5 Fall Date Musts

With school starting I feel like my pinterest board has jumped off the screen onto campus. My dark wash denim make me feel unique among the sea of teal, coral, and mustard. Also, note to girl wearing boots and a sweater, your parents bought you beautiful back to school clothes, evidently, but it is STILL 80 degrees outside. 

So while the weather isn't cooperating with my longings for crisp fall days, I have some date ideas for you thanks to the darling Alyssa to get you just as excited for fall as I am : 

Hi friends I'm Alyssa and I blog over at Impractical Composition where I blog about lots of things, some of which include, about me, our vacations, random thoughts, positive thoughts, what I wore posts, recipes, instagram pictures, school, giveaways. tutorials, and LOTS more! I've got a little bit of everything over there!

Today I wanted to share with you five fun date night ideas for the fall. There is nothing this Arizona girl loves more than the season of fall!

1. Picnic and the Park - Grab some dinner, dessert, a blanket and find a cozy spot in the park where you can have a relaxing time just hanging out together. Bring games, or make up a few questions to ask each other. You'll be surprised what you learn about each other by asking a few creative questions. (Some awesome question ideas can be found here.)

2.  Just stroll around downtown - I'm not sure why but I've always wanted to walk around downtown, enjoy the tall buildings, the cute little boutiques, and not to mention all the great dessert shops seem to be downtown. During the fall you can always find something going on in the city weather it be bands playing or art galleries. While downtown you can always pretend to be tourists and take a tour of the city!

3. Shop at a flea market or farmers market - Now, I know what you are thinking, guys don't like to go shopping, but trust me when I say flea markets have something for everyone! And you might even discover hobby or collection he has that you never knew about. Farmers markets are great because it's all fresh food, what guy doesn't like food?

4. Go to a game - Get the cheap seats, it will be a game to remember that's for sure, and the best thing about  getting the cheap seats... you will be all alone and wont have to listen to the other fans scream and yell (I guess sometimes that is the fun part though!). You could also go to your high school or college homecoming game, how much fun would that be especially if you both met in high school or college!

5. Visit a Pumpkin Patch and decorate a Pumpkin - Take the day to soak up the cool air while pumpkin picking. Make your selection and head back home or to a nearby park to decorate your pumpkin.

Most of all make sure you document your dates by taking pictures! There is nothing better than going back and remembering the fun times you've had together! Who cares if you look funny while you are taking the pictures, it will make looking back on the moment even more memorable!

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Which of these dates are you most excited for? 

Ben and I will probably have to decorate pumpkins again with these two and we've already hit up our first farmers market of the season (it wasn't quite what it is back in New Hampshire, but I'll take it). I am also excited for fall because it means dressing like this:

A Few More From California

I know we've been home for a week and a half but I'm still living vicariously through these pictures. 

Here are just a few more from our California Trip: (I apologize for the picture overload :) 

Toasties has been a Monterey tradition for Ben's family for over a decade. After tasting the pecan pancakes, I understood why :) 

Fruit Stand: On our way back from the beach one day we stopped at this little (or not so little) fruit stand to pick up some things for the rest of the week:

Climbing in a California summer turned out to be not so fun. Too hot, and a few too many bugs :) But, its always fun to photograph Ben's climbing faces :P I felt like the woods was something out of a haunted fairy tale. 

We saw a lot of this cute little boy (who had no desire to show his face to the camera). 

 Beach Time:
I love the ocean. I've talked about it before but there is just something about the waves and the sand that are just so peaceful and liberating.

And every good day is finished off with ice cream. Every great day is finished off with carmel and oreo icecream. 

I hope you had a great end to your summer!
With school starting I have capped my sponsor spaces and have three left for September! Let me know if you're interested :)

What to Know Before the "I Do"s

There are somethings you just need to know about your significant other before you commit to marrying them. Somethings can wait till after you're engaged (but are good to establish before you are man and wife and living together). Other things can be saved till after you're married.

I'm sharing these key questions and topics over on Whitney's blog today so hop on over and let me know what you think!

Things You Should Ask Before You Get Married

What did you talk about before you got married?

What did you forget to ask and wish you had?

