day fifteen

a picture of something you want to do before you die.

this is the st. paul temple and i think that it is beautiful. it's also tiny. also, i'm getting married here.

day fourteen

a picture of someone you could not imagine your life without.

my mom and i do everything together and i love it. she even went toiletpapering with me and my friends she was the 'chaperone' yeah.

day thirteen

a picture of your favorite band or artist.

they'n freaking tuxes. so sexy. did i mention they're in tuxes? or that i think they're sexy. oh.

day twelve

a picture of something you love.

i'm obsessed. i love my glitters. actually, i love toms in general. i own three pairs and i wish i had more. i'm a little bit worried that they won't get me through the winter though...fingers crossed.

day eleven

a picture of something you hate.


sick. i hate canned tuna. the smell makes me so sick i can't stand it.

day ten

a picture of the person you do the most messes up things with.

yeah...

day nine

a picture of you and the person who has gotten you through the most.
conveniently it's her 17th birthday today.










julia larsen and i have been best friends for about three years now and it's hard to believe i've only known her that long. she has been there for me through everything and i don't think i would have made it through my first year here without her. i love her so much and am so glad that i have her in my life. i can't wait until we're both up at BYU partying it up. two more years girlie. basically, she's turning 17 today and while she's off partying it up at homecoming i'll be working or something. yeah.
happy birthday jules, i love your guts.

day seven

a picture of your most treasured item.

i love this book so much, i love the fact that i get to end every single day with fantastic words of wisdom.

day six

a picture of the person you'd like to trade places with for a day.

i don't really need to explain why i'd love to trade places with miss taylor. she's fantastic and we kind of look alike. but only a little.

day five

a picture of you and your favorite memory.
i love this picture so much. mostly, because it perfectly captures my reunion with my best friend. it was the first time that i had seen her since we left and i'm glad that our 'passionate best friend hug' was captured on camera...thanks james. this is definitely one of my favorite memories because of the whole  we're-1300-miles-away-and-now-we're-together thing and because it was the night of prom and i got to see my best friend in her beautiful dress. yeah.

day four

a picture of your favorite night.

the last night of EFY 2011 still tops all of the nights i had this summer, and that's saying a lot. it was just so magical, everything was so perfect and then BAM pouring rain. being escorted back to the dorms in the rain with my boys was the most fantastic end to a fantastic week and i still think about it all the time. hugging attractive men in the rain? yes please.

day three

a picture of your favorite tv cast.                                                                        

i LOVE glee. and it starts back up tomorrow. SO EXCITING. but i'm also hopelessley addicted to this:

and this:

and this:

and this:

you get the point. this is what i do when i'm not sleeping or working or doing homework or going to school or going to seminary or having a social life or making friends. basically, i don't have a life...oh well.

day two

a picture of you and the person you've been closest to for the longest.

        sarah and christina, april 2011
this is Christina. basically, she's the coolest person i know. Annnnddd. even better? she's my flesh and blood. i feel like i've been close to stina since we were little and she's always been there for me. not only is she absoloutely GORGEOUS, but she's such an example to me. we had so much fun this summer. driving pantsless? you would be jealous. i love her so stinkin much and wish that we still lived close. when we do get together though it's always a crazy party. now i'm just hoping that her family comes to visit us. i can't go too long without spending long ammounts of time with the coolest person ever. did i mention she's awesome? well, she is.

day one

a picture of yourself and fifteen facts.

i think that this picture is funny. that is all.
1. i make a better cupcake than you do.
2. i'm a junior
3. i injured myself by falling up then down the stairs.
4. i work at target.
5. i'm struggling with the whole 'don't date your co workers' rule
6. i'm the oldest of six kids.
7. i drive a stick shift.
8. i LOVE long distance phone calls.
9. julia larsen is my best friend.
10. i think i eat my weight in ice cream every week. not really but kind of.
11. if you're going to laugh about it later you may as well laugh about it now.
12. i love being sixteen.
13. the mormons here are LAME and don't ask people on dates.
14. i already know who i'm going to marry but shhhh.
15.early morning seminary is going to be the death of me.

