Brooke

On being an old woman

2012-01-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

So apparently, I'm an old woman.

This past week I was diagnosed with...SHINGLES! Or more commonly known as "old person's disease" or "Hell's chicken pox". Lucky me! That being said, shingles is super painful and so I'm on pain meds! yay! Which leads us to this little gem of a story:

So i'm on my pain meds, which cause me to have some narly (gnarly?) dreams. Last night I dreamt that my family had Orks (the big ugly guys from Lord of the Rings) over for a dinner party and they fell in love with rice krispy treats that my Dad had made.

My description doesn't do the dream justice...but boy oh boy was it a weird dream. Gotta love me some pain meds.

I need to hobble back down to the kitchen so I can drink my metamucil and finish my puzzle and do all the other things old people do.

Creepy Airport Guy

2011-12-26T11:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I flew home...Woo Hoo! And usually I don't check a bag, I just take it as a carry on but I wasn't thinking and I checked my duffelbag, so when I arrived in St. Louis I had to stand and wait forever for the bags to come out on the little whirly-doo baggage thingy. Soooo..I'm standing there, minding my own business, fielding phone calls from my Dad asking me if I"ve got my bag yet or not, when I hear this deep voice with a hot accent say, "Are you from around here?" In my mind I'm thinking, "Yeaaah buddy!" because I"m thinking this guy is totally hot to match his totally hot voice. So I turn around to answer him to find this creepy looking guy with hair longer than mine and capri pants on with his combat boots. Talk about a keeper, right?? No. Despite being taken off guard by his looks, I appeased him and did the nice thing and answered him and talked to him for a bit. I won't go into all the details of our titillating conversation but this little blip from it might give you an idea of what the rest of it was like.

Brooke: So you live in Salt Lake? That's cool, what brought you there?
Creepy Man: I moved with a friend and have hung around because of work.
B: Oh, what is it that you do?
CM: I'm a grave digger at one of the local cemeteries.
B: ...interesting.
CM: Yah I love it. I dig a lot of graves. Sometimes if I dig in the wrong spot by accident I hit old coffins. Don't worry though, I've never hit a dead body. At least not yet, but how cool would that be.
B: ...yah, way cool....
CM: You should come to work with me sometime and help me dig a few graves! I generally work at night when no one is around!
B: ...Um, as fun as digging graves sounds, I'm gonna have to pass. Oh! Look! There's my bag! See ya!

And then I ran away as fast as I could. In case you were wondering, I didn't actually see my bag. The baggage thingy wasn't even twirling, I just didn't want to talk to him anymore. I don't know about you but nothing about going to a graveyard to dig graves with a creepy man at night when no one is around sounds appealing to me. At all.

Nightmare

2011-12-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago I had a nightmare. I don't usually dream very much at all, and usually when I do they're good dreams so to dream and have it be a nightmare....unusual. Let me tell you about my nightmare...

In my dream I was plucking my eyebrows and everytime that I plucked a hair out, 2 more would instantly grow in that spot. so I began plucking furiously to try and get them all out, but they were just growing in too fast, I couldn't get them all in time. Before I knew it I had the biggest, hairiest unibrow the world has ever seen. It was scary. I woke up and immediately looked in the mirror and was relieved to see I still had two separate eyebrows.

Feliz Navidad

2011-12-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas. It's just such a happy time of the year. I mean you can't help buy smile when you see kids sitting on Santa's lap or a house that's covered with a billion christmas lights or all the crazy shoppers at the mall. It's impossible. And if you don't smile than your a scrooge and I'll come attack you with Christmas until you feel joyous. :)

Things I especially love about Christmas??

Almost every year I get to go home and spend time with family and friends. I love going home to St. Louis. I think it's so special because I usually only get to go once or twice a year. This year we're having the first annual Tolman Family Olympics. I'm going to kick butt and come home with all the gold medals...just wait.

One of my most favorite things about Christmas is giving people presents. I love hunting and hunting until you find that perfect gift for someone. The type of gift you know they'll just love or they've been wanting or will make them laugh or something to that effect. If i was filthy rich I'd spend all my days buying people stuff.

Christmas lights. They're just magically awesome. Someday when I live in a house and not a basement I'm going to decorate like crazy. And even though my electricity bill for the month will probably put me into debt, it'll be worth it because i'll be spreading Christmas cheer.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!

Be a Hill Seeker

2011-12-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

This morning I went for a long run and I was feeling sort of drab. It was early and I wasn't in my groove yet. I was feeling lazy when i came upon a huge hill. I stopped at the bottom of it and contemplated just turning around and running the flat route back to my house because frankly I was feeling lazy and hills are tough. But, i thought to myself , "Screw it, I can do this!" and i ran up it. And when I got to the top I was tired but I felt good, real good because I'd just conquered this massive hill...I felt so good in fact that I turned around and ran up it again, and again, and....yes again. Four times I conquered this hill and despite the fact that my legs were on the verge of collapse and I was wheezing so hard I sounded like an 80 year smoker, I felt great! Like I could overcome anything I wanted to.
Most of us try to avoid hills. But what's so great about flat?? Think about it...flat tires, flat hair, flat returns, and -the ultimate flat- flatlining. Life happens on the hills. They're opportunities to prove to yourself that your stronger that you ever imagined. If you never attempt the ascent, you'll never know the thrill of going down the other side.

I'm in love.

2011-12-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm having a pretty hot love affair with grilled cheese sandwiches lately. I don't know what it is but I find them to be the most delicious thing ever lately. Pair it up with some tomato soup and you've got yourself a delicious meal! The fact that I can make it in less than 3 minutes using our mini George Foreman grill makes it all the better.

The other latest love of my life is my Christmas present to myself. Today I was feeling down so Kellie took me to Bed, Bath and Beyond to fulfill a longtime dream of mine. Today i bought my very own MAGIC BULLET BLENDER!!!! Words can't describe my elation. There will be smoothie making magic going on at my house during all hours of the day now!

The last love of my life is the old man at the auto shop by Smiths. He was so sweet when he gave me the bad news about my poor car and he was a champ to call around and find the cheapest place for me to get it fixed. And then he could tell I was having a bad day and so he gave me 2 chocolate covered cherries and told me to cheer up and that life is too short to be in a bad mood. How right he is.

I'm gonna go eat a grilled cheese sandwich and drink a smoothie now.

My apologies...

2011-12-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back. After a nice 6 month hiatus from this thingy, I've finally decided to grace you all with my random thoughts and funny stories again. Lucky you. Better late than never...right?!?

Oh man, where to begin...

If I filled you in on the past 6 months of my life you'd be reading for days and probably die of boredom, so we'll just pick up on this week and go from there.

Today, I got up early and went for a run. It was cold and a little dark and my warm bed was really enticing but I needed a good run to clear my mind. So I bundled up, laced up my shoes, and turned some old school rap onto my ipod and set out. There's nothing more therapeutic than a good run. While stopped at a random stoplight an old man mentioned how happy I looked, I asked him what gave me away and he said it was the fact i was singing along to my music. I didn't even realize i was singing out loud, I thought I was just jamming in my head. He then offered to buy me hot chocolate because I looked cold, i politely declined. Maybe if he was 50 years younger I might've taken him up on his offer. I like meeting random strangers, they are always fun to talk to. I'm not really sure what the point of that story was, but i felt like telling it and you just spent a minute of your life reading it so it must've been slightly entertaining.

Oh, what else is going on in my life lately??

I've decided to go to grad school. I have some classes i still need to take in order to be eligible so this next semester it's back to school for me. Luckily they are all online so I can do them on my own time. It's exciting to me though to finally know what I want to do with my life and have something to be working towards. We'll see how i feel in a few months though, i always seem to change my mind.

I dyed my hair today. dark. I'm not sure if i like it yet.

The next few months of my life are going to be awesome. I have A LOT to look forward to. Which translates into A LOT to blog about! yay!

Hmmmm...what else is there to say. Last week I developed a new love for skiing. If i could i would just be a bum and ski and snowboard all the days. Life would be grand.

I have a new favorite website. I could look at it all day long and never get bored. It's called punchfork.com. If you like food as much as me, you'll love this website as much as i do.

I want to run another marathon this summer. Which by the way, i need a running buddy, so if anyone wants to run with me PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know because i'm tired of running alone.

And....i think that's all i got for right now.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-07-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

4th of July is my favorite holiday of all time.

I mean what more can you ask for from a holiday than fireworks...

And bbq's.....

I submit, nothing.

I have more reasons that I love the 4th of July, but I'll spare you my speech. If you want to hear the other 456 reasons, give me a call, we'll sit down and we'll chat.

Rope Swing!!

2011-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today some friends and I spent the afternoon at one of my favorite spots. Burriston (sp?) pond! It's a pond in Mona and it has a sweet awesome rope swing. My first swing was not a success as the rope twisted around my arm and left a nice bruise and rope burn [pictured below].
So after that, I decided to take it easy for a bit and I found a nice spot to relax on a tree branch.
....And then some boys came and joined me.
...And then I went and tested out kayaking for a bit.

..until someone came and tipped me. Thanks.
At which time I decided it was time to go off the rope swing again...

...it's pretty high.

Success. No more rope burns!
And then I got to ride home on a motorcycle.
And then Laura and I ate chocolate cake and watched a chick flick.
End fantastic day...
cue music.
Close curtains.

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

2011-06-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

With all my free time lately I've taken to crafting and cooking. I rather enjoy it. I'll post pictures of some of the crafty projects that I've been doing in a few days when I finish them. Monday I made cheesecake stuffed strawberries and they were DELICIOUS! Mine didn't turn out as pretty as they were suppose to look but they sure were delicious.

Havasupai!!!!

2011-06-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

A week and a half ago some of my friends and I roadtripped down to Arizona and backpacked into Havasupai Falls. I've never seen anything so pretty. It was an incredibly fun trip full of great hiking, fun swimming spots, jumping off of water falls and exploring old mines. The pictures don't even do it justice.

Best Hike Ever.

2011-06-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up in a bad mood. As I was laying there in bed feeling sorry for myself and hating the world, I realized I had two options: I could either stay in bed, be mopey and depressed all day OR I could go hiking because hiking always cheers me up. I chose the better option.

I decided to try hiking up Millcreek Canyon, it's just a short 10 minute drive away and for as close as it is, I hadn't ever been hiking there. (And it's one of the few canyons that has hardly any snow left in it.) I picked a random trailhead and began hiking. It was a gorgeous day out. Sunny, warm with a slight breeze. I couldn't have asked for a better day, yet I was still mopey and upset. Not more than 15-20 minutes into my hike I came upon this older couple resting on the side of the trail. I said my "hello's" and "how are you's" and "it's a beautiful day for a hike's" and figured after a little small talk I could keep on heading up the trail. As I started to walk away from them the lady called after me and asked if I was in a bad mood, I proceeded to deny it, not wanting this darling old couple to remember me as some depressed hiker lady, I told her I was just feeling tired and would perk up once I got my blood pumping a bit longer. She called me a liar and then continued to tell me that she could see my aura and that my aura was looking cloudy and dark, sure signs of a troubled person. Her dear husband the entire time kept apologizing and promising me that she wasn't some crazy old bat. They started hiking with me and we got to talking and they ended up being the funniest people ever. It was hard to hike i was often laughing so hard. Weird as it sounds, I vented to this lady a bit about life and she was quit to come back with great advice and stories from her own life, her husband would chime in and straighten out her stories every so often. And every 5 minutes or so, she would look me up and down and say, "Why I do believe your aura is getting lighter" or "Looks like the sunshine is starting to peek through the clouds". She was fantastic. After about a half hour of hiking with them, they stopped to take another break and I kept going, thanking them graciously for a fantastic 30 minutes and for helping me brighten my aura. I won't lie, I felt incredibly happier after mingling with them for a bit and I greatly enjoyed the rest of my hike.

Thank goodness for crazy old ladies and gorgeous mountains.

Love and Awesomeness

2011-06-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

These popsicles are the new love of my life. I'm addicted. I've eaten 3 already today. At Costco you can get a box of 24 that include coconut, strawberry and mango flavors. Even though it hasn't quite gotten to be summer here yet, these are already a staple in my daily diet. I love them. Everyone should try them. I'm not even going to pretend that I would share mine with you, because I won't, you'll have to go buy your own. But trust me, you'll want to because after your first one, you'll be hooked. I have found no greater joy these past few weeks than sitting on my porch when it's warm out, eating several of these and reading a good book. It just doesn't get much better than that. Now that I've explained why I'll be 30 lbs heavier the next time any of you see me...on to more exciting things. In approximately 5 days I will be HERE!!!!!
And I couldn't be more excited.

