2011 in review

okay so i know i have been a really crappy blogger as of late. but guess what? 2012 is my year. it has already been decided so i think that part of my year will include blogging on a regular basis. there i said it. it's out in the universe and so it shall be done! let's review what has happened this year shall we?

i watched both my roommates meet, fall in love and marry their one and only's. i moved in with a texan and it was the best move of 2011. i got proposed to in haiti by a vendor. i went on my annual flaming gorge trip. i bought a lot of clothes...a lot. i expanded my shoe collection by approximately 15 pairs of shoes. i stayed up past midnight almost every night. i stayed awake for a whole 24 hours. i had a 5 hour and 45 minute phone conversation. i got extensions. got second place in a singing competition. hiked dunn's river falls in jamaica. went cliff jumping in a jungle river in jamaica. learned how to boogie board on the back of a cruise ship's flow rider. joined the world of online dating...gasp! i went to logan for a wedding. saw my grandpa for the first time in 22 years. knit 2 pair of gloves. i got proposed to by 2 rastafarian's in jamaica, one named barrington and the other bob. went para sailing in mexico. ate curried goat, really greasy like duck. caught a horny toad lizard. went skinny dipping...gasp! went on a dam tour. did hair for 3 weddings. made 7 tissue paper puff balls. went to a rodeo. sold my car. bought a car. threw out my back again...over my birthday weekend. watched one of my childhood friends get married. went to about a million movies. survived humongous waves on the ocean. finally got over a certain someone. fell in love with ryan gosling. found 3 gray hairs! discovered pintrest and therefore wanted to die quickly after. finally finished reading the glass castle after about a year of reading it.

i know there is a lot more exciting things that i could have reported about, but i'm really tired and can't think clearly with the crazy wind outside my window right now. i can concentrate on this however, 2011 was a great year. i can't complain. it was full of a lot of hard things, but somehow i survived and found out a little more who aly is. because no matter how hard or crappy things can seem....someone out there has it harder or crappier than i do. i have a car. i have a house to live in. i have a job. i have my health. i have a family who loves me. i have amazing friends who keep me sane. and i have a loving heavenly father. what more could a 26 year old gal wish for? onward and upward 2012! happy new year folks.

yep this is happening

i am currently running on 4 hours of sleep and yet it is 1:18 am and i am still wide awake! my reasons for staying up late last night and for staying up late tonight are so different, but i am finding that all in all i am just as happy tonight was i was last night! thanks to a and c. ha ha!

tonight's events included this...

it is my paper chain countdown to when i can get my iphone. yep. i'm in fourth grade still.

another note

this is the last thing tonight i promise!

char is having twins again...i know i have mentioned that before.

but i didn't mention that they are......

BOYS!!!!!!!!!!

yay for future nephews!

thanksundance

my grandpa (toni's dad) came out from arkansas with his wife (carolyn) for thanksgiving. now grandpa (dean) and carolyn haven't ventured to the great state of utah for 22 years. so to make it easier to understand...i hadn't seen them since i was 4. my mom was pregnant with emme when they last came so emme hadn't ever met them! crazy is right. all i remember about our first meeting was that he took us all for a ride on his motorcycle...so you can imagine as a 4 year old that was pretty cool. then he breezed on out of your lives for 22 years.

i had just finished curling and spraying my hair when they knocked on kate's door. i was the last to greet them and i just could hear carolyn say 'oh my god dean, look how pretty she is!' in a really think midwestern accent which coincidentally sounds like a cheese head...from wisconsin. they are a fantastic retired couple who will tell the same story while talking over each other the whole time, leaving you to struggle to know which one to listen to. only to find out that once you make eye contact with either one you are stuck in their non stop talking until either you have to go to the bathroom or fake an injury.

