fight with honor

survival rule #8: fight ALL of your battles with honor.
so, this past week has been interesting. just alright/really awful at times, and quite amazing at others. highlights: a pretty frickin amazing LIGHTNING STORM, and the most epic waterfight ever known to man. my fhe brother, ford, has been planning a campus wide waterfight (called the epic waterfight war: battle of porter park) for months and it finally happened on saturday! it was so much fun and absolutely hilarious. campus was split into two sides, east and west. east was red, west was blue! and we were the east :) a couple of my roommates and i painted ourselves with red war paint....it was so fun. there are wayyyy too many funny things that happened during battle to blog about. thats how awesome it was. however, i do think that the westside had more than one advantage, because they have more people and they had all the water because they were on the side of the park where all the water is. and THEY think THEY won just because they stole a flag of ours, yet they didn't even HAVE a flag. stupid westside. and we all had so much more spirit and fought with so much more honor than they did.

me with my war paaaint! i especially like this picture :)

me and the roommates! kim and lisa!

more war paint!!

we are eastside!!!! "ahhhhhh woooo!!!" yeah. we really all did go alllll out {pretty rad.}

after the fight!! lisa, kim, me, and cal. almost all of our paint had washed off by then. :) it was intense.

yep, this is what my school does on weekends.

(ignore the westside biasness of this above video) there are so many pictures and videos of the fight being posted all the time! my friend kevin told me tonight that he is going to make a super cool one. i'm excited. and now everyone's profile pictures are red haha. ford is already planning on another battle in a few weeks.

porch party watching the lightning storm friday night! a very good weekend i must say. even though i got sunburned from the fight and its not comfortable at all. and even though its been so super hot lately! {but i'm not complaining.}

soooo awesome!! i was actually able to get some pretty decent pictures.

it finally feels like summer has started. even though its almost july...haha. and i come home in 4 weeks! happy happy. fight with honor and you will survive!

affirmations!

Survival rule #7: daily affirmings of yourself. Okay so theres like a billion things i could say today, but this is pretty much all i can muster. And this sums up how i would like to feel about my life right now. definitely workin on it :)

drive with the windows down and the music up

survival rule #6: roll the windows down while driving. seriously. it will make you happier. and with the music up. tonight we had fhe in IF at Bro. Blatter's, and today was FINALLY so nice and warm, we could drive with the windowns down and not worry about freeeeezing! plus, i love that feeling. that carefree feeling of the wind blowing your hair around all crazy like, even though sometimes i gotta close or squint my eyes or else my contacts might fly out haha. anyways. so that made my day today. and i had a pretty good photoshoot today with these super cute sisters!! so that was fun and the weather was perfect. almost too perfect. believe it or not!

also, there was one of the most gorgeous sunsets i've ever seen in my life on the way home. i wanted my camera so bad! but i couldn't have possibly captured that. it was too amazing, i wouldn't have been able to do it justice, and i don't even know if any photographer could. it was pure beauty. and it reminded me of a conversation i had with kristin earlier. she had been telling me about how she had to stick her hands in a dead person today in her human anatomy class. and that it didn't really gross her out. (and i was like, pssh, no way jose would i have done that or ever will i....cause i would have been like "raaaalllllppppphhh") the reason why it didn't gross her out? she was fascinated. she said that it strengthened her testimony so much because it got her thinking, there is no way in heck that some big boom could have created this. and i completely agree with her. looking at that sunset, how could you not believe in God? also. that conversation with kristin reminded me of another conversation i had with a random girl in the library on saturday as i was working on my visual media project (thats on risa, by the way). she came up to me and sweetly asked if she could ask me a few questions, and i was like, sure! and she asked me, "in your opinion, what is a rational reason to believe in God?" and that kind of caught me off guard. because honestly, i've never really had to think about it in that context before. a rational reason to believe in God. what is rational? what isn't rational? there shouldn't be any rational reason...because everyone should believe in God....these were all thoughts going through my head as i was trying to say an answer that would actually make sense. then i knew it, a rational reason to believe in God is that by believing in God, i recieve hope. And not just any hope, hope that i can't get anywhere else. it is special and it is strong. then she asked me what an irational reason to believe in God would be. and i was like, well for one thing, this doesn't really apply to me because i DO believe in God and i've had him in my life all my life, but, an irational reason would definitely be faith. A lot of people don't have faith. they think it is irational to believe in something they cannot see. so, can you see the realization i've come to?! God is good, and He is real.

my back hurts so i think it might be time for bed, and i think i used waaaayy too much energy today and i need to rest easy so i can have a good week (even though by the time i get in bed or go to sleep or whatever it'll be 2am) since i've been feeling cruddy lately. stresssss. but God is good. :)

and oh, i almost forgot! google kept me entertained for quite some time this evening when i decided hey, i miss google pacman! and so i googled google pacman! play it and you will get addicted.

