tim mcgraw

last friday my mom and i went to the tim mcgraw concert in salt lake. my brother jake loves tim mcgraw and asked my dad to buy him and i tickets to go. since my dad is so awesome he bought jake and i tickets. the probably though was that we thought the concert was june 30 and it was actually july 30. jake was at asu for the summer so he couldn't go with me. so my mom got to come! she is not a tim mcgraw fan so i know it wasn't super fun for her but i had a blast! she told me she was going to sit for the whole show, but then to my shock and amazement she stood for the first two or three songs. when she stood up she told me she wanted the record to show that she stood during the concert. then once a slower song played she sat down, where she stayed for the test of the show. this wouldn't normally be a big deal but the concert was at the usana amphitheater and it is general admission grass seating. so if you sit you really cannot see anything. but that's ok mom. i had fun and i am glad i got to see him!

mom and i before the show

locks of love

i cut off my hair!! i cut my hair to about my chin two years ago and then last summer i wanted to cut it short again because it was just getting too hot during the summer. i decided not to cut it and instead grow it out for locks of love. to donate your hair you need 10 inches and i cut off about 10.5. i love having the short hair and i love that i was able to donate my hair to such a great cause. if you don't know much about the organization click here to learn more about it. my cousin anne and i donated our hair together for moral support. and we made our poor hairdresser take all these pictures of us to document it.

anne and i before

our long lush locks

right after the ponytails were chopped off

after cutting and styling

anne and i with our ponytails

grandma's 88th birthday

july 5 marked my grandma's 88th birthday so we had to celebrate with a party. every summer around july 5 the rudd family gathers at my grandparents home in salt lake to have a bbq. it is always so fun because it is the only time during the year that i get to see most of my cousins. also, my family is normally in town which means all eight of my grandparents children can attend a gathering together. this birthday party was just like any other with one huge exception... our prophet, president thomas s monson, attended the party! seriously!!! i got to meet the prophet and it was so cool.

the western clan got to the party a little more than an hour after it started so the road was full of cars. my mom was going to drop sarah, matt, and i off at the driveway with the food we brought while she went to find a parking spot. while we were getting out of the car my cousin came up to the car and told us to just leave everything, park, and come up because president monson was there. we had all the stuff in our hands already so we started walking up to the house. there was a huge crowd of people in the driveway and sure enough president monson was in the middle of the crowd. people just started taking everything out of our hands and pushing us forward so we could meet him. as i stated above we were late so everyone had already had a chance to meet him. he was getting ready to go and everyone wanted to make sure we got to meet him. my grandpa pushed me up to him and introduced me to him. i got to shake his hand. while we were shaking hands my grandpa told him my family was from indonesia and president monson told me that he loved indonesia. it was so cool! right after that he left, but not before singing to us! as he was about to get in his car he sang "so long, farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye " from the sound of music! he only sang those lines before getting in the car but it was so fun. his wife was in the car and i did not have a chance to meet her. i think he thought we were crazy and his bodyguard/driver thought we were crazy, but it was so cool!

then as we were eating dinner president monson's daughter, ann dibb, walked up the driveway! for those who don't know she is the second counselor in the general young women's presidency. she had a birthday card to give to my grandma. it was such a cool evening. for those who don't know my grandpa is a very good friend of president monson's, and that is why our family got this neat opportunity.

aside from this very cool opportunity the party was a success! it was so fun to see the family and get to talk to so many of my cousins... i love you guys!

here are some pictures from the evening. and... i know some people took pictures of my family with president monson but i don't know who you are. if any cousins are reading this and you know any members of your family have some pictures of us please please e-mail them to my mom or i!!!

carrie underwood

i love country music and especially love carrie underwood so when i found out she was coming to stadium of fire this year i had to go! the whole western clan was in provo so we were all able to go. we started the evening at our favorite restaurant.... sizzler. really, it is my dad's favorite restaurant and that is the only place he will take us. every time he comes into town we go there. no questions asked. it is good but just really funny that we always have to go there.

after dinner we went to stadium of fire and it was so fun! carrie underwood came out and sang the star spangled banner at the beginning of the show and that was really fun because we weren't expecting to see her until the end of the show. when she came out later she sang about ten songs and they were all so great! she was so cute on stage and she sounded amazing live. my favorite songs were cowboy casanova, undo it, and her version of summer of '69. the night ended with some awesome fireworks. it was so fun!

jake and i before it started

mommy and i

dad, matt, and sarah

the wonderful and talented carrie underwood!