30 day picture challenge.

yeah. i'm bored. let's give this a go.

jemi.

well. here you have it.

it's okay, i freaked out over how sketchy this picture was too. at least they're not eating eachother or something...

bleedin' red

i just finished the first week of my junior year at a brand new highschool. guess what? i loved it. the first day was ridiculously hard and resulted in about a bajillion and six tears and begging to be sent back on a jetplane to utah. that didn't happen obviously but i'm glad i stayed. i eat lunch with a pretty awesome group of people and i have two classes with my cousin. now onto more exciting things...like attractive men.

this is a creeper picture that was taken of me in my target uniform. you see, that there is the problem. i was wearing my target uniform. so there is this guy that i work with and i sort of like him a lot. he goes to my school and is 6'3. we usually work the same shifts because of the whole minor rule and everything. DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS SITUATION? i sure don't. minus the whole uniform thing. but he's wearing one too so what the heck. we seriously have been having way too much fun at work. last night things were super slow so we folded bags to kill time. let me tell you, i never thought that folding plastic could be so much fun. boy was i wrong. anyways, long story short, i really like this kid and i've been having a really great time working with him and getting to know him. it's like i'm getting paid to work with attractive people. seriously.
did i mention that i love my job? well i do.
last night my GTL kelly comes up to me and says "you know now that i know who your parents are, your mom came in last christmas and asked if she could lay up on the conveyer belt. did you know about that?"

yes kelly, i did know about it. it's still her cell phone background. i find it funny that both of these pictures were taken at the same register about a year apart. also, i think it's just a little bit of a miracle that i still have my job after people realized we're related when my mom showed up yesterday. also, my mom is awesome.
that is all.
forever and always,
sarah leslie

once upon a summertime.

last summer i did a week by week of everything that went down. then i began the most dificult year i've ever had. i don't think i was really happy until march of this year and even then, i still felt new, still felt alone. going back to Utah for the first time in april was so good for me, and i found it harder to go back than i thought it would be. after that, finishing school was easy, and before i knew it, it was june 9th and i was saying hello to summer. two days after school got out i was heading to EFY and i'm so glad i went. there are so many things that have happened that i love about this summer, but out of all of them, my week at EFY here tops them all. i had the best company ever, complete with the best group of girls and the most attractive group of guys. not only that, but my friend james ended up in my company and i had so much fun getting to know him as my friend in his home teritory. it was a huge week of spiritual growth for me, and even three months later i still think about it all the time. the best feelings come from that week and i wish that i could go back there with the exact same people all the time. out of all the pictures that were taken from this week, this one remains my favorite.

two days after EFY i was off to girls camp. even though it was hard to go from a week of spiritual amazingness with attractive men to a week as a leader over twenty emotional twelve year olds i survived the meltdowns, and learned some leadership skills from it that i'll use forever. plus i got to be a YCL with Bryn and Briana. so. much. fun.

two days after girls camp i caught a flight out to utah to get to go and play with my friends for a month. it was a break from reality  for sure, and i can't believe everything that happened while i was there. it was a perfect month for sure, i don't think i had one sad day. some of my favorite moments include my double date with bryn, james, and payden, playing cookin' mama at four in the morning with Julia, my two weeks of crazy sleepless fun with julia which included a tea party, temple trip, multiple shopping trips, and lots of laughs. on top of that, i got to go to  bear lake with christina and her family, a second week of efy, and a lot of little adventures in between. other great moments from that month include dancing in the rain, and laughing until i cried.

of course, before i knew it i was flying home and it was back to reality. oh reality. i applied for a job on the day that i got home and then set up my bedroom and read a few books. then i got my job at target and the rest of the summer has passed by so quickly. now it's time to go to school, get good grades, continue working, save for college, and have a little bit of fun in between. not gonna lie, i'm ridiculously nervous for school and i'm not sure how i'm going to handle being the new kid again but i know that i'm where i'm supposed to be. it's going to be hard, but if there's one thing that i've learned in the past year it's that if i rely on the lord then i'll be just fine. plus, i have the greatest group of friends to support me along the way, including my church friends, my extended family, and of course the lovely julia larsen. this is going to be a crazy year, but i think i'm finally ready for it. and i'll leave you with a few cheesy words from my camp rock friends. gone are the days of summer, we couldn't change them if we tried.

g o o d b y e s u m m e r. i'll miss you until next year.
forever and always,
sarah leslie

holy crap.

the only two words that entered my mind when i finished stuffing the remainder of my school supplies into my backpack. i start school on tuesday, that means one day of summer left.

on the bright side, with back to school comes back to school shopping. i picked up a couple fantastic pieces from H&M, American Eagle, and Forever 21 and am eager to get to wearing them.

                       like, this blazer

  and this fantastic giraffe top. my best friend julia larsen totally bought this a week ago and blogged about it. it was so great i went out and bought one for myself. this whole 1,300 miles away thing does have one small benefit. not that we didn't buy the same things when i still lived there.

this knit floral top defnintely is my favorite purchase of all my back to school fashion. love. seriously.
now i'm off to enjoy my last day of summer. i'll do my end of summer blog post tomorrow night. in the mean time i'm busy holding on to every last minute of summer.

forever and always,
sarah leslie

banana cream cheese pie.

yeah, i about died when i saw those four words together too. easiest recipe i've ever made. mostly, because there isn't a lot of making involved. nonetheless, it is still pure deliciousness and i ate half the pie myself. terrible, i know.

banana cream cheese pie.

holy delish. this picture does the pie no justice.