In 4 days, I will officially be unemployed. So unless I happen to find a job really quickly, stories will be flying on this blog of mine because if I don't have a job I might as well spend my time doing awesome things. This is my philosophy on life, stay tuned for more.

Blindness and redecorating

2011-06-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

I still don't have any pictures to post so you'll just have to make do with reading my boring words. Get over it.

Last weekend I was able to meet up with my parents, 2 of my brothers and their families and hang out in Cedar City for a few days. It was a short visit but definitely worth while. Any time with my family is a great time and I'll take anything i can get. I feel lucky to be able to see them as often as I have been able to in the past little while.

Last night, it was really warm in my house so I opened up my window in hopes that it would make sleeping a little bit easier. Out of nowhere I started to hear cat noises. They started off as "meows" and quickly grew into what sounded like a legitimate cat fight. I didn't have my contacts in and so I tried squinting out my window to try and see what was happening. I stared at what I thought was the cat fight for well over a few minutes, and finally decided to get up out of bed to put my glasses on so I could see with a little bit more detail. As soon as i put my glasses on and went back to the window I realized that the spot where I'd been looking before, where I though the cat fight was taking place, was in fact just a grassy spot on our driveway and there were no cats in sight despite the sounds...they were around the corner of the house i guess. It just goes to show how blind I actually am.

The house I live in isn't the nicest. That's the nicest way I can say it. It's old and nothing matches and everything is second hand and none of us have ever put in any effort to decorate. But one of my roommates and I the other day decided we were going to make it look cute....well as cute as we could with what we had to work with. We were tired of living in such a depressingly ugly place. The first thing we did....REUPHOLSTER our kitchen chairs. I've never reupholstered anything so this was exciting. The old fabric was a light blue furry fabric with paint and who knows what else splattered all over it. They were ugly and dirty. The new fabric, that we found in the basement, is something your grandma would probably pick out. It has big flowers on it, BUT it matches our carpet AND...it's clean!! Now if we could only figure out something to do with our couches....

Oh yes...update....I am not moving to Seattle at this moment in my life, for an assortment of reasons. But it will happen someday.

Fun in the Sun!

2011-05-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a pretty great weekend. Let me tell you about it.

Thursday after work I went frisbee golfing (or frolfing as people in Utah like to call it) with a friend. I love frisbee golf, i suck at throwing frisbees, but I still love it. After an exciting frolf game, I came home and went hiking with my roommates. We just went up a random trail behind the U but it was still gorgeous and I rather enjoyed it. I love being able to look down on the entire Salt Lake valley.

My dear friend Gavin is a middle school science teacher and got to take his MESA science club to Lagoon on Friday for Physics Day...and guess who got to go with him as a chaperone?? ME!! Free entry to Lagoon and getting to watch kids drop eggs and a tap dancing competition...yes please. It was a lot of fun. I'm a big fan of theme parks.

Right after we got back from Lagoon we hurried and packed up Gavin's car and drove to Provo to meet up with some friends so we could start heading down to Escalante to do some CANYONEERING! It's been a few months since I've gotten to go due to work on the weekends, and so I was pretty stoked to be able to go. It wasn't the most fun canyon i'd ever done but it had some good potholes, and it was all around still really fun. I don't have pictures to post unfortunately at this time. My camera is not waterproof so I didn't take it along.

We arrived home in Salt Lake around 3AM and after showering I was able to get a whopping 2 hours of sleep before having to get up for work this morning. Needless to say, I took a long nap this afternoon.

That is all.

Let down of the Century.

2011-05-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

I saw this video (http://youtu.be/sFVVBbHr0lk) at work today and got really excited to go home and try it, only to be miserably let down when I found out it doesn't actually work. Sad day.

Past, present and future

2011-05-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

I know, I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I just really haven't had anything spectacular happen and I haven't had any earth shattering thoughts to share....and I've been REALLY lazy. But here's a quick update on what i've been up to for the past 4 months and what the future holds for me.

I've been working at Snowbird all winter long. I love it. I know I should be disappointed that I'm not using that degree that I worked so hard to get but I've found in the past few months that I could really care less what I do in life as long as it's something I enjoy and Snowbird has definitely been a job I enjoy. I have some pretty freaking awesome coworkers who never fail to entertain me and I get a free season pass, what more could a girl ask for?

I've been on a few trips, done a bit of canyoneering and camping, nothing out of the ordinary for me. I went and visited home for a few days and got to see my new niece Lily and Heather and her kids which was fantastic as always. I can never get enough of my family, I love them to pieces.

What's next? After a lot of debate and a lot of wrestling with a lot of decisions, I've decided to move to Seattle!! Don't ask why, or make me give you reasons because I really have no good ones. My last day of work is a month from yesterday, then I'm going on a backpacking trip to Havasupai falls for a few days and then come mid June, I'm outta here and off to the rainy northwest. I'm pretty excited. The closer it gets, the more nervous I get but I have a good feeling about it and think it will all work out just fine. If anything, it's just another adventure. So, everyone should come visit me. :)

There you go, your all updated now. I"ll try and be better about posting.

Hehehe

2011-01-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

Before I die list

2011-01-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

So I have a list. A list of a bunch of things I want to do before I die. 310 things to be exact...however it's an ever growing list. I hadn't looked at it in awhile and I figured at the close of an old year I should look it over, see if I could cross anything off. I crossed off...(drum roll please)...NINE THINGS!!! That's way more than I thought I'd end up crossing off. After crossing them off, I went back through and picked out ones I wanted to do this year. Some of them are sort of dumb so don't laugh, but here are the ones i'm going to do this year:

Shoot a bow and arrow
learn to tie a tie
learn to whistle with my fingers, really loud like they do at sports games
send a postcard into Post Secret
Eat breakfast in bed
Learn to grill a really, REALLY delicious steak
play spin the bottle (oh yesssss!)
Donate my hair to Locks of Love
Take a roadtrip to nowhere in particular
Learn to moonwalk
Grow something
Go to a new country
Learn to juggle
Get my legs waxed
Go white water rafting
Build a tire swing
Go to a haunted house

I think I can do these this year. I picked out all the ones that should be relatively easy to achieve. If you can help me with any of these, or want to do one of them with me....please call me at 1-800-helpbrookereachherdreams. :)

New Year!!

2011-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, So i'm a little slow on writing my New Years post...so sue me. The past few years, thanks to Charlotte, I've been picking a word of the year. It's gone pretty good. I like having an overall theme for the year rather than making resolutions, not being able to keep them, then feeling like a failure.

This year my word is Commit. My inspiration comes from this article written by Marvin J. Ashton before I was even born called "The Word is Commitment". (Click here to read it!) I'm not dissatisfied with my life by any means, but I don't think i've made the most out of it that I could have and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that I never commit myself to stuff. I tend to only half way do things and thus they only get halfway done, which doesn't amount to much over the years. This year I'm not going to hesitate when faced with hard things, but just jump in and do them. I'm not going to second guess myself or others but trust that we know what we're doing and they mean what they say. Among other things. So in short, I commit to being happier, healthier, more spiritual, a better friend, and basically just a better me.

Life lately

2011-01-10T13:53:00.001-08:00

Life lately has been...great! I'm loving my job, i'm loving my new friends, i'm loving the way my future plans are looking, everything is just falling pretty perfectly into place. I'm not so dumb as to think that everything will continually and always go perfect, because it won't, but I feel pretty adequately prepared to take on any curve balls that life might throw my way. Here's a quick look at some highlights from the past few weeks.

CAVING

I can't remember if I already blogged about this or not. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to go backwards and see but I'm already typing so deal with it if you've already heard about this. I went caving down in St. George with some friends a few weeks ago. So much fun. I was a little nervous i'd get claustrophobic, but I never did. After a long day of caving, we came back and went swimming and relaxed, then drove back to the valley. Perfect weekend getaway. We're planning on going down to St. George again in a few weeks to do some rock climbing. I have pictures, but i'll post those another day too.

SNOWMOBILING

I drove up to hang out with Lance and Jess at Jess's family's cabin in Kamas a few days after Christmas. It was a blast. We went snowmobiling and i jumped off the top of a little bathroom hut thing into the snow. Video and pictures to come of that later, as soon as Lance sends them too me (Ahem...hint hint!)

CANYONEERING

New Years Eve I got invited to go do a canyon down in Hanksville with my friends Gavin, Brendan, and Jared. We celebrated New Years Eve by driving down to Hanksville...we made sure to stop and blow something up at midnight to celebrate the new year. (Don't worry, Gavin is a science teacher so it was a controlled explosion) The New Year was brought in by camping in -6 degree weather (brrrrrr!) and then doing a canyon the next morning. The canyon we did was probably one of the hardest canyons i've ever done...mentally. The majority of it was narrower than my shoulders and there were quite a few spots where I go stuck and had to back up and climb a little higher or re-situate myself to fit. A few times i just had to sit there, breathe deeply and think skinny thoughts. I made it with no real freak outs and I claim that as a huge mental victory!

BOWLING AND BREAKFAST

I made friends!! Yay! I've started hanging out with some kids I work with. They are hilarious, i love it. We went bowling one night last week and then the next morning we went out to breakfast at this little restaurant near my house. Best french toast i've ever had (besides yours Mom!). It was a lot of fun. I really love the people I work with.

I think those are the basic big things I've done in the past month or so. I live a great life.

Cardioke!!!!!!

2011-01-10T12:15:00.000-08:00

Why have I not heard of this before Saturday?? This combines two of my favorite things....Working-out and karaoke!! Billy Blanks' son is the mastermind behind this amazing invention. I mean, i loved Billy Blanks and Tae Bo, but his son is ten times cuter and his work out has karaoke!! i'm sold. Any one who would like ot get me an early birthday present, or a middle of January present, well look no farther! Oh bless you Billy Blanks Jr.

Yes, i'm this lame.

2010-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

I'm bored. so here goes.

1. Last beverage: water. h2o. agua.
2. Last phone call: Sarah T. my bff
3. Last text message: Jake
4. Last song you listened to: some Ella Fitzgerald.
5. Last time you cried: It was last week sometime I believe.
6: Dated someone twice: um, no. not to my recollection
7. Been cheated on: not that I know of.
8. Kissed someone & regretted it: Oh yes, but at least I have some good stories from it now.
9. Lost someone special: yes
10. Been depressed: yes, glad that i'm usually a happy person.
11. Been drunk and threw up: Thank goodness no.

List three favorite colors:
12.Green
13.blue
14.yellow

This year have you:

15. Made a new friend: Yes, i've made many new friends!
16. Fallen out of love: yes, and it was a good thing.
17. Laughed until you cried: oh too many times. I love to laugh.
18. Met someone who changed you: yes
19. Found out who your true friends were: yes
20. Found out someone was talking about you: yes
21. Kissed anyone on your friends list: yessss, i believe i'm friends with all of the guys i've ever kissed on facebook.
22. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life: all of them!
23. How many kids do you want: a bunch!
24. Do you want to get married: Sounds like a pretty nice idea to me.
25. Do you want to change your name: nope, I love my name
26. What did you do for your last birthday: Went shopping in Tokyo
27. What time did you wake up today: 8:30am
28. What were you doing at midnight last night: Watching Karate Kid
29. Name something you CANNOT wait for: I cannot wait for New Years Eve...its going to be rather awesome.
30. Last time you saw your Mother: Thanksgiving...boy do I miss her.
31. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: I wish I had some sort of idea about where it's going, that would be nice.
33. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I sure have.
34. Who is getting on your nerves now: no one!
35: Most visited website: gmail,facebook, or pandora...or stumbleupon.
36. What's your real name: Brooke Jeanne Tolman
37. Nicknames: oh gosh, Brookie, Brookster, Bert, Buffet, tooks, scooter...i have tons of them.
38. Relationship status: happily dating
39. Zodiac sign: Scorpio
40. Male or Female: female
41. Primary school: Floris
42. Secondary school: Selvidge?
43. High school/College: Marquette and BYU
44. Hair color: brownish reddish lately
45. Long or Short hair: longish
46. Height: 5 8
47. Do you have a crush on someone: maaaybe
48. What do you like about yourself: I'm just all around fabulous
49. Peircings: my ears
50. Tattoos: no
51. Righty or lefty: righty

Firsts:

52. First surgery: Knee, i think i was 17.
53. First peircing: ears
54. First best friend online: online? I don't think I have a best "online" friend.
55. First sport you joined: basketball
56. First vacation: i have no clue.
58. First real love: hard to say

Five things you are doing right now:

59. Watching 30 Rock
60. talking to Kyle
61. eating blueberries
62. thinking I should be going to sleep
63. Wishing I was home in St. Louis

Your future:

64. Want kids: definitely. Being a mom is on the top of my life to do list.
65. Get married: yes, please. A husband would be nice ot have around someday.
66. Career: Don't get me started, I could talk your ear off for hours on my thoughts of what I want to do as a career.

