Christmas!!!

Oh my goodness, Christmas is right around the bend!!!!
I'm really excited. I've been in a Christmas-y mood for about a month. I usually insist that there is no Christmas music played around me until at least December 10, but this year I caught myself singing carols a few weeks before Thanksgiving.
I think the reason is that Mom and I have been practicing the Messiah with a group of singers since sometime in November. We're doing it for Christmas... next week? I think? I don't know...
And I've been practicing Christmas music in the ward choir, and with my voice teacher- speaking of which, I am singing a duet with my mom in Sacrament Meeting tomorrow.
...
Oh and on a non-Christmas, but still related, subject, I got my Personal Progress Medallion on Wednesday. It was Excellence night, and I gave a talk too. We got some pictures... I'll put them on here sometime. My awesome YW leader got hers too. We made a goal together back in early October to be done with Personal Progress by November 25.
But, anyway, for now, "that's all folks!"

General Conference!

Ok so General Conference is amazing!
Elder Holland's talk today for example! He was so emotional and so passionate and straight forward! I could feel the spirit so much! But then, He, and Elders Bednar and Uchtdorf are my favorite speakers. Besides Pres. Monson, obviously. I love hearing the words of the prophet.
Is it just me or did anyone else think that love was spoken of a whole lot this conference? There's our love for our fellow men, God's love for us, family love, love of the gospel, Christ's love, and more.
I am so grateful for my knowledge that we have living apostles and prophets to guide us today.

A Note on the Bird Stories

Just thought I'd point out, I took a few privledges with my story. While they're both true stories of what has happened to me and the birds lately, they didn't happen on the same day, and I wasn't so..... you know what I mean. I wasn't so girly as I made myself out to be. It just seemed more funny that way.... So yeah.
I hope you enjoyed it. =}

Bird Troubles... A Comical Horror by Yours Truly, Part II

Lisa closed the door of the turkeys side of the coop and leaning against it, sighed with relief. That was close.
She didn't usually have to do this, but Dad just had to be sick today didn't he...
Shaking her head to clear her mind of visions of smelly darkness and waving pink heads, she turned to the chickens door.
With what courage had not been pecked out of her by the killer turkeys Lisa flipped the latch and flung open the door.
30 pairs of eyes, shining white in the light of the sun, glared at her from the darkness within, and an ominous "Brrrrt Brrt Brrt Brrrt" came from within.
Cautiously Lisa pulled herself through the small doorway, shutting the door most of the way behind her. Brown and gray chickens were everywhere, their beady eyes staring suspiciously. Slowly, her hopes of co-operation rising, Lisa moved to the bag of food in the corner and put several handfuls into the food container. Overjoyed at the lack of hostility Lisa was just about to exit the coop when she noticed chicken's water container. There was no water in it.
"Grrrrreat."
Seizing the big container, Lisa opened the door and was on the brink of jumping out when she saw them.
The air was full of feathers as crazed chickens lept for their water container, pecking frantically at the dirty build up where water should have been. Lisa let herself out, one hand on the container, trying to pull it out with her. The chickens were stampeding the water container now, and as it stood on the edge of the door, that meant a break out was close at hand.
"No. NO, no, no!" Lisa yelled, shoving masses of feathery creatures back through the door with one hand and trying to drag the water container out further. With flashing eyes, the birds swarmed; a tidle wave of poultry was building around the door.
With one last desperate yank the water container was free. The birds were struggling madly, each trying to get out the door before its fellows. In the havic Lisa just managed to close the door, shoving each crazed bird that had stuck out its head back into the coop.
It was almost a relief to have a respite in which to fill the water container. At the nearest water spout Lisa washed away the dirt and chicken... doo... that coated the bottom of the container and filled it with water through the top. With a sinking heart, Lisa put the lid back on top and turned to drag the container back... She could hardly move it.
Filled with water it was more than twice as heavy as before. With a huge effort, she dragged it (leaving furrows in the dirt) from the pump to the coop. Taking a moment to slop some water out first, Lisa undid the latch on the chicken's door and pushed it open an inch. Anxious chicken eyes watched as she heaved the water container onto the ledge and into the doorway.
The hurricane of feathers seemed magnetically attracted to the water. With a cacophany of "CockadoooodleDOOOO!"s and "brrt BRRT Brrrt Brrt!"s the chickens began soaking up the water. There were so many birds plastered to the water container Lisa was worried about pushing it any further into the Chicken coop for fear of squashing one of them.
With a howl that sent a third of the birds flying backwards a few inches, she withdrew a finger that had just been pecked by a desperate chicken.
Seizing the oppertunity she shoved the water container into the coop and slammed the door shut.
Waving the injured finger about in agony she screeched "Darn Birds!!!" And set off for the house.

