Semi-update.

i have nothing to write about these days. i don't really have a job anymore, since we're only open from 7-2 on weekdays, and i'm at school from 7-2:30. i do still work Saturdays, but that's not very much income. so other than that, i've just been going to school, doin my thing. early morning seminary is kickin my butt, but i knew that was going to happen. the rest of my classes are going alright, i suppose. there are only 2 classes i can tell i'm going to have trouble with, and that's my Math 1010 EdNet, and Chemistry. i actually missed the first two days of my college class, because i thought it started on Wednesday, but really... it had started on Monday. bad deal. i did get all caught up though, which wasn't hard since it's like an Algebra 2 review course. i don't actually have to take it, but i'd rather not take a year off of math then go to college and dive right into Math 1050. you know?

let's see what else... oh, football season started! it turns out that there are only 4 home games this year, which is a bummer, especially since one of them (Homecoming, to be exact) happens to be the exact day of Keith and Rachelle's wedding in North Carolina... however, this past Friday was our first real home game and it was against Virgin Valley. you might remember that me and several other girls started this thing last year where we borrow a jersey from one of the boys on the teams so we can "represent" them at the game. so since this was a home game, we all were wearing their away jerseys. i got to wear Jacob Southwick's jersey, and that was new. he's new to Kanab this year, but my word... he's pretty quick on the field.

well folks, i am truly drawing a blank as to what else to write about. i'm sure i'll come up with something good in the near future

i hope.

Trick!

i got tired of having to sign in every time i wanted to look at my blog, so i put it back to public. but who knows, maybe i'll put it back to private in the near future. we'll just have to see.

i love when you find songs that describe what's going on in your life almost to the exact letter. this one slapped me right in the face today. it's about a girl who became too cool to be the same person anymore, and she moved on to bigger and better things.

"You're Gone" by Something Corporate

taking steps back through the words I should've said to you
they all got lost
you went away
well I feel sick and you just don't care anymore
anymore
hours to be with you
minutes of me in you
and I can't feel this happening
so tie my hands back
and make me feel you coming down
coming down...

and you don't care
your face is on a billboard
and you're everywhere
you don't care much for interviews
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone away
if you don't like being hurt then please don't stay

it's hard to wave goodbye from airplanes
when I just don't think that you can see
I taper off
and say it’s never worth the pain
but sometimes it is...

and you don't care
your face is on a billboard
and your everywhere
you don't care much for interviews
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone away
if you don't like being hurt then please don't stay
if you don't like being hurt then please don't stay

Oh I wish that I could make this right
I wish that there was something worth the time
for her to give to me.
a phone call from LA is my present
there's nothing left for me to give
I wish I could
and I know that I should but
you know I know I won't

and you don't care
your face is on a billboard
and you're everywhere
you don't care much for interviews
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone
you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone away
if you don't like being hurt then please don't stay
if you don't like being hurt then get away
if you don't like being hurt then please don't stay.

don't make fun of me for saying this, but i am really, really ready to move on and out of high school. too much effing drama. and i was doing so good, too....

I'm still here.

so i went in and talked to Mr. Stewart and got my schedule worked out for this year. it will please all you siblings of mine to know that i'm having early morning seminary. bah. well i guess that's what i get for having seminary as a class period for 3 years, band for 2, and X-Press for two... i so messed up my senior year schedule. haha well here it is, just for funsies.

