The Highlight of my Week and "Past the Point of Normalness"

So on Friday, I was walking across the crosswalk from school, and the guy I was standing next to was talking to his friend about someone. I didn't take much notice in him, except he had a really cool jacket and he was riding one of those low bikes. Then, I happened to overhear part of their conversation. The person they were talking about sounded like me! So I casually asked them who this person was. Then, believe it or not, they told me that is WAS me! I asked them why the heck they knew me, and they told me that their friend had talked about me a lot lately. Their friend named Robert Jaber (A guy in my Bio class who I used to sit next to. He's really funny and awesome). That was so happy because they were saying such nice things about me... Robert must have given them a good impresssion. :) Anyway, that made my week.

Another funny thing that happened is that I was going through my old livejournal (very nostalgic!) and I found an old song I wrote to the tune of Past the Point of No Return because the real ones are bad.

Start from the very beginning...

We a strangly,
In our own little way,
the most happygolucky
people on the e-arth e-arth...
We have told you many times before now,
that it is good to be nice and
cra-zy, cra-zy...
Past the point of normalness,
we are now psychos,
we'll dance and sing and put on quite a show,
past the thought of being calm,
no point resisting,
our secret urge to prance around and sing,
we are the weirdest on the earth,
we've been this way since o-ur birth,
why can't you understand our strange ways...?
Past the point of normalness,
one final question,
will you throw us in mental homes or say...
"I'm past the point of normalness...."

Hahaha. I was such a spazzy kid. I remember making that up with Krista. Good times. :)

This is Halloween...

I'm tiiired.
Halloween was fun! I got no sleep, but it was fun. Audrey, the creative, awesome person that she is pent the whole day decorating and planning for it, and it was awesome. There was TONS of food, candy, and games. Guess what I was for Halloween? Well, I was going to be a banshee, but then I found an old dress of Mom's that looked very Pride and Prejudice-ish. So, I was Elizabeth Bennett for Halloween. I wasn't in my costume for very long though. We we're dancing and floor length dresses aren't good to dance crazily in. We watched The Village, had a scavenger hunt, and played Guitar Hero and SingStar. Fun stuff.

And now, oh woes of all woes, it's November!!! This Daylight Savings time switch is really depressing me, because it gets dark at FIVE PM. The good thing is that I get an extra hour to sleep! That's always good. :)

PS
COMMENT!

Water Polo, School, YW Blogs, Utah, Halloween and That Good Stuff.

Hi! It's me. I know. It's October! I'm so excited for Halloween. Nicole and I decorated while Mom and Dad were in Germany. I'm going to be the same thing last year (a "banshee", says the costume label...) and I'll be going to party with friends where we'll be trick-or-treating- I'm not too old!- and watching the movie "Signs". I recommended it. :)

So, last Thursday I went to one of Krista's water polo games. I must say, it's the most fun I've ever had watching a sport. The rules are simple, and it's so...vicious. They bite, scratch, drown each other... It's entertaining. Krista won, (of course) and I'm excited to see the Granada vs. Livermore game coming up next week!

Speaking of sports, we got creamed at the homecoming game (17 to 50- no joke) but the pep rally was fun. We got booed a LOT. Apparently we're terrible people for being Freshmen.

School is going a lot better for me. I love my friends. LHS people are so nice. I can't say I LOVE my classes, but I survive. Oh by the way! I'm COMING TO UTAHHH! I'm so excited. :) Aaah!!

Anywho. Hmm... What haven't I covered? Oh yeah. Our YW got a blog today. It's not up and running yet, but it will be by Sunday. It's great 'cause my leaders will post all the pictures of the activites! I wonder of I can invite family to the blog... Apparently there's a lot of pictures of me. ;)

Anything else? Ummm... yes. But nothing too exciting. Oh by the way- COMMENT OR I'LL BEAT YOU UP! It gives me motivation to blog more, instead of just once a month...

