2008 in review . . .

well i've been thinking about the past year so i decided to take a trip down memory lane and relive all the good times through pictures :) i think that i feel this way at the end of every year, but 2008 has been one of the happiest of my life! so many wonderful experiences, hard things that made me grow, amazing people i have come to love, and so much to be grateful for. so here's looking at the year 2008 . . .

to start off, my goldfish theo who has seen me through the
entire year, the official mascot of 2008! one of my constants,
what a champ . . .

i turned 21! i'm getting OLD . . .



jane got ENGAGED! another amazing roommate
on to better things . . .



good times with dinner group . . .



i loved another semester working in the biology tutoring lab . . .



we lost lady to cancer :( best picture we could get before
she was put to sleep . . .



biophysical society meeting in long beach, california with the lab!
the ultimate road trip . . .







good times with the fam. here's easter and conference weekend . . .






some pics of james since the gibbons family has seriously revolved
around him this year, the cutie . . .





it was a fun year catching up with old friends as the guys got
off their missions and we girls are married, having babies, or
chuggin' away in school! makes me feel old . . .


my last dancesport. how appropriate to go out in style, the
country two step with isaac! we made the heel click famous . . .



this reminds me. 2008 will definitely be remembered as the year
i officially found the cowgirl in me and became addicted to
COUNTRY SWING DANCING on wednesdays . . .



ok here's a big one. i became a college graduate!!
a bachelor's degree in biophysics . . .









jane got MARRIED and i got to be a bridesmaid . . .



i moved out of the south downs and into the colony with janelle!
truly happy times . . .





i started working on my MASTERS degree in physiology at byu!
can you believe it? a summer of full time research . . .





i received my MISSION CALL to the washington seattle mission . . .





the fam at the extended gibbons family "round table" . . .



i officially became "hard core" during an amazing trip to
MOAB with friends . . .






i received my endowment in the salt lake temple . . .



yup i turned down being an efy counselor again to go to the
tim mcgraw concert. i don't know what that says about me,
but it was worth it . . .


not only did i become hard core this summer, but i also feel like i
unleashed my inner gangster. meet "lizzle" . . .


camping in american fork canyon
(including snow tubing in JUNE) . . .


some firsts: flying a kite, and hiking the Y . . .


family vacation to st george, always a good time . . .


road trip to washington for some camping, caving, and then
orb-hunting/partying in port townsend . . .


then i got to live at home for about a month, first time in a few years! we had a sister outing to see james taylor live, watched a lot of olympics, and saw josh go on his first date! crazy . . .

another lab trip: to use the two-photon microscope
at UC, irvine . . .


first time in chicago! fun labor day weekend.
my ninth state in a month (a record for me) . . .


everything always falls into place.
i moved into victoria place, got new roommates,
headed back to the lab to finish up my thesis project,
and deferred my mission for 6 months . . .


ok highlight of fall semester, camping in november: hiking in the gear like 10 miles (exaggeration) because the road to the campground was closed (willie: "look is that them? we're almost there! oh wait, it's only a mirage!"), and the girls' tent struggling . . .


well other than that, i've just been working really hard, playing with the fam, making new friends, and trying to keep in touch with all the old ones! life is happy . . .

thanksgiving and christmas at home . . .
(thanksgiving pics were just posted, christmas pics to come)

well that was a LOT of stuff, but it was across 12 whole months and i never was good at choosing favorites and narrowing it down. gosh after going through all that i realized how much has happened this year! so much has changed. it's funny how crazy life can be yet everything always seems to fall right into place! i can't wait to see what's up next. i do know it will be four months of hard work to finish my thesis and then off to the MTC on april 15th! i can't wait!! happy new year :)

you know you're a nerd when . . .

. . . you open up an AMAZING ferrero rocher chocolate and the FIRST thing you think is "holy cow! this looks exactly like an erythrocyte ghost shedding microvesicles!" Even nerdier is when you make Jen take a picture of you so you will have proof that they really do look alike. Secret confession though, I think nerds have more fun with life :)

THANKSGIVING!!

I had an amazing thanksgiving! We just had a quiet shindig at home, but the whole fam was there! It was especially fun since the Bosters have recently moved to Idaho. (we miss you guys!) They showed up a day early and surprised us all which was fun. What more could you want in a weekend? family, good food, JAMES, and lots of christmas movies :) As Gibbons family tradition has it, we always watch "White Christmas" Thanksgiving night to open up the Christmas season. I never let myself get TOO excited about Christmas until we watch it. I also got to see Michelle and meet her fiancee! Even though she whooped us in power scrabble, I'm not still bitter. Too bad I got sick too though :( my cough makes me sounds like an old man who has smoked his whole life. But I guess there could be worse things huh?

Here are a few pics of the weekend including some from our family photo shoot! I don't have it with me, but I will soon post PROOF that me and my momma went shopping at 4 am the day after Thanksgiving . . . something I didn't think would ever happen. It's kind of a goofy story since we didn't buy anything, we just needed the security tag removed from a shirt we bought on Wednesday so I could wear it in the family pics. We DID get free snow globes though, so that combined with the memories made it well worth it hehe :) a picture to come of our 4 am loveliness!

Getting the food ready! Dad's apron is the best: "Grill a Judge"


Some quality play time with the boy, gives me a good excuse to do the things i secretly want to do anyway, like put baskets on top of my head :)

THE FAM!

"Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters!" haha White Christmas reference . . .

our little josh is all grown up now!


the sibs complete with jonathan!

my parents looking "young, modern, and popular" ;) but seriously! what a handsome couple!!

Well those pictures mostly sum up what I am thankful for this thanksgiving, the wonderful people in my life, especially my family! The past few weeks I've reflected a lot about the people that mean a lot to me and how much joy I get from my relationships with them.

I'm thinking about a new hair-do . . . which do YOU recommend?

So here are the fruits of a VERY productive morning in the lab :) don't worry, i usually work hard. i'm kind of thinking of dying my hair dark now, what do you all think?

soundtrack to my life . . .

So randomly last night I was putting away laundry (that's not the random part yet) and I got to thinking how awesome it would be to have a soundtrack to my life! Mostly cuz I LOVE music and there's just so many songs that characterize certain times in my life!

So I started thinking of all the songs that just remind me of my childhood (like James Taylor, David Benoit, Simon and Garfunkel . . . all the stuff that Dad listened to, plus those awesome songs we'd listen to with mom on the way to preschool!), junior high (backstreet boys are a fav . . . still hehe, and mine and michelle's disney dance parties in my kitchen? classic), high school (too many to even name here, but ones that remind me of being an SBO, being in the school musical, school dances, concerto night, and just good times with friends), and the college years (I have different songs that remind me of EVERY semester/summer and the friends I had and girls I lived with . . . I could make a whole soundtrack just of living with Ang and Ka I think!). There's piano pieces I've played, songs from EFY counselor times, songs I'd listen to as I cleaned up after banquets in the JSMB on temple square, songs that remind me of amazing friends I've had, songs that got me through hard times, favorite hymns that either comfort me or just express my testimony of my Savior, songs that remind me of the fam, songs that just scream Christmastime in the Gibbons' house, and songs that are especially fun to dance to, be it cha-cha, waltz, WEST COAST SWING, or country swing dance!

Anyway, I sat down, opened up itunes, and started compiling this soundtrack. When I first began I was thinking I'd get like 20 songs and make a cd and make it my soundtrack! Finally around 11:30 pm I had come up with 116 songs!! Way too many! That's even after cutting it down. I need to cut it down more and be harsh and get rid of ones that I simply love and keep ones that REALLY remind me of a time or have had special meaning in my life, but it's so hard!! I've gotten teased by countless people who have noticed that there are a MILLION songs that will make me say "Oh I LOVE this song!!" when it pops up on the radio or my ipod or whatnot. Anyway, the only point to this post is to express my love of music and the big influence it's been in my life. I LOVE IT!! Maybe if I get the soundtrack cut down to a reasonable number of songs, I will share it with you all :)

ah the awkward years :)

So do you ever say/do something that is just so completely the 7-year-old you? I find myself doing this a lot! As I watch home videos of my younger years, I always come to the same conclusion: I haven't changed a bit! I have changed in some VERY important ways however: i got braces and contacts :) I was feeling like 7-year-old me today for some reason, so I thought I'd share some of the most amazing pics of me ever taken for you all to enjoy!

I think I still make this face . . . but I hope it looks a LITTLE better now. Check out the veins in the neck!


This one's taken at about the same time, but you get a better look at the long scraggly hair. This is with my best friend at the time, Kaysie Garff! We had some good times :)


This one is to prove that I started out cute :)

Ok now back to my prospectus . . . I get so distracted when I'm writing. I do have half an outline though!!

yay for voting!

So last week I got to be a slacker and skip work for a day to go home and vote in Salt Lake! (I didn't think about voting absentee until it was too late . . . ) It was way fun to relax at home and chill with the fam. Pretty much all I did that tuesday was vote and watch the results roll in on tv! And now that I think of it, all I did the night before was watch movies with mom . . . I convinced her that we should rent a movie at 12:30 am and we watched the whole thing! Good times :) Here I am with mumsy and popsicle sporting our coveted stickers!!

HALLOWEEN!!

Ah halloween. I think I've always loved getting all dressed up . . . more the pretty kind of dressing up than the bloody, scary kind of dressing up . . . this illustrated obviously by the fact that I think I was a princess 4 years in a row in my younger days! K so it might have only been 3 but still. One particularly embarrassing halloween was when michelle, lori, and I were aliens in 6th grade. If i remember right we made our own spaceship . . . with cardboard boxes and green bubble wrap? Yeah not my proudest moment. Later in high school and college I wasn't very into halloween but the past two years I've just LOVED it for some reason! I think it's just the opportunity to transform for a night and be something other than just . . . liz. Last year I dressed up in THREE different costumes for different occasions. Yeah I was hardcore: mad scientist, pirate, and a 50's girl I think. The mad scientist costume with Jane was an ultimate favorite:

yup, our beakers had dry ice in them . . . talk about legit

And this is a favorite picture of me and jane . . . I feel like it just catches our personalities perfectly on camera. Love you jane!

This year I was a bee! I thought it was really funny because of the wasp infestation we've had in the lab (see my first post . . .) but I think I was the only one who thought it was hilarious haha. Also I just love cheap homemade costumes. For instance, my wings were found in the family costume box so FREE for me, a yellow shirt and some electrical tape and you're in business! I think I was kind of a fun bee, but we'll let you judge for yourselves:

Mandy and I at her halloween party. She was a butterfly!

Willie! This picture is so us I just love it.

I was sad that I missed the fam's partying (cuz rumor has it that my Pops was spiderman!) but all in all I feel like it was a pretty fabulous halloween :)