Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Idaho. The actual Thanksgiving meal was nice and quiet. I have found a new love for pumpkin pie and my grandma's sweet potatoes. :) Mmmmmm. All morning before the early dinner we played charades. At first we just did what we thought of but then we thought of a theme. The theme was Christmas songs. It was super fun! Some were really hard and some were pretty easy. After dinner everyone (the adults) took naps, then the rest of the family started coming over. I was in a room in the back when everyone came and when I came out it was too crowded for me, so I took refuge in my room and read Harry Potter. Eventually I got dragged back out and I stayed out a bit, but then went right back to my room. So, I spent Thanksgiving with Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was very nice. I've never been a huge fan of the bug Leslie get-togethers. I always feel out of place. I don't remember what I did when we lived in the yellow house. Mom says she just went home a lot of the time, but since this time I had no where else to go my room with Harry party worked just fine.

Let's see, I'm more than half way through the 7th Harry Potter. It makes me sad. I have loved reading them again and am sad for it to end. I want to keep reading, but I don't want to finish it! It's the first time all over again. I'm making myself feel better by telling myself that it will not be the last time I read them and that I can watch the movies even after I finish the books. I forgot how depressing this book is. It's just so.... I don't know. They're looking for horcruxes and don't know where to go. And then it's just worse when Ron leaves and it's so sad that Ron was upset they didn't want him back when all along they wanted him so bad. Uhhhh. Sigh. Oh well. It will end good. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! Love you!

I love Harry Potter through and through.

A.k.a. as 'The Boy Who Lived' and 'The Chosen One.' Sigh. I just love him. I love Hermione and Ron and Luna and Ginny and Neville and Dumbledore and Sirius and Mrs. Weasley and Professor McGonagall. I love Snape too, but not as much because I have not gotten to the 7th book for the 2nd time yet, but I'm sure I will love him again. I just love them all. I love the magic. The love. The lessons. Just the thought of it all. I feel like I'm talking about Disneyland. I always say, "I just love the atmosphere of it." That's what it's like with Harry Potter. It's just the thought of it. Reading it all again has made me fall in love all over again (not all of them. I just finished the 6th one). I love all the details. How everything matters. How Harry ALWAYS puts himself before others (there are tears in my eyes). How Ron and Hermione are always on his side and with him and how he cares about them so much. How Ginny never gave up on him and how she always loved him even when he didn't like her at first. How Dumbledore trusts everyone and forgives everyone. He reminds of the Savior in a way. How Harry is so sad when he dies and how he always obeyed Dumbledore's orders. I love how he said he's "Dumbledore's man through and through." I love it all. I could just keep going and going and going. I love the books and stories and adventures, but I really love the characters. I know them. They are my best friends. I love books like that. Some books I just can't seem to get to know and love the characters so I don't really like the book, but with Harry Potter you really get to know the characters. I love that. My mom said that Des emailed her about something that the Snape actor said asking if she thought he really said it. He said that when he is old and gray sitting in a chair reading Harry Potter someone will ask him, "After all this time...." and he will say, "Always." Oh, I love that! I feel so sorry for those who don't read Harry Potter, either for religious reasons or just because. I just can't imagine my life without Harry Potter. Without watching the movies. Without seeing the books on the shelf (soon to be my shelf. I'm asking for the series for my birthday). I just can't imagine. I remember when everyone was into the Percy Jackson series and everyone was saying it's better than Harry Potter. For so long I refused to read the Percy Jackson series because I refused to be disloyal to Harry. I was not going to like Percy Jackson better or even read it. Eventually I broke down and read it, but it's not as good as Harry Potter. Nothing could ever be as good. Dakota (my cousin. You know that right?) didn't read Harry Potter for so long. I don't know why, but when we came to Idaho this time Kate told me that Dakota was on the 4th book. I asked Dakota about it and she said she was. I hugged her and told her how happy I was for her. As if she had won something great. I asked her if she thought Percy Jackson or Harry Potter was better and she said, "I love Percy Jackson-" I started to say, "I am so dis-" "But I think Harry Potter's better." I hugged her again. :)

Thank you family for being fans of Harry Potter with me. I love you all, Harry, too. ;)

Visiting Dad

Okay, so because Dad lives in Utah we have to set up times to visit him. We were with him for Christmas last year and Thanksgiving with Mom so this year we are spending Thanksgiving with him and Christmas with Mom. We are coming to visit Dad next for Spring Break in March, I think.