1 box banana cream pudding mix
1 eight inch grahm cracker pie shell
3 C. heavy whipping cream
3/4 C. skim milk
1 eight ounce package cream cheese.
1 banana that's slightly too ripe.
3 Tbsp. powdered sugar

mix pudding according to the directions for pie filling on the side of the box using 1C. heavy cream and 3/4C. skim milk. allow to set up on the counter for a few minutes.
make sure cream cheese is COMPLETELY softened. by this i mean make sure you can stir it with a fork until it looks like greek yogurt or something along those lines. then fold gently into pudding until it is completely mixed together.
take pie shell and spread a thin layer of the pudding mixture on the bottom, then layer with thinly sliced bananas, more pudding, bananas, and then a final layer of the pudding mixture. put in fridge for ten minutes while making the whipped cream.
add remaining heavy cream and the 3Tbsp. powdered sugar to a mixing bowl and beat on high until it forms soft peaks. top pie with whipped cream and garnish with grahm cracker crumbs if desired. allwo to chill for four hours before serving.

target.

holy cow. my job is self entertainment at its best. no joke.

•  two girls who look to be about my age walk up to my register holding hands, one of them is shaking the other is quiet. the shaking girl buys mountain dew, gum, and a pregnancy test. then the quiet girl leans over and whispers to her "you better hope it's so and so, he would be the best dad out of all of them" um...awkward much?

• i totally accidentally made an old lady cry when i told her that she couldn't use her coupon. it was buy one get one free and she thought that it was buy one get it free. read the labels lady.

• this super cute looking blonde lady comes up to my register and buys stationary. i, being the kind person that i am, ask her how she is. she proceeds to tell me that she hates her husband and is in the middle of a divorce but that she's not divorcing him until he agrees to keep the cat.

• the druggie who tried to pay for thirty dollars worth of stuff with a ten dollar bill. he was totally high.

• the lady who spent five minutes trying to get me to join her church. no, i'm not Buddhist, yes, i know i can be despite my ethnicity.

• the man who read me the calorie contents of a microwave meal "it's the BEST FOOD EVER. and it only has five grams of fat"

• the woman with a screaming child. honestly, if my children act like that, i'm disowning them.

okay, this totally isn't everything but i just worked an eight hour shift and yours truly gets to wake up and go back to work in seven short hours. hooray. don't get me wrong, i love my job! but school starts in six days and i feel like it's going by way too fast!! it's the freaking last day of august for crying out loud. i'm so not ready for school to start, i can't emotionally handle the stress of going to another new school. i have to though, so i'm going to try and make the best of it. we'll see how this goes. goodnight and goodbye.
forever and always,
sarah leslie

music monday.

one song every week? seems like a good idea to me. plus, i know how interested you all are in my totes teenager music. we'll see how this goes.

week one: you and i ~ ingrid michaelson

though this song comes off an older album of her's, i've recently become re-obsessed with the entire thing. it's such a happy go lucky album. plus, for some reason when i listen to this song, all i can think about is dancing around while being serenaded on the ukelele by an attractive man who is wearing a ridiculously awesome sweater. it's a pretty easy image on the mind, am i right?

death by chocolate cake.

seven and a half sticks of butter.
eight cups of sugar
one cup corn syrup
three and a half cups heavy cream
sixty two ounces of chocolate
eighteen eggs

obviously that's not all of the ingredients, but that's kind of the part that makes you feel um...guilty. that's why they call them guilty pleasures, right? right. anyways, i was asked to make the cake for the seminary kickoff and it had to feed fifty people. this is what i came up with.

 double chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. i'm starting to feel pretty good about my decorating skills but am thoroughly convinced there is room for improvement. seriously. although i can tell you one thing, my recent love for the baking world is making me question whether or not i should focus on basic culinary or only on pastry. so many options, so little time to make decisions that concern those options. we'll see what the next year holds i guess.

forever and always,
sarah leslie

wedding.

this song + these pictures = hopless

a girl can dream, right?