February Reviews

Food- Ronzini Healthy Harvest Whole Grain Heart Healthy pasta! A mouthful of a name, but these are really good! You get the whole grain without the really gritty wheaty taste. And it's always important to help our heart out! Tastes great with some spaghetti sauce.

Music- Robyn! Loie introduced me to her and I can't get enough of her! She is like Europe's version of Lady Gaga. Super fun music to listen to in the car, cleaning your apartment, or spontaneous dance parties! Look her up, I love the songs "Hang With Me", "Dancing on my Own", and "Indestructible"

Movies- Megamind. Went on a date to this one and it was actually really good! Fun plot line with awesome characters. Very quotable with some great music as well. Will Ferrell was not as annoying as I thought he might be, he was perfect! Brad Pitt was hilarious as well.

The Illusionist- Really interesting! It came out around the time of The Prestige and its similar concepts, but this one didn't get as much attention. However, I would definitely recommend this to anyone in my family. It was less dark than the Prestige, and one of those make you think things. Just watch it.

So there is not as many reviews this month, but I want to blog about some other things like really soon!! I am on a blogging role! That's because my life has been CA-RAZY lately! A LOT of changes, soon to be blogged about!

Awesome Sister Award

I attempted mom's lemon meringue pie for the first time ever! In honor of Todd's birthday, this was the best excuse for it. Although not nearly as fluffy as mom's, it still tasted delicious!

I treated Todd to a lunch of cordon bleu, mashed potatoes, corn, salad with cucumber ranch, and cherry 7up, while watching Despicable Me on our high def T.V. and gave him a present and card. Then that night I took Christy and Loie with me to help take pictures and sing happy birthday to him after he got home from work. It worked out perfect with his friends Justin and Marissa who showed up at the same time (I also helped Marissa plan a surprise party for him that Saturday).He had made a cheesecake too, so we got fun pictures of both of our creations that day. Although, I think it's safe to say, mine was actually edible ;).

Valentines Shenanigans

My apartment tries to do service once a week for someone. Sometimes we do it secretly. This week we decided to heart attack a boys apartment who don't necessarily get all of the attention in the ward. So we started off Valentines Day by waking up at 6:45 am and heart attacking apartment 28's door with the valentines we had spent the day before making. Here is us sneaking around, making them, and stuff...

Then we had a ward FHE on dating that night where they split the boys and girls and talked to us separately. Then we came together to mingle, play games, and make heart shaped sugar cookies. I went to go take a test, came home, and got a few valentines from some friends. I had already given out my valentines all day long, and made a package for you family (I know I am horrible and haven't sent it yet). However, to finish off an already good day, I had a surprise that night.

So we went to preference this year, but instead of it being Harry Potter themed, it was Alice in Wonderland. We had a girl in our ward help up pick guys that would really appreciate it. When I asked my date he was so excited, because he said he had never been asked to one before. There was twelve of us in the group, we made dinner, went to the dance where there was croquet and an unbirthday tea party where we got to keep a teacup. However, I won't blog about the event too much though because all my pictures are already on facebook. This is about the aftermath/ 3 days later. Valentines night, I got home late from a test and I came home to my roommate telling me I had a mysterious white package on the doorstep. It turns out my date had given me two chocolate covered strawberries in a white bag that said "Laurel Martin- Thanks for the awesome date on Friday." I was definitely flattered and the strawberries were delicious! Perfect for Valentines day when I'm not used to ever getting anything from boys.

Overall, I had a really good Valentines Day. I refuse to be one of those people who sulk about being single and that this holiday is silly. For one, when that day does come that I get a special someone, I know I would change my mind and seem like a hypocrite. Secondly, why not celebrate love? It doesn't have to be mushy love love, but a time to show anyone you care about in your life that you appreciate them. I love getting the chance to make things for others. I also felt loved by friends and family, as well as the constant love of my Savior that was on my mind as well. And that's what its all about.

Rockin the College Life!

One of the boys in my FHE group is from England. He has a band, and he invited my apartment to come see them play at The Velour here in Provo, where an agent would be watching and everything. So being our dancing fiends we are we decided to go and have a fun night at a concert. When we got there, everyone was standing awkwardly away from the stage. Literally, like 6 feet away, nothin'. So when his band came on (The Lovecapades), we went right up to the stage and went crazy! It was so fun, and they are pretty good (my video quality doesn't do it justice). Then after a pretty boring a capella group that randomly got to perform, there was an awesome girl who was actually on America's Got Talent! She composes her own violin music to hip hop beats. It felt like Lord of the Rings met Kesha and had a party. Basically awesome. Plus she danced while she performed. We felt so lucky to see her that we met with her afterwards and got a picture! (Here is a link of a small clip of her on the T.V. show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGYmyJDyE0E)

I have never really been to a concert like this, but I have seen people go and take crazy videos, so I did. But my new camera wasn't charged and I wasn't sure I wanted to take it there in case something happened to it. But I regretted it after I saw the quality of my videos and pics from that night. Oh well.