High School

Um, hi. I started High School almost two weeks ago. I hated it. Like, I HATED it. I would come home and just complain to Mom until I was too tired to talk.
Now it's better. I have lots of friends, and I have really good teachers (besides my Geometry teacher whom I... dislike very much...). I am getting used to the homework, and it's fun to go and have funny little experiences every day. Like the guy who asked me to tie his shoe 'cause he didn't know how. Or the guy I nicknamed Table. Or Pepe. It's fun stuff.
Like I said, my teachers are pretty cool. :)
I have Ms. Hanson, a very nice and fun English teacher, Mr. Vierra, a hilarious PE teacher who actually makes PE a little... fun. (Although it helps we're swimming. EASY.) then I have Mr. Corriea, my Geometry teacher...no comment there... Mrs. Haugen my very nice but strict Biology teacher who tends to ramble, and then there's Senora Crichlow. Senora Crichlow is an all attitude black lady who is a GREAT teacher, but sometimes gets so caught up in group discussions, we don't start class until 20 mintues before class is OVER.
Seminary is good as well. It really wakes me up in the morning.
And that's my life at the moment. In an extremely, EXTREMELY simplified and short version. Comment if you want to hear any more specifics. :D Buhbye.

Hide-and-Go-Seek With Monica

I forgot to mention one thing. This funny girl, Monica, is always joking that she's the only black girl in camp. So one night, she was telling us one night that she always wins at hide-and-go-seek at night because she blends in with the darkness. We laughed and headed to the bathroom. Well, 20 minutes later, she was getting mad because we were taking so long, so she told us she was leaving and would wait outside.
When we finally got out, we could NOT find Monica... Until we saw a floating yellow t-shirt. It took us a while to realize that is was Monica! We just couldn't see her because she really was blending in!

Girls Camp... Probably the longest post I've ever... posted.

I did it. I went to Girls Camp! I was really nervous because I did NOT like it my first two years, but this year, I actually REALLY enjoyed most of it. I wish I had pictures, but my camera died the first day. Bummer.
We left for our over night hike on Tuesday. A bit rushed, us just getting there Monday afternoon. We drove probably a 30 minute drive to where we started. The actual hike was a bit weird for me. It went straight uphill, and I thought to myself "If it's like this the whole time, I'm going to DIE!" But then it changed majorly. It went from uphill and foresty to downhill and out in the open. They second half of the hike was just climbing down rocks. About 10 minutes into the downhill part, I fell down a big rock. NOT FUN. I still have a big scar, although it's almost healed. It's not very pretty. But honestly, it barely hurt. Everyone was making a huge fuss over it, but I just told them it was fine. They thought I had gone into shock or something. It was pretty funny. (To me.)
Now that I look back, that hike actually kind of had a sense of humor, especially on the way back. It makes you SO out of breath and you think you're about to die, and then it's over.
The over night part was actually pretty easy. Of course I was spoiled by Dad's awesome backpacking gear, but still. It was fun to set up our tent (I shared one with Audrey) although it was NOT fun to sleep in it. I missed my pillow that night. :(
Around 8 pm that night, after dinner (consisting of top ramen-yum!) we took a short hike to this big rock where we watched the sun go down. It was SO PRETTY and relaxing. I just laid there and had my friend Mae Lin play with my hair.
I woke up around 6 am. The frustrating thing about this hike was you weren't allowed to go to the bathroom alone, and I had a really small bladder, so poor Audrey had to come with me every time. So I woke her up probably way too early for her liking and made her wait. (By the way- I was terrified to go to the bathroom behind a tree, but it ended up being no big deal. ) We ate our breakfast (consisting of hot chocolate and too-runny oatmeal) and did some certification. I was surprised. Usually the certification is boring but I like it this year. We pumped water, (okay, that wasn't too fun), made shelters (Barbie sized), started fires (without matches!), and wrote haikus about nature. Or, mostly about nature. Here are some, just for fun:
Cliffs
The cliffs stand solemn,
looking down upon the earth,
watching the lake gleam.

Watching
People watch the lake,
I watch the small things instead,
the leaves breeze softly.

We were only required to write two about nature, so I gave up on that subject. This next poem haiku thing basically explains why.