Not in your future or related to anything on this survey:

67. Lips or eyes: I have both! Lucky me!
68. Hugs or kisses: You can't go wrong with either
69. Shorter or taller: Taller, much much taller
71. Romantic or spontaneous: how about spontaneously romantic?
72. Nice stomach or nice arms: how about just nice?
73. Sensitive or loud: neither of those sound real great by themselves, i won't lie.
74. Hook-up or relationship: well....take a wild guess.
76. Kissed a stranger: not lately, but not never.
77. Drank hard liquor: I drank one of those fruity alcoholic drinks at Red Lobster by accident once. It was suppose to be virgin.
78. Lost glasses or contacts: i lost my contact today in fact!
80. Broken someone's heart: yes, not a fun thing to do
81. Had a broken heart: absolutely, everyone needs their heart broken at least once in their lives.
82. Been arrested: No, but i've always wanted to be.
83. Turned someone down: story of my life
84. Cried when someone died: No actually. I don't cry when i'm suppose to, like when people die, i cry over stupid things
85. Fallen for a friend: yes

Do you believe in:

86. Yourself: Sometimes
87. Miracles: Definitely
88. Love at first sight: nope
89. Heaven: without a doubt
90. Santa Clause: not this year
91. Kiss on the first date: sure, why not
92. Angels: yes, I have some pretty awesome ones watching over me

Answer truthfully:

94. Had more than 1girlfriend/boyfriend at a time: Technically speaking??
95. Did you sing today: Yup, I belted out some christmas songs with my cousins
96. Ever cheated on somebody: eh, depends on your point of view.
97. If you could go back in time, how far would you go: nope. what's done is done.
98. The moment you would choose to relive: oh goodness, I don't know. I've had a lot of great moments.
99. Are you afraid of falling in love: No, more like totally excited.

Merry Christmas???

2010-12-25T22:20:00.001-08:00

This is what my Christmas night consisted of.....

I'm not sure if you noticed, but i'm extremely good looking. Maybe you should scroll back up the page and take another look.
....and yes, I now give you permission to make fun of me.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-25T17:14:00.000-08:00

December this year has sort of sucked. Where it's usually full of Christmasy stuff and that excited feeling you get when you start counting down to getting to go home...this year there was none of that. It hasn't even really felt like Christmas. The only reason I miss college is for its winter breaks....it would've really been nice to have a week off or so to get to go home, but alas, no such luck in the real world.

Lucky for me, I live near my pretty awesome Aunt and Uncle and got to spend Christmas Eve with them, which totally brought some Christmas spirit out if not for a day. If I wasn't going to spend Christmas, or any other day for that matter, with my family, my Aunt Leslee and Uncle Dave and their kids are the ones I'd want to spend it with. We started the day with some extreme sledding, unfortunately no one got hurt so I'm not sure how extreme it was, sledding was followed by a delicious meal of steak and hot chocolate, complete with paper plates so we wouldn't have to do dishes. If you've never had one of my Uncle Dave's steaks, then your missing out. Pure heaven. Our late lunch was followed by some movie watching and then the part of the night I enjoyed most. Every year they go and put luminaries on my Grandma T. and Uncle Ted's graves at the Salem Cemetary. Apparently it's a tradition for everyone who has relatives buried there. It looks really cool and it was great getting to visit Grandma and Uncle Teds graves. After that we came back and we had a great discussion regarding the real meaning of Christmas, which really hit home this year, and we ended with opening some presents. I carried on the Tolman family tradition of Dollar Store Gifts and got some great ones for their family and they were so awesome and got me some presents as well. It totally made my month. I'm so lucky, I not only have an awesome immediate family but my extended family is by far the best as well.

Not doing the normal Christmas thing this year and not getting focused on buying presents and the commercial aspect of it has really given me a chance to remember what it's all about. I realize that Christmas is something different for everybody, depending on what they believe and whether they are religious or not, but for me it became especially apparent this year that it's a time to be grateful for the birth of our Savior who's given us so so very much. I'm continually amazed at the perfect love he has for me despite all of my imperfections.

So while Christmas this year was far from the traditional one i'm use to, as I had to work today and I spent the rest of the night eating take-out chinese and watching movies, it doesn't matter to me so much, its still Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!! And get ready for the new year!

Ode to my Jeep

2010-12-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

Coming home tonight from my cousins wedding it was snowing super hard which meant traffic sucked, and while sitting there in my car I started to think of how much I loved my car, and the following poem is the creation that followed while sitting in traffic. Enjoy a peek into the creative workings of Brooke.

Through snow storms and mountains and lands afar,
There's nothing more reliable than my trusty car.

With its 4 wheel drive and its heated seats,
In the winter time it's pretty tough to beat.

Stinky boys, wet snowboards and all my stuff it's held,
through rivers, up canyons and across states it's only excelled

My awesome dance moves and singing he doesn't mind,
As long as every once in awhile I get his tires aligned.

Chas, I love you, your the type of man I'd like to keep,
It's a shame your just my trusty jeep.

Awesome...I know.

Something to think about

2010-12-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

I came across a website with a bunch of thought provoking questions, these were some of my favorites...

Lately.

2010-12-15T09:52:00.001-08:00

So much has happened, I don't even know where to start...

Well, I guess first off, I got a job! Yay for employment. I'm just working at Snowbird, a local ski resort, temporarily until I can find a more permanent job somewhere. I love my job though, the people I work with are really great, I get to meet the most interesting people, and I can go snowboarding whenever I want for FREEEEEEE! A perfect winter time job if you ask me. Already while working one day I had to run up to have a guest sign something and he answered his door practically naked. It was not a pretty sight, I wanted to scratch my eyes out. Always something interesting going on at work.

I went caving on Saturday. I was super nervous to go, I'd never been and I was worried I'd get claustrophobic and freak out while crawling around in some hole, but I loved it. More about caving later, when I have time to put up pictures...but it got me thinking though how most of the time it's the things that we're scared of most that end up being the most rewarding. There aren't too many things that really terrify me in this world (crickets being one of the only ones) but I find lately that whatever my fears are, I'd like to face them.

Coming back from Japan, my life plan sort of got turned upside down and things didn't go as planned at all. That being the case I made a lot of last minute rash decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time...and now looking back on them I wish i'd done things differently. I don't always make the best decisions in my life, but i'm glad i made them because I've learned a lot more from making bad decisions about what I want out of life than I think I would have if everything would've always gone right. Make sense?

And...that's all I've got for right now.

So I had a bad day

2010-12-01T21:42:00.000-08:00

Today I almost cried over not being able to get a library card. It was one of those days. Nothing outright horrible happened, it was just a bunch of little things that didn't go quite right and just ate at me throughout the day, until being rejected by the nice librarian threw me over the edge. It wasn't her fault she had to reject my plea for a library card. I needed an ID to get one, so that i could use the computer because my internet wasn't working at my house (problem solved by the way!), and I had run over to the library, trying to multi-task and get my workout in as well, and had conveniently NOT brought my ID with me. No I was not going to run another 3 miles home and then back again just to use the internet and I certainly wasn't going to waste my precious gas to drive back. As I left to run home, I fell the uncontrollable urge just to sit on the ground and sob. It hadn't been a great day. Instead i turned up the Lady Gaga on my ipod and pushed my limits as I ran home. By the time I got back I was too out of breathe and tired to even remember why I was upset in the first place. After that, things started to look up, my best friend in the world called me and by the end of our 40 minute conversation I had tears in my eyes, not like when I almost cried at the library, but from laughing so hard.

Mi Familia

2010-11-29T19:20:00.001-08:00

I love my family. I know, it sounds corny, but there is no other group of people i'd rather spend time with than my family. They are by far the coolest, funniest, most interesting and creative people I know.

Thanksgiving was fun this year, everyone was home except Heather (We missed you Heather!) and because of that it was filled with some pretty fantastic times. I'm not quite sure what it is but being around family always orients my path of life back to where it's suppose to be. I may sometimes get off track with a crazy idea or two, but the fam's always there to bring me back down and put my feet on solid ground, whether they know it or not. You guys are the bee's knees. After this crazy Thanksgiving weekend I can say that the thing I'm most grateful for lately is eternal families. There's no other group of muttfaces that i'd rather spend eternity with than you guys!

America...I'm Back!!

2010-11-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

So i'm home, in St. Louis that is, now. It has been quite the trip home.

On my flight from Japan to Dallas I sat next to a bald guy in his mid 30's. We started watching the movie "Grown-ups" at the same time. I was glad we did, because that made 2 of us who were dying laughing on the airplane and not just me. It's a funny movie, and we both got some weird looks from people because we were laughing pretty hard. A great start to a long flight. After that, dinner was served. One of the things we got with our meal was some sushi. My nice bald neighbor, in the process of trying to open his soy sauce packet, squirted it everywhere. And my everywhere, i mean all over me, and my stuff. There i was, sitting minding my own business, and next thing i know, my face is covered in soy sauce, my tv is covered in soy sauce, my dinner is covered in soy sauce, and my window is covered in soy sauce. I slowly turned to look at him, and he had this suprised/anxious look on his face and started apologizing like crazy, and i once again just died laughing. It was great.

On my flight from Dallas to St. Louis I sat next to a guy in his mid 60's and we chatted the whole flight home. He's traveled everywhere and had so many good stories and such great advice to give. We talked about everything from dating to jobs to kids to favorite desserts. you name it, we talked about it.

Since I've been home this jet lag thing has been quite the experience. I was expecting to just be exhausted all day for like a week straight, but instead i'm awake all the time. I can't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time. I didn't sleep at all on the airplane, and then when I got home Monday night, i went to bed around 11pm and woke up around 1am and was awake pretty much until 6am when i decided to really get up and go running. Tuesday I was awake all day, and started to feel tired around 8 so around 8:30pm I went to bed, only to be awoken at 11pm. From 11 until 4am I was awake, and i finally fell back to sleep from 4am-6am when i got up and worked out and whatever. I should be dead tired, instead i have all this energy and i'm just hungry all the time. Jet lag, you suck. I think being overly tired and gettin to sleep all the time would be better than being awake 20 hours a day.

Sayonara Japan

2010-11-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

There are a ton of things i'm going to miss about Japan, and the closer it gets to me having to go home, the more things i realize i don't want to leave behind. Here are just a few of the ones i'll miss most.

7 i&holding: This is the Japanese version of 7 Eleven. It may not have the typical stuff that an American 7 eleven has, but i think it's so much better. They sell the most delicious meat pies for 110 yen, which my stomach will miss greatly. And their choices of ice cream are deliciously endless. Going back to 7 eleven in the States and only having choices of soda, hot chocolate and donuts will be a sad sad thing.

Icecream: I'm not quite sure what it is about Japanese ice cream, but it is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. I've now become an ice cream snob and I'm not sure any other ice cream will ever satisfy me as much as Japanese ice cream does. I think what makes it so great is the fact that they mostly serve soft serve ice cream (which i absolutely love) but they make cool flavors out of it, ranging from apple mango to sweet potato. Sounds gross, but it's wonderfully delectable.

My Running Buddy: I've spent the majority of the last 4 years running in solitude because I can never find anyone who either wants to run with me, or who runs at the same pace or mileage as me. Having someone to run every morning with these past 3 months has been so much fun. It's been great to have someone to talk to and someone to push me when I don't want to go that extra mile or get out of bed at 5:30a.m. Plus it takes a special person to listen to my white girl rapping for 14 miles. And I'm definitely going to miss having someone sing Britney Spears to me while i run.