The Lovecapades...and really quick shots of friends in my ward who went as well. If you want to hear their real sound, www.purevolume.com/theLOVECAPADES is a

good place to hear for free. Although, I liked his backup girl singer in the live performance (his sister actually) than the one online.

Here is us afterwards with Lindsey (btw, Vanesa is my cute new roommate on

the far left!)

Here is Lindsey Sterling, the amazing hip hop violinist! Performing what she did on America's Got Talent. I have more, but Blogger is the most ridiculous thing to try and upload videos...

Then after, we felt all excited to be out and about in the streets of Provo (wild I know ;)). So we took some fun pictures. The ones in the car, we were jamming to high school musical 3 soundtrack...

January Reviews

I am going to start blogging reviews about my favorite things from the past month. So it' like what I'm into at the moment, because I am all about trying new things this year and becoming more interesting, something that makes for good conversation if asked.

Food-

Pink Lady Apples! They were the only apples on sale the other day at Smith's and I couldn't pass up such a cute name. They are kind of tart but not as much as Granny Smith, so I think they are a tasty snack and also good to cook with! I also figured out if you peel and cut them into small chunks and add some cinnamon into some whole wheat pancake batter, they are fantastic!

Restaurant- Well I have 2 this month that were new for me and I really enjoyed them for the most part. Pizza Pie Cafe. It's like a little classier version of CiCi's, but I actually loved the pasta there. You had to tell someone behind the counter what kind of noodles you wanted so they boiled them there fresh for you. Then there were tons of different sauces out you could choose from and I tried 3 different kinds on one plate!

The other place is Sammy's. My experience was that it was super crowded and loud, but definitely one of the trendier burger and shake places for college students in Provo. Their shakes are famous and called pie shakes or cupcake shakes, because they actually put a piece of pie or a whole cupcake blended into your shake. I tried the banana cream pie one and it was really good! However, slightly overpriced for the small size one. I also tried their sweet potato fries and those were really crispy and different tasting, but I actually liked them.

Band-

The Weepies. They are a really cute husband and wife duo which I love and have recently got into. They have a really likable indie, acoustic, pop sound that is just chill and fun at the same time. If you saw my advertising video, that song was by them. Their website is theweepies.com, where as soon as you open the page, you hear their latest album playing.

Makeup/ Beauty Product-

So I have been on the hunt for a really good foundation that would not break me out or feel really gross on my face after a long day of class. I have really bad acne scarring, but almost without fail, I always get compliments on my "clear" skin when I wear a good foundation. Lately that has been Clinique Even Better. It is actually supposed to brighten and even out your skin tone over time, making it ideal for people who suffer from acne scarring and weird pigmentation. My face is actually really dry and sometimes flaky up here in Utah, so the liquid consistency is actually welcomed to my face. I haven't even gotten through the free sample of it which was given to me several weeks ago (what a great deal for being free!) at the Clinique counter, but I think I want to eventually buy the full size...if I can get a job!

Movies- Some new ones that I have watched from my other roommates movie collection or Loie's Netflix :

Just Wright. Cheesy a little, but Queen Latifah falls in love with an NBA player. I just love the message of deserving a great guy when you are a great girl and not settling for anyone who treats you less than you deserve, even if he is a rich star.

Leap Year- I got this for Christmas from a roommate. Beautiful Ireland, beautiful Irish man. It's a lot cleaner than most chick flicks these days too.

Descpicable Me- I never cared for this until everyone I heard from said it was really good. We watched it on a high def t.v. and it was fantastic! Really heart warming and funny.

The Queen- An interesting take on the story of what happened after Princess Diana's death. Kind of like an intense documentary, but I think it helps you understand the story a little more.

Clothes-

I have had quite a few job interviews this month, so I finally went and got a killer interview outfit so I could actually land a job instead of just more interviews. I got a really cute pencil skirt from Kohl's, by Heart and Soul I think. I like the ruching and also the cute belt and high waist, so I was able to try the tucked in look. I was really pleased and felt ten times more confident in my outfit going into my latest interview for a receptionist/ phone call type job. I will also use it for my EFY counselor interview this Friday (yes I got accepted for an interview)!