Happy Happenings

Yes, yes it's been wayy to long. But it's raining. I know rain is everyone's favorite smell. It's mine too. But it's even BETTER right now combined with our Christmas tree. Seriously, my two favorite smells in the world. So i'm happy. Rain inspires me to blog. So here are some wonderful things that have happened these days! (in no particular order).

Holiday Dinners. My last year (tear). My grandpa loves it so much, he is trying to recruit all my cousins to be in choir so he can go. This is us caroling while people walk out. I love choir.

fun. and Steal Train Concert! It was soo great and i loved the friends i was with that night! I like Nate Ruess's voice twelve times more than his personality. But Jack Antonoff is wonderful!

All-State Jazz! Seriously the highlight of my life! This man, Dave Filsinger, was our clinician. He is so incredible, we all bonded and grew together in just three days. And the concert was beautiful. Hearing the A choir sing The Star Spangled Banner made me tear up. We bought the cd :)

Winter formal with Jerod! We were close friends in ninth grade and we always wanted to go to a dance together, and now we have! It was terrific, and he is the perfect classy gentleman. I love resurrecting my sister's dress too.

I designed our encore shirts! Don't we look good? haha we are so nerdy. My whole school day is devoted to ending it with this class everyday.

A couple other happy things for my record:

• Jacob is doing amazing on his mission and he is already going day speaking fluent Russian! His letters are so sincere and humble.
• Errin is pregnant!! I want her to have a girl Jones soo bad!
• The other night, the family was bickering, and i didn't feel the Christmas spirit so i made everyone hold hands and say things we loved about each other. then i was happy for at least the next 24 hours :)

Sooooo i'm happy!! The end

Elder Stradling

He leaves on his mission tomorrow! He is headed to the MTC to learn Russian for his Donetsk, Ukraine mission. I have complete confidence that he will bring so much joy and happiness to them over there! He will be an INCREDIBLE missionary!

As for me, i would prefer to never say goodbye again. never ever. :)

Raindrops

Facebooking and blogging about rain is so overrated. Everyone loves rain in Arizona, we know!

I'm overrated because I'm about to do so.

My rain is most enjoyable on the back porch swing.

My rain is the best with a backup soundtrack of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Try Me Bicycle, and Dan in Real Life Soundtrack.

My rain is the cleanest, most wonderful smell in the whole world.

My rain comes from the pale overcast sky.

My rain brings out complete happiness in me.

My rain helps me think my most contemplative thoughts.

My rain puts life into a whole new perspective.

My rain distracts me from every other responsibility or burden on my shoulders.

My rain inspires me to attempt poems on my blog.

I love my rain.

A Happy Story

Starting with my front bangs. Which i love but wish i was better at keeping them up. This picture is from the day Karen cut em, with her magic touch. Excuse the cheesiness of it.

Homecoming was so fun! Curtis was a wonderful date! I made us matching lollipop corsage and boutineer cause the theme was "Candyland". Which is why i had to do that pose, to uh.. show it off. :)Karen is amazing at hair, once again!
Choir concert! I don't have a picture of my whole choirs. But we looked good! And hopefully sounded good! I love jazz!

Mmmm, jazz. That brings me to the next big exciting event. (The whole reason i felt like updating anyway). I made All-State Jazz!! Ya. I am real happy. So what if it is only 5th chair B choir? I thought I wouldn't make it at all! My choir wasn't required to try out for the first time ever this year, but i felt pressured into it anyway, and thought it was just a waste of money. However, I did practice a lot, and had a good audition! But i still thought I had no chance of making it, I was just glad I had a good audition. But the thought never even occured to me. But I did! And I am soooo excited! My friends that have done it before say that they love it! Tanner said it changed his life! I am very happy :) Can't wait to make new friends, learn new music, and have a new director!

A few more little happy things:

• General Conference and our leaders are amazing.
• It's fun to work at Nielsen's on Priesthood night. Turns out tradition requires all the girls (cause all the boys are at priesthood) to wear paper hats with our names and numbers on em. Pretty funny. It was so busy, but busy work is more fun than boring work!
• Fruit and Veggie trays with dressings complete conference.

What a happy ending to a happy story.

Mighty Winds

Blew our beloved tree down. Now it's so barren. Well, not yet, because it takes forever to cut up and stuff. But i sure miss it. That storm was amazing though!

Homecoming 2010

This is the boy who asked me! Curtis is his name. (pic is from a date during the summer)

Like this!

What's Been Up

First day of school. Tiring day but much better than I expected!

I absolutely love being a senior!

I love my classes and teachers too!

Oh and, going off campus for lunch. :)

Youth Conference! It was the first weekend of school. A huge success! My friend Jacob taught me swing dancing!

Just got back from an amazing labor day weekend in Cali with Errin AND Shauna plus their families! LOVED it! Thank goodness for relatives living there, and the marines, for stationing them there.


So everything has been wonderful. And i got front bangs today! I love them.

Nielsen's Frozen Custard

You can find me there.

There Are Some Things I Don't Like.

Just to name a few:

• Water damage on phones. Rice didn't work to fix it! It wasn't even soaked, just a couple of drops in the wrong place of my poor phone :( Goodbye Jill, and all the notes and calendar events i kept on you.
• Getting lost. I have no sense of direction and it kills me! I just love taking an hour to get somewhere that should take 24 minutes according to mapquest. Especially when i'm missing out on my nephews and niece at home!
• Having a cough for more than a week, then adding a runny nose to it.
• Listening to my poor nephews throw up all the way home from Safford.
• Throwing up myself the next day, all night long. I never knew what people meant when they said "I threw up all night". But now i do!
• Receiving 3, yes, THREE coldsores from my sickness/stress whatever!
• My old flip phone that i am now using that doesn't even have enough memory to hold 40 messages!
• Mowing 6 inch long grass in the middle of the hot day. Ok, i should've just done that one earlier.
• Having to start school in two days. I'm not ready!! I don't think I've ever been more nervous or stressed for a single school year.

