happy new years eve!

goodness! can you all believe how fast this year has gone by? so many things have happened! i've learned so many things, grown a lot (not physically...i think i look pretty much the same), met many new people, tried new things...none i can think of at the moment, but i know i must have. :)
no, i do know what, but i just don't really feel like going into it. but, as i sit here and think during the last few hours of 2007, a couple of things pop into my head. one being the fact that only one year from now, we shall be welcoming 2009 (well, duh...congratulations danielle! after only 16 and a half years of life i have learned that 9 comes after 8). but seriously, that is a super scary thought! 2009! the year i graduate! it's gonna come quick, but i will just live in the present and the hear and now...i like it better that way. the future is too overwhelming. :)
so, i think i shall be going to bed soon. maybe i'll watch a movie, but i will definitely not be staying up until 12:00 to bring in the New Year due to the fact that i must leave my house at 5:00am tomorrow. i'm going to the rose parade...should be an experience; i've never been. you can be sure i'll have some pictures up tomorrow of it though.
what else was i going to say? oh, yeah! i learned how to knit today! i kinda suck at it, but cristina attempted to teach me. the "attempted" part was not due to her teaching skills, but due to my learning ones...i think i may need some practice. :) still, i'm happy!

well, 2007 has been a great year filled with awesome friends and family that i consider myself very blessed to be surrounded by as well as many fantastic experience that i wouldn't trade for anything. God is so good!
love all of you!
blessings on you new year!

my new found friend

since i'm the only one upstairs (most of the time) i don't really use the heater (we have a separate heater system for the downstairs and upstairs) it seems kinda pointless to heat the entire floor just for my room, so i got a space heater for Christmas because my room is freezing in the mornings! (one of my more practical gifts). he seemed a little dull, so i put some eyes and hair on him...yes i know i'm cool. isn't he cute...i need a name for him though...humm...any suggestions? :)

anyways...only one more week of break! yikes! i haven't even thought about homework...oh, well. :)

adios for now!

"how 'bout a shave?"

well, not much to update about here, but i shall in case any of you are bored enough to read it.
yesterday i went to see National Treasure II with julie. such a long movie!!! it was okay...very far-fetched. the first one was definitely better, but we still had fun.
then today i went and saw Sweeney Todd with my mom. i liked it much better than National Treasure, but it was definitely a strange movie...totally tim burton. it was good, but i warn you though it does have A LOT of blood. i did like the singing, plot-line (for the most part) and the irony. but, of course, you all know why i wanted to see it in the first place... johnny depp is in it, duh! AND HE SINGS! quite well, actually. so, how could i resist? :) and see he still looks hot even with freaky hair and make up...don't make fun of me...i already know i'm a freak...you're all just jealous. :)

anyways, something i've realized this week...you don't know how awkward your blog sounds until it is read to you out loud with a couple of your friends listening. maybe i'm the only one with this feeling, but try it sometime and let me know how that works out.

so, i shall leave you all here for today and perhaps next time i shall have something better to post about.

oh, and happy birthday, julie! the big 18...have fun and don't do anything i wouldn't do. haha!:)

merry (belated) christmas! :)

well, christmas was good! (as usual) this year was a big year...i got a new camera (i really wanted that since kaite threw my other one on the tile floor and broke it...good thing she's so cute). i also was excited for some practical gifts like car mats!!!! a gas gift card!!! and a gift card to the car wash for when i don't feel like washing it myself! :) sweet! something else i was pretty excited about is guitar hero three for the computer! (since we don't have a playstation) it's awesome...you just plug it in to the usb port. so, you'll all have to come over and play it with me...i suck at it, but whatever. :) i love christmas! family came over and had a good time eating, playing games and sitting around the fire just talking.

then yesterday was another fun (yet busy) day. first i played tennis with cristina and jenny and then just hung out. later we went to second street (open sesame...yum!). then it was straight from cristina's to rebekah and hannah's house for a high jump get together. it was fun to just hang out with hannah rebekah and matt...good times. :)

well, that was my summery of the last few days of my life.

oh, by the way...anyone doing anything for new years? i might have something at my house...not sure yet...anyone interested? :)

i'll be feelin' it tomorrow.

