AHHHH! Things keep happening and I can't keep up!

Suddenly I'm feeling super rushed to dump everything on my blog that I haven't put on my blog already.

On the first of June, we got rear-ended.
That was funcastic. I'd never been in a car wreck before, so I was kinda freaked out. Fortunately, nobody as hurt and the lady who hit us had insurance so we were fine. The car was totaled, so we got a new one!!!! It's beautiful. It has a DVD player. I love it.


Then I took all my finals. The lasst final is on the same day as the last day f school, so they mail you the results of all your exams and your final grades. I got A's in EVERY SINGLE CLASS ON EVERY SINGLE TEST AND EVERY SINGLE QUARTER!!!! And I honestly didn't think I was going to make it in math so I'm pretty proud of that.

Then it was summer!!! I went to EFY the very first week, but that's another story. Then I had a week off, then I went to Girl's Camp, and that's another story too.

There's a new girl in out ward! Since the last straw with Kira (long long loooooooooooong and dramatic story short, I got sick of putting up with her crap. We are still friends, but no longer friends who are so close that I have to put up with her crap) I've been trying to make a new best friend. This girl is AMAZING. She's a writer, like me, so I have a new writing buddy. And she loves Harry Potter. And I'm converting her to the Hunger Games, like I've done with all my friends. And she's so freaking nice! Her name is Sammy.


This is her. :)

The week after Girls Camp we spent a lot of time hanging out. We went swimming at my house and I got SO FREAKING SUNBURNED It hurts just to talk about it. I'm still burned! This might be the time that makes me remember to wear sunscreen, seriously.

And then It was the fourth of July. And everybody was out of town and I was bored to death. But Watching the fireworks with my little cousin was fun.
Isn't she adorable?!

We had even more family come down from Utah later in the week and we had an awesome family gathering. I got to make the desserts, at it was fun. homemade ice cream is the BEST!!

I also became dangerously obsessed with a new website called The Potter Games for a few days. "May the Wands be Ever in your Favor'. That's right. It's a mix of Harry Potter And The Hunger Games!!! I liked the Facebook page long before the website launched and checked it every few hours for news. They staggered the reaping over several days and randomcasticly selected tributes from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beaubatons. Funny thing, is, the creators never told the fans exactly what the Potter Games was going to be. A fan movie? RPG? Fan made book? The mystery kept me glued to my computer and when the website launched at 8:00 last Monday, I was there.

Thing is, so were 7000 other people.

The site was designed to be pretty small and they weren't prepared for that many people. The Potter Games website totally overloaded and crashed with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

I was NOT happy.

But they fixed it up quickly and The Potter Games turned out to be an online Choose Your Own Adventure game, where you can play as each of the tributes. Unfortunately, there's only one way to win as each tribute, but it's still fun. Not half as fun as I hoped, but fun.

After 4th of July I had to start working on ward choir music. I'm conducting a really beautiful arrangement of 'Come, Come, Ye Saints' that the ward choir is singing for Pioneer Day. That's right, I'M CONDUCTING IT!! It's nerve-wracking but very exciting and fun.

The following week my fiends and I started a Harry Potter movie Marathon in preparation for the release of Deathly Hallows Part 2. We watch 2 movies a day at a different friends house every day, it was tons of fun. It takes a LOT of time to watch two Harry Potter movies every day! About halfway through we usually got super bored and started tickling each other or something. Some of my fiends are suuuuuuuper ticklish and it's just too funny to watch them spazz out.

And last night I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 wiht a HUGE group of friends!!! I really have the most amazing parents and friends ever. None of them are really good at (or indeed, capable of) coordinating an event like that, so that was my job. I talked Dad into driving me, Kira (like I said before we're still friends just not super close friends), Jessica, Loren, Sammy, and two other friends, Katy and Sierra. That's seven girls my dad took to a midnight movie. Is he the greatest or is her the GREATEST!!! I really no longer feel socially handicapped. I have AWESOME friends and goshdarnit, THEY LIKE ME!!! And you know what? It was SO MUCH FUN! Kira and I both dressed up. She wore this Gryffindor jacket she recently bought, I wore my homemade Ravenclaw Quidditch Robes I've had for years and tucked my wand behind my ear. We answered trivia questions while waiting in line and talked in British Accents and were the first ones into our theater. The movie was amazing. I cried unashamedly through pretty much the whole thing. It was SO true to the book!!! I'm sad the film series is over, but there's still Pottermore to look forward to!

So that's what's been going on lately. I still have to finish posting about EFY and Girl's Camp, and I will, but it's late and I was up till 3:30 last night and so I'm going to bed.

EFY: Day Three

(This is not turning out nearly as effective as I'd hoped but I'm really only recording it for myself for years from now so it's okay.)

