Nostalgic No More

So I was looking through some pictures of my college life last year, and I realized I don't miss it at all. I believe this is pretty huge. Because a while ago, I'd go through those pictures wishing I could just go back to it or have it again. But I think that was because life stunk this past semester. Last year was fine, but it wasn't amazing. And now, I wouldn't go back to it. I'm glad it happened, but I'm also glad it's done.

I just want to move on with life. I don't want to go back. I want to be happy again. I'm happy right now. With family and friends that love me, it's wonderful. And I've been able to sub at the day care that I worked at over the summer and pretty much it's been the best thing ever.

I'm just glad that I can see that I just want to move forward in life instead of moving back. After all, moving forward is a more possible option anyways, right? ;) Yes, this past semester was HARD. Difficult. Almost unbearable. But somehow I survived. As I was coming home for Christmas break, I realized I'd made it through the whole semester. I survived utter loneliness, I survived living with a roommate who hated/hates me and wanted to make my life miserable, and I survived pretty much the worst period of my life that has happened so far. And as I was thinking about that, I was so proud. Because I did it. Life did go on and Christmas break did come, though at times it felt so far away. I'm so proud of myself for making it through. It might not sound like much to you, but to me, it's like one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.

So now, I hope to just move forward in life. I want and hope for life to be better and to finally start going uphill once I go back to school for winter semester. I think it will. I hope Heavenly Father doesn't push me anymore than he has, at least for a little while. I just need a break. I'm just going to trust and really really hope that things will be ok. They will be. I know it. :)

Sorry to post on such a sentimental topic during the Christmas season. This honestly has nothing to do with Christmas, but it was on my mind, and this is my blog so I can post what I want. Ha! And chances are I probably won't blog again until after Christmas so Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) to all you readers and bloggers out there! I hope your holiday season is happy and wonderful and loving!!

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Things That Will Always ALWAYS Make Me Happy :)

• Dancing
• Piano
• Anything to do with Carrie Underwood
• Clothes/fashion (and blogging about it)
• Laughter
• Reading
• Doing schoolwork (as nerdy as that sounds)
• Blogging
• My wonderful, amazing, loving family (especially my mom)
• Helping others
  
• Scrapbooking and making cards
• Taking pictures and editing them
• Dance parties
• English classes
  
• True friends
• My religion :)
• the color Purple
• Making my delish chocolate chip cookies
• Cheez-its, goldfish, pizza, popcorn, shakes, and smoothies
• BYU
• Music
• Singing

That list could go on and on but those made the top. :) And my new goal for this year is to make one person happy every day. Because that will mean that I'll be happy every day. :)

My Life (from the past few weeks) in Pictures

My 18th birthday! I got to home and spend it with my fam. We watched Fame (one of the best movies ever!), went to Chuck E Cheese's, went to the Sunday morning session of general conference, and celebrated and opened presents at my grandparents' house. I had a high school musical cake which was awesome! It was such a fun birthday and I had a blast. Some presents I got were: a purple digital camera (i will have better pictures on here now!), High School Musical barbies :), the Fame soundtrack, and cute clothes. Also, I got lots of birthday money that I spent shopping at the mall. It was great! :)











Brooke and I went shopping at the mall (this was when I spent my birthday money)! We decided to go the Disney store and take a picture with our friends Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse.


I posted a while back about how Brooke and I went to take pictures of each other so we decided to it again! We went to this cute stream/waterfall near our dorms. And we wore matching clothes. hehe

18th Birthday Wish List

Ha ha, I'm so pathetic for putting this on here, but I thought it would be cute, because ten years from now, I can look at this and see all the silly things I asked for my birthday (except they are definitely not silly right now!!!!). And since there are only 27 until my birthday, my mom needs this list! And the pictures don't actually signify the exact item I want. Just an idea. So here it is...(in no particular order):

Purple Digital Camera (I want this one the MOST!!!)

Books:
The Secret Journal of Brett Colton (found at Deseret Book)
My Sister's Keeper

Clothes!
a Plaid or Black pea coat (just not white, cuz I already have one of those)
Dress (I like the ones with sleeves)Colored blue skinny jeans (to wear to the BYU games)


Jon Schmidt Piano Book (one that has "Pachelbel Meets U2," "All of Me," or "Waterfall")

High School Musical 3 barbies

Taylor Swift barbie (just so you know, I'm now collecting barbies, because I love them!)

College Stuff

Saved by the Bell COLLEGE YEARS! (you know, because I'm in college...)


iTunes Gift Card

A mannequin (NO JOKE!)

New phone (but only a good one)

And...I think that's all! Keep checking the list, because I might update it when I think of something new. Have fun reading it and shopping for me (ha ha, just kidding...)

Oh, and I almost forgot...my birthday cake request! Since I already know, I'll just say that I want a High School Musical birthday cake (with chocolate cake and white frosting). Here are some ideas...

This one is probably my favorite. I like it cuz it's way exciting and two layers!


The only reason I put this one on here is because it has a barbie on the cake *hint, hint*...but the rest of it isn't really that exciting. But I like the two layer part of it. I love layered cakes! :D

Other Random July Activities...

Ward pool party...


Seeing East High (where High School Musical was filmed)!!!! So fun!



Youth conference! Summary: We went to some church history sites, the "This is the Place Monument," played night games, did a service project, went to the temple open house, went to Raging Waters, and had a testimony meeting. It was great and also my last youth conference ever! :(

Fun with Miami Cousins

Around the end of June, our relatives from Miami came to visit us! They were staying in Wyoming with all our relatives there and then drove down to see us. We had such a blast playing and being crazy with them.

We went swimming...

To the Manti Pageant...

I love this picture. It gets all of our personalities!
Eating sloppy joes at some stake center before the pageant.

And we also went to temple square...





We even went to East High (where High School Musical was filmed) but it was locked. :( So we just attempted a jumping picture, with no success.

It was such a great week and we had a marvelous time with all of our cousins!

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!