Lots of Vacationing

Our infamous tree. We have a picture in this tree when I was about... 8? And I'm in the same position as I was when I was younger. Only this time I climbed there myself instead of my dad just putting me up there..
Our whole family with the cute bride and groom.. Joe and Heidi
Bam! The one in the middle is me. This is our China dance.. We're contortionists so every move is some flexy thing. It was great fun.
Our four girl stunt group mid hand spring. Mckelle is the little one in green, our flyer. I'm the one in orange shorts. Dani is the one in pink. And Caleigh is the one in green in the back.

My strange family playing with all the balloons after the show. We got some fun pictures!


My oh so concentrated look as I did the word search on the back of the Nerds box and wouldn't let my mother help me. She thought she could be sneaky and get a picture of me being mean, but I just stuck my tongue out at her.
This is how we slept in the car.. Stacked


This is Shannon and I right after we caught the flowers

This is us after we tried to decide who got to keep the flowers..

Me on graduation day.. I have a collar for NHS, a cord for honor roll, a cord for NHS, and then everyone got a medallion because we are the 100th graduating class from Jordan High.

At least one of us looks cute.. But mom is always cute :)
My entire family on graduation day. But my poor sister Rachel couldn't make it because she lives in Ohio, but I know she wanted to be there and I feel so bad about leaving her out of this picture! I still love ya Rachel:) They all came to support me. Bryce did too.


Little did you know but that is me on the back of the motorcycle.. In so much gear that I don't look at all like myself. It's my dad and Brandon's gear. The helmet is the only thing that fits..


Well, since July 4th I have played with many explosives and spent WAY too many hours cooped up in a car or on a motorcycle. On July 10th my family all piled into one car and drove down to LA for Joe's wedding. He was married on July 12th in the LA temple. It was very fun to go down and see the temple and such. We stayed in the temple apartments and it was awesome to be so close to the temple. We tinkered around LA on Friday night and were going to go to the beach but there were so many people that we just drove by it and then headed back. Saturday was a good lazy day. We went to a beach in Ventura and the water was perfect! We played in the sand with all the little sand crabs.
Then we headed up to Buellton for the reception that was at the church that night. While getting ready I found out that I got a four on each of the AP tests I took. I took Calculus and English. The most exciting part of that was that Shannon and I caught the boquette. Then Brandon caught the Garder. We got back to the hotel late and all fell asleep immediately. We were all toasted.
The next morning we stopped in at Paula's Pancake House in Solvang and had breakfast. It was very good! Then came the long trip home. After taking an hour detour to get three tires for the car and a trip to the beach we finally headed home. It was the longest trip ever! We left about 9:00 California time after our long detour and we didn't get home until 1:20 a.m. Utah time. We had to change drivers a lot and stopped in Hurricane to drop dad off for a few days. I read a lot, watched movies, slept and we played a guessing game. We had some very random things to guess. Caution cones, telephone pole, anteater, tractor, stuffed animal, etc. It was very fun to come up with things to guess.
Tuesday morning Rachel and Logan came into Utah. I didn't see them much because I was working, but on Wednesday and Thursday we all took a trip up to Steve's cabin. It was gorgeous weather and I got to ride the motorcycle all the way up there with Brandon. It was a very fun filled two days. We went four wheeling, I read a lot, played games, played on the kid killer (long story but it's basically a telephone pole swing thing that is near the edge of a cliff..) and had a lot of fun visiting together.
Friday was my last day as a nanny. It was bittersweet. We went to Olive Garden for lunch and then headed up to their house so that I could help them pack because they left for Europe on Saturday. I didn't ever want to leave their house. It meant that things were really ending. I finally managed to leave. Only a few tears were shed. I will miss them so much. After 2 1/2 years with them I have developed a great love for those kids. I have learned a lot and now know a lot of tips of what to do and what not to do when I become a parent.
I went on a beautiful hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon with Bryce on Saturday. It was sweltering heat in the valley, but up in the mountains it was perfect. Lots of wild flowers.
This week I am going to California to find a house and going to the cabin again this weekend with Bryce and my parents. (Yes, we're all very surprised and ecstatic that his parents said yes..) I found out today that I have enough money for school and found some prospective jobs. The whole California idea is finally coming together.