P.S. I came to a really big and exciting conclusion today. I'll be sharing with you soon but I feel like a huge weight is gone and I am so excited for the next few months! (no, I am definitely not pregnant)

First Day of School: What I Wore

Day one of senior year...check. 
Somehow I forget that the first week of school is nothing more than syllabus reading and sizing up the teacher. We'll save the delving into fascinating material for week two apparently.

The rundown:
My mornings will consist of Japanese. Today started out lovely with my first full conversation of the day being in a language I haven't used for four months followed by a thirty minute test that was much harder than my last final. She told us as we turned them in it won't be graded.

The middle of the day is spotted with economics and some theory courses (international relations and comparative politics).

But my favorite will be Monday and Wednesday afternoons. The beautiful thing about the International Relations major is we don't have a real department, not one that offers classes anyway. The department heads sit around and pick the best classes from every other major and let us take them. This semester I'm taking a global media class from the comms department. My professor is a graying Brit who has a pulitzer under his belt and served in the UN and under Reagan,  and still maintains his regular column for the Christian Science Monitor. BYU stole him from Harvard and then he took a ten year leave of absence to edit the Deseret news (first nonLDS editor of mormon paper).  His British accent and tales of Indonesia pull me in and who knows, maybe I'll want to become a journalist by the end of this!

So overall it was a success.

Here's how I dressed for it: 

Shoes; Target (huge sale)//Pants: Macy's// Blouse: Papaya// Bag: Ralph Lauren// Bracelet: Thrifted

How were your first days of school? (or your first days back from summer)

Did I pull off the "back to school while its still 100 degrees out" look? 

How to Survive College

Hey guys! Guess what today is? My last first day of school! Well, at least my last first day of college, hopefully this isn't the end of school. Today starts with Japanese, followed by a little economics, international relations, and global media issues. Wish me luck. In the mean time, for those of you who are starting college (or just reminiscing) here are some of my serious tips. I'm not a freshman mentor anymore (my job for the past two years) so I feel like I need to tell somebody this during the first week of school :P   (I'll be sure to be back with the not so serious ones later ;)

How to survive Thrive in College

1. Take classes you love. Your whole life you have had to study things because other people said they were important. The state set the curriculum, the teacher set the homework, and you were stuck doing all of it. Now you can study something because you love it - and the best part? The more you love it, the less like work it feels!

2. Get involved. You can take this a lot of ways. First, get involved on campus. I am part of BYU's Model United Nations team and I love it! We compete in March in NYC which is an incredible experience but even when I'm still in Utah its great to be a part of something. Get involved in your classes too! Talk to your professors and get to know your classmates. Trust me, just do it. 

3. Schedule free time. I feel like there is always something productive I could be doing. Especially when it comes to Japanese, the studying is never over. So, in order to feel good about taking breaks, I schedule them. It helps me work harder when I'm supposed to and I never feel guilty when I'm not working. Win win. 

4. Get exercise. Studies have proven you do better in school when you are being active. This is because physical activity increases the blood flow to your brain which makes it easier to understand and remember things. Find something you enjoy doing, with people you like, and turn exercise into a fun and needed break. (My favorites include taking a dance class, rock climbing, and yoga).

5. Reflect. This is vital. Take time daily, or weekly, to evaluate how you're doing. Set goals and work toward them. Use the time of reflection to see how your effort is reflecting in your results. What's working and what's not? This time shouldn't just be about school either. How are you doing in your personal life? What changes do you need to make? Reflecting promotes change, growth, and learning.

So there you have it. You should also probably eat healthy, make good friends, get some sleep every once in awhile, and actually go to class - but those go without saying :) For those of you going back to school I hope you're excited to be back!

What are your tips for back to school?

How did you succeed in college?

What do you wish someone had told you earlier? 

My Twitter Disaster: The Time I Read Horrible Things About Myself

Happy Friday! Today is my last day of work for the summer and then school starts on Monday! Today I have a rather funny story for you. If you didn't know, I'm from New Hampshire, and from a pretty politically active family. I spend most of my time at BYU studying political science and my evenings watching CNN. I try to read the New York Times on the daily and compete on BYU's Model United Nations team. Granted, I am no expert on all things politics but I'd like to consider myself informed? I find it interesting to learn about both sides of the issues but I will definitely be voting Republican in the fall. Okay so on to the funny story.