dean loved to talk about his 2 lexus....which i think you should pluralize to lexii. your thoughts? they also really loved to talk about how much money carolyn's daughter pearl has. which is fine, but i think i should get a cut of that money for being pearl's step niece...right? on thanksgiving day it was dean's 79th birthday! so we celebrated by making real mashed potatoes rather than potato pearls. and also by stuffing our faces full of turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, shirley's rolls and various pies, banana cream being my personal favorite as always. it was the good thanksgiving ever, even though i lost mario party yet again. stupid single siblings! then we sat around talking and for me playing angry birds on my mom's new kindle fire. yep i am just like a 12 year old...boy.

the day after thanksgiving was my mom's (toni) birthday. so i celebrated by working at 8am! no we really celebrated by heading to sundance to meet up with the garn's for an adult only dinner at the tree room. really fancy we are. well actually we aren't. turns out that after dinner char told me that she wished we would have sat differently at the table so that all the single kids would have been separated and not all at the same end of the table. whatever. dinner was delicious and we stuffed our faces with our individual desserts and a giant delicious chocolate birthday cake. we bought my mom a new ski jacket. she was stoked. then we went back to the cabin they were staying at (it belongs to olivia newton-john...omg!) and just hung out with the kids for a bit. it lost it's magic when i asked grace (10 year old niece) if she was excited for hawaii, seeing as they were leaving in 4 days. her reply was, and i'm not making this up...'yeah, but not really. i wish we were going to maui instead.' oh boo freaking hoo grace, you HAVE to go to oahu instead of maui. your life is so hard! that girl has been on an airplane more than i have and i am in my mid 20's! kids just say the darndest things!

so anyway...happy birthday dean and toni. i hope you both had the good birthday ever!

where have you been?

i know that is what so many of you are thinking right now. well let me tell you all...

i was in the western caribbean oct 30-nov 6.

i have been working non stop.

i was in farmington for thanksgiving.

i was at sundance the day after thanksgiving.

i went to carrabbas for the first time ever.

i have been in a state of bitter cold.

i have been so unproductive it feels like.

i have no cruise pictures yet because my new roomie has them all on her computer and i am patiently waiting for a cd of all 1,000 pictures.turns out that 3 girls can generate a whole crap load of pictures.

hold the phone...this is also new!

yep that is me. and yes those are extensions! i know what you are thinking, and yes i do look really pretty. it took me about a week to get over them and stop talking about them non stop. and then another week to get my attitude into check as well. turns out looking like a 'summer sales' guys girlfriend makes you want to be a major wench! like all the time. so i am sorry if i have offended anyone, but it was the hair.

at thanksgiving i asked my mom if we were going to go around the table and say what we were thankful for and she said sure. so i started and ended by say that i was thankful that i was so pretty...mind you this was still week 1 of the extensions so i was still self absorbed. after that my mom put a stop to the thankful party and we just finished eating. maybe next year we can revisit the whole meaning of thanksgiving.

so more about the cruise. it was fantastic and i didn't want to come home. when i get my cd of pictures i will post numerous amounts of visuals and stories to go along with.

the anti cold

last night i slept for 11 hours. i took some cold medicine, laid my head on the pillow at 11:06 and was out by 11:30. i woke up at 10:28 am. it was so spectacular that now i can't sleep. so here i am at 1:42 in the morning and blogging to the world wide web about nothing really. i feel like there has been a few things recently where i thought...hmmmm maybe i should blog about this. and right now i really for the life of me can not think of them at all.

i leave for my cruise this week. in about 4.5 days i will be on my way to orlando to board a ship to set sail for the western carribbean. do you understand what this means? this means that i will be soaking up the sun, drinking unlimited amounts of diet coke, +thanks to my drink card+ eating unlimited amounts of soft serve ice cream cones and not working. in fact i will be so far from working that i will probably forget how to even do hair when i get back. i'm sort of really excited about that. but in actuality i am so far from prepared to go on this trip. today when i was talking to a client i realized that i had no idea where my passport ended up after my move. i got home from work, checked the spots that i would have placed it and came up empty handed. i was so panicked so obviously i went tanning. tanning really clears my mind. then i went to the store bought more cold medicine and candy and had an epiphany. i came home, went straight to my vanity drawer, looked under my pile of wedding announcements and found my passport. and it was all thanks to tanning!

