New Blog

So I started posting again to mine and Chase's blog, and won't be using this one anymore. Check out my new blog here. Its probably not any more interesting than this one, but you all still love me anyway :)

Its offical....

WE ARE GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!! Chase and I have chosen to be married in the Salt Lake Temple on the 18th of September, and I couldn't be happier!!! The plans are coming along, and I'm very excited to finally get married to my high school sweetheart :)

Chase did an amazing job on the proposal, and its quite a cute story! I'll start from the beginning... For Christmas last year, his parents bought me a plane ticket to go to Cancun with the fam when Chase got home from his mission (he served in the Portland Oregon Spanish Speaking Mission). Needless to say, I was ecstatic. So we all flew off to Cancun on Saturday, June 27th and stayed there for a week. On Thursday, everyone took a ferry to a little island off the coast called Isla Mujeres. It was seriously the cutest little island ever! We walked down to the North Beach in the scorching hot sun, and played in the ocean for a little bit. After lunch, we rented scooters and a golf cart, and took off to explore the island. Chase took me to see the turtles, to a really pretty look at point with zip lines, and we ended up on the east shore. We climbed up the winding steps to a cute white lighthouse on the edge of the point, and enjoyed the view for a bit. Chase then started asking where his sister Lindsey was, because he "needed his camera." I told him over and over that I had mine and he didn't need his, but was insisting on finding Linds and getting his camera. He started going down to look for her, and told me to stay put. Another little family came up and joined us then, and I just continued taking pictures, totally obvious to everything. While I was waiting for Chase to come back, I thought to myself, "I really like this lighthouse, how cute and romantic would it be to be proposed to up here?" But I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind because I didn't think Chase had a ring or was planning on proposing in Mexico. Boy, was I wrong!! At that moment, Lins came up with the ring, then everybody disappeared down the stairs. Chase and I were looking over the edge at the skyline of Cancun, and he pointed in a different direction and told me to "look over there!" and when I turned around, he was down on one knee!!! He asked me to marry him, and I just said, "Are you serious babe?!? Is this really happening?!?!" He reassured me that it was real, and put the ring on my finger. I jumped into his arms and of course, started to cry. (just a little bit though..... :) ) He pointed over the edge of the lighthouse, and we looked over to see his whole family there, cheering us on. It was absolutely, 100% perfectly amazing! I was still shaking while we enjoyed the moment on the top for a little bit, then went down to meet his family. They congratulated us and hugged us both. I am so lucky to finally get to be a part of the Warnick family, and get to be with the love of my life for eternity. Its a dream come true..... I love you Chase!!!

My amazingly handsome fiancé on the top of the lighthouse, seconds before the big moment.

Showing off the ring after I shouted a big YES! from the top.

YAY!!!! Happy day for both of us :)

My sweet purple and blue/green ring. I love it!

Guess who's back!!!!!!

Chase is finally home!!! He got home yesterday morning, and it was so good to see him again. He's such a stud! Since I wasn't allowed to hug him before he was released, I got a nice handshake at the airport, and we took this picture "pretending" to be hugging. We are hilarious I know. Anyways I don't have very many pictures yet, but I'll get more and post them soon so the one person who reads this wont kill me, and you know who you are (taryn....) I'm so glad to have him back, and look forward to going to Mexico with him and his family in a week!! WELCOME HOME CHASEY!!

P.S. His homecoming is this Sunday, June 21st at 8:30 at the church right by his house. If you know him, you better be there :)

Aruba... Island Paradise

Well I just got back from another amazing week in.... ARUBA!! The prettiest little island I have ever been to, by far. White sandy beaches, crystal clear water, and sun sun sun! It was so warm and humid there, my favorite weather. We honestly didn't do much at all, just sat around being lazy for an entire week. Couldn't have been better though! Loved staying on Eagle Beach, just a short (and sometimes crazy) bus ride from downtown and also from the high rise hotels, with plenty of places to shop and eat. Amazing. The "Utah girls" even got up there and did some karaoke, and got forced to sing to Britney Spears because everybody outside the US thinks its amazing that we have the same name... whatever. The Great Gretta got us sweet tickets over there, and Amy set us up with a place to stay, and me, my sister Brooke and her friend Stephanie all tagged along. All in all, it was a great trip, and I would definitely want to visit the little island of Aruba again someday!

Girls night out on the town! My momma, me, Amy, Brooke and Stephanie

Surfs up! oh wait... not quite right.....

I am an EXCELLENT snorkeler as long as the fish don't touch me. Otherwise, I scream and laugh and come up with a nose full of salt water. But seriously who's scared of fish? psshhh....

The Natural Bridge... that wasn't really there anymore. Beautiful coast though huh.

