Thanksgiving Letters and a Stressful Life

In seminary each year around thanksgiving, we have a tradition of writing Thanksgiving letters. This is where you fill out a form that has people and their phone numbers that someone could call to essentially ask what a wonderful person you are. The papers are secretly redistributed among the class members, and each person writes a letter to the person whose paper they got about how wonderful that person is. That is the best that I can do of explaining Thanksgiving letters. They are supposed to be about one page long, but my class is on the smaller side, so we were told that they could be a little longer if we wanted them to be. The letter I wrote was a page, but I had to decrease the font size so that it would all fit.

Today we started reading these letters to the people that we wrote them to. Oh, that's another thing about them. After they are written, we read the letter in front of the class to the person that we wrote them to. Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read my letter yet, but I did have my letter written to me. It was written by none other than my wonderful friend Makormick. He certainly put a TON of effort into it, and ended up writing a wonderful three page long letter (yes, he did go over the limit). I had NO idea that he was writing my letter! It was the best surprise of the day.

He also made me a plate of treats to go with it.I got a lot of interesting reactions as I carried the letter and the plate of goodies around school. I am so grateful to have wonderful friends like him!

My day was definitely made, which was good, because I was very stressed out because of different school things that were going on today. For example, we are still having technical problems in yearbook. I have been trying to upload a few pictures since Thursday, and there has been a problem every time that I tried. I think we finally figured it out, which would be wonderful because I can't get anymore work done on my pages until I get those pictures.

Another class that was stressing me out was Writing for College. In that class, we are working on a project that involves reading a biography and doing a research paper on a topic that closely relates to the biography. I have a wonderful group for this, which helps relieve so much stress. We originally chose to do our project on Walt Disney, but when I went to pick up the book, it wasn't there. I figured that it wasn't really that big of a deal since I ordered the book straight from the store that night. I found out today that we need our book tomorrow to start reading. Tonight around 4:45, I got a call from Jordan (he is in my group). He told me that Emily, another one of our group members, had gone to see if our books were in, and they weren't there. We both freaked out, and met at Hastings to try to find another book tonight. We walked around that store for about forty minutes without finding anything, so we went to Barnes and Noble to try to find one there. After looking at different biographies for thirty minutes, we finally found a book that we could do. Hopefully it will work out, and our problems will be solved. It was quite the adventure though, and I'm not sure that I will ever forget that experience.

My Friends in Argentina

A few weeks ago, one of my church leaders went to Argentina to pick up her son from his mission. She took with her: letters that we wrote to girls in his ward (congregation), bracelets that we made them, and pictures of us to go with them. She got back from Argentina recently with wonderful stories to tell about giving the things to those girls. I wish I could have been there myself, but I am still grateful for the response that I got. The sent back a letter and a gift for each of the girls my age that I go to church with.

I will never forget this moment, and I look forward to getting to know these girls better via facebook or email.

When we wrote the letters, all of the other girls in my class wrote them in english, and had our leader type and translate them before she went to Argentina. I wanted to write mine in spanish as an extra effort to reach out. It also made it easier for my leader because it was one less letter that she had to type and translate through google translator. I also don't exactly trust google translator. Their response did make my day, and I'm so glad that I have this special link with a group of people in a different part of the world.

Busy Busy Saturday

So I was set up to have a very busy day. My mom was at play practice for "Annie" all day long, so I picked up the slack at home. This included doing things like cleaning, doing the laundry, and various other things like preparing pumpkin and tomatoes for the freezer. While I was in the middle of doing all this, I got a phone call from my mom. She had forgotten some things at home that she needed for the play. I brought them to her, and while I was there, I got to see Nathan and Priscilla. My mom sent me home with Nathan's suspenders, and instructions to bring back my black heels for Priscilla to try. While there, I found out that Nathan hadn't packed himself a lunch, so I went home and made him some sandwiches.

Please ignore the fact that I look nasty. I honestly just got up this morning, and didn't even bother to do my hair or makeup. Nevertheless, I was all around Spokane in this state.

Spanish...Spanish...and More Spanish

I feel really bad that I haven't posted since Monday, but I will try to redeem myself a little by posting tonight. Not much has happened since Monday though. On Tuesday we started speaking only spanish in my spanish class. That even goes as far as getting participation points taken away each time we talk in english. Now that may sound pretty harsh, but we should be talking only in spanish by our fourth year of learning. Not only are we in our fourth year, but it is our third year of college spanish courses. It is so hard to talk in spanish all of the time right now, but I know it will just get easier.

