail) or serendipity (like in the movie serendipity! and the frozen hot chocolate is supposed to be amazing, though overpriced)
-doughnut plant. they’re supposed to have really amazing donuts with really unique flavors.
-for macarons: ladurée (probably the best but also the busiest and most expensive), macaron café, bisous ciao, la maison du macaron, bouchon bakery.

-also, when you're in the city, i highly recommend the urbanspoon app. you can look at all the restaurants near you based by distance, rating, or price, and you can even check out the menus. it's a life-saver.

i hope these are helpful! enjoy your next trip to the city!

east coast summer

this summer has been a very busy one. while it's nice to relax, i enjoy having a lot of things to do because i like to make the most of my time at home. working full-time is a bit exhausting but i've still managed to do a lot of neat things on the weekends. this summer my family and i have made trips to new york city, philadelphia, monticello, and washington d.c. as well as doing other fun things more locally. there are only a few weekends left of my summer before i head back to utah for school, and i will be spending them in upstate new york visiting my dad's family, at the beach, and then in sunny southern california when my family heads out west to vacation and visit my mom's family. i can't wait!

i thought i might do some posts on some of the day trips we've taken and fun things we've done this summer. my very favorite thing about living on the east coast is the proximity to so many amazing places!

playing catch-up

i feel like the past few weeks have flown by. i'm really enjoying being home for the summer so far. i've been working, but work has been pretty slow because of the constant rain, which is nice. i've gotten to spend a lot of time with lauren and my parents, and already i've gotten to do some really fun things i was looking forward to this summer. i've been pretty much absent from the blog front, which i used to feel sort of guilty about, but i realized how silly it is to worry about your online presence when you're being involved in what's actually happening around you. i think that's more important, but that's not to say i don't love this little blog. i do really enjoy writing and putting my thoughts out there so i'm happy to finally be getting back on here. i've got a lot more free time these days so i'll hopefully be posting much more often. anyway, i'm excited for this summer—i think it's going to be a good one!