On Tuesday my family got to see Romney and Ryan speak together which is always fun, but not that unusual for New Hampshire. Those politicians spoil us; The first time I saw President Obama he was strolling through a park talking to my mom. And so, being the new tweeter that I am, I hopped on twitter and posted something along the lines of:

"Family hung out with Romeny and Ryan today. Why do I no longer live in NH? #jealous #romneyryan2012" 

And then I made a mistake. In writing that tweet I decided to tag Romney and Ryan. Miss naive here thought you could only tag people you are following, and so I tagged the first Romney account and the first Ryan account that came up - didn't give it a second glance, and headed off to work. 

Six hours later I got back on twitter. Turns out I'd tagged a parody account for Paul Ryan, who turns out to be a super liberal comedian. Hilarious right? He'd retweeted me to his 52,000 followers! By that time my tweet had been retweeted over 30 times and favorite over 20. Lots of people had thanked me for the comedic relief and were trying to figure out if I was serious or kidding. 

And then the nasty tweets started pouring in. Cue lots of vulgarity, lots of derrogatory terms, a little political bashing but mostly personality bashing, some crude body comments,  blog hating, and personal attacks. I read the first 20 or so that came in and decided to stay off twitter for a few days. I've lead a pretty... charmed life? And by that I mean the worst thing anyone has ever said to me is that I was letting my life get too unbalanced when I started dating my first BF at 17. 

Honesty its not that big of a deal. These people don't know me. All they know is I support Romney for president and am not so good at rereading my tweets. (side note, I know if twas a bunch of liberal democrats tearing me apart but I don't doubt there would be a similar group on the other side willing to tear a liberal slip up). 

I am grateful for it though. Because all it did was force me to remember where my self worth comes from. I am not a happy and confident person because people tweet nice things to me, or because people leave complimentary blog comments, or because I have a lot of friends (all things I love). My self esteem comes from knowing that I am a child of Him, with infinite worth and divine potential. I choose how I feel about myself and will not let those feelings be dictated by people who have nothing better to do than trash typos of young girls thousands of miles away from them. What they say is nothing that a few verses of scripture, a short prayer, and a kind reminder from my other half can't fix.

So the result was a huge increase in blog views, a few more twitter followers, and a renewed sense of who I am and why I'm here. 

I am happiest when I remember that, when I don't let myself get caught up in the pettiness of others and let the confidence and peace come from within. 

How do you deal with nasty people?

How do you feel most confident?

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Helena is the cute girl who writes over at Bye Bye Bitters. She posts hilarious stories like this and inspiring quotes like this. Helene said:

 I'm happiest around 6PM when my fiance comes home from work and we have the whole evening in front of us. We talk about our days, discuss dinner, watch bad TV, and just spend time together.

Marianna is the gorgeous face behind the cute new blog Delightfully Dunn where she talks about life as a second year teacher and a new wife. Marianna told me: 

"I'm happiest when I'm curled up at home with my pups and my husband watching movies! As much as I love to socialize with my girlfriends (which makes me quite happy as well) I just love being snuggled up with my little family!!"

A Day on The Water: Monterey Part 2

While we were in California last week we took a mini vacation inside of our vacation. He headed an hour south to the beautiful Monterey area. Have any of you been? Its nothing like Southern California and reminded me so much more of the East Coast. Sunday night consisted of quiet evening strolls but Monday was a full day of fun. Ben and I started out at the aquarium. I think penguins might just be the cutest animals. Did you know they can swim three times faster than Michael Phelps? Pretty impressive :) 

After a morning to ourselves at the aquarium we met up with Ben's parents for lunch and an afternoon on the beach. There is nothing quite as relaxing as warm sand, a cool breeze, and a good book. After the beach we headed back to the town house to relax in the hot tub before showering and heading out to dinner. We stopped for an hour or so at the same beach we went to on our last trip, before heading out to this amazing seafood restaurant. Fresh clam chowder followed by local salmon in a teriyaki glaze. The ensuing food coma made for a perfect movie watching evening. 

Loving this wood dinner ring my father -in-law gave me! 

Pants: Gap//Shirt: Gap// Jacket: Ralph Lauren// Ring: gifted// Bracelets: Lia Sofia and thrifted

Have you ever been to the Monterey Aquarium? 

Do you prefer the aquarium of the zoo? 

Are you wishing we had more summer or are you excited for fall? 

Monterey Part 1