Surprise Sweet 16!

My birthday is on Wednesday the 24th. Yesterday my aunt called my mom and asked if we could come down for a family supper. Everything sounded normal. Getting together with family for supper? Later, I got a text from my cousin telling me to wear a green shirt, because she wanted to take a picture of us. Green is my favorite color. I didn't think anything of it. At around 5:15, we left for my aunt and uncle's house. We got there, and I didn't realize until then that my mom, dad, and aunt we also wearing green shirts. My mom and aunt exchanged knowing looks. I knew something was up, but I didn't know what it was. Then I saw one of the green circular decorations in the window. I wondered why my aunt had that hanging up in her house. We walked into the house, and the first thing I saw was the "Happy Birthday" banner strung across the ceiling! I was utterly shocked. I didn't suspect a thing. Apparently my mom and dad knew for a couple days. Sneaky family! :) I loved it though! My aunt, uncle, cousin, her husband, other uncle, mom, dad, and I were all there. Along with a two families of four, a family of three, and another couple! It was a great surprise and an amazing way to end my weekend. My presents included a new phone, a purse, a bucket full of candy, and some other things. It's been a pretty great celebration, even though it is a few days early. My actual birthday will be pretty low key. I'll go to school and possibly gospel meeting, depending on a family situation! This week will be crazy though. Full day on Monday, except we are taking the state tests, so that takes up the first four periods, which is half of the day. Early out of Tuesday and Thursday due to conferences. Full normal day Wednesday, the only one, and no school Friday! Then the next Monday, I will be missing for a State Student Council Conference!
I hope everyone had a great weekend! Have a great week, my friends! :)

Another Post!

I know that it has been a while since I last posted. School is the same, although no school tomorrow! The month of October is amazing for school. There are more early outs and no school days! The best part is that the 29th I don't have school, while some do. Tomorrow is Grandparent's day at my niece's school, so we are headed down there. I am going to hang out with my nephew. Then my brother will take my school pictures! Saturday, dad works, then we are headed south to stay with some friends. It should be pretty fun. That's all that's really new in my life. We facetimed with my nephews and niece in western NE. The oldest can say the Pledge of Allegiance, it's pretty cute. The middle one can too, he's learning from his brother. The baby laughs, it's quite adorable! :) I love my nieces and nephews. Then again, I love kids in general! :) Hope you all have a great weekend! Monday is Columbus Day!

Es Septiembre!

I feel bad, I haven't been abandoning my blog, I promise, just haven't been around. In the past month, school has started, and we went to a couple church conventions.
This week is Homecoming, which means dress up days, and then all the festivites that go along with it. Tonight was Powderpuff, it was quite fun! :)
This year, I have gotten the privlege to go to 5 different church conventions. It has been good to be there again. I'm glad for that. It's been made more real to me of how important it is to prepare while here. Also, I met amazing people, and saw old friends. Several pictures were taken. One of them was of two girls who were wearing heels, so they were giants compared to me, then I was in the middle. It was a funny sight to see! ;)
Yesterday was my nephew's 4th birthday, he was quite excited!
In 2 days, it will be fall. It's crazy how time flies. It's been over a month since we have been in school, yet it feels like a few weeks. I have heard that freshman year goes fast, then sophomore year goes faster, so on and so forth!
Anyway, tomorrow if Friday!! Hope everyone else is having a lovely life! :)

August?

Where has the time gone? It's already August. School starts a week from Wednesday, summer is wrapping up quickly! Changes have happened since I last posted. My brother and his wife had a new baby boy, so my parents and I drove up to Wyo to meet him! We took along another's brother's kids, so it was quite busy! And exciting :)
Conventions are just around the corner, along with new lists!
This year our school is going to 1:1 computing. Which means every student in grades 6-12 will have their own laptops to use. Let's just say it will be interesting. It means to more textbooks to haul around, which is good, but it will be different with laptops. Oh well, I'll survive.
I guess I don't know much else, but I thought I'd post to let people know that I am alive still :)
Have a great week! :)

