summer jobs

so this summer is going to be it. I am finally going to get a job. and a neighborhood in my community said YES! we want you!! I am soo excited. my first job ever and its one of the easy, entry level jobs: lifeguard. of course I got told by another neighborhood that I could be an alternate, but that makes no promises. I have to turn in my papers for my neighborhood soon, but I got the job in the neighborhood that I actually know a couple of people in. I am sooo excited!!!!

easter

so easter wasnt too special, at least it wasnt too out of the ordinary. i sang in the choir and sang a couple of really beautiful hymns, and then i got to see all the super adorable Easter dresses of my friends (mom and dad decided a couple of years ago that we would do away with the Easter presents because they distract from the true meaning of the season: Christ's glorious resurrection.) we went to a friends in the neighborhood for a lunch and Easter egg hunt. it was a lot of fun to hold my neighbor's beautiful little Joe. hes like 6 months old and he is soooo cute. hehehehe me and little kids are soo meant to be. but Happy Belated Easter!

tennessee storms

so as most of you know most of the south got hit pretty hard by the storm that ripped through this past week. our cars and house suffered damage. my dad had the AhA! moment about two storm systems too late, so we now have two golfball like cars, with the '73 f-250 pretty much stratchless (one piece of trim is hanging by a screw, but thats it). the suburban has a broken passenger side mirror cracked and a dented hood. the focus has a broken passenger side mirror busted too with a left side tail light out as well. the house needs some patch work on the southwest side and the front of the house is going to need new screens in the windows. all of our exalia bushes look like they were sawed at (all the beautiful flowers are pureed across the front lawn :'(  very sad day) thankfully we dont need any windshields replaced or such. the biggest hail we got during the storm was about the size of an Easter egg. the trampoline was totally full of the hailstones and the street looked super eerie between hail storms. the stones were melting on the street making steam that rose really creepily. hahaha but we all survived. thankfully, even though my brother almost had a panic attack he was soo scared. but we all hid in the closet (parents made me.. not my personal choice) and got each other to calm down after a few verses of "How Firm a Foundation" and "I Am a Child of God". (THANK YOU!!!!)

owie bruises

so i was purusing the internet this morning and put my leg up against the desk to brace myself, because who know why. and out of the corner of my eye i see this NARLY bruise on my knee, and then a less nasty one on the top of my foot. the one on my knee was red and purple, and pretty nasty lookin'. i have no memory of how it got there, but it definitely explains why it hurt to put my knees together last night before going to sleep (i have a REALLY weird way of going to sleep at night, but thats another post for another day). and then the one on my foot i think i know where i got that i dropped my saber yesterday at guard so maybe thats where the hilt hit my foot. possibly...?

a new love and a new best friend

 

 

 

this is my new best friend. me and him will get to know each other really well up to may 10th which is slowly creeping up on me. I am going to have to go and set some goals to be prepared for my AP test really soon. I am soo not ready for this but I am getting there. soon

 

 

and this is my new love… my blackberry torch. I am soo excited about it. this phone is soo great. I had to get a data plan bc this is a smart phone, but I can deal with a $15 fee every month to use 200 MB of data a month. that includes pics and internet and games. as long as I am hooked up to the wifi I don’t use my data either. I am soo excited about it though. we burned my battery and about 4.5 MB yesterday playing hangman on it during accounting. sooo worth it though

home improvements

let me just say that living in a construction zone stinks. absolutely and quite literally some times.

for the last three years my dad has been working on the west side of our house (ie the kitchen) expanding the kitchen. the project started back in the spring of 2008 when my dad broke down the wall between the kitchen and the family room. that was then. now we have twice the kitchen space, a HUGE island, a longer L-shaped counter, hardwood floor throughout the downstairs, a fruit room, a covered patio, and a longer garage.

YEA!!

but wait until you hear what else we still have to do:
trim
flooring in the mudroom
all the sanding and mudding of the drywall in the mudroom
countertops

all on the to-do/honey-do list. it is quite long when you break it down. my dad is hoping to have all the trim done by the summer. maybe. depends on the budget i think.

but the kitchen looks great and my mom currenty has more drawer space than she knows what to do with. quite literally. i can not tell you how many times i have caught myself going to the pantry for a plate, cup, or bowl in the last week or so. it is going to get some getting used to for sure.

stake talent show

today we had an awesome talent show at my church. like so much fun. my sister sang while her best friend accompianed the song "the call" by regina spikter/ar. its a really good song. its the credit song for "the chronicles of narnia: prince caspian" if you were wondering. then a lot of friends sang or played instruments, and there were others who did both! it was really cool to see all the talent in my stake.

then we had a mom of one of the youth that is going on the youth conference trek teach us the virgina reel. SOOO much fun we all got into it and after a few times through you get the hang of it. and its really nice because you have the same partner through the whole dance, which makes it that much easier to catch onto. watch the steps on youtube if you dont know what im talking about.

then we had brother alred give us a beautiful spiritual thought about bringing the heavy burden home. they showed us the wonderful story of the willie-martin handcart companies and the call for help that President Young announced during a cold October General Conference many years ago. the video clip ends with the account of three 18 year old boys who single-handedly helped most of the company across a river in Colorado during the frigid November month. those three boys later passed on because of the effects of that relief effort but President Hinkley stated that that act alone assured them an eternal life in the celestial kingdom. what a beautiful honor. that story makes me cry everytime because it shows the great sacrifices that the early Saints made to follow the commandments of modern day prophets. what an amazing example to those of us living now who got through some rather different but similar trials. i believe that we were placed on this earth to go through our own trials and learn from them as well as others.

an amazing experience will forever be with me. a grade school friend texted me right before the final session of General Conference at the beginning of this month and told me that she had been baptized and her mom had become active again in the church. it made me soo happy to know that the missionaries had made such an impact on my life through her and it was soo great to hear from her again. i got to see her today and it was soo awesome. she is such a nice girl and i have so many fonds memories of her. ;)