Veteran's Day

So before I get into the meat of my post, I have to say something that I forgot to post about yesterday. When I was at Youth Conference, Nathan told me that he told Jordan to park next to my car. When I went out to my car to leave, there was ice on my windows. I had just started to scrape them when Nathan and Jordan came outside to leave. Nathan promptly took my scraper from me and finished scraping my windows! After that, I went to get into my car, and Jordan kindly closed my door for me. Those twins have been well trained!

Yesterday, I went to mission prep for the first time! I was late, but the class was good, and I'm glad that I went. While there, I saw Nathan, but Jordan wasn't there, so I gave him a bad time about that later. Actually, I happened to see Jordan later that very day. I was at the church for choir practice, and when it was done, my sister ran back in the room shouting, "Victoria! Nathan is here". I promptly left the room to say hello, but when I got there, it was Jordan, not Nathan! It would be one thing for her to get them mixed up if they were both blonde still, but they aren't! I was definitely laughing about this for a while afterwards because for identical twins, they are pretty easy to tell apart.

Veterans are really important to me. Since I have several family members in the military, one being in Afghanistan right now, I respect them so much for the sacrifices they make for our country. The time that they spend and the things they give up are so vast that I couldn't do it justice to name just some of them. I did have a chance to express my feelings through an essay that I wrote today though. For my Writing for College class, I wrote a thousand word essay about Veteran's Day and the American flag. Both are extremely important to me, and are things that remind me of the many freedoms that I enjoy. God bless those that are serving our country and their families! They do so much more than we could every truly comprehend.

Youth Conference

Friday was a pretty normal day (so I won't really waste time talking about it)...Nathan didn't steal my phone at all on Friday! That makes a record of two whole days that he didn't steal my phone (he didn't steal it Thursday either). He did however, take my phone during youth conference yesterday. He and Jordan were fighting over it, and eventually, Jordan won long enough to put his number in my phone. Now I can text both of those hilarious twins!

Youth Conference has been, so far, the best part of my weekend. I spent practically the entire time hanging out with: Dallas, Kaden, Nathan, Jordan, Emily, and Ethan. We all happened to be in the same group for the rotating workshops...not a coincidence at all! During one of the workshops, Nathan and Jordan did (for the workshop) an improvised debate of sorts. It was easy to see that they are very talented actors. During another workshop, I was feeling especially generous, so I threw Jordan a bag of m&m's. He was sitting right across the room from me, so it was pretty funny when he opened them and I said that he had to share. He then began to give them to people. He gave a few to Mitchell, who are them straight off the table (without his hands). Jordan also started throwing them to people for them to catch in their mouths, like Nathan, who was sitting next to me. Now every time that I eat m&m's, I will think of Jordan.

The dance after all the classes was so much fun! I LOVED getting to dance with all of my guy friends, especially Nathan, Jordan, Ethan, and Kaden. As always, swing dancing with Kaden was a blast, some crazy two-step with Nathan was ridiculously fun, and Ethan and Jordan just made me laugh until I almost cried. And then there was my girl Dallas. We had WAY too much fun doing silly things during the dance. While we were walking around during the dance, we found this:

Talk about weird! I have NEVER seen a "do not disturb" sign in a church. I was certainly amused, so I obviously took a picture to prove that it really did exist.

Youth conference was an experience that I will never forget. I got to spend time with many of my friends that I get to see on a daily basis, and many that I hardly ever get to see, like Kaden (he now lives in Coeur d' Alene). Honestly, it was the best night that I have had in a long time!

Yearbook Disaster + Snow = Bad Day

So today wasn't the best day ever, but I still enjoyed it. Because of yearbook, I wanted to go crazy, but I was able to remain sane through it all. Today we took more "senior best" pictures, but the ones from this morning, are lost. We took them, then uploaded them to the computer, just to find out later that they for some reason or another weren't there. Those pictures will just have to be retaken next week. Another bad mishap? Today while working on the yearbook, Taylor noticed that all the computers but five didn't have the "z drive" (the external drive that we use just for the yearbook's information). This posed quite a problem since just about every single computer is being used all of the time. We got a tech guy to come and put shortcuts to the drive on the computers that didn't have it, but this is only a temporary fix. There was one last major problem from yearbook today: the cameras. I took pictures of our Veteran's Day assembly today, but since one of the cameras wasn't in it's bag, one was dead, and the other was being used by someone else, I had an extremely difficult time getting a camera to use. I eventually did, but I still wasn't too happy about the situation. Another camera problem happened today during class. Austin FINALLY came in for his "Senior Standout" picture. That was WONDERFUL news! I thought that I was the happiest person on earth. The only problem was that there wasn't a single camera in the room when he was there for his picture. A camera finally came and we were able to take the picture, so everything turned out all right. However, on the topic of standouts, my interviewee didn't show up for his interview today, so I will have one more person to nag! Yearbook wasn't really all that successful today, right?

