Chivalry is not dead

And how would I know this? The lowly 14-year-old? PU-LEEEAAAASE. Stake dances, my friends. Stake dances. BEST. THING. EVER. Last night, I went to a dinner/workshop/dance at the Stake Center, along with Sarah's friends Jaden and Hayley. I thought I would have to look elsewhere for eligible young bachelors (starting early, you know how it is ), but I was dead wrong. For the dinner, we were all assigned seats so we would mingle. Of course, Sarah, Jaden, and I all sat together, but Hayley was on the complete opposite side of the gym. She got to sit by a guy that looked like Frodo though, so it was all good. She was floored when the boys offered to get her silverware and cleared her plate. Hats off to you boys. AND THEN COMES THE DANCE. If you've never been to a Rockford Stake dance, you have in no way experienced the fulness of the gospel. Amazingly fun. It's even better when a conversation like the following ensues:

Guy I'm dancing with but don't really know: ....and I'm hoping to get my mission call soon after this school year. So what are you, a sophomore? Junior?
Me: 8th.
Him: *awkward silence* Cool.

Yeaah...it's a little weird being one of the youngest ones there, but hey. It's still really fun. OH. WAIT. Another story!

So our friends Lorna and Heidi have a brother who's my age. Sarah, Lorna, and Heidi are convinced we're going to get married. Wyatt and I aren't so sure. We'll see. Anyway, the last dance was a slow dance, and I was standing with my friend and I saw Lorna dragging Wyatt around the gym looking for someone. THey went up to Sarah and then Sarah joined the hunt. Lorna comes walking up to me and literally pushes us together. AWKWARD. So we danced. Here's the best part though: As soon as the dance was over, guess what he did?

HE KISSED MY HAND.

Thank you for restoring my faith in the human race. Now if we could just teach those boys HOW to dance.....

Hahhahahahah

Big Kristen

This post is not about what you (meaning my family) probably think it is. It's about my teddy bear, Big Kristen. I just found him/her/it again. (There's really no gender involved here.) MEMORY LANE. I named Big Kristen after my cousin Kristen. I'm not really sure why, but mom says I liked naming things after people I really liked. If you were noteworthy, in my opinion, you got a stuffed animal named after you.  Needless to say, the majority of my stuffed animals were named Abby.   Narcissistic much? I think yes:) I also had a cat named after my best friend Courtney.  Man, I miss that. Anyway, that's my nostalgic stuffed animal story. :)

Christmas vacation

Day1. CHRISTMAS!!!! It was awesome. I love Christmas. Soo fun:) Plus, it was Lucy's first Christmas, and she was hilarious. She got a doggie jawbreaker, but we had to eventually confiscate it becasue she was getting a little obsessive. And it smelled terrible, but that's really neither here nor there..

(skip to the 28th)

2. First day in Utah! We got up at 4, had our flight delayed, and got there around lunch. Sarah, Matt and I watched Star Wars (for the first time!!!) and went night skiing at Powder Mountain. Super fun! I'm glad I had that day to warm up so I wouldn't do really bad with the whole family on Monday. All about image. Oh, and then Matt and I watched The Empire Strikes back. Sarah started it, but she didn't make it all the way through.

3. Gunderson Partaaay! Woohoo! We discovered that we aren't very good ice skaters, but its ok. I DIDN'T FALL ONCE.  Awesome party:)

4.Ward-crashing. We went to Uncle Jeff's ward on Sunday, and I'm working on convincing Mom to let us move there...

5. More skiing! I was tearing up that mountain!!!  I. Did. Amazing. All there is to it. Aren't I humble? The Jensen's came over for New Year's festivities, and we watched Return of the Jedi. We rebellious teenagers stayed up until 11:00 waxing a snowboard. Party hard, that's us.

6. New Year's skiing. First off, Sarah and Matt left me on a pretty hard run at Snowbasin. NOT COOL. Matt found me thug, and we made our way to the bottom in one piece, and saw a dead moose along the way. Lovely. After dinner, Sarah and I went up to the Liston's house for a game night. It was so much fun!

7. Day off of skiing, We watched The Empire Strikes back again so Sarah could see it.

8. Another day off. I wandered the house all day.

9. Skiing again! I went on some new runs this time, and had songs from Newsies stuck in my head. After skiing we went to Jeff and Bonnie's house for games and played TriBond. I actually got a few right! Woohoo!

10. Dad, Sarah and I went skiing some more :) Still fun!

11. We all went shopping and chilled. Oh!!! And Sarah had a....wait for iiiiittttt......wait for iiiittt......

DATE. She can tell you more.

12. We all crashed the ward in Sandy. I went to Sunday School with Anne, except it was the 12 and 13 year old's class. Oops. I was undercover. After church, we went to the Jensen's house for dinner.

13. Last day of skiing:( We ate lunch with Jon, Adam, and Adam's friend. It was great:) I feel like I'm a pretty good snowboarder now. Again with the humility.

14. Airport day. Ew. All I'm saying.

My big break

Yooo bloggers! Hi. This whole week, I've had the song "Without Love" from hairspray stuck in my head. Why? Well...there's a line in the song that goes,"Without love, life is my big break with laryngitis". And I have had my big break WITH laryngitis. Well maybe not my BIG break, but still. The point is, this whole week I've sounded like a ten-year-old boy who only sometimes has a deep voice, with a lot (emphasis) of squeaks in between. Not fun. I sounded like a goose last Friday until about 2 days ago, which was a boatload of fun. Especially because I had a madrigal performance.  And then there's my loving, supportive, sympathetic family. HA! HA. HA. HA. Yeah, I wasn't made fun of AT ALL. Riiiigght. Every other word, there would be a little high-pitched interval that made it sound like a dog whistle, or maybe like I was honking. Either way, it didn't sound good. But it's ok now, because I can talk again. Still can't sing, but I'll get there. So if anyone wakes up and can't talk, I feel ya.

Fancy that...

THIS IS SO WILD. It's completely crazy. And a bit wibbly-wobbley, if you want to call it that. So, yesterday I was hired to take care of my neighbor's dog AND the gecko that they were watching for a friend. We used to have geckos, so I figured I could take care of this one. I was feeding the lizard,(his name is Rango), when I noticed that he had a spot shaped like a "3" on his head, just like our old lizard, Sammy.Then, I saw that he had the exact same water dish as Sammy, and the same log. No way . SAAAMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! The prodigal lizard returned.

Whoops. The pictures are not in order... oh well. Its pretty easy to figure out which ones are which:)