picture of the day by roselanni- cuteness personified! yes, personified. hehe. {gasp!}

go on adventures!

survival rule #5: always always always make sure to go on an adventure at least once a day. today, was a very interesting, full of discovery type of day. i went to bed late last night as always (following my weird and unhealthy as can be sleep schedule: wake up on days i have class, come home and sleep or take a 3 hour nap later in the day, go to bed at 3am. days i don't have class- sleep in until afternoonish, go to bed at 3am. sometimes 1 or 2 if i'm lucky. authorities confirm i am a vampire) and woke up as roselanni was getting ready for class but only for like a second, but was rudely awakened at 11:3o when people were banging on the floor beneath me! nobody is living underneath us this semester because there was something wrong with the apartment so they've been fixing it. and for some crazy reason, excessive pounding and all sorts of annoyingly loud noises have to be going on whilst i am trying to sleep! so instead of sleeping more, which very well could have happened if the opportunity had presented it, i laid in bed until the pounding stopped and then was wide awake. hoooooray. and then i proceeded to begin my plan for the day which had been to wake up eventually (done) eat something, get things figured out for my visual media project (which included putting some pictures on my jump drive) and go to the library for the rest of the day. i then discovered that i reallyyy needed to clean up my computer and delete some photos to do it. so as i was cheerfully doing so, rosie came home from class and wanted me to come to the store with her to get things for jb's birthday tomorrow and so i agreed. lisa came home and we asked if she wanted to join so she did! and we had an adventure. we wanted to go to snoasis and taco bell and since rosie owed me like 3 bucks from when we went to the pita pit the other day, she bought my snow cone :) and it was delicioussss. i had a coconut and vanilla with ice cream on the bottom. sooooo yummm. and then we went to taco bell and then we discovered the rexburg farmer's market! right behind taco bell and next to the tabernacle! alas, there are things to do in rexburg! so we had a glorious time walking around looking at things and tasting food! i was soo extremely happy because it made me kinda feel like i was at home! back home in hillsboro there's the best farmer's market ever!! not too big, but definitely not small. :) they have it every tuesday night and saturday in the summer. and my family and i have been going to it since i was little. so i think i have found a new love here in rexburg, idaho.

so even though it looks like this:

Instead of this:

(above photo courtesy of google!)

It still made me happy! And there were kittys there! they were so so cute.

And then our adventure continued as we went to broulim's. and we saw jamba juice banana man! so even though i didn't get any of my project done and it will have to be done tomorrow....on a saturday...since its due monday morning...it made for a pretty decent day.

{loves!}

too blessed to be stressed

survival rule #4: no matter how bad things are going, tell yourself that you're too blessed to be stressed over and over and over again until you feel better. it helps. my life has been feelin soo crazy lately, i can't even explain how crazy. but, i don't really want this to be a sonja is just complaining post and blah blah so yeah. i am too blessed to be stressed.

i have a hero. and her name is Risa Melody Whitaker. she is changing my life and i don't think i even realize how much she is changing it. i promised i'd post pictures of her and her sisters so here! I think this was the most amazing experience of my life.

The Whitaker sisters from left: Rebecca, Railee, Risa, Rachel, and Reana.

They are definitely a crazy bunch. and i love them all so dearly. they truly are a wonderful example of what love is. And here i am with two of my best friends in the whole wide world!

And i'm not joking when i say that this was the most amazing experience of my life. Read the full story and see more pictures here. you can also see more pictures on facebook.

So i should really be more grateful for the life i lead, and that i have the opportunity to go to a fabulous university such as BYU-Idaho :) so whenever ya'll see/hear me freakin out or being ridiculous, yell in my face that i'm TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED! or slap me, or ya know, a hug could probably work too.

and oh! to end this not-a-rant-at-all, i just wanna say i love my roommate. she always manages to make my day-or week! whether its in the form of a youtube video or a late night talk as we're both trying to fall asleep or whatever. so these are the things that have made my week, courtesy of my gorgeous roommate, rosie.

this is hilarious. it will blow your mind.

i know right?! i posted this on my wall on facebook and it happily spread like wildfire between my friends and the rest of the world. whoever created this masterpiece, be thankful for the 20 billion new views you have now received.

and okay, rosie has a strange owl fettish. which has kinda rubbed off on me. she surprised me with these two lovely photos earlier today:

We like sending owl pictures to each other. or pictures of other weird creatures we discover. i finally cut a picture of a cute owl out that i found on a ceral box tonight and taped it to her vanity mirror. i look forward to her reaction.
{and heh} the fettish continues. she saw prince of persia with her fiance last night and this was one of the commercials.

pretty steller if i might add.
well, that was a hearty post. i hope it brightened your day. remember: too blessed to be stressed!!! {smile!}