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!

A Bit Behind.. As Usual

Well, apparently June got busy. After graduation a spent a lot of time working and hanging out with Bryce. Then, he left me for EFY and so I have been working a lot. I also took a road trip to California to try and find a house so that when I move down in a month I won't have to live in a box behind a Target. It was so much fun to go down with my future roommates and spend some time with them and get to know them better. There was the usual drama, but it all turned out ok in the end. I got mad at Danny for not putting his seat belt and it turned into a long battle, with me winning out in the end. We found a house that we really liked, but only Shane and I agreed on it so we decided that we are going to go down again and find one just a few days before we decide to move down. I got to talk to Bryce nearly every night and it was fabulous to keep in touch. He was home about halfway through my vacation down there so I could finally talk to him instead of having to limit our texts. We spent a day in San Francisco and on a beach just south of that. I got back and was so excited to see Bryce at least for a brief moment. It was only for a half hour though.. The next day he left for Youth Conference where he was gone for three days and didn't even have his phone. It was a very boring three days.. I spent lots of time with Laura though. We went shopping together, played games at my house and just hung out to talk. It was nice to see her because we have both been putting our time toward other things and haven't really seen each other very much.

Bryce's birthday was Sunday and I was gone, so on Thursday after he got back I took him up to South Mountain and created a bunch of memories we had. I played Secondhand Serenade because we went to their concert, I locked myself out of my car (with a hide a key of course), going to a place we've looked out at before, watching sunset which we always talked of doing, we could see a pool that I had so intelligently gotten my car stuck in the snow and had to be rescued, and a lot of other memories from south mountain. It was so nice to see him after like two weeks and to just relax in his arms. I missed him more than I realized. The next morning he left me again for Florida for a biotech competition. I've been talking to him on the phone and via text. I almost couldn't because he dropped his phone in a fountain at the airport in Denver. Yeah, he's a smart cookie :) Luckily it decided to work again!

I got to go to my uncle's cabin with my parents and just chill over night. I finished a book with my mom (the thirteenth reality, which was a very good book), finished a sewing project I started when I was like 10, started and finished an entire book(the giver), learned how to paint flowers and leaves from my mom, started another book, and had lots of time to just relax and sleep. It was so much fun to go up and to reminisce of memories of when I was young. The only difference was that I didn't have all my siblings there too. We talked about going up there next month when Rachel comes to visit and taking friends up there for an overnight stay. I also got to go four wheeling on this huge freaking four wheeler. The biggest one I've ever driven, it was a 600 twin sportsman polaris. It was a blast though. And right up from Strawberry Reservoir so it was a pretty drive no matter which direction you went. Well I'm starting dance camp tomorrow and I'm so excited that I get to dance again! It'll be lots of fun! Hopefully I'll keep up to date on my blog now.. though I doubt it :)

Dance, Outdoors, Graduation, and PARTIES!

Ok, so my computer is being retarded, but here are some pictures of my dance concert that I never wrote anything about cuz I spaced it. I was in seven dances, from a zombie, cheer, and then an entire circus routine. These pictures are in the costume of the contortionist dance. As you can see, I play that role well. It was a fun dance with no real technique, just lots of bendy stuff!

Well this last week has been insane. It started Sunday night with Seminary graduation. Never again am I taking a picture with the bishop, his son, and my dad.. I'm shorter by about two feet. They sang the Theme Song and it was so beautiful. I was signing it in my head because they wouldn't let me sign it for the crowd. Tough bishopric..

Monday was the most boring morning of my life.. Graduation practice. Hutch, the teacher in charge was not in a good mood which made it seem three times longer. Bryce and I headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to check out a place in Tanners Flat Campground for a bonfire that we are organizing for our friends. We did it last year too and burned all of our homework. It's a fabulous end to the schoolyear haha. The canyon was gorgeous and we wandered around looking at places. It was great fun. We found a good spot that had a little private pond thing. Bryce wanted to go swimming but I said that after swimming in a freezing lake up the canyon last weekend, i wasn't about to jump in this one. Especially not in a swim suit haha.

