16 Goals for a 16-year-old

Sooo, I'm not really sure where to start or how much I really need to catch up on.  I got to see some friends in Tom Sawyer the Musical, two of which starred as Aunt Polly and Huck so that was fun!  I'd never seen that musical before and I loved it!

I got to go to Disneyland for my birthday, and I brought a friend from Shakespeare class!  That was a blast.  I so wanted to come up with the entire list we did, but obviously I can't remember now. :( Oh well.

We went to Lizzie's for the weekend and that was super fun as always.  They finally got a piano!  It's sooo exciting!  I'm so glad that her kids get to start young and I really hope they love it.

I just finished a really good book.  It's by Julianne Donaldson.  This is her second book, and I've read and loved both.  The book I just finished is called Blackmoore.  She bases her books in Jane Austen times and she seriously comes up with such heart wrenching romances and characters (especially the "prince charming" characters ;) that you just fall in love with.

I've been meaning to write my goals for this next year of my life for the past two weeks.  Where has the time gone?!  Where does it go??  I feel like it just slips through my fingers faster than usual lately.  It also kind of scares me how so much of my future depends on what's happening right now.  What with studying for the test that ensures I get into college that I have to take in a little over a month.  And so many people say they wished they'd paid more attention in seminary and memorized the Scripture Mastery verses better.  *exasperated sigh*

So!  Here are my 16 goals to complete while I'm 16 in no particular order (thanks for the idea, Danielle!)

1. Complete Personal Progress and get my YW medallion
2. Get my driver's license
3. Finish the Book of Mormon (for the second time)
4. Read 6 new books
5. Empty my project drawer
6. Take the CHESPE test and pass
7. Go to Mormon Prom
8. Read scriptures every single day
9. Read a Jane Austen book
10. Give away X amount of Books of Mormon
11. Crochet an outfit for Jason (booties, vest, hat)
12. Go to EFY
13. Help plan and go to Stake Youth Conference and invite some nonmember friends
14. Cook 8 meals
15. Cook 10 new desserts that I've never made before
16. Memorize all of the Book of Mormon scripture mastery verses

Some of them like Mormon Prom and EFY are unnecessary, I guess, cause I'm going to do them whether they're on this list or not, but I don't wanna push myself too much this first try.  About the giving away BOMs goal, I need feedback on what number I should strive for cause I have no idea.  And I'm worried about the last one because I am soo behind.  Last year my seminary teacher worked with us for five minutes every morning with lots of different techniques to help us memorize all of them and I got all of them pretty well!  This year my teachers have been helping us memorize the reference with a one line rhyme and I guess rhymes just don't click with me or something because I know hardly any. *another exasperated sigh* Well there they are!  Comment please!  Love you!

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!

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.

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. : )

10 Days till Christmas...

Okay, it's definitely time to post.  I was so going to post four times last month, but then I went to my dad's and that failed.  Getting an iphone didn't help.  It's so much harder to make myself blog when I instagram and facebook now.  (btw, facebook was my dad's idea.  He didn't know how instagram worked and wanted me to try facebook so he could 'keep up with me better' so I told him I'd do facebook if he did instagram.  So now we're both doing it.)  Anyway, I'm loving my new iphone!  I'm love love loving my camera and how beautiful the pictures look.  It is so easy to capture moments now.  I can keep up with friends who are far away (or not so far away :) and I'm just loving it.  I ordered a pink Mickey Mouse case for it and it's on it's way. ;)

Alright, I'll do some catch up on our Thanksgiving trip to Utah then skip to the present.  I had such a fun time this trip.  We didn't spend as much time with the boys cause we were only there one and a half weeks and they spent four or five days in Arizona with their dad for Thanksgiving like they always do, but it was fun anyway.  Me, my sisters, Dad, and Diane went to temple square to see The Savior of the World musical, as you saw on instagram.  That was just beautiful. We also saw the Christmas lights and I almost froze to death.  But honestly, I think I get more cold in California than in Utah because of what we expect.  I expect to be freezing in Utah so I really bundle up and it ends up not being that bad.  In CA I have this sunny weather expectation and have too much pride to bundle up, even though I would be more comfortable if I did.  Anyway, that was fun.  For Thanksgiving we went to Idaho and spent it with my grandparents.  My grandpa has started working in the garden section at Walmart and he had to go to work Thanksgiving afternoon so when we got there the night before almost all the food was made.  Almost everyone got up around 6 the next morning (not me, hehehe) and we ate at 11:30.  It was the smoothest Thanksgiving I have ever experienced.  And so yummy.  My grandparents brought out some of their apple juice that they personally juiced from the apples, I might have actually helped, I'm not sure.  It was basically heaven in a glass.  NOTHING like store bought apple juice.  Oh, I just remembered that for mutual while we were there the young women went to the new exhibit at BYU.  It had tons of paintings from all over the world.  Back story: BYU did an exhibit like this before, no idea when, and they ran into a lot of old churches with paintings that they had kept for years and years and were not willing to let them leave.  So BYU got what they could and the exhibit was really successful.  Because of how respectful, successful, and loved the exhibit was last time, this time churches were a lot more willing to give up their paintings for a while.  So we got to see paintings that had not been moved from those old churches in who knows how many years.  It was so amazing and moving.