-1st: (that's negative first period): Early morning seminary.--Brother Jenson
1st: Math 1010 EdNet
2nd: College Prep English--Ben Luce
3rd: Health--Bucky Orton
4th: X-Press--Merilee Terry
5th: Chemistry--Kim Titus
6th: PE--Holly Robison
7th: Financial Literacy--Heather Glover

i gotta say, i'm not too jazzed about like any of those classes. basically, i'm just looking forward to X-Press and English. i'm really, really nervous about Chemistry, because my friends that took it last year said it was way way hard. but it was either that or Medical Anatomy and Physiology Science (MAPS), which is even harder. much as i love Ms. Warner, i just can't handle an anatomy class. and i hate the fact that i have to take PE my senior year, but whatever.

so anyways, that's just me catching you up on the year. by the way, i still have a post for Freedom Academy on its way... i am just so dang lazy. haha

What a weekend!

indeed, it has been so. i'll start off with:

Thursday afternoon, around 2:05, which is 5 minutes after we closed at work. i was putting away the pastry case, when my friend Dustin called me and said "what are you doing around 7:30?" he then proceeded to ask me if i wanted to go see the new Transformers movie with him and some friends at the IMAX in Springdale. duh! so we made arrangements for that, and i was all excited. in fact, i was telling Alex, a girl that i work with, about the whole thing when a couple in their early 50's walked into the store. i started to tell them that we were closed, but then they whipped out some literature and started attempting to save my soul. they were Jehovah's Witnesses, coming to my workplace to proselyte to me while i was working on the clock. Kourt, my boss's grandson and assistant manager, was pissed. he came up front and was like "excuse me, but you can't proseletize in here. please leave." that was my first experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so i decided i'd share that with you.

later, i met up with Dustin, Skyler Huntington, and Cody Barber at Junction so we could head off to the movie. i actually had planned on driving my car partway to the theater and leaving it at the end of the road that i have to take home, so that i wouldn't have to drive clear to Kanab with all them. so Dustin rode with me until i dropped my car off, then we hopped into Skyler's truck with him and Cody and we were off! the movie itself was pretty great, but it was extremely intense. almost too intense. and long. but still, i had a way good time! i honestly couldn't tell you if it was a date or not... see, Dustin paid for the tickets and food, he opened doors for me, etc. but there were two other boys there, so i'm not sure. haha oh well, at least i had fun and that's what matters. :)

after the movie, when we were driving back to my car (it took like an hour to get there from the theater, because we had to go through Zion), Dustin happened to mention that he had an extra ticket to the Secondhand Serenade concert in St. George the next day. unfortunately, he and his sisters were leaving for St. George in the morning, and i had to work that day. but he told me if i could get a ride to St. George, i could have the extra ticket and go with them.

Friday morning, i came into town early for X-Country practice, but no one was there. so i just changed and got ready for work, then left a note on Chelsea's car asking if i could get a ride with her to St. George, since i knew she was going to the concert. for some reason, Kourt decided not to come to work that day, so it was just me, Alex, other Alex (yeah, we have two), and Linda. at like 11 though, one of the Alexes had to go to drama practice, so that left three of us. at like 12:20, Chelsea called me and was like "hey yeah you can come with us, but we're leaving in like 10 minutes." she called me during a rush, and Linda was having a bad day already, so i didn't want to be like "hey, i'm peacin' outta here." instead, i asked if i could leave at 1. she wasn't exactly happy about it, but she didn't have a freakout, which was nice. i still feel bad though, because we drove by later at like 1:30, and she had closed early because they just couldn't handle the business with only two people. :(

i rode to St. George in Chanelle's massive van with her, Shay, Chelsea, Carley, and Keith Howells. somewhere along the way, i developed the nickname Yeah Yeah... like from Sandlot, because i repeat things sometimes. so we got to St. George at like 3-ish (between forgetting things that we needed from Chanelle's house and waiting for Shay to get out of the shower and finding out that Carley didn't have to work and she could actually come, we were delayed forever, which made me feel even worse about leaving work early), then had time to kill before the gates opened at 5. we went to the mall for a while, then went and got some food.

