Kindred Spirits

I think I found my kindred spirit. (Just like Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables). Her name is Brooke. She is an amazing girl and I love her to death! She is the grandaughter of a couple in our ward so she comes up from Nevada every once in a while and comes to church with us. We became friends on Facebook and started writing long letters to each other. We called them 'chapters' of our 'novel.' When she told me she was coming up for Thanksgiving I was SUPER excited. We made plans to get together and do something fun. The week of Thanksgiving I was so excited to get together with Brooke. We went to a local Yogurt shop that is a hot spot in my town and had yummy frozen yogurt. Then she came to my house and we played a few games and just talked. It was so awesome because we learned a lot about each other and found out we have so much in common! We both teach piano, we both have similar tastes in music, we have similar personalites, etc. We ended up talking/painting nails/drinking hot chocolate until almost 10:30! We decided to get a picture of the two of us to remember this day and it literally took 10 minutes because all the pictures turned out so funny. We had a great time together and I'm so grateful I have been able to get to know Brooke. She is so sweet, fun, beautiful, kind, trusting, smart, and amazing. Love ya kindred spirit! :)

Thanksgiving

{The girls}

{Sisters}

{Cousins}

Thanksgiving was fabulous. We went to my dad's parent's house and had a great time eating, laughing, playing games, and socializing. I love getting together with family. It's a great way to start the holidays.

Fantastic Weekend

Last weekend was great. On Friday I went to Morgan's house to watch, "The Phantom of the Opera." Ever since Bravo Broadway, we have both been obsessed with it. We had been looking forward to this movie the whole week. The movie was fantastic, the music spectacular (we sang along of course), and the actors fabulous. Emmy Rossum is gorgeous and Gerard Butler (the Phantom) is much better looking than Patrick Wilson (Raoul). Ah! I loved it. Saturday I switched gears to another movie... "New Moon." My cousin Shalona won tickets, so she took Savanna and me along. It was so nice of her! New Moon was so much better than Twilight on a number of levels. The acting, directing, special effects, etc...
However, this is the main reason I liked it so much...When it comes to the books, I'm for Edward aaallll the way, but when it comes to the movies, I'm for Jacob. Ah! He's so good looking! I hear he had to gain a few pounds and work out a lot to be in this movie, but it was totally worth it. The best part, along with his muscles, was his haircut. It was the highlight of the movie. My favorite scene was when he was in the rain. with short hair. and no shirt. (I usually never say things like that, but I couldn't resist. And part of it was to make my mom's jaw drop). hee hee
{Images via Google}

After the movie, Josh and Shalona dropped me off at the BYU stadium. Morgan invited some of her friends and me to the game. It was freezing, but the game ended well with a winning score of 38 to 21 against Air Force. Oh! And guess what... on the way home we got lost. Not kidding. Cursed? I think so.
{Annie and me}

{Luke, Annie, Matt, Morgan, Aubrey}

Owl on the Prowl

Well... he used to be on the prowl. This poor, beautiful, little horned owl was found dead in Rachael's back yard on November 16th. The night before, Rachael said she saw him in their tree but he was making really weird chirping/screeching noises. I guess he wasn't feeling so well. The next morning they found him face down in the snow. How sad. He was so soft and beautiful. {My sisters tagged along to see the owl}

{Sara, Rachael, me, Jassy}

I Gave Blood...

...and it felt great!!! Our school did a blood drive on November 18th, and since I'm in HOSA, I was able to help out all day. It was my first time giving blood and I felt a little dizzy for a while, but I will happily donate again in the spring. Who doesn't love saving a life?! Melissa and I got matching bandage colors. Later we even asked a nurse to give us a little pink bow made of the bandage stuff to put on our purple bandage.

A Bravo Weekend

On Friday, November 13th, I went to Abravanel Hall with my friend Morgan and her little sister to see Bravo Broadway with the Utah Symphony. She called me up about three hours before it started and asked if I wanted to go. I got ready and headed out the door. I think I have a problem with getting lost with people when I'm in the car with them, because on our way to Salt Lake, we took the wrong exit and had to turn completely around. I think I'm bad luck when it comes to driving and getting lost. We eventually made it to Salt Lake but soon found ourselves roaming around the streets of Salt Lake. Finally I texted Google for Abravanel Hall's address. We found the building, but now came the parking. We drove around for a while until we finally found a place to park. At this point, it was 8 o'clock. We were late. We ran down the streets and had to pass a few scary homeless guys. We evetually made it into the building and got our tickets. When we went to be seated, the lady told us (in quite the annoyed voice) that we sat almost exactly in the center. So when the song ended, and the clapping began, we embarrassingly climbed over people to get to our seats. Good thing we won't ever see them again. On the positive side, the performance was AMAZING! The performers have been in Broadway plays such as, 'The Phatom of the Opera, Wicked, Les Miserables,' etc. Their voices were amazing and blew me away. I got so into it, that I have been obsessed with Phantom of the Opera ever since. By the end, the audience had given a total of about 6 or 7 standing ovations. It was phenomenal. I love Broadway music. {Morgan and me}

