What variation of 'I have returned to the place of my dwelling' have I not written yet?

So I have returned to the place of my dwelling. Vacation was fun. Really fun. Hangng out with my family, and also my extended family, was fun. But I don't wanna write about it for some reason.... I have better thins to write about.

Like this: I GOT MY HAIR CUT!!!!! I like it, but it's waaay shorter then I meant to go... like, 2 or 3 inches shorter. Behold:
So yeah, I like it, even though it's short. But BTW, my hair isn't really that dark! It's still (a little) bond(ish)....
And also, pay no attention to the little brothers in the background, please.

Ok, guess what I'm doing tonight? I'M GETTING MOCKINGJAY!!!!!! I ended up never pre-ordering it, so I'm going to get it with Jessica tonight!! TONIGHT!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!!

Well, I'm leaving today

Goin on vacation (for real this time. :) It's gonna be sooooooo much fun! But I kinda wanna write a good post before I leave, so.....

*Swim team is over. I liked it, but only half as much as I did last year. Out of the three competitions, I only went to one. I just think that's silly, somehow...

*All (well, ok, 3/4) my dad's family came down a while ago for my cousins baptism. I have exactly one cousin on either side of the family who is my age and gender, so when she comes over I'm really HAPPY! about it. So we went to Savers (hey, don't judge! savers has good stuff sometimes!) and tried on all the ridiculously fancy dresses and then the grandma earrings and then we just wandered around and looked at all the cool books and figurine-thingies and Dad got this really cool ice cream maker THAT ACTUALLY MAKES ICE CREAM INSTEAD OF MILKSHAKES!!!!

It's AWESOMELY AWESOME!!! And the ice cream ins gooood, too. :) :) :) Me and Kira (who has a blog now!!! Lookit!) tried to make some last night, but we didn't really know what we were doing so we just came up with a big pile of melted ice cream..... yeah. It still tasted good, though.

* I dunno if I said this already, but I'm learning how to draw. I found some tutorials online and some drawing books and some artists work to look at and BANG! I'm drawing!! I'm not really good or anything, but it's lotsa fun and I can look at my stuff without wanting to rip it up so I'm happy :)

*MATH IS DOOOOOOONE!!!! I have completed my algebra home school course and now I can go on the computer WHENEVER I WANT!!!!!

WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!

"Thelly, is this your spoon or my spoon?"

"Dad, that's a fork."

The last day of Girl's Camp

Journal entry 5- 7/24/10

Wow, I can't believe camp is actually over... it was a wonderful week. I never got the chance to write yesterday, so I'll do it today instead.We got ready to leave the cabin as soon as we got up on Friday morning. I left early with the Bishop, Katy, Jessica and Taylar to set up for REPELLING! I actually like that now! :) The first repel was really small, like 20 feet. I was one of the first people down, and after Jessica and Kira came down we talked about Hunger Games stuff for, like, an hour (yes, I am totally obsessed with those books).

We didn't have enough harnesses and other gear for everyone, s we had to keep switching off stuff, which was kinda annoying. And it took FOREVER, like, at least a whole hour to get everybody down the 20-ft repel... Then we walked a little ways down to the second repel, which was MUCH bigger, 80-something feet, and thus, pretty scary. It was actually really easy and kinda fun. it took another hour to get down that one, cuz we still had to pass our gear back up, and then one of the girls (I'm not even going to give her a fake name) had this massive panic attack. She got on the rope and had this huuuuge melt down, sobbing and crying and refusing to go down. The leaders tried for a hour to coax her down, but eventually gave up and someone took her back out to the cars.

After that there weren't any more big repels, just little boulder hops that I LOVED. There were a couple of tense moments, though, like when it started raining and we worried about a flash flood (hey, we were at the bottom of this big canyon!) and when we passed some other hikers who were really creepy and- oh yeah! when I nearly broke my skull open!

