Hey! Christine here! So a lot has happened lately, sorry for not updating in forever! Um, where to start? The semester is over (finally!), and I think we all got decent grades. We're all enjoying Spring Break right now. Tori went down to Utah to spend time with her family, Ariel brought Kelli to Oregon so she could experience the wonders of beautiful Eugene :). And I stayed in Rexburg because I got a job cleaning apartment complexes. I started Monday and since we've been such excellent cleaners, we're probably going to finish up tomorrow, so it's only a three day job. Thank goodness though! I hate it! Haha.

 Also, for a less recent update, Camden (our apartment complex) raised their Spring prices by $450. When we found that out I had no job and no prospect for a job, so I decided to move back to La Jolla, and the girls decided to stay at Camden. So sadly, we will be separated this semester, but we're only a few blocks away, and we'll still have fun times! And I'm going to room with Alison again, so I won't be alone. It should be great :).

Oh! I just remembered something else that has happened! Our ward had a talent show halfway through the semester and Kelli and Ariel had the genius idea for us to do a dance to the "work out barbie" song. So we all dressed it bright colors and spandex and came up with a routine... Then, when we performed, NO ONE LAUGHED, and we made huge fools out of ourselves. No bueno.

Last weekend Ariel, Kelli, and I got to go down to Utah for conference, and we got to go to Sunday afternoon session. I rode down with my friend Ammon because I had a chemistry lab that ended late. We were about halfway there when his car broke down. We had to get a tow, and then very nice people gave us a ride to Malad (half an hour closer to our destination), and then people came up from Salt Lake to pick us up. Anyway, I got there and had a way good weekend.

So I can't think of any other updates, so I'll just load a few pics from the semester.

And so the Oops Life Continues

Remember FOREVER ago when we put up a list of my (Tori's) Oops life and all the ridiculous things that like to happen to me. Well, just when I thought I had escaped the grasp of the unlucky, I fell head first right back in.
The third week of school here I caught bronchitis, it took me 3 days of wanting to die before I let my roommates take me to Urgent Care that weekend. The next day Christine was promptly driven to Urgent Care because she began to have symptoms, and the next day Ariel and Kelli joined the crew of Sickies. We were down for about a week. I'm almost positive our apartment smelled like death.
Then on Wednesday night, Ariel and I were feeling a little better and wanted to test how well we would do outside of the apartment. So we decided to go on a late night Wal-mart run. This was our first mistake. NEVER should two sick people try and drive in the dark on icy roads to go wander aimlessly in Wal-mart. Anyways, the roads were awful, so I was driving SUPER careful and INCREDIBLY slow because I was driving my Dad's car ( We were suppose to switch back in Spring, when the roads to get to the Burg are better). When I turned on the street that Wal-mart is on I was trying to turn into the closest lane but slid right into the second. Luckily there was no one else on the road so it was ok. Or so we thought. An Astro Van pulled out about a hundred feet in front of me from Craigo's trying to go the opposite direction that we were going and started spinning. The Next 10 seconds felt like the slowest minute in my life. It was very apparent that they were going to hit us, especially since Ariel was in the passenger seat going, "Oh no! Oh NO! There gonna hit us! Oh No!" Trying to make the hit as little damaging as possible I tried hitting my brakes but I only started to slide, so then I pulled closer to the curb towards a drive way  hoping that maybe we could slide parallel with out touching but no. The Astro van was still spinning and there passenger end hit my driver side passenger door and slammed my other end into a telephone pole. Now some of you may be thinking that I should have not of tried to turn my car too, but to you I say, "Oh ye of little Faith!" Because I turned the car, the Astro Van hit my back door instead of the my door, and shoved my back corner into the pole instead of Ariel into the pole. Even though No one was hurt and the Astro Van had basically no damage, I know that someone else was helping me guide the car that night.  After we had hit and we had both pulled ourselves into a drive way to call the police and make a report and all that fun stuff,  we stood outside in negative temperatures for about 20 min. Neither Ariel or I were dressed very appropriately for the occasion. I had a thin jacket and slippers on, and Ariel was in Her bright pink Spandex with shorts and slippers (She looked awesome!I'm pretty sure the cops were laughing at her too.) Needless to say it was a long night! Something that could only be made better by a midnight run to Rameriez (BEST BREAKFAST BURRITOS EVER! Ok maybe not that great but they're Good!) No worries, we didn't drive that time.

