Aaaand we're back!!

Well, I obviously haven't posted anything on here for a long time. Half of it is that I've been pretty busy with homework, school, and other very important things dealing with family and friends, half of it is that I forgot about the whole world of blogging, and most of it is that I've just put it off every time I've had the chance to post something new. Soooo get ready for a mildly long post today! Just mildly long. All righty, here we go!

At the end of October, our Girls and Boys varsity teams went down to State in Soda Springs for XC. Even though our guys were disappointed that they didn't place first like they planned, they still did a spectacular job and got a whoppin' 3rd place! Our girls did great too and we had a really fun time all around.

Towards the beginning of November, our school had our annual Buff n Tuff boys volleyball tournament. I always have a good time cheering on friends with those of us who can't or choose not to participate in the games. This year, we had the coolest cheer leaders ever and the team we were rootin' for, Mormons -1, got 4th overall! (Correct me if I'm wrong :). ) It was a great night!

Then my family and I had my friend, Jessie, take our family photos. The Rhoads have this really cool barn in their backyard so we took them there and, even though it was super cold and everyone was kind of stressed, we got some good stuff. Thanks Jessie for taking them! And thanks Family for being awesome!

Then when the 7th Harry Potter movie came out, the Grimms had a party at their house. We were all assigned characters from the movies and I was given the glorious part of Colin Creevey. We had a super fun time feasting, playing games, talking and, of course, going to see the movie. (Top Left: Brook [Molly Weasley], Noelle [Cho Chang], Alyssa [Tonks] & Katie [Madam Pompfrey] eating deliciousness; Top Middle: Emmalee [Professor Trelawney] & Cole [Neville Longbottom] goofing off; Top Right: Noelle, Brianna [Colin Creevey] & Alyssa before the party; Right Middle: Garrett [Harry Potter], Cody [Professor Lupin] & Kendall [Ginny Weasley] waiting in line; Bottom Right: Noelle, Brook & Brianna playing Uno while waiting in line; Bottom Left: Courtney [Luna Lovegood], Noelle, Emmalee, Jennifer [Moaning Murtle], Mandy [Lavender Brown] & Alyssa just chillin')

The day after the party, we had Best of EFY!! I love stake dances anyways, so the EFY dance is even better. It's just so fun being around friends and going crazy! :) (Top Left: Ariel, Dan, Alora & Matt; Top Middle: Hayden, Kendall, David, Mitch, Amanda, Courtney, Mandy, Emmalee, Janessa & Allie; Top Right: Mandy, Courtney, Brianna & Jamin... and Alex's arms in the background; Bottom Left: Brianna, Autumn, Malia, Emmalee, Nicole & Mandy; Bottom Middle: Brianna & Brook acting normal... we try; Bottom Right: Alex, Mandy, Erin, Autumn, Noelle, Brook & Dakota)

For this month, Noelle and I kicked it off with a Christmas get-together with some friends. We had fun mostly playing Just Dance on the Wii. If you don't have this game, get it. Best game ever! A few of us also went caroling and we watched Elf and just ate and talked. It was fun and I'm glad that those who came made it! (Top Left: Brook, David, Brianna & Bonnie with their "BM" mustaches; Top Right: Ashlee, Abbey & Alyssa sittin' around, being awesome; Bottom Left: Jeff, Jamin & David; Bottom Center: Alex, David & Jeff bustin' a move!; Bottom Right: Kendall, Amanda, Brianna, Brook & Emmalee)

Each year, my family has the tradition of going on the North Pole Cruise and we usually join our friends the Priebes, Jeskes, Gunnersons, Caudles, Drydens... lots of people! This year, my parents went to Noelle's orchestra concert while I took the three younger ones and we still had a good time! Thanks to anyone who helped out with my siblings so I could take a few snap shots of everyone and mess around for a little bit. We all had a great time :) (Top Left: Mandy, Emmalee, Courtney & Brianna doing what we do best :); Top Right: Kaitlyn, Courtney, Emmalee, Mandy, Jamin, David, Alex & Brianna; Bottom Left: Emmalee & Brianna; Bottom Center: Steven, David & Cam waiting to get to the North Pole; Bottom Right: Courtney & Brianna)