It was after the first repel, when me and Jessica and Kira were sitting around waiting and we were about to go down to the second repel, and so i stood up to get of the big rock I had been sitting on, and went to step back onto this smaller rock, but i missed the rock and fell backwards and flew back and banged my head- hard- on the canyon wall. If I hadn't been wearing my helmet (which I had just put back on a minute before) I would've blacked out, and maybe worse... Yeah, it was scary, and I was freaked out, but after that I was kinda the center of attention, and everybody kept telling me how lucky I was and that was kinda fun :)

Anyways, the rest of the repelling trip was easy, although it took, like four hours, and climbing back out of the canyon was hard. And then when we made it back to where we parked the cars and got ready to leave, one of the leaders cars got stuck on this BIIIIIIG rock, and it took them another hour to unstick it, so what should've been a four hour repelling trip took us 8 hours! So we didn't get to go to the Pizza Factory like we planned, cuz it was too late, but we did stop at Wendy's and that was fun.

We didn't end up getting home till midnight, and when i finally rolled into bed, I couldn't sleep, because my bed felt funny cuz I'd been sleeping on the floor all week. So I rolled of onto the floor and was asleep, like, instantly.

And so ended my second year of Girl's Camp.

Day Four of Girl's Camp

Journal entry 4- 7/22/10

Sooooo..... Today we had lots of free time after breakfast, so I made lotsa more ribbon flowers (I never got around to that pic, did I?) :) and then we had our 'service project'. To thank the people who let us use their cabin all week we took all this split wood and brought it up to the upper floor, where the fire place is. We did it in this bucket brigade like system :And we passed about a million pieces of wood up those stairs. We talked and laughed and sang hymns and campfire songs and 'The Sound of Music' and generally had a good time.

After that were our skits. See, they split us all into groups and assigned us a song, and we had to make up a skit to preform to that song. My group had 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' and if you've every listened to that song all the way through, you know that's it really REALLY long and doesn't say a whole lot. So consequentially, our skit was really long and boring, and we didn't do a whole lot. Whatever, other groups were lotsa fun to watch...

And then we had Solo Time and I read Doctrine and Covenants Section 129 (if you're not Mormon and have no idea what I'm talking about, go here) where I learned that apparently you can shake hands with an angel. Cool, right?

We had MORE free time after that, :) and SO Jessica and Kira and a first year named Taylar who's really nice went out into the woods and we saw this really cool herd or deer and when they ran away we just sat around a talked. And then after dinner the Stake Presidency came and we had testimony meeting and I cried my eyes out (and so did every one else-EXCEPT KIRA! She didn't cry last year either- I guess she has no soul or something...). And the testimonies were beautiful, and I could feel the Holy Ghost so strongly, and for the second time this week, I was safe from Satan's influence while we sat there...

And then the stake president (we have the BEST stake president!) got out his guitar and we sang more hymns and campfire songs and 'The Sound of Music songs... it was a really good night.

Girls Camp Day Three!

Journal Entry 3- 7/21/10


Today was SO happy-making! I can't believe camp's already half way over, but at the same time I feel like I've been here for weeks. We backed up bag lunches after breakfast today and went FISHING! Nobody caught anything (wellll.... one of the leaders 'caught' a dead fish lying in the shallows), but it was a lot of fun anyways, and I got really good at casting. We had devotional after that- on Esther- and I could really feel the Spirit there, in this peaceful little clearing a few steps from the lakefront...

After we got back to the cabin we did rotations. they split us into 3 groups and we took turns going around to several craft stations. One was pedicures (complete with foot massage!), one was Mormon Scones (YUM!) and the best on was making ribbon- flowers. See, you take a bit of ribbon and cut it into 4 circles of descending size. Then you light a tea candle on fire and hold the ribbon over the flame. It kinda melts the edges of the ribbon and makes it look really pretty. Then you hot-glue all the ribbons together and add a fake jewel if you want and then you have your self a REALLY pretty hair tie decoration, or earring, or necklace decoration or whatever. I'll get a picture.

Then we had dinner, and after dinner was our 'Virtue Walk'.

That walk might just be my single most favorite part of Girl's Camp. Some ladies from our ward and some relatives of theirs dressed up as the women from our theme for the week (How Can I BEE Like... Eve, Mary, Esther, an Ammonite Mother, and a Pioneer Woman.) They told us the stories of the woman they represented... and they were SO compelling! Especially Esther.

