Wednesday, January 29, 2014

What I Did

Smile
It looks good on you.:)

Well, today started with us trying to buy tickets to a One Direction concert.  :p I can tell you it is not easy to buy tickets for the biggest band in the world!  We thought that this was going to be the presale, which meant it would be easier to get cheap tickets, but that didn't happen.  The best we could find came to a total of $96 and it was so far from the stage that it wasn't worth it.  Moral of the story: don't count your chickens before they hatch!  It's terrible to get excited about something and then not do it.

On another note, I'm among the living again!  I woke up last Thursday morning with a neck that would not move.  We decided rest was the only thing that would help and after a week in bed I decided I was fed up with it.  My neck isn't back to it's normal self, but I'm done being and invalid.

Soooo, today I:

  • went to seminary
  • helped clean the house
  • studied my scriptures
  • emailed my Shakespeare teacher
  • changed my sheets!
  • went on a walk
  • cleaned my room
  • put my blankets in the washer   AND
  • blogged!
Yay! And my birthday is next week and we're going to Disneyland! and I'm going to come up with my list of 16 things I'm going to do this next year!


Saturday, January 11, 2014

The Things that Make it All Worth It

Family is very important.  At church the importance of family is always getting pushed into our faces and as a teenager I feel like I am frequently told things along the lines of, "Family is what's important.  Don't worry about your friends cause you're not going to know them in a few years and family is what you're going to hold on to."  That is true to an extent.  And I'm not bagging on family, but I wanted to talk about the importance of friends and what an impact they have on our lives.  Mom and I were talking about this Monday morning as we drove to or from seminary (I forget which).  And I forget exactly how it came up, but I think it was something about how supportive all our friends have been with Motordogs.  People in our ward in Pasadena we weren't even extremely close to have come to eat, inquire and praise.  I feel like I have the best friends in the world.  All of them.  From so many different circles, so many varieties.  I have friends from lots of different church circles, homeschool groups and friends of those friends that have then become really good friends of mine!  And they all love and support me so much, through school, seminary, theater groups....  My friend Francesca (whom I take my Shakespeare class with, taught by her mom) and her family are such good friends of ours.  I love her and her little brother (who is 10) to death and I can't believe I've barely known them a year!  I can't imagine my life without them!  When mom and I were talking about this she declared life would be impossible to live without friends.  It's impossible without family and it's impossible to get to the Celestial kingdom without family, but friends add a whole new level of happiness to life.  Mom then told me a story about when she was a kid.  She said she remembered an old friend of theirs that was very healthy and would have lived a long time, but died soon after his wife did.  She said when that happened she asked her dad, "So, in heaven we'll be with our family because we're sealed to each other, but what about friends?  Are we going to be with our friends in heaven?" And he answered, "Well, it wouldn't be heaven without them."  When she said that we both teared up.  It was a very inspiring conversation.

The next day we went to Disneyland and of course it was a blast.  I could take pictures and everything with my new phone!  It was so wonderful.  Anyway, that night, not too long before it closed, we were in Fantasyland.  Amy was on the carousel with Gracie and Maddie, Mom was somewhere changing Jason's diaper, and Anna and I were sitting on a bench by the carousel waiting.  I looked around and saw a girl with long blonde hair and a fancy camera to her eyes standing on top of another bench.  My gaze left her as I thought, "That would be fun to take pictures like that."  For some reason I looked back and as she lowered her camera her face registered in my brain.  That girl looked so much like my best friend, Chelsie, from our ward in Redlands.  I looked away thinking it couldn't possibly be her.  They were just about to move when we moved from Redlands and there was a girl in my stake who also looked very much like her, but was not her so my mind could just be confused again.  I turned toward her again as she hopped down from the bench and started talking to two blonde boys that looked the same age as my friend Chelsie's brothers were supposed to be.  I stood up and my mind argued with itself.  What if it's not her?  But you have to find out.  What if it is her?  My eyes still locked on my perspective friend I told Anna to wait there and walked over.  The girl's back was to me and after just standing there dumbly for a minute I said, "Chelsie?"  They girl whirled around and looked at me for a moment before screaming and dashing forward for a hug.  It was her!  One of my best friends I regretted loosing contact with was here at Disneyland, in the same place at the same time as me, almost three years after we said goodbye.  It was the craziest thing!  I had still been wearing my glasses in Redlands and she recognized me without them.  Her mom and sister returned from the carousel and I gave my former YW leader a hug.  It's funny how you can't exactly remember a face, but when you see it, you know it looks exactly the same.  Her sister, who was 1 when I left, looks absolutely nothing like she did before but I totally matched the faces of her brothers with the little boys I once knew.  I asked the youngest one (who is adorable) for a hug and he obliged. :) We had to separate again before we wanted to and I regret now not taking a picture together, but now we're following each other's instagrams and everything so we won't loose touch again.  After she left I still could not believe it happened, but it absolutely made my day.  It was the best.

Having that experience just the day after discussing friendship with mom really hit me.  I am so so blessed.

Monday, January 6, 2014

I was doing so good with blogging!  Could have been better, but definitely better than before, but now instagram and facebook has just ruined it.  Facebook clarification: my dad has always wanted me to get one so he can "keep up" with me better, but I've always rebelled because it just seemed like a waste of time to me.  I did not want to get caught up in the whole facebook movement, and guess what?  I didn't.  Facebook was big, I didn't have one, facebook died and I survived through it.  Well when I got an iphone I said, "Dad I don't need a facebook cause I'm just going to use instagram, which is better anyways."  Well, he doesn't know much about instagram, so we ended up trading.  He got an instagram and I got a facebook.  :p I guess I like it to keep in touch with people who don't use instagram, but other than that instagram is far superior.

Aaaaanyway, what should I say?  My new years resolution is to read the scriptures every day.  365 days in a row.  For more goals I'm gonna steal Danielle's birthday goal thing and do 16 things this year, starting next month.  That's so soon!  That's scary.

I'm gonna be in two musicals this spring!  Isn't that so exciting???  I have so many friends that have been in so many and they love it.  And since I love musicals and love to sing I've always wanted to do it, but have been to scared to.  Well, Anna and I took a great leap and signed up to be in the Wizard of Oz in a really good company several friends have been in and loved.  We're hoping to be the crows (who aren't in the movie, just musical performances) that sing during the scarecrow song and the chorus.  The other musical I'm gonna be in is called Schoolhouse Rock.  Which I'm also really excited about cause the director is a friend's mom and that friend is choreographing it.  I don't know this play at all, but I've decided to take another leap of faith and audition for a singing part anyway.  Why not?  I'm gonna sing 16 Going On 17 from Sound of Music and see where it gets me.  This play only has rehearsals once a month and then we take a CD home to help learn the music, so it's low maintenance compared to the other one.

Of course there's the obvious exciting thing, we opened Motordogs!!!  Ultimate of exciting.

This is short and rambly but I'm gonna go ahead and post it anyway. : )