My 6:30 alarm clock: On the days that I wasn't up early running, I could always guarantee that i'd be woken up sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 by one of 3 wonderful little kids. Was i always happy to be up this early? No. But that's nothing a smile from one of my favorite nephews or niece couldn't fix. I'm going to miss these kids like crazy, they make me laugh everyday, and I love them to pieces.

The people: I can people watch for hours in the States, but i could people watch for days in Japan. Everything about them is just so interesting, ranging from the clothes they wear to the way they interact with each other. One of my favorite things about being here has been the opportunity to get to be immersed in another culture, one where I'm the minority. It's sort of awesome being the minority. I may even miss having everyone stare at me as I walk down the street.

I'll leave you with those for now, but i'm sure i'll be back with more.

guess who got her hair done???

2010-11-17T16:18:00.000-08:00

ME!!!!

The last month or so...

2010-11-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I've blogged about my recent adventures in Japan. I blame it mostly on the fact that our computer has been broken, my camera has been out of batteries, and a little bit on the fact that I've been downright lazy. But...Eric, being the stud that he is, fixed the computer and I replaced my camera batteries and I'm fighting through the laziness to get this post out to all my faithful readers, and by all my faithful readers I really just mean you Mom!

A few weeks ago I went to Nikko for the weekend with some friends. It was an amazingly awesome trip. Nikko is an old Japanese city that's situated up in the mountains (which are more like hills). It's known for it's gorgeous scenery and all the cool old temples and shrines that were built years and years ago. Nikko was definitely a memorable experience, I would love to go back sometime and see the rest of it!

The next cool place I went was Kamakura. Kamakura is most well known for the Big Buddha, and besides that it just houses a lot more temples and shrines and some good fun shopping. My camera died halfway through on this trip, so i only have pictures from the first half of the day. :(

For my birthday Heather and Shari took me up to Tokyo for the day. We shopped at my favorite store and I spent way to much money and we ate delicious crepes and other great food, and all around just had a really good time. Thanks for making my 23rd birthday a memorable one guys!

The last really cool place I've been in the past few weeks is....TOKYO DISNEY!! I've always wanted to go to DisneyLand or DisneyWorld. My family went when my Mom was pregnant with me and so I always felt like I miss ed out on the experience, even though i'm told i was "technically" there when they went. Heather and Eric made all my dreams come true though, and I'm now a believer that DisneyWorld really is the happiest place on earth. It was the best. I don't really have any pictures from that, I'm sure Heather will post on their blog about it though so you can check it out there.

A wonderfully warm feeling

2010-11-17T14:30:00.001-08:00

This morning, after Heather and I got back from working out, we were downstairs getting some breakfast and what not and I heard Cade upstairs crying. So i told Heather I'd go grab him. He's just so darn cute in the morning, he's always so happy and mellow! (Side note: Heather and I had gone swimming this morning for our workout and so i was wet and freezing and couldn't wait to shower.) So I head upstairs to grab the little guy, and when i get in there I realize he has a dirty diaper, so I lay him down and go to work fixing that problem before i take him down to Heather. Dirty diaper, no big deal. So I finish cleaning him up, thinking the worst was over, and i turn around to get his clean diaper to put on him when i feel a wonderfully warm feeling start to cover my leg. Since i was so cold, my first thought was "Oh warmth!!", until my brain kicked in and i realized i had a half naked baby laying on my leg, the only thing that could be making that wonderfully warm feeling is....yes that's right, pee. Best part was when i realized what had happened and looked down at Cade, he just started giggling. Oh Cade-O, i love you.

So today I'd like everyone to congratulate me because I've now been baptized into the society of psuedo-motherhood. Woo Hoo!

2010-10-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Late night bowls of cereal are...
SO bad for your body (nutritiously speaking)...
but so incredible good for the soul

Only the coolest slide EVER!

2010-10-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we went to a cool park nearby called Kanonzaki (Sp?) Park. It had this cool ship playground and a ropes course type thing complete with a zipline, but the most awesome thing at the park was the roller slide. You started at the top of this hill and it went on forever, you couldn't see the bottom and you slid down on a foam pad and you went so fast. You can tell I really loved it because instead of being all grammatical and giving a good detailed description I'm giving you the 5 year old description. I think it's because I loved it so much that I can't think straight when I start to think about it. IT was so much fun. I can't wait to go back. I'm going to build one of these in the states because every child, adult and baby should slide down one of these.

Fall and then some

2010-10-02T16:46:00.001-07:00

Kat inspired me to blog about all things that I love about Fall. October is by far my favorite month because it's the beginning of the best three months out of the whole year (October, November and December) and here is why they are wicked awesome:

-My birthday falls in the month of October
-You can finally start cooking with pumpkin and not feel guilty about it. Total fall ingredient. (Pumpkin Pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cheesecake...oh my stomach is growling!)
-The leaves change and fall which means running takes on a whole new purpose. Instead of running to run, I now run to crunch the leaves under my feet. I love the sound. I'm one of those people who purposefully runs all over the sidewalk and street just to crunch all the leaves.
-Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The trifecta of holidays. (Thank goodness we have the 4th of July to hold us up for the rest of the year)
-Pumpkin carving!!!
-Sweater/Jacket weather! My favorite clothes to wear.
-Come December, resorts start opening up for SNOWBOARDING SEASON!! Hallejuah!!
-Fall is magical, i think it's the perfect time to date someone.
-Thanksgiving could have a list of its own, but i'll just stick with saying what more could you want out of a holiday than food and football?
-Christmas, duh!
-I get to see my family usually at least once during these three months
-hat weather, i love wearing beanies.
-football, of course.--even though i'm getting worked in fantasy football this year.

...and so many more things, but i'll leave you with this unfinished list for now. If you'd like a greater understanding of my love of this time of year, please call me and I'll enlighten you.

I need ALL eyes here...

2010-09-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

The longer i'm around kids and the more i have to babysit, the more i wonder about what would ever happen if they all suddenly rebelled and attacked me. This quiz was really worthwhile in helping me figure out if I would survive the attack or not. It tells you how many 5 year olds you could take in a fight, so for your safety and to protect your life please, please go take this quiz. --> http://www.oneplusyou.com/bb/fight5. Make sure to read ALL the instructions and all the details about the fight. I only can take on 20 5 year olds which tells me i need to up my workouts, make them a little bit more intense and maybe add in some more kickboxing.

heartbreaking news

2010-09-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Every morning since I got here around 7:30 I would hear music coming from outside. It was a joyous noise to hear, the music was the song "The Entertainer" and whenever I heard it I instantly thought of an ice-cream truck. So every morning when I'd hear this joyous music, I'd rush to my window in hopes of viewing the ice-cream truck. I always wondered to myself, "Why is he driving around so early?? Doesn't he know the best time for ice-cream is in the afternoon?" but i didn't dwell on the thought for too long because I for one am not opposed to ice-cream for breakfast so who am I to tell the ice-cream man that he can't sell his ice-cream at 7:30a.m. Every morning my heart would jump at the sound of that beautiful ice-cream truck music and every morning my heart would drop when once again I"d look out my window for several minutes and still not have an ice-cream truck sighting. One morning I was sitting at the breakfast table, eating my breakfast (which sadly was NOT ice-cream), and my heart jumped and I heard the music and so i asked my sister about it and what she told me totally shattered my universe...there is not in fact an ice-cream truck that drives around base each morning at 7:30, the music actually comes from the school down the street. All I know is that the school should have picked a different song, not one that the ice-cream truck plays because while they think they are making the kids happy by playing fun music in the morning, they are in fact killing their dreams of ice-cream trucks.

Hi, My name is Brooke and...

2010-09-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

...I'm a typaholic. I don't know if you've noticed, maybe you have, but i write really, really long blog posts sometimes and if your one of those people that i email every once in awhile you'll notice that my emails are really, really long. I'm usually not a very long winded person, in fact, in person i'm a huge listener as opposed to a talker, but put me in front of a keyboard and i just let loose and before I know it I have pages and pages of written work. I don't even realize it most of the time. I sit down to write a quick blog post or to reply quickly to an email someone sent me and a "short" email turns into more than that person probably wants to know about me. Have you ever heard of the expression "Loose lips sink ships"? Well in my case it's "Loose fingers sink... ships" (yeah i know it doesn't rhyme but you get the idea). I start typing and everything just comes out. I start typing and I just want to tell everyone everything about everything. It's bad, it's real bad. So in the spirit of overcoming my typaholicness, I'm first admitting I have a problem by writing this blog... and then i'm stopping typing this post before it turns into another novel.

High School Sports

2010-09-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

Heather and Eric ditched me tonight, so after putting the kids to bed and cleaning up the mess they'd made I settled in on the couch and watched Remember the Titans. One of my top 5 favorite movies of all times, i get goosebumps every time i watch it. I love it, for a lot of reasons. Tonight while i was watching it, it got me thinking back to and reminiscing about high school sports and how much i miss them! Those were the glory days, I wish i'd made more out of them than i did.

I always got pre-game/pre-race jitters...always. It didn't matter that i'd done it a thousand times before, it never failed i always felt like puking before it all started. I miss that feeling though. It was always an excited puking feeling, like even though i was terrified, at the same time i couldn't wait to get out there. Always as soon as the whistle blew or the race started though, within seconds all the jittery feelings were gone and replaced with a purely euphoric feeling like..."yeah, i'm going to rock this!" which sometimes i did and sometimes i didn't, but either way I always had fun. I miss the adrenaline rush that accompanies playing sports, the feeling when you get sort of mad or get that competitive edge and something takes over you and you just go, and play your little heart out and feel great! I can't explain it really, but at least I know what i'm talking about.

I miss practices. Being forced to work so hard that somedays that puking feeling i talked about earlier really manifested itself in the form of actual puke. I can remember one day in basketball practice, Coach Olivo was mad at us because we'd lost a game and we walked into practice and he immediately put us on the line to run suicides and told us we were running until someone puked...and we did. We ran suicides for a good 2 hours and 3 people puked in fact. It was awesome. I love forced exercise.

I loved being able to see yourself get better throughout the season. I think for me it was easiest to see in cross-country because your performance is based solely on your time. I was more motivated to beat myself each race and see if i could get a new PR or get a better time than the last race than i was by trying to beat other runners. That usually worked out okay because those 2 things sort of go hand in hand.

Playing highschool sports was the best because I got to wear my uniform (which was almost always sweats!) to school usually 4 out of the 5 days a week. Why else would I have chosen to play sports year round at school?? What's better than waking up and putting sweats on to go to school AND having your Mom not be able to say anything about it...i belive nothing! If i went to school in sweats now i'd just look lazy.

Moral of the story is, I miss high school sports. There's nothing quite like them and I wish i could go back and do them all over again. Maybe when I get back to Salt Lake I'll find an intramural soccer team of sorts to join. Granted it won't be quite the same since I won't have a coach yelling at me or practices 5 days a week to wear me out, but i suppose it'll have to do. Maybe I can talk Kat into coming to my games and yelling at me so i can get psyched up. We'll see...

Maybe I'll just become a highschool sports coach and inflict that same pain on them. I think i'd be a kick awesome coach. Although, as my girls at Heritage always told me, I'm not a very good yeller so I doubt i'd be able to scare them into playing well or doing what they're suppose to. Maybe I'm more suited as an assistant coach or assistant to the assistant....

Gangsta style

2010-09-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

Today was, what felt like, the first day of Fall here in good ol' Yokosuka, Japan. It was a little rainy and windy and just cold enough. It was what I call the perfect day. This morning on our run Heather mentioned how excited she was to get to dress the kids up in jeans and sweatshirts today when we got home and I couldn't help thinking to myself how excited I was to get to dress myself up in jeans and a hoodie today! All day today Kailey has kept asking me to put the hood up on her jacket and put the hood up on my jacket too, the child's gone gangster. Then while I was blogging about Enoshima Island she saw the camera and asked to have her picture taken, the following are a combination us wearing our hoodies gangster style and me being bored and messing with photoshop!

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Isn't she adorable?? Cutest little thug you'll ever see.