as it got closer to showtime, i tried calling Dustin so i could get up with him and get my ticket. Chelsea's brother Luke is in the National Guard and was working security at the concert, so they all got their tickets for free (except Keith... they didn't have enough for me and him, so he went ahead and bought one). unfortunately, Dustin never called me back. so i was prepared to just buy a ticket, but as we were walking towards the ticket booth, we saw Luke and his National Guard buddy watching the back gate. Luke asked us if we all had tickets, but i said no. him and his friend were like "ah, don't worry about it. we already decided that if we didn't get enough tickets for our friends, we'd just let them in anyways." so i got in for free, and Keith was not happy about that. Dustin ended up calling me back at like 6, because i'd left him several voicemails, one of which said "by the way, the concert starts at 7. not 8." so he got there, and him and his sisters sat with us on our little blanket. here are some pictures of the concert. sorry they're not very good, but the batteries in my camera died, so these are all off of my phone.

Me and Dustin before the concert... we had a long wait and were trying to entertain ourselves. haha

This was just the setup they had for the concert. No one's up there yet.

Most of Parachute.

Kit French on the freaking tenor saxophone. He is my hero!

Kit French (saxophone and keyboard) and Alex Hargrave (bass) of Parachute signed my shirt!

Me with Nate McFarland (guitars) and Kit French.

Secondhand Serenade!

in all reality, i'm not the biggest fan of Secondhand Serenade, and this was mainly their concert. there were two bands that went before them as kind of an opening act, and they're called Single File (two thumbs down. didn't like them at all) and Parachute. i've decided that they are officially my new favorite band! they are just so good, Will Anderson (lead vocals) has an amazing voice, and Kit French plays the tenor saxophone in a rock band... how sweet is that? after their set, they were up by the merchandise taking pictures and doing autographs and stuff. Dustin, Chelsea, Stephanie (a friend of Luke's that we picked up in St. George to come with us) and i went up, but we only saw Single File. Dustin left, but then Chelsea saw a friend from Girls State and went over to talk to her. when we were there, we realized that Parachute was actually by the concession stand, not merchandise. i think we actually came in on the wrong end of the line, because we just walked right up to the band and asked them for pictures and autographs. Chelsea got her shoes signed, and Stephanie only had a piece of paper. i just got my shirt signed, because i'm really not that emotionally attatched to it. well, i wasn't. now it's amond my most prized possessions. :) haha

after we got our stuff signed, we went back to our spot, and i found Dustin waiting for me to see if i wanted to go with him and his sisters to stand up front for Secondhand Serenade. i figured... why not? so i did, and it was CRAZY! so many bodies, and it was in St. George, so i was sweatin up a storm. like i said, i don't really like Secondhand Serenade, and the lead singer didn't help with that. i think there was one time when he referred to the band as "we." the rest of the time, it was "i'm going to play you a song that i just wrote for my new album that i haven't quite finished yet. i don't know how to play it very well, but i hope you'll forgive me." just that kind of stuff, and it really bothered me. the bass player is sweet, though... he's like a cross between Chris Daughtry and a UFC fighter. haha oh, and i don't know if i mentioned this or not, but that was the first concert i've ever been to. it was a pretty good one, i suppose.

Saturday almost killed me. i'd already had 2 late nights, and i had to work some more. not only that, but it was the day of the Pioneer Day parade in Kanab, and parade days are always insane at my work, since we're right in the middle of the action. we made SIX Frappaduccis! (that is a made up drink that we invented at work... it's blended chai, espresso, milk, and Creme de Cacao. it's currently the special of the month, and we only put it up on the menu to see how many people would actually say "i'd like a 16 oz. Frappeducci with whipped cream, please." say it out loud... it's funny, huh?) that's as many as have been ordered before this day, and i was shocked. i ended up making $19.82 in tips (which is incredible, considering my tips are just what people feel like putting in the tip jar on the counter, and i have to split it with whoever else i'm working with).

when i got off work, i went to Subway, got a sandwich for me and mom, then we went home. well basically, she dropped me off before she went to St. George, because there was no way i was up to shopping for hours on end. instead, i slept for a couple hours, then killed time until she got back with the car so i could go to the bi-stake dance that was in Kanab at 9. that was fun, i just hung out with some friends and made a new friend from Huntington Beach that was visiting his brother at ALA. this last picture is one of a present that my good friend Taylor Armstrong gave to me. he is usually referred to as Starms or Starmy, due to a really stupid thing that Bryce Hafen said back when Taylor was probably in like 7th or 8th grade. so anyways, Starms and i were teasing back and forth, and he said "alright, i'm going to offer you a token of peace." and he pulls this thing out of his pocket...