I'd just like to take this opportunity to mention how absolutely AMAZING the Canon Center food is. It's just this huge all-you-can-eat buffet, and there's an ENORMOUS variety of choices, and ALL of them are delicious. I pigged out pretty much every time I was in there.

So that's where we had breakfast after Devo and Gospel Study. I found some really neat scriptures and learned a really cool lesson (thanks counselors!)

The Morningside for the day was "We believe all things, we hope all things". The Session Director talked a lot about gaining a testimony of your own. 'You cannot live on borrowed light'. He also said that everyone has moments of great spiritual revelation and influence in their lives, but in between those moments we might start to doubt. Use those powerful experiences like a rock climber scaling a cliff- they're your pitons. When your faith starts to waver you can take comfort from those past experiences, knowing that if it was true then, it MUST be true now. This really helped me a lot.

The Classes for that day were fantastic. By this time the teachers started to feel like friends. People even stopped falling out of their chairs ( well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit) when Brother Hadfield suddenly shouted instead of whispered.

Lunch, Choir, Free time, and Dinner flew by (I stuffed myself at both meals- the food's just SO GOOD!) and then we all headed out to the field for GAMES NIGHT!!! That was fun, even if it wasn't quite as gospel-centered as the games we played on Monday night. Each company also made up a skit and a banner for the skit competition (my company won, I think :D ) Some of then were pretty funny: "Look at you banner. Now look at our banner. Look at your company! Now look at our company. Look at you. Back to me." and so on in the a hilarious Old Spice parody.

When we were all tired and sweaty and finished playing running games we went back to our dorms (didn't make it first for the showers this time but that was ok) and ordered pizza. PIZZA NIGHT!! Wahoo! Somebody brought their iPod and speakers and we sang along to Taylor Swift and took a million pictures and did each others hair
And basically had a great time :) We had a Devotional after wards and went everyone went straight to bed.

Unfortunately, three amazingly huge meals plus pizza didn't sit to well in my stomach, and I threw up in the night. I made it into the trash can, thank goodness, and found a place to throw it away (boy that was not fun at all), but I learned my lesson and never ate that much again the rest of the week.

EFY: Day Two!

Day Two is when you really get into the pattern of EFY. Morning Devo at 7, Scripture study, Breakfast (breakfast at the Cannon Center is freaking amazing!!!), Morningside, Classes, Lunch, Classes, dance, Nighttime Devo, and Bed.

The Morningside was great, we had an Excellent Session Director. Day Two's Morningside theme was 'We believe in being honest and true'. That means integrity- "having the courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong." Love that quote. Our Director also talked about burying a lie or sin or trial that you're carrying around.

After that we walked over to the Wilkinson Center for CLASSES!!! Did I tell you about walking around? We walked all over campus, it took a while, but it was fun because we had 'escorts'. Each guy took a girls arm and we walked around like this:(I don't know who these people are but it's a cute picture isn't it?)
So that was pretty hilarious and a lot of fun.

But I digress. I was talking about classes wasn't I? I know it sounds super boring, Classes, but that was probably my favorite part of EFY. We had two AMAZING teachers, John Lawson, and John Hadfield. I especially liked brother Hadfield. He was the most energetic teacher I've ever had. Like at parts of his talk he would get up and run around the room and yell at the top of his voice. It was very entertaining, but also helped get the point across better. The other speaker, Brother Lawson, was super funny. He told stories about his mission and when he was a kid that not only made us laugh but helped us understand the point of his talk better.

At lunch that day was the start of the preparations for the Variety Show and Music Program. The Variety show is like a talent show, basically, except they look for a variety of acts just as much as they do quality of acts. Auditions were held on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the show on Thursday.
The Music Show is a youth choir that rehearsed at lunch and Free Time on Tuesday and Wednesday, and preformed on Thursday. I was in the Music Show. The Director was a Counselor called Jared, who was a music major at BYU and an AMAZING violinist. He did a really good job, even though I didn't especially like his conducting style.

After Lunch we had more classes, which were better than the first set. :) Then came Free Time (another choir rehearsal) and dinner, and that night we had a Dance! Dances at EFY are waaaay fun. They are put on under the bleachers of the football stadium at BYU, which is really cool, except that it's still super light our which is kinda annoying, but tolerable. TEh best part about that dance, though, is that you're only at EFY for a week, so you can dance around as crazily as you want without feeling self-conscious. I danced and danced and had a great time.
The only problem was, everyone got super sweaty. We knew there would be a mad dash for the showers when we got back to our dorms, so our company (the girls half anyways) made sure we were the very first ones out of the dance and speedwalked quickly back to the dorms, stopping only to take a picture at the cougar outside the stadium.

We made it to the showers first, hooray! When everyone was finished we had a Devotional to wrap up the night, then everyone went to bed.

