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. ;)

childhood memories #4

so we don’t have school again today. so we are watching PBS and that means watching Barney and the rip off of Blue’s Clues, Super Why!  Of course im not excited about watching PBS, but that’s all that’s on!!  and of course watching Super Why makes me reminisce about sitting and watching endless hours of Blue’s Clues. I love watching Barney and I miss watching the quality TV that used to be on. TV now is not as it used to be when I was little.

I love Barney and Blue’s Clues. not this Joe version, the Steve episodes. those are the best!!!  but of course the time has come and gone for us to watch those episodes and the rotation as ended for those episodes. now we have to watch the other STUFF that’s on now.

o well. my childhood is over now… time for hannah and spencer to enjoy their childhood.

snow!

so it snowed. again. for like the bajillionth time in the last month. we got out of school yesterday because there was four inches of snow on the ground, and today for the fear of icy secondary roads as well as a new layer of powder on top of yesterdays snow. i was soo excited. sleeping in and being able to bundle up warm while drinking some hot chocolate was amazing! i also got the chance to start and complete a sewing project. i am so excited about it!! (pics to come) we still dont have snow things for me to go out and play in, so i sat inside with my mom and sewed. i know i know, what a bum. but i really didnt have a whole lot of choices.

we just found out that we are having school tomorrow and im excited and sad. excited because i can see all my friends and have something to do again. sad because i want to try and find some more fabric to make something else. maybe cross something off the "i need for college" list. i guess that is just going to have to wait until another day becomes clear.

childhood memories three and SNOW

memory three is riding in the car and being scared to death of never making it home. that was last night. tennessee got a little bit of snow and unfortunately a lot of people in this town DONT know how to drive in snow. thus making this town VERY DANGEROUS to drive around in especially when the roads are dry underneath the snow. fortunately for us, the road was warmer than the snow when it started to snow, so the road had to cool down. by yesterday afternoon, the road was wet, but the snow was beginning to stick. yippee!! by about 730, the snow was sticking to the road by the inches. thank goodness dad had put new tires on the subarban earlier in the weekend and that the focus has front wheel drive. the snow plows had been around to some of the scarier back roads and had salted and cleared those roads. kingston pike had had some heavy traffic that day, so it was relatively safe and clear of snow.

we took the road about way to get home because we thought it would be the safest way, but unfortunately it probably wasnt. when we drove by our normal entrance to loop, they had salted and cleared the snow from that hill. we decided to go around though. it was too late. we went on a road that was almost as bad as loop road at the beginning. it was whindy and very scary. a car had STOPPED in front of an entrance making it very hard for mom to make it over that hill. mom almost skidded, but thank goodness made it over. we passed by an accident because they had skidded and nosedived into a roadside ditch. soo nerve racking. we finally made it to the home stretch but the scariest hill and corner were around the bend. we made it around the scariest turn- a completely BLIND turn- and into our neighborhood. we pulled over and put the  suburban into four-wheel drive (with the help of my father, NOT THE OWNERS MANUAL!!) and made it up the treacherous hill safely.

thank goodness.

our home teacher was going to be valiant and come and see us, but abandoned mission about half way here. decided it was too dangerous. but we did end up having a visitor. a friend from church came and gave us cinnamon rolls for helping them move. they have jsut moved here from utah, so he showed up in shorts, flip flops, and a tshirt!! (keep in mind that its like literally 3 degrees outside.) he had walked up our huge hill because his wife didnt want to drive up it (smart woman). we watched him literally shoe ski down the hill. it was great. hahaha but not entirely safe....

"snow"

ok, so the extremely irriating thing of all: we got out of school last wednesday for no reason at all... ugh. yes, it was snowing earlier and there were patches of black ice in some places, but not enought o send us home early! good time in class that we could have spent other ways. but at least we had first and second block, the full block. those are the two classes that are extremely fast paced and are really hard to catch up in when we get out of school for no apparent reason... ugh.... not good :(

life with snow

so we have been back in school almost a month and a half and so far we have had ONE (1) really monday. the first monday in january we had out because of winter break. the second monday, we had a one hour delay because of snow that we had gotten over the weekend. third week, martin luther king, jr. day. fourth monday, we had a normal monday... the first so far. then is last monday, we had a two hour delay because of icy roads and a snow storm that had come in. the two hour delay was nice. school didnt start until ten thirty so we only had five hours of school! woo hoo!! :)  happy campers baby... :)

but i aint complaining. the snow has been soo amazing. its allowed me to get a lot of extra needed sleep, but it has also stressed my teachers out, so weve had a lot of homework..... eewwww and because of the extra homework, do what i cant finish at night, in the morning! :-)