This picture doesn't really do justice, but the door handle did fall off....

This is where we hit the telephone pole, we actually knocked a little wire off the pole too. But we didn't break any light bulbs, so that was a plus. My Dad sent me a new tail light and Christine and I fixed it all by ourselves. (We feel pretty AWESOME!)

And this little guy is a piece of the Astro Van. Yes Lodged in my tire. It never went flat which was nice but it was wedged in there pretty dang good. But Yay Les Schwab! They took it out for Free:)

You've Been Punk'd!

So we came home from church on Sunday and our apartment looked like this:

We couldn't figure out who the heck could have done it, everyone we thought of was either out of town or at church with us (or so we thought). We eventually found out later that someone popcorned our FHE brothers' apartment, and they thought it was us, so they left church during Sunday school, broke into our apartment, and flipped everything upside-down. So now, they owe us dinner :) Then, Monday night we dropped off a bag of popcorn on their doorstep with a note saying "Ha ha! You'll never know." We didn't do the original popcorn prank, but they were really confused who did it, so we thought we'd try to confuse them even more, haha.

More updates coming soon.

The Apartment

And so begins the second year at BYU-Idaho.....

Small Hallways = bucket loads of homemade fun

                                          

"Look Ma! NO Hands!!!!"

Christine's room 

                                           Ariel's room

Tori's room

You can't see it, but she has a MASSIVE neon hula hoop in the corner :)

More adventures coming soon.
Love,
Mama Cass

All together at last!

Hey guys, just wanted to give a quick update! On the 16th, Ariel and I came home! I was lucky enough to hang with Tori that day, but Ariel flew in too late. It was alright though because we spent the entire next day together, it was fantastic! For Christmas Tori got a way cool kindle! I'm super jealous because she is able to get one of her textbooks on it, so it's going to be heaps lighter. Tori is also getting a bike come Spring semester which is AWESOME! Ariel got a bunch of kitchen stuff, because she's the practical one. She also got a computer upgrade from her uncle! I got snow boots that will keep my toesies warm up to -20 degrees. I also got a recipe book that my mom put together with all of our family recipes :) 


We are all super excited to be living together again, and even more excited that we get our own bedrooms! Not that we don't love sharing rooms, because I know I'll miss the late night chats with Ariel, but now we'll at lease get some good sleep, and we'll have a place of our own to study. Anyway, I don't know if anyone's posted about our new apartment yet... It's called Camden, and they have lots of pictures of it on their website if you want to take a look. 


Oh! Another update! Tori picked her major! YAY! It's English with an emphasis in Creative Writing
and a minor in Home and Family Living. Also, I changed my major from Math Ed to Exercise Physiology with a minor in Math. That way I still get some math (since I kind of love it) and get to learn to become a physical therapist... hopefully. Hopefully we both stick with it, so we're not wasting too much time/money just deciding. Because we both changed our majors we get to take a class together this winter! We're taking Essentials of Human Nutrition... or something like that. 

I think that's everything for now, we leave for Rexburg on the 2nd, hopefully the trip runs smoothly. We'll get pictures up of our apartment once we're all moved in and decorated! 

byebye

Too cute not to share

RAAWWWRRR!

In the words of Alison... "Cuties!" I love them so much!

Anywho... There are only 12 days until I come home. UNREAL! I'm so insanely excited it's ridiculous... but at the same time, I'm soooo depressed. I've never been so sad about leaving a place before, but that's because I knew I would go back. This time I don't know when or if I'll come back. On a less depressing note, I might go hangliding! A guy from my ward takes people hang gliding as his job, so he tried to take Lucan and I on Tuesday. Sadly but wind died down too much while Lucan was in the air, so I didn't get to go. I'm waiting for the wind to be right so I can go another day. I don't think much else is new, so I will bid you farewell. SEE YOU ALL SOON!!

Peace. Love. Granola.

Christine! Check it! I totally just posted something...You should be Oh so Proud!

This is a post, to make one of my BEST FRIENDS, Christine, Happy. 

I, Tori, shall now make a blog post of my awesome life full of uneventful stories....

