I desperately need one of these......

Lately for some reason, I've really been dreading putting my clothes back on when I get out of the shower.

So, I keep trying to walk around in just my towel.

Unfortunately, as I don't live alone, it can cause awkward moments when my towel becomes loose....

So I've decided that I really just need to invest in a robe, since it's a more secure version of the luxuries of a towel.

I thought these ones looked really nice.

Too bad they're like a thousand dollars, since they're from Victoria's Secret.

Shame.

HOW DID I GET A SOLO?!

This is the solo I had the privilege of performing at Saturday night's Extravadance.

Me and one other girl perform the same solo, but we rotate nights that we perform.

I am thoroughly in love with this dance.

The lyrics of this song talk about how she never knew love "before you".

Well, I am not in love with anyone right now.

So I dance as though I am the "before" love.

But you can interpret it as you will :)

EXTRAVADANCE - A Greater Love

What an incredible experience this year's show has been.

It's a pretty stark contrast from last year's.

Last year's was pure entertainment--Broadway!

This year's is a more spiritual experience--Love.

I have learned so much from being a part of this team, and dancing to this theme.

I consider myself incredibly blessed.

Of course we love to take pictures...even when we should be warming up :)

We kind of look like "more bars in more places"...in our Opener costumes

"Appertaining Rage"...our totally legitimate hip hop!

We like to work our abs....we're pretty tough.

Lauren is a ninja and Bethani is a model.

This is the girl's "dressing room" backstage.

We get to hang all of our costumes on a big, long, metal bar.

This creates a kind of "wall" that we hide behind to change...usually.

We wear leotards, so we're not completely naked.

And we're dancers.

We have no personal boundaries.

There is no such thing as "awkward" or "uncomfortable".

I love it :)

I really love Lauren!

In one of our dances, a couple looks through a book while people dance behind them.

So we decided they needed something actually interesting to look at.

We drew them pictures :)

Did I mention that I really love Lauren? :)

I also really love this Laurin :)

This is Elizabeth...she is another favorite of mine.

I sure wish she wasn't graduating this semester :(

I am so grateful for everyone who came to this show.

I got to do a solo on Saturday night, and I had a great group of "fans" to support me.

My family was able to make it for the show, which meant so much to me.

I think I cried just about every night we ran the show...in a good way.

I hope everyone else was able to have such an emotional experience.

I have grown so much from this team and this show.

I was meant to do this.

I was meant to dance.

And I don't plan on ever stopping :)

Oh boy...

There's a reason why I haven't updated for awhile. I wanted to give a full play-by-play of the two week tour I went on in August, and when I didn't do it right away, I felt like I couldn't post anything else until I got that done. Hence I've been stuck. But now I've decided that I'm just going to give a watered down version of what's been happening in my life since July/August. Here we go...

AUGUST

• I went on tour as a dancer on Dance Alliance. We went to mostly Oregon and a little bit of California. It was an incredible experience...it was exciting and exhausting, uplifting and draining, too long and not long enough. We have a blog about it, so for more details about the things we did go to http://dancealliance2010.blogspot.com/ I wish I had taken the time to tell it better from a personal viewpoint...but unfortunately I didn't. So this is as good as it's going to get...

Taking our "Asian" picture while working on spacing/lighting

Me and Elsha frolicking in the Rose Garden in Portland

Call me a tree hugger...the Redwoods are awesome!

The true-blue, certified tour bus

It's hard work to be this tired....on a bus

• When I got back from tour I had the incredible opportunity to get my wisdom taken from my face. Yup, all four wisdom teeth had to be pulled. It was pretty miserable. The anesthesia made me pretty nauseous...I rode in a car for 10 minutes about a week later and I got much too close to vomiting than is preferred. But don't worry...I didn't. The other thing about getting my teeth pulled is that it made my whole chin numb for longer than is normal. Then the feeling came back to the right half. It wasn't until a few weeks into the Fall semester that I regained full feeling in my chin. It was an adventure.

• For the rest of the time that I was home for that month, I worked at Impact Athletic (formerly The Racquetball Club...which I will still always call it). No, I wasn't anything cool like a teacher or a trainer. Instead I got the glory of cleaning. I seem to be really good at getting those janitorial-type jobs. It gives me a paycheck though. I try not to complain.

SEPTEMBER

• Fall semester. I decided to audition for Dance Alliance again...and I made it. Yay! It's a totally different team from last year's. First of all, the theme is pretty opposite of last years. Last year was Broadway--purely entertainment. This year the theme is: A Greater Love. It's a more meaningful, deep kind of show. Neither was better or worse,just...different. And just the general feel of the team is different. Some people are on it from last year, some from the year before, and some are completely new. It's a great team, and I do love it! It just took some adjusting on my part to get used to it. There are definitely more married people on the team this year too....interesting. I love it so much though.

Our opening social for the new D.A.