Enoshima Island

2010-09-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

Tuesday?....i think was the day we went to Enoshima Island. (All my days get mixed up here, i can never remember what day we're on until we get to Sunday.) Enoshima Island is a small holy island a short car ride away. The island is entirely dedicated to the goddess Benzaiten who was said to have risen from the bottom of the sea in the 6th century. The island is full of lots of cool shrines, a botanical garden and a cool observatory that you can go up and look out over everything. The best part was that once again we got to wash and drink the holy water! Love that holy water.

Just a quick FYI before I start putting up some pictures...littl Mr. Cade lovingly got poop all over my shirt when we got out of the car when we first got there, luckily Heather had an extra tank top on so I changed into that instead of walking around in a poop stained/smelling shirt. So I apologize for my immodesty, my shoulders ARE pretty good looking so if you don't think you can handle those babies, scroll no farther!

Sorry the pictures are so small, when I make them any bigger they just go blurry which is wierd, but I suppose they give the general idea so just deal with it!

Chopstick vs. Fork

2010-09-21T00:44:00.001-07:00

Which is the better eating utensil?? No one knows for sure so I've decided to lay it out and see which one comes out on top and thus will be declared the SUPREME UTENSIL!!

We'll start off theoretically, if a fork and chopsticks were to get in a fight (You got wasabi in my mashed potatoes! You got mashed potatoes in my wasabi!), chopsticks would win hands down just due to pure numbers. 2 against 1. strength in numbers. Chopsticks 1, Fork 0.

Now in a real fight, if you needed to use one as a weapon, a fork would be to your best advantage. I'd be way more afraid of a fork carrying thug than a chopstick carrying thug. A fork would dig right in but chopsticks, unless they're expensive high-end ones would just snap into, unless you went for the eye. Chopsticks 1, Fork 1.

As eating utensils, it could go either way. Forks can do a lot of things, like scoop,pierce, or stab. They can act as both a spoon AND a knife when needed. Chopsticks, however, can be used to grab a wide variety of things and shovel mass spoonfuls of things into your mouth. I was also told that ivory chopsticks change color when they come into contact with certain types of poison so there's always the chance they could save your life. In this case i think it's a toss up. Chopsticks 2, Forks 2.

At this moment in time I can't side with one or the other, they're just both so useful in so many different ways. This is an argument that may last throughout the ages. Any thoughts to help settle the matter are greatly appreciated.

2010-09-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to bed without my contacts in, and this morning I woke up with them in. My first thought when I woke up was...I CAN SEE!!! and then i realized I had my contacts in and wondered how those got there. Apparently I'm a sleep walker.

Like Unto A Child

2010-09-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

In my scripture reading last night it talked about having faith like a child and how pure a child's heart really is. Living with my sister and her kids and being around 3 little kids every day has given me a whole new insight on just how pure children really are and has given me a whole new outlook on the scriptures that talk about becoming like a child. They have such big hearts and such a large capacity to love. They're not judgmental at all. They forgive and forget in a heartbeat. They're full of pure unfeigned happiness and they believe without question and trust without a doubt. If these kids rub off on me even the tiniest bit I'll be a thousand times better off.

Banana Pancakes....

2010-09-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

...is one of my all time favorite Jack Johnson songs AND are also one of my favorite foods to eat! Tuesday night, Heather had to take Ethan to soccer practice so Kailey, Cade and I were left in charge of dinner so we made PANCAKES! I submit that there's nothing better in life than breakfast for dinner.
After making a few batches of regular pancakes, we stirred in some mushed bananas and cinnamon to make some delicious banana pancakes. They were a hit, i should've made the whole batch with bananas in them.

Kailey was a great helper. She's really good at stirring and an exceptional taste tester. If it weren't for her great taste buds I'm sure the pancakes would've have turned out as good :).
Maybe next tuesday we'll give blueberry pancakes a try.

Dream come true??

2010-09-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

I usually don't dream. Hardly ever in fact. Maybe once every few weeks, but since coming to Japan I have the most vivid dreams every. single. night. They aren't just normal dreams most people have...they've been some of the weirdest I can ever remember having.

In one of them I was getting married and an anteater was chasing me and my husband-to-be down the aisle trying to suck us up with his anteater nose. Finally I got so fed up with running away from this anteater in my ugly BLACK and pink wedding dress..(why I was wearing black at my wedding, i'm not sure)...that I ran outside where a friend of mine was sitting in his car and I asked him to save me from the anteater and he drove away! And the dream ended with me still being chased by the giant anteater.

Another really weird one was I was going canyoneering with some friends except instead of canyoneering in a canyon, we were "canyoneering" through a house. We were climbing over couches and rappelling down the stairs and crawling through air ducts. You wouldn't think it'd be scary but in the dream we were being SUPER careful and we kept being reminded that this was a VERY dangerous activity. One of the people with us fell down the stairs while we were rappelling and we were all distraught. The dream ended with us huddled in an airduct, just after we lost our dear friend to the dangerous stairs, wondering how we were ever going to get out of there alive. Don't forget kids, houses are dangerous places!

The other one I remember is I was given a challenge to walk a balance beam across space! And me being one to never say no to a challenge said I could/would do it. Earth to Brooke, there's so many problems with this scenario...what were you thinking? So I fly up in a rocketship to space and these alien guys let me out in a yellow astronaut suit onto this little plank that has a balance beam attached to it and tell me good luck in their alien language (which I can apparently speak alien in my dreams). I start walking across it thinking that it'll be cake when I get distracted by an intergalactic icecream truck flying by and when I start waving to try and get it's attention so I can get some icecream I lose my balance and fall off the balance beam. When that happens it does like it does in MarioKart when you fall off the side of something and it shows you falling down but then the little thing picks you up and brings you back up and puts you back on the road except it puts me back on the balance beam. That's basically the end. The rest of the dream is basically the same thing except I keep getting distracted by different things, like a firetruck and a cute alien, or i tried to do a cartwheel on the balance beam and fell off.

Wierd dreams....what's happening to me?

where to begin...

2010-09-14T00:56:00.001-07:00

Oh where to begin, where to begin? I have so many thoughts running through my head lately and I've done so many cool things that I don't even know where to start. Japan is great, not many people have the opportunity to spend 3 months in another country and for that i'm extremely grateful to have been given this wonderful opportunity. Not only do I get to get to spend every single day with my awesome sister and her extremely cute kids, but I get to hang out in JAPAN...and experience a whole different culture!! I'm lucky. Very lucky. It's been a strangely hard change to go from college life (i.e. studying all the time, going to class, having a job, etc) to "mom" life. I've been thrust into this world of motherhood, granted their not my kids, but I watch them and hang out with them enough that i get the general idea of having kids and it's quite a change. I miss having friends around to hang out with that are my own age and that I can talk to about things people my age like to talk about and as much as i hate to admit it I rather miss having things to do all the time. I'm so use to having my whole day planned out...so many hours for classes, and then this many hours for studying, blah blah blah you get the picture. I'm finding that too much free time, which is what a lot of college kids wish for, is not good for the soul. So far the lesson I'll be taking home from this experience is it's good to keep busy. As stressful and tiredsome as it might be sometimes to have a full time job or be a full time student, it truly is worth your while to be actively engaging in something...anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving being here, and this in no way has had adverse effects on my desires to be a mom and wife someday...in fact if anything it's made me want that stage of my life to come faster. Random thoughts, I know, but i'd rather write them here than have to handwrite them in my journal. And plus I don't think anyone reads this anymore so I don't think it matters what I write :)

Pepper Lunch

2010-09-03T03:36:00.001-07:00

We went to Pepper Lunch for lunch yesterday.They give you your food on a hot plate like this and you stir it around to cook it yourself. You get to add as much or as little of the sauces as you want.Instead of ordering from a person, you order from a vending machine which prints you out a ticket that you hand to a person. Japan is great.

2010-09-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

I need to do more of this...

...to make up for all the this......that I've been doing lately.

Jet Lag

2010-08-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

Coming over to Japan I was a little weary of jet lag...i'd seen it's effects and was not excited to encounter them myself. Fast forward to day one--getting off the plane despite only sleeping two hours, i felt relatively great! I wasn't tired at all and that night I probably went to bed around 9, which isn't so bad. Fast forward to day two--still feeling great, I took a nap because I thought it was a smart thing to do and I went to bed again around 9ish and finally day three about the same except minus the nap. Overall I haven't been real tired, the only problem I've come across is that I keep waking up at 3 or 4am all ready to start my day, and by 5 i'm starving. Now I know it's good to arise early and what not but I think 3am is pushing it a bit. So here it is, 4:14AM and I'm typing away on my blog because I'm not the least bit tired and my TV only gets 7 channels, all of which are military channels and it's hit and miss during the day what they're playing so at night it's even worse. Lesson learned: Push my bedtime back to 10 or 11.

Thoughts of a college graduate

2010-08-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since i've blogged, and a lot has happened, and I care not to take the time to catch you up, because frankly if you read this blog you probably talk to me once or twice a week and already know the stories, and if you don't then you probably shouldn't be reading my blog. (unless your random family). On that note, i'd like to leave you with a few thoughts from the mind of Brooke...scary.

I often take life for granted. I live such a great life, and i get to have all these amazing opportunities that often these awesome things become the norm and I forget how lucky I am. For an almost 23 year old girl, I have done a lot of sweet stuff and had a lot of freaking awesome opportunities and met a lot of real cool people. I am one lucky girl. I graduated college 2 weeks ago about, and looking back on the last four years I feel like i did a pretty good job making the most of my college years. Sure I made some pretty good mistakes, but what is life without mistakes right? and because of those mess up's I feel like I've learned a lot and I feel more prepared to eventually enter into the "real" world. Speaking of the "real" world, while yes I am a college graduate and most college graduates get jobs upon graduating and began their working lives, I am not quite yet finished having fun and am not quite yet ready to give up my freedom to a 9 to 5 job, therefore I'm going to Japan for3 months. Be jealous, you should be. This is one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime, seize the moment opportunities that I almost didn't take due to the fact I felt I had to conform and get a real job right away, boy am I glad I came to my senses. When else in my life will I be able to take 3 months to go visit Japan...never.

This has been a really long blog post of my ramblings, and so i'll leave you on this note. For the past 22 years of my life i've been telling myself that life really begins when i'm old enough to date, or when i leave for college or when i turn 21 or when i graduate college...and every one of those moments has come and gone and nothing has really changed. What i've come to see now is that there's no defining moment in ones life where they suddenly become a real person and start living a real life but that your life is your life and you gotta live it while you can, nothing can define that except you.

Rope Swings and Motorcycles

2010-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Last Friday a bunch of kids from my old ward went to a place down in Mona called Burraston Pond. A lot of college kids like to go there because there's a sweet rope swing you can swing into the pond with. I'd always heard of it but I hadn't ever gone and so I was pretty excited to get the chance to finally go and I think it's one of my new favorite places. I want to take some of my other friends down there some weekend. Here are some sweet awesome pictures of me on the rope swing.

Just yesterday I went on a motorcycle ride with a friend from an old ward as well and it was SO much fun. I've only ridden on a motorcycle once that I can remember and we just went around Provo a bit, but yesterday we rode out to Provo Lake and around Provo Airport and I loved every second of it. I always figured it was true but I can now personally validate the fact that Chicks dig Motorcycles. I need to find me a boyfriend with one so we can go on rides all the time.

You don't make friends with salad!!...or do you??

2010-07-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

I have just recently discovered the joys of buying spinach in a bag and all the wonderful things you can do with it. I originally picked it up off the shelf in the grocery store because I was craving salad that day and i thought one package of lettuce would last me maybe 3 salads. I chose spinach because the darker the lettuce the more healthy is it for you, plus spinach has oodles of awesome vitamins and minerals in it and so i figured I'd choke it down for my health. Boy was I surprised when i found out that i actually LIKE spinach and that my package of spinach has lasted me through like 2 weeks worth of salads and wraps!

Since that glorious day in the supermarket where I chose spinach over ramen or pizza or whatever else i usually buy, it's been all uphill from there. I have made so many delicious salad and wrap concoctions, i should open my own restaurant, everyone would be blown away. Today i took a picture of my salad, it's half eaten because I didn't think to take a picture of this work of art until I was half way through.
What does spinach, grilled chicken, grapes, craisins, crushed walnuts,honey mustard dressing, and a toasted tortille make??---PURE DELICIOUSNESS!!
If you have any great ideas for things to put in my latest salad or wrap creation...let me know.

