XC

For my senior year my friend Taylor convinced me to do cross country with him. So, I started running in the mornings and after school with the team. Luckily Coach Holt was going easy on me and only made me do 3 miles every practice till I get in better shape. The team is really fun and crazy! I don't know how everyone can stay focused when they run. Anyways I had my first meet on Wednesday at Ceday High. It was supposidly an easy course but I almost died haha. It really wasn't that bad I just was struggling a little bit haha. Our boys ended up taking first out of all 7 or so schools and 4 of our boys placed in the top 6 which is really good! The girls took first! Just so everyone knows I came in last! YES! Haha but hey someone has to keep up the back and make sure everyone makes it through right? My time was 35.something ha and everyone ran 3.2 miles. We did really good and I was dead tired after so my cool down consisted of a lot of walking. A cool down is where you jog like a mile after you run-crazy I know but it's not that bad after you have just been running and sprinting and stuff. My next race is this Saturday at Hurricane High School and this course is supposed to be really fast. Its all paved and there is only like one little hill so that's good for my part. My goal is to just finish. I don't care if I come dead last, at least I tried and I finished strong just like I started.

First Day of School

The first day of school was pretty fun and boring at the same time. The seniors(thats me!) and juniors didn't have to show up till noon because the school was doing sophomore orrientation so that was always good. I didn't have to be there till like 1 though because I am taking two college classes in the morning at Dixie so my friends Taylor, Nick, and I wandered the halls and bothered everyone haha it was pretty fun! We went to our classes too though so don't worry. I have the easiest classes. Third period I am a teacher aid for an English teacher, fourth period I have ceramics! Fifth and sixth are college seventh I have social dance - with all sophomores :S and eighth I have seminary! That class is going to be so much fun! Just think of all the fun and crazy kids in the school and you have my seminary class. Poor Bro. McKarther....haha so ya that was my first day of school!

Super Fun Trip!!!