We went to Utah last Sunday and came to Idaho Wednesday night. Grandma Leslie was in Arizona, but she took a plane here on Thursday just to see us! We are spending Thanksgiving here and going back to Utah on Friday or Saturday. Then going back to California that week sometime in the middle. I can't believe we are spending Christmas in California! No snow! Of course there's no snow here yet, either which has been dissapointing. I say that if it's going to be cold it might as well be pretty. Danielle didn't agree when I told her this. We went to their house for dinner on Friday. It was really fun. We made our own little pizzas. Clay informed us while we were flattening out the dough that we were doing it wrong. :) We also played the games Would You Rather, Pass the Pigs (Danielle was at 0 and then won in one turn), and Set. They were each really fun.

Uhhhh! I'm so bored because Dakota is taking a nap or doing homework (not sure which) instead of coming to hang out with me! But I don't have anything else to write so, bye!

Meeting Maddie

We went to Amy's a while back and we met Maddie! Let me say, she is beyond words. Seriously. I was going to say she was cute, sweet or precious but those words aren't enough. She is those, amazing, beautiful, funny, perfect, pretty, heavenly, and more. We spent all day at Amy's and I got to hold her for a decent amount of time. She was asleep for most of it so I just held her and stared at her make her funny faces. When we had to leave I was surprised at how hard it was to leave her. It was hard to say good-bye to Amy, too. :) But it was amazing how attached I had become to this perfect little person with such a sweet spirit. I've heard that having a baby in a family really brings the family together. I can totally see why! I can imagine everyone taking turns holding the baby and cheering on her first time crawling and walking. I don't remember any of that with Gracie. I don't ever remember her being a baby. I can't wait for Mom to have a baby. And though I would be happy if it was a boy, I hope it's a girl. ;)

Shaver Lake

Okay, I am at my dad's and will be going to my grandma's tomorrow and they both have the internet so I will be able to post some more.

I can't remember when it was, but we went to Shaver Lake a while back. Steve went there as a kid and it is his favorite place on earth. It was beautiful and really fun. They were draining the lake and we could really see a difference from when we got there to when we left, so that was kind of a bummer, but it was still fun. We went real camping. We slept in a tent, didn't take any showers and cooked and ate all of our meals outside. I like camping as long as it is no longer than 5 days. That's how long we went. I don't think I could stand not showering or being fully warm for more than that.

The first day it was warm and it was really sunny, but the rest of the days were a bit gloomy. So, the first day we went down to the lake and spent the day there. We swam in the lake and jumped off rocks. To tell you how much the lake drained, th rocks we jumped off of were completely surounded by water and we couldn't touch in that water, but when we left they were completely out of the water. All around the lake were giant rocks and boulders of what looks like some kind of marble. There were small rocks too and some that were even smaller. We would pick up the smallish rocks, throw it against a big rock to break it and find the pieces. A side that broke is really sparkily so that is why we broke them. Does that make sense? Anyway, so we did that and I brought home 3 different kinds of rock for my souvineers.

We did some science while we were there. We took our science notebooks that have pages that are half lined and half blank for pictures. We observed animals and plants, drew pictures of them and wrote about them. Sometimes we would read about the animal in a book we brought before we wrote about it. We discovered that crows are abnoxious, but smart and that squirrels sing. They really do. When we first heard them we thought they were birds, but then I saw a squirrel in a tree and noticed that it's tail and throat twitched with each chirp. It was really interesting.

We sang around the campfire, roasted marshmallows, played Rook, played with the neighbors kids, each ate our favorite meals and took baths in our swimming suits in the lake so we would be almost presentable for church. We each almost froze and Mom was in a bad mood the rest of the day.

I feel like I'm forgetting something important, but that's all I can remember. :)