and just so you all know i am really loving my new living arrangements. i love that my roommate is a night owl like me. i love that i don't have to share a bathroom for the time being. i love that dishes are NEVER in the sink. i love that the fridge isn't so jam packed all the time. i love that my room seems bigger. i love that i can walk to my bathroom in my underwear if i want to. i love that everyday i realize how alike natalie and i are. i think this is going to be a wonderful thing.

and in the off chance that a certain someone that i wrote a certain rude text to tonight is reading this...i'm sorry i was such a b****h. i just thought i deserved to make a low blow like that. okay thanks!

why oh why

today while talking to my sister char on the phone she told me she was still getting ready for the day when i had given her an hour already to do so. her reply was...i have 4 kids aly! i told her that she was like the boy who cried wolf, but only she was the mom that cried too many...too soon. in about 5 months she will add two more to her brood and then what will she say then? i can't aly i have 6 kids? lame excuse if you ask me! people have been having 6 kids for thousands of years and they didn't even have iphones...i think you can handle it char.

in other news, my sister katie decided to cut my two year old niece millie's hair today. oh didn't i tell you all, my sister went to nursing school, not cosmetology school. so when she explained to me that one side was an inch shorter than the other and the back was longer than the sides, i asked her what she was thinking. she replied...i thought how hard could it be, i've watched aly do this before. well kate...it's 2000 hours worth of beauty school hard!!! i love when people down play my profession by saying how hard could it be. i had to endure the hell that is called beauty school in order to get my name written incorrectly (funny story there) on an official license for the state of utah to practice cosmetology! so i fixed the hooligans hair and reminded her that no one cuts her hair...especially her mommy.

oh yeah and in 8 days i will be headed on a cruise...i'm just saying.

well...

this is what i look like after moving 70+ pairs of shoes into my car.

i'm supposed to be packing to move in the morning, but instead i am blogging. i think i am kind of an idiot for moving without any boxes involved. moving tomorrow is sort of a last minute thing and i'm not prepared at all. my laundry basket is chuck full of dirty clothes, i haven't even thought about my kitchen stuff, i haven't even thought about my food and my bathroom supplies is a whole other story. i guess i do actually perform really well under pressure and tomorrow will be a huge test in that theory. i am leaving my humble abode for the past year and a half for a grand new adventure! i am moving in with this girl...

natalie is her name and she is pretty much amazing and i am so excited to be her roommate. we are going on a cruise at the end of this month to celebrate her birthday and i couldn't be more excited!

wish me luck on the moving process...heaven knows i will need it!

i live

so i will tell you why i haven't blogged for a while, but you have to promise not to laugh or make fun of me. deal.

i started watching mad men on netflix.

it has consumed my life to the point of even winging out my eyeliner and wearing lipstick. but not to the point where i am considering dating an older married man. as it turns out that is a big no no in the modern world. but i have developed a bipolar relationship with donald draper/dick whitman. in one episode i will love him and then in like 10 minutes i will hate him and want to hurt him in ways that would prevent him from having any more little drapers. the point is that i wish i was in my early twenties in the 60's. i like to think that i would have been one of the sobbing secretaries when marilyn monroe and jfk died. i'm just saying.

but to be totally honest i have been really busy in my not so exciting life. work has been excruciatingly slow and so i leave early a lot. i figure my manger will thank me for that later when she is only paying me for the hours that i am actually working at work. makes sense to me. the former roommate/bff jenn got hitched last thursday in logan. pictures to follow when i decide to not be lazy. i colored my hair after like 2 months. spent some quality time with each sister individually. yep, i'm family oriented now. my sister is having twins again. yes AGAIN! the garn clan will have a final tally of 8 members as of march/april 2012. (i can't remember when she is actually due...i'm the good aunt/sister ever.) i went to flaming gorge...did i mention that already. well i did go and it was glorious. it was sort of a secret i think, but now it's out in the blog world. good thing no one of immediate flaming gorge importance reads this blog. oh and i found pintrest. only i found it too late and now everyone and their dog is following me and i'm sort of over it. but it was fantastic and glorious while it lasted. maybe i will pick it up again in like a year and i will be cool again.