Disclaimer:I am already putting on a bunch of pictures(bare with me) but if you want to me more just go to my Facebook page :)
So the past two weeks my little sisters, my dad and my step mom all took a huge trip to all sort of places! First we went to Dinuba and saw my grandparents. We only stayed for about half a day but had fun! We rode a horse and went to Sals for lunch.
Then we went to our Aunt Amy's in San Fransisco! It was cold for me and my sisters but to everyone else it was normal haha. We just hung out and went to the dog park. It was fun. One day we went into downtown San Fransisco and spent the day with Kimiko! It was really fun-we did a little shopping and ate lunch. Next we took a 12 hour drive to Hermiston Oregan! The drive was long and pretty much was no fun but well worth it. Alex's friend Michelle lives there and it was lots of fun! We went boating and went cliff jumping, tubing, and wakeboarding.
We ate a ton of yummy food and even stayed in a tent in the backyard! Well the little girls did. Her little boys luke and skyler were way funny and entertaining.
They had a rope swing that we were on for a while and we went swimming a lot! Those few days there was really fun and pretty! They had amazing sunsets. Random fact about Oregan: It is illegal to pump your own car with gas in Oregan. Next we went to Seattle to our Aunt Barbaras. It was so much fun! I even got to hang out with a cousin my age! Which made it even better. We played a lot of croquet and went swimming down at the lake which was really cool because it had a diving board thing out in the water. We spent one day in the Seattle Center where we played carnival games (i won a gecko!!) rode a roller coaster and went to a cool fountain.
We saw the space needle but didn't go in it. One night that was really cool was when they took us to see the Seattle skyline. It was so pretty!! Alex and my Dad made us close our eyes so we could get the full effect and it was definetly worth it. We also went to the public market one day which was really cool. There was stuff everywhere you looked! We even saw the very first starbucks ever! Me and my cousin Karina got these awesome hair things called wonder buns where you can make a perfect bun in about 2 minutes and it is so easy! Even Morgan can do it! The last day we just hung out and went to a place called Pegasus which has awesome pizza! Then from there we went to Quilcen(i think thats how it is spelled) and stayed at my Grandpa Stans! It was so pretty. There was so much to do in such a little town! We picked a million blackberries and some raspberries and made them into a cobbler which was delicious.
We rode a quad which was fearsome! It was camo with a skull helmet and a flower for a touch of girlyness! Haha we went clam digging one morning and that was pretty intense! We dug a whole lot of clams up. We even found a ton of sand dollars!! They were everywhere! That night -after a fun day of hiking trails, rope swinging, quading, and relaxing- we went down to the beach and had a bbq.
It was so delicious! We went kyaking right before which was way fun except I got really wet. The best part was smores though.
Everyone ate some and I got a million pictures!
One morning me, Morgan, McKenna, Arika(our cousin), and Grandma Linda all went on a 3.6 mile hike and it was cool. It was really pretty on the top even with all of the cloud cover. After that we didnt really do much cuz we were all really tired but we did play a lot of games like Yahtzee and Scrabble Slam. I highly recommend them both! The food throughout the entire trip was amazing! Everything(especially at Grandpa Stans) was fresh! Like litterally everything and it was sooooo good! I got a lot of cool pictures too! Oh we also went to Port Townsen! That was REALLY fun! Alex grew up there so she knew all the places to go, natually. We went to an old abandoned Bunker and it was really creepy at first but way fun once you get the feel for it. We just went through all these little pitch black passage ways and climb ladders and all kinds of fun stuff :). After that we went to some huge amazing park with some crazy long indian name! It was really cool it had a pathway to walk to the beach and flowers everywhere and room to run around-all that good stuff kids need! We had a little picnic there and then we went to a drive in theater! We saw Harry Potter which was good but long! We all came home and crashed after a long day! We left Quilcen Sunday afternoon and flew into Vegas. Except for Dad and Alex they flew into San Diego. It was my little sister's first flight and apparently it wasn't all that exciting haha we didn't even get peanuts!! But oh well maybe the next flight we will. Our mom picked us up at the airport and we stayed over night in a hotel. The next morning we got up bright and early and went school shopping! It was fun and very productive. We were talking the whole time and i'm pretty sure my mom was getting annoyed after so much haha. All in all awesome trip. Awesome people. Awesome towns and an awesome time :D

Secondhand Serenade

On Friday I went to my first concert. It was way fun except for sitting there on grass for 2 hours waiting for it to start. My friends and I saw a band called Secondhand Serenade :). Their opening acts were single file - who wasn't that great, and Parachute who was actually really good. Secondhand came on after them and sang a lot of songs. I love their music not one song is bad. I highly recommend listening to them. Their songs are really good but the stage performance was pretty boring but that's okay. It was crazy hot the whole time especially up in the crowd by the stage, but we got over it. After the concert we all went to Braedon's house for food and to chill then we went to Lily's. Everyone left except for me, Lily, and Alyssa cuz we were going to have a sleepover! So we went over to Alyssa's and on our way over we found Braedons toy fish that he won at the concert in my car. So we decided to "kill" it. Mean I know but it was fun! So we crossed out its eyes and put a hook in it and put a nail through it and put those plastic soda things around it haha it was really mean but funny. Then we put it in water and we sent Braedon pictures saying that littering kills fish and all this stuff (he recently got pulled over by a bike cop for littering a gum wrapper). Then we went to his house, window chalked his car, and hung the fish on his rear view mirror. Haha the next morning he found it and was pretty sad we killed his fish but he didn't kill us. Later on we went to wal-mart and got him two REAL fish! We were going to just get him one (named Doofish) but the lady said that they survive longer in pairs so we got him a friend named Extra. Haha we gave it to him and he was happy! So Friday/Saturday was super fun!