So ya! I don't enjoy those things! And to top it all off, it was all last week when just my mom and I were home so we were supposed to have fun girl time all the time! Except that my poor attitude ruined it..

Now, i will list some happy things that have happened recently! I'm not depressed i promise

• My mother and i did have a movie night Satuday, in which we watched Pride & Prejudice for our first time! We had to turn on captions to fully understand it but we loved it! Kierra Knightly is soo pretty! And i love how they dress in their flowy gowns and how they properly talk. But i could never talk like that today.
• I went to the Randolph Training Center for a church activity yesterday (where they have old, disabled people). I love that place times one hundred. We sang songs with them and held their hands. Every special spirit there is Celestial, and it's a privilege to be around them. I thank Heavenly Father for letting them stay on earth this long to bless our lives. They are perfect.
• I finished the book Mormon to Mafia. Wow it's motivating! Such a great conversion story!

Really I am happy! Life is good! Pa and Cole come back today, i've missed em!

Oh, and it's my beautiful baby Gwen's 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday Gwenifer!

Ever Since Summer School Ended..

Life has been much happier. I'd even say it's been a splendid summer! Here's a list of the main events.

#1 I spent lots of fun time with this wonderful man Tanner before he shipped himself to dang BYU.

It's good that he's going to college but i miss him!

#2 My handsome nephew, Briant, got baptized!. I'm so proud of him! I love him a lot, no matter how hard it is for him to show that he loves me back (thanks to Cole for turning him against me).

#3 Lunt Family Reunion! Holla!

My cousin Taylor, and I hosted Minute to Win It the first night. I think it was a success!

I got to wake up to these precious babies every morning.

My dear sisters and I performed our own little sister act! (see lawrence welk show on snl). Errin made a wonderful Judeece!

We crowded on couches.

We hung out on the steps.

We made ice cream.

We had a Photo Booth! Shauna's idea. It was soo fun. Hang a sheet between some trees, put a prop basket nearby, and let the relatives go to town.

Here are some of me goin to town.

With my little Drew.

April, me, Taylor

Jonesie.

Owen.

The reunion was a huge success! SO fun! Not only did i get closer with my out-of-town cousins and such, but especially with my out-of-town siblings and nieces and nephews :)

#4 Jacob got his mission call! He's going to Ukraine and speaking Russian! He is so excited! I am so excited! And proud of him. He's gonna be amazing out there. I can tell because that's all he talks about now! Plus, he eats anything weird he can get his hands on for practice.

This picture is from the other day when we dressed up as a cowboy and cowgirl. Because it was cowboy day of course! We tried to go to the library (cause he wanted to look up Ukraine stuff of course) but it was closed. So we wandered Main street. And got stared at a lot. I think we look good.

#5 California!!

Seriously the best place to spend my summer. The weather was amazing.

The trees were amazing! Imagine having this in your front yard. I could fit five of me inside one root.

Jones is cute in his spiderman speedo.

Flying a kite on the beach is super great!

Pinkberry. Pinkberry! PINKBERRY!

It's heaven. This was my first time, and there's nothing like it.

Ice cream trucks are fun! And classy. They make me feel like a happy child. Even if the ice cream is 1/8 as good as pinkberry.

Sooo, that's been my summer! I love it! I don't wanna go back to school! Still nervous for senior year. Anyway, hope your summer has been just as great as mine!

Never Again..

Will summer school plague my life. I'm DONE! It's ridiculous how happy it's making me.

Ken, Tori, Savannah, Jessika, Ian, Me and Cali!

We're happy because it's our last day of summer school lunch. And we love each other.

Max and Cali are cute when we carpool.

So is Gwen.

Phony Photos

I've finally discovered how to send pictures from my Phone to view on the computer! Oh technology these days! Anyway, i will now share some of my favorite phone pictures with YOU!

Last summer, Leah and I went to visit my cousins in Monticello, where we quaded every day! Just check out that gorgeous field and sky. Wish i had a real camera.

The little dooklet Jason, before he moved out with Derek (tear). I like to watch him sleep. Not really, i was just at his desk, on his computer. But he really is sleeping! Good balance, brother.

Max is so cute! He kept makin me take pictures of him. Seriously, what a stud. Any 5 yr old girls reading this, know that this one's a Jackpot.

This devilmanbug is soo creepy! Honestly, it gave me the shivers. I guess it's kind of cool that it's an opposite lady bug, but mostly i just wanted to cry looking at it! Don't lady bugs climb on your fingers if you put them in front of it? Not this one, i think he's possesed. Too bad he was trapped in the car with me all alone while mom was in the bank and i didn't wanna let him out cause i was saving him to show Cole!

I spent lots of time throughout my classes working on this countdown to summer. I didn't end up using it all the way cause i couldn't bring myself to cross out the pictures i had worked so hard on. My personal favorite is the middle row, on the left. bubbles! And no, that isn't a martini. It is an extra-virgin pina colada.

Too bad it's still not even real summer due to my 10 hour long summer school! Only 2 more weeks! I can hang in there!

Well, have a nice day!

I'm Really Gonna Miss Them

Jacob and Tanner

Valerie

Sydnee

I'll miss many more graduates than these few, i just didn't get pictures with em all! Best of luck to them! Moving on and stuff..

Any advice on how to live up my senior year? I get nervous thinking about it!

Also, i'm aware that these pictures of me aren't winners. But my friends are :) awww