The End

P.S.
Lisa, incidentally, was saved any further terrifying trips to the coop by contracting whatever her dad had.

Bird Troubles... A Comical Horror by Yours Truly, Part I

It was just a normal feeding job...
Dad normally fed the Chickens and Turkeys, unless he wasn't home, or he was sick- which didn't happen very often. But today, he had been unfortunate enough to have some kind of flu. Or maybe he was fortunate enough to have the flu, because it meant that Lisa had to feed the birds.
"Remember to take the scraps." Her mother told her as she prepared to meet her doom.
"Right."
And so, with a bowl of cucumber peelings and cantalope rinds, a half eaten apple and some moldy bread in her hands, she set off.
As she walked across the driveway and down the dirt path to the coop she sang, "I'm off to feed the turkeys, those ugly old turkeys of oz!" and, " Feed the birds, two-million-pence a bag," from the Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins respectively. Now if you're thinking, 'I don't remember any turkeys in Oz, just flying monkeys', or 'I thought the kid in Mary Poppins had tupence," then you are right. Lisa just happens to be one of those insane people who make up their own lyrics to normal songs.
Back to our story. Arriving at the coop Lisa could hear the incessant cockadoodledoooo! coming from one side and obnoxious gobbling sounds from the other side. Sighing, she undid the latch to the turkeys door.
Bald pink heads swayed in the doorway. "Move!" Lisa said sharply, climbing through the door and quickly shutting it all but a quarter of an inch behind her. In the half light that came through the chicken-wired windows her unadjusted eyes could only just make out the large, black, feathery bodies and long scrawny pink necks and heads of the uglys birds. Black eyes glinted in their wrinkly bird faces and the gobbling increased. Slowly, they began to advance, heads waving.
"Back off!" Lisa said loudly, waving her hands. The front two turkeys dodged sideways and another two took their place, these two bigger and more confident.
"Shoo!" The turkeys took no notice, their slow advance continued. Lisa backed slowly away from the door, around the water dish, toward the corner of the coop and the bags of feed that were now her only hope of escape. The buzz of hundreds of flies filled the air and The March of the Turkeys came on after her. The black eyes were shining with a feverish, hungry, killer turkey glow.
Finally, Lisa saw out of the corner of her eyes the feed bag, covered in feathers and... less disirable turkey leavings. Making faces, she grabbed the very edge of the bag and shook off the... stuff... Then hurriedly stuffed her hand deep into the bag. Almost before it could re-emerge with a handful of the yellow powdery stuff the turkeys lived off of, they were there. Lisa could feel a large rubbery clawed turkey foot on top of her own flip-flop-clad foot. The gobbles were suddenly ravenous and seemingly elephant-trumpet loud.
Turkeys were surrounding her, rubbery feet clawing at jeancovered legs, trying to climb her, trying to reach the food. Screeching, Lisa flung the yellow powder in the direction of the food tray.
It worked.
The feverish eyes followed the foods flight and moments later it was no longer to be seen, completley hidden behind black feathers.
Sighing with relief, Lisa dumped a few more handfuls of yellow into the midst of the bobbing pink heads and hurried back to the door and out into the sunlight.

