How am I getting home?

This is it, I am in Dublin, safely in the Abigail's (yes, that's exactly how it worked out) Hostel. Thanks Ab, your a keeper I am sure of it! And through the kind graces of Fealuanauu, yes that was her real name, who Theresa and I met on the ferry, we sat in a nice companionable silence and then began chatting and Theresa and the Welshie simply clicked! Stories and thoughts on horses, riding and country music. Yes, they like country music out here! But the Welshie's sweet Irish Dad came and gave us a ride out to Abigail's or else we would have doomed to a fate of walking here. Just like those emaciated statues lining the pavement from the Irish famine. Half dead on our feet! How does travel wipe you out so? It has a knack for me! But now is that moment where you are looking about you and all those moments you were looking forward to and could barely see ahead of you before are tripping along happily by your side, new friends and companions to keep your soul a little brighter when those travelless days come! As Debra said,

You won't ever forget this will you? 

Never, not as long as I live will Wales leave my heart! And as Theresa has been very consistently reminding me, we are coming back. Yea, we are! It's inevitable, I fell in love with everything wet, wild and green out there and quite a few dry things as well! Oh if you could only just begin to imagine their library! Holy Crepe! It's a good one to say the least. Ah, Wales you will now remain one of those countries encircled with faint, golden haze reserved for all things fantastic, reverently special and gut-bustingly funny. This is for you Wales!



            CHEERS!

Feeling 19, at last.

This is weird for me. Normally I am not stoked to age but this time around, on July 22, I was ready to be a whole year older. Nearer to twenty than I have ever been before. I am not excited for the year of twenty but being nineteen just feels right, I suppose. Something I am meant to be. And now I am! To add to the joys of being a nearly adult child is that the royal of royals was born on my birthday! Oh George Alexander Lewis, what a cutie. And rumor has it that Prince Harry himself has happily cuddled him, must be a keeper.

Janie & the Stonehedge

My overwhelming excitement about being in Winchester Cathedral in crazy close quarters with the resting Jane Austen in the ground was, frankly, overwhelming. Me and Lydia erupted out of the Cathedral, skipping, laughing, grabbing and climbing about. Every photo taken afterwards was filled with us grinning ridiculously and grasping onto each other in pure unadulterated glee. Oh Jane. We skipped, jumped and danced back to where our study abroad group was waiting for us and just jabbered about Jane! JAne! JANE! We even wrote a song about her that had a gothic, religious ceremony affect to it. I licked her dying home. Oh sweet Jane. Did you know her brother revealed her identity after she had died as the writer of the greatest roman novels?

Then our day felt as if it stood in that small, circular break in the stormy, dark clouds, the sunshine spot. The ring of sun. Sunny ring. Sunny-D, Baby. But if you are wondering what all the hype is about. It's stonehenge! A place for druids and wizards alike to gather and chant on the two solstices', but we along with all those crazy magicians (but not when we were there) were allowed to walk among the rock giants. Stonehenge. It was more than lovely.

WE HAD

Indian Chanting

Polish Dancing

Sacrifice

Jumping lessons and strained neck-tendons

More sacrifice

 Awed Sighs

I think one couple kissed....

A rock was licked (on the sly)

And the sun was raised to the sky in its setting

Best. Day. Yesterday. Hmmmm.

Plural Sister

Jenny. What a simulataneous breath of fresh air and then tornado that will rip your little cottage on the plains apart. It is her funny, sometimes overwhelming self that causes so many to just fall in love with her. I know that I am the luckiest to have that wild child as my sister. And I know that if Harry Styles ever got down on one knee for her he would be the most fortunate young man, undoubtedly. So here are ten things I know about Jenny that you may not.


1. She has no qualms with being without pants when others are over.
2. No conversation is safe from her popping into it with something funny, perhaps mean, to say but always funny in the end.
3. She loves jokes, we bought male boxers with our cousins just the other day and the way that girl was dropping jokes left and right and laughing so hard was something to behold.
4. She wants to, with all her little obsessive heart, marry Harry Styles (she may not like the way I phrased that) but she is the type of girl who when she has a dream, a goal, an ambition, she obsesses over it. She can talk nothing else for weeks, which explains how and why we own a hedgehog.
5. Speech impediment that all children suffer with was even cuter on her. "Ricorish. Rolla. Puppesh."
6. She has minor kleptomania when it comes to others clothing that she takes a fancy to, mine definately included. (so puzzling out the closet issue when I leave will be interesting, of course).
7. She imagines Zombie Apocalypses. Hmmmm. Did not see that one coming?
8. Wicked Wit. I end up repeating most of what she says because I find it so funny, and I just cannot help myself when I find something to be funny like that, just cannot. Ask the show Friends.
9. She has the most natural tumbling ability of anyone I know! Flashback to a few years ago, she asked me to spot her while she tried to do a backflip on an air mattress set up on the family room floor, and this is not my shining moment as a sister, because she asked me and I set my hands on her back to help her out, keep her sturdy and then when the crucial moment came I stepped back and she did a back flip on her own. Man. Who just does that? There was a little resentment for spotting but it was all worth it.
10. She is my only sister, you knew that I know you did, and I often times forget that and I take the kid for granted. But there are also moments when she just means the world to me and I cannot imagine what I would do without her. And as much as I annoy her and she teases me, I love her as only an only sister can I imagine. I will always want to protect her and funnily enough I know she will always do the same for me. That ferocity that is in her comes out in such strength if someone seems about to mess with someone she loves. Her puppy self comes out I suppose, that inner guard dog! I am going to miss her more than I ever suspected, that goof, but I am happy I can always come home to her, to Leo, to Tommy, to my family.

