Cinnamon rolls and Star Trek!

Yesterday Kyle and I decided to make yummy cinnamon rolls with a recipe a friend gave us. Dave makes the BEST cinnamon rolls ever!! Anyway, Kyle made the dough and when that was done, I rolled it out and made it yummy with spices and good stuff! Then into the oven to rise while we went to the library to check out movies. Kyle picked out "As Good As it Gets" and "From Russia With Love", and I picked "And Then There Were None" and "Star Trek: First Contact". The rolls were huge when we got home! Back in the oven for baking then *voila!* Beautiful buns! We had some for breakfast this morning with scrambled eggs and orange julius slushy. And it was oh so delicious! Although I think I put too much nutmeg and almond extract. Guess we'll have to make them again!

What do I do when I'm home alone all day?

KARAOKE! I pick songs from youtube or wherever and sing along with them. I have a great time :) These were today's songs:






I love this movie :D
...my poor neighbors...lol

Time to reflect: 2009

This was an AWESOME year. Here's why:

-I went to Scotland to do an internship with the Scottish Parliament.

-I became the National American Miss Utah!

-My brother went on his mission and my good friend's mission is half over.

-I went on my second and third dates while attending BYU (yes!)

-I changed my major (International Relations --> Political Science)

-I have a new niece and nephew (and 2 more nephews on the way!)

-I went to the National American Miss National Pageant and won 2nd runner up Best Resume and 4th runner up Talent!

-I proposed to and then two weeks later met my new best friend.

-I started dating my best friend.

-I'm engaged to my best friend. :)



Happiness all around! Could it get any better than this?

Apparently there was a storm last night.





It was raining all last night and this morning, which left snow on the mountains.





There is a cool crisp in the air; different from the usual cold.





Winter is coming :)

A most ingenious paradox

Today in Relief Society, we were talking about baptisms for the dead. The instructor was talking about how because we do the proxy work for these people, we are essentially "saviors" and are progressing on our journey to become like Christ. But before we can be baptized for them, we must be baptized ourselves. An example given was on an airplane, being instructed to place the oxygen mask over your own face before helping a child. The moral of the story was that before we can help others we must help ourselves.

Anyway, I got to thinking that this is the paradox of the modern hero; the fact that they aren't perfect and have problems is what draws us to them. Usually there is some underlying issue that pushes the hero to become super and help the helpless. Usually the problem is something that the hero's love interest points out later in the plot because, as we all know, our lovers can see deeper into our souls than we prefer.

I think I've gotten off topic.

Take Batman for example. I believe he will be an adequate example because he doesn't have "super" powers. His parents were mugged and killed in front of him, and when the killer was released from jail, he made it his life's mission to track him down and stop others like him from ruining innocent people's lives. The instance of his parent's untimely death pushed him to become a savior of innocents, rather than an intrinsic desire to make the world a better place just for the sake of doing so.

Spiderman was driven to use his spidey powers for good because he let a criminal get away that ended up killing his beloved uncle. Ironman was essentially repenting of his sins as a weapons creator because his creations had become the seed of corruption in the hands of terrorists. The list goes on...

Granted, if there was no underlying background story, the hero would be boring. Whereas, we need to be "boring", having "saved" ourselves first through doing our own baptismal ordinances before we can help others with that option. There's a worthiness issue with covenants and ordinances that cannot simply be overlooked.

Anyway, I guess my point is this whole "help yourself before you help others" thing is the exact opposite of the modern hero. The reason heros help others is because they cannot help themselves.

the epic story

By popular demand, here is my side of the story, but for the other side, and my personal favorite, click here

It all started one Saturday. My mom and sister had come into town for a DUP conference in Salt Lake and were staying the night with me in Provo. I told them that The Giver was playing at BYU, but I had seen it the night previous night, so while my mom, sister, and best friend were at the show, I went to see HumorU.

I had never attended a HumorU show before; all I knew was it was stand up comedy and it looked as if they had a pretty good turnout the night before. I was all by myself (yes, I do this often) and found it to be quite funny. There was one act though that really got me laughing more so than the others. I enjoyed it a lot. You can probably guess who’s that was ;)

So after the show, being hyper from all the jokes and laughter, I ran over to my mom and started telling her about this set I enjoyed. I finally was like, “I’m going to ask him to marry me!” My rational brain said, “No, Katie. That is just too silly. You need to calm down.” But then I thought, “What would be the harm? I’m not even remotely dating anyone. And I can only get away with a fake marriage proposal at BYU. And I know I’ll regret it if I don’t.”

I ran (well, sort of) back to the table they had where you could write the boys of HumorU “nice notes” and comments about the show (The funniest ones would get put on t-shirts). So I grabbed a card and pencil and started writing, “Kyle Jepson, Will you—” I couldn’t do it. My rational brain had finally caught up with what I was doing and since it knew I couldn’t back down from what I had started, it conceded that I could put, “Will you go on a date with me?” or something to that effect. But my mother, who was tired of waiting for the HumorU show to get out and now was tired of waiting for me, said, “Don’t wimp out! Ask him to marry you!” I finished the card, and you can see a scanned copy of it here.

The next day, after church, of course, I checked my phone to see if he (or anyone for that matter) had called. There was a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize and a voice message! When we got back to my apartment, I put it on speakerphone for my mom, sister, and roommate to hear. Then, to the disappointment of all present, I went to the other room to call him back. We set a date to meet at Jamba Juice a week and a half later since it was the end of the semester and finals were upon us. I’ll admit I thought he set the date for so far in the future so that he could avoid me, which I was okay with since I expected him to be a jerk anyway.

But a week and a half later, he called me on Wednesday to make sure I hadn’t forgotten and to solidify the time for our meeting. I was excited, mostly because I enjoy meeting new people, even if they turn out to be jerks, and also I quite enjoy Jamba Juice.

I went to my French Final that morning, then killed time in the library before the encounter was to occur. I made sure to arrive a little late so I wouldn’t be the one waiting around for him. My excitement and nervousness grew with each step toward the Wilkinson Center. The sign for Jamba Juice came into view. I turned the corner.

“Katie!” a rather lanky boy called to me. He jumped out of his seat and gave me a huge hug. I don’t remember how I reacted, but I’m sure he does. We bought our drinks, sat down at a table in the Wilk, and proceeded to talk about everything. Following a discussion about countries, we moved to the large world map in the Kennedy Center. Before I knew it, almost 4 hours had passed! We parted ways so he could go to work, but it was definitely a reluctant goodbye.

Somehow, in those few hours and in the following week, we connected in a way that is very rare to me and has only happened once before. We’ll see how it all plays out. As for now, we are best friends :)

quick update

so i should probably mention this (especially with the convenient placement of my last post) but a few days after i wrote my post about miss provo, i got a phone call from national american miss. i had applied for miss california and was informed about 2 months ago that i was a runner up for the title. oh well...i knew that i had choked but i was happy nonetheless. anyway, back to the phone call. so the national pageant directer called me and basically said, "you're going to school in utah, right? do you want to be miss utah?" oh man! totally excited :D so for all the world to know (all the world = kati and my sisters)

I AM YOUR 2009-2010 NATIONAL AMERICAN MISS UTAH!!!

pictures will follow later as i haven't received my crown and banner yet. but that should be remedied by august. this is going to be a great year :)