Life According to Instagram

Catching Up Before The New Year...

Christmas this year was quite busy, but still a lot of fun. Lots of food, family, and friends. I could blog about all the details of my holiday, but I won't. Seriously, just watch the video montage in my previous post.

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The day after Christmas, I went with a dear friend of mine to the Phoenix Zoo Lights. I hadn't seen Sterling in 3+ years so it was nice to catch up. My cousin Preston and his friend Miranda came along as well. To be honest, the zoo lights weren't that impressive. More of a thing to wow your little ones with, but we still had a good time.

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On Friday, I went with my buddy Wesley and watched Les Mis. It. Was. AMAZING. If you haven't seen it yet, drop what you're doing and find the nearest theater because you need to see it! It rocked my world and I walked out of the theater feeling like I had just experienced some life-changing event.

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My friend Kailey is leaving on her mission to Houston, Texas on January 9th. Kailey happens to be my best friend Jenna's cousin and the majority of her extended family lives in St. Johns. Kailey gave her farewell talk yesterday so it was great seeing everyone who came to support her including Jenna.

Since Jenna's birthday is coming up on the 6th, we decided to celebrate a little early while she was down here and went to Benihana. It was great and Jenna's husband, Miles, treated me to my meal. I just love them so.

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Oh, and here's a picture of me holding an alligator in front of my cousin's house. All I can say is right place, right time.

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And I think that brings us up to speed. I can't believe today is the last day of 2012. Tonight I'll be at Castles and Coasters for a little New Year's party. I'm going with above-mentioned future missionary Kailey and some of her friends. It has definitely been a crazy past two weeks with the holidays, but a great way to end 2012. Bring it on 2013.

Christmas Video Montage

I love that when you add some hipster music to random clips, it sort of makes it look like you know what you're doing. Just a heads up, I don't. But I still wanted to make a little montage of Christmas this year.

Christmas Pictures

Guess who deleted all her pictures from Christmas. That's right, this girl. Super depressing. Luckily, I was able to save some off of Facebook so here's a few for your enjoyment:

More Christmas Details

I'm a little behind with all the Christmas festivities. Forgive me. I'm catching up right now.

Mesa Temple and A Date

I decided spur of the moment to go do Baptisms for the Dead this morning. It was just what I needed. I'm hoping to make it a weekly thing from now on. It definitely makes your day ten times better.

Plus, I thought the temple would be a safe place to be at the end of the world. What happened to the inevitable apocalypse anyways? I'm way disappointed.

I now have a movie date with a new suitor. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

I love to see the temple...

Yesterday, while I was running errands for work, I thought to myself, "Self, you work pretty close to the Gilbert Temple, yet you've never even seen it..." From that point, it was pretty easy to convince myself that it was completely necessary to take a little field trip. And I'm so glad I did! The Gilbert Temple is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait until it's finished.

It's definitely my new fav and I decided I'm going to get hitched in this one. Hopefully my future, currently-non-existent husband is alright with that decision. If not, he's just going to have to deal.

Seriously though, temples are amazing. The blessings available through them rock my world.

Christmas-y

 

Twenty-one years of awesome.

Today I turned twenty-one.

And if you didn't notice, today is also 12-12-12. I would say the date alone is the perfect excuse to get completely wasted since it is my 21st birthday and all, but I think I'll just sip on some Mormon cider instead.

Sadly, I'm approaching this birthday with a less than positive attitude. I happen to blog stalk a number of people. Mostly women that were married at the ripe age of eighteen and now have a little one before they even hit their twenties. I was going to be one of those girls. I planned on getting married right out of high school and my only goal at this point is to have my own little hooligans. At twenty-one, I'm feeling rather old in the Mormon timeline of getting hitched and repopulating the earth. And to add to that, I feel like I'm accomplishing nothing productive in the mean time. I'm not going to school, I'm not building a career, I'm not "finding myself" (whatever that means), I'm not traveling or doing anything remotely exciting. Rather, I'm getting by on a part-time job that barely pays the bills.

So I may or may not be a bit of a downer today. In all seriousness though, I know that this is what's best for me. I may not be able to understand why that is at the present moment, but I'm sure God has other plans in store for me. Hopefully I can figure those plans out sooner rather than later so I can stop wasting my precious time here on earth with tom foolery. Other than that little issue, I'm in rather a good mood. Today is going to be fantastic... once I stop my whining.

In other words, happy twenty-one years of life to me.

(And yes, I did eat ice cream cake for breakfast this morning. It's my birthday. I can do what I want.)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

I love Christmas.

Unfortunately when you live in the valley of the sun, the freakishly warm weather makes it hard to remember that it's the holiday season. Also, my lack of funds for a Christmas tree. I need snow and Christmas music and hot chocolate. Not swimsuit weather and a barren studio apartment.

So to create the illusion of the holidays for myself, I found my Justin Bieber Christmas CD and pulled out my meager craft supplies. Time to channel my inner Martha Stewart to deck out my apartment. Maybe I'll even bake something festive?... better not push it. I most definitely need to find some mistletoe to hang, can't pass up that ingenious tradition (seriously, who invented that?).

And to help you get in the Christmas spirit, here's a fabulous video:

Kid in the lovely holiday sweater, can we be best friends?

According to Instagram

As you can see, Harley is the star of my Instagram with an occasional appearance of my tortoise Pancho Villa. I may need to work on having a more interesting life. Feel free to follow me @aliciareneesnow if you like to see pictures of dogs.

Being a grown-up is the pits...

I've recently decided that I no longer wish to be an adult. So if anyone needs me, I'll be in my couch cushion and bed sheet fort... coloring.

Hurricane Sandy

Happy Veteran's Day

My grandfather, Donald Clement, recently passed away. He was welcomed into heaven on September 26th, two days after his 82nd birthday. He was the most amazing man I know and Veteran's Day this year was spent remembering him and reflecting over the influence he had on others. I am so blessed to have him as an example and I hope to live as great a life as him. Until we meet again Grandpa.

A Night On The Town

Who has a hot date tonight? This girl! Usually, I would dread going out in public and socializing. Eww gross, who wants to actually interact with others?

But I'm rather fond of the gentleman taking me out so I'm not dreading it... as much.