November 4 -8 my Mum and I went on a road trip to see my sisters. First we went to Provo to see the twinners. We had a blasty blast together like we always do and we saw the movie Megamind! Which if I do say so myself is stellar!

Quoting movies is a common occurrence when it comes to us Ford girls, "I say we go back to the evil lair, grab some ray guns, hold 'em sideways and just go all 'gangsta' on him."
We also act like retards when were all together.
Exhibit A:

I love them.

ANYWAYS....

After 3 days with them we went up to Rexburg for 24 hours and I got to see my sister Melissa, and 2 of my other Best Friends, Alison and Kelli. I love those girls. Being in the Burg again felt so good, I can't wait to go back in two months. Except the whole time we were there it was SNOWING, which made me remember how much it sucks to walk to class in negative temperatures, still I'm pretty stoked for next semester.
(P.S I got all the classes I wanted/needed, WOO!!!!!)

The trip was way too short, and I wish that it was January already but soon Ariel and Christine will be home! I could not be more excited. It has been way to long since I've seen them and it's making me CRAZY!
 Now I just need to write a talk for this Sunday...EEK! I can feel the Butterflies already.

Recent News

CHRISTINE HERE! As usual... Tori and Ariel are too cool to blog, but I like to update our readers. Anywho, so the weekend of the 22-24 I went down to Bathurst for Ultimate Mixed Nationals. Newcastle had two teams that qualified, mine being the better one :) But then we were put into a really hard pool having to play hard teams early on, so we ended up finishing 15th. The other Newy team though had an easy pool and ended up finishing 5th! So Newcastle is 5th in the country! Yay! I still had a lot of fun, even though we didn't do too well. It was also awesome because I got to meet up with my friend from High School, Lisa Neyman. I played frisbee with her for a few years, and she is doing study abroad in Townsville, QLD. Her team up there came down to Nationals, and we actually played them our second game, so that was really cool. What was also quite fun, was a girl on my team looks exactly like me when she plays. When I got here apparently people called me "American Ellie" because I look so much like her. We have the same hair color/length, same figure, run the same, throw the same... Our faces are different but that's about it. So we would try to confuse people by wearing the same arm bands and taking off our hats. Here is a picture of us :)

So last week Adam and his dad were cleaning out the back yard, and found a red bellied black snake!!! REALLY poisonous. And the day before that, Liv and I found a blue tongued lizard in the back yard. That is when I realized that I really AM in Australia. That would never happen in the states. It is exciting though! This weekend they took out all the grass and put in all new grass in the back and in places in the backyard where there wasn't grass before. It looks really nice, I'll have to take a picture. Here is a picture of the Blue Tongued Lizard and some others. Bridie is my little model, she is adorable. She had a cute dress on so I just took heaps of pictures of her on Monday.

Below is Bridie's first experience painting. She actually didn't get too messy.

This is the watermelon we carved on Halloween. Pumpkins are out of season here so very expensive and hard to find. This is the way the Aussies do it... if they do it at all. Halloween isn't nearly as big here as it is in the States. Not very many people go trick-or-treating. And if they do, most houses wouldn't be prepared with candy. What a depressing childhood.

Tassie! (Tazzy)

Last Saturday Nicci the girlies and I took a trip down to Tasmania to visit Nicci's family and help her parents sell their house. Most of the time I just hung out with the girls, but we did do some pretty amazing things! On Wednesday we went out to Bonorong Wildlife Park to see the animals. We saw tasmanian devils!! Along with wombats, quolls, koalas, and KANGAROOS! At Bonorong they had a whole "Kanga Country" with over 100 kangaroos. It was fantastic. We got to go inside Kanga Country and feed the kangaroos. We got swarmed. So good. We then went to the Cadbury chocolate factory, but only saw the outside because they charged just to go inside the gift shop. Laaaammeee. Cadbury is a pretty big chocolate producer here.

So then the next day, Nicci sent me off on a day trip to see Port Arthur and by golly, it was UH-MAZE-ZING! It had such a creepy feel to it, but at the same time it was gorgeous. It's supposedly extremely haunted, but I had no ghostly encounters thankfully. It's good too because we got there pretty early, and instead of being wiht like 30 people and a guide, I split from the group and went off on my own. I loved exploring by myself! And that way people wouldn't think I was a freak for taking so many pictures, or posing funny in front of things.