carrie underwood singing "undo it"
(sorry it gets a little blurry and the camera moves during the middle)

eclipse

i love love love twilight. shocking, i know. eclipse opened last night and i was so excited and had been waiting for this day for a long time. about a month ago hayley and i bought tickets for the midnight premier. we are a little snobby about what movie theaters we attend and we will only go to the university mall cinemark. it is very nice. we were there about a month ago to see another movie and i asked them if we could buy tickets for the midnight premier of eclipse. the worker (a teenage boy) looked at me and said they were all sold out. but he could get us into the 12:05 am showing. i looked at him and said uh yes, that is ok (you idiot - that is what i was asking for). we literally bought the last tickets for all fourteen showings they had starting at 12:01 am. he told us to hold onto our tickets because they were like gold. but we knew this.

the day finally came and we were so excited! hayley went to the theater around 6 pm to get in line. i had to work and then run home and do a few things so i didn't join her in line until around 7:45. when i got up to hayley there were only about ten people in front of her. awesome! we were going to have amazing seats. as we were sitting and waiting there were people walking by selling one ticket here and there for the nordstrom vip showing at 9 pm. we didn't want just one seat and didn't want to pay for those tickets so we said no. but then fate stepped in. at 8:45 this guy walked up and down the line saying he had two tickets for the 9 showing and wanted someone to make him an offer. hayley said we would pay free-ninty nine. he stopped to talk to us and asked if we wanted them. i said yes but we didn't want to pay for them. after a minute of talking he said he probably wouldn't sell them so he would just give them to us. seriously?! how awesome! but since it was so close to the start time we were worried we wouldn't get two seats together or we would have to sit on the front row. i went into the theater to scope it out and found two seats on the side of the third to front row. not ideal but it would mean going to bed at midnight instead of 3 am. much better. so hayley got out of line, put our stuff in her car, and joined me in the theater. after she got there i went out and sold back our 12:05 tickets. so we got to see eclipse for free!!

i loved the movie. the acting was better. the script was better. things weren't as awkward. and did you see taylor lautner?! hello!!! my favorite part was when jacob looked at edward and said "i am hotter than you." the crowd went crazy cheering and clapping and i joined in. i loved it. it was so fun and i can't wait to see it again.... in a day or two.

backstreet boys

those who know me well know that when i was a teenage i was what my parents referred to as the biggest "teeny bopper." i was beyond obsessed with hanson, the backstreet boys, and nsync. i use to buy those teen beat magazines that had pictures and posters of the bands and i used those to cover my bedroom walls with their beautiful faces. hanson was my favorite and i think i had a whole wall devoted to them. a regret i have from when i left home was that i let me mom get rid of all of their cd's. i was going away to college and it wasn't cool to listen to that stuff. oh how i wish i had kept those because i want them back now! last year when i was in new york i bought the backstreet boys greatest hits album at the virgin megastore. it was about to shut down and i probably bought the cd for less than $5. i went to new york over a year ago and that is the only cd i have had in my car since then and i listen to it all the time. i love them. so when i found out they were going to be in salt lake i absolutely had to go. i asked some of my friends and none of them could go or wanted to go. i was sad but still determined. i decided to ask some of my coworkers if they would go with me and they said yes! so four of us from work bought tickets and prepared to go to the greatest concert ever.

i loved the show. really really loved it. there were only two things i didn't love. first, it was supposed to start at 7:30 and the opener didn't come out until 8! it was their dj and he just played music for about thirty minutes. it would have been ok for five or ten minutes but it just kept going on. when he was done we were expecting him to send out the backstreet boys but he said they wouldn't be out for another thirty minutes. so they didn't come onstage until 9. this was annoying. the other disappointment of the evening was they i didn't know any of their new music and that is about half of what they sang. if i had known their new stuff it would have been more fun. regardless of those two things it was a blast. i loved singing along and dancing. they told us that they have been together for seventeen years and it is showing. their dance moves aren't as sharp and they weren't always together. their voices aren't as good as they use to be, but i didn't care. i had the time of my life. i still am a teeny bopper at heart. hanson will be in salt lake in septemeber and i have to go to it. now nsync just needs to go back together and go on a reunion tour and my life will be set. here are some pictures and videos from the night.

the graduates

this post is a little late but... my baby sister graduated from college and my baby brother graduated from high school! i am so proud of them. sarah graduated from byu in april with a bachelors degree in marriage, family, and human development. she is off to either boston or tempe in the fall for some more school. even though we didn't get to see each other very often it was nice to have her just down the street and it will be sad to have her far away from me again! my mom was able to come to provo for the graduation but she was only able to stay in utah for about 70 hours. there was a little medical emergency back home so she had to go meet my dad and matt at the hospital in singapore. it was sad she wasn't able to stay for her whole trip, but it was nice to see her anyway! here is a picture of the western girls after graduation.