And finally... other important stuff that's happened since my last post!!! First, Thanksgiving, of course!! This year my family joined the Smidts, my Nana & Pops, and the Thompsons up at Nana and Pops Smidt's house. The food was scrumptious! The next day we went to the holiday parade with the Thompsons, Nana & Pops and watched fireworks. Then I got my drivers license finally on the 16th... that was a relief! My mom also got her port removed last month so she is officially done with everything! That's her with her awesome doctor, Dr. Quinn. And in the middle there... those are just my little brothers being the goofballs that they are. I love those kids!!

Well, thanks for surviving this lengthy post!! Hopefully, I'll begin to keep on top of things again starting right this minute. Now go eat something.

Regionals Baby!!

Yesterday, our cross country team went to Lewiston for our Regionals meet. Let's just say that not only does Lewiston stink as in "Phew, that smells disgusting!" but they also weren't very prepared for this meet. But I'm not going to bash on them because we all still had a pretty good time!

Well, we started off our "journey" with a team dinner at Andrew Reagan's house the night before our races. We had the usual--spaghetti. Spaghetti never gets old though! That's one of the great things about cross country is that you get it every week :).

Gotta love meal-time photos! :)

 Noelle and Erin were sharing secrets, so Jake and Michael, thought it would be funny to imitate them... it was pretty funny.

And this really probably isn't significant to any of you, but this week, we had BLUE Gatorade! And it was scrumptious! We usually have yellow, but blue was a delicious change and everyone absolutely loved it!

Okay, onward! After that team dinner, we all went to bed, then woke up, some of us went to school (some of us skipped...), and loaded up on the bus at 9:30 am. And here's our adventure starting from then!

Everyone doing their thing before the races...

This was the JV Girls race... our team got 2nd! I think this is the best JV Girls have done in a long time, so good job, girls!

We have way too many JV Boys, which is a good thing, but I'm not going to put up a picture of every single guy... sorry, I know you all were dying to see all of them :). Our JV Boys got 1st and they had some fantastic races! Way to go, guys!

And our Varsity girls!! They did amazing!!! They got 1st place for the first time in around 6 years so that says something. I'm so stinkin' proud of you all :). Oh, and that's Malia in the bottom right corner. She's in Lakeland 1st ward and I had an empty space on this collage, so I plopped her in there... anyway, she's awesome too!

And then there are our Varsity Boys. They got 1st as a team too and an almost perfect score of 16! Our boys are amazing and that's pretty much all there is to say!

Sorry LCHS, but you got beaten. Badly. Muaha!

Everyone on our team just goofing off during the awards ceremony... gotta love 'em!

Aaaaand on our way back from the meet. That's Kendall, Courtney, Noelle and me with Malia, Courtney, Kendall, Alex and me at Burger King (we sneaked over there while everyone was buying dinner at Albertson's :) ), me eating a 16-layer Oreo cookie, and Cody with Jessie! Yeah, we had a good time!

And that's Regionals! Hope you enjoyed it!

SURPRISE!!!

I am now making this "blog-official". Before my grandparents left Coeur d'Alene to go back to San Diego, they had my sisters and me solve this little puzzle last week. We were given a box full of sand with a bunch of Scrabble letters in it and told to find all the letters and spell out what we thought they were supposed to say. 

We got a few letters and I jokingly spelled out "fiesta" but surprisingly that was one of the words... and the next word was "mexican".

So then they told us to say what we thought this meant. We wanted to say what we thought but we thought it was too good to be true. But it's not! They told us we're going...

on a cruise along the shore of Mexico in January!! We're all so excited and super thankful for this amazing surprise! It's going to be a blast!