and my latest vice is wint-o-green lifesavers. i bought a little bag and i feel like it is mary poppins bag and it never ends! i love it. i think i ate one every 10 minutes at church on sunday. i had the freshest breath this side of state street.

bon iver just said the f word to me. jerk.

happy birthday twins!

my twin nieces turned 3 a little bit ago! they are so huge and talking machines! i just love them and will accept a chance to hang out with them over anything! it has been so fun to live to close to them and watch them grow. can't wait for them to get older and older!

sadie and aunt aly

beautiful janie

almost impossible to get us all in the picture

cheesy faces as per jane's request

LOVE her

happy birthday girlies

eating their birthday cookies with g.ma

auntie em pushing millie moo on the swings

all ready for presents

they love cousin zoe

sadie practicing her 'big eyes'

me and emme

mrs jenks shower

yeah it was pretty cute

the banner i made for jenn + josh

some of jenn's favorite treats

me, jenn and morgan

kari, jessie and melissa

camille, michelle and megan

marie, jenn and cat

cat and jen, jenny, natalie and talese

me and the future mrs. jenks

yeah this was funny.

and then it got hilarious!

how i ended my night waiting for jenn to make me macaroni and cheese. what will i do without my jenn?

out of my mind

yeah

so i may or may not have touched up my shellac gel polish with a regular fingernail polish that looks similar. yep that is how trashy i have actually become.

but to be honest...you can't even tell which ones i touched up. so jokes on you shellac!

no, what really makes me trashy this week was when i went to the beauty supply store to buy my eyelashes i picked up a new pair of neck trimmers as well, since my old pair {7 years old} now sound like a boeing 747 jet plane after being dropped an infinite amount of times. well the cheapest pair just happened to be zebra print. yep. and okay fine the beauty supply store was sally's but i really needed another month's supply of lashes! the point is that i text alex to let him know that the next time i cut his hair he won't actually go deaf from having a jet plane right next to his eardrum and his response was that the zebra print was more slutty than trashy. cool. thanks alex.

if you hold on just a moment i will upload pictures from jenn's shower! won't that be delightful!

5 hours 45 minutes

that would be my all time longest phone call ever

what started as a way to not walk home alone trying to avoid the hijackers

turned into almost six hours of laughing hysterically

with an old friend who turns out i've been a crappy friend to as of late

a friend who i think knows me better than most

someone who i can always pick back up right where we left off

a friend who i care for deeply

it was fun

it was sad

it was scary

it was intense

and i loved every minute of it

we are meeting for breakfast in about 2 hours

no sleep for a saturday full of work

priceless

please consider this my 'are you freaking kidding me?' face.

there was a car hijacking in my apartment complex on sunday morning! a freaking car hijacking!!! how ridiculous is that? and another one in pg about the same time. the people had a freaking gun held to their face and the one car.jacker dumped the car behind macey's and the other backed out half way through, fired two shots in the air and a car picked him up and they peaced out! it was on the news and everything, and it showed the very streets that i drive on daily. i'm freaked out now to drive anywhere. tonight my mom told me that if someone tries to hijack my car to just let them take the car. i don't know what i would do if i had a gun held to my face and i was forced to leave my car. i'm sure i would burst into tears and beg them not to kill me. i am a little dramatic like that i guess. but still having my car hijacked is never something that i have had to worry about until now. thanks ksl news for making me paranoid! this is why i would rather be uninformed!

my new obsession

LOVE this song. listen to the story people...we have all been there at one point or another!

okay

now i am ready to tell you why i had such a hellish week.