Poetry
I'm not poetic,
I try extremely hard though,
but I can't do it.

Yeah...

Crazy Sock Day
It's crazy sock day,
It is not good for hiking,
Reindeer don't feel good.

(One of Laura's crazy socks had a huge reindeer sticking off of it.)

Stand By Me
We sing "Stand By Me",
Our tent neighbors are annoyed,
but we still sing on.

(I'll explain that haiku a bit later...)
Anyway, after that we went on a day hike before heading out on our ACTUAL hike. He basically trail blazed around the lake. It was fun, but scary. I had to hold Krista's hand the whole time- literally- just to stay brave. We were climbing over logs and all OVER the place. There was absolutely NO trail. On the way to our destination, Ken Black discovered Wombat droppings. As he was explaining their habitat and that exciting stuff, he mentioned that Wombat droppings were EDIBLE, popped one in in his mouth, and ate it. I know it's insane, but I decided that it didn't kill him, so it wouldn't kill me and tried one. all I said was "This is the best poo I've ever had!" Then Laura ate it and spoiled the fun by saying, "Hey, this is chocolate!!" That was a fun experience. :)
The hike back was mean. When I saw our cars, or more importantly, our AIR CONDITIONERS AND COMFY SEATS, I sang "hallelujah". We got in the car, but then we had ANOTHER hike after a too short drive. It wasn't hard at all though. It was Tragedy Spring. There they had the BEST TASTING WATER EVER! And that was my hike.
Now about that "Stand By Me" haiku. I get sick of being around people pretty easily. So when we ("we" being Me, Krista, and Audrey) got sick of hanging around a too crowded cabin, we ran maybe 20 or 30 feet to cabin 6 where we sang our heart out for hours on end. We'd make up cool harmonies to songs like Stand By Me and Witch Doctor. It was super fun. Also, on the last day we got on in a bubble fight (a bubble fight being blowing bubbles at each other and then throwing the bubble stuff at each other) with some bubbles I had one for Crazy Hair Day. Yeah, I WON crazy hair day. WOOT!
Tubing was pretty fun, and climbing was... climbing... Let's see... Oh! Our leaders. We had great leaders. There was T.P. (that's her nickname, her real name is Tracy Persson) who was this crazy lady who was also cracking jokes, then Sister West, who was nice, quiet and kind. A good balance. Then there was Kayla Coolbear. OH MAN, she was awesome. Truly an awesome leader, although she was more like one of the girls. I love her.
What else... oh yeah. In addition to my minor leg injury, a couple first years were chasing a lizard and while bending over into the fire pit, the lid to the fire pit slammed close. OUCH! Also, a girl in our cabin hurt herself while tubing. She took some medicine for it, but she got night terrors as a side effect. She started spazzing in her sleep and we couldn't wake her up, and since she was sleeping up stairs, she might fall down the stairs so people had to stay up with her ALL NIGHT. I was VERY tired the next morning.
Testimony meeting was great. Laura, a non-Mormon bore her testimony, and near the end of the night, to my surprise, Audrey got up there. I was so proud of her. If you're reading this, you rocked, Audrey!
Since then I've been tubing like crazy, swimming, making music videos, and lots of other fun stuff. Our next YW activity is WATER AEROBICS! How awesome is that!?
Well, I'm going to quit before I get carpel tunnel.

SAMH

Sorry some of the pictures are so small!


So much has happened! In late June (I've already forgotten the dates!) I went to Denver for a choir concert... type thing. It was directed by Bob Chilcott. I found this website of him: http://www.bobchilcott.com/. He's pretty awesome. He's from Oxford and has composed over 100 pieces of music! We got to stay at Denver University in the dorms. We went all over the place, and even got to sing in Red Rocks nation Park. Apparently tons of big stars have performed there.

Us performing at Red Rocks

A red rock at Red Rocks. No way!

We also went to a water park called Pirates Cove which was rented out just for us! It was great fun and they had some amazing slides.

