20

Two decades. Veinte. The big two zero. Whatever you may call it, it's strange having a 2 in front, instead of a "teen." The past 20 years have been the awesome. Here's to 20 more! To kind of "celebrate" living two decades, I made a bucket list of things to do in the month before I turned 20. I'm quite proud to say I completed the majority of my list! I...

• Ran 19 miles in less than a week.
• Temporarily dyed my hair dark brown (and actually liked it).
• Slept out under the stars in Moab, Utah.
• Sang Mamma Mia at karaoke night with my wonderful roommates at Pizza Pie Cafe.
• Read/listened to the Book of Mormon in four days (Literally finished at 11:59pm November 1st. Close call!)
• And completed a one month photo challenge. 

Unfortunately I can't add the spontaneous trip to Seattle or skinny dipping on the list, but maybe that can be for 25. ;)

The birthday celebrations were fabulous. The day before my birthday, Mom came up and we went to Olive Garden, bought a new birthday outfit, and chatted the afternoon away. Then that night some friends, roommates, and I went to Pizza Pie Cafe to check off my "sing at karaoke night" bucket list item. The day of my birthday I woke up to cute decorations from my roommates, a temple trip with Kaitlyn, Legally Blonde, delicious red velvet cake, and many birthday cards, texts, calls, FB wishes, and Happy Birthday singing. Needless to say, I felt very loved. The celebrating continued into the weekend when I went home for work (although that wasn't part of the celebrating. haha) I had my birthday dinner with the fam on Sunday and returned back to Logan to find a wonderful birthday letter from a dear missionary friend. It was a great birthday! Thanks to my roomies, family, friends, and everyone who made it a wonderful birthday. Hooray for being 20. :)

Teenager No More

What the? Where did the time go?! I turn 20 one month from today. I will no longer be a teenager. Weird. This makes me think I should do at least a few random/different things, and finish off my teenager years with a bang. After all, I will never be a teenager again. Oh my gosh, this is totally weirding me out! So blogging world...any suggestions? Maybe a spontaneous trip to Seattle? Run 19 miles in a week? Temporarily dye my hair? Read the Book of Mormon cover to cover? Sleep out under the stars? Complete a one month photo challenge? Sing at karaoke night at Pizza Pie Cafe? Skinny dip? Spend 24 hours technology free? Let's get the ideas a rollin'!

Dear Elder

Wanna know what's great? Birthdays. Wanna know what else? Missionaries. Put them together and you have one sweet package of awesomeness. For one of my friend's birthdays I bought a red tie and made a card to match.

The card flips open by lifting up the shirt from under the collar. Then you can write a cute little message inside. Here's a video describing how to make the card.

 

I love missionaries!!

So last night

I played cat and dog.

I was the cat, my dog was... the dog.

For twenty minutes straight I meowed and she went berserk. She even went outside to "discover" the location of this mysterious cat. Even when I meowed in her face, she just didn't accept the fact that I was the cat. And there may be a reason why... a few nights ago a stray cat wandered to our house. All my sisters adored it and wanted to keep it, "just for the night" (which we all know would lead to, "can we keep it?"). Sammi (and me, for that matter), however, did not like this new guest. She went nuts. So I'm assuming last night she thought the cat was back and she was bound and determined to find it and give it a piece of her mind. Eventually she gave in to the fact that it was her annoying #3 master that was pathetically hiding in various places around the room and peeking her head behind the curtain to make lousy cat noises. But at least it provided 20 minutes of entertainment. Just the perfect amount of time for my cough medicine dosage to run out and take some more. Ah, gotta love pet doggies. Oh, and today I meowed again just to see what she'd do. Ya, she's back into thinking there's a cat around. Ha. Dogs never learn sometimes. 

{That's my meow face}

And in other news, yesterday was my momma's birthday! Yay! We're going out for ice cream tomorrow to celebrate. I love her more than pie. She is simply the best. ever. Love you Mom!!

18

Yesterday I turned 18. An adult. Can you say weird? I'm not quite ready to be considered an adult and take on all the responsibilities that comes along with being 18.