we had a special event at work this week. there is a lady named barbara barrington jones who does seminars for woman. they have classes on various topics ranging from how to take care of yourself mentally, physically and spiritually. she paid for these 153 women to get their hair cut and make up done at our salon, and if any of these women wanted color, they paid for it themselves. well that translated into over 100 colors in two days when we don't even do 100 colors in one week at work! we were all scheduled from 7:30 am until 6:00 pm coloring, cutting and styling hair for these women! the event took up our attention on tuesday and wednesday and we each did about 4 colors and 8 haircuts in one day! so after 2 days i did 8 colors, 6 haircuts and 2 blow dry styles. i was exhausted and my jaw hurt from smiling after the first day. it was a rough experience, but it was a good learning experience. i found out that i am pretty awesome at selling product, that i can actually double book and not want to kill myself and that i'm not really a nice person naturally and should probably work on that!

since the event was on tuesday that meant i had to forgo my usual day off to help these women. and since the event took over 2 days at the salon i was booked solid the next 3 days of the week! i didn't really have much of a break and i was exhausted! i woke up saturday morning almost convinced that it was sunday and almost went back to sleep! but after i finally did get to sleep in today until about 12:15 and was only productive for about 3 of the 12 hours i have been awake! hopefully this week will be better and i won't want to go crazy!

good news!

after two whole years of having these picture frames on my wall i finally put pictures in them! mrs. grewal you may notice the picture in the bottom frame is your christmas card pic from 2009. yes that picture of you and ashton sitting on a dock with sunnies and a wreath has made the cut and will remain there until further notice. to all others who have made the wall congratulations, but don't get too cocky! this is a prestigious wall and you have to earn your spot, so watch yourself!

in other news...tonight me and my sister went to a wedding dinner at the joseph smith memorial building in salt lake city. it was a delicious buffet and i was more than happy with the delicious tiramasu. after realizing that i had accidentally worn the wedding colors looking like a bridal party reject, and discussing whether or not the silverware we were using was in fact brigham young's personal flatware the bride and groom shared a slightly awkward first dance while we ate cake. then they vacated the vicinity to go to sleep. wink wink. anyway, the point of this retelling is this...after the dinner we both had to use the little girls room. thinking there was one down a long hall and my bladder threatening to get tired we asked a gentleman for directions to a restroom. this older gentleman glanced down at his watch and said...'well if you don't take longer than 5 minutes you can go into the second door on the left.' we promised that we wouldn't and ran frantically through the family history library to the potty. as i was in my private stall i got to thinking what this guy thought we would be using the bathroom for, for longer than 5 minutes? maybe he thought we were building a bomb. or that maybe we had stolen the wedding cake and were secretly eating it in the family history library bathroom cause that is the most secluded place there. or my personal favorite, and the only one that made me giggle whilst i peed... maybe he thought we were going to roll a joint and get high! granted it really isn't that funny, but it has been one h.e.l.l of a week and i am really tired. but more on that later.

onward and upward friends!

b.t.w.

these gems came in the mail yesterday

yep i am the best un.official bridesmaid ever! i was so excited for these to get here and they turned out just as i wanted them to!

this is how i addressed them. my mom bought these stamps for me about a year ago at a yard sale for like $2 and it was well worth it!

i'll be your un.official bridesmaid too!

just another thursday

things that i have discovered today

+ coldstone at the university mall smells like bum hole

+ we get a mall employee discount at coldstone

+ the spa at work makes me want to fall asleep

+ i look like death when i just wear my lashes

+ pintrest can be a bit addictive

+ i hate beauty school students who ignore me

+ i am the only person who doesn't get a day off next week at work due to a really lame event we are hosting...annoying!

+ i'm still in the club

+ baby gap has really cute little girl stuff

+ color wipes take off the residue of a stamp pad

good day

if you ask me

one more thing

i did go swimming finally this summer. i returned to farmington pool after about a 10 year absence. weird to think that i would spend like 8 hours there a day in the summer!

yeah i look sooo disgusting i know

halle sporting grandma's hat...sexy rexy halle!