Summer Movie Review

This is a quick summer movie review of the movies I've seen so far...

1. Robin Hood. I talked about that one here.
2. Prince of Persia. While his greasy hair was gross, and the special effect stunts were a little extreme, I overall thought this was a good entertaining flick. Being Disney it's clean, and the action isn't too overly violent. The story was an interesting concept, and the mini side characters were funny.
3. Shrek Forever After. While a lot of people didn't like Shrek 3, I generally did. Shrek 4 is a more interesting story than 3 but I thought they had equal funny moments. Shrek is like the Simpsons...it's the funny quirky little scenes that make it worth watching.
4. Toy Story 3. This was another grand-slam from Pixar. Touching, charming, and just plain fun. Ken makes the movie, and as usual it makes me feel a little bit bad for my old toys. It was a great flick.
5. Twilight:Eclipse. I had mixed emotions going into this movie because this was my favorite book of the series and I wanted the movie to be better than the others in terms of general quality. It was much better than the others were. Everyone was a lot prettier too. I loved that they left the little sub-stories of Jasper, the Quiletes, and Rosalie. I also enjoyed the newborn scenes particularly because I had read, "the Short-second Life of Bree Tanner" before the movie. It adds some extra depth, but isn't necessary to make sense of the scenes. (you can read the book here, for free).
Still haven't had a chance to see Iron Man 2 or A-team. Inception with Leo DiCaprio is looking intriguing. I can't decide if I am interested in The Last Airbender, and I don't want to see the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

P.S. The preview for HP: HBP pt 1 is AWESOME!

Farmer's Market

Over the weekend I went to the Logan Farmer's Market. It was fun to see all of the lettuce, random people, crafts, and some sick band called the "4 fingered phallus"...wow. But we really did have a good time, I got a fresh squeezed limeade and bought some yummy crumb brothers bread.

The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.

~Henry David Thoreau

Sakerra, James, Brynn, Craig, and I decided to head up Logan Canyon and have a bonfire and roast. We had hotdogs, and GIANT marshmallows, they were about the size of 3-4 large mallows. And boy did they make good smores!

There certainly a lot of funny phrases said involving the words burnt, broken, little, big, mouth, stick, poke, put, around, it, burning....you get the idea.

To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world.

~Charles Dudley Warner

glimpse

haven't done a "here is what is up" blog in a while so...

I am trying harder to "own" emotion. A couple of weeks ago I had a friend who lost her baby (about 15 months old). This is their second child to pass away in 3 years. Going to the funeral was heartbreaking. Looking into the casket at a beautiful little baby was horrifying. I don't know if I cried...it was just too horrible to fathom, to sick to think about the pain the family was going through. Yes they will be together forever, but that doesn't take away the fact that it happened. I never want to see that again. There is a rather popular fellow from USU that is very very sick right now. He is a fighter but it is sad to hear about. I believe in modern medicine, have faith that it can work miracles. But then I see things like this happen and I wonder why we weren't able to stop it, prevent it, fix it faster. In better medical news I am around 6 months away from being able to test for my S.A.N.E. (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) license...hooray!


I miss a certain someone right now. A person who tells me to be good. Thanks for telling me that. I needed to hear it.

The dementor is back at work and it is beyond frusterating. I thought this corporation was all about mutual respect...

I have been listening to 30 Seconds to Mars, the Twilight:Eclipse soundtrack and Spring Awakening pretty much non-stop for 2 weeds.

Speaking of Eclipse, I just read the "Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" which is a little tangent. WAY BETTER than the rest of her books. Seriously I really liked the perspective. It helps that Eclipse is my favorite book of the whole Twilight series, but the new vampire perspective is pretty interesting.

I am grateful for my S.P.E.W. friends...you know who you are.

This is my new favorite thing... Utah's Mugshot Newspaper!! I picked one up at the hospital and it was so entertaining. I guess this is the premeir edition, and it takes a bunch of mugshots from SL and Utah county and puts them in an "entertaining" newspaper format. If you come across one, check it out for a good laugh!!

Do not Harass the Minerals*

The other day I went with some family to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. I hadn't been there for 15 years, and really not much has changed as far as I can remember. We saw 2 bison, several antelope and lots of biting gnats (which I am paying for today). Susie, Kristan, and Sarah decided to float in the lake and we toured the old Ranch.