Hey there!

So I haven't posted in a long time. My sister gives me a hard time about it every time she is on our computer. But really, I haven't been up to anything all that exciting. At least, just me. I've been on a couple family trips, but I'm gonna get that on our family blog sometime.
However, I will have some interesting stuff to post soon. I'm going to EFY next week in Idaho, and then Education Week at BYU the week after. So I suppose I'll post something about those later.
Now there you go Gwenda. I POSTED! For YOU!
=D

Con Con- the Afterward

After my extremely excited last few posts you may possibly be curious as to how Con Con was.
Well, here ya go.
I had a cold 4 days out of the 5 that I was in Con Con.
I wrote a Constitution for Con Con all by myself,based of the Origanal US Constitution, and everyone said it was awesome, but when it came time to vote Only 7 people besides me voted for it. Why? Because they wanted something new- completly new. Or because it wasn't "drastic enough" to quote one person.
After that I decided it would be better to merge with another Constitution that was similar to mine so it would get voted for rather than a 3rd more popular (and in my opinion, insane) Constitution. Because of my added support and the 7 people who voted for my constitution's support the other Constitution won.Then the main writers of this other Constitution decided that the best way to "merge" our Consitutions was not the combined Constitution I wrote as soon as we were considered one party, but to tack on the two most important sentence long changes out of my 13 page document as 'proposed amendments' to their Constitution
But as soon as our Constitution got the higher vote the supporters of the third Constitution, that I thought was crazy, began complaining about technical stuff and meanwhile were gathering followers out of our supporters. Having schmoozed at least ten of our party to thier side- including one of the people in my carpool! they demanded a revote and now they carried the vote.
So all the Constitutions I was for got dumped.
Did all this hurt?
Yes.
But I'm still glad I went to Con Con.
Because that is what Con Con is about. Learning what it is REALLY like to write a Constitution and make a Government.
It just happens that sometimes bruises get formed down that path.

And by the way, I probably was a bit biased in my discriptions here. To be fair- The "crazy" Constitution really only had about three things wrong with it. It's only that they were important things in my sight that caused me to call it crazy. Those three things being: a bill of rights, a Judicial branch of Government, and that they made it too easy way for a state to abandon the rest of the Country. And we were able to get them to comprimise somewhat on the Judicial and the Bill of Rights before the end.
Also, another probable reason why their Constitution ended up the official government was because they had a large group to begin with who wrote it together, of whom at least one was a great lobbiest. The other Constitution that I merged mine with later also had a group who wrote theirs together, but they didn't have much lobbying going on. And I did absolutley No lobbying because I was too tired and sick to get up and talk to people. I just gave copies of my document to anyone who asked for it.


And in case you are wondering- after such a tough time this year will I go back?

Yes. I am going to Con Con next year too. And I am FREAKIN' EXCITED.

Oh and by the way, I didn't complain at all while at Con Con. Which is why I had to let it out here. Thanks for being patient. =/

Con Con and Girl's camp

So here I am on the eve of Con Con, so excited I can't get to sleep even though I know I need to. And Guess what? Not only is this week Con Con but next week is Girl's Camp!

I am going to be SOOO tired about this time two weeks from now.

I'm going to be a junior camp leader at this year's girl's camp, along with my friends Makayla and Kaydee. We had a lot of fun shopping for the Girl's Camp store yesterday. Here are just a few of the funny pictures.

Con Con!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Ok, now I've got that out...

CON CON is COMING!
For the non-homeschooled that means, I am going to be having an extremely educational and FUN time learning about how to make a Government from scratch!

This may not sound fun to you, but it sure as HECK sounds fun to me. I did it last year, and it made me feel like I actually had a purpose- Something to work toward. It also really helped me in the Self Esteem department, because I felt really and truelly needed.

But let me explain a bit more what Con Con is....