{Outside Abravanel Hall}

The next day I was going to watch 'The Phantom of the Opera' with Morgan, but I had a date with Cubby. We went as a double with Ana and Cameron. We're all in HOSA together so it was really fun. The boys surprised us and took us to Laser Quest for laser tag. It was quite coincidental when we took the wrong exit. (I really think I'm cursed). When we got there we played two rounds. The first round was couples vs. couples, and the second round was girls vs. boys. I'm proud to say that I beat Cubby all around. I tagged him more times than he tagged me, and in the overall rank of about 28 people, I placed 14 and he placed 17. I was pretty happy. :) Afterwards, we went to Coldstone for ice cream, then went to Cubby's house to play foosball and ping pong. We had a great time. (Sorry, no pictures for this event).

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!

Washington D.C. Friends Reunion

The day before Halloween, Melissa and I went to UVU in Provo to see Jaelyn play volleyball. Her team made it to state, so we were excited to see them play. While we were there, David came over for a little bit. He was dressed up as a Newsie for school so it was really funny when we saw him walk in with a pile of newpapers. He couldn't stay long but it was great to see him. {David, Jaelyn, Melissa, me}

After David left, we watched Jaelyn's team play. They did a great job and won! It was wonderful seeing her again and we're hoping we can see her again around Thanksgiving.
After the game, we said our goodbyes and Melissa and I headed home. On our way back, we accidentally took a wrong exit. It was dark and we started getting a little freaked out when we couldn't see any lights to a town. Soon we saw a sign that said, "Wendover...500 miles, Reno...100 miles." That's when we went into panic mode. Once we finally calmed down, we called Melissa's dad and he helped us get back on track, and we made it home safely. Needless to say, we doubled our time getting home. It was a fun seeing our friends from D.C. and we definitely ended our day with an adventure to remember.

Halloween

This year Halloween started off with raking leaves at Grandma and Grandpa's house. There were SO many leaves, but it was fun.{Rissy and Becca helping Grandpa}

{Rissy being so helpful and jumping in the leaves}

For Halloween celebrations, our family went to the church and met with some neighborhood family friends to have dinner and play games before Trick-Or-Treating.

{Mom: witch, Savanna: Geisha,
Me: Nurse (one that works with children, hence the teddy bear),
Becca: Jack, Rissy: Jill, Dad was a trailor park dude, complete with a mullet.}

I left the neighborhood party a little early to go to Morgan's house for a party. We ate a delicious dinner provided by Morgan's mom.
{Rachael and me. Rachael was an Oreo. How cute is that?!}

Merissa was a little old lady and it was HILARIOUS. She looked just like a grandma. At one point during the night, I was looking down Morgan's balcony and saw Merissa walking down the hall below. Even though she was by herself, she still acted like a grandma and walked carefully and slowly with her cane. Loved it.

Later that night we watched, "Flight Plan." It wasn't scarey, but it was very suspensful. I'm not the kind of gal that likes those type of movies, and neither is Rachael, but we toughed it out... even if I had to hide in Rachael's shoulder a few times and squeeze my teddy bear. I never knew I would need a teddy bear at this age. :) Overall it was a fun Halloween.

{Aubrey, Sara, Rachael, and me after the movie}

Halloween Dance!

The asking:

I put candy in the pumpkin so my date would think my name was on a wrapper, when really it was on a slip of paper in the lid of the pumpkin.

The answer... is it cute or what?! Those are real flowers! Cutest pumpkin I've ever seen.

October 24th- Day activity: hiking up a nearby canyon.

The fall leaves were everywhere and they were so beautiful!

We made it to the end. :)

We were standing on a rock by the stream, so I pretended to push him in.

It was quite a challenge to cross the stream at times, but it made great stories and memories (aka Sara falling in a number of times. Good thing we had hot chocolate at Jassy's house afterwards!).

Overlooking the valley.

Our group went as decades. Danny and I were from the 50's.

My parents were hosting dinner, and while I was getting my date, they dressed up too. I had NO idea they were dressing up, so it was quite the surprise when I walked in the door and saw my dad in a $600 green suede suit with an afro (borrowed from neighbors), and my natural blonde mom with long red hair and sparkly pants. They even played the part with 70's language (groovy, righteous, etc.) and had the 70's mannerism goin' on... quite the experience. It was hilarious.

We had a delicous meal of lasagne, eyeball jello, witch's brew, pumpkin pie cake, and this cute little veggie skeleton my mom made. Thanks, mom, for hosting 20 crazy teenagers and making such a tasty meal! You're the best!

My date was great, our group was awesome, and the dance was a blast.