"Taylor," i said. "Is this a Stormtrooper?" "No," he answered. "It's a Starmtrooper."

Enjoy the rest of your day. :)

Whoo

i realize that i said i was going to blog more often, and then i kind of fizzled out, but here's the deal. i kind of had limited internet access for a little while there, but it's all good now. basically for the past couple of weeks, i've just been working and running (practicing for Cross Country, in case you didn't know), and i was in New Mexico for a couple of days. Cross Country is going alright... i was having fun at first, but i am slowly realizing that i have never been built as a runner, so i'm honestly not sure how much longer this will last. I like running, but i don't like feeling like i'm not good enough to keep up with everyone, and i definitely don't like thinking about like competing and going other places for meets... that's just too much for me. i'm really not big into competing, you know?

in other news... there really is not so much. so far, i am still LOVING my job (i'm still working on doing a post about that, just so you can hear something about that), i'm still making payments to the cruise that i'm going on next June, and i'm still 100% jazzed about that. also, i now have FIVE missionaries to write to these days! i've got Elders Garett Madril, TJ Reidhead, Sam Pace, and Matt Schmutz, and Sister Kimberly Anderson. in October, my dear good friend Chasen (soon to be Elder Chamberlain) will be leaving for Brazil on his mission, and my friend Mike Garcia is getting his papers in October. so many missionaries!

well, i suppose that's all i've really got to say for now. enjoy the rest of your day! :)

Youth Conference 2009!

well, i just got home today from Youth Conference, which was probably the funnest session i have ever been to. :) we had it at Dixie State College in St. George, and we even got to stay in the dorms there. ironically, i literally had the exact same dorm room that Kimberly had when she very first started at Dixie. what are the odds, right? last year (or was it the year before?), we had it in Alton, and all the girls had to sleep in the gym of the Alton church... i did not love that. this was much better! i roomed with a girl in my ward named Tara, but she ended up having to leave Friday morning, unfortunately.

when we got to Dixie at like 2 ish on Thursday, we checked in, then we all went to dinner at the "Red Rock Cafe", which is the Dixie cafeteria. i can't really recall what we did in between then and when we left for Tuacahn at 7 besides eat, but that's not the point. we got to Tuacahn around 7:30, which is when the "pre-show" started. it was actually a mechanical bull thing set up out in the plaza area, and you were supposed to pay $5 to ride it, which a surprisingly large amount of people did.

at 8, they started letting people in. we went to see "Footloose", which was--in a word-- mind-blowing. (that is one word, because it was hyphenated. ha.) the guy who played Ren was in, among other things, High School Musical 2, American Mall, and "So You Think You Can Dance?", which did not surprise me at all. this guy was incredible to the max. plus he was a cutie. ;) the rest of the people in the play were fantastic, too. i really dug the guy who played Willard, he just did a really exceptional job.

after the play got over (at like 11:00, no lie), we all headed back to the dorms and went to bed. i was so out.

BenMc and Starmfaund chillin before the show.




Me and Tara just trying to kill time.




Ol' Taylor and me... what a cute kid, right?