Sunset over our beach

Me encanta Mexico...

I am a very lucky girl and get to travel all over the world because of my wonderful mom, who works for Jet Blue. And since I'm awful at blogging, I decided I would just an overview of my trips and post lots of pictures... because those are way more interesting! I'll start with my first trip of the year, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico! My mom and I got to go down there for a week with my wonderful next-door-neighbor Bre and her awesome mother-in-law Julie! We had such a blast just checking out Mexico and eating lots of good Mexican food...yumm!! Plus, I got to test out my Spanish skills... not too hott but thankfully I have Chase coming home soon to teach me. Thanks for inviting us Bre and Julie, we loved it!!!

Sipping Pina Coladas with the mom

Yup... I caught this one. Seriously though.

El arce de Cabo.... look at my hot mom! Ow Ow!!! ;)

London!!

So I had the opportunity to fulfill one of my lifelong wishes last week, and it was amazing. Brienne and I got to go to London! We were there for 4 days, and I seriously loved every minute of it. Saturday was quite the experience though, it poured all day long and we were walking around the whole city with one hour of sleep. The night before was Halloween, and Brie and I went to an institute Halloween party outside of Madrid. (We were hippies haha) We tried not to stay out too late, but by the time we got home and finished packing and everything, we only had an hour to sleep. Our flight left at 6:30 so we had to be up very early. Anyways, that day we flew from Madrid to Standsted airport and took a bus into London. After we had gotten off the tube at Bayswater station, we trekked off in search of our hostel. We got lost in a matter minutes because we didn’t have a map or anything! We were getting all stressed out and walking in circles when we turned around and there was Rebbie! (Rebbie is our friend that is doing study abroad in London right now.) We were very relieved and together we found our hostel. Our hostel was…..ok. It definitely wasn’t pretty or fancy, but hey it was cheap! For the first night, we got the “suite” room, which consisted of two bunk beds and a bathroom with a shower in the room. It really wasn’t that bad. We had two Japanese roommates, and they had declared the bottom beds so Brie and I got stuck on the top. It was quite interesting getting up and down of those beds with random people below you. And the best part was that my bunk bed was seriously the squeakiest thing ever invented. I could hardly breathe without it moaning and groaning underneath me. It was very annoying to say the least. I had to lie perfectly still while I slept or I would wake up everybody in the room. It was fantastic. Anyways back my day….

On Saturday, we saw many cool sights and walked all around the city. First, we went to Leicester Square to buy tickets for the broadway Momma Mia! and also went to Trafalgar Square and hung out with the huge lion statues. We got to go inside the National museum where we saw paintings by Van Gough, Rembrandt, Velázquez, and many more. (I can’t remember all the names… sorry!) For lunch, we went to Borough market where there were hundreds of little tents and tables set up of every kind of food there you can imagine! We also saw the London Bridge (which is actually the ugliest bridge there, nothing special about it at all) and all of the other really pretty bridges. My favorite one was probably the Tower Bridge. We walked alongside the Thames river all the way to the House of Parliament and the famous Big Ben. We also saw the London Eye and the Globe Theatre. We also got to see Westminster Abby, although we didn’t go in. We were all tired, wet and cold so we went to Rebbie’s favorite cupcake place called The Hummingbird and got a delicious nutella cupcake. Then we went back to the BYU Center where she lives and all three of us took a nap on the top bunk of her twin sized bunk bed. It was great. That night, we all went and saw the new James Bond movie!! And yes, I know its not out in the US yet J. It was very good, I recommend it to all. We just barely missed the premiere which all the actors and Prince William attended in Leicester Square, that was a bummer.

The good news about Saturday was it was the only day the weather was awful. On Sunday, it was a very nice day and Brie, Rebbie and I walked through all the parks all the way to Buckingham Palace. We walked through Kensington Park, Hyde Park, Green Park and James Park.

They were all so gorgeous! The leaves had turned red, yellow and orangeand it was beautiful! The parks there really are amazing, and there were tons of people out there on a Sunday stroll just like us. Buckingham Palace was beautiful as well, and the British flag was flying which meant the Queen was there. After that, we all went home and got ready for church. Rebbie has a calling in a Spanish ward there, but Brie and I really wanted to go to church in English for once, so we went to the singles ward. Sadly, we got lost and were very late to Sacrament but it was still nice to understand some of church for a change! After church we went back to the BYU center to eat dinner with all the study abroad students. It was very nice to be with people who spoke English and were members of the church! We had a lot of fun and then we went on another walk around London to see the city all lit up at night. It was amazing! I really love that place.