That's most of out choir going down the lazy river together. We crashed a couple of times. :)

The other choirs were great. There were some from Kansas, Illinois, New Orleans, California, and of course, Denver. I met a lot of great people... and a lot of not so great people... But I won't get into that.
If I may say so, we were basically AMAZING at the concert. Here are a couple pictures.

Very professional, eh? That's because one girl, Molly, threatened to beat us up on stage of we touched our faces.

The ending for one of our songs, "La Lluvia" which apparently means, "The Rain". Hence the umbrellas.
This is the huge mass choir. It was so fun to sing with so many other people my age.

That's just a quick, non descriptive version of our trip.

The end. I'm sick of writing. :)

Phew! It's been chaotic here. Besides the fact that we've had "visitors" (if siblings count as visitors? =D) every week.
I graduated on Monday. I am SO relieve this year is OVER! It was a very short graduation, there only being 12 kids graduating and all...
Let's see, what else is new? Ah- I started learning the guitar. I know enough chords that I can play about 4 songs. But I just started learning today, so I'm pretty proud of myself.
Also, another cool this is that I have been asked to try out for 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat'. Sure, I'd only be in the children's ensemble, but performing with professionals would be awesome for me. I'm convincing a couple of friends of mine to try out with me. Bee asked me to try out. Speaking of Bee:
I'm so excited to go to Colorado! Aaahhh!!! It's coming up quickly... Okay. So a large part of the reason I'm SUPER excited is because we're going to a water park called Pirate's Cove. How awesome is that?
That's all I feel like updating right now.

Have you ever noticed that you always get sick at the worst of times? Well, I do. I have a sore throat and my choir concert is in two days. It wouldn't be too bad to skip out on the concert, but I have to sing in two small groups, and one is for me graduating. That's kindaaa important. Oh well. I am drinking a lot of water and resting, so there's not much else I can do.
It's so hot here. And humid. and it's causing me to take a bath/shower twice a day just so I can cool off. =/




I'm off to take a shower. Again.
Aubrey
PS
I know I sound whiney, but...
No buts. I just know.

I am 14 years old . . .
or 168 months old
or 730 weeks old
or 5116 days old
or 122784 hours old
or 7367055 minutes old
or 442023334 seconds old
Yep.
I'm fourteen years old. Exciting... I went on a shopping spree with Mom for clothes. That was good. I needed some shorts and that kind of stuff, so it was good that I went.
Yesterday was my birthday party. I had a good group and it was very fun. We played all sorts of games, and then they raided my closet and put on random clothes and we paraded around the block. Apparently Susan Pfiefer saw us... Oh well. I might post pictures later.
Today I found out I don't have a legal birth certificate.
Okay, not REALLY, but they won't accept mine for my passport. I don't know the details...
Let's see, what else is happening? Ah. I'm going to a Girls Camp party today, and then tonight we're going to the LHS musical. I'm excited for that.
Tomorrow I'm singing in church. Scary. Luckily it's with 4 other girls. Annie and I (the altos) know our part, but I'm a little worried about the sopranos. They'll get it though. They're great singers.
Wellllll. I think that's all for know!

Utah... And Testing. And the whipped cream game!

I hate driving to Utah in Mom's car. Bleh.
That aside, our trip was fun.
Katelyn entertained me during Nikol's graduation. It was exciting to see her walk across the stage though!
Another fun part was the family party. I got to see lots of my cousins, so that was great.
At one point I was trying to entertain Josh (Herrin) by playing on the slide and he kept saying, "No you go first" and "Ladies first!" Wow. He's trained!
When Nikol and I were waiting in line to board our flight back, I saw a guy who I thought I recognized. I thought he just looked like Mr. Rogers, but when Nikol saw she said that it was actually our former stake president. Oops. I was a little off.
Now that I'm home, I've been having test for school every day from 9-12. Tomorrow's my last day- HALLELUIAH! However, I admit that it really wasn't that bad. I even made a couple friends.