EFY! Day One

I didn't actually keep a day-to-day journal this week, so I'll mostly be putting up pictures.
Just to clarify, EFY stands for Especially For Youth- a week long sleep away camp for kids 14-18 run by the LDS Church. There are all kinds of fun things to do there, but the reason every Mormon kid wants to go is because of the powerful Spirit there. It's truly amazing, I'm so glad to have gone. There are lots of different locations for EFY- I went to the one on the BYU campus in Provo, Utah, with my cousin (love her guts!!!). Provo is sooo beautiful!! (well, compared with teh desert anyway) These are a few pictures of the scenery I took my first day there:

Okaaaay!

DAY ONE
Meet your Company!
Your Company is the group of kids and Counselors that are like your family for the week, you eat together, play games together, have Devotionals together, etc. My company was pretty small. 8 girls and their counselor, and 8 guys and their counselor. We met at 1:30 or so on Monday, and right of the bat we had a devotional. Then we picked our 'Company Spot' and played some get to know you games.

My Counselors!
These two people have my undying respect and love. I learned SO MUCH from each of them! They're funny, upbeat, spiritual, and friendly. Best Counselors ever!

And these are all the kids in my company! That's me on the ground, in the blue. I've decided blue is my color.


After we were all properly acquainted, we picked out our Company Name. Your Company's Name is picked from the scripture assigned to you, Ours was Leviticus 19:18- Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.

So our Company was named Thy Neighbors :)

Afterward we met up with all the kids at EFY and had a Family Home Evening lesson together, all about the 13th Article of Faith: We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Actually, the Youth Theme for this whole year is the 13th Article of Faith, which I love :)

After that we played some field games- and applied them to the scriptures- that was incredible! I've never been in a place like that before or since- everything has meaning at EFY. I mean, who would have thought that a game of 'Poison' could apply to gospel principles?

Then we went back to our dorms (I stayed in Chipman Hall), had another devotional, and went to bed.
My dorm:

I will not go a month without blogging. WILL NOT.

Hi everyone.

June was a crazy month. Finals, Summer starting, EFY, and then Girls Camp. I know I should tell all about EFY and Girls Camp in an orderly fashion but i think it might not eve happen if I do. So maybe I'll just ramble. But I don't want to do that..... I have pictures and everything so I guess I should put them up.

How was your June?

I got into Bella Voz today.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Friday the 13th

Yesterday sucked.

Our whole family was planning to travel up to Salt Lake, Utah this weekend to see Mom's family. When Mom told me last week she said we would be leaving Thursday night and coming home Sunday afternoon. And I said "Mom, I CAN'T miss any more school." I've been missing kind of a lot lately, because of the Handbells trip and Choir and Orchestra Festivals. But it was just one day... and besides, it's not like I really had a choice.
Then I found out my schedule for that day I would be missing.
Choir-Internal Auditions (not mine but still)
English- Big Test
Orchestra- Going over concert music I've only seen once before that we're performing in less than a month.
Bio- Big Quiz
Plus ANOTHER quiz- Geometry- I'm going to have to make up on Monday. So yeah. Really crappy day to miss school.
And then Dad had a lot of work he had to finish before we left, so we couldn't go Thursday night. So we left on Friday morning instead, but Dad still didn't get his work done so he stayed home. We got up early early on Friday morning and left without him. If I was smart I would have stayed home with Dad.
So we were driving up this hill, three hours later, listening to an audio book and whatever, and the car started making this grinding noise and slowing down. Mom tried taking off the cruise control and all kinds of stuff, but the car just kept slowing down. Within a few moments we weren't going forward at all. So we ended up pulling over, calling a tow truck (actually getting a passing highway patrolman to call a tow truck), and sitting on the side of the road for an hour waiting for it to come. I got VERY irritated during this wait, because there we were, obviously NOT going to Salt Lake, but I was still missing a ton of important schoolwork that's going to be a real pain to make up. And then the tow truck came and totally did NOT have enough room for five people in the passenger seat, so they had to call this van to come pick us up. In all fairness, the tow truck and van people were pretty polite and nice and good (except for the fairly large oversight of not bringing transportation for the five people the highway patrolman informed them would be waiting in the minivan that mysteriously refused to go forward) Anywhoo... we got towed/driven back to an auto shop in St. George (they told us the transmission kicked the bucket) and were picked up by my dad's brother and his family, who were incredibly gracious about us barging into their home for the weekend. If they are reading this: THANK YOU!!! And we stayed the night there and drove back to Vegas in a rent-a-car today.
So that was my Friday the 13th Misadventure. Moral of the story: Don't skip school, don't attempt to make a 6 hour drive with a failing transmission. But if you do, try to at least get plenty of reading/writing done.