Danielle invited the boys to the pumpkin patch, and Dallin said I could tag along.  I can't believe how much baby Maverick has grown! Although making corn angels, buying cheap pumpkins, and getting fall-flavored breakfast at IHOP was all fun, the highlight of the night was definitely when Parley honked at the geese and they all started honking back.

   Katie is commonly featured on my blog, but I feel it's about time I give her a shoutout.  Our families have been friends for several years now, but ever since she moved up to Provo, we have gotten very close.  This girl has the funniest laugh you have ever heard, she has an incredible testimony, and she and I have really bonded during some very hard times this year. She is a wonderful listener and I am grateful for the support she has given me!
   Rachel has been planning for Halloween since July, and at last we were able to attend her underground dance party she's been talking about for so long.  Rach and I both dressed up as Eleven from Stranger Things.  She practiced her hair and makeup probably three or four times before the actual party, because she was so excited for it.
   Also this weekend was the Sixth Sense with old roommates, and of course the mission reunion! The first two reunions felt weird to me, because it felt like we should all still be wearing nametags and in Europe, but this time it was just a blast to catch up with everyone, since a good percent has been married in the past six months.  Like always, I could have cried watching the mission slideshow or singing Auserwelt zu Dienen when President and Sister Kohler gave what felt just like another zone conference.  It made me mission trunky all over again.

    2 weeks ago, I reached a point where I realized that I was stuck in limbo.  Saturday was fun— Katie, Rachel and I traveled up to Salt Lake for some much-needed shopping and to pick up Adam from the airport after his rugby tournament in San Diego. Afterwards, I borrowed Adam's rock pass and crashed the BYU football game for the first time ever, consequently running into someone unexpected.
    Dal.

     I would lie and pretend that we hadn't seen each other the more-than-a-month since we broke up.  Actually, we had met up a couple times, such as at the morbidly early hour to take Adam to the airport when he first left for Cali.  It's funny how you realize your ex-boyfriend is also you ex-best friend when you sit down for ice cream together and suddenly start telling each other all the intimate details of your break-up lives before you can stop the words from coming out of your mouth.

     These days, I hadn't been sleeping much.  Even when I wasn't staying up into the late AMs either with people or by myself writing music, I would often lay in bed awake.  Hard as I tried to get myself out there, to act like life was normal, to move on... I just felt restless. Maybe it was words left unsaid, or denial, or a hope that others may have thought naive, but I just couldn't get Dallin out of my head.  And that's not to say that I didn't have several occasions when I told myself {and others} that we were never getting back together.
    After getting home from the game, Dallin and I started texting.  Almost sheepishly, but more excitedly, I agreed to meet up secretly again.  As we talked in the car in the middle of the night, I couldn't believe the words that came from his mouth.


   Shortly after we got back together, Dallin picked me up in the Bricklin for breakfast at a fun southern cafe. Among many other activities, we have also attempted to do homework together and have gone to church together. Last Tuesday, we had a picnic at the autumn-colored Canyon and messed around with the camera's self-timer mode just like good old times.  I can't stop smiling around  him. The most common phrase has been "I miss you," when we have only barely parted.

Birthday note from Sophie

     Here we are again, another year come and gone.  I keep wanting to think that my last birthday was spent on my mission, but turns out its been 14 months since I've come home!  Time flies.
     In a moment of spontaneity, I emailed my boss and got rehired at EuroDocs.  I spent most of the week studying {thank goodness for my AMAZINGLY FUN study group}, but on my birthday I dolled myself up in my favorite red dress for school.  I was grateful for the influx of loving messages, including the midnight "happy birthday" text from an unspecified old friend.  We stayed up till 1 AM catching up, and the next evening went out to ice cream together. Presents of the day included a homemade fruit bouquet, a laptop case, and a hight-tech blender {thank you!}. When the sun went down, Adam, Rachel and I hit up Salt Lake for the haunted house!
    Despite a month of basically having insomnia, I tried my darndest to go to bed earlier so that a friend and I could wake up at 3:45 and take Adam to the airport in SLC. I crawled back in bed around  7:30 and successfully shut my eyes before my noon class.
   Today I got a C- on my midterm but I am just happy to be done with it, haha.  At 5:30 I was picked up for a first date.  As we wandered around the fall festival, we spent much of the evening talking about foreign cultures, life ambitions and true ghost stories.  It was a blast! I may have screamed a couple times in the "haunted corn maze."

