A Picture At A Time

I MADE IT A YEAR!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe I am writing my year marker blog post but I can't tell you how good it feels to have made it and be on time with all of my posts! It's so fulfilling to have set such a long term goal and to have actually been successful. It's weird to think about where I was a year ago and what I have done since then. I know that being young means that things come fast but man, things really do change faster than you can imagine. In the last year, from what I can remember right now, I have been to Russia, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Germany, have successfully gotten home before Christmas when there was absolutely no hope of getting out of the wrong continent, have become a med aide and made it out alive, learned many valuable skills for the medical field including types of medications and first aid, finished another semester at BYUI and loved every minute as I am now in my major classes, have decided to become a Physician's Assistant, and have raised my academic scholarship from a quarter tuition to a half with a 3.72 GPA. That's pretty exciting when you list it out. I am so happy with my life and am so excited to see the things that will come my way in the future. As for the future of this blog, I have decided to print this as a book for myself so I can see it in the future and take a break from the picture every day. I am thinking of starting up again at the new year because it is an excellent way to journal without actually having to write everything down. But don't worry (especially you Mom) I will continue to post periodically on my other blog http://seesmarie26.blogspot.com/. Thank you so much to everyone who has been a faithful reader because although I feel I am incredibly boring, it is nice to know that other people still find me interesting enough to read what I am up to. Farewell... but only for now!

Today was the day for "packing" all of Kaylynn's things in her room (we really just super deep cleaned her room but she liked calling it packing over cleaning because it was a more upbeat term). We spent most of the day doing this because Kaylynn is a little bit of a hoarder. Well, we managed to get everything cleaned and packed neatly in her closet but there had to be a little bit of excitement, right? Kaylynn found a piece of pottery that she absolutely hated (it was pretty weird) and told us that the sound of pottery dropping is a really cool sound so we had to experience it ourselves. The girls managed to climb out Danielle's window and threw it on the cement below and although she was a little disappointed with it, I have to give it to her that it is kind of cool.

Another good reason for coming home? Fresh cooked goods!! My mom went on a little bit of a baking spree on Sunday and made everyone zucchini muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. How delicious! Although I generally over-eat baked goods like these, I won't likely get them up at college so I am going to enjoy them as long as I can!

Okay first off, I know I look like an idiot in this picture but Dad didn't want to take a picture so I had to work with what I had. Anyways, so Saturday night I had a date with my dad to go see the fourth Pirates movie at the $3 theater in Vancouver. I just love nights out with my dad because they are so chill but always great fun enjoying a passion that we both possess - movies. I have been going on dates with him since I was at least 15 and I always look forward to them when I come home. So we had a lot of fun watching the movie especially considering we actually liked the movie. The second and third movies, in my opinion, were too confusing and dramatic so it was really nice that they kind of just started fresh with the fourth but left Jack Sparrow in it. Great night :)

The girls and I didn't want to just sit around at home on a Friday night so we decided to go to the $3 movie theater and see Super 8. It was a pretty good movie and we loved watching Danielle jump at the intense parts but another funny thing was the roller coaster they play before the credits at Regal Cinema. Anyone that has been there knows what one I am talking about - the one that takes you on a ride through the candy and popcorn. We were sitting on the back row and the girls immediately put their arms up and started going along with the ride. Once it was done, Danielle admitted that one day she will have the courage to do that in the middle of the theater. She's such a funny girl!

After doing some cleaning at home, the girls and I headed out to do some school shopping because we are quickly running out of time before September. After hitting up Target and Walmart, we went to the mall and just looked around at everything. The funniest thing we came across was this flask in Icings. Why this makes us laugh you might ask? Danielle once said, "All you need to be a pop star is beer and a gallon of glitter!" This canteen combines both worlds into one and we can only imagine how happy Ke$ha would be to get this for Christmas!

Shelby is a good friend of mine and we both decided that we haven't seen enough of each other while on the break and that we needed to do something to fix that. Also, I have never been to the tourist attraction VooDoo doughnuts in Portland and decided that that was one of my goals for the seven week break to make it there. Killing two birds with one stone, I took Shelby on her first ever outing in Portland and we got some VooDoo. It wasn't really anything special but it is fun to say you have been there. Our next venture is taking public transportation down to Portland and doing something else fun!