Since I had major musical rehearsals on my actual birthday, we celebrated Monday by going to Olive Garden and opening my gifts. I got some pretty sweet things: an ice scraper, emergency car kit, super cute clothes and boots, slippers, and a hoop skirt! You may think that is boring (my sisters made it clear it was to them), but for me it was quite exciting! For one thing, I was very grateful for the ice scraper. Why? Well one day, there was frost on my car. I had 5 minutes to get to school before I was late and there was no scraper to be found. I frantically searched in the van and around the garage only to find no ice scraper. I went to my last hope and grabbed a spatula from the kitchen. To my surprise it worked, and quite well, too! But needless to say, I was grateful for the ice scraper. And the car kit is amazing. See below!

{Complete with a flashlight, jumper cables, tape, a blanket, and other useful things I have yet to learn about. The top opens in an awesome way and oh! Did I tell ya? The bottom  is Velcro so it doesn't move everywhere. Sa-weeeet!}

To start off my actual birthday, the best mom ever (mine) made a pancake and bacon breakfast for the seminary council for our meeting that morning. Delish. Then, one of the best birthday gifts ever happened. In Seminary, three General Authorities came to my period. My class was fortunate to have Elder Malm visit with us. It was absolutely incredible. His entire countenance was shining and his eyes burned with the Spirit. He was so friendly and he commented on how 'smiley' I was, which made me happy. The love I felt from him engulfed all around me and I thought, "If he's a mortal being and has this much love for us, I can't even imagine how much love Christ has for God's children." He spoke to us towards the end of class and I can't explain in words how amazing it was. The spirit was so strong and my testimony was strengthened in that prophets are definitely called of God on the earth today to lead and guide us. Having him come to class brought on a spiritual high and I couldn't stop smiling throughout the day. It was an unforgettable experience.

For lunch, Mom took me to Costa Vida where we used my certificate from my awesome principal. During the car ride I listened to the CD Jane made for my birthday. I fell in love with it immediately. Every song is wonderful. Once I get the names of the songs and artists down, I will share with you all.

During Biology I sat next to Jonathan and he counted down to the actual minute I was born (1:32 pm). Then he whisper-sang 'happy birthday' to me (as well as the rest of my table) so Ms. Ludwig wouldn't notice. Hilarious.

After school I got to vote! I thought it was pretty awesome that I turned 18 on election day. It didn't exactly turn out as planned, however. When I signed in, or whatever it is that you do, I went to the little machine you vote on and put in my card. Then a weird clicking sound clicked and my screen told me to talk to the attendant. Oh boy. I ended up having to go back to the sign in table and reset my card, with all the little old ladies saying, "this is quite the experience for your first time voting," and, "well this hasn't happened before!" and, "what a nice birthday gift for you." To top it off, two of them sang happy birthday to me (that would be the 8th time of the day).  My mom had no idea what was going on through all this. Quite a funny experience. The sticker definitely made it worth it though.

Later that night I had musical dress/tech rehearsal. Hayden and I share a birthday and our mommy's brought treats for everyone! I didn't know Mom was bringing anything, so I was happily surprised when she walked in with donuts (the good kind from Dick's) and Kelsey started repeating over and over, "Jessica! It's your birthday! Your mom's here! Your mom brought donuts!" It made rehearsal much more enjoyable. I got lots of hugs ;) and was sung to a total of 9 times throughout the day. I never knew being sung to could make you so happy. It was a fantastic birthday thanks to all my lovely friends and family. I'm thinkin' 18's gonna be a good year. :)

Girl's Night

Last Friday, I went with a bunch of my good friends to Rachael's cabin to celebrate her 17th birthday. We just spent the night, but oh what a night it was. I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time and it was nice getting all those laughs out. I needed it. We played games for hours, opened presents, ate a ton of delicious food (and even more sugar), named Sara's children (Yoko Soho Hoit, Ku(dash)Fu(dash)Ray, and Sponjetta Jojoba), went on a midnight safari, saw captain hook, and witnessed wonder woman fly. We had such a great time together. On the way home, we even got some boys' numbers by passing a paper bag to their car during a traffic jam. Of course we put Rachael's number on the bag since she was the birthday girl. ;) It was the perfect getaway weekend. Thanks for having a birthday Rach! And in order to prevent myself from being totally embarrassed and being black mailed, I limited the pictures. ;)

{Kaitlyn, Rach, Sar, Mari, Me, Jassy}
{image via Jassy}

Happy Birthday Becca!