Sadly, Rebbie went on a trip to Wales and was gone on Monday and Tuesday, but we were very lucky to have Brienne’s cousin and his wife take us around those days. On Monday, we met up with Brittan and Hilary and their cute little baby Nora. While Brittan studied, the rest of us went out sightseeing again. We ran over to Buckingham Palace and made it in perfect time to see the infamous “changing of the guards.” The guards march up the street playing music and enter the Palace courtyard and rotate the guards on watch. We also got up close and personal with some of the guards near the Palace, but they weren’t very good at the “no moving” rule. We explored more of the city, including the British Museum. That was seriously the coolest museum ever! I could spend days and days in that place. It had so many different artifacts from all over the world dating from thousands and thousands of years ago. We saw mummies and an Easter Island head and the goatee of the Sphinx of Egypt. There were Buddha’s and ancient Aztec artifacts and the real Rosetta Stone. It was pretty amazing that so many valuable things from all over the world were in this one museum in London. After the British museum, we all met up and had lunch together and after that Brie and I went to explore Harrods. For those of you who don’t know what Harrods is, it is quite possibly the biggest department store in the entire world. It was the most insane place I’ve ever been! They have everything you could ever imagine there, including a pet shop complete with little doggy dressing rooms and thousand dollar clothes. Ridiculous. In the children’s section, there was designer everything (like Gucci, Dior, etc.) and of course there was a huge section dedicated to the most extravagant and expensive jewelry. I even found a fur coat there that was more than £54,000. That’s in pounds people, not dollars. And keep in mind that it takes almost 2 dollars to make one pound…. It was outrageous!! I felt privileged just to touch the darn thing. Brittan made a very good comparison of Harrods. He said it was like the “Great and Spacious Building” and I couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. It was pretty awesome though, I could go on and on about all the crazy things we found there but I'm sure it would bore you to tears. Just promise me you will all have to go experience it yourself one day, ok? After our adventure at Harrods, we got to go see Momma Mia on broadway! It was amazing! After a long day of sightseeing we got in our nice, comfortable, quiet top bunks and rested up for another wonderful day.

On Tuesday, we went to the Tower of London. It is a really old castle where many members of the royal families used to live. It also holds the Crown Jewels, the most amazing collection of jewels in the world. We started off by joining in a tour by the legendary “beefeaters” who told us a lot of random but interesting facts about the castle. We then went to the main attraction, the Crown Jewels. In that display, they have the 1^st and 2^nd Stars of Africa, the largest diamonds ever cut. They also had many huge rubies, sapphires and pearls. I really liked seeing all the old crowns and scepters used by royalty back in the day. We spent a couple more hours exploring all around the castle and its grounds, it was gorgeous. Then we went to do what we do best… shopping! We shopped up and down Oxford street, the most famous shopping street in London. We also explored Piccadilly Circus and other tourist attractions. Then we met Hilary and Brittan for dinner and just laid low the rest of the night. Our flight left very early the next morning, so we were up before the sun was again getting ready to travel back to Madrid.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience. I was so glad that I got to go. It was a very nice change to be able to speak English again! I could ask people questions and get help when I needed it, it was amazing. I could also understand what was going on around me for a change!! It was funny because it took me a while to get out of my “Spain” mode and speak to people again. I usually just node and smile a lot here, but in England I could actually speak to people. At first, I would still say “si” and “gracias” to almost everybody because I was so used to just speaking in Spanish. So coming back to this crazy foreign country was quite a transition. Well that's all on my trip to London, I promise I'll be better at keeping up with this thing!

Spanish Class

Yes, I am taking a Spanish class here. And I know you’re all probably laughing and thinking, “Britt can’t learn Spanish!” and I'm starting to think the same thing….it is so hard! But I go to class from 10:45 to 12:45 Monday through Friday and I am actually learning a lot. There are about 13 people in our class and it is extremely diverse. There are 4 of us from the States, 4 from Germany, and 1 of each from Italy, Indonesia, Great Britain, India, and I can’t remember the other one. Pretty crazy huh! The craziest thing about the class is that IT IS ALL IN SPANISH! Yup, every word! Our teacher, Fran, “claims” not to know any other language so we all have to speak in Spanish the whole time. When you don’t know any Spanish at all, that can be pretty difficult! I am learning a lot but I get lost sometimes too. I'm not very good at pronouncing the words here and I don’t know why! When I was taking French, it was a lot easier to pronounce things compared to Spanish. But hopefully I’ll keep catching on and studying and be able to learn it! It definitely is an experience sitting in that class though I can’t help but laugh all the time. Brie and I have also made quite a few friends so that’s fun! Stefie is from Germany and Ghia is from Indonesia and it’s fun to get to know them.