Life-the Good and the Bad all in One!

Parties are generally a good place to start right? Well last week, I had the opportunity to go to a fun party at my friend Mackormick's house last Saturday (not last night, but the week before). His friend Whitley was turning 15, so he threw a surprise party for her.

That's most everyone at the party. It was such a fun group of kids, and when is night swimming not fun? I know it's not night in this picture, but we did swim at night-I promise!

Just after the group picture was taken, my friend Mitchell pointed out how beautiful the sun was. Washington has had so many fires in the state the past month or so, so the sun was really pink. The clouds over the sun looked cool too. I told Mitchell that I would take a picture of this and tag him in it on Facebook-that's how much he liked the sun.

The night before that, my sisters went to a party where they played the "Hunger Games" they each had a district that they were from, and everyone was really into it. My sisters had me be their "stylist" more or less, so I did their hair and makeup.

Julia's hair

Emilee's hair

I took some picture of them before they left. It was just too hard to resist! And of course, I had to do a little editing since it always makes things more fun!

I know that the cut-outs that I did were awful, but it was irresistible. And yes, I know it's cheesy, but I just had to!

Last week was Homecoming week. You know, the spirit days, the hall decorating, the football game, the Homecoming trophy, and the dance. The Spirit days? I dressed up for all of them but two. That was only because I didn't have any sports' logo clothing and I forgot about pajama day. The hall decorating? The juniors won this year, which is a bummer since we won the decorating the past two years! I went to go help decorate the hall last Monday night from six until nine. Yes it is a long time, but it is barely enough time if you do a good job. Our hallway was very plain this year compared to the past, which was probably why we lost. I still think that our hallway was better than the Juniors' though because theirs seemed extremely sloppy. Oh well! We won the football game against Lewis and Clark 31-0. I decked myself out with CV spirit for the game, and had a blast hanging out with friends there-mostly just Nathan though.

I took this picture when I got home from the game so that I would have a picture of how crazy I was. Yes, I did paint my hand then put the print on my face. The best part though was that it was outlined with gold glitter. The hardest part about doing that was that I really wanted to lick my lips, but I couldn't because they were covered in blue paint. I guess you can see it a little better in this picture:

It was pretty fun! What you can't see about my crazy get up though, are my crazy red skinny jeans and my royal blue zumba skirt. I figured that if I was going to the have some spirit, I might as well go all out since it is my senior year. Who won the Homecoming trophy? The seniors of course! We have it now for the second year in a row! There was no way that anyone was going to steal it from us! Oh and the dance? I couldn't tell you since I didn't go! I'm sure that everyone who went had a fun time, so you can ask them if you really want to know.

School's Back

So I'm not so sure how I feel about this. Summer was great, but so far school has had some interesting things about it as well. For starters, let's talk about how weird it is to be a senior. It didn't really hit me until senior sunrise. For those who don't go to CV or don't have this tradition at their school, all the seniors get together at the beginning of the year to watch the sunrise, and then get together at the end of the year to watch it set.

Yeah, it was pretty much one of the coolest things ever, but at the same time it was extremely anti-climatic. One of the best parts though, was to see everyone snuggled up in blankets at six in the morning.

Joslynn

Elle

McKay and Austin

Isn't everyone so cute (haha)! Even though many people were somewhat okay with my taking pictures of them that early in the morning, some were not so happy about it.


Derek wasn't too thrilled that I had a camera out.

But on this day, I gained a friend that I am sure will last an entire life time and then some: Nathan.

He was having a little too much fun since he knew that I had a camera out. Can you see why we get along so well with each other? After the sunrise, most everyone went to breakfast. My friends and I? We decided to be classy and went to the good old golden arches. I really don't like McDonald's at all though, so it was a little weird. I just got a hot chocolate.

Stay classy CV!

As I got to know my good friend Nathan a little better, I realized that he is pretty darn talented and that we have way too many things in common. For example:

1. We are the same height
2. We both play the piano (and currently take lessons from the same teacher)
3. We both played the violin (he still plays, while I quit several years ago)
4. We both like to talk REALLY fast
5. We are both way too full of energy
6. We also share a fascination with hair

I mean come on! I only listed a few, but it's still kind of crazy, right?