Photo shoot in the gardens on campus

Working on our hip hop

Photo shoot continued...

We are dancers...and we like to have fun

• This has definitely been the hardest semester to stay motivated. I barely passed some of my classes because I could just not get myself to do all of my homework. Super horrible...but it's over now, and I ain't looking back.

OCTOBER

• Nothing too exciting...except Halloween. My apartment threw the most rockin' Halloween party of my life. We had hay bales in the apartment (yes....in the apartment...I'm still finding hay all over the place...), donuts hanging from the ceiling, great music, lots of food, bobbing for apples, and SO MANY AWESOME PEOPLE!! It was probably the most fun I've ever had on Halloween. I dressed up as Tinkerbell...mostly because I'm obsessed with glitter.

Padme and a unicorn...an unlikely friendship that blossoms with candy

We think we're pretty funny...

Cristian!!

"You're my best friend....I hate you!" :)

NOVEMBER

• All I have to say about this month is EXTRAVADANCE!! It was so good...I love when we do the show combined with the Collegiate teams. It's a good time. And I have so many faithful supporters who came to see us perform! It means so much to me when my family travels up to see me, and when my friends sacrifice a night to see what I've been spending all of my time on. It makes me so happy, and it's part of the reason I keep doing what I'm doing. So thank you to all who come to these shows!

• I guess I really do have one more thing to say about this month....Thanksgiving. It was so nice to just be home and relax. We didn't do anything super crazy for the holiday...we didn't even leave town. Just went over to Grandma and Grandpa Turner's and enjoyed being with family! It was an eventful meal for me...there wasn't enough room at the table for everyone, and all the women (except me) were the last to sit down, so they all went into the other room to eat, leaving me alone with my dad, brothers, [male] cousins, and uncles. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so much at a Thanksgiving dinner.

Oh yea...and we got a Christmas tree over the break :)

Jason fell down...

DECEMBER

• I made it through the end of the semester. Barely. At least I didn't have to pack up all of my stuff this time, since I'm staying in the same apartment next semester. So that was nice to not have to stress about. Moral of the story, I made it home for the Christmas break in one piece.

Yes...these pictures pretty well describe how I was feeling by the end of the semester

• During the break my two really good friends Bethani and Dave got married, and they asked me to do their wedding pictures for them. It was so much fun to be able to be with them on their special day! We all met when we were on Dance Alliance last year, and were really good friends, so I've been able to be there throughout all of their dating, not dating, engagement and such. Therefore, they've adopted me as their "daughter". So we're a pretty cute little family :) They were both so adorable on their big day!

This is why I love these guys :)


• Of course Christmas was great! I got to just spend quality time with my incredible family! Travis and Jill and their kids stayed with us for a good chunk of the break, and John and Robyn and their family were just down the road. Then Mike and Melissa brought their kids for a couple of days, and we were all one big happy family! The only ones missing during the holidays were David and Heather, and we did miss them. The break was a much needed one, and it was so good to see family that I don't get to see very often.

JANUARY

• Back to the grind. Semester number 7. Am I really a senior in college? I sure don't feel like it. This is also my 5th semester in a row without a break. I'm taking a break from school this summer though, so I just need to make it through the rest of this semester. I'm only taking classes for the dance major this semester, so hopefully that will help me stay motivated.

At my friend Alex's birthday party...we have a good time :)


• I finally got a good, solid job on campus! I'm a tutor in the Reading Center. This month all I did was the training, but I did get paid for it. The nice thing about this job is that I choose how many hours I want, and when I want them to be. And I get paid to do things that I normally do for class...like make flash cards. It's not too bad.

FEBRUARY

• This is definitely the busiest semester of my life. Things are just crazy busy between work, dance, and socializing (which I don't even have much time for...). It's good though. Just exhausting.

• One thing that keeps me so busy is that for my Teaching Techniques of Dance class we have to have 10 hours of observations and 10 hours of teaching throughout the semester. I have two teaching gigs to get my full 10 hours.

• The first one is helping one of my fellow dancers teach her Irish class out at one of our teacher's studios once a week. I teach 2 little girls, about the ages of 8 and 9. It's been a super good learning experience.

• The second one is doing Dancing With the Stars...at BYU-Idaho. It's an event they're doing on campus this semester, and I was asked to double team with my friend Amanda to teach a guy a hip hop routine. We got pretty lucky...our "star" is a pretty natural mover, so it's been fun to work with him. We're doing a kind of funny routine, about a love triangle. Don't worry though...I end up with the guy ;)

MARCH

• We're only a week into the month. But it's already been super full. We've been doing lighting tech for Extravadance, so I've been spending even more of my life in the Kirkham. I'm starting to feel pretty trapped. It's time for it to get warm so I can go outside and do different things. Anyway...Extravadance is this month: the 11, 12, and 13. If you're in the area (even if you're not...) you should come! It's truly an amazing show. I've already cried while watching on multiple occasions. Come and love it.