so, what better way to spend christmas eve than to go hiking! my cousin, aunt and i went up to Angeles National Forest and hiked to the bottom of the canyon down to the falls...beautiful! well, on the way up my cousin (kristi) wanted something a bit more challenging, as did i. we decided hike up the mt. zion trail and then catch another trail from the hogee campground back down to the parking lot to meet up with my aunt again. we look at the distance and determine it will probably only take us an hour and a half or so. well, we thought it was only four miles and half being uphill and the other two being downhill....not too bad right. boy were we wrong! turned out being 11 miles and 10 of those being uphill! oh, man is my butt sore! your probably thinking "how is that possible...what goes up must come down?". don't ask me, but it is...i shall try to explain. you see, this trail actually took us to another canyon, which we then had to climb out of, then we went back down and around and back up again. an hour and a half...i think not. try 3hrs. come on though that isn't bad for hiking 10 miles uphill. good stuff! well, we eventually made it and found my aunt slightly distressed and worried about us (there was no cell reception, therefore we couldn't have called). good hike though. definitely more than we bargained for, but at least i feel like i got decent work out. no joke it was hard! good, good.

well, Merry Christmas Eve! :)

last minute christmas shopping can sometimes be good

this afternoon it dawned upon me that i had not yet gotten anything for my sister (betsy) and had completely forgotten to pick some lotion my mom had wanted up from the body shop. talk about stress! so, i decided that i would have to brave the crowds of the cerritos mall and go on a hunt for something that my sister would like. you see i have trouble shopping for her (actually i have trouble shopping for most people, but that's beside the point). our styles are VERY different and i don't always know what she would like or wear. she wears more trendy stuff, but i'm so not good with that whole thing. well, i hear her talking about how she needs to do some last minute shopping and i ask "for who?". she gives me this look that has the answer written all over it...letting me know it was me. actually this worked out great. we went together. i can't even remember the last time she and i went shopping together, let alone did anything one on one. it was kinda nice for a change....wouldn't want to do it often, but it was okay. the only thing is i hate shopping and she loves it, so that is why we don't ever go together. i only go when i have to (unless its with friends) and i just get in and get out. she likes to try things on and take her time. so, what we ended up doing was each picking out something we liked for the other one to buy so we would get exactly what we wanted. oh, and get this both things were on sale! i mean major on sale! my shirt that i got was originally $29.00, but that price tag had been marked down to $14.95 or else i wouldn't have even considered it. we got up to the register and it was actually $9.50 and her bag (originally $30.00) was only 8 bucks! now that's a deal! and now all my christmas shopping is done! sweet!

well, i better get to bed because i'm going hiking tomorrow with my cousin, kristi and my aunt...should be fun.
bye for now! :)

oh the festivities

first official day of christmas break today and i definitely took advantage of it by doing absolutely nothing. i can't remember the last time i just sat around in my pj's all day, watched a movie and baked cookies! :) but hey, we all need some down time once in a while right? so, i don't feel too guilty. festivities

last night was our annual boring christmas party, but with the company of rebekah, cristina and julie it wasn't too bad. :) we managed to amuse ourselves by attacking each other with balls of tissue paper. thanks again for coming guys and keeping me company! i had fun! :)

check out the sweet pictures that i stole from julie's blog.

peace from rebekah and julie!

i like how cristina just rotates while the rest of us do crazy poses.

love this picture...especially since you can't see cristina's face! haha i'm totally kidding, cristina...i love your face!

yeah we're just cool and you know it! :)

good times!

make sure to celebrate tomorrow!

pretty awesome if you ask me. don't forget to celebrate tomorrow because "it's only right that we shed some light on this little known holiday!" haha! :)

coming closer!

can you believe that christmas is almost here? i sure can't! it seems like last christmas was just here! not that i don't like christmas (and break :). it's just that i can't really get in the mood for it. like i'm not really excited for it at all. i think most of that has to do with the fact that i pretty much have no energy to be excited about things as far as a week in the future, so i think i will not worry about this for now.

it rained all day today! awesome! rain seriously makes my day! as well as goldenspoon, while its raining, with friends. then when your friend trips over a "caution slippery when wet" sign...that just adds to the goodness. hilarious!

oh, and i finished christmas cards! yippy! still need to do some last minute gift shopping...if anyone would like to tell me something they would particularly want/could use i wouldn't object. :)

2 1/2 more days of prison and i'm free for 2 whole weeks!

well, i'm going to bed now! hopefully i'll have good dreams...the last couple nights my dreams have just been plain weird!

dear travel the world and the seven seas

danielle knows who else came home this week, but she hadn't arrived yet when danielle posted that. but, danielle doesn't want her to feel left out so...WELCOME HOME REBEKAH! hopefully danielle shall see you soon!

don't ask why danielle is talking in third person...she doesn't know.

have a wonderful day!
four and a half more days and then christmas break!!!! i can do it!...i think :)

it's been a busy week

lets see...i'll just list some things from this week instead of going into detail.

night of the week: definitely wednesday night...tennis banquet! but, i already posted about that, so i won't say much on that.

class of the week: for sure NOT yearbook...i don't know why i ever took that stupid class. actually i wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if it weren't for a certain person...and i think we know who i'm talking about (if you do not...just ask me sometime). anyway now that i've vented...class of the week. probably have to be history. we're watching a movie, plus i like that class.

