So I have a little less than 50 days to go until im on a flight to Tanzania....which I'll have you know apparently I have been mispronouncing it....I say Tan ZUH nia and apparentely it is Tan ZANE ia..haha glad someone told me that before I got there, I would have felt like quite the fool! Guess what we are doing at work this week? Having a safari for the kiddos! I am so excited! I even made little cardboard box safari jeeps for the children to drive around in! Its gonna be brilliant!

LION KING SWAHILI:
SIMBA- LION
NALA- GIFT
RAFIKI- FRIEND
PUMBA- DULL WITTED, ABSENT MINDED
*KOVU- SCAR
SIRABI- MIRAGE
*ZIRA- HATE
SHENZI- BARBAROUS, SAVAGE
HAKUNA MATATA- NO WORRIES

A couple of these are from* Lion King: Simba's Pride*, but still its pretty cool that disney can teach you a different language without you even realizing it!

Yesterday I went to Kehly's "birthday" party.... her birthday is actually in December but everyone with Winter birthdays know how crappy they can be so she decided to have a Summer birthday this year on July 14th! It was so much fun, we played some classic games like Thimble full of water and the name game, we went outside and roasted smores, where the fire department showed up because some of there lame neighbors snitched on us, and then the night ended with a fabulous dance party in her kitchen. Pretty sweet stuff!

Earlier this week I went to the Hogle Zoo, I absolutely love the Zoo, I love animals and they redid a few enclosures which made it even better, they have a polar bear and seals now! The polar bear was so freaking cute, it would swim up to the glass pop up, and then fall onto its back and swim away, then would repeat it over and over again! What made the Zoo even better was that McKaila came down to join us, she seriously makes everything a gazillion times more fun. She is so adorable and she is really quite an amazing kid, she listens and she is very entertaining with her dance moves and all her questions she asks.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing - Helen Keller

So...I have been working as much as I possibly can to save enough money for Africa, which it sucks to be working when all my friends are hanging out with out me but I just have to remember that it will be well worth it in the end! :) Everyone keeps asking me if I am scared and honestly I am terrified! What if I get there and its nothing like I imagined it would be my entire life, but also what if it is more than I've ever dreamed about?! Still the thought of leaving my family and friends for 3 months to go to a country thousands of miles away where I won't be able to text or call...kinda scary! I know Missionaries go out for 18 months or 2 years and 3 months seem like nothing in comparison but still this is my first time out of the country let alone the first time traveling without a family member. Brindy has always been with me on airplane rides and this one will be the first time without her and it is also exponentially longer than any flight I have been on before. Its going to take 28+ hours to get to Arusha from SLC, if all the flights are on time and there are no delays, kinda crazy! We have multiple stops which include Charlotte, NC then to Washington D.C., then from Washington we fly to Addis Ababa, for those who are not very good with geography that is in Ethiopia!!! Ethiopia?! What happens if we get there and I can't read any of the signs in the airport and I get lost and I can't speak Ethiopian?! I know that is a bit dramatic but you've got to be prepared for the worst! Then finally from Ethiopia we will fly into Kilimanjaro! The flight alone is gonna be an adventure!
I have so much to do before I leave, first off... I need shots....lots of them! :/ I've never been the one that is afraid of needles, and honestly I don't mind shots in the slightest, but having to get 10+ shots is definitely not my idea of a fun time, but its better to be safe than sorry and end up with a disease that may or may not kill you.
Sometimes I think to myself, "Briana, you idiot! What have you gotten yourself into?!" but then I think about what an amazing adventure and opportunity it will be to go after all, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing!" and I'd much rather have a life full of adventure than to stay home all my life and do nothing! So in 79 days I will go to Salt Lake International Airport, jump onto a plane and start the biggest adventure of my life! I CAN NOT WAIT! eek!

Arches

For Memorial Day weekend My friends and I went to Moab, it was quite a delight. We left here at about 11:00 in the PM and arrived there about 4:00 in the AM, it shouldn't have taken that long but I was the only one that knew how to get there and I wasn't paying attention so we missed the turn off at Spanish Fork so that took us about a half hour out of the way...and then of coarse we had to stop for snacks and all that good stuff! Anyway we pulled into Moab at 4 AM and had no where to sleep so we decided to drive up to Delicate Arch and hike it so we could see the sunrise, we first however decided to take like an hour nap underneath the stars for about an hour...on the asphalt...which I ended up sleeping there for 3 nights! (not a very good thing for your back) So after our beautiful sunrise hike up to Delicate we were standing by the car and this very tiny cute Asian lady slowly crept toward us with a camera in hand and takes a picture of me...Like I was a wild animal that was ready to pounce at anytime! haha it was such a funny thing.
The next day the wind was so incredibly crazy, we went to Sand Dune Arch and the sand would come whipping around and pelt you, it felt as if your skin was being rubbed raw! Sleeping was even worse we all slept outside on the pavement again in the parking stalls at Delicate Arch parking lot but it was much much colder than the first night had been so we all crammed ourselves into the car...5 of us trying to sprawl out in a little compact car...needless to say that it isn't the most comfortable way to sleep, ha and we again got our pictures taken by people because of coarse we looked absolutely ridiculous trying to sleep in a tiny car! Ha oh the memories are what makes it all worth it!

 Making some PB&J's for lunch!

Phil being a hero and rescuing Kerrianne from being stuck down a cliff!

Out of Africa

So yesterday I bought my plane tickets for Kilimanjaro, Tanzania! I leave August 30th at 11:59 PM and will be gone for an entire 3 months! I have to say that I have a mixture of emotions right now...excitement, nervousness, happiness, scared, and a little sad as well. Going to Africa has always been a dream of mine, I have wanted to go there as long as I can remember and now I finally am going! This is sure to be one grand adventure! I have decided to blog about my adventure across the world and all the exciting events leading up to my travels, so that i'll be able to look back at this blog and remember all the crazy exciting things that have made my life so incredibly great and so worthwhile.

