30 days to 30: day 20

here's a picture of my family taken at my great aunt emily's 80th birthday party in san francisco. remind me not to wear turtle necks.

this was during my 2nd year at byu. i lived in heritage halls with two of my friends who were my neighbors during freshman year in u-hall, lyndsee simpson and melissa ririe. it was a 6 person apartment so we had 3 other roommates who were assigned randomly. we couldn't have asked for a better random than karina miller! we had so much fun living there, so many adventures and our friendships continue even today.

chauncy and creepy cat (long story, ask me later) 

lyndsee and me in a snow globe during the 2002 SLC olympics

somebody put dish soap in the dishwasher

l to r: isaac hart,melissa ririe bell, karina miller feurelein, natalie mathie on temple square in slc.

melissa was my room roommate. we had our ups and downs but one thing i love her for is encouraging me to read jane austen. i had a copy of pride and prejudice that i weasled my mom into buying me years before at barnes and noble. i had tried to read it several times but didn't get very far into it before giving up. well, during this year, because of mel's encouragement, i finally finished reading pride and prejudice.
so, in memory of that time i read some of my favorite passages. i absolutely love the part when elizabeth and her aunt and uncle go to pemberley and unexpectedly meet mr. darcy there. when the housekeeper is showing them around the house, it finally begins to dawn on elizabeth who mr. darcy really is when he is praised so highly by his servant:
"'I have never had a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old.'
This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite of her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was grateful to her uncle for saying --
"There are few people to whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master."
"Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generou-hearted boy in the world."Elizabeth almost staredc at her. "Can this be Mr. Darcy?" thought she. [...]
He is the best landlord, and the best master," said she, "that ever lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw anything of it."

i love how elizabeth is completely thrown off by all this. how she falls in love with pemberley and darcy himself when she finally sees him in his own element.

cheers to jane! her birthday is coming up too; december 16, 1775.