Summer Vacation

This summer has been very full! We got out of school. Over Memorial day weekend, my brother, his family, and I all drove to Wyo, where we went to see my brother and his family. 4 out of 5 of us kids were there! We came back home then at the end of May my parents and I flew to Oregon for my brother's med school graduation. The ceremony lasted almost 3 hours, which was a long time to sit! We had a few days with Travis and Annie before flying home. One day at home, then we drove to Ryan and Tabby's and stayed with them during the annual church convention in Scottsbluff. After that, my parents and grandparents went on up to Buffalo to Nate's, while I stayed at Ryan's and went to another church convention in Wyo. After that convention, I went up to Nate's, and went to yet another church convention! :) After those 3 conventions, I had a week at Nate's, before heading back down to Ryan's with my cousin. My mom was there, and then we drove home. We received news of a death of a friend. So on the way home, my mom and I were planning and stopped to shop for some items. We got home on Monday night. Then Tuesday afternoon, my dad's cousins from Wash. State flew in. One of them has a plane. That night, we heard another young friend was in a fatal accident. Wednesday we went to a parade, had the hymn sing practice for the funeral the next day, then went to fireworks. Thursday morning we were in a rush to prepare everything. My dad dropped off our cousins at the airport, then mom and I went to the funeral home in Council Bluffs. It was good to see the family again, but the conditions weren't the best.  Friday, we recovered from the past few days, then went to Eric's that evening to be closer to where the funeral was held of the other friend. The funeral was very sobering and very touching. It was one of those things where I didn't think the last time I'd see them was at their funeral. But it is that way with anyone, you don't know what the future holds, but we do need to be prepared. Now, we are home and life is back to normal. My sister(in law) is due the beginning of August, so hopefully we can go meet the baby before school starts again, which is in a little over a month. This summer has gone by very fast!! I might try to share a few thoughts from all that I heard this summer. It has been very helpful to remember them. I hope everyone is doing well, and you all are having a great summer!

Summer and School

I can now say that I survived my freshman year! I am out of school for the summer! :) So far, I have gotten all A's on my semester tests, except for one B, in science, which well, that's still good! I am waiting for the results of the final one! Hopefully I did ok! Anyway, hope everyone has a great summer vacation! I plan to spend mine traveling! :)

New York City!

I had an amazing time in New York City. I would love to go back and see more sights. In just 4 days, we packed a lot in and didn't get to see all of it, but it was a great trip either way! We arrived to school at 4:00 AM on Thursday morning and headed to the airport via bus. From there, we all jumped on our different flights to head to the Big Apple. We arrived in the afternoon and met our tour guides and buses. We got transported to Times Square and got to shop for a little bit, then went to dinner at Dallas BBQ, where supper was delicious, very filling, and a lot of food! After dinner, we went across the street to Ripley's Believe it or Not. We saw many disturbing things. I'm not a huge fan of those types of things, so I started to panic a bit, because I didn't really want to be there!! But it made it through, barely! After Ripley's, we took our group photo, then went to the Rockefeller Plaza to the Top of the Rock. We literally were in a cloud. It was too foggy to see the city, but it was still neat to be up there! After that, we finally got to go to the hotel and sleep. Our tour guide was Shyrl, and that day we also had Mike.
The next morning, Friday, was an early morning. The first thing we did was travel and take our bus to tour the city. We went to Chinatown and bartered. I found a watch, one like I had before. He wanted 10 for it, I didn't feel like paying that, so I told him 5. He gave me a funny look and went to 8. I said no, and started walking. So he thought about it and said 5. Well, I wasn't so sure after that, so I had to think, I walked away from the price I wanted, which was not smart or nice!! We saw a few Chinese funerals going on, it was neat to see their traditions! We had lunch at the South Street Seaport, then after that, we went to the World Trade Center Memorial. It was interesting and really a neat sight to see. After that, we took the subway up to Times Square and got to shop. We met again, then got our tickets for the Broadway show. Let me just tell you that it was AMAZING! I cannot begin to  describe how great it was! I got a shirt and the Wicked soundtrack! Then we bused back to the hotel.
Saturday morning we got to sleep in a little bit longer. We got to walk through Central Park that day, which was very beautiful! Doug, a tour guide, was really neat! He knew what he was talking about. We performed on Saturday at the Staten Island University. Then that night we got our awards at a Medieval Times performance. The horses were trained quite well, and the show was really neat!!
Sunday we got to sleep in the latest. Then we woke up to go on a cruise around the harbor. It was really neat! We saw the Statue of Liberty! I tend to get motion sick at times, so I took a pill to help it, unfortunately the pill had side effect of drowsiness, so I slept on the boat for some of it. We then had an hour in Times Square or 5th Ave. for last minute shopping before we headed to the airport to fly home. I was really sad to leave. We had a great tour guide, she was amazing! Of course, I cried when we had to leave. We got back to the school at midnight then. Another flight didn't get home til 1!! But let me tell you, NYC is an amazing city.
People tend to sterotype the city thinking there is crime and it's really dirty too. But it was actually beautiful and clean too! If I ever get the chance to go back, I will! I fell in love with the place!
I'm sorry this post got quite long, I could have split it into a few posts, but I threw it all in one! Also, I apologize for overusing the word "amazing" :) Please let me know if you can view the video with no problems. I got an email from Youtube saying that it was blocked because of my music. But after publishing it, it plays fine! I'm not sure what the deal is! We got a 1 at Large Group tonight! Hope you're all doing well! Have a great weekend!