Mini Short Stories

While looking through all of my notes and assignments from the past school year, I came across two stories that I wrote in my AP English class. We were given the first line and our assignment was to come up with a story. The line in CAPS is the prompt.

HE HAD WARNED HER ABOUT THE BOOK. NOW IT WAS TOO LATE.

It had only been a few weeks since they had discussed the dreadful book. Titled simple The Book it seemed harmless. Just another boring book that Nikki had been forced to read for her English class.

We were talking of books we disliked and had varied off to the tangent of the reading she had been doing in school. She began to explain the bizarre things she had experienced that she was relating back to blame the novel of growing legs and appearing where she went. It would randomly appear on her nightstand or on her dashboard. Little did she know it did have a strange form of legs that would lift it to follow her wherever she went.

The Book was about a giant plant that hung off the edge of the world into the great unknown. One brave man, Ayden, decided he was going to venture down and make the land of the unknown known. What Ayden did not know was that the plant had a mind and a plan of its own. It would only let one person explore its mysteries and what it so carefully guarded. This person, yet to attempt the exploration, was Nikki.

Though she did not know it, The Book was trying to pull her in, but every time it would get close Nikki would wake up or glance over.

Finally The Book managed to end up right next to Nikki as she drifted off to sleep. Now was the perfect chance. Quickly the plant escaped the pages and engulfed Nikki, ever so quietly, into the pages.

When she awoke she thought she was stuck in the strangest dream in a world with two suns and a blazing red sky. Dazed, she glanced around trying to establish herself into her surroundings. Not three meters away she noticed a sudden end in her visibility. She stood and scooted closer to explore. Over the edge was a net of twisting vines laced in intricate patterns that moved and changed to allow passage as she stared, awed by what she was seeing. Glancing behind her and realizing only desert lie behind her, she climbed down the vine and descended into the vast nothingness below her.

As she descended she noticed many gleaming lights down below. Under the Rainbow Mist was a beautiful city full of flittering fairies and fire breathing dragons swooping low that took her breath away. Detailed buildings filled the landscape and the soft buzz of everything in motion seemed to pause as they all took her in. It was replaced by loud commotion, the sound of rejoicing. Riendland finally had a queen and a ruler.

And the second one... Titled "Harris Burdock and the Bump"

TWO WEEKS PASSED AND IT HAPPENED AGAIN.

Harris Burdock sat quietly contemplating his steaming coffee cup, when suddenly from behind he heard a muffled bump. Ignoring it at first he went back to his hot drink concentrating on not singeing his tongue.

BUMP!!

It was louder this time and made poor Harris jump nearly covering his front in steaming liquid. He glanced behind him trying to find the source of the awful noise.

BBBBUUUMMMPPP!!!

It rattled the entire house, or so he thought as his chair toppled over flinging coffee all over his rug. Harris sprang to his feet quickly turning in a circle trying to find the source of the ‘bump’.

The dresser beside him rocked two and fro as if it were on a rampant wave of the sea. There it was, rolling out and scurrying quickly across the floor. Harris grabbed his chair and held it high above his head at the ready for when the ‘bump’ came within hitting distance.

“I’m warning you!! I’ll crush you!” He yelled at the ‘bump’ in fear and frustration.

The ‘bump’ seemingly ignored his threats and continued burrowing under the rug in giant circles around the room.

“Harrisssss,” the bump hissed. “Harrisssss, I’ve come for you.”

“AH!” Harris screamed as he jumped up and fell off the bed with a resounding ‘whump’.

Hope ya liked them!

Dance, Dance, Dance!! And A Few Parties..