Christmas is 10 days away.  That went by so fast and I'm kinda depressed about it.  Oh well, we have school off now.  I have seminary on Monday then I am done! Happy day!  I really need to get caught up, on the book I'm supposed to be reading for Shakespeare class, cleaning my room, reading my scriptures.  I just fell apart this week and it makes me sad.  Not fall apart the sense that I broke into tears but that I just let my priorities go and wanted to be lazy before it was time to be lazy.  Well now I can be lazy during vacation and I'm gonna work to get caught up!  Haha, anywho, love you all and hope you're having a good Christmas season!

Something that makes everyone in our house smile...

Except Steve.  In this house we are all pretty obsessed with High School Musical.  All three of them.  Always have been.  We just love them and today when we watched the third one (Senior Year) Mom and I found ourselves talking about the characters and their actions in such depth that you would have thought we were discussing something so much more.  I said, "Aren't we just so amazing, Mom, to find so much meaning in something so cheesy and meaningless?"  We connected how loving and forgiving Troy is.  In the second movie Gabriella and his friends totally got mad at him for taking a new job that payed more than theirs, missing dates and being so successful just cause Sharpay, who has lots of connections, made him so.  In the third one, Gabriella does not tell Troy that she is up for an honors program in college and will have to leave halfway through their senior year, therefore causing her to miss the musical she asked him to do with her and then doesn't come back for prom like she promised, but Troy never gets mad or accuses her of anything.  At one point Mom said, "Troy's my favorite.  Not just because he's the cutest, but because he's so good."  She cracks me up.  Once when we were watching the second movie a few weeks ago (our favorite, btw) and during the last song that Troy and Gabriella perform, Troy would do a particular move, a toss of the head, move of the eyes, or flick of the hand and Mom would go, "I just love it when he does that.  He's so adorable."  She also says that Gabriella doesn't deserve him.  Haha. : )  Of course I agree with her, I'm just not as expressive about it. ; )  These movies are watched very regularly in our household.  The music is also listened to very regularly while we do the dishes.  It's just a constant high school musical here.

So, did that make you smile?

All the Little Things

Definitely time to post.

So, we borrowed The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants at the library this week.  Love that movie.  Before I get to the point of why I brought it up I want to add: the part when they're making the rules for the pants they say you're not allowed to tuck in the shirt and wear a belt or do the double cuffs at the bottom because that was super tacky.  Well, I decided to wear their entire tacky outfit to a dance last night and it was actually pretty cute.  It's so funny how styles change.  Skinny jeans are hardly ever worn all the way to the ankle anymore, they are almost always double cuffed.

Anyway, in the movie there's this 12 year old girl, named Bailey who has leukemia that says that being happy isn't about having your life be perfect.  It's about stringing all the little things together and making them count for more than the bad stuff.  I thought that was really profound. Our life as a total can be looked at as one big mission, one big journey, one big anything, but really it's made up of lots of little things.  The little things are what count.  In my saddest moments, it's usually set off by something so little it shouldn't matter, like having my schedule for the day ruined or ruining a batch of cookies, or spilling water all over a beloved book.  There are so many of those little things that can make our lives miserable if we let them.  But we shouldn't let them.  Since there is opposition in all things there are the little bad things and the little good things.  The little good things such as getting asked to dance by someone who likes to talk ;), or going to bed early, or the day the plant you have been diligently caring for starts to look a little greener, and especially all those many gentle, soft, and little promptings we all receive everyday.  Though we may miss a day talking to Heavenly Father because "we're just too tired" He will never use any excuse to avoid speaking to us, or miss any opportunity to speak to us.  Once when I went to the temple with the youth in my stake someone gave a brief talk to us before we did baptisms.  He said that he thinks sometimes people, especially youth, make receiving a prompting too complicated.  He said all it takes is a thought and a feeling.  You may ask yourself, "but what if it's Satan prompting me to do this?"  We all have the gift of the Holy Ghost.  We can tell if that action would lead us closer to God or closer to Satan.  With all the little blessings, we shouldn't despair.  After all if your schedule's ruined one day, does that mean that the next day won't be as fresh and new as always?  If you burn the cookies does that mean you will never make a yummy cookie again? I don't know what to say about spilling water on a beloved book because that would really break my heart.  There are some bad things that you can't overlook.  Some of them aren't so little.  So you've just gotta string all the good little things together and make them count for more than the bad stuff, just like Bailey did.