happy happening of the week: cristina came home! haven't seen her in six months, so it was fun to hang yesterday for a little bit.

whoa! my power just went out as i was in the process of typing this...anyway

i made some progress on christmas cards, so that is exciting

well, i'm tired and have a TON of homework this weekend, so i'm going to bed before my power goes out again.

good night everyone!

banquet 2007!

well, as you may have figured out, we (the girls tennis team that is) had our team banquet and look at all the cool stuff we got!
i was awarded most inspirational and we all got certificates for making it through season undefeated. the maroon and gold ribbon thing on top is a lei type necklace caitlin's mom made all of us and laney's mom made us all scarfs that say "VCHS Tennis 2007 League Champs". so we are all planning to wear those to school tomorrow! :) oh, and i bet you are all wondering what a pirates of the caribbean card is doing on there. well, funny story. laney, julie and i (after exposing me to the wonders of shaved ice) went to rite aid to buy coach a card. we decided we like the singing cards the best and julie saw this one and goes "i'm so getting this for my buddy!" i asked her who she had and she told me brittany. i go "uh, does brittany even like pirates of the caribbean?" well, then i get to amanda's house and julie hands me the card...i still didn't get it. i'm just standing there like "what do you want me to do with this?". i totally thought she was just handing it to me so i could dance to it (it plays the theme song) well, i finally caught on...so funny! su-weet!

julie y yo!

me and coach!

something to think about

alright, remember how i said (maybe you don't, so i'll say it again) that i would post later about mr. westrup's metaphor for our night hike since i wanted to do it justice? well, that is what i'm going to share with you all in this post. take note i still won't do it justice, but better than it would have been.
so, on our little hike through the darkness (with no flashlights) you can pretty much only see what is a few feet in front of you. you know, you can make out shapes and stuff, but sometimes things may look scary in the dark that wouldn't if you looked at them in daylight. all you can really do is follow the path and trust the person leading you. but why do objects like trees or rocks look frighting at night? well, just simply because we can't see them clearly...the dark holds the unknown, which can be intimidating. this is exactly like life here on earth. we don't understand everything there is out there, but when we get to heaven we will know everything and see everything clearly as if the sun had risen and showed us what those "scary" unknown objects were. we also must put trust in our leader of life (God) to lead us along the path He has in store for us. so, if you have an issue in life that you are anxious about, just remember that God has your back and you will understand everything in time. patience is a virtue (side note: my mom used to say that to me when i was little and i always though she was telling me "patience won't hurt you" haha! well, it works...both are true :). anyway i just wanted to share that since i thought it was pretty neat.

hang in there! half way through the week everyone! :)

joshua tree in pictures

storm clouds on friday morning! nice and dark












this is friday afternoon at shortwall, so as you can see the storm cleared out pretty quickly.



















this is from the top of shortwall












here is morbid mound from looking out from the top of shortwall. click on it to make it bigger and you can see a small group of people standing near the base of it...near them is the face i climbed.




































that's me climbing morbid mound! almost to the top! notice the amount of layers i'm wearing...it was cold, but look how blue the sky is! so beautiful!













leaving j-tree








hope you enjoyed the pictures!
scroll down for the written version of my trip! :)

joshua tree!

hello everyone! hope your weekends were all as amazing as mine was! so, are you all ready...better get nice and settled in you seat because this post is going be be a long one ( there, i warned you).
so, we all met at school at 6:45 thursday night to get loaded onto the bus and head out to j-tree. nothing too exciting on the ride up...i slept. :) when we arrived it was absolutely freezing, dark (hopefully you figured that one out) and windy! the tents were already set up, so we all piled our stuff in. by the way, the girls all had one tent for six of us. big tent, but still a little cramped...no worries though. we sat around the campfire for a while, worshiped and then it was off to bed. so nice to climb into a nice warm sleeping bag. we all said our "good nights" and just as i was drifting off a huge, let me emphasize HUGE gust of wind just comes up and completely collapses our tent on top of us! haha! it was absolutely hilarious! mr. westrup comes over with a flashlight and tied it back up for us. good thing too or else we would have been soaked. around 1:00am the predicted rain started. it lasted utill around 9:00. we woke up to the sound of rain and everyone tried to huddle together and stay dry under a tarp while the infamous cheese pancakes. mr. westup made me try some and actually they weren't that bad...you kinda get used to them. anyway, the rain finally stopped, we packed lunches and half of us headed out to short wall while the other half went to morbid mound, which really isn't very morbid. at shortwall i was taught the proper way to set up a system! yay! lots of knots. fun stuff. half way through the day the two groups switched locations. so, morbid mound was where i did my first climb on real rocks! pretty exciting! and i absolutely loved it!
friday evening was a bit colder than thursday, so i stayed close to the fire. when we got back i had a little bit of free time while others were preparing dinner, so a few of us went into the tent and i decided i would just lie down for a second under my sleeping bag just to get warm. the next thing i knew i was out and didn't wake up till it was dark outside. ha! i must have been tired. after dinner, we went on a night hike, and that was probably one of the most amazing experiences ever! i also saw three shooting stars that night! incredible! standing out there looking at the sky really makes you realize how small you are, yet God still cares so much about you. during our hike we decided to turn off all our flashlights, so it was pitch black. mr. westrup had a really good metaphor for this in regards to life, but i want to do this metaphor justice, so i will have to wait on it since i have limited time right now. when we returned from our hike we saw that mrs. fieldhouse had arrived, so getting to see her and talk with her was a treat!
the next day was the migz competition, which was a blast! full of running all over the place, getting wrapped up in webbing, setting up systems, climbing blindfolded and much more! oh, and can i brag for just a sec? my group consisted of two guys and another girl, who didn't want to do the blind climb. three group members had to do it, so that left me and the two guys. neither guy wanted to go first (let alone at all)...psh wimpy boys! i guess it takes a woman to step up and do it. i was proud of myself. :) it was fun...i think that was probably my favorite station.
well, that's pretty much all for now...i'll post some pictures up in a little bit and then some more stories later...i've gotta get going on my hw! yikes!