Swagger Wagon

2010-07-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

I hope i'm this cool when i'm a parent...

Happenings

2010-07-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

In between all of the massive amounts of studying I've been doing I've found a little bit of time to go and have some fun. Unfortunately I don't have pictures for most of the activities, so a detailed description will have to suffice.

Canoeing. Apparently, you can rent canoes from BYU for free from the Rec Therapy Department if your a student, and one of my friends found out and took full advantage of it. 8 of us went canoeing on Utah lake one afternoon and boy was it fun. It was my first time to Utah Lake and it's a little dirty, but once you get past the dead fish and greenish-brownish water it was a blast! My canoe was the best at tipping people over via ramming speed and I busted out a little figaro for the masses. They loved it. And I loved canoeing. I want to do it again sometime soon.

Floating. A friend from my ward and I decided we wanted to go float the provo river, so we invited some friends from the ward and a few from other places and had at it. WE ended up with a group of about 30 people which made it a ton of fun. The water was freezing cold so you can be sure that we all tried to stay in our tubes best we could. Unfortunately me and a friend flipped our tubes so we got to experience the full effect of the icy water. Definitely a fun time was had.

Rollerblading. Austin took me rollerblading today and it was so much fun! We went along the Provo river trail because it's relatively flat and paved so it was a nice easy place for me to start out. I hadn't been rollerblading in probably 3 years and boy did it show. I never knew how to stop in the first place but I really couldn't remember how to today. I only fell once though, but boy was it a good one. There was a little crack in teh asphalt that converged upwards like a mountain and I was going pretty fast and there was no time to even attempt stopping by the time i saw it so i just hit it and while my blades stopped, my body kept moving in a forward motion and my knees and palms stopped me. It was fantastic, i looked pretty hardcore rollerblading with blood dripping down my leg.

Those are all the stories I have for now...more to come soon I hope.

Respect That

2010-07-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

Summer Countdown

2010-07-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

20 days till this....
41 days till this....
48 days till this....
and 57 days till this.....

Um, no thanks.

2010-06-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Dating is not fun. and I am done with it for now. Those are my current thoughts. Don't try and change my mind---unless you know an extremely goodlooking man you'd like to set me up with. That is all.

Homeless Man

2010-06-08T09:52:00.001-07:00

Last week while running I passed this older man walking down the sidewalk. He had on these short green army shorts...and when i say short I mean you saw more of his leg than you ever would want to. He had no shirt on and even though his legs and arms were pretty stick skinny, he had quite the pooch of a belly. So naturally when I saw this ratty looking man walking down the sidewalk...I thought he was homeless.

Well, yesterday when I was running, I passed him again (in the same dirty shorts and shirtless) however this time he was jogging, sort of off balance if i may add, but he was jogging. And again today when I was running I passed him again (once again in the same clothes) but this time he was booking it down the sidewalk, still off balance and lurching to one side. (In my Orthopedic and Therapeutic Techniques class we learned about abnormal gaits and judging from his lurching to one side, he not only exhibits the Trendelenberg gait but he more than likely is experiencing a gluteus medius weakness on his left side, just fyi).

So the conclusion that I've come to is that this man, because he is homeless and therefore doesn't have a job or a place to watch tv, goes running to pass his days. However since he is homeless and probably starving, he has the distended belly like those little kids in africa and little skinny arms and legs. And that also explains why he wears the same shorts everyday and no shirt.

My Life---lately

2010-06-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

So it's been a busy few months, which unfortunately means I've left my devoted readers to wonder what I've been up to...(haha funny since most of you I talk to on a regular basis, but you never know I may have a silent stalker.) Anywho here are a few things I've been up to.

Kat and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas
I went canyoneering a few times--once down near the San Rafael Swell and another time in Zion.
I rappelled down a waterfall!

And other than that...lots and lots of studying and schoolwork!

The End.

monday night

2010-04-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

Headache....

..which means that my monday night consisted of...

ordering a pizza AND watching Season 1 of Chuck....

....in my sweats and wearing my glasses....

sad? I think not.

She put the lime in the Coconut...

2010-04-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

Last night Austin came over to hang out and he brought...A COCONUT! He kept telling me how in South African he'd learned how to open a coconut really easy, no need to smack it on a rock or drill a hole in it or anything, so he finally brought one to show me.
Despite it being "easy" I still couldn't do it, but he did it really easily. The coconut and the milk stuff in side were both delicious! It was a unique experience.

2010-04-21T05:41:00.001-07:00

It's 6:45 in the morning and I'm on campus. THere's something seriously wrong with this picture, especially since I didn't go to bed last night until after 2. This is what finals does to you, i'm a walking zombie. I can't wait to go home and take a nap.

Day 1 of my Bike

2010-04-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Day one of using my bike started out great. I rode it to campus and I got there in record time, I rode it to a friends house and got there so speedily. Riding your bike is so much better than walking! So then it comes time to go to work, so i start my trek. It's only about a 5.5 mile ride to work, not bad at all. Since it's finals week I figured i'd be good and bring my backpack with me so that I could study. So i loaded up my backpack with all my textbooks nad started off. Riding a bike and riding a bike with a heavy backpack are two very different things. It COMPLETELY throws off your balance. Needless to say, i caught a small edge on my bike and what normally wouldn't phase me at all, brought me crashing to the ground. As I had gone to correct my balance, i leaned over a bit and in the process my backpack came swinging to the side of me pulling both me and the bike over. Darn those heavy textbooks!! The only thing really injured was my pride. I was so embarrassed. I quickly got up, brushed it off like it was no big deal and kept on riding. This was in probably the first 2 miles of my ride, so as the next 3 went down I think I got stopped at least 5 times to be asked if I was okay and if i needed anything. As I sat on the curb at one part, trying to clean myself up a bit with my water bottle a sweet old Spanish guy who could barely speak english came over and offered me some alcohol wipes and a band-aid. I don't know what a band-aid would've done since it would've only covered like 1/20th of my scrape but it was nice of him anyways. At work, when I finally made it, I regaled them with my story. They loved it and my kids thought I was so hardcore. Besides the large scrape on my leg, I also have one great big bruise on my hip and one great big bruise on my upper thigh, but i chose not to take pictures of those because I didn't want you to scratch your eyes out from having to see the white beast. Wish me luck on day 2 of my biking adventures.

Summer Goal

2010-04-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Today I bought a bike. I love it! I forgot how much fun it is to ride around on a bike, you get places sooo much faster than walking and there's just something magical about riding your bike in the summer time. A few weeks ago I worked with a girl and she was telling me how she had just bought a bike and she was going to try and ride her bike all summer long to work and other places instead of driving. She was doing it because she watched a movie about pollution and going green and she wanted to do so. I thought it was a great idea. I'm going to try and use my car as little as possible this summer and ride my bike everywhere. I'm doing it mostly to save gas money and get a workout. I'm way excited.

Red Rock Relay

2010-04-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

12 runners. 175 miles. Greatest experience ever. And i'm doing it this September! Watch the video to see all the cool places i'll get to run and visit the website to read about how freaking amazing it will be. Be Jealous.

2010-04-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Today as I was returning from grocery shopping i had bags in both hands and I was holding my keys just barely by the tips of my fingers. As i got closer to the door to my house I pressed the "unlock" button on the keyless entry to my car. When the house door didn't automatically unlock I got frustrated, so i pressed it again twice. Once again the door going into my house didn't unlock. It was only then that i realized what I was doing. Does school have me this brain dead? Apparently so. Needless to say, I think they should make keyless entry's for your house too, because it's just too much of a hassle to put all your stuff down just to unlock the door.

XC Skiing

2010-04-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Aaron and Sara were in town and B and I took them XC skiing. It was quite the adventure. Aaron got us stuck in the snow. Luckily two nice truck drivers stopped to help pull us out. After about 40 minutes and getting one of the trucks stuck in the snow as well, we finally all got free of the snow and continued on our way. Here are some pictures from our adventures. Notice the picture of Aaron getting up from after he fell in teh snow and there's NO pictures of me falling in the snow!

self declared spring break!!

2010-03-24T22:05:00.001-07:00

I'm too lazy to make my own post about it, so you can go here to hear all about Kat and I's spring-break adventures! Pictures included!

2010-03-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Cute physiology boy talked to me today!! Yes, I made a fool of myself yet again but i'm making an impression right? Only 3 more weeks and then so long cute physiology boy. Sad.

FHE

2010-03-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

I've been called as an FHE group leader yet again, I'm pretty sure it's because I am always really terrible about going to FHE and someone up there is trying to teach me a lesson. Only this time i'm all by my lonesome, I have no nifty partner to help me out. Tonight was my first night planning for my group and I have to say, although it's only been one week, I already love it. I know it won't always be this way but it was really nice to take a break tonight and not feel guilty about it. It was also really cool to actually meet and interact with kids in my ward, I have a pretty stellar group nad i'm excited to get to know them more. So, although I know somewhere down the road there will be a Monday where the last thing I want to do is go to FHE, for now I'm really grateful for the calling I have and the already for how much it's made me appreciate the importance of having FHE everyweek.

Title Reclaimed

2010-03-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

I, Brooke Tolman, hereby reclaim my athleticism back. After going cross-country skiing the first time and royally sucking at it, I feared my days of being naturally good at athletic things were over and the days of being increasingly clumsy were just beginning, but it was a hoax. Yesterday, I manned up and gave cross-country skiing another try, hoping to conquer it but fearing the worst (I wasn't sure my body could take another bruising like the last, nor my ego) and I came out conquerer. I only fell once and it was because I was going through the woods on a downhill and I still haven't mastered turning on skis so it was either run into a tree or fall to the ground.

I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!

2010-03-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

I, up until this point, have always hated running on treadmills. I feel like their pace calculator is always wrong and I feel like it doesn't give you the workout that running is suppose to and i just hate not being able to run anywhere. But that all changed today. BYU's gym got a bunch of new treadmills and I hopped on one today and it was like running on clouds, it was the most amazing treadmill experience I've ever had, and I think I have to chalk it up to the brand. It's called Woodway and it's amazing. I still would rather run outside, but these Woodway treadmills are the only ones i'll run on from here on out.

Let me Pinch your cheeks

2010-03-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

My knee aches worse before a rain or snow storm i've started to realize. I'm going to be some crazy old lady someday that is convinced she can predict the weather by how her joints are feeling. My future is set.

My 13 year old dreams.

2010-03-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today I was going through a bunch of old papers and letters that I had, trying to organize them and get rid of some of them. In the pile I found a letter that i'd written to myself when I was 13 to be opened on my 18th birthday. Here's a few little excerpts...

On my future job...
"In my future I plan to become either a children's doctor or work at a children's hospital as a doctor" (Note from current self: Is there a difference?)" Or I want to be a translator and know 4 or 5 languages and travel around the whole entire world, Those are my plans, I sure hope they come true."

On my future husband....
"The man I hope to marrie (note from current self: yes that's how i spelled it!) at age 23 (I only have one more year to find this man apparently)is to be honest and worthy to go into the temple. And will have gone on a mission to a foreign land so that he can speak to me in one of the 4 or 5 languages that I will know or at least teach me a new one."

On having fun...
" Lifes not all about seriousness though. I want to go parachuting or parasailing or something that is really danger, but I don't want to die from it."

I had big dreams as a 13 year old, my 13 year old self would probably be disappointed to find out that I'm going to be neither a children's doctor or a doctor that works in a children's hospital, i only know half of 2 languages, and i'm 22 and nowhere near getting married. Sorry to be such a let down 13 year old Brooke.

Lost

2010-03-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

Today, after class and eating lunch, I decided I had better go on a short run since I hadnt' worked out yesterday. I'm sore from XC skiing and snowboarding earlier this week so I decided that I'd just do a short 4 or 5 miles or so. Keep it around a nice 45 minute run.

So i started off, and I decided to venture into new territory because I was sick of running the same routes over and over again. I hit my 25 minute mark and figured I'd better turn around and start heading back the way I came from, only to realize that after taking a few turns, I had no idea where I was.

Yes, I got lost on my run today. And my short 4 or 5 miles turned into a nice long 9 mile run. It was cloudy and I couldn't see the mountains to lead me back the way I came and the neighborhood I was in had a funky numbering system in which the grid system was not working. Needless to say, at least I got a good workout out of it.