Photoshoot

A few weeks ago my friend, Alyssa, called me and told me she had refered me to this photography place. They were looking for two girl seniors from every high school in our area and needed another one from my school. They ended up calling me and I had my first photoshoot with them yesterday. It was at 8:30 in the morning but still crazy hott. The photographers name was Valery and her husband was Jared - he basically does the lighting and editing. So we met up and took a bunch of pictures at this old storage place with a bunch of huge bins everywhere. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait for the next one. They are going to take all of my senior pictures for free, all I have to do is promote them! If you want to check out all of my pictures just go to www.mysimplephotographer.com, click on proofing gallery, then click on Seniors, then click on me. In order to look at them you just have to enter in your email address and you are good to go!

Date Night

Last night was way fun. After girls camp my friend Megan and I decided that we would go on a double date. So we planned the whole thing out got some dates and even got another couple to join in. My date was Beau Jones and he is a stud. He is on the soccer team with my good friend Nick and I thought he would be a fun date so I asked him. Turns out he was a very very fun date. So we all met up at Megan's house and started making pizzas! It was kind of difficult to roll out the dough and everything but we managed. Hunter -Ashley's date- was like a pro pizza maker or something! He must make pizza all the time at his house because he stuff his crust with cheese and it was almost a perfect circle. We were all quite impressed. My pizza had a cute little smiley face on it :). Once the pizzas were in the oven we went and played twister. Beau was trying to act all cool and stretch before we started, so we all stretched haha. Then the game began. It was a really fun game, probably because I was basically just hanging out on the end of the mat but it worked out. Hunter was standing the whole first part which was lame haha. Megan, Alex, and Beau had it the worst.
Beau was first to get out followed by me but only because he pushed me off! Then Ashley was the next to go. Alex, Megan, and Hunter were really good! We all ate our pizzas by the time they were done playing haha. After everyone ate their pizza -which was very delicious- we pulled out the kareoke machine. We must have sang songs for like 2 and a half hours. It was so much fun everyone was amazingly good! But we also made a joke out of it and got some good videos. After our concert we had an ice cream sundae buffet which ended up breaking into a huge whip cream fight which was fun but not the cleaning up part. Haha after that I took Beau home and then went and slept. It was a WAY fun date :)

Girls Camp

This past week I went to girls camp and it was sooo much fun! All of the youth leaders went up a day early(tuesday) so we could get everything ready for when the stake came up. We had to set up our camp which was insane beacuse we had one beast of a tent! It was one of those army tents and it was huge and heavy but totally worth it. Then we had lunch, a devotional, a service project, and just hung out. The next day we made posters, got ready for everyone to arive and sang songs. Once everyone showed up and set up camp, we had a flag ceremony and then split all the girls up for hikes. The hike I went on was really easy, I was kinda bummed haha but i'll live. It was supposed to be five miles but it only ended up being two. Once the hikes were over we all went to our wards and did an activity. The next day was ward day. My ward played a bunch of games, sang songs -we brought guitars! - ate food, made little yearbook picture frames, made friendship bracelets, and tye dye shirts! It was really fun. Thursday I honestly can't remember what we did haha I do know that we wrote letters to missionaries but that is all I can remember. Friday was our last day but we weren't allowed to break camp until 2:00. So in the morning we had skits and camp cheers, devotionals, and ward time. My ward did this activity were we split all of the girls up in groups and we talked about what makes a good friend and what makes a bad friend. My group did awesome! Haha Sister Wilkey also came and talked to us about friendship and modesty. By the way our camp theme was friendship if you haven't caught on yet :). Oh I almost forgot the best part. So I as on my way to go help my ward set down their tents and stuff and i'm on the path in the middle of this forest and I am almost to the path to turn off to get to their camp. I look down and there is a snake just chillin on the ground. Of course I didn't scream, move, or even breathe because I thought I would scare it and it would bite me. So I stood there in the middle of the forest with a snake like a foot in front of me - if that - for five minutes until finally there were some other girls that were walking behind me making a ton of noise and when the snake heard their noise he must have got scared because he slithered away fast. Luckily he slithered away and didn't bite me. But after he left I ran to camp and I was freaking out. It was actually kind of funny. Turns out it was just a little gardner snake and it wouldn't have killed me, but the fact that it could have bit me was just scary! So after that we took pictures, took down camp and went home. It was super fun and I can't wait for next year.