Tuesday was the big day. Graduation. It didn't really hit me until I got there... That's when I realized I'd forgotten my cap and my hearing aides. Laura got my cap and I had to have Shannon bring the hearing aides and talk Crapo in to bringing them to me. The walk from Jordan to the Expo Center was very long.. Especially in heels. Not one of the best decisions of the week. We got there and Laura and I parked ourselves and sat down to wait. We got to walk in together.. Now I had to tell Bryce that he's too late and I've already walked down the isle with Laura and I had linked arms with Eric Proctor. He laughed. There were some good speeches and some boring ones and finally our names were read. I was in the front row, so I got it over with quickly. After I got to go to Chili's with my family and Bryce tagged along too. It was great to see them all and to talk. I'm happy we didn't scare Bryce off.. Though he did give us all funny looks when we started to stack silverware and make statues (though this time nothing compares to our 28 piece one at a wedding dinner in Texas) The rest of the day was relaxed, then came night. I panicked because Laura's phone died so I had no idea which party she was at.. I finally went to the one for our school and found her there. I was only there for an hour and then we all went to Five Mile. I was nervous because they were talking about finding alcohol. It was WAY out of my comfort zone. Luckily, we never found any and ended up off roading a bit and making our own bonfire from dead trees we found and a flare we had in the car. It was great fun to talk to everyone and we were there until 4:15 AM. I got home and crashed. It was the first time in a long time that I had partied all through the night. It was great.

Thursday we did the bonfire with our friends. We had hot dogs and s'mores. It was awesome to see everyone and spend time with my friends. We had random people show up and had about 20 people by the end of the night.. More than the 10 we had started with. We sat around the fire and told funny stories and embarrassing moments. About midnight we kicked everyone out because a few of us were staying overnight and had to start setting that all out. We stayed up and talked a bit and Bryce and I had the best stargazing ever. We go gazing a lot because it fascinates us both. In the mountains with no light pollution we could see so many. Though the trees made it a bit more difficult. Then the next morning my parents left early to catch a plane to Texas for my cousin's wedding (she is my age and I grew up with her.. yeah it's strange). We stayed up a few more hours and slept in. It was great, though my toes were so cold I was sure they would fall off.

I'm getting in to work more and more and trying to make as much money as possible so that I can have enough money to move to Cali this summer. Well, I got my hearing aides and I love them. They do so much. I went to CON a last weekend and had such a blast. After nearly getting kissed by a guy I had just met, meeting some awesome authors and artists (James Dashner, Howard Taylor, Sarah Seiter, L.E. Modesitt, and Paul Genesse), and just having the chance to be an all around geek all weekend. I dressed up as an Elf that I invented on the spot. I chose the name Tavalynn and didn't realize that that is who I became.. So that's what everyone called me. I got to wear a formal and a pretty blue cloak that my mom made for me last year. I had ear tips and a design by my eyes to give it a more elven tone. I stayed up until four in the morning filking and singing weird songs about bridesmaids and dragons. I actually went to a lot of the panels this year instead of just goofing around. I made a hand flower out of chainmaille, learned how to create a story quickly, learned about art, writing, publishing and much more. It was fun to spend time with my family. We have the time to be weird together. I also got to join the end of the coffee clutch with my dad and the people named above. It was fun to talk and the conversation was so random. It was great. I got a free book, "The 13th Reality" by James Dashner, because apparently I make friends easily. It is my first autographed book! Now next year I will try to make up a costume so that I don't have to make one up the night before..

Bryce and I went hiking last weekend and went on the trailhead up Bell Canyon. It was supposed to be a short hike, but we discovered later that we started at the wrong place. So after three hours of hiking and everyone else saying we weren't even close.. We turned around and headed back. We stopped at a gorgeous lake that was on the way up and went down and stuck our toes in. We had planned on swimming in the waterfall, so we had our suits on. I look over to see Bryce taking his shirt off, and when I look again, I catch him in the air diving into the lake. He made me do it of course, and I was so cold! After standing on the rock about five minutes I finally jumped in. We wanted to see how far we could swim and we only made it about thirty feet into the water before Bryce said he was freezing and started frantically swimming back. It was a fun hike and great to spend time together. Plus it was a gorgeous day. Perfect hiking weather!

My mom has lots of pictures on her camera, so those will follow along shortly. Of CON, graduation, and parties too.