XC Skiing

2010-03-02T07:21:00.000-08:00

Last night I was invited to go cross country skiing and I was way excited because I've never been before and I like trying new things. I usually take to things pretty quickly so I didn't think it would be a problem, plus how hard can it be to walk across snow in ski's right?....IMPOSSIBLE. I have never felt so uncoordinated in my entire life. The trail we went on was just a big uphill, and then it came to a big field that we crossed, and then more uphill. We went at night, so not only was it dark and you couldn't really see, but the snow was icy because there hadn't been a recent snowfall. So you'd be going along, and you could see well enough to see the trail, but not well enough to see the dips and divets in the trail and you'd hit one of those, and one of your ski's would lose grip and you'd start sliding backwards and the only way to stop yourself is to fall. When we made it up the first hill and came to the meadow, i though for sure I'd be okay on flat ground. Nope! There were tracks from snowshoers and other skiers that had been up there in the days before and you'd get stuck in those and lose your balance and just tip over. Going down was just as bad, since it was so icy, using the snowplow technique to slow yourself down didn't work at all and your ski's would get caught in other tracks and you'd start flying down and once again the only way to stop was just to bail out on the side of the hill. Eventually, I got tired of bailing out on the way down and attempting to get up so much that I sat down on the back of my ski's and sledded down. Even though I spend the majority of my time face planted in the snow, it was actually really fun! A few things I learned from this experience, never get too cocky about your natural athletic talent, because it doesn't always come into play. Also, i realized how much I love snowboarding as opposed to skiing. I was also made aware of the fact that I make a lot of noises when I fall. I was teased a lot for my random noises. But everyone should try cross country skiing! It's way fun!

What if?

2010-02-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

So many times in our lives we let moments pass us by that in reality could maybe change our lives. My philosophy in life has always been that whatever happens to fall into my life is what's suppose to be there and that's the best that I can get, whether that be a job or a boyfriend or whatever. But lately i've been thinking back to all the moments in my life where I've wanted to say or do something and I haven't done it because I was either too scared or figured it didn't matter or figured if i just waited it out and was patient it would cross my path eventually. Most of the time though, life just goes on and that opportunity just passes by and nothing changes. There are so many times in my life where I wish I would've said exactly what was on my mind, or done exactly what I wanted to do without thinking twice because I feel like it definitely could have altered the path my life has taken. Dream jobs, amazing experiences, perfect boyfriends don't just drop into your lap, you have to go find them and make them happen. Good things happen in life without us doing anything to facilitate them happening, but amazing, life changing experiences are the ones that you have to make happen.

I really love my life. I don't have many complaints about it and I think i'm pretty lucky to have had the opportunities that i've had and to have crossed paths with the people that I have, however, I know that I haven't made the most of it by any means. I've been living life rather passively and life isn't a passive process, it's meant to be an active process. As i get closer to the end of my college years, I can't help but look back and wish I'd done things differently. I wonder what would've happened had I chosen a major earlier, maybe I'd have more time to take some of the classes that i'd really like to take. Or if I'd taken the time to apply for scholarships or internships, if that would've better prepared me for a career someday. I wonder what friends I missed out on making because I wasn't as social as I probably should have been. Or what could've been if I'd actually talked to one of those many cute boys in my classes instead of just looking at them. Or if just in general I'd put myself out there more as far as dating goes.

Obviously, we can't go back and change the past and see the effects different decisions could've made on our lives, but looking back and seeing all these missed opportunities makes me not want to miss out on them anymore. Putting yourself out there can be scary. But even if you don't get your dream job, or that cute boy you finally talk to ends up being a jerk, at least you won't be wondering "What if" anymore.

So say what you want to say, do what you want to do, and be who you want to be.

2010-02-24T17:26:00.000-08:00

I have a few things to say:

1. Today started off not too great. It was snowing this morning and cute boy wasn't in class today, but soon the snow turned to rain which turned it into the perfect day to run! So i tied on my running shoes and went for a run in the rain, came home soaked, and took a nice hot shower...which in a nutshell translates into perfection!

2. Today at the grocery store they had this deal where you could buy 4 Kellogs products (like cereal or cereal bars) for $10 and get 2 gallons of milk free! So i did it. But with this great deal, came a big change in my life. I was getting my milk and I'm usually a 2% type of girl. I like my milk ot taste like milk, however, due to a recent nutrition kick lately, I instead got 2 gallons of skim milk. So far i've survived, we'll see if it satisfies in the continuing day.

3. I watched an episode of The Simpsons called Boy Meets Curl...and it's hilarious. We were never allowed to watch The Simpsons when we were younger, but college has opened my eyes to just how hilarious it is. I'm a big fan.

Rant

2010-02-22T21:28:00.001-08:00

Today as i sat in the library for hours upon hours working on a group project, I had time much time to sit and ponder the things of my life. And i came to realize that at this point in my life I have no motivation. All i want to do is sit and read a good book, or get a whole weeks worth of good sleep where I don't wake up stressed about work or some homework assignment, I want to not feel guilty about taking time out of my day to workout instead of doing homework and I want time to bake real meals, I'm sick of this microwave chicken nuggets crap and instant oatmeal. And whilst I was thinking all this, I realized that I have every right to be sick of school at this point in my life. Because to this day I've spent almost 18 of my past 22 years of life in school! That's insane! Now, I have nothing against learning, however I do have a lot against tests, and group projects and having to read a billion of pages a night and pop quizzes. i think that society could have figured out a better way to make kids learn as opposed to forcing them into it. I love to learn, I will glady go to the library and pick up a book on how the brain functions and greatly enjoy reading it while sucking in what it has to say, but when your grade depends upon reading X amount of pages a night, plus you have a billion other things to do, I don't like learning so much. So you know what college, give us a break, we have a lot to deal with.

The Hills are alive...

2010-02-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

This semester I'm doing an internship at a place called NOmen Global helping to teach English to speakers of other languages. The class i'm helping out in is a level one class so you often find yourself using props and hand gestures to explain things because explaining in words just makes them more confused. In class a few weeks back the teacher was explaining the concept of "this/that is" and "these/those are" and she had the students practicing by looking at a picture and saying things like "these are cows" or "those are trees". In the picture there were some rolling hills as the background and one of the questions that came up from one of the students was the difference between hills and mountains. The teacher tried explaining it a few times but it was obvious that the student still wasn't quite catching on. So the lady that was sitting next to me got the confused students attention, stood up and pulled me up with her. Then she point to her own chest (she was rather well endowed) and said "These are mountains" and then pointing to my chest, "Those are hills"! It was a good enough analogy that the confused student finally understood the difference between mountains and hills. All it took was one look at my chest for that student to understand that hills are significantly smaller than mountains.

Ode to my brothers

2010-02-10T23:15:00.000-08:00

I'm a lucky girl. I've been blessed to have three older brothers, there are some people in the world who have none! I feel sorry for those people, because brothers are quite possibly some of the best friends you could ever have. My brothers may not always realize it but they are usually the first ones I call when I've had a bad day because I know after 30 seconds of talking to them they'll have me laughing and instantly make me feel better. Brothers are not only there for comic relief but they make great protectors. I always feel comfort in knowing that if a boy ever dumps me or hurts me, he'll be sure to feel the wrath of my brothers and that is not something you want to feel. They have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. So many times i'll go on a date with some guy and he'll be nice enough, but then I start to think what would happen if my brothers were ever to meet him and I realize that he probably wouldn't ever stand a chance against them. And when i realize that, I realize that this kid probably isn't worth my time because I don't want to be dating some pansy. I also love that I can talk to my brothers about practically anything. Boys have a unique perspective on things and it's great to get advice from brothers because not only do they have that unique perspective but they know you really well. So Brandon, Lance, and Aaron...thanks for being the best brothers I could ask for! Heather, your not too bad either.

backwards??

2010-02-09T15:55:00.001-08:00

I don't remember who I was talking to about this, but they mentioned that they thought our lives are lived backwards. And at first, I didn't quite understand, but after they explained it, it totally made sense! Think about it...

When we're young we have all this energy and we want to take all these risks but we have no money to do it and definitely no free time. But when we're old, we have no energy and we just would like to sit around and yet we have all sorts of money to go do things and all sorts of free time. Wouldn't it be great if you could be young and have lots of money and be able to go do everything you've ever wanted to do and then when your old be able to sit around and it won't matter that your poor.

Woodworking

2010-01-30T19:12:00.000-08:00

While i was home at Christmas I passed my time by helping my Dad down in his woodshop. Here are a few of the things that I made while I was home.

The Perfect Lover

2010-01-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

I feel as if this picture and quote define my life. All too often when i should probably be out on a date or attempting to be social, you'll find me in front of my TV. Why is this? The TV will never leave me and I always know what to expect from the TV and I can get tons done while still spending time with the TV. I don't have to dress up for the TV, it accepts me even when I'm in my sweats, if it gets too loud I can just turn it down or even turn it off, and it never gets jealous if i decide to read a book or go for a run instead. The TV is sometimes like a Lover...the perfect Lover.

A tradition lives on!

2010-01-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Not all of you will recognize the snowman featured in the picture above, in fact, i'm pretty sure only one person will...and that's my sister. Why will she, do you ask? Let me tell you a little story about this snowman.

A long time ago, when i was just a wee little child, i made this snowman, i think at a primary activity (I don't remember for sure). But the point to get out of that is that I, Brooke Tolman, worked really hard on this piece of art and it's pretty darn good for a little kid. And then i brought it home and so proudly showed my mom and year after year she'd bring it out at Christmas and use it to decorate. And then one year, years later when i was much older, my sister Heather starts making fun of it and talks about how ugly and creepy it is. And then one night, i think i found it hidden in my bed and so i went and hid it in her room somewhere, and now this poor snowman doesn't get to bring Christmas cheer anymore, he just gets passed around. It's become a tradition to secretly hide it in each others stuff whenever one of us is visiting.

I thought I was rid of him last year when my Heather was gettign ready to move to Japan and I hid it in her suitcase, but after coming back to Utah after being home for Christmas this year, i got a package from my Mom with some things that i left behind and lo and behold who do I find in the package...THE SNOWMAN!!! I about died laughing. I immediately called my Mom to ask about it and she said she found it around the house one day and since Heather wasn't around to give it to, she decided to send it to me. So, way to go Mom for keeping the tradition alive...and Heather, beware of any packages you might get from me!

Snowshoeing

2010-01-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have some friends who have been wanting to go snowshoeing so i borrowed B's snowshoe's and took them on MLK day since we all had it off! We went up to a place near Heber, i was a little worried about the snow quality but it ended up being perfect! We didn't hike around for long but it was still fun. I forgot how much i really love snowshoeing.

3 quick stories

2010-01-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

SOAPY OATMEAL
This morning, after i'd gone to class and come home, i decided i was hungry so i pulled out a bowl and made some instant oatmeal. (i'm a big fan of oatmeal). So after pulling my oatmeal from the microwave and adding some raspberry jam to it, i grabbed a spoon from our clean dishes pile and went to sit on the couch and eat it. First bite...initially it tasted really good, did i mention i love oatmeal? After that initial taste though, as my taste buds REALLY started to soak it up, i realized something was off...my oatmeal tasted like...dish soap. Well maybe it was just that one bite, so i took another one hoping the dish soap taste would be gone, or at least a little bit lessened. Nope, just a strong as the first time. So do you think i took my spoon over to the sink and washed it, so that i could fully enjoy the rest of my oatmeal? NOpe, i kept eating, thinking that it had to wear off sometime. It never really did, and to be honest, i still enjoyed my oatmeal. The lesson to be learned here is...you can't trust your roommates dish-washing skills.

"COMING ALIVE"
I was talking with someone earlier this week about what i was studying and my plans for after graduation and how i had no idea what i wanted to do in the immediate or distant future as far as a job goes, but that the smart decision would be to go to grad school or PA school or something like that. I thought, that like most people, he'd respond with "oh that sounds like a great idea, i hear there are tons of good jobs in those fields"...however in return he quoted from a book and he said "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." And it has made a huge difference in my thought process. While i have yet to figure out what it is exactly that makes me "come alive" I've started to realize that I can do whatever i want and i don't have to fit into that nice little mold that people have made for me and expect of me because it's the "smart" thing to do.

