Ok, I will admit that I am not a very good blogger. Considering it's been about a month and I've been on several trips since I last posted and I haven't written a thing about any of them. Better late than never, right?

Anyway, last month my mom and sister (McKenna) went on a roadtrip to visit me in Prague for my birthday (in case anyone doesn't know, my family is living in Harrogate, England right now, so no driving through the Atlantic Ocean was necessary). My mom's friend Heather also met us there with her daughter Abby and niece Lucy. We had a really nice time, and I had a lot of fun showing my mom and sister around the town I've been living in for the last two months.

The first day we went to the Alfons Mucha exhibition in the Obecní dům (Municipal House), which is a collection of Mucha's prints that a famous Czech tennis player had collected over the years and displayed in his home in Florida. He agreed to set up this exhibition in Prague so people could see the impressive amount of work Mucha did for various advertising commissions. We weren't allowed to take any photos,  hence me trying to describe this with words, rather than just show you the pictures. It was pretty cool though, and I think even McKenna, who hates museums, enjoyed going to it. Of course, Alfons Mucha is one of her favorite artists, so it would have been hard for her to not have liked it.

That night we ate at a Thai restaurant and walked around Prague at night, which was great because I'm not usually.... actually I'm never in Prague at night, so I finally got to get some cool shots of all the buildings all lit up and at their prettiest. I love seeing cities at night because there's just something almost magical about it. Peaceful... (well, as peaceful as Prague can get, anyway. There are many things Prague is, but quiet is not one of them...)

The day of my birthday we walked down Karls Bridge and up to the castle. We took a tour of some of the buildings on the castle grounds, then grabbed lunch and went to the Museum of Communism.

St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle grounds.

Left to right: Me, Mom, McKenna, Heather, Lucy, Abby.

The Tyn (pronounced teen) Church on the Old Square.

For my birthday we went to Hard Rock Cafe. My first American meal since I left the United States back at the beginning of May, and it was awesome. As much as I love Czech food, and other traditional foods around this awesome Earth of ours, sometimes it's nice to just have a burger, you know?

The Old Square at night.

The next day we went to the Jewish Quarter and saw some of the synagogues and the Old Cemetery. I've been a couple times now, and each time the Old Cemetery and the Spanish Synagogue have been my favorite. The Jews were confined to this area of town, so in the Old Cemetery they didn't have enough room to bury people after a while. Whenever they ran out of room, they had to lay another layer of dirt on top of everything, pull up the existing tomb stones to ground level, and then bury people in the new layer. So it's literally hundreds of tombstones squished next to each other everywhere. It's a very somber place, but very peaceful.

The Spanish Synagogue. It's so intricately decorated and the colors are gorgeous! (My mom was like "Maddie, take a picture of that so I can paint my dining room that color!" Our house is literally inspired from all of our travels, not even kidding.)

Eating some awesome traditional Czech food. Meat and potatoes, what's not to like?

And I may be way over enthusiastic about this, but there's this place Nikola showed me downtown that serves soft serve ice cream that is seriously the best soft serve ever. And I know I'm definitely overrating this, but whatever. It's delicious. You can get strawberry and banana, or chocolate and yoghurt. Not chocolate and vanilla. Chocolate and yoghurt. It's. So. Good.

Yay! I'm older! I do not feel any older, and I definitely don't look like I've aged since I was 18, as everyone likes to tell me. "Yeah, I've actually just graduated from university, not high school" is how that conversation generally ends.

After Prague, my mom, McKenna, and I split with the Jarmans and headed out for Germany and Poland. Considering the ridiculous number of photos on this post already, I'll split this little trip into a few posts so it's all a little more digestable.

Right now I'm visiting my family in Harrogate, England and I've really been enjoying this time with all of us together (except Megan and Chadd). Christmas will be great when we're all together for real. Can't wait!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! I'm trying hard to get in the patriotic spirit all the way over here in Europe and I can say that so far I've been having a good Fourth of July. I hope you all can say the same and that everyone has a safe and festive holiday filled with lots of patriotism and happiness!

(It wouldn't be Fourth of July if my grandpa didn't get in his plane and throw streamers with candy for the kids (and adults) waiting below.)

Back in February some friends and I went on a short girl's trip to Vegas. They don't give us many breaks here at BYU, so when a three day weekend rolls around, it seems like there's this mass exodus from Provo. We thought we'd join in on the fun and have ourselves our own early mini-Spring Break.

Yes, the first post of the year had to be titled 'resolutions'. I am nothing if not a traditionalist (ask my parents. They can confirm this).

My resolution this year: take a photo every day and improve. So to get me started, I will be doing another photo challenge for the month of January! My goal is to do a photo challenge for every month of the year this year. Let's hope this resolution doesn't end up like so many others before it, and I actually can end strong.

Here's to a new year! Happy New Year everyone!

I'd say I covered all the requirements of having an awesome Christmas.

1) I got to be with my family.

2) I went to Temple Square and saw all the lights.

3) We made the traditional sugar cookies.

... and maybe some not so traditional cookies as well.... (wait, you mean a porcupine cookie isn't a Christmas tradition?!)

4) And we got all of our Christmas decoration up (and outdid all of our neighbors. No lie).

And even though it wasn't a White Christmas, I still think it was a pretty good one.

My mom knows how to throw a party. That is a fact.

Growing up we always had a party for every holiday, so of course this included the Fourth of July. My mom started the tradition many years ago of having my grandpa, who is a retired pilot with United Airlines, fly over our house in his plane and drop streamer-wrapped candy from the plane window to the waiting children below.

Sort of like a pinata... but way cooler...

So essentially I'm fairly confident no one knows how to have fun like my family does...

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thirty-six hours later and I have arrived back home in Arkansas. Who would have thought that driving through flat, boring plains, otherwise known as the state of Kansas, could exhaust someone as much as it does?

Anyway, there is not much to update anyone on in my life at this current moment. The job search starts tomorrow... or the next day...

For now I'm just going to breathe in the wonderful scent of Arkansas-ness and enjoy being surrounded by excessive amounts of greenery.

Happy Easter! With a high of 71 degrees and perfectly sunny skies here, I really feel like emphasizing the "happy" aspect of that statement. My roommates and I are planning a nice dinner together (pulled pork sandwhiches. So good!) and dying some eggs (we bought this sweet "Glitter Eggs" kit. Our eggs are going to be totally bing-binged out.) I hope everyone else has a fabulous Easter as well!

Hello hello hello! Can I just preface this post with an expression of my gratitude for how beautiful this weather is? I love it!

But anyway, last weekend I went with some friends down to Vegas. My family was down there for their Spring break, and since we don't get one here at BYU, we thought it would be the opportune moment to create our own. Fortunately my friends were able to hold their own against my family. The mark of either a true friend... or the same level of insanity.