I mean, look at this? I wasn't kidding when I said that he likes hair. HE did this beautiful fishtail braid on my hair. There is however one thing that he can do that I wouldn't be able to do if my life depended on it. He can dance REALLY well, and I certainly cannot.

Okay, so since school started, I have found some interesting things written in some text books. There is always something good, but I have never run into anything like this before!

How cool is that? This book "belongs to the half blood prince" and was issued to "Lord Voldemort" as "new" and returned as a "horcrux". Not that I am a crazy Harry Potter fanatic, but this is hilarious. Something else cool that has happened since school started? I got to eat a for real "chupa-chup". It was truly the best sucker that I have ever had. It was "fresas con crema" (strawberries and cream).

I will definitely have to add this to the list of cool Mexican candy that I have had. The other cool thing was a sucker called a "semáforo" (stoplight).

Isn't it cool? It is red, yellow, and green like a stoplight. It was kind of hard to eat though. We have fun in Spanish class. For example, last week, a certain "un-named class member" threw his planner onto a ledge that's right below the skylight in the classroom. It was the nastiest thing because huge chunks of dust came falling down like snow.

That would be the planner. And that thing off to the left of the planner would be one of those chunks of dust that I was talking about.

Getting off the topic of school, last Saturday I had the opportunity to participate in a day of service with my church in honor of 9/11. We worked on clearing out and cleaning up an area in the community to be made into a bike path.

Here is my sister, Emilee, standing on a pile of rocks that we were digging out of the ground. This was one of the small piles, and certainly didn't have the biggest of all the rocks in it, but it has one or two decent sized rocks.

See this rock? I split it with my bare hands! Just kidding, we split it with the shovel when we were digging out a bigger rock. It was kind of cool though to see how clean the rock split.

This is one of the bushed that was cut down to be thrown away as we were clearing out the area. I truly just thought that it looked cool with how vibrant the berries were.



Nathan at Senior Sunrise

Sorry about this last random picture that really doesn't belong here in the post. I just had to show off this cool picture that I took of Nathan.

Summer Days Just Ended

Since the last time that I posted, a lot has happened. For starters, I went to Disney land! That was so much fun, although I do have to say that by the end of the second day, I was glad that we were done. The park was practically empty, so I got to go on every ride that I care about at least once the first day! Plus, I got to go to the new cars land. Check it out!

Sorry the photo is TERRIBLE, but my phone was the only camera that was available. Isn't it cool though? The place really looks like radiator springs! I loved it and think it is the best part of the park because you truly feel like you have stepped into the movie "Cars". My favorite ride is still "California Screamin'", but that's to be expected since it truly is the best.

But before going to Disneyland, we just had to go out of the way to visit some of my very favorite people in the whole world. That's right, we went to visit the Nickerl family in Carlsbad, California. While there, I celebrated my 17th birthday. That was weird! For my birthday, my cousins Adam and Jared took my out to dinner at olive garden (yum!) and then we went shopping. H&M is now my absolute favorite store now thanks to them! I love those guys so much! And check it out-Adam tried to teach me guitar! He was doing a great job being a teacher, I just wasn't a very good student. Proof? I can only remember the basic "C" chord.

Needless to say, it was still fun!

While in California, you can't be five miles or so from the beach and not go and see the vast Pacific Ocean. The day we went to the beach was a beautiful day, and my skin was glad for the sunshine, even if it doesn't look like I spent any time in the sun!

Sorry-I just had to do the classic "writing in the sand".

My little bro Sam at the beach with our beautiful towels

I thought that my flip-flops looked cool, and you can see the cool cliffs that the beach was down below

I'm just surprised that my purse wasn't full of sand by the end of that day.

Can you see the heart in the clouds, or more the heart in the sky that's outlined by the clouds?

I thought the sun shining through the clouds at the beach was kind of cool, but the picture displays pretty well that it didn't stay nice at the beach forever.

That's practically the end of my summer! It was to be the last summer of my youth because next summer, I will be getting ready to head off to school.