Last night I had YW. I can't tell you what the first part consisted of because it's a surprise, but I can tell you that the second part was a blast. We played all sorts of weird/fun games with them. One of my favorites was the whipped cream game. It basically consists of:

1. Getting a parter
2. Ones the... thrower and the other is the... catcher.
3. The thrower puts a glob of whipped cream on their wrist
4. The thrower hits the arm with the whipped cream with the clean arm
5. The catcher tries to, well, CATCH the whipped cream in their mouth.

It was so fun. We made sure everyone washed their hands and wrists before and after. =)

We are family!

This is another exciting thing we did at the party. It's called spider. Super fun. Super scary, but super fun.

Hold on tight!

I think we got the most air. =)

This is Megan being... Megan.

Earth Day

Okay... Was today Earth Day or was is yesterday? I dunno.
Anyway. Yesterday I went to the community center for Earth Day with the YM/YW. Though it turned out to be a Beehive/Deacon activity, because nobody older came. It was great. Who knew just picking up trash could be so fun? We did find some interesting stuff though... Tires, credit cards, bones... Yeah. Then we went back to the community center and got all this free stuff for the service we did, like posters, mixing spoons- made out of recycled plastic! (Oooh, ahhh...)- a t-shirt, a bag, and much MUCH more. I was shocked at how much eco-friendly stuff there could be... Plates made out of sugar-cane so you can put into compost!? Hm.
...I forget things very easily... So I don't remember anything else too exciting that has happened in the past while. Oh well. Nikol told me to post. Is this good? =)

Achoo, ouch, bleh, cough, ect.

I'm sick. Wahhh. And I have to miss going to Utah because of it. Here are my symptoms: Sore throat, headache, runny nose, MAJOR headache, and sunburn. Heh. That probably has nothing to do with the sickness though. =)
Well. How about I go onto a happier subject? Yesterday I spent nine hours at Krista's house. We we started watching a movie, but we discovered in was 6 hours long and got a little discouraged. But mom rented the movie for me again so I can finish it if I get bored of laying around and drinking water all day. I'll probably watch it tomorrow.
Krista has a tennis court right around the block, so we went there and played for about two hours. It was SO FUN! I'm horrible at it, but it doesn't matter when you're just playing with Krista. =)

I really don't have much to write about, but I'm just trying to pass the time away and get better- fast. Hmmm. I guess I could do something more productive, like work on school or something...

Easter

What're you lookin' at?
I love that picture. And his outfit! SO CUTE!

Easter was eggsellent. Very punny, right?
No, but really, it was great. We got to see Ryan, Andrea and Jakob. I always love that! And to top it off I get to go to Utah on Wedsday! YYYYYYAYYY! I MISS FAMILY! Especially Amy and Danny AND Katelyn. =) But anyway. Easter. Yeah, we had a competitive Easter egg hunt. I got 41, I believe. It was a fun night!
Funny story. Apparently we didn't get some of the Easter eggs. Of course. No one gets all of them, right? Well- no worries. They didn't go to waste. Karmen apparently found them all, opened them, and ate them. Or someone did. Because earlier today, we found a bunch of empty easter eggs all over the grass. Hmm. It's possible. After all, Karmen has also shucked corn and ate it neatly right off the cob.


What a dainty animal we have.

I like long walks on the beach with elephant seals.

(Don't you love how my blog post is a mile long because of all the pictures?)
Oh man! It's be fun lately! First I'll write about our trip to San Mateo Memorial Park. It was SO PRETTY with a crazy amount of trees. The campsite we were at was beautiful, though we didn't stay there much during the day.

We went on a guided tour to a beach with tons of elephant seals... It sounded like it'd be 3 miles of boring torture, but it was SO FUN! It was basically a long walk on the beach! =) We saw probably 100 elephant seals, although apparently there were a thousand. WOAH. They're actually really cute, unless they are a full grown male. Then... Ugh. Since it was on a wildlife preserve, they didn't clean anything up... and I mean anything. We probably saw around eight dead bodies of elephant seals. Lovely. Smelled lovely as well. And to top it off, one of them had deteriated from the inside out so we got to see a nice shell. But most of them were... well, graphic.A beautiful view from the guided tour.