Some pictures:

*One of the Island rules was to not disturb or harass the animals, plants, or minerals. um, and how do you harass minerals??

Fuimus Alba

Fuimus means, "We have been" or we have endured. Fuimus is the Bruce clan motto (the clan I am in due to my grandmother being a Carruthers). Alba is the Scottish-Gaelic for "Scotland." So Fuimus Alba is the best way to describe my day Saturday without having actually been to Scotland (I wish!).

The Utah Scottish Festival was fun again this year although colder than I wanted it to be. I ran into several people from my home ward and Alex, one of the PT at work. Camilla and I volunteered at the performer and volunteer gate in the morning than we got lunch (I had steak and cheese, Camilla had Bangers and Mash) and watched some Highland games with the Sheave toss (I thought they were saying sheep toss). We also saw some great bands, Kirkmount, Molly's Revenge, and of course the Wicked Tinkers. We met up with Audrey and Ryan and generally had a good time.

Flashback..whatever day it is.

So this isn't a Flashback Friday or a Tuesday Tell All or anything catchy. It's a blog because I can't sleep, am feeling like I'm in a funk, and am bored.

So I decided to look for some insight in my life by checking out what I took time to blog about in June in previous years. Indeed it did shed a light about a couple things:

1. My life has not changed as much as it probably should have.
2. um yeah, okay it only proved #1.

For example:

"So I am already tired of being hot and it's only the first of june."

"I am a really good daydreamer. I can think through scenarios, imagine, and manipulate with the best of them. Great talents if you are a dictator or peter pan or something, but is not exactly a good use of my time or a healthy way to experience emotion. Maybe instead of calling it day dreaming I'll say I'm critically thinking....that is a least something I do productively at work and critically thinking helps me stay prepared for the worst and/or best case scenario right?? "

"Current Projects: -Cleaning my room. Not doing so well, let's be honest.-Laundry. Hate it, need to desperatly do it. and for the love it's FREE finally, why don't I just do it already" (This was June 2008, and yet I could write this same thing this very second)

"YOU ARE WHAT YOU OWN"

"yes they are all married, and yes almost all have 1 or 2 children, but not one person is tactless enough to make a big deal that I am not only unmarried, but totally single. I'm cool with it and they aren't obnoxious about it. Hopefully someday I will have a man to bring to this event and they will be as great as this whole group."

"I feel like I have forgotten how to talk to boys. At least ones that that aren't married, old, or totally naughty. Maybe I haven't forgotten maybe they are just an endangered species."

And a couple quotes I blogged that still greatly apply and need to be applied to my life at this moment:

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

"Hope for the moment. There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheaur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow." -Ardis Whitman

And for fun here is a picture taken yesterday, and June 2009, and June 2008

things i love about june.

1. the smell and feeling of grass.
2. summer rain...it's warm and cool at the same time.
3. the smell of spring with the warmth of summer.
4. summer blockbusters even the ones that suck.
5. the hope for some adventure to come along.

Floods...

So at work last night we spent a lot of time staring at the floods spreading like crazy from the window. Murray Park turned into Murray Lake. It was so random!

Legends of Zelda Cake

I have gotten some questions about the Legends of Zelda cake...

The figurines were a set i found on etsy and had custom made at a very good price. Regularly they are little charms on necklaces. They are "kissing" charms because they have little magnets in their faces. These ones are bigger, and do not have the necklace attached but since it is a wedding cake they still can kiss.

Check out the wonderful Nelia's shop and see what wonderful little creations she could make for you.

The cake was Bonnie's Butter cake from the Betty Crocker Cookbook that I have blogged about my version of before here. I frosted with a basic layer of buttercream and raspberry jam in the middle first, then I whipped up some green "Mountain frosting" for the marshmallow-grass effect (also a betty crocker favorite). My dear friend Kasi made the fun royal icing daisies which were the perfect look for the cute characters. The "Tri-force" is actually made of Styrofoam and frosted in white and yellow buttercream.

Brynn's Wedding

Brynn and Craig got married June 1st. It was a beautiful wedding day and a fun reception. Brynn looked like a princess and strange random people at Temple Square were taking pictures of them as they walked by.

Here are a few pictures I took: