Happy birthday to me, I'm 23!

The dreaded day came and went, I'm a year older and wiser (HA!)

Here's my beautimus cake in all it's candled glory. Ice cream cake from Dairy Queen decorated by Rachel

you know you're old when your cake lights up a whole room


Notice anything different? I lightened my hair and CUT it!!


HAHAHAH!!! Gotcha! I just lightened it actually. I swore I would never cut it short again. I hate it short. So all you get is the color and the new sweep. I had it pulled behind my sholders so it wouldn't catch fire. I used a lot of hair spray that day, and wasn't taking any chances.



One of my many gifts, "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer. I borrowed Shell's (Wright)book a while ago(years maybe?) because she said it was good. I absolutely LOVED it! More than twilight even. Rachel was a peach and got this for me. I love it! I stayed up all night the day after my birthday and read it. Going one night without sleep so you can read a book like this cover to cover is SO worth it!


Michelle & Lema's gift packaged perfectly as usual. They got me an iPOD radio transmitter so I can listen to my ipod in the car without any chords. I use it almost everyday! You should all get one.


Randy Taught Miles how to stick his tongue out at people. He's doing it back at Randy in this picture. Such a funny kid!


RAchel had some leftover frosting from the cake and decided to frost herself in some henna type of thing. I know right? She's crazy.




You know it's summer when Ace plays with the hose and gets soaked.


For conference the whole family gets together and has lunch between sessions. This is our bountiful feast of sandwich meat, cheese, veggies and fruit. YUMMY! Just a pain to prepare is all. Lots of chopping!

Pain is Good...I think.

Thursday Night Volleyball. A way to keep in shape, socialize with friends, increase sporting ability, make yourself look like a fool in front of pro Samoans, and realize how much you're out of shape.

I used to go to our stakes' volleyball night religiously (ha), and then I quit for a couple months with life being too busy. We started it up again this past month and tonight was the first night the Samoans returned.

Oy.

Don't get me wrong, I love playing against these guys. After all I'm related to one now, thus making me related to every Samoan in Utah. They're amazingly fast, powerful and just plain volleyball superheroes. I love the rush when I save one of their spikes, or get one of their jump serves (which includes watching my life flash before my eyes before impact). You can't imagine the rush of blocking a hit up close by the net in which I decide in a split second if I value my vision and/or face more than the victory of blocking a 100/mph hit from a guy who can jump 5 ft in the air without trying.

Playing against these pro's only improves me each time and I wouldn't have it any other way. Not to be humble, but I'm quite the decent volleyball player after having years of coaching from a vollyball superstar sister, so it's not like I'm some novice playing against pros. I know what I'm doing, but these guys are just SO GOOD.

I swear they have iron arms with supersonic fast reflexes, and endless muscle power. (Vampires perhaps? Nah, just reading too much twilight I think)

The result in my relentless blocking of hits and serves after not playing for two weeks, is the picture below.

No, I don't have fat forearms with patches of fat here and there, They are swollen, have blood spots under the skin as well as a bunch of small bruises and one big one. I think when the Samoans get going, I get going and we push eachother to the point of exhaustion. (Or maybe it's just me, and I'm kidding myself)

I have to admit though, I over did it tonight. I'm now nursing my ever bad left knee (which I won't be able to walk on tomorrow or the next day), arms so tender and swollen I can't wear a long sleeve shirt because touching them hurts so bad, a large headache from overexertion, one blister on my foot, and calves and thighs so sore I can't exactly walk upstairs or downstairs. Just straight forward (I like to dive for stray hits, what can I say?)

After taking two very large Extra strength Tylenol, and Icing my knee, I'm off to bed to dream about a sport I have a love/hate relationship with. Over time my arms will toughen up again and I'll be used to the 2hr game of death minus headache and killer knee.

So this is a good thing. I have to get right back on the horse and keep going.

Can someone bring me a ladder though? My leg won't lift that high on it's own right now.

Welcome my friend fall!

Last week I helped my sister set up her Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations. I can't wait to do ours now! Our family gets a little gung ho with Christmas decorations sometimes. either that or we don't even get a tree until Christmas Eve. That's happened at least 4 times in my life. Not this year! We have a fake Christmas tree so I can set it up whenever I want! Of course we'll stick up thanksgiving stuff as well.