Man... I don't even know where to start to tell you about Port Arthur... I'll give you small details, and then add some things in here and there when I put up the pictures. From what I understood of it all, Port Arthur was a place they would send convicts who were "trouble". The convicts that went to port arthur either actually caused trouble after being convicted, were shady characters, or there was "no place" for them anywhere else. What's ridiculous is people would be convicted for SO LONG for the tiniest crimes. Like 7 years for stealing a watch. I don't know much about prison sentences, but I think these days people would get like maybe... maybe a week for stealing a watch... if they're being harsh. So anywho, they were really harsh on the convicts... they had strict working schedules and weren't allowed to talk to anyone. A lot of people died, mostly convixts, out there which is why it's supposedly so haunted. There's an island "Isle of the Dead" that they burried over 1000 dead convicts and guards and reverends and whatnot. The place was up and running for a little over 40 years in the mid 1800's and then closed down (I think 1897 possibly). Then there was a bush fire or something of the sort that wiped out quite a bit of the area. A lot of the houses and things that used to be there are gone. But there are a few buildings still standing strong and beautiful. As creepy as the place was, it was absolutely stunning. Take a look at my pictures!!

 This, my friends, is the cute and not-so-cuddly TASMANIAN DEVIL! Ta da!! To be honest I think they're rather ugly... They're pretty short, fat and stubby little things. But still awesome none-the-less. I think the Tassie devils were bridie's favorite animal! Check out this video of her. I call it her "tasmanian devil cry" so fetching adorable. I love her to pieces.

So Bonorong had a place they called "Kanga Country" where there were literally hundreds of kangaroos just lounging around. Hundreds of FRIENDLY kangaroos! You can see quite a few in the background. We were allowed to go in and feed them too. At first Nicci held Olivia and I held Bridie and we fed them and were swarmed. Then I got to be with the kangaroos by myself which was really awesome. If you want to see more pictures of the kangaroos check facebook. I loaded heaps up there.

Hedgehog! So cute!

 So this is where we stopped on the way to Port Arthur. This one on the left is Tasman Arch, the next one is just a lookout of Pirate's Bay, and the second picture up at the top is of Devil's Kitchen. Pretty beautiful :)

I thought this flower was pretty. When I started taking pictures of it I realized there was a bee there.So then I started taking pictures of the bee :)

This is the church in Port Arthur. This is the church in Port Arthur. Port Arthur was a catholic facility, so they made all of the convicts worship on Sundays. As you can sort of tell, it has no roof anymore, and it's all grass on the inside. It is probably the prettiest building in Port Arthur.

So that quote in red I guess was one of the mottos of Port Arthur. I think it's good that they wanted these convicts to believe in God, but I found it interesting that they forced it upon them. They wanted to "grind" these convicts into honest men. Anyway, all very fascinating.

                   So this one is the Penitentiary (which Tori had to teach me how to say haha). The convicts were housed in here. extending on the inside of each of those little windows was a little bed. The men had no personal space, it was just bed and window. Hundreds of them slept in there, and were employed during the day.

This was on the wall leading into the "Separate Prison" which I think is where they kept the more "troublesome" convicts. Below are listed some of the rules. I found that bit very interesting too. They weren't allowed to make any noise whatsoever unless it was during Sunday service.

This one is the chapel inside the Separate Prison. While I was there they were playing a tape of men (supposed to be the prisoners) singing a church hymn in a different language. It gave me the CREEPS because it was a church hymn that we sing all the time. I couldn't figure out which one it was because it wasn't in english, but I don't really want to. It would probably ruin that hymn for me.

Me acting very pensive in front of one of the buildings. Sadly I don't remember which one that was. I think it was just one of the reverend's houses.



One of the windows of the Penitentiary.



Me pretending to be locked in in the Penitentiary, haha.



A great view of all of Port Arthur. On the left is the Church. That's really the only one you can make out with me in the way of the rest.



There's the Guard Tower, Commandant's house, part of the Penitentiary, and another house from up at my looking rock :)

Guard Tower

Some of the really pretty scenery of Port Arthur.

PS: Sorry about the uber long posts. I'll try to make them shorter from now on :)