We'll be flying into Kilimanjaro Airport and then we'll be going to Arusha where we will be placed in a home and stay there whilst we volunteer at an orphanage for 10 weeks and then we will be going on a Safari and going to the very gorgeous island of Zanzibar! 

Stone Town, Zanzibar

The Serengheti

Anyone up for a little Holiday Shopping?!?

So Shaylyn a few days before Thanksgiving texts me and says...Hey lets go shopping on Black Friday, and I was like um....are you crazy?! Haha anyway I saw an ad for $1.50 from Walmart and DVDs are kind of a weakness of mine so i decided that we could go...so 8' o clock thanksgiving night we get to walmart and stalk out all the goodies we want to get and slowly more and more people come and they start crowding in, even though I was one of the first peeps in front of the movies i got shoved to the back somehow...well I know how, its because i am really not a very aggressive person and just let people walk all over me...which mixed with black friday doesn't make for much success! Shaylyn and I had a game plan, she was gonna start with all the television series and I was gonna start with all the majorly cheap dvds and we were gonna work are way towards eachother in the midde...needless to say the plan although brilliant in theory, it didn't work when the clock struck 10 and it turned into complete and utter chaos! Brindy joined us right before the madness began and she freaked out once everyone went bat crap crazy, I was in the very middle of the mess getting thrown to and fro and Brindy was in the back of the crowd yelling for me to get out of there and telling me to take my scarf off, because she was afraid i was going to be strangled by CRAZED shoppers! hahaha it was the most fun I have EVER had shopping! Next black friday i might be a little more aggressive because now i feel like quite the pro! BRING IT ON BLACK FRIDAY 2012! haha but even though it was a mad house i think we all came out pretty good... i ended up with 22 new dvds! hahaha not bad, not bad at all! hahaha

i went SKYDIVING, rocky mountain climbing

So over the 24th of July my friends and I decided to jump out of a plane just for the fun of it, and let me tell you it was FUN! I would totally do it again! We went up to Ogden and they put us in our jumpsuits, put us on a little plane, strapped us to our instructer and then threw us out of a plane at 30,000 feet! Pretty exhilarating stuff if i do say so myself! While we were on the plane my instructer decided to make me the test dummy for the rest of the group and show exactly what was going to happen, so amongst my already panicking state he tossed me around the plane like a rag doll and what did i do? I just laughed uncontrollably! So you are suppose to walk to the edge of the door so only your heels are in the plane, put your goggles on, lean back as far as you can and then hurl yourself out of the plane! I did so good on all....except for one, i forgot to put my dang goggles on, so all the while i was hurling down towards the ground, i could barely see anything because the wind was rushing into my eyeballs! No worries though, i got them on eventually...after we had pulled the shute and i DIDN'T need them anymore! hahaha oh well what are you gonna do?! Anyway if you have ever thought about skydiving, I say DO IT! It was definitely the most adrenaline pumping thing I have ever done!

TORTIE TORTIE TORTIE!

This is what Sheldon will someday look like! Right now he is the size of the tiny one on the back of the medium sized one! hahaha I am so excited that he is going to be ginormous one day!


SO I guess I should tell you who Sheldon is...well he is MY VERY OWN pet TORTOISE! Let me tell you he is my favorite thing ever! I love him soooo much! He is just precious! He has the cutest lil legs you will ever see! I have a story to go with him... so my mom is not really a big fan of pets, period! She just is anti-pet for some reason, don't ask me why, i just think she is freaking crazy sometimes but oh well... anywho, my friends and I just stopped at a pet store randomly and I saw SHELDON! I have been wanting a tortoise for about 7 years now...ever since I had a vet tech class and my teacher had one that stayed in her garage! I always thought that was the coolest thing ever! So on a crazy whim i decided to get him, just one problem though...my mom would never allow me to have him, i mean she wouldn't even let me get a gold fish, so what did I do? I snuck him in! ;) Everything was going awesome I had him an entire month before my mom decided to put something away in my room and she found him! And that is when the crap hit the fan! She told me to move out! Over a teeny tiny tortoise that she didn't even know i had for an entire month! CRAZINESS i tell you! Anyway I had my pops and my sisters on my side so eventually things calmed down and I get to stay and so does SHELDON! YAY!

I named him Sheldon, not only because he has a shell but also because my favorite show is Big Bang Theory and Sheldon looks like Sheldon! I am absolutely in love with him! Which is a good thing because he will be around for a VERY long time! Im gonna have to put him in my will to my Children or grandchildren...if i ever have any...haha but he cost 100 smackaroos but i think that is a pretty sweet deal because it averages out to be 1 dollar a year of his life...not to shabby! I think he is the cutest thing ever and i am so excited that in a few years when he is bigger i will be able to put him on a leash and take him on walks around the hood! It is going to be fabulous, but right now i will just carry him around in my hoodie pocket!
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=sulcata+tortoise&hl=en&sa=X&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ACAW_enUS352US352&biw=1069&bih=465&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=whRvta11SpJLRM:&imgrefurl=http://premiumtortoises.com/sulcata.aspx&docid=cbASL0gJFO0-eM&imgurl=http://premiumtortoises.com/images/tortoises%252520072.jpg&w=640&h=480&ei=RfbWTqikJaqPigKJnNH4CQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=156&sig=113865999057919451830&page=1&tbnh=108&tbnw=143&start=0&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&tx=52&ty=57