 After taking the test and attending an inspirational conference on the refugee crisis in Europe, I rewarded myself with a Friday night without studying.  Lindsey picked me up with Cody and his wife to hike Bridal Veil {where they collected leaves}.  Later that night, I had this spastic burst of energy, so Rachel and I hit up three or four grocery stores, Forever 21, and a thrift store to buy our Halloween costumes {sorry to brother Adam for not bringing you batteries so you could wear your blow-up dinosaur costume at the football game}. Katie slept over, borrowing our pajamas and sleeping on a blow-up mattress; after scrolling through Netflix's lame scary movie selection for a half hour, finally at 11:45 they decided on Supernatural while I went to the living room to write music and brainstorm my book {for the first time in a month}.

 The next morning, I made pumpkin pancakes for both old and new roommates, and then we all watched conference in our PJs together.  People in adjacent apartments screamed when they announced two-hour church, which I honestly thought was nothing more than a rumor these past several months.

After the second session, I was picked up to go on another date! We drove through gorgeous foggy mountains and hiked to Stewart Falls, where the forests provided a fiery array of colors.  As we walked, we chatted about adventures stateside and abroad, and because hiking with wet hair is such an excellent idea, we also stepped under the freezing mist diffracting from the waterfall.
That night, Katie invited us to her guyfriends' UFC Fight Night party. Although we enjoyed talking with people, we all agreed that watching people beat the shiz out of each other was not our favorite activity.
For Sunday morning conference, we headed over to Becca and Taylor's, where they treated us to a delicious breakfast.  Taylor cracked us up as usual, demonstrating the use of reverse psychology as an effect means to get kids to eat their quiche. The boys played Conference Bingo, and sweet baby Sloane cuddled on my lap while we watched. I seriously cannot get enough of that family.
That evening, I went on another mini date with a boy whose friend recommended I message him after seeing me on Mutual {the Mormon dating app I installed because why not}.  When I messaged this guy, his response was "You're my type! You have a long face!" to which I had no idea how to respond? Thanks? Hahaha {Backstory: when I met my great-grandma Marjorie 5 years ago, she APOLOGIZED when she saw that both my mom and I had inherited her oblong facial structure}.  It was a chill but fun date; we jumped on the trampoline as we asked each other questions about missions and so forth, and he then showed me his ceramic works and made pumpkin hot chocolate.

I am so grateful for the messages we heard this weekend. As our prophet spoke, I could just feel the love emanating from us viewers as we listened to his heartfelt testimony and watched him smile and crack up at his own jokes. Some of the messages were exactly what I needed to hear, and it strengthened my testimony hearing the honest but earnest pleas to follow Jesus, no matter where we are spiritually. He knows are struggles.  He loves us anyway.

1. Dallin and I broke up 3.5 weeks ago.  I'm not here to talk about that. 
2. School is killer, but I'm still beyond excited for everything I'm learning now that I'm finally in my major.  I love being in the same classes with all the same people, and how my audio physics, speech anatomy, and language development courses can all be so completely different yet all lead me towards understanding the same general field. I applied to a research team -- we'll find out soon if I qualified.
3. When I'm not studying {which is 90% of the time}, I am keeping myself very busy:  

• The weekend after my pool party, one of the girls who I had randomly invited ended up texting me to see if I could coordinate another group activity.  We rounded up 10 girls and drove to the hot springs in Saratoga Springs, where a bunch of teenage boys mock pole danced and launched themselves off logs. Afterwards we brought the stench of sulfur with us to get milkshakes.  
• The next Sunday, a group of Swedish-speaking guys in the ward invited us roommates to play Secret Hitler. 
• I've hung out a good amount with my high school gals.  
• As the new Relief Society 3 second counselor, I have been involved with an ice cream social, many meetings, visiting all the girls first to get to know them and then to interview them after we decided their ministering assignments.
•  School study groups have actually been rather enjoyable.
• Rachel and I watched an episode of Jane the Virgin for the first time in a month, and after several more hours of studying, us roommates got pumpkin milkshakes and met some new people at the hot tub whilst Rachel told our old family ghost stories.  
• I now watch live-action historical documentaries in German and read Percy Jackson in German all in the attempt to prepare myself for the German placement exam next week. 
• I invited a number of mission friends (Amanda, Mandy, Rachel and Brayden) to go to Oktoberfest with me. Some of us wore our dirndls, and we enjoyed the beautiful drive as we all got caught up.  I knew dirndls were cute, but I had no idea they would cause us to get hit on by older-middle-aged men, haha no.  We also saw my sister, who was there for a conference, and rode the ski lift. That night, I joined Amanda at a formal balcony dance party, where we helped each other choose from multiple dresses and then goofed off to the random music.
• I went on a date with a cool guy that I met at the dance party! We saw "A Quiet Place" at the golf course, which was super fun.