Con Con stands for Constitutional Convention Simulation. It is a week of being a delegate on behalf of the people in some future time (This year it's 2035) and the simulational circumstances are that we need a new government. Last year it was because there was a terrible president who made it Martial Law, and there was a huge sickness that wiped out a third of the world population, so the Western states made a new country. This year we've been through World War 3 and now there are no separate countries and the borders are gone. The Eastern States must have been wiped out because only the western half of the continent are meeting for this convention. We have been seperated into 7 different territories.

And Oh my goodness I am excited. =D


I didn't realize that it's next week until yesterday, but now I'm getting totally siked out!
EEK!

Oh yeah. Con Con, watch out, here I come!

Fun with the Nephews!

Ok so we had the boys here yesterday. While they were here we happened to receive a box in the mail. After emptying it out, I, being the silly Aunt that I am, put the box on like a hat.


Of course Tyler thought that was super funny, and wanted to try it on.
His head being so much smaller than mine it came right down over his eyes. This gave me an Idea….
“Do you want to make that into a Darth Vader Mask Tyler?” I asked.
“Yes!” He replied (of course). So I cut and drew the box into Darth Vaderness.

But then – Ethan needed one! He just didn’t look right next to his brother!

So…
I found another small box downstairs, Cut out bits, drew on it, added ears on top and

VOILA!

It’s Bat Man!




Then of course they needed costumes. We went poking around downstairs and found Tyler a prefect Jedi robe and Ethan an Indian vest. (Silly us we have no Batman Costumes =P).



Then it was a battle between Batman Indian and Darth Vader Jedi to keep each other in jail! (Really, Eathan WANTED to be inside the sand turtle and then Tyler wanted to too, but it sounds cooler to say it was a battle =D )


Even I got to wear a mask with MY costume! (Tyler let me borrow his for a minute.)
I wore a silly green and blue apron for my costume. Apparently I was a house wife because the boys kept saying that they caught me while I was doing dishes. Lol.

I was supposed to be cleaning. But those boys are so distracting! I now have much greater respect for what my sister goes through daily. =)

My Siblings

I thought I'd just let everyone know, I love my brothers so much that I can only compare it to fiction. Like:
Darcy and Georgianna (Pride and Prejudice)
Marguirite and Armand (The Scarlet Pimpernel)
Viola and Sebastian (Twelfth Night)
As for my sister there aren't any books that describes such an awesome sister-sister relationship. =) The closest I can think of is me as Elisabeth and Gwenda as Jane from P&P.


The only thing about comparing my siblings to characters out of books is that it isn't nearly as complimentary as I mean it to be because THEY haven't read the books in question. =P

Driving

Ok, so I was driving in Salt Lake today, and I have decided that I HATE driving in Salt Lake.
TOO MANY CARS.

Anyway. Now I got that vented, I'm happy. =)

The Awesomest Songs

In case you didn't know yet, I am a Random person. I will start talking about something completely out of the blue because that's what I was thinking about.
So right now it is my favorite songs from different genres.

In the Jazzy kind of music genre it's
Sway- by Micheal Buble or Dean Martin (they're both awesome versions.)
What Ever Lola Wants- Sarah Vaughan
Mambo Italiano- Dean Martin
Feeling Good- Micheal Buble

In the Country Music genre it's
You belong with Me- Taylor Swift
Breathe- Taylor Swift
Gunpowder and Lead- Miranda Lambert
What Hurts the Most- Rascal Flatts

In the Pop genre it's
Split Personality- Pink
Breakaway- Kelly Clarkson
Crush- David Archuleta
Like Whoa- Aly and Aj


And that's all for now folks!

The beginning

I am starting a blog. How strange. =) I don't know how many pictures will be on here- I'm not so much of a picture person as my sister Gwen. But than again, I may put on a few random ones that I like. So we'll just see depending on my mood. =D So now you know what to expect, you may know whether to ever visit this blog again. Hee hee!