That's a lot of seals.

A cute baby elephant seal! Awww! I'm asking for one for my birthday. Hahaha.

Then we went to the cove beach right next door to the elephant seal beach. We didn't stay there long though.

Mom and Dad looking wistful.

After THAT we went to Pebble Beach. That was awesome because we (we being Dad and me) got to climb all of these rocks and then we went down to the actual pebble area. Mom and I then decided that it'd be fun to take off our shoes and walk around in the pebbles for a while and then wade in the water. Hm. Painful. But fun.

I loved those rocks!

I think Dad enjoyed it too. =)

The next day we just hiked all around and found all kinds of cool stuff like the swimming hole and a large amphitheater. Plus the trees were so fun to hide in.

Banana slug!

I see youuuu.


A swing thingy! Yay!
Peekaboo!
What a pretty creek!
I forgot how fun camping can be!
Wow. This post is getting pretty long, so I'll do another post about Easter. =)
PS
I figured out how to do a slideshow, but by the time I did I had already uploaded about half of these so I was too lazy. Heheh.

Here are some things that have happened during this week:

• Went to the YW thrift store fashion show. Each Young Women had a few weeks before hand to buy an outfit with $10. You could chop anywhere. Then we had a fashion show and we told how much each item was and where we got it. I won the "Biggest Bargain Shopper Award" because I got a skirt for $1.10, a shirt for $1, a mini jacket for 1. a necklace for $2 and shoes for $5. The shoes we expenses but really cute! =) It was a great idea. I have amazing YW leaders!!
• Thursday was our swing dancing night. Uh. that was interesting. Five 13 and 12 year old girls came, one 13 year old boy came, and then it was Nikol, her friends Don and Jaren, and me. I felt sorry for Jaren and Don. They were expecting an older age group. Nope! Sorry to disappoint. But the girls caught on FAST! Especially the Inokuchi girls. They were good follows. I know this because I got to learn to boy part. It's hard! Gah! What's even harder is keeping the parts straight. Nikol told us this to make it easier though: "Girls are always right, so girls always start with their right foot!" I think I can remember that. =)
  
• Went to Audrey's birthday party. Needless to say, I had a blast. We played this improv game where two people started acting out a scene, anything that came off the top of their head, then the announcer person would say "FREEZE" and the two would freeze in their positions and then another person would come in, take the exact position of the person they replaced, and then as soon as "ACTION" was said, come up with an entirely new scene and act it out with the other person until they were frozen again. It was great fun.
  
• Went to Mom's Eggstravaganza. Even though I had stayed up 'til four the night before, I still had tons of fun at the carnival. For most of the time I stayed at my booth ("Guess the Amount of M&M's") but I also hung out with Annie Sandholtz and Andrea Pickett. The cotton candy was delicious, until the cotton candy machine lit on fire. Heh. Ask Mom for details, because I don't know them.
• Sang for the Japanese kids that were visiting. It wasn't very fun, but we did pretty well. I fell asleep during the practice, but luckily (this is sarcasm, just to let you know) Wyatt was there to nudge me awake. I was very grumpy after that.
  
• Today I had BYC at 10 am, but I was catching up on my sleep so I slept in until 10... Luckily, I got ready in 4 minutes. Yes. 4 minutes! And the funny part is, I got a compliment on how pretty I looked today. Hmm.

That's all for now, folks!
Aubrey

Carmina Burana

Note to self: Avoid being in operas. On Saturday we performed Carmina Burana. Sure, it was fun to sing and listen to the adult choir and the amazing soloists, but it's pretty tedious by the 20th song. I did enjoy it though. Especially when the soprano sang. She could sing SO high and hold it for SO long. However, I've got to admit, the tenor was better. He belted out the incredibly loud yet beautiful notes. Mom said that was her favorite part.
What entertained me through the boring parts though was the drummer. I'll leave out the long conversation Mom and I had about him and just tell it in my own words. He was basically this hilarious guy who got SO into the music you could help but smile. During the practices he goofed off with us until the director, Jon Bush, told him to "Focus!".