I Love You!

Birthdays!

I just realized that it's been one year since I started my blog, so, happy first birthday blog! Cheesy, but true. :) Speaking of birthdays, today is Karissa's 8th birthday! Yippee! That means Baptism! She had her 8 year old Baptism pictures taken with Daddy and they turned out beautiful. Here are just a few:

Happy birthday to my squeaky but precious sister, Roo!

Shopping with Mom

{Picking pineapple for Sunday dinner}

{Making Mom close her eyes while I go into Garden Day Spa to get her birthday present}

{Picking out a roast for Sunday dinner. I told Mom I would make dinner on Sunday as a birthday present. Those of you who know me well enough know that this was an extreme (& risky) gift, because cooking is quite the challenge for me. I almost always have some sort of disaster when I cook. i.e. boiling over the chocolate mush twice in one day, resluting in replacing the tin foil on the burners & cleaning under the stove twice.}

{I picked the right one on the first try!}

{Uh oh... spilled Diet Coke!}

Happy Birthday!

To the best Father in the world!! Going to work everyday and providing for a family, helping me with math homework, going on Daddy-Daughter Dates, waiting forever for the bathroom, serving others, waking me up in the morning, going on outdoor adventures, being a worthy Priesthood holder, giving blessings for anything, asking how my exams go, loving me with all his heart... all these things and more make him the best dad ever. Happy Birthday Dad! Love you for always! xoxoxoxo

Happy Birthday!

To the best Mother in the world!! Making lunches, helping with homework, staying up late while I'm doing homework, long talks, out to lunch on long lunch days, comforting me when I'm sad or stressed, keeping our home clean and a welcoming place to be, making dinner every night, doing laundry and all the many household chores, and loving me with all her heart... all these things and more make her the best mom ever. Happy Birthday Mom! Love you forever! xoxoxoxo

HOSA Birthday!

17! One more year and I'll be an adult! Ah! Now that's a scary thought... My birthday was fun this year but a little different. I'm an officer in an organization called HOSA at school, and we had a leadership training in Park City over my birthday. So on November 1st, we celebrated my birthday with family. My grandparents came over and we had my favorite dinner, beef stroganoff, as well as my grandma's really yummy oriental chicken salad. Savanna made a chocolate chocolate cake... delish! I got some great gifts: clothes, Michael Buble's new CD, "Crazy Love," some needed socks, and winter gloves. {Grandpa, me, Grandma}

The following day, November 2nd, I headed off to Park City with my HOSA friends. The conference was actually pretty boring, but the social part was exciting! For one of the meetings, our group split up to go to different classes. They all happened to leave their classes a little early to go to dinner. By the time I got to dinner, they had a spot ready for me with a birthday cake! (provided by the very sweet Ms. Richards). They sang for me and everything. It was so nice of them!

Azusong is an exchange student from Ghana and is a HOSA officer. He's very touchy feely and I don't think he knows what personal space is, but he's very nice and very funny. While I was blowing out my candles, he held my face so I could blow straight at the candles... he's a funny kid. He also tried to kiss me, but I escaped just in time. For the rest of the evening, we went to a few more HOSA things, then played. Dan gave me a huge party hat and a balloon (which I sucked helium from and sang, "Popcorn Popping"... hilarious). Cubby gave me play-dough, huge glow sticks, and scented bubbles. It was very thoughtful of them to remember my birthday. :) To finish off the day, Ana, Cubby, Dan, and I played Mormon Bridge. Overall, it was a fun birthday. {Second day of our conference}

{Jamming out to music with Cubby's speakers on the bus ride home}

The following Friday, we went out to dinner for my birthday. We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Texas Roadhouse. It was pretty exciting to sit on the saddle and yell, "YEE HAW!!" It was a great 17th.

P.S. Happy Birthday to one of my best friends, Kaitlyn, today!! And to Mickey Mouse!