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

Post #6! Well, for this post, I'm choosing to do my five most favorite things about the "Halloween season." I don't know if I'll get around to doing it for the next two weeks so it's better now than never! Anyway, here it is:

#1 -- Candy!

I had to add this one! Even though I don't get to eat any candy until after State, it makes it all worth it even more. Then I'm twice as excited to eat all those sweets! :) Candy is what brings joy (and A LOT of energy) to little children each Halloween. If it wasn't for candy, Halloween wouldn't mean nearly as much to a lot of people! :)

#2 -- Pumpkins

Ah pumpkins! You can carve them, admire them, eat them I'm sure, if you really wanted to. It amazes me how many different shapes and sizes there are of pumpkins out there. Above is the Greenbluff pumpkin patch and they've got some good ones. And another cool thing is that anything pumpkin-flavored is delicious! Doughnuts, bread, ice cream (I had it when I was little at Baskin Robbins), cookies, cake, everything! What's interesting though, and something that I just looked up because I wanted to sound smart on one of these posts, is that pumpkins have a symbol behind them. Yep! It's true! :) According to a very informational website called Halloween Symbols, "On the British isles, the scary face of the jack-o-lantern was used to frighten away evil spirits and cast a 'spell of protection over the household.'  The Celts carved the frightening faces into gourds or turnips, not the American pumpkin." Well, there ya go! Now you can go around, sounding smart and telling everyone that cute little fact. Okay, onward!

#3 -- Costumes

This picture is from two years ago because surprisingly (which it is if you know me), I didn't have any photos of me dressed up from Halloween last year! Crazy, right?! Either way, costumes rock! I already did a post about how I love to dress up, so this just goes to prove that I guess? Costumes make Halloween worth celebrating... yes, more than candy does!

#4 -- Apple Dumplings

 First of all, I'm pretty sure that these dumplings aren't "World Famous," but nonetheless, they are super duper scrumdidlyumptious! If you have never had one, I would most definitely say to go try one. Even if you have to go to Greenbluff just for that, it's so worth it. Then again, I'm not the one paying for gas whenever we go there, so I wouldn't know for sure... anyway, they are like a little treat sent from heaven. I cannot fully describe the goodness of these things!

#5 -- Colorful Trees

This isn't the best photo to capture what I'm going for here, but it works. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that loves the colorful leaves... while they're still on the trees. They're still pretty on the ground, but then it takes forever to rake them all up. Which I'm fine with doing the first time. After that, it gets kind of tiring. But I guess the beautiful colors everywhere are pretty worth it!

"Lucky"

I've fallen in love with this version of the song! It probably has to do with the characters singing it too, but still, I just love it! It's so cute to see Quinn start to fall for him... I don't know. Whatever it is, this is a great video and song. Sorry to those of you who don't even know what I'm talking about. I just had to post this video! :)

"These are a few of my favorite things..." Explanation Here!

Okey dokey, so this week, I've been a little busy. So I'll either double up on this Saturday's post or just skip last Saturday's. I'll probably end up doing the second one so don't worry, this week I will most likely post my favorite things in time... that is, if you were worried :).

"Toxic" number by Val Chmerkovskiy & Mark Ballas

This season, I haven't really gotten into Dancing with the Stars like I usually do, but I was watching the results show for the first time the other night and there was this amazing duet done by two of the dancers. Mark Ballas was one of them and he's one of the pros on the show while his "ballroom rival" for the duet, Val Chmerkovskiy isn't, but his big brother, Maks, is. They did a number to "Toxic" and played the violin and guitar... it was really cool and made me smile. And the girls they danced with, Lacey and some other girl (I have no idea who it was, but she's super flexible!), are SUPER good! Sooo, here it is: (To see the actual thing, skip to 1:50)

I love the look that Val gives Mark when they're finished :)