Birthday Bash

So I missed quite a couple birthdays on my busy break from blogging (try saying that 5 times fast). I want to go over a quick recap of the great birthdays we have celebrated this year!

Lauren's was first on January 15th. She turned 13 years old and is now officially a teenager! Someone please help my mother! For her birthday, she got a package of 16 inch Twizzlers! They were insane, but she loved them! My mom also made a cool flower cake to celebrate. It was quite the occasion to celebrate another teen entering our house!

Ethan's birthday was next. He turned seven on the 15th of February and to celebrate he had a lego party with his friends. It was a lot of fun for him and the boys to build and build!

My dad and I celebrated our birthday in April. We went to Robintinos and had a great time with family! My dad went over the hill this year and so we had to tease him about that.

For my mom's birthday, we celebrated at the Spaghetti Factory (as usual) and had a good time. I got a picture of her and my baby, who was born the day before!

We have done a lot of celebrating since the year has started, and I am excited to keep on celebrating! It has been a lot of fun and I can't wait until the next birthday that comes around!

Where I'm From

In English, we had to write a poem called "Where I'm From." We were given an outline and then had to fill in the blanks to figure out where we come from. I wanted to put mine up here because it says a lot about who I am, and where I come from.

I am from chocolate, from Kirkland Brand, and clothes that are someone else’s.

I am from the two story, interesting house that stands by the houses of neighbors that have been our grocery supply when time is little.  

I am from the pineapple plant that never grew, the fake fern that’s almost as old as I am, though there’s really no way to tell.

I am from singing around the piano and not being afraid to speak my mind, from Denise and Frazier and Furlow.  

I am from the thinking too hard and the dreaming too much.From “Wait until you are older” and “You made me proud.”  

I am from the LDS church, from temples built high upon mountains and scriptures to read at night.

I’m from downtown Salt Lake and exquisite Europe, from delicious roast that became a Sunday family tradition and caffeine free diet coke that I am sure was my mother’s own special way of protecting us from addiction and sugar highs.  

From the running on the roof and then laughing for hours about it later. From the beautiful face and the contagious laugh.

I am from trips to Disneyland, from keys being pounded on the piano, and trying to outdo each other as siblings just can’t resist.  

I am from the good, the bad, and the in between, from the family that always pushes me forward, and takes me where I am to go.

AIDA!!!!!!

Here is just a quick post about Aida, the school play we are doing. I am in it, and I play a palace slave. We have been working on it since November, and it has been a really fun experience. Anyway, I invite all of you to come and see it! It is at Fairfield Jr. High at 7:00 on the 21st of March to the 24th of March and a Matinee on Saturday the 24th at 2:00. Tickets at the door are $5-6 for adults, $4 for kids, and kids 3 and under get in free. It will be a really great show and I am very excited! Hope to see you there!

Girls Camp!!!

Wow, I am really behind. Girls Camp was in August (ugh) and the second week before school. Can you say craziness??? But is was worth all the fun. This year Lauren got to come and join the fun. By the fun, I mean lip syncs, secret sisters, devotionals, and making new friends. This year, I got put in a tent with my three best friends, Kaylee, Marissa, and Chancey. Can you say party?? We stayed up really late, talked, and started the official game of girls camp: Phase 10! What a fun game. We will definitely be playing that next year! We also spent a lot of time being lazy in the tent. Chancey stole my camera for a while, and took some really great pics!



My Disorder

It is the Christmas Season! With snow, fun, and most importantly, love!

Recently, I was reading one of the many Christmas books we have stocked in our house. I found one called "Sharing Christmas." It is a collection of many stories from many different people. I just opened to the story that had an interesting title and read this:

"I was fourteen and I wanted to die. Part of the problem was that I was fourteen and female. My brother John, the doctor, says that being fourteen and female is a disorder actually recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, and his professor once spent a whole day talking about it in his Introduction to Psychiatry class. Psychical symptoms of the fourteen-and-female syndrome include slumping in chairs, standing with arms folded across the chest, and wearing the exact same clothes as other disturbed fourteen-year-old girls. Behavioral symptoms include crying, trying on lip gloss, crying, going to the mall, crying, talking to disturbed fourteen-year-old boys on the telephone- and crying. It's a terrible disease, and so far there's no cure."

What a disease. I know I have it. I know a ton of people have it, all of them being fourteen year old girls. I say that we should find a cure, because we are in great need of one.

Gettin in the Groove

With summer winding down, and school starting, I am ready to get into a kind of schedule. It kind of feels  good to be back on a schedule, instead of the wake up whenever, go to sleep whenever, kind of life. Not that getting up at 6:30 is my kind of thing, but I don't feel so unorganized.