Well, Hello There!

Yes, I am back. After getting home late Sunday night, we've had a busy week. Vocal concert on Tuesday, meeting tonight, and Large Group tomorrow! I promise I will get the pictures up soon! I put them in a video format and had to shorten it majorly, otherwise you'd be sitting for a 30 min period looking at pictures. But I cut it down to 8 min 30 sec!
Let me just say that I fell in love with NYC! I cried because I didn't want to leave. I have a great time! We saw many things, and we were always on the go! Sleep, well, we got some, but not a lot! I was perky, apparently too perky ;) Haha, kidding! But I was in a great mood, and it wasn't hard when you like what you're doing! :) Anyway, it's late, big day tomorrow, so I should let ya'll go! Hope you're all doing well!! :)

Time

13 hours and 57 minutes til I am on my way to NYC! :)
Hope you all have a great rest of the week and weekend!! :)

Thoughts

We got the privilege of special meeting again today. They were very rich meetings. A few thoughts include:

• We can trust Him when all else fails.
• We don't want to plant our own will/thoughts in our hearts.

We heard a great deal about control, some of those thoughts are as followed:

• What is it that controls us?
• We all have a past, and could be controlled by our past.
• When we feel like our prayer wasn't answered, were we giving Him absolute control, or did we have a thought and try to control?
• We want time to do His will and our will, but that doesn't work.
• There is so much we need to let go of and let God have control.
• We control because we are afraid of something.
• For every fear, there is a promise.
• God isn't going to abandon us, that's a promise.

Those were just a few of the thoughts. I'm so glad that I got the chance to go!

This is the week I leave for NYC! I am getting excited, but yet I am a little nervous. I have everything that I need, that I know of. But I still need to pack. We need to be at the high school at 4:00 AM, then we will depart for the airport, and all fly out at different times. We have so much planned, that we won't get much sleep! But it will be fun! My cousin is letting me take her camera, which I'm glad, because thsi will definitely be a trip that I was to remember! It may be a once in a life time chance for me, so I'm glad to get to go! I hope to upload pictures when I get back! :)

Slight problem, I'm starting to get a sore throat! I hope that I don't get sick etc before I go! Anyway, I hope all are doing well!! Have a great week, and I'll "see" you when I get back probably! :)

Changes

Our plans changed big time. We didn't get to go to to speicals on Sunday. Which I was bummed out about. But as most of you know, my brother and wife had their baby, which she ended up going to NICU. When we got the call that my sister was going into labor, my mom and I hit the road and got to her other grandparents about midnight our time. We spent the afternoon and evening at the hospital, then returned to the place we were staying at late. Sunday, we had meeting, the went to the hospital, then returned to sleep. We woke up early this morning, went to the hospital with the other two boys, then brought them back, and drove home. Maggie is doing fine, last I heard. She is a cute lil' girl! Her brothers were quite interested in her. :) Anyway, that's all the news here. Specials here on Wednesday, which means company coming etc. Hope all are doing well!