One more thing happened today that was not in my favor. It started snowing. It it the first snow of this season, and I'm not happy. I'm not known for liking snow, especially when I have to drive in it, like I had to tonight.

It's only the second week of November! I really shouldn't have to deal with this, but I guess I will just have to grow up and deal with it.

I'm "Wanted"

Today was quite the day. Government was great again, thanks to many wonderful people. Shout-out to my friend Aubrey, who aided my laziness. I didn't want to copy down the assignment from the board, and so she took a picture of it for me, and put it on facebook so I could have it. That girl is truly amazing, and has always been there for me since I got to know her last year in spanish. She is a pretty great photographer, isn't she?

I am definitely in her debt, and will have to do something great to repay her the favor. Thanks again Aubrey!

Nathan took my phone again, and this time, he texted a few people. I got a few random texts, which clued me into what he had done. This guy is honestly creative in what he does with my phone. It's something different every time.

Today for yearbook, we started to take the pictures for the "Senior Bests". So far, it has been so much fun! Our candidates for "biggest brains" were my favorites so far. We took them up to the library, and had them pose by some shelves, with books, and with some other things. They both, without coordination, wore 3-D glasses. They were great, since they are not only smart, but hilarious too! I am excited for the yearbook to be published just to see how amazing that picture will turn out. Well, I am excited for other reasons too, but that picture, and many others, turned out great.

Today when I walked into my church for my youth night, I found several "wanted posters". They were EVERYWHERE! Each girl from ages 12-18 had a poster with them on it. They were event posters for an event next week. Here is the poster with me on it:

I think it is a pretty creative way to run and announce an event.

Oh, other great news, this very blog hit 1000 page views yesterday! While it isn't really that big of a milestone, it was a wonderful confidence booster for me.

It's kind of hard to see, but the arrow is pointing tot the statistic that says I have1000 page views. It was a good day!

All Things Government

I am avoiding talking about the elections because it won't do any good, and it bothers me when people do things like post political things on facebook. Sure it is great to be informed and have an opinion, but we don't need to let everyone know. That's why when you vote, you don't announce you choice over a loudspeaker. Instead, you quietly cast your vote. I would honstly like one less reason to possibly hate you.

Now that that is out of the way, my day was wonderful besides all of this political crap that we call government. However, in my government class today (a wonderful class that informs students on the real issues at hand, how our government works, and how to be a GOOD INFORMED VOTER), I had a marvelous time with my friends Emily and Nathan. To prove that, Emily finished her assignment before class was over, so she drew this wonderful picture of Nathan and me on paint.

Emily felt the need to make Nathan with red eyes and quite the muscles. What we are saying though? It's far too long of a story, but a wonderful inside joke for those people in my AP GOV class. Oh the things we do in government! Another great thing? Yesterday, Nathan took my phone during that class and changed his contact information to this:

It is so great now! Everytime I get a text from him, the first word that my eye gravitates to is "gorgeous". I sure do love that kid! It was pretty funny when he changed it though, because he wouldn't tell me what he did, he just changed it. When I asked him what he did, he would just start laughing uncontrollably.

So other than the annoying talk about the election, today was great!

It's Really "Pinteresting"

I like many, have become involved in the pinterest society. There are so many things that I have found on there that I like. While I haven't tried many of the ideas that I have seen, it is still lots of fun to see all the ideas. The only problem is that everything doesn't always work as well as it should. Here is my interpretation of this idea:

The hair style looks okay right? I wouldn't complain to have my hair turn out like this every day. Everything seems too good to be true, I mean come on. One step? To show how potentially deceiving things can be, this is what my hair looked like when I turned my head after taking the picture:

Pinterest always tells the truth, right? I mean, any picture of someone curling their hair MUST mean that it's easy and turns our perfect.