awesome weekend though!

so long, farewell

i'm off to j-tree for the weekend! i'll post lots when i get back! i'll be back on saturday night, so no too long.

gonna be fun!

hope you all have an awesome friday! :)

have you ever experianced...

coming home to your house after school and having all the doors wide open and it full of people you don't know (family is not around) all whom are wearing little blue booties on their shoes. sounds like a bad dream huh? but, no it was reality. my mom volunteered our house for the Valley Christian home tour yesterday. so, my family all had cleared out, but i had homework, so not much i could do there. it was pretty funny though to walk in carrying a bunch of stuff and just mosey on through like i owned the place (oh, wait i kinda do in a way...well my parents do, but i do live here). after people had realized that i did live here they started asking me questions like "where do you guys keep your tv?" or things about my family like how many siblings i have and their ages. the funniest thing was an elderly lady looking at one of our family pictures, then she looks at me and says "you know, you look a lot like this girl in this picture." uh, well, that's because that is me, but i didn't say anything. haha! the only slightly awkward part was to have people walking through your room while trying to write an english essay, but whatever. it was fun i guess to talk to them about some of my pictures and stuff.

well, i'm off to do homework, but that's okay since i don't have school on friday! wilderness challenge trip! going to be so fun! :)

weird, i just looked outside my window and some crazy creepy looking fog just rolled in. one minute it's all sunny and bright and then next its duh duh dun! (going for dramatic effect). i've seen this type of stuff in movies. its dark and foggy and then something bad always happens...

now i know why santa has elves

so he doesn't have to do all the work that the holidays bring! :) there are so many things happening...december is a busy month! mostly all good things though. i have a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks. of course christmas is always fun and with friends and family coming to visit, it's even better! next weekend is also my first wilderness challenge trip! going to be so much fun!
but, yikes...where has time gone? i really have to start christmas shopping...ugh! decisions, decisions. anyone want to make it easy on me and tell me specifically what they would like? and don't say nothing (as long as it's in my price range) haha! :)

oh, i don't know why i just thought of this, but did i tell you guys about me totally eating it? haha! no joke. saturday night at the christmas parade thing we were trying to make our way down 2nd street through a mass amount of people and i tripped over a step in the sidewalk. the next thing i know i'm lying flat on the pavement with a bunch of people staring at me. how embarrassing is that? i seriously got up and ran. haha oh, man. so sad. my knees have bruises on them, but other than that it didn't hurt.

adios for now mi amigos! :)

i can see clearly now the rain is gone

random title, i know. but, i can see now! i picked up my new glasses last week. yeah i know i'm hot...what can i say? actually, no just go ahead and say it...i look pretty dorky haha! :)
good thing i only have to wear them in class to see the board!

:)

happy december everybody!

december is finally here! i love this month! anyway, we kicked off december with a christmas parade. actually we had to be in it, since my step dad is on city council. we got to ride on a fire truck down 2nd street and wave at all the people...how funny! of course this had to be on the coldest night of the year so far! it was freezing! fun though and we got dinner after at open sesame...always delicious.

picture time!

katie all bundled up and playing on a golf cart before the parade started

my cousin, justin, and sister, betsy, drinking hot chocolate...yum

wow...uh i've got some nice wind-blown hair going on in this picture :)

well, that was my saturday night :)