On Sunday I told some Young Women about the swing dancing Nikol's teaching. Then I gave a note to Peter to tell the rest of the Young Men. Apparently Briant told some too. However, it turns out that next Thursday, which will be our first meeting, the Relief Society are taking a lot of our Young Women away to babysit. That bummed me out, but of course I won't tell them to leave their jobs to come dance. The Young Men responded well. I'm sure we'll have a decent sized amount of boys. Ryan Gewondjan called me to tell me that he was coming and Peter probably was too. So we for sure have... two. =)

Today I am working on my birthday card for my friend Audrey. She's not letting her get her presents, so I'm making this binder called "The Audrey Book". It's a card, just a very large one. It's going to have lots of stuff like 14 Reasons Why We Love Audrey (she's turning 14) and lots of stuff of that sort. I'm sure she'll like it.
One thing I have in there is "My First Memories of Audrey". It was painful to put in there because one of my first memories of her was when Krista, her, and I were playing a make believe game where we were puppies and we told her to go play hide and go seek. She hid in the closet, but instead of looking for her, we went downstairs and played video games. I know. Mean! But wait- there's more. When she finally came out, she said, "Hey! You guys are puppies! Puppies don't play video games!" We told her we had found a magical potion that turned us into humans.
When she asked us for some, we simply stated, "Oh sorry. We just ran out."
I was so mean! I've apologized to her many times now and I also apologized in the story after writing down the events. I then told some more pleasant memories I had of her.
That's basically it for now!
Bye!

Mom and Dad are getting back today! Yay!
Let's see... What has happened recently... I've gone to my first Carmina Burana practice with the conductor that will actually be leading us in the performance. It's an adjustment from Bee's style of leading, but I can follow it.
I also got done with my New Beginnings- it tuned out great. The only problem was that the only girl we were welcoming in was sick. Interesting.
I slept over at Krista's on Thursday while Nikol went dancing... I had to stay away from her brothers though because they had the flu...
I'm not very motivated to write right now, so yeah... =)
Aubrey

Hmm. I realized last night that Valentines day isn't nearly as exciting as the time before it. In fact, my Valentines Day usually just happens on the day of the dance. That's my celebration. Heh.

I really have tons I could update about. Things more exciting, but I want to write about something else first: Artemis Fowl. Anyone who lives in the same house as me will tell you that I am in love with it. It's a great series of books. I love it. I tend to disappear for a while and come out saying "I finished another Artemis Fowl book!" I think I started a week ago on the series and I finished the fourth book today. Shame on me. I'm supposed to be reading Call of the Wild for school. Ah, well. I'll start on it today.

I really can't understand how anyone can NOT like reading. At the V. dance, Ashlyn said that she hates reading. I couldn't even comprehend it. Wow. It's just crazy to me.

Haha. I'm such a 'nerd'. But I don't care. =)

Here's my post. Yesterday consisted of:
Burning paper edges for my New Beginnings project (we're making scrolls for invitations)
Taking pictures of Nikol in a turkey costume around town
Being in a turkey picture
going to Lucky with Krista and Audrey for no reason
playing Singstar with Audrey
DADGETTINGHOME!
Hmmm... I think that about covers it. I'd write more but church starts soon and I have to finish getting ready.

Today was my first BYC meeting as a president. Well- not really. I'm not actually president. They haven't set me apart yet. Hmph. I was very grumpy today. When sacrament meeting was over, I went to Sunday School, and Ashlyn wasn't there again. Just Peter and Ryan. And the teacher wasn't there yet, so there was dead silence when I entered. You know how people always say deacons are rowdy and loud? Well, wrong. I finally had to start blabbing, and finally Peter joined in the conversation about how he loved Body Worlds. Then the teacher came in. Phew.
So I was fine through Sunday School, but during Young Womens I was STARVINGGG because I had slept in that day until 9:30 and Sister Holt was picking me up at 10 for BYC so I was basically a mess and didn't eat very much.
The lessons were very good though and I could easily apply them to my life right now. Good job, teachers!