I thought this was a cool idea for fall. Not sure where you could get the wheat though. Michaels perhaps?


Rachel found this creature online a while ago. I laugh every time I see it in my pictures folder. Id ecided to show it to you all. Tell me that doesn't make you laugh?


Here's a little thanksgiving treat idea. Get any kind of choocolate covered cookie, melt some chocolate or frosting and use a dollop to stick a marshmallow to it. Then cover the marshmallow with the frosting/chocolate and you've got a pilgrim hat! I need to find an idea for a pilgrim bonnet as well. I'll let you know!


Oh quick note, Shannon, if you still read my blog, you need to put comments on yours! I want to comment on all your cute Ideas and recipes but I can't! So fix it! (please :) )

So, I joined the Cyprus pit orchestra last week. They're doing Oklahoma and are in desperate need of strings so I joined. It's fun to watch these little (I mean LITTLE) kids doing a play. Pit always give you an interesting perspective. plus, because I'm Alumni I can come and go as I please and not have to be to every rehearsal. So nice. Matt Pugsley & Tim Platt are back doing it as well. Fun reconnecting with old high school buddies. The choreography is very well done and the actors are great. You should all come see it!

So I just got the twilight soundtrack and the new David archuleta album. Twilight, I love the linkin park song, but the others not so much. Most of the david songs are good and his voice is just perfect. I recommend it highly. I can't wait for the twilight movie to come out! I'm going to the midnight showing with Rachel and her friend is getting us in free because she works there. Stoked!

Well, I'm off to help my sister get her house cleaned a bit before her husband gets home from Samoa today and then I've got a lot of music to practice. Choir, Symphony and Pit stuff. Fun fun!

Bec

Chick Flick Book Style

Thursday I finally got my confirmation email letting me know "Twilight" was waiting for me on my friend the "hold shelf" at the library. I've heard rave reviews for this book from zillions of girls (in order of who's opinion I trust most book-wise) like Shell (Buckner), my Aunt, my grandma, my great aunt and numerous people of the younger generation. Not to mention Rave online reviews and New York times best seller.

Being so busy all week, I didn't have a chance to sit down and engross myself in this unknown wonder until after church today at 4pm. I just finished it an hour ago. Don't let that fool you into thinking I loved it as much as Harry Potter though. The HP series were the only other books I've ever read in a one day sitting because of my engrossment. I did enjoy twilight, but I have some rants to get of my chest as it was a far cry from perfect in my humble readers' opinion.

First off I hate that the authour would talk as Belle in first person. Reading "I" this and "I" that made me feel like I was reading a someone's journal, not a novel. Second, ok, ok, we get the point our main character LOVES Edward, and LOVES being kissed and embraced by his stone cold marble body, and that her heart pounds and thumps like crazy and the occasional dizziness when in his embrace. We got it after the Millionth KaZillionth time we read it, now move on with the plot!! One last thing that irked me was that our main character Belle, is what, 16? 17? And she's in love like they're getting hitched? I've never heard a teenager's ramnce be THAT serious and mature. Nope, not in this life would that be happening in high school. I think the author should have made them college age to be so serious. Other than that, I have no complaints. Great characters, great story, entertaining and intriguing. I've even ordered the next one (New Moon is it?) to continue on with the series.

I hear they're even making a movie out of this? I'm interested to see who they get to play two sixteen year olds and pull off a convincing deep love story. we'll see.

For a change of subject, my LITTLE sister is graduating on Thursday. Can you believe it? And I thought having friends get married and have kids made me feel old! This is the cherry on top. I remember my mom and dad bringing her home from the hospital, and now she'll be gettin' her groove on the pomp and circumstance dance of the grad. Odd feeling it is. Kind of like she "caught up" with me in age and will be a young single adult too. Too weird.

On a happy note, I actually prepared my primary lesson yesterday. And whaddyaknow, my lession went well and I think the 11 & 12 year old oddballs actually learned something in my class. It's so true what everyone says about the teacher learning more than the student. It was the story of Ammon, King Lamoni, King Lamoni's Father, and Aaron at the land of Middoni. I never knew all the details of the story before and never remembered names. It'slike it's stone ground into my memory now. Stick figures on a chalkboard really help the kids. Visuals stick more than words I think. Who knew I would actually enjoy being a primary teacher? Now if I could just remember all the words to the primary songs so I don't look like an idiot when everyone else is singing....