2014

Hello, Readers! I still have readers, right? I guess it's been a while since I last blogged. I created a blog for school, but I haven't personally blogged in ages. A lot has happened, but this isn't going to be one of those "catch up" posts.
I've noticed something lately.
I work at a restaurant where it is our job to make the sandwich to the customers satisfaction. Yes, I work at Subway. This is not me complaining about my job. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. Mostly because I love working with food. I know, it isn't baking 3 layer cakes every day, but it is still food!
When you go into a restaurant, what do you expect? You probably expect the employees to treat you with respect, give attention to your needs, and hope that you walk away satisfied. Whenever I go into a place, I like a friendly employee. Someone who can be relaxed and have fun while serving you to the fullest. So what does this have to do with anything?
Have you ever noticed what is printed on the bottom of a receipt? It most likely says, "Tell ----- about your experience" or something along those lines. How many of you actually pay attention to those? Usually, I don't. Unless the experience was absolutely amazing, or rather horrible.
Here's the deal. In today's society, everyone focuses on the negative it seems. I'm not pointing fingers because there are times when I can be negative. When you have a rather unpleasant customer, you have to treat them the same. Those are the customers that will complain. It could be for the smallest thing, but they will complain. Have you ever wondered what happens after you send in a complaint about the employee(s) or a store? The employee gets the blame. They get written up. Not everyone in the world likes me, I get it. In my experience so far, there have been 2 reviews about me. One was excellent, and one was not so hot. So then what happened? People don't focus on that one review that was great. They focus on the one that has the power to fire you. No, I still hold my job, but for how long? I love my job, so that would be a horrible thing if I was let go for any reason. Yes, I realize this is a lot of me, myself, and I, but it does effect me.
My point is, if you ever have such great service at a restaurant (anything from McDonald's to Texas Roadhouse), then tell them. Write them a review. Tell that restaurant that so-and-so did such a fabulous job that you would come back. Customers have more power than they know. Your voice matters. It doesn't have to be anything about the food, it can be about the attitude of the employee.
Maybe none of this makes any sense, and I'm just ranting about nothing. But if you get my point, take those extra 2 minutes to fill out a survey. You never know how it could change someone's day. :)
Hopefully everyone is doing well. Maybe I'll get back into the habit of blogging, but between school, work, and everything else going on, it's like time is slipping away. It's hard to believe that college is approaching, well senior year. Every day, there is something from a college whether it's an email or mail. The joys of being in high school! ;)

Where is Spring?!

I realized that I haven't posted something in about 5 months! It's supposedly spring, but when you look outside, you wouldn't know it at all! What happened to the "March comes in like a lamb/lion and goes out like a lion/lamb?" Did that just disappear?
I cannot believe that school is almost out! We only have a little over a month left, crazy how time flies.
A couple weeks ago, I went to district speech contests. I received a I on the lit pro, and a II on my original oratory. I was able to move on to state speech with the lit pro. There, I was given a I and II's. An overall score of a II. Everyone on the speech team is a senior, except for me. They are looking at me to carry on with this until I graduate. Hopefully there will be more people that join next year!
This is all I  really know, but hopefully all my followers are still there! ;) Enjoy your day! 

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!! :)