A Day before the June Series

I am to begin a journey that has been planned for, hoped for, crossed toes for, wished and dreamed for. (Dreamed is just a side note). And it involves the hopefully sunlit days of June. 







All of it, the entire June Series, is to prepare for my great leaving of Provo. To fill everyday with such overwhelming laughter and joy as to tickle my down to my toenails! There are a few main attractions of the June series and they happen to be a good handful of friends, who would capture the heart of any miser whether it be Scrooge or Darth Vader (who is just very, very grumpy). So it all will begin tomorrow but already a few adventures have debuted in these few final days of May weather. Including:

Cutting Easton's hair (yikes)

It happened last night, and it began as a joy but as the hair got shorter and as he got quieter my anxiety began to rise steadily. Oh man, occasionally I would giggle and Rachel would laugh out loud making the whole ordeal much more of an ordeal! But it turned out just fine it seems because he still said goodbye and is still talking to me so not to shabby I would say.

June Series

Honestly Teaing Up for Something Rompingly like Art

I don't post terribly often but I have a few life moments I want to document. As someone great once told me, 

"You regret every picture you do not take." 

Well someone told it to someone who then told it to her which was then laughingly told to me.

So here a few treats of a few people I love dearly and have spent a good amount of time with lately! (Alas the Mexico pictures are lost to a very dead battery or else Rachel would be taking her odd bird debut most certainly.)

Isn't she adorable when she laughs? The cute one supposedly got deleted but I disagree.

#nofilternojoke

The artist himself.

Easton hates pictures of his feet, who knew?

There is just a odd cacophony of moments that grew into a flower that rained down the waters that just wet the earth today. Farewell for now!

A bit glum bummed.

This may not be the most heart tickling of blog posts but I need to relieve a little anxiety and blue weather feelings by solemnly, (though hopefully still a little funny), telling them.

*****

Okay I cannot even do it. A down in the dumps blog post is just not necessarily my gift, I suppose! So instead of moping over the fact that I have to, wait, am so thoroughly blessed with the opportunity to go to Wales this summer and then onto Hawaii I am going to remember all the wonderful, and incandescently beautiful things there are about those two places and all the little things I can take with me there!

First off, Wales. Green sunsets, floating hills. Ha, just pulling your leg. There are the most achingly gorgeous hills in Wales though, rolling, smooth, emerald with many, many sheep all atop them. Ah, to be lost in those hills will probably have me singing robustly, "The hills are alive, with the sound of music." and then trilling my heart out with sighs of awe. And traveling into the regions of London and other places that all dreams carry us Americans too.
Alright, I am very, very excited for that part of the journey into the isles of life.

And then the second leg of the journey, I get to come home for about a week and a half before I continue onwards to Hawaii, or Havaii, or BYU (Island edition). I cannot imagine Hawaii let alone living and thriving there. But I am being honest here when I wholeheartedly believe that my Father in Heaven has a plan for me over there, for so many signs have pointed to it and so I will go and leave my sweet little Provo behind. Not forever mind you. No, I will always call Provo home now. It's busy school terms and then tranquil summers, the rushing friends, lingering neighbors, Utah Lake and all its carpy friends, the Library that is ethereal and magical, Canter Street with all its funny idiosyncrasies, PHS, Kiwanis Park that has held so many "wild parties" over the years, the well used Y trail, and of course the creamery. These all come together to create a small eden, a very silly eden, but still its own parched paradise.

So what will I take with me to Hawaii? Well, to Wales I am planning on finding before I go an excellent pair of overalls to top off my wonderful cranberry red rain coat and those two will find their way with me to Hawaii. But more importantly I will carry in my, sure to be overflowing, suitcase: the congreve cube, my mumford inspiration poster (thank you, Taylor), potentially my three goldfish, my collage of all things Abbey and Libby project, my personal mantra collage, that picture of Hannah, Justin and I all on a sledding inner tube cheekily grinning at the camera, my picture of a fedora'd President Gordon B. Hinckley, also my Rachel collage and dream catcher, as well as a heart full of laughter and joy because of every blessed moment that I have lived here on Hillsdale, that I have know Libby, Taylor, Theresa, Hannah, Rachel, for each scraped knee and bruised ankle that gave me such a perspective on how to say "ow", neopets, bryer horses, anything and everything wonderful that has ever occurred to me. So even the other day when Easton took me to romp with the musicians and candles. To tell the truth there are to  many things to count on my list of lovely things! So thank you Provo you always have done me well. I love you.

Lovingly, Abs