More Randomness

Well, the time has come, we finally will be getting the go to a special :) Maybe I'll see some of you there! Have I mentioned how excited I am?
My oldest niece had her birthday Saturday. She had been planning her surprise birthday party for 6 weeks prior. She had everything planned out! Where has the time gone? She turned 5, which means I have been an aunt for 5 years! Where has the time gone?
Speaking of time, can anyone believe it is April already? This next month will fly by, too. I don't know if we will have a normal 5 day week of school! But I am excited for summer. I wonder where I will go. I do know though, that I'll be flying to Oregon for my brother's graduation!
Only 3 weeks til I fly to NYC. We had our meeting the other night, for parents/students/chaperones/etc. I am very excited, but I am also a little nervous. Not with the flying, but with the fears of the City. I'm sure it will be fine, but you never know!
I will get to enjoy a 4 day weekend now! What do your plans include? :) Hope all are well!

Just a Few Random Things!

1) I was looking back at old posts. I have to laugh, because they are either really cheesy or completely stupid. Like a friend said "Anything I say now, will probably sound stupid in the next few days!" I can't believe how long I've had this blog, but yet I can! I don't know, you be the judge, has my style changed? Does it "sound" different?

2) I have an ingrown toenail, as nasty as it sounds. I had an appointment at the doctor today, so he ended up looking at my toe too. It was nasty, meaning, it was inflamed, infected, etc. It wasn't a pretty sight and it hurt like crazy. So he side cutted the nail. It hurt when he cut it. I cried, screamed, and hyperventillated. (Just curious, how do you spell that?) I wonder how sound proof the walls are, because another nurse popped her head in and asked if I was ok!

3) It is March 26th, which means that in 1 month I am in the air to NYC! Can anyone believe that it's March? And with this weather? It's been a crazy winter, if that's what you want to call it! Specials started on Saturday! I am quite excited, as odd as it may sound, we still don't know who our company is, but with all the funerals etc, it's no wonder! It will just be a surprise? ;) Also, we only have 30 some days of school left! Something like that! People were talking about that today! Either way, this year has gone quite fast! Anyway, nothing else new here. I hope that everyone is doing well! Happy blogging!

Small Group

Today was small group contests. For those who don't know what that it, it is a vocal/band/piano contest, where students from different schools prepare for solos/duets/trios/quartets/etc and get rated. 1 is the best that you can possibly get! I originally was going to do a solo, duet, and triple trio. But I only ended up doing the triple trio. There were some judges who were harder than others, but some were very nice. We didn't have to sing until 2:30. We were the last freshman triple trio to sing. We got a 1! :) We were the only freshman triple trio that did!! :) So we were all quite happy about that. Anyway, that's all the news really! Hope all are doing well!

Little People #2

It's finally here!! I decided to put brother/sister together in this one. They are adorable, then again, I'm their aunt, who is bias, but I say all my nieces and nephews are adorable. :) I can't wait til the next two are born! Family time will be louder, but it will be worth it!
Nothing new here really. 6 weeks and I fly to NYC! I am quite excited! Oh, and specials start soon!! I am very excited for that!! Hope all are doing well!

Creative Eye

A friend of mine has been doing a 52 week photo feature. I've been saving different photos and creating collages with them. They are quite talented! (In case you didn't notice!)
I love photography and looking at different photos! It makes me want to go and buy a camera of my own! :)
I should continue my "Little People" posts, but I have been distracted by the above photos! Hope all are doing well!!

News!!

