Gracie's Baptism Dress

Gracie got baptized this past Saturday and it was a super special day for her and the rest of the family. Kinda crazy because being eight years old means she's not really a baby anymore! :(

I took a sewing for children class last semester and for one of my projects I decided to make Gracie's baptism dress. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I had the chance to do it for her. I think I would have redone a few things for sure, and it was really sad because the zipper in the back broke, so if she were to ever wear it again I'd have to put in a new zipper. Overall though, I think the dress turned out really beautiful, probably mostly because it was on a beautiful little girl! It was a simple white dress with tulle on the skirt, and then I sewed gold beads as though they were cascading on the dress. The beading took FOREVER, but I'm so glad I did it because it was really cute.

We went up to the capitol building in Salt Lake City to get some nice pictures with my new Canon camera. We had fun, though Gracie was definitely getting tired by the end. Anyway, enough talk! You can see the pictures for yourselves and decide what you think.

Isn't she such a cutie? Man, I love this little girl SO much! We had so much fun spending three whole weeks with together over the break and I'm so proud of her for making the decision to get baptized! I sure am lucky to have Gracie as my sister and best friend for eternity. :)

I loooove UEA!!!

This weekend was so much fun! We had UEA weekend, which meant we got school off on Thursday and Friday. It was so nice to have only 3 days of school and a 4 day weekend! I did a lot of stuff every day and it was way awesome!

Wednesday: Technically, we still had school on Wednesday, but I went to the football game, so I'm counting that night as UEA. I went to the football game with one of my friends. We played against Northridge high school and beat them something like 30 to 7. It was a way fun game and we stormed the field when it was done. Then we went home and went to bed.

Thursday: My friends wanted me to hang out the whole day but I didn't really want to waste my whole day doing that so in the morning, I did a few chores and then later I went shopping with my brother and sister. I still had an art class (for college) so I went to that and learned about positive and negative space. :) Then I went with my friends. We mostly just talked and then started to watch a movie, but I went home, so I didn't get to see the rest.

Friday: On Friday morning, I did more chores (surprise, surprise) and then went out with my family later and some other fun relatives and saw "Journey to the Center of the Earth." To be truthful, I thought it was probably going to be kind of dumb, but it turned out to be pretty cool. Right before that we went to a park and had fun there.

Me in the middle (in the brown shirt) with my siblings and cousins! Notice my brother reading--he couldn't even look up for a picture the book was so good. haha, typical of him!

(Friday continued) That night, I went to a masquerade with some of my friends from yearbook staff. Another girl who's on yearbook was throwing it. It turned out to be way fun. The girl's mom is a teacher at this junior high so they did it there in the cafeteria. There was food and music and stuff, too. We played some games and learned a dance too, so it turned out to be pretty sweet.

Saturday: Early in the morning, I went with some friends to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We didn't actually get to do baptisms, just confirmations, because the temple was so busy and some group of like 20 youth showed up unexpectedly. We would have stayed, but Courtney had to be somewhere so we just left.

Brooke and Courtney pretending to be asleep (not that the temple is boring!)

Who knows what I'm doing. :D

Brooke loves the temple!! It gets two thumbs up!

(Saturday continued) Later in the day, I had to go to work for eight hours (ugh!) but it turned out to be okay. I was there until eleven so I was way tired when I got home and went straight to bed.

Sunday: Sunday was a crazy day (weird, huh)! We went to church and left Sunday school to go to one boy's mission farewell (he was in our ward before it split and is an absolutely awesome kid). Then at 3 we went to ward choir practice (where I play the piano) and sang songs. At 5 there was a youth choir practice and right after that we were supposed to have a fireside by John Bytheway (it really is his last name!). However, he thought the fireside was at 7 and so he was about half an hour late, so we just sang songs until he came. It turned out to be a great fireside, and he was one of the funniest speakers I've ever heard! Then we got home, and sadly, we missed all of the "Amazing Race", so Cee Ryle had to tell us what happened. It was very hectic, but fun.

UEA turned out to be great and I really dreaded going back to school on Monday. Thankfully the week has gone by fast, and another weekend is already almost here!

P.S. High School Musical 3 comes out TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I were seeing the midnight show, but I will see it with my family to celebrate my birthday (a little late, I know). But I'm thoroughly excited and CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!! That's all, have a great day!

Summing up the Summer

Ok, so this is it! The beginning of my relivened blog (yes Zildy, that was for you). This entry is just telling about the summer that happened forever ago. So here it is:

After my ballet recital I got to go to youth conference with our ward. It was a lot of fun. We went to Seven Peaks Water Park, saw the Manti Pageant, stayed overnight in some apartments (my friends and I pulled an all-nighter!), and did a ropes course! I had a blast and I'm way happy I got to go.

At the end of June through the first of July, we had all the family on my mom's side come for a huge family reunion. We got together because three of the cousins (one of them being my brother) all turned eight and got baptized together. It was way cool and fun and turned out to be the highlight of my summer. Here are some pics to show all the fun we had!



Here are the three baptism kids all together. They are soooo cute! The one in the middle is my bro.

We went swimming at a rec center. It was fun and as you can see, we got a little crazy.


We all made matching shirts for the 4th of July and here are all the cousins with them (the adults didn't do them, but they were jealous!).


Me, my sis Carina, and my cuz Alex. I was glad to see Alex again after so long. We have tons of fun together.

We had to retake some pictures at temple square and everyone got a little restless and played in the little pond (I'm pretty sure it wasn't a swimming pool!)


Here are all of the cousins on my mom's side and some from my dad's. It was crazy fun!

Later in July after everyone left, Carina and I went to girl's camp. We went to Heber Valley Camp and stayed in cabins. Here is a picture from the hike a group of us went on:

After girls camp, we went to Wyoming soon after and stayed at a resort that my uncle works at. We got to go 4 wheeling and fishing. We also went to the Buffalo Bill museum which turned out to be really cool. We came home after a week and the next day I went on a 2 day river run with the laurels in my ward. I wasn't 16 years old yet, but they let me and another girl go because our birthdays were close enough. It was really fun. The first day, we did a little shopping in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Wyoming again, I know) and the second day we went rafting. It was a lot of fun and I hope we go again.

As a summer job, I worked at Lagoon and I was able to get my family some passes to get in for cheap so we went a few times in the summer. It was fun (going to the park, not so much working).

A little after school started, it was Labor Day and we went "camping" in one of our old friend's backyard with a lot of other families, because we couldn't find a campsite. We had fun getting together with old friends and catching up.

One family had a wave runner and my mom and I rode on it together.

Me and my mom posing with some pig sculpture type thingy.

All of the teenagers together while the kids panned for gold.

Psycho me pretending to ride on a pony!

The summer was really fun, but way busy, but I had a good time. Hopefully next summer will be even better! Check my blog again for more posts, because it really will live again!!!