Me and Tara with the actors that played Ren and Ariel in "Footloose."

day two was Friday, and we began the day by going to breakfast in our Sunday clothes, because we had a temple session to get to! everyone went to the St. George temple, and the girls did baptisms for the dead while the boys went to the visitor's center and watched the "Joseph Smith" movie. it took a really long time for all of the girls to get through the baptisms because there were so many of us (and we had to get ready afterwards, of course), but even when we got over to the visitor's center, the boys were still in the movie. eventually though, they did come out to go do baptisms while we watched the movie. and it was SO good! i cried a lot, but in a good way.

we didn't get out of the movie until like 1:30. we then went straight to lunch, and our leaders told us to change out clothes and meet back at the general spot at like 3. from there, we went on to the Staheli Family Farm (which is also where i went to the "Field of Screams" at Halloween, if you recall that) where we then experienced a series of team-building things. first, they had us go through the bottom part of a barn one by one, which had me worried at first, because... no one was coming down. soon though, it was my turn. i went in the door and saw that there were mirrors mounted on 3 of the support beams in the barn, and a leader standing by each one. the very first one was Kim Blake, and you may or may not know this, but i love her. she is Kelsie's step-mom, so that's how i know her, and she's still like one of my favorite people of all time. anyways, i saw her standing by this mirror and i heard the spiritual music that they were playing, and i was tearing up before i even got to the mirror. but basically the idea was that at each mirror, there was a piece of paper that said some words that you were supposed to tell yourself in the mirror. the first one was "I am a child of God." the second, "I know my Heavenly Father loves me." and the third, "I am an example of the believer." after the first one, Kim gave me a hug and i was just bawling. what can i say? i'm related to my mom. :)

after the mirrors, i was escorted up to the top part of the barn, where we were soon placed into random groups of like 14 or 15. and believe me, that was the short, short, short version. we then went on to go through kind of an obstacle course with our groups that required team efforts. but here's the real kicker: we weren't allowed to talk. like at all. we were allowed to communicate like with sign language and such, but no words. our first thing was a little rough, our second task took us probably like an hour and a half to do, and the last one was like nothing compared to the second. the whole farm experience in general a really, really great thing. the lady who ran it gave us a talk beforehand and was like "this will be a life-altering experience for you" and i was like yeah okay... but she was right. it blew me away how much of a difference it really made.

after we left Staheli Farm, we went back to Dixie, ate dinner, changed into our swimsuits, then headed for the St. George city pool. fun fun fun! that thing has a water slide like you wouldn't believe! gosh it was so rad. i went probably like 17 times. but somehow, even though there was a lifeguard at the beginning to keep people from going one right after the other, i was caught up to FOUR TIMES! seriously. i'm just going down the slide, and all of the sudden, i hear Starms hollering when he's coming down the slide, so i look behind me, and he's like right behind me. he didn't hit me the first time, but the second time it happened, he tried to slow himself down... but really, he just flipped around backwards and his head hit the back of mine, and his shoulder hit my back, which left bruises. the next time i went up, i told the lifeguard to not let Starms go behind me for like 15 seconds. anyways, Matt Vaughn and Daniel Bowman both caught up to me. i don't know how the heck i am such a slow slider!

so we all came back, then the leaders let us all hang out until like midnight. so i went to bed and stayed there. the whole time. at like 1 am, some leaders came to my room and told me i was in trouble, but i was so baffled! it turned out that some of the girls from Orderville 1st ward were like sneaking out to go i don't even know where, but they thought it was Orderville 2nd ward, which is me. that was a little bit scary, but it all worked out. and since i didn't have a roommate, my very own teacher Mrs. Terry (well... "Sister" Terry, since we were at a church thing. haha) helped me carry my mattress to another room where some friends were staying, so i didn't have to be alone. that was nice of her, i believe. :)

now for today. once again, everybody went to breakfast in their church clothes. right after that, we went to some workshops where we had three speakers. my favorite was Brother Gallagher... i personally think he should probably be an EFY speaker, he is so good! after his little lesson thing, we had our testimony meeting. that's always special. :) finally, we had lunch, packed up our stuff, i moved my mattress back to its original home, and then we embarked on our journey homeward.

moral of the story: youth conference was fun, and this is a ridiculously and almost painfully long post. good for me!