I should really continue my "Little People" posts. But I have news!! This type of excitement spreads like wildfire usually. One person finds out, they tell another, so on and so forth! I have permission to tell people, but they didn't say anything about my blog!! But here it goes!! Remember how a few posts back I said I was going to be an aunt for the 7th time? Well, I still am, but that baby hasn't been born yet! So we got a call Wednesday night, and my brothers never usually call that late at night. I thought it was the one who lived in Oregon, but it wasn't. So my mom finally gave me the phone and I was the one in Wyoming. The first thing I asked was "Are you going to have a baby?!" I was right!!! I am going to be an aunt again!! :) I can't wait. 8 times, so maybe these next 2 will be girls, then there will be 4 boys and 4 girls ;) But I'm sure it won't work like that!! Maybe 1 of each, or both boys, or even both girls :) Anyway! Hope that everyone is doing well!

Little People #1

So I have decided to make collages of my nieces and nephews! I started with Lincoln. He is getting to be quite a big boy ;) The current pictures are the two black and white ones next to each other. They were taken at Christmas.
This weekend my grandparents are coming down and also Eric and his family! Next weekend is when I go to Chicago for LEAD conference. It should be fun! Well, maybe not the 7 or so hour ride! But the rest should be :) Other than that, I don't have much else to say! Hope you're all doing well!

Groundhog's Day

Frankly, I think it's overrated. I mean seriously. Either way there's going to be 6 more weeks of winter!! :) Because there are 6 weeks til spring! The weatherman says we're supposed to get a "huge" snowstorm this weekend. Now that remains to be seen! :) Hope you're all doing well!!

Hey There!

I had the weirdest dream last night, and as it progressed, it got weirder :) Interesting what our minds do while we sleep! Anyway! We have Small Group Contests coming up soon, March 24th, so I've been practicing my music for that, which I'm really excited about! I'm doing a solo, duet, and triple trio. I was asked to mentor for a few kids, so I started that today. I just pulled a dozen and a half chocolate chip muffins out of the oven! :) Yum! Oh and I am currently going through an obsession with clementines!! They are the best!! ( I got through several a day!!) School is going great! Been busy, but not too busy! My family is all doing well! My sister is due in 2 months or so! Which is quite exciting! I found a lot of amazing ideas from Pinterest! I'm sad, because I don't have an account to link it too, they only recognize a few, quite pitiful!! Anyway, how you're all doing well!!

Here is a collage I threw together from our time together :) It was a lot of fun. Some of these are repeats, but some are different. Also, my brother fixed my computer!! I am very happy and excited :) Hope you're all well.  Have a great weekend :)

A Few Pictures

Photo credit goes to my brother, Eric. Just a few pics from the holiday time. Don't have one of everyone, but here are a few!! By the way, I have hardly ever put up pictures, so excuse the funky formatting :) Hope you're well!!

Hello Again! :)

It's 2012?!! Wow, time has gone by very quickly. I remember last year, school ended quickly, summer flew by, and the new school year was here and gone in a second! Tomorrow we start back for the second and final semester until summer! A lot has happened! We had all my brothers here for a week. Travis came and stayed with us a week ahead, he has been interviewing for residency! So it was fun having them all here. We played many games of Settlers of Catan and some Crazy Rook! The kids had a lot of fun being together, although towards the end, there was some fighting, pretty funny to watch them come upstairs and tattle! Even Tori, the youngest, got involved by scratching! :) We had a potluck the Sunday of Christmas. It was a great meeting. It was all of the kids my brothers ages visiting their families. So it was a "childhood revisited" meeting. Except there were a lot of people :) There is a man in our meeting, who was so excited, looking forward to being here. But he got sick! so that was a bummer!! We went to the wellness center many times and swam :) I learned how to play raquetball :) It was a lot of fun and a great work out!! After they all left, it got really quiet with just my parents and I! There may be pictures to come! So after tomorrow we'll be settling into the same old routine, school, work, eat, sleep, or something like that. I love breaks, but I love school too! Anyway, hope you're all doing well. Have a great new year filled with many great memories!