sun today, snow tomorrow.

the weekend consisted of...

sunshine, rain, snow, hail, wind, sunshine, clouds. in no particular order.

hiking a little ways up Mt. Olympus with Peter and pretending to make a movie.

watching quite a bit of this.

playing with peter's clicky-camera (or as Nicole likes to call them, Digital SLR cameras). I really miss using Danielle and Nicole's one in Jerusalem. Focusing the big lens and then pressing the button and hearing the "clicky" noise is so. awesome.

listening to James talk all about tour and feeling a little jealous.

spending half of Sunday making cinnamon rolls. huge time commitment. huge success. proof? my dad ate three in a row. and then proceeded to tell us that if we kept making them he'd get fat. good thing they take forever to make.

eating pork burritos with the cousins.

finishing the hunger game series. i know, i've read them before. but i forgot most of the details and what with the movie out and everything, i figured it was a good time for a refresher.

playing the ultimate april fools joke on my dad.

teaching ginger to roll over. hooray!

happy monday!

Having fun isn't hard, when you've got a library card!

"No eating or drinking and shhhhhhhh!" This is the usual message conveyed at any library you visit. Of course, Harold (BYU Provo's library. Yes, we're on a first name basis.) added the phrase "going into a room with no natural light and studying till your brain explodes" to my library phrases. 

But not at the Jerusalem Center library. I broke all three of the cardinal no-no's in one sitting. Gasp! It's different here, I guess, because there's just 82 of us and there's only one tiny library to study in. So you always know the people in the library. This leads to talking and laughing and music and sometimes dancing. Seriously, if youtube wasn't blocked we would get nothing done here. And then people start breaking out the snacks and water bottles to survive the long hours of studying and reading, because no one really monitors the place. Tonight, an FHE group even brought in cookies for us poor library kids. As you can see, the library dynamics here are different then normal. I'm starting to miss the good old Holladay and Harold B. Lee libraries, which prompted me to write my "10 things I love about the H&H libraries" list.

1. The music section of the HBLL--studying with background music makes everything better. Plus, it's hilarious when people stumble across the section that have never heard of it before. They get this confused look on their face and I want to tell them "don't worry, you're not the only one hearing the music." 

2. Finding a place in the library that's exclusively yours, and going there, studying really hard and feeling really good after accomplishing a hard paper or assignment. 

3. Becoming friends with the librarians. I'm still working on this one, but I like talking to the librarians at my home library and asking their advice on really good books.

4. The restocking of movies at the Holladay library. Such a good feeling to race into the library and realize there are movies there other then random foreign films or 15 copies of Sons of Provo.

5. Becoming a regular at the library. You know your way around and can find books without walking around like a confused, lost child. 

6. Going to library parties. Confession, I went to the Harry Potter library party this summer and I enjoyed myself. I went to potions class, planted a magical plant in herbology, and dueled with several young wizards. Jealous?

7. Going to the library not knowing what you're looking for and leaving with an amazing find.

8. Meeting friends at the library. It's where all the cool kids hang out.

9. Books for free! Thank you Benjamin Franklin for yet another awesome invention.

10. Using a library card. My favorite part is when the machine spits the card back out, and my brothers and I try to grab the card the second it pops up. It never gets old. Plus, Arthur approves of library cards.

source here.

When I got my library card, that's when my life began.

~Rita Mae Brown

Reading in the rain.

photo source here. 

Well, not exactly. More like reading in my room while it was raining outside. But you get the general idea.

I love the rain. I love the moment right before a big storm, when dark, angry clouds roll in across the horizon and the wind makes the trees dance and my hair fly. My brothers and I love to make movies right before the storm, when there’s a palpable excitement and thrill in the air. When anything could happen. Then we race inside before the big downpour and wrap ourselves up in blankets and listen to the patter of rain on the roof. Secretly, I love it when the power goes out because there are no distractions. No TV or computer or phone or appliances. Just me and my family in the darkness with candles flickering on the table. Then, after the storm, I love walking outside and smelling the rain.

photo source here.

So yesterday I had my Old Testament final from 7 to 9. At night. This might possibly be the worst time to take a test. But I got through it! When it was over, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I decided to walk back to my room and when I went out along our corridor I realized it was raining. I was so giddy I did a little jig right there in the rain! This is the second time it has rained here in Jerusalem. I got ready for bed early and curled up with a good book. The rain was super loud and the room occasionally lit up with the lightening. I loved combining two of my favorite things: reading and the rain. 

photo source here.

The last good book I read was The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Here's a quote from the book that I love. 

"Sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."