This last week was dance camp for me. I got to teach a few classes to exchange for learning for a few classes. It was such a fun week but I don't think I have been this sore since my first week of cheer sophomore year. I did dance nine hours every day.
I had tumbling first, but I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. Next, I could either teach little cheer or take a contemporary class. I taught cheer Monday and Thursday and did contemporary the other days. It was such a fun routine to learn for contemporary because it is so weird. It was great fun to catch on from what I missed the first day and to learn more. Thursday I got to teach cheer alone because the original teacher was at Stadium of Fire with the girls that are doing that. I choreographed a motion sequence and I was so proud of myself for making something up! It was fun to teach.
After that was ballet. It focused a lot on technique and balance. Balance is key in every form of dance, so it was so fun to be able to just stand on your toes for as long as you can, though it does make your legs very sore. I learned a lot about posture and what to do and not to do when trying to do all the ballet moves. Ha, and with ballet I learned a lot of French.
After that was hip hop and Jenny worked us hard. We did a dance to the song 'Shawty Get Loose' and it was so fast! It was a fun dance and really tested and tried my abilities. The end of it was super fast and took a bit longer to catch on and do correctly than the rest of the dance had been for me to master.
Next was a tumbling class of about ten girls between the ages of about 9 and 12. I taught with either Sarah or Jessica Peters and it was surely a challenge to get and maintain their attention. It surely tried my patience and helped me to get control of such a big class. The twins let me take charge of the class and just piped in when they had something to say, so it was mostly me in charge.
Then came my relief. An hour at the pool to eat lunch and just lie there and relax because by then I was very tired.. I now have a tan line and I am so excited for that.
Following lunch was jazz. The first day we learned three different combos, first being easiest, third being hardest. It was a combo that you would do across the floor that involved many leaps, turns, balance and other fundamentals of dance. After the second day of practicing them, Cassi put them into a dance. It was a very hard dance because I had issues moving like she does. I ended up filming the dance so that I could go home and practice it to try and figure out how to move right.. It didn't work so well. Luckily, she changed the dance. I got to work a lot on technique and my leaps have gotten so much better. They were amazingly high the very last day of camp. We learned tilt jumps, worked on fetes (a turn where you whip your leg around to keep yourself spinning.. which I finally figured out how to do), leaps of every direction: backward, regular, develope, brush, side, switch, scissor, etc. and so forth. We also worked on just regular pirouettes which we found none of us could do this week. Ha made class really entertaining though.
Next was one of my favorite classes even though I didn't learn much all week. Dayne Rockwood, one of my friends that went to Jordan for two years, taught a break dance class. He was new to teaching so the first few days he would just free style until we saw something we liked that looked relatively easy to learn and would ask him how to do it. The first day I learned how to jump on my hands in a hand stand and a combo of a bunch of motions that look totally awesome when done to hip hop music. I also learned stalls, a dance by Michael Jackson to Beat It, the beginning of the dance in Chris Brown's music video to Forever, a one handed back hand spring that I still have yet to get, and a front hand spring that you just whip out of no where. It was fun to just talk to Dayne and help him figure out how to teach the classes. The first day he was congratulating me for graduation, the second he thought I was fifteen. (I'm nearly 19) He wasn't sure how to break down moves to teach them, so it was fun to give him tips on teaching and to help him out a bit. He's amazing at free style and so much fun to watch.
Last was a class of three young girls for tumbling. One was about four, the other two were about six. Trying to keep them focused was a challenge in itself. Luckily, two of the days Cassi stayed with me and helped me teach and control them. We would cover the basics, and even the little four year old was trying hand springs, she was so adorable though.
Dance camp has pretty much engulfed my entire week. Monday I fell asleep about eight because I was so tired, Tuesday I went to Shannon's birthday party until late with Laura and a bunch of friends that I knew. Wednesday I got to go to the airport with Bryce's parents to pick him up after his 6-day adventure in the wild Florida for a bio-tech competition (top ten in the nation!! Yeah baby!) It was fun to talk to his parents and to finally see him after so long. They took us to Leatherby's and I loved it, though I was very full by the time we headed home. (They're an ice cream eating family, so of course, I was the last one finished by a long shot) . Thursday I finally got to see Bryce. I played a very tiring game of Frisbee with him and some friends from his stake. It was a blast, but I was dying of heat by the end. We went to a BBQ at Laura's house and chilled with some friends for a few hours. I was very happy to be included in the festivities and to be able to get along with everyone. I was excited to be accepted and be able to talk freely to everyone. We then headed to South Mountain to look out over the city and stargaze. It was a lot of fun to finally talk face to face instead of over the phone. I've missed him lots lately because he keeps leaving on vacation..
Today I get to be in a parade with dance and I'm very excited. I got to walk in a giant circle doing the same dance again and again and again and again and again.... Then to play with glowsticks, explosives, and many fun games. We're combining with Bryce's family, so it'll certainly be exciting. Well, that's my long blog of the week. Tune in next week after my easier dance week and hopefully lots of work!