Only One of the Best Songs Ever!

This is dedicated to you, Nikol! =) Pahaha. Gotta love this song.

By 'this song' I mean Must Have Done Something Right by Relient k.

I put on my pants inside out today. Haha, smarts.

Swing Dancing

I am ashamed of myself. I cannot believe I forgot to write about my night swing dancing. Well. It's kind of hard to write about it without going on and on about all the people I danced with. I just tell you the highlights.
Well, the night didn't start out very well. As soon as we walked in, the scary looking guy dressed in all black asked me to dance. Wah. It was funny to dance with him however, because he frowned the whole time while we were dancing to this upbeat happy song.
I got to dance with 'Big-Headed Boy' who was one of my favorites, and the 'Spinny Guy' who was this old man who spins you the whole time.
But I have to say- my ultimate favorite was Maris. He was this black guy who totally got into the music. It was funny, because instead of coming up to me and asking me to dance, he kind of just dragged me off without my permission and started dancing. Yeah, he was confident. But he had a reason to be. I thought he was good. But then again, I don't have very good judgment 'cause I'm a newbie. Oh well. He taught me a new move as well.
I also danced with the nondescript guy. He wasn't really nondescript, but I was trying to tell Nikol who he was, but I couldn't describe him and I couldn't remember his name, therefore gaining him the title of 'the nondescript guy'.
There was also a birthday circle and performances. The performances were good, but I think if I were in the birthday circle I would die. Simply because I wouldn't be able to handle all the eyes on me and my lack of swing dance knowledge.
There's more I'd like to write, but I'm sure you don't want to here about every single dance, so I'll spare you.

New Beginnings

I'm starting to really focus on Personal Progress more. I'm starting a 10-hour project. I get to plan our next New Beginnings. And guess what? It's Princess themed! Yay. That makes me so happy, I just couldn't turn it down.
Anyway, I'm really excited. I'm gonna make a castle cake and make banners, and make everything pretty and pink. One thing I'm not looking forward to too much is painting three castles on cardboard. With acrylics. I am not a fan of acrylics, but painting it with oils would definitely be a unwise move.
I need ideas for handouts. I wanted to give out a crown to each girl coming in, but I can't do that. (For a secret reason I can't tell anyone. ;D ) So any ideas would be great.
Eee!
Excitement!

That is one big tumbleweed!

Today was most interesting. Our family went outside to do yard work together and we took out this HUGE weed. Dad had to chop it up into little pieces. And with what? Why, Amy's machete from Brazil of course! It was a great sight to see. When we filled the truck with the whole weed, it filled the whole truck plus one or two feet. First, Mom had to sit on it, and then Dad started jumping on it. And I actually got a picture- and video- of it!
Karmen seemed to enjoy all the time with us as well. She was jumping all over the place following us everywhere.

Mom standing on the weed.

Nikol and Me

I loved that tumbleweed.

Go, Dad!

Karmen and Me

And of course- the video of Dad jumping. I know some of you are thinking "So what? He's just jumping..." But this video makes me happy. 'Cause it's Dad jumping. Sorry that it's in black and white. I forgot to change the settings before I took the video.
Yay for tumbleweeds.

Color Code

Yesterday I went puddle jumping with Andrea and Nikol. I got soaked all the way up to my waist with gutter water. Lovely.
I took to color code test today. I got a red-white. The second hardest combination to get. My dominate color is white. It really fits me. Here's what the book says about red-whites:
"Red-White combinations are difficult to read because they can be aggressive and determined one minute (Red), then quietly passive the next (White). If you fit this category, your guiding motive is power and peace. You are likely to be misunderstood because your behavior is inconsistent, and you don't easily allow others to figure you out."
White fits me most because it says people that are white tend to have a silent stubbornness about them, and can be very indecisive at times. They enjoy listening to others, but can often be very unmotivated.
So I've decided- since I'm Red-White, aren't I technically pink?
Yay, pink! =)

Updated Celebrity Look-Alike

Here's my outcome of the celebrity look alike thing. I do have some similar people in there, but it's a little different.