The Monster Post!

So life has been crazy the past few weeks, and school hasn't helped. It might help if when doing research at school, funny things didn't pop up on the computer like this:

Is that crazy or what? I was researching the beliefs of Puritans and the belief of Predestination, and one of the things that came up on the list was "what are the ten commandments". Is it just me, or is that sad? It is crazy to think that that question would be asked so commonly, but I guess that's just the society that I live in.

Along with getting distracted at school, I have the habit of getting distracted at home as well. If you were to look at my room, it would be apparent that I work on several projects at a time. I will start one, then start another and another before I have even come close to finishing the first one.

On my desk alone, there are several projects. I have a painting, earrings, nail art, jewelry work, and several other things in the process just on my desk. At least it is cleaner than my room looked in July. My desk looked about the same, but on top of that, my floor and bed were covered in t-shirts and all other types of crafts. Since the mess is now confined to my desk, I can say that I have been extremely successful in cleaning my room! Besides, this is a creative and productive mess-not a sloppy and pointless one.

One more random thing before I get to what really happened. My dad built a door for the pizza oven.Now we can make make breads as well as pizza!

I am all ready to make some bread, and you had better believe that I will get it perfected. I guess I never put  a picture of the oven up when we finished it, so here is a picture of the whole oven.

We got to crank out the oven recently for my brother Sam's 8th birthday. We had family over to celebrate, so we made pizza. It is truly the best pizza that I have ever had. Sam's birthday was great, and he was so cute, and extremely proud of the choice he made to become a baptized member of our church.

Isn't he cute! He was so happy.

For my church youth activity this week, we made dessert shooters. Imagine that! Several Mormon girls made mini desserts in shot glasses. We had fun and made some delicious desserts like:

Cherry Cheesecake,

Lemon Custard,

and Brownie Sundae

They were delicious, and so easy to make! And since they were so small, it wasn't hard to eat to eat all six of them.

Saturday was mom's birthday, and we decided to celebrate it in Coeur d'Alene. We went to the Brazilian grill that's in down town called The Grill from Ipanema. That food was so good! Although it wasn't my very favorite type of food, their marinated chicken, grilled vegetables, and grilled pineapple are to DIE for! They come around with the meat, pineapple, and vegetables on skewers, then slice it straight off the skewers onto your plate. We left there so full!

After our late lunch, we went to one of my favorite childhood places, the park in Coeur d'Alene. I loved this park so much because it has "Fort Sherman" in it. I have so many fond memories playing in this beautiful play area that is in the park just across the street from the lake.

It is one of the coolest wooden playgrounds that probably exists on the face of the planet. Not only does it look cool, but it is so fun to play in. You can walk or crawl all over inside it, which gives plenty of room for exploration.

"Chimes" to play inside the "fort"

It was such a neat experience to be able to go back to this park and walk around in it after so many years.

The best part of the past two weeks though...Thursday night's football game against Shadle Park. Events of that game have been on Good Morning America, the Today Show, and Sports Center to name a few. To tie the game, Austin Rehkow kicked a 67 yard field goal. It is the third farthest record for High School, and it beats the NFL record by a few yards. He was an overnight sensation, and was just about all anyone could talk about at school the next day.

What he did was incredible! There are so many videos on YouTube of his kick. In one of them, the most common one, his mom yells something along the lines of "let's go Rehkow!", and then screams once he makes it. Another one, is from the side of the opposing team, and it's pretty funny to hear them say "no...no...no" when he kicks. People like him make me proud to go to Central Valley High School and be a bear. He was such an overnight sensation that when he went to sleep that night, he had 130 friend requests on facebook, and thirty more when he woke up in the morning. He even has his own internet meme already.

This picture obviously wasn't taken at the same game, but it still has Austin kicking and Scott holding the ball for him. It was so funny on Friday at school since I sit next to Scott in my third period class. All we did that entire class was watch videos of the kick and talk about what had happened, what was happening, and what could happen. We were still both in shock, but ready to accept that it had really happened. Being a CV bear means so much more now, and we will say with much more emphasis at football and basketball games the cheer that's "Austin Rehkow (clap, clap, clap clap clap). Go Bears!

Conference weekend!

General Conference was this weekend, and some HUGE announcements were made that will change my life and the lives of others forever. It was announced that young men can now leave for their missions once they are 18 and have graduated from high school, instead of when they are 19. But something that has an even greater impact on me, is that young women can now leave on their missions at age 19 instead of 21. That change was monumental! There are going to be so many more sister missionaries now, since that announcement has been made. For me personally, this means that I will probably serve a mission, when I had previously thought that I wouldn't ever serve one. The news of this also spurred some funny responses that were seen all over facebook.

They crack me up! And to be completely honest, they might be at least partially true. Conference was great though, and it will definitely be something that we all will remember.

Long before Conference though, we got our garden ready for winter. This entailed harvesting all of the food, and tearing out all the plants. We had to pick so many tomatoes prematurely, which left us with a huge box of green tomatoes. These will be made into delicious tomatillo salsa. Yes, they aren't truly tomatillos, but we didn't plant any this year so they will have to do.

I wasn't kidding when I said that it was a huge box! The salsa will be good though!

Wednesday was one of the best days this week. I got my senior parking pass during fifth period that day. So I went from this pass,

to this beautiful pass.

I feel so lucky! The 49th spot is the last senior parking spot, so I barely got a spot. I know that I will really enjoy the benefits of having this spot that is much closer to the school than I would have otherwise, especially since the weather is getting colder. Needless to say, Wednesday was a day of rejoicing for all of us seniors who were fortunate enough to get these passes.

Let's not forget about those wonderful Friday night High School football games. This last Friday was the rivalry game against University High School: the Greasy Pig. I got to take pictures of the game and halftime show at this event, which was pretty cool, but not the first time that I have done something like this. The referees were so picky, and were yelling at everyone that were on the sidelines. Even those of us with special privileges like the press pass that I had and the coaches were yelled at. It was a tad bit ridiculous. At any other game that I have taken pictures at, this has never happened before.

I love stadium lights when you have a good camera! The moon was also gorgeous that night.

It was so unbelievably cold at the game though! I was not super smart, and didn't bring a jacket or gloves. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, but it didn't really cut it. Luckily, Ashleigh and Connor came to watch the game, and I chatted with them a little bit after half time before the game started again. Connor insisted that I wear his leather gloves, and even though they were huge (the fingers were and inch too long for one), they probably saved my fingers, and I was to thankful for them. Thank you guys so much!

I know that neither of you really liked this picture, but it looks just fine to me! I am honestly so blessed to have the two of you as my friends. I got some pretty good pictures of the actual game and the band and marching band at half time, but I am saving those as a surprise for the yearbook. I also got a few good crowd and cheerleader shots, but those aren't usually as cool as the other ones. The best part? We owned! We crushed U-HI 47-14. We were expected to win, but the score was still a little humorous.