AP Tests and My Adorabe Niece

These last two weeks have been crazy busy with studying and preparing for the AP tests and Rachel and Logan came to visit for a week. It has been so much fun to visit with them!
They got here the day before my AP Calculus test, so I visited for a little bit and then studied. The Calc test went really well and I left feeling confident. There was a good number of questions that I didn't answer, but I answered the majority of them. Rachel and Logan stayed for a week and I got to go to the park to play tennis with them, go shopping, and Rachel kidnapped me from school and took me to lunch. We had an hour to ourselves and I got lots of signing practice!
The day after Rachel left was my AP English test and I also felt really confident afterwards. The multiple choice was the easiest I've done and I think that I did really well on the essays as well. I had to do Deaf Day last week and it was very funny because with the earplugs in I really couldn't hear anything! My car, my footsteps, people in the hall, teachers. Yeah it turned into an interesting day.
We had Mother's Day (for both my mom and Rachel) Rachel's birthday, and dad's birthday. So on Sunday we did all of the presents for everyone. We got mom her piano tuned and my dad got a voice recognition thing so he can just voice what he wants to write for his story and the mic will record it and then type it. It's so awesome! The major present we got for my mom was getting her piano tuned. It has not been tuned for a very long time, and we learned that the swamp cooler made it go out of tune faster. It was gorgeous to play and everything finally sounds normal!
These last two weeks have been busy with dance too because I have a dance concert next week and I'm in seven dances! It'll be fun, but it's been lots of work.
Summer has almost officially begun and the first day the bubble was off of the pool, a big group of the dancers went tanning and swimming. Ha first lay out of the season.. I fried. I got to go up to Snowbird with Bryce and his family and we went swimming and hung out. It was a lot of fun. I was stunting with Bryce and stacking people. I managed to get on Mark's shoulders(Bryce's older brother) with Tyler on my shoulders (Bryce's younger brother). We didn't hold it very long, but I was impressed we got up at all haha.
Well, school is winding down, a few more final projects and state tests and then comes graduation. I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. The last quarter is a blur with how much I've been doing to study for AP tests. I'm so excited to graduate! I got my class schedule for college last week. Makes it much more permanent. I'm excited to move out and be independent. I just hope that I can afford it..

Medical Scares and Many Prayers

Well, this week has been quite exciting. But it is the kind of excitement that I do not wish to repeat. My dad has been having some medical problems and they focus around back pain. He has been to probably every doctor in the valley in the last month to find out what is wrong. He has had MRI's, CT scans, CAT scans, been poked and prodded and everything in between. In the MRI the doctor noticed that his kidneys had cysts, which led to the conclusion that he had Polycystic Kidney Disease and that at any moment his kidneys could fail him which would lead to dialysis, or a kidney transplant. Not a fun path to take. So, in light of visiting doctors, he went to a Phrenologist, a kidney specialist. The phrenologist took some tests and such and concluded that, yes, dad does have cysts in his kidneys, but that they will not lead to such drastic problems as the other doctor diagnosed. So after three days of many tears, hugs, prayers, fasting, hoping, and wishing, our perilous journey had come to an end (thankfully). It sure did teach me a lot about what to do in drastic situations and how quickly life can change. I also now more fully understand the power of prayer and the power that friends can have when life gets tough. I am grateful for all the help that we had and all the prayers that were said.

We finally had our powder puff game (where the girls play football and the guys dance and cheer) because we finally had a field to do it on. The 40 days it would take to put in our turf field soon turned into 10 months when we finally got to have our game. Cheer was going to perform but it was 'too cold' so we didn't do it. We finally got to on Friday afternoon for the conclusion of spirit week. It went well and was great to perform on our turf. Lucky me, I only get to do that once because I'm graduating. Fabulous.

I had a dance competition yesterday at Lagoon and both of my teams took first place! I got to compete in the advanced jazz class and I did so awesome! I got all of the technique right and managed to not hurt myself in the process.. Now that the stress of dance is over, I move on to academic stress. I have the AP Calculus test this coming Wednesday and the AP English test next Wednesday. I will be so amazingly excited when these two tests are over and in the past.

Rachel, Logan, and my niece are coming this Tuesday for a week and I'm thrilled to finally see them. It's been since Christmas.. Way too long. It will be a fun-filled week with them here, so they can brighten my day when I have to face an ugly test. I'm very excited!

Prom Pictures

Group picture. Not as hilarious as Sweethearts,
but can you tell we're all red? haha



We were running to the restaurant and we were running
down stairs and Bryce mentioned it would be like Cinderella.
So I slipped off my shoe and kept going. He caught up to me
and got down and said, 'the owner of this shoe is the one for
me.' It didn't slide on as well as in the movies, but it made
for a perfect pose! Especially with a castle background.


I got so excited posting pictures of me and Bryce that I spaced to post our Prom pictures. Ha oops..