m.i.a. to m.m.b.

yes i know, it has only been a few months since my last post. but really i have an excuse.. well several. my list has been extensive the last few months- full time school, stressful job.. and oh yeah, that wedding i was planning :)

needless to say, i have just been in survival mode. but now that my finals are over, i am celebrating by making a blog, to say friends, i am not m.i.a... no i have just become m.m.b.- melanie monroe burk. no worries, i will be sure to post more info on the lovely wedding, and the hot groom later.

but for now, merry christmas. tomorrow morning in a short 8 hours, i will be headed to indiana. yay! and so to celebrate that snowy christmas i am posting this artwork i did.

oh and if you want to check out my website, i coded and created this whole website. it was the most intensive task i have ever undertaken, but it is exciting, and now i feel ligit.

happy christmas.

with love m.m.b.

engaged to a belgian...

So folks, yes. I am engaged!!!!!! But not to a belgian. I am engaged to Daniel Eugene Burk, and we are getting hitched on November 25 in the San Diego Temple! yay!!

So yes.. I guess inquiring minds want to know how he proposed.... on august 28th, he told me we were going to go hiking, and to pack a picnic dinner. I made dinner, and he came and got me and we were off... we went up to Pleasant Grove, where we hiked the Battle Creek Falls. It was a beautiful but steep hike.... we were having a grand old time, and I had no idea that he was going to pop the "question" that night. 

So we got past the main fall, and were in this beautiful field looking up unto Mount Timp, which we had previously hiked this summer... and as we looked up at the mountains we decided to take some pictures. We took some pictures, talked, laughed, and then he decided he wanted to take pictures with his camera. He got his camera out, we took some more pictures, and then as he knelt down to put his camera back into his backpack, all of a sudden he was kneeling with his hand outstretched with this beautiful ring... and then he asked me to marry him.

I did what any girl would do. I laughed.... 

And then of course I said yes, and laughed some more, and then started crying :)

It was such a beautiful moment, and even more awesome that we were alone in nature.. where we really did fall in love to begin with.  We never did eat our picnic dinner- we were too excited and had to get down the mountain to call and tell everyone...

so wedding plans are on their way..... we are getting married!!!!!! huzzah!!!

Fel and Sa

This post I would like to dedicate to my wonderful friend and former roomate.. Melissa. She is also known as "sa"

Yes this whole summer we became known as the "mel forces" because we are both always called mel... in fact, we realized that most of our friends never call us by our full names... and our initials are both "M.M" which also caused confusion in the fridge. 

Luckily, we found a solution to that. I resorted to my high school nickname "fel" an abriviation of "felony melanie" and Melissa we turned into "sa." It was hysterical actually writing "fel" on my food in the fridge. Melissa has moved now... but all of my food still says fel. It makes me miss her less.

But thanks to Melissa-

I had a great movie goer to see awful movies such as the Hidden Kingdom. We laughed the whole way through and annoyed all those around us. hehe.

I became more grateful... we made a grateful wall with things such as "love sac, wikapedia, Nutella, and Batman... or just chrisitan bale."

I ate amazing italian food. yum. And became jealous of her fluent italian. 

I learned to love nutella more deeply and eat it with italian cookies... perfeito!

I learned to laugh hysterically at nuns and their antics...

I always had someone to council with over my latest idea or craziness.

I got to live through her 500 summer vacations (new york, colorado, arizona, colorado, new york....you know..)

I got to hear hilarious stories of work experiences.

Really... the summer went by way too fast. It was a great time.... thanks "sa" for it all! love you!

The Absolute Best Thing About Summer...

biking with him...

swimming with him...

hiking with him...

sporting events with him...

The best thing of all about summer?

Daniel Burk. 

And yes. I know this is the cheasiest post. hehehe. 