Right now I'm trying to do my homework at night (it's just easier then, but it cuts into my reading time) and more in the day. That is not exactly successful, as right now I have a worksheet I need to do for math that is due tomorrow, and yet here I am, writing on my blog. So I will try to work on that.

That's about it for now. Yesterday we had a great evening with Grandma and Grandpa, plus Cora, Dave, and Tenille. I am so blessed to have them in my life. Love you guys!!

My Favorite Quote

With summer ending and school starting, life has been kind of hectic (did I just say kind of??? I mean INSANELY HECTIC!!!) but it has been fun. I've been thinking a lot about this quote I found a while ago that I absolutely LOVE!!!! It goes like this:

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain!"

That is a really great quote!! I just wanted to share that with you!!

NEW YORK Day 3

After a long, but awesome night, we were ready to start a new day. This would be our last full day in New York, and we really wanted to make it count!!

Our first stop was the Empire State Building. It was really cool and had amazing views!! It was really cool to have a birds eye view!!

If you look closely, you can see trees on top of the buildings! I just thought that was funny!!

This was a cool Lego Empire State Building! It was complete with colors, cars in the street below, and even King Kong!!

After that, we headed over to do some shopping at the world's largest store!!! MACY'S!!! It was fun shopping in New York!!

Riding the subway! We sat at the subway forever because we didn't realize less trains ran on the weekends, and our train didn't even run at all!! After half an hour at the station, we boarded another train and continued with our adventure.

Central Park was our next stop! It was HUGE!! We barely saw any of it, but we still saw lots of stuff!!

Eatin' the ice cream!! Man, that was good!

After Central Park, we walked down 5th Avenue. We went in lots of shops, saw lots of cool things, and got lots of feet sores!! We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the play we were seeing that night.

We got all dolled up and headed for Times Square. Here we headed to Juniors, a great place for food and known for their cheesecake... it's a mystery why I chose this place to eat!!

Then we headed over to the theater to see.. Phantom of the Opera!!!! I was so excited! This was the play I chose and could not wait to enjoy!

It was shown and the Majestic theater.

This was the beginning set. Sadly, it was the only one I could get a picture of, but trust me, the costumes, the sets, the actors and actresses, and the play, were AMAZING!!! I am so glad I got to see a musical! Thanks Mom and Dad!

I had a great time in New York! This was the best birthday present anyone could have asked for! I am so glad that I got to share it with some family too!!! Love you all.



NEW YORK Day 2

Alright! After a first amazing day, we were all ready to go and experience more of the Big Apple. We found out that our bus tour took us straight to Battery Park, the place were the ferry's leave for Liberty and Ellis Islands. We got to see lots of cool things such as the Post Office, Macy's Store, the Flat Iron Building, and my first glimpse of the Empire State building.

Here we are on the bus. After spending an hour getting her hair ready, the wind and humidity left it slightly less... done. The windblown look really suits you mom!!

Here is one of the ferry's that transports people to Liberty and Ellis Islands.

Here is our the Statue of Liberty. It looked really cool up close like that.

Oh yeah, I can hold up the Statue of Liberty. I know you are all jealous of my skills.

Here's Grandma, just chillin'.

I am proud to say that I took this of Lady Liberty and me. It's one of my favorites.

The skyline was beautiful! It was really cool to see it from the island.

Here's a cool ship we saw by Liberty Island. It looked really cool!

Next we headed over to Ellis Island. It was a really cool museum and was really touching.

After heading back to Manhattan, we cruised over to the World Financial Center, where we got some delicious lobster rolls. They were really yummy and I wish I would have taken a picture.

After that, it started pouring rain. We were told about this little museum to honor those who died during 9/11. It was really touching. There were artifacts liked fireman helmets, quotes from people who died, and there was a picture of everyone who had died, along with there names. After that, there was a room of tiles kids made to honor those who died. It was really touching.

After the musuem, we headed over to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Luckily, the rain had stopped so we walked around it.

After that, we headed over to wall street. It was really cool to see.

We also saw Chinatown. It was cool to see everything written in Chinese.

After an amazing day, we were ready for an epic night. We decided to go to Times Square! It looked really cool. After that, we decided to do Top of the Rock.

This is the view from Rockafeller Center. The big dark spot in the middle of the picture is Central Park.

We headed over to the other side to see the Empire State building!!

The next pictures are a little blurry, but it was a super cool view!

Top of the Rock was a great way to end the day!! It was so much fun to be there! I can't wait to share my final day with you!! It really was an amazing trip!