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.

Less Than One Week...

Yup, that's right. In less than one week, I will be enjoying the beautiful California sunshine! On Thursday, My family will be headed down to California to finish off our summer. What better way to go out witha  bang than Disney Land and Carlsbad! I know I'm looking forward to it. Lots of cousin time, beach time, and time to recoup and get ready for my last year of high school. I can't believe that I only have one year left! After that, I'll get "kicked out" and have to do the whole college thing. Seeing many of my friends leave to do that in the past few years has kind of freaked my out, especially because I know that it will be me that's leaving here in a year. But I still have one more year to live it up, which is really scary if you think about it.

Next thing. I made a Pintrest account yesterday. I'm not quite sure yet if this is good or not. For example, it has taken me at least five times as long as it should have to write this post because I have been peeking back at my feed far too much. However, it has proved to be quite entertaining, and I have found some cool ideas that I want to either try out, or fantasize about. All in all, it is just a great way to waste time!

Not much really happened this week though. Guess what? Worst part of my week was that Facebook decided to get sassy with me, and it switched me over to timeline! The curse hit me, and the timeline will automatically post this Wednesday the 22. I am not too excited about this, but what can I do!

The Best part of my week? Well, that isn't until a week from today, but it's close enough. My birthday is in a week from today. I am going to be 17. It's not really that exciting of a birthday, but I figured out a funny way of thinking about it. It just means that I am starting the 18th year of my life. Now THAT is a funny thought! My birthday should be lots of fun though since I get to spend it with some of my favorite family members while in California.

As far as the rest of my life goes, work is same as usual. I made five more necklaces on Saturday, which puts my necklace count up to 22 I think. I left work with sore fingers, as I have the past few weeks. This is getting to be a regular occurance though, so I guess I will just have to get used to it and move on. The nerves in my right index finger do seem to be healing though. After almost one month, you would think that my finger would be totally back to normal right? I mean come on, I was just tying balloons! Anyways, it is getting better. What else could I expect?

Two Eventful Weeks

The last two weeks have been rather eventful to say the least! I had the mind-blowing experience of going to yearbook camp two weeks ago. Talk about a lot of computer time and a lot of skipping class! I don't think that I have ever skipped that many classes, and I hope to never skip that many ever again. But don't worry, I was doing something productive. The other "yerds" and I from my school were either taking pictures in a slightly dangerous way, or working on planning and creating different things for this upcoming yearbook. We got a lot done and should have a "legit" and exciting book. There are going to be some features this year that are just mind boggling, but I can't share those top secret details with everyone.

Last week I was at a completely different kind of camp: girls camp. There isn't much that can compare with this. Stinky, smelly, giggly girls who haven't showered all week, lots of braids, and many tears. Why tears? Well, testimony meeting is very emotionally/spiritually moving. On top of that however, all of the girls that went on the canoe trip were quarantined. Three girls on the trip got sick, and the leaders didn't want to expose the rest of the camp and repeat a disaster that occurred five years ago. That year, almost every single person got sick and was puking. They had to end camp early that year because everyone was so miserable and most of the campers had to go home early because they were sick. Luckily though, that didn't happen this year! The quarantine was a heartbreaking experience, but we all understood the reasoning behind it. With a camp full of hugging, it was extremely difficult to try and not hug all of the wonderful people that were quarantined. Yes, there were rule breakers, but in the end it was all successful. I had three lovely girls to be a YCL for: Cate, Ahzhanae, and Emmah. We got to know each other so well by the end of that week, and because of that, we all had a few shoulders to cry on during and after the testimony meeting. I miss those girls already, and look forward to seeing them in the future.

Since then, I have had the wonderful privilege of meeting some new family members. My cousins Caleb and Emma came to our house yesterday along with their dad and new "bonus mom" and "bonus brothers". I consider all of their bonus family members to be my cousins and aunt already. They are amazing people, and I couldn't have asked for anything better for such a great family of mine! When they came, we got to have another treat: pizza with the pizza oven. My dad has been building a beautiful brick pizza oven in our back yard. It is finally done, and the pizza that we cooked in it tasted INCREDIBLE! We are going to have to be the party house from now on for sure!

One more thing... while at yearbook camp, I took a couple of photo classes. I learned quite a bit about all of the different settings on a camera and how to set them for a particular purpose. I was messing around a little bit with that yesterday and this morning. It is quite fun once you barely know what you are doing! Just a little bit of knowledge and a lot of messing around can go a long ways. Here's what I mean:

I learned how to do funny things with the shutter speed! This picture was taken at a fairly low shutter speed to get a pretty cool exposure. It totally looks like my brother Sam is a ghost, but he is really just walking around in the kitchen. I also had some fun just snapping other random pictures.

I took this picture while sitting inside on the couch around six this morning. I was already awake, and the sun just looked beautiful.

I was just sitting at our computer, and we have pictures of various temples rotating through as our background. Sorry the Picture is pretty blurry, but it's the best one that I can see myself with the temple. Not that I want to just see myself, but the temple is a really important goal of mine, so I want to see myself there someday, so this kind of helps to envision that.