See, normally, when someone is giving a spiritual kind of talk, my mind -gets bored, I guess- and shoots off in a million directions at once, which almost always prevents me from feeling the Spirit. But I don't think i had one random thought during Esther's talk. I was wholly and completely focused on her message, and I could really feel the Holy Ghost in that room, confirming the story. While she spoke, I was safe from and distractions or temptations Satan could try to throw at me. I was safe.

Eventually, of course, the spell broke. the meeting ended, and I got all hyper again having a spoon/lightsaber fight with Jessica. It was hilarious!

Then we had Solo Time and after that we Played GC games like 'Don't Smile!' 'Big Booty' 'What if...' ect. It was awesome!

Girl's Camp- Day 2- Extra Pictures

Minute to Win It on Tuesday night. It was SO funny!

Pull all the Tissues Out of the Box...
Paper Dragon...
Elephant Panty-hose nose...

And Candy Elevator!

Girl's Camp- Day 2

Journal Entry 2- 7/20/10


O-M-GEEE!!! Today was SO much fun! I fell like I've been at Girl's Camp for a whole week already :)

So after breakfast this morning we all geared up for this BIIIIIIIG hike- 5 miles (it felt like a lot more, though) of grueling heat up and down switchbacks through Red Canyon. The scenery, though, was absolutely beautiful.








See? I really enjoyed it. And when we got back to the cabin we had 'solo time' for, like , TWO hours! And it was awesome, even though most of it wasn't really solo. Me and my friends went out in the woods and talked and laughed and generally had a really good time :)

And then after we (FINALLY!) had dinner we all played Minute to Win It- Girl's Camp Edition :) It was SOOOOOO much fun! (Note: I'm gonna put in those pictures as a different post because I HATE trying to drag pictures down the whole long line of 'em)

AND THEN......

We took the 1st years SNIPE HINTING!!!!!! YESSS!!

We walked up this hill behind the cabin until we reached this big ol' stump -that was the meeting point. That was where Aubrey (she's a first year,actually, but she guessed about the snipes already so we let her in on it -more real that way, see?) was 'pulled' down the hill by this HUUUUGE angry snipe (7 feet tall, according to Aubrey) and then it 'grabbed' Katy too and so Aubrey managed to 'escape' and ran back up to us shouting stuff like 'Run! Before it gets you too!' and then Kira (the mastermind of this whole thing) said calmly and perfectly reasonably "Don't worry, we'll be fine as long as it's eyes don't start flashing green." So then Katy, who was hidden down in the bushes pushed the button on one of Jessica's big star-shaped flashing earrings. And guess what color they flashed?

Yup :)

The 1st years fell for it hook, line, and sinker! They screamed (actually everybody screamed, except for the few girls who doubled over laughing) and wee all ran down the hill so fast we left Jessica's earring behind (we went back for it later, though)! It was PERFECT! and then we had devotional and we to bed.

Tuesday was AWESOME!

Fist day of Girl's Camp

Journal Entry 1- 7/19/10

So today was the first day of my second year of Girl's Camp. It's been....ok, so far. The drive up was fun. Jessica and Kira and I sang Taylor Swift and Wicked and laughed and talked about... stuff that would be really embarrassing to write down. After we got to the cabin where we'll stay all week, we pretty much sat around and waited for the leaders to finish unpacking. Then we ate dinner, and then they dragged us up for the 'Busy Bee Ball'. They go on and on about any and all things 'bee', but it's not as annoying as I thought it would be. I mean, 'BEE' :)
Anyways, the had this dance party. And they didn't play any songs that I knew-not one. And everybody was dancing and laughing and I wasn't -just wasn't in the mood, ok?- and so everybody kept trying to make me dance and whoop etc. and so after a while I figured out if I smiled and moved around a little they would leave me alone- thank gosh. I escaped as soon as I could, and then-when it was over- we had s'mores and devotional and then stayed up till 1 in the morning making fools of ourselves, as per tradition. :)

Ok, it was a good day.