jake graduated from the jakarta international school at the end of may and i was lucky enough to get two weeks off of work to go visit him. he is off to asu in tempe in the fall and he is so excited to be moving back to america after 11 years overseas. sarah and i went to jakarta for the graduation and relaxing time with mom. we saw three movies (robin hood, shrek, and prince of persia), went out to eat a lot, got manicures and pedicures, and hung out in the pool. it was so nice to get away for a few weeks and see the family! here is a picture of the entire western family and then a picture of jake and i.

the big 24

wow... i am 24! time just seems to be flying on by. it is so crazy! well, the birthday festivities started out on saturday night when my favorite (and only) sister took me to macaroni grill. it was so yummy. sadly i had to go to school on my birthday and give a presentation, but luckily it was pretty easy. i took the day off of work so i was free after noon. of course it decided to snow like crazy so i couldn't go do as much as i would have liked to but i bought myself a new dvd player and did some shopping. then i went to cafe rio for a salad... yummy! i just hung around the house all afternoon and got the new dvd player set up. i received "andrea themed" birthday text messages throughout the day from hayley and they were so great. crazy how well hayley knows me. there were twilight pictures, a big red ford truck, a disney princess, brad paisley, dwight from the office, wicked, and chocolate texts. it was so wonderful! hayley instructed me to be free after 5:30 and she showed up with 24 beautiful roses. they were red, pink, orange, and yellow and they looked just like the flowers at the cullen's house for bella's birthday in new moon. (yes, we are obsessed). she also brought me an edward poster to try to persuade me back to team edward, and some twilight chocolate. we love us some twilight! hayley took me to my favorite restaurant, p.f. chang's, and jordan met us there. the three of us had dinner and it was so incredible! danielle (my b.f.f. in new york) called me as we were leaving and oh how i wish she could have been here for the fun! i went home and ended the night watching my current favorite movie "the proposal." it was such a fun and great day! then the next day i got a birthday cake at work and this weekend i am going out to lunch with my aunt and cousin. i am going to drag out these birthday festivities as much as possible!

new moon

if you know me you know that i am obsessed with twilight. and i think that obsessed is a bit of an understatement. knowing this, if you would like to read something very funny see my posting on december 14, 2008 when i did not like twilight. here is the story... i was anti-twilight. i was not going to read the books, see the movies, and i thought it was so dumb that everyone was in love with a vampire. i reluctantly saw twilight with my friends in december and did not enjoy it. i thought terrible script, terrible acting, and weird story. my friends hayley and danielle convinced me to see it again because they were sure i would like it the second time. so i went again in january. i did not like it. when it got to the dollar theater (around march) i went to see it one more time with hayley and she told me to just laugh it and not take it so seriously. i took her advice and laughed so much and fell in love with edward. i borrowed the books from hayley and danielle and read through all four very quickly. i was totally in love with edward. i freaked out when the first new moon trailer came out and followed everything twilight. i even bought a hard cover set of the books and read them again this fall. hayley and i made countdown chains to the opening of the movie and they had how many days til the movie and a quote from the book. obsessed, right? well, the day that i had been waiting for finally came! hayley and i went to the 12:14 showing of new moon and i loved it! we got in line around 8 and sat outside in the freezing cold with about 2500 other fans. we had tons of blankets and hand warmers and tried to stay warm while waiting for the moment. i don't want to give anything away but i really liked the movie. i also changed from team edward to jacob. well, i think i am team edward for the books and team jacob for the movies. jacob is hot! this is hayley and i waiting for the show. i cannot wait for june 30 and the release of eclipse.....

"engagement" pictures

i was given specific instructions that i was not allowed to publish these pictures on facebook and i promised i would not so here they are on my blog! no, i am not engaged. and no, this guy and i are not dating. we will also never be dating (so don't suggest that we do). but, last winter we both bought these shirts (from different stores) and they are almost exactly the same green waffle shirts. this is the first time we have ever worn them on the same day and i just so happened to have my camera with me and couldn't help myself - we needed "engagement" pictures. here are my favorites! the second picture should give you and idea how he felt about the experience.

green jello

calling all office fans... october 16 is national boss's day, but my boss has the day off so we celebrated with him today. he loves, and i really mean loves, the office, so we decided to play a little prank on him today. yesterday i took his stapler home with me, i put it in green jello, and then brought it to work with me and put it on his desk while he was eating lunch. when he saw it he just couldn't stop laughing, and he of course had to walk around with it to show everyone. it was the greatest thing ever and i am so doing it again! here i am with my beautiful creation.