BAD DREAMS
Last night i dreamt that i woke up and went into the bathroom to put my contacts in and after putting them in, i looked in the mirror and i was missing one of my front teeth and in my dream i had deduced that my gums had become really soft and my tooth had just dropped right out. It was kinda gross. So i called my parents and they got mad at me for not having better dental hygiene and i told them that i'd just been to the dentist and they never said anything about it. So whatever, in my dream i planned to make an appointment with the dentist to get it fixed. So now, later in my dream i'm somewhere...i don't remember where, when all of the sudden i'm looking at my mouth again and all of my gums fall out. And i'm just left with my teeth attached to my jaw bones (which all of us who have taken anatomy know that's not how teeth are attached). And once again, for obvious reasons, i started freaking out again. Upon waking up, for real, i immediately went to the mirror to make sure that my teeth were firmly set in my mouth and my gums weren't going to fall out anytime soon. It was pretty traumatizing.

...I had a fourth story but i can't remember it right now.

New Year...New Word!

2010-01-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

It's a new year which means it's time for a new word. This year i chose the word Obey! I've been really excited about it, i thought of it back in like September or October and i've been wanting to blog about it since.

One of the great things about Christs plan for us was that it made it so we have agency, the right to choose for ourselves and i think that one of the greatest ways that we can show our love for our Heavenly Father is by being obedient to his laws and commandments. In a nutshell we all know what we are suppose to do and the choices we are suppose to make and in theory it seems like it should be pretty easy to make those choices but in reality it isn't always. So this year, I'm going to make a more conscious effort to be obedient as best I can, even in the little things that i sometimes don't think make a difference.

Just in the few weeks that I've really been thinking about this I've come to realize the importance of obedience and the amazing effects it can have our lives. We aren't given commandments and told to do things by our leaders just because, there's a reason behind everything that they tell us to do and always it's for our benefit and safety. We'll only find blessings in obedience. While I've been home I've been reading a book that is a compiling of talks given by President Kimball's wife Camilla and one of them is about the reward of correct choices and in it she goes through like 10 or 12 scriptures that give a commandment and then in turn explain how we're blessed for following it. It's been amazing to see all the examples in the scriptures of the blessings of obedience and how that can be directly correlated to our own lives

Happy New Year!!!!

It's a Christmas Miracle

2009-12-29T09:36:00.000-08:00

If you ever watch some of our old Tolman family video's from Christmas time when we're decorating our tree you'll be able to see just how much fun we have when we decorate our tree, but what you'll really notice is how our eyes light up when all the decorations were on and my parents would hand out packages of silver tinsel to sprinkle on the tree to give it that finishing look. That was the part of Christmas we all loved.

Unfortunately, my childhood joy of putting tinsel on the tree each year was ripped away from me when we moved to St. Louis. My mom suddenly decided that tinsel wasn't "in" anymore and that it looked flashy and not up to our high Christmas decoration standards anymore. So as of the year 2000, we've been tinsel-free sadly. Our tree's since then just haven't had the glow that they use to, there was nothing for the Christmas lights to reflect off of, and a piece of my heart was missing as I never felt like we truly completed decorating the tree.

This year, i decided i'd had enough of this shenanigans and i made a call to the tinsel fairy who kindly decided to help me out. The tinsel fairy started putting a few piece of tinsel a day on our Christmas tree, so at first you didn't really notice, but day by day the tinsel would multiply and spread out over a little larger area of the tree, until one day Mom finally noticed the tinsel. Initially, she freaked out a little. Tinsel on our beautiful Christmas tree...what has Christmas become?? But, that night when the rest of the lights were off except for the tree lights and they were reflecting off the tinsel, did she see how the tinsel really enhanced the tree. And so, after 10 years of being tinsel-free, I'm proud to say Mom has finally embraced tinsel again and Christmas can once again be a joyous occasion.

Thank You tinsel fairy for doing what i could not do.

December

2009-12-08T16:23:00.001-08:00

Just a few random things i'd like to say:

1. I absolutely hate turtle necks. I love how they look, i think most of the time, in sweater form only, they are really cute, but gosh, wearing one is like having a midget on your back the whole day, it just chokes you. Today i wore one and the whole day i had anxiety and my neck was itchy. From now on, i say NO to turtlenecks.

2. Monday...i finished an ENTIRE crossword puzzle with only a little bit of help. Usually, i can only get 6 or 7 words on it, but this is the first time i've ever finished an entire one practically by myself! I conquered, and now my crossword puzzle days are over. I'm going out on top. Lets all have a moment of silence in honor of that please...

3. I'm embarrassed to admit this but with all the snow we've had lately and the lack of winter shoes i have in my closet, I've become one of those girls that wears fake ugs and tucks her jeans into them. I know, i know...don't judge me. I can't help it, they're the warmest shoes i have and none of my jeans fit over them. But i bought cute new boots today,(pictured below), so hopefully i will no longer be one of "those" girls

4. Last friday we had our work christmas party, and Kat and I decided to suprise everyone and dress up like Santa and an elf. We were a hit, Kat was an Elf and I was santa...unfortunately, i have no pictures to upload onto here, but that's probably a good thing because you'd be blown away by our awesomeness.

5. And lastly, i've decided to train for a triathalon, we'll see how that goes though.

Life as i know it.

2009-11-18T16:53:00.001-08:00

I once made a list of everything i wanted to do before i died, and i was really good for awhile to try and do things and cross them off, and then in the past couple years, while it's crossed my mind occasionally, i haven't really looked at it...until last night!

Last night i re-read through it, there are exactly 309 things on the list, and while reading through it, i realized i could cross off 4 of them! I'm not sure how many of the 309 that i've done, it's definitely less than half. But...a lot of them are pretty easy to do, so here are the ones that I think I should easily be able to cross off in the next year, and if you can help, or would like to be apart of any of them, let me know!

15. Swim a Mile
30. Visit Japan (Heather you should like that one!)
37. Wax my legs (i think, although painful, every woman should try it once)
56. Learn to juggle
103. Learn how to moon walk
128. Graduate from college
133. Coach a little kids sports team (next semester i'm coaching a little league basketball team!)
240. Get a massage
267. Create and name my own constellation (i'll make this one happen in December when i watch the meteor shower)
275. Go laser tagging
280. Break a bone (not that i will MAKE this one happen, but i'm hoping it does while i'm still on my parents health insurance)
304. Learn to whistle with my fingers
305. learn to tie a tie.
308. Shoot a bow and arrow

Random thoughts on running

2009-11-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

every once in awhile i post reasons why i love to run, and recently i was reading an article which gave me yet again another reason to love running.

Those who run 3-5 times a week are in the top 1% of the general population.

I've never been in the top 1% of anything, not in school, not in sports, not in anything...and look at me now! I'm a top 1%-er!! Yeah baby!!

Today in kickboxing we were going at it really intense and the instructor was like, "this is why we don't eat mcdonalds, so we can feel this good" or something along those lines and i thought to myself..."no, this is why i work out, so that i can eat mcdonalds and not feel bad".

Someday i'm going to write a book entitled, "Anyone can run a marathon". Because i honestly believe anyone can. If they think they can do it and don't worry about times or running fast or anything like that, anyone could run a marathon. And after i write my book, i will travel the world speaking at self-help seminars and molding people's minds into thinking that they can run marathons and making millions in the process.

Meteor Showers!

2009-11-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, and early early into this morning, Kat and I, armed with 7-11 hot chocolate and a few snacks, ventured up the canyon to watch the Leonid meteor shower. We only ended up seeing about 5 shooting stars, a few of them were REALLY good ones though and a few were just mediocre, and despite being really cold, we greatly enjoyed ourselves. Well i suppose i shouldn't speak for Kat, but i greatly enjoyed myself. We weren't very far from the road and a lot of cars kept driving up and shining their lights on us, and i wanted to throw rocks at them, but i didn't. I had only ever seen 1 shooting star in my life, so i pentupled (word?) my number of shooting stars i'd seen in just one night!!

This was just our practice run, there's suppose to be another meteor shower in December, the geminids meteor shower, which is suppose to be really good and it's suppose to peak at 11p.m. so we don't have to stay up too late. I encourage EVERYONE to go and enjoy natures fireworks.

Geminid Meteor Shower
December 13-14
Peaks at 11p.m. (mst) on the 13th.
100 meteors an hour

enjoy!

Bus Adventures

2009-11-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about people on the bus, but i've noticed that people who ride the bus regularly have no idea where to draw the line when it comes to talking about their personal lives. All too often in the past 2 weeks, i've been sitting there minding my own business, headphones in my ears and reading a book and someone will sit down next to me and start spilling their heart. Examples:

-An old guy sat down next to me and he seemed nice at first...until he started talking to me about his marital problems. How after 50 years of marriage he felt the spark had gone out and just wasn't sure what to do. And he got detailed about their problems. Not something i really want to hear about.

-The next day, a younger guy sat down next to me. He seemed normal at first too, besides the fact that he was carrying his stuff around in an empy cardboard box as opposed to a backpack, but hey, to each his own. He was reading this book on the theory of relativity so we got to talking...and then somehow he starts talking about his wife. Their one year anniversary is in december and he wanted advice on how to celebrate. Should he propose again? Or keep it simple and have a romantic night at home, or take her on a trip somewhere...I told him i was the last person he wanted to ask these things, seeing as i have no romantic side at all. On my one year anniversary my husband can take me out for chinese and i'll call it good.

-The next time i rode the bus, a rather attractive looking guy, with no wedding ring sat down next to me...score! I was talking on the phone with a friend from home and mentioned something along the lines of being 1000 miles away from him. When i got off the phone, the guy started quizzing me on long distance relationships. Had i been in one? How i felt about them? etc..and i was lost as to where these questions were coming from, until i figured out, he thought i was talking to a boyfriend on the phone who was living 1000 miles away. I promptly explained it was just a friend, but that didnt' stop him from talking about long distant relationships. I heard all about his girlfriend who was living in London right now (and anytime he spoke of her, he mimicked her english accent!) and how hard it was, and how neither had enough money to go visit, yadda yadda yadda. I don't care.

-Another guy told me about how his girlfriend is obsessed with making indoor s'mores and how he hates them but cant tell her because she'd have a fit. So he eats them everyday, and sometimes throws up afterwards because his body can't handle sweets. And they're getting married in January.

-One guy found me on facebook, i'm not sure how but i promptly denied his friend request.

I think you get the point. creepy people ride the bus. Don't trust anyone. And don't tell people your life story, unless they ask, because odds are they don't want to hear it.

Parties

2009-11-01T16:24:00.001-08:00

So i only ended up doing physics homework until about 10, at which time my roommate Katie and her friend Maren convinced me to go to a few parties with them. What's the harm in making a fool of myself in front of complete strangers, right? So i went. Boy am i glad i did...

The first party that we went to was at an apartment in Orem and we walk in and i scan the crowd and i do one of those double takes on this guy dressed up like Woody from Tou Story and realize it's my English professor from summer term. Well he's actually a grad student, but either way, how awkward is it to be at a party with someone who use to teach you? I never knew him THAT well, so i wasn't sure if i should go say something, and i'm not sure if he recognized me, but me being the awkward person that i am, kept my distance from him for the majority of the party. Which is really sad because he was standing right by the food table and there looked to be some good food on the table. Alas, i didn't get any.

The next party we went to proved to be even better. There was this guy there dressed up like Ron Burgandy, complete with a fake mustache and everything. Well while eating, his mustache proceeded to fall off and he accidentally inhaled it, which caused him to choke on it, which ultimately ended up in him throwing up, not once but twice! Yay, happy halloween!

A diamond in the rough

2009-10-31T18:45:00.000-07:00

I took a drive through springville the other day to go visit the elementary school that my roommate Katie works at, and can i tell you that i never knew Springville, Utah was so cool! Goodness, that little town has some character! There's about a billion places i want to visit there someday. For example, it is full of hole in the wall, cute little restaurants like Kranky Franks, and T-Bone(which is a Chinese Restaurant!), Charlie Boys BBQ Pit, and a cool trolley restaurant. What I want to see most in springville though is the toy store. It's called Funfinity and it looks like a dream come true. I've never seen a toy store that looks like it'd be more fun. There's a sweet Art Gallery in springville too which i've heard good things about. Basically what i'm saying is some day, i'm giong and spending a day in Springville, your more than welcome to come. Who would've guessed it would be soo cool?