Things I love about Summers in Provo

Frozen Yogurt

Camping in Zions or Strawberry... amazing

Hiking Timp... in the middle of the night

A pass to 7 peaks

going multiple times to 7 peaks in one week

spa hopping

riding my bike up the canyon- beautiful!!!

having roomates to come get me when I have a flat tire while biking up the canyon

summer storms with lightning

indian palace- the best indian food ever!!

late night walks

car trips

time to read books!

sunflowers and wildflowers

yes. i love summer. one month left to enjoy it!!!

10 Things I never have and wish I did because I always forget to buy them

wrapping paper

spices

vitamins

dryer sheets

envelopes

stamps

contact solution

409

batteries

glue stick

More Nature Fotos

My Photography class is over, but I still keep taking fotos :) As soon as I have 30 minutes I will post some fotos of Brasil... I need to sort through them still...

14 days later

Yes. After 2 full weeks of being lost, my suitcase was returned to me. That means it never made it to Brasil. Instead it was sent to Chicago, and then Charlston VA... pretty close to Brasil eh? I have now spent a great deals of hours with United Airlines employees in Brasil, San Diego, Salt Lake, and India (thats where the 1-800 number goes) So yay for red elephant suitcase coming back, I was pretty excited if you couldn't tell.

Besides this whole thing the Brasil trip really was fantastic. Absolutely wonderful. No words. Booyah!!! Stay tuned for other pictures from my fantabulous trip...

lost and found

yes. the suitcase that was officialy lost, has been found. today. that means a whole 8 days after it was lost last thursday. which means yours truly has been wandering around using the same clothes for 8 days. (imagine that I am laughing hysterically right now... because I am)

so it has been quite a journey. luckily the suitcases have been the only mishap. wednesday after spending a few hours at the sao paulo airport urging the airline-american airlines- suitcase people to PLEASE start looking more urgently for my suitcase, they told me nothing could be done. at which point I gave up, and started making a list of all that I had lost. there was a lot. electric shavers for my brothers companions, a digital camera to give away, my clothes..... sigh.... shoes, other running shoes, 2 books with all of the names, dates, phone numbers, and addresses from my mission, and lots of other random presents things... basically a ton of stuff. but i laughed and decided to move on with my life. no use crying over spilt milk right?

so i bought two shirts and some shorts so I could look more presentable. up to this point I had been washing my clothes everynight in the shower... I think buying new clothes was a better option. so now I have new clothes, and my suitcase...ok I don´t have my suitcase yet, I get it tomorrow night, a whole 22 hours before I fly back to the United States. Which means I will get to look cute for one day- sunday. ahh well, once an ugly missionary in brasil, always an ugly missionary in brasil eh? ok not really, because I have not been doing missionary things at all, swimming at the beach (in my brothers short and shirt) listening to brasilian rock music, watching brasilian tv... nothing missionarish about it.

but I digress, really the whole thing is just hysterical. it has been a great trip, dirty clothes aside. I love brasil so much, and it is so nice to just visit everyone. yesterday we drove up to Sao Jose do Rio Preto, and we visited Moises, a pizza man, and he taught us how to make brasilian pizza. yum!! and I was able to pass by and see so many fantastic people. it is wonderful to see how people grow and change, and are blessed by the gospel. I truly love visiting all of these people again, and remembering how wonderful the mission was and continues to be.

so yes, everything is good. even my beloved red, elephant spotted suitcase.

reunion, tapioca, and the lost suitcases

so yes my suitcases are still lost.. which means I have been wearing the same clothes for several days now... ok i lie, i went and bought a skirt yesterday for church today.. But let me tell you I look marvilous... but all of this just makes everything funnier, and makes it a real brasilian experience for my parents... but man i am loving it all...smoky smelly clothes included.

everything just seems so familiar, it is crazy. I love speaking portugues again, seeing the brasilian culture again, they are so sweet and so fun and loud. I feel so at home. and hello... can we just talk about being able to see michael again? wonderful!!! and now we can speak portugues together, which is a blast. He is skinnier, but just glows.... we all knew he was basically perfect before hand but now we can just expect him to be translated anyday now :)

he has been taking us all around maçeio, which is soo fun. It was St. John´s day yesterday, that means lots of parties, and drunk people, normal stuff for mike and I, quite an experience for my mom and dad. They are handling it beautifully. It is awesome to see the people He taught, we met the sweetest family tonight who we all fell in love with- especially their 4 year old son. (it is so great being able to hold little kids now.... not like my mission days!!) They all cried when we left and Mike said their goodbyes.

we also introduced my parents to some great brasilian food... tapioca (this is NOT pudding..way better) and rice and beans and forofa and conjica and hmm lots of good stuff. We told my mom she had to eat everything today at lunch or they would get offended (which actually is true) and I think we all laughed to see her eat more food then I have seen her eat my whole life. It is good for her... good practice for mission days ahead of her (eat more sister!!!!)

it has been a blast. i love brasil so much.... i am getting so excited to go to my areas in a few days. but now i am just enjoying to see what a great missionary my brother is.

Tchau ate...

and the adventure begins...

in typical brasilian fashion, we have now been traveling for 26 hours and are not in our destination. Sad, funny, and true...we are still in the sau paulo airport...where I have spent a good 20 hours of my life waiting in the past 6 months...hahaha.

But the adventure really began yesterday when our first flight was delayed... thus missing our connecting flight to brasil... so then we ended up being routed to Chicago.. where we had a 20 minute layover which was spent running through the airport... and obviously our luggage did not make it with us to our next flight to Brasil... and then that flight had problems and was delayed, so we arrived in Brasil late, and with the lost luggage problem, we missed our connecting flight to Maceio... so now we have to wait 8 hours until the next flight. and it looks like maybe tomorrow sometime we will get our luggage...which means no clean clothes for a few days. hahaha.

This is all quite funny in my book, except that I feel bad for my mother who is counting down the hours until she can see my brother. But what is one day when you have been waiting 2 years?

From this I have realized two things- first off, airports and airlines are tricky tricky things, and then with the foreign country factor, its hysterical. Second off, I will never,ever, ever, work for the airlines. It seems to be one huge mess.

So now we are burning time, I think I will go introduce my parents to some brasilian food. Oh the funny times are just beginning. This morning I taught them not to flush down toilet paper.. here in brasil you just throw it away. Mom thought that one was wierd.

A least I am enjoying speaking portugues, even if it is explaining for the 10th time that our luggage has been lost.... haha. And so yes... the adventure has officially begun! YAY!!!

that crazy family

So this is a post for my family. We are crazy... crazy fun!!! Here are some pictures of when I went home and we went biking at Cornado, and played at disneyland. Fun, fun!










Happy times at the Happiest Place on earth... and that chocolate banana is heaven!!

When the light went out

These are actual quotes that I have heard or read at work... all from ESPN magazines or the ESPN channel, (we watch ESPN while we work sometimes) and we worked our way through a whole stack of ESPN magazines the other day when the power went out... but they made me laugh, so enjoy.

From ESPN magazines:

"Sometimes the road to success is not a road."

"Develop a trade like plumbing."

"Studying rocket science is more fun when you have rockets..." (obviously...)

"You may not tie an alligator to a fire hydrant." (an actual law)

"NBA games are being stripped of any aesthetic merits and becoming more and more a battle of monsterlike bodies instead of basketball skills." (a chinese paper)

"It is illegal for married montana women to fish alone on Sunday, and illegal for unmarried women to ever fish alone." (an actual law)

"If I win I'll hug my parents, build a robot, and shave my back. You know, normal stuff."
(shaun white)

From ESPN (during the Eurocup... oodles of fun )

"The German's have been down right pilly wally."

"The future of the italian soccer team rests strongly on his broad shoulders."

"It has all gone disasterdly (does this word exist?) wrong for germany."

Olic... (yes that is his name) it sound like Lichtenstine...

"all hands on deck for Croatia."

"If you were planning to go out for a few minutes, don't. Change those plans."


I feel so enlightened now... Thank you ESPN for the fabulous entertainment.

speaking of....

Speaking of things that are random and crazy that make up my life.... we all know that I have been here at BYU for awhile now. huzzah to that. I really love college, and that is part of the problem. I love taking classes that have nothing to do with my major... Take this next fall for instance, I would love to take several classes that are rather ridiculous... floral design? C.S. Lewis? An HTML internet class? Absolutely unnecessary for my major... but it is just too fun! I would love one or all of these classes, but I fear that I need to graduate...

Speaking of fear... fear not Mom and Dad... I will officially have two more semesters left of college life in a matter of days... Spring term ends next week, something I am absolutely ecstatic about- one because it means I can just work insanely, instead of now where I work insanely and study insanely. Sounds good to me...

Speaking of insane work... yesterday I helped out at photo shoot for Isis Dei, one of the companies I work for... and what did I do? Graffiti. Yes that is right, I took sidewalk chalk and was in charge of drawing designs on the walls... who would of thought that my job would include vandalizing public property? I felt nervous, but the good news is that it is only temporary vandalization... (is that a word?) because the rain will wash it off. Now it just has to rain soon... (oh and the design did turn out awesome!!!)

Speaking of rain, I actually hope that it doesn't rain. Because as a student I got an amazing discount at 7 peaks water park... and I got a season pass... and I have plans on going tomorrow... which is highly important and high on the priority list.

Speaking of high things.... so on Monday night I was excited because I was going to finally go to bed early... and all of a sudden there was an explosion/earthquake in my room... Last weekend I spent a bit of time cleaning out my room, and what did I get for it, on Monday night my two shelves fell down... with all of my books on that... it was hysterical, only because I had just cleaned my room extensively... So I spent an hour or so sorting through books and papers and trying to put back the explosion. I did find some books i hadn't read in awhile, and so it wasn't an evening lost... I laughed so hard too... why is it in my most awkward moments the only response I have is laughter?

Speaking of awkward moments.. So I got a new computer at work, which is SOOOO EXCITING and I was really stoked about it. Nothing beats Macs I tell you... so i am all pumped up about my new computer and the only problem? I couldn't find the on button... I looked, and looked, and .......................looked. I was so embarrassed. What sort of person can't figure out to turn on a computer? Finally I resorted to shame and asked my boss... who pointed it out where I had already looked.... in my defense it is on the back side of the screen on the lower left hand side.. a fairly odd place to put it if you ask me. But the good news is that the computer it turned on, and I was only laughed at for a little bit. (as in all morning)

Speaking of morning... its pretty late....(as in the AM hours of the night) I am really tired.. and I need to sleep. So there you have the news of Felony Melanie.... really no news, just trivial information that makes my life fantastic and blonde... And that is huzzah for sure.

Numbers

So... just for fun, lets just count some of the things of the past 5 years....

apartments lived in: 9

roomates: 28

school credits: 120

classes taken: 50 (wow...)

countries visited: 6

jobs: 5

surgeries: 2

cars: 2

computers: 3

wow.... lots of random things. I think the number of classes is the funniest... 

Crazy Events

So what have I been up to lately?

Yes I admit, I love to put fotos that I have taken... but its been awhile since I have been in those fotos... so here are some fotos showing what I have been up to the last couple of months, that probably could describe it better than I could... enjoy!!

Tumbling at the Gym with Jen Whit (friend from my mission) Jenne Gammel (roomate) and Kamie Robinson (coworker)


Relief Society Retreat with roomate Rachel... by the way the coldest night I think I have ever spent in my life... we actually got up in the middle of the night and left because we couldn't sleep because we were so cold... got the car stuck in the snow, and finally made it home around 4 am... that was a funny night...



Good times with that cute family in Houston... I love Laird's face in the picture above.. and then below, he wouldn't let me kiss him.. I wonder why...


I visited Aunt Suzie in Salt Lake one weekend, that was a fun one! Reminded me of how many times I spent the night with her as a kid :)



The Monroe's sure do own the break.. we have so many surfers in our family! Ha! Good times in Baja, here I am with my roomate Elise. That was a great weekend.




Here is me hiking with friends here in Utah.. I finally broke down and did the freshman activity-- hiked the Y!! haha! (below) But I also have been hiking Rock Canyon (above) and been doing the "weekend warrior" as we like to call it here, as in Saturday is non-stop outdoor activities. Lots of fun!



Last but not least, finally some pictures of the Luau.. So much fun! This is me with my friend Erin Whitworth, who I somehow talked into doing it with me. I even managed not to botch up the Poi balls that night. Yes!

So there you have it! Isn't life fun! I really have been working a lot too I promise.. but those fotos aren't as much fun :)

Nature Photography

So I am taking a photo class this spring- and it is fantastic, because it just gives me an excuse to take pictures! (which I love) My teacher is fantastic, (he actually worked with Ansel Adams) and so I am learning a ton... I thought I would just share some of my photos from the last week. And yes, these were all taken at sunrise, because that is the best lighting. I know, it is shocking to see that the "early morning" Keith Monroe blood is in me after all! haha. Enjoy!

Baja & Big G

So the last week there were two rather eventful occasions. I went down to Baja, and went surfing... loved it!! And also, I watched Big G. For those of you don't know who Big G is, that is him in the photo. (Andre) He is the Brufords grandfather and absolutly hilarious. He told me how he met Musolini (which I really am not sure if actually happened) and he sang to me everytime I gave him his medicine and dinner. He told me he couldn't yoddle, talked to me in french, and really it was just quite amusing. Everyone should have a chance to get to know big G. Oh, and Baja... everyone should have that chance to surf for sure!

A Post by Ali

My Friend Ali had the funniest experience the other day, and since she doesn't believe in blogs (yet) we decided to post it on mine. Enjoy... it is hysterical.

They Came in Through the Bathroom Window

I’m living alone right now. One of my roommates is in San Diego and the other is in Uganda, so it’s just me at the apartment currently. I flew into Salt Lake from Africa on Monday night and am driving back to San Diego on Thursday, which means I had a whole 60 hours alone in Provo. Just 60 hours. During which I managed to spend 2 of those locked in my bathroom. Apparently the handle on the bathroom door doesn’t turn/work from the inside, only from the outside. So as soon as you shut the door, and it closes, the door is locked and it cannot be opened from inside. My roommates knew about this issue, but failed to inform me when I returned home to Provo-lucky me. This poses some problems since most of the time you’re INSIDE the bathroom, not outside of it when the door is shut. Normally this would have been funny and something my roommates would laugh about with me when they came home from class and freed me from my little white linoleum prison, except that I DON’T HAVE ANY ROOMMATES RIGHT NOW. A thought which ran through my mind as I fruitlessly tried to force the door open. So after some one on one with Heavenly Father that consisted mainly of “throw me a bone please”, I started hearing my neighbors in the apartment complex fooling around in their respective kitchens/bathrooms. It was at that point that I started banging on the walls and ceilings of the bathroom, attempting to get someone’s attention. After some time spent pounding “Jingle Bells” and “Shave and a Haircut” on the walls-so as to illustrate that the annoying pounding was not just hammering or hanging pictures-I heard the doorbell ring and my neighbors calling through the locked front door if I needed help. Why yes I did need help I screamed back, I was stuck in my freakin’ bathroom and I could not get out. A few moments later I heard a man’s voice (a strange and rare occurrence in my apartment) saying “they” were coming in to get me out and asking if I was hurt, decent, etc. To which I answered, with all the self-respect I had left, that I was peachy, just stuck. It’s very hard to sound confident and self-possessed sitting in your immodest pajamas on the edge of the bath tub, as the Provo Police (yes, the Police) climb through your bedroom window (yes the window, because I am a girl and live alone and therefore DOUBLE lock my front door when I’m home alone at night) and bust open your bathroom door. It took four of them. Four. Police Officers. None of them were laughing but I imagine they were laughing as soon as they walked out my now unlocked front door-because let’s face it was pretty darn funny.

Anthem Portfolio Piece

Here is my magazine I designed for my portfolio.
(It is shown small on black background so you can see it) I love this piece!