aida

last weekend i went to st. george with my friend hayley to see "aida" at the tuacahn. i just have to say that this was probably my third favorite performance i have ever seen in my life. the first would have to be sitting in the front row center for "wicked" in new york, and the second is seeing "the lion king" in new york. this production of "adia" rivaled any broadway quality show i have seen. it was so well done and the story was so moving. hayley and i loved this show and i cannot wait to go back to the tuacahn to see another show. they are doing "tarzan" next summer and i will definitely be there.

while in st. george we also had to make a very important stop.... at in-n-out. wow. amazing. i love in-n-out. it was only my second time going, but i am a huge fan. there will be one opening in orem next month and i have to say that i think i will be a regular there. now, i am not a huge fan of the fries, but the burgers are by far the most amazing burgers i have ever had in my life. yummy. hayley and i had a fun little weekend getaway and i am definitely ready for another one. road trips are so fun and we had a great time listening to 90s music (specifically nsync, backstreet boys, spice girls, and savage garden), playing mash, and other fun games i haven't played since i was in eight grade. it was close to 100 degrees while we are there and i am definitely sad to be back in cold provo.

zucchini bread

at work we have this customer who is just the cutest old man. during the summer he likes to bring us produce from his garden. he normally brings in cucumbers and tomatoes but he called in one day and asked if anyone wanted a zucchini. i have never made zucchini bread but thought i would give it a go so i asked for him to bring me one. this is what he brought me........

notice it is about two feet long. this is not what zucchini's are supposed to look like! i just couldn't stop laughing about how big it was, but thought i would still give it a try. i asked my mom for a recipe and she gave me two and i meshed them into my own. i went over to my friend hayley's to use her food processor to grate up the zucchini. note: i really want a food processor so if anyone wants to donate to the "andrea wants a food processor fund" be my guest. so this massive zucchini grated up enough for ten loafs of bread. and i want to point out that i only used about 3/4 of a inch from the side. the middle was very soft and has massive seeds - remember this is not a normal zucchini. i made a my first batch (two loafs) and they turned out quite beautifully. although i had to keep poking one with a knife to see if it was done. i took the non mutilated one to break the fast the next day and it got all eaten up. because of how much zucchini i had i made another batch and took two loafs to work. this time i tried a different recipe - a paula deen one - and i loved it. and so did my coworkers. i now have enough zucchini in my freezer to make six more loafs so i guess i have a few more recipes to try until i find my favorite.

super cute sunday

during my freshman year of college my wonderful roommate ashley would refer to the first sunday of a new school year as "super cute sunday." i had no clue what this meant so she of course had to explain. she said that on the first sunday all the girls dress up in their cutest outfit and make sure their hair and make up is perfect. why would they do this you ask? because there is some fresh meat on the market (a.k.a. new boys) and girls had to look their best. you will notice that in about a month many girls stop caring as much because they have gotten to know the new people and may stop caring. today was super cute sunday in my ward. i have been here for over a year and it was very nice to see about half of the ward stick around for another year. but as always there were a lot of new people to meet and that was exciting. i haven't had a calling since the beginning of june when i was released as second counselor in the relief society presidency. it has been weird to not have something to do in the ward, but my mother has told me to enjoy the time because it wouldn't last long. i still don't have a new calling, but i was asked to lead the music in sacrament meeting and teach relief society. it looks like there will be some fun new people to hang out, but i am also happy because most of my friends stuck around in the ward so we can keep having fun.

new beginnings

i am back in provo and today life got back to normal. i really really enjoyed having a week and a half off of work and having no responsibilities. but that can only last for so long. this morning i started school at uvu. i am taking ten credits and four classes. i am taking calculus, foundations of american education, classroom management, and multicultural instruction. i am excited about finally taking some education classes and learning more about how to be a teacher. it is a pretty heavy load, but each of my education classes only meet once a week. but my calculus class meets five days a week so my life will now be consumed by math. good thing i love it. i go back to work today and start my new schedule. i will work 12.15 to 6.15 everyday and i will be in school in the morning. taking 10 credits and working 30 hours a week will be very time consuming, but i am excited to be progressing with school! it is really sad, but that is my life now.

yesterday was my day to get ready for school, clean up my apartment, run errands, and relax. i got everything done before i thought i would so i took myself to see "julie & julia" and i thought it was a really cute movie. i love amy adams and she was so cute in this movie. if a movie were made about my life i would have amy adams play me. i realize no one would want to see that movie but, she is my pick. the movie shows the story of two real people: julia child the cook and julie powell the women who wrote a blog about cooking through julia childs cook book. i was not familiar with julia child, but i have to say that the character really annoyed me. the movie made me want to cook and eat yummy food. i am capable of cooking but i don't because i don't want to spend money to cook for one. it is a funny movie and i would recommend it to anyone who wants a laugh!