The best ones though are the makeup ones. Anyone can do a good job with makeup according to pinterest, and every makeup style will work for any eye shape. What many people don't take into consideration, is that makeup is an ART FORM, not a simple math problem. There isn't really a whole lot of black and white with makeup. Here is an example.

Besides the awful picture quality, the eye looks great right? Well, even though it may look great up close, it doesn't always look so good from far away.

The makeup is far too dark in my opinion, and looks very creepy.

Moral of the story, look at what you are pinning before you pin it. Things aren't always so great. Don't get me wrong, I love pinterest, but I just wanted to put out a warning call.

Fakin' It

There is so much for me to talk about! From Halloween, to the school play, to the ACT, there was a lot of "fakin' it" going on. Talk about crazy! I thought that I had a lot to talk about last time, but I think it just got worse. So I have a new goal. I will post THE DAY OF anything that happens. It's a fairly lofty goal, but it sure is possible.

So the first exciting thing was the football game. It was against the undefeated Gonzaga-Prep. We were all pretty scared going into that game, since we had lost two games that season already, and G-prep was undefeated. That game was so tense, especially in the last quarter, but we barely scraped by in the end 37-35. Everyone was ecstatic. We had just won a game against the previously undefeated team! I took pictures of that game down on the field, and I almost got run over by one of the G-prep guys when I was taking pictures. The game was fun to watch, but the results were even better. For the second football game in a row, we were all so proud to be bears.

The following morning I had to get up and take the dreaded ACT. It was certainly something that I didn't look forward to, but I am so glad that it's done. That is the last time that I am EVER taking that test. It was great though. The moment that I walked into the testing room, it felt like I was at seminary or something because most everyone in the room was a Mormon from my school. It always helps to have several friends there. Like always, the test was long, but I felt that I didn't have enough time. I finished more sections this time than last time though, so I must have improved some. The worst part though, was that my calculator's batteries were practically dead. I did almost the entire math sections without a calculator, so that slowed me down quite a bit. I am so glad that is is over! That day was also my dad's birthday, and so the day that started in a boring way, ended up good after all.

After school one day, I walked out to my car, and found a sticky note on my window. Leadership or someone must have gone out and put one on each car, since mine wasn't the only one with a motivational note.

I moved the note to my dashboard as a reminder of sorts that everyone has a purpose, and that everything counts, whether it seems big or small.

So when I was sitting in my car at piano lessons, I saw the coolest thing ever! There were three wild turkeys just walking around my car! It is hard to see them in these pictures because there was so much rain on my windshield. I would have just used my windshield wipers to clear them off, but that would require turning on my car and risking scaring them away.

I added arrows pointing to the turkeys to try to make it a little easier, but they are still super hard to see. It was pretty cool though.

We certainly can't forget the Holiday that was last week though...Halloween! It's not my favorite Holiday, but It was still pretty fun! I didn't really dress up for school, but I did wear fake eyelashes. That was fun! Nathan did have me beat on makeup for that day though. He had the coolest designs drawn onto his face with black and gold eyeliner. I wish I had a picture of it, but at least I will have the memory of it! Here's my fake eyelashes.

They are so fun to wear! My church held a Halloween party that night, so I got a little more dressed up for that. Well, I just got dressed up enough to do the room that I was involved in. We did a mock surgery for our room, and I was the patient. I got to do so much screaming, which was great! My throat did hurt the next day, and I didn't mind because it didn't last for very long. There was one room that caused a little bit of a fuss. The fourteen and fifteen year old boys had a smoke machine, and it set off the smoke alarms. Consequentially, the fire department showed up at the church, and we had to explain that there really wasn't a fire. They were super nice about it though. One of the best parts of the night was the photo booth that was set up. Emily and I had fun taking some really silly pictures in it.

You can see my "costume" in these pictures. It was just a surgery gown for our room, but at least it was something!

The best part of these past two weeks was getting to see the school play, Nicholas Nickleby. I saw it twice, once to take pictures,and once to just enjoy watching it. It was AMAZING! I laughed so hard, and cried a tear or two. I wanted to cry more, but it didn't exactly happen. It was incredible to say the least! Nathan definitely did a great job, as well as Josh (he played a woman, and was HILARIOUS), and my brother.

Clarisa, Jordan, Ryann, Nathan

I "stole" this picture off facebook, so I will give the credit to Clarisa because I took it from her facebook page. This was easily the best play that our school has put on since the fall of my sophomore year besides last year's musical: Singing in the Rain. I would suggest this show to anyone that is able to see it.