this is my life

so, i'm speaking in church this sunday.
if you don't come, i'll make you cookies.

also, i was just informed by the piece of paper hanging on grandma and grandpa's fridge, that i'm having an open house on the 27th.

i don't know how i feel about this, for a number of reasons.

1. i'm not a fan of large social gatherings in my honor.
2. i'm not a fan of large social gatherings.
3. it's my last sunday here, and i'd like to spend it with people i really like, doing whatever i darn well please--not being a good hostess.
4. i was informed that this was all happening by a piece of paper that is hanging on the fridge, that turned out to be an email that my mom sent to everyone, so i'm literally the last one to know.
5. i really should get over my hatred of lists with only four things, because i seem to make them more than any other length of list.

besides that...

i participated in my first ever tim tam slam tonight. it was fun. tim tams are delicious, but i'm not really a fan of things that i need to eat fast, so i'm not sure if i'd have my own tim tam slam. i think i'd still go to them, but it's nothing i'd ever initiate.

season five of the office is amazing.

boys are frustrating.

i helped vanessa paint her room. the primer has still not come off of me. favorite david said it's because a wizard sneezed in the primer, so now it's magical.

lissa has changed her favorite color to black, but i'm pretty sure that either cameron or i had dibs on that many years ago.

i have mosquito bites everywhere, and i got them all on one night, when i was talking to daniel, except for 2 of them. the funniest thing is that the 2 i didn't get while i was talking to him, have matches on him: i have one on my left knee, and so does he; i have one on my right hand, and he has one in almost the exact same spot. that's why we're best friends. : )

i'm leaving in two weeks.

crap.

totes crap.

Dear Daniel

296.

Love,
Brigette

just wondering... (pg-13)

If we started calling someone who was being a poop face a “mute donkey” instead of a “dumb ass,” how would people react?

I predict anarchy.

welcome to my brain.

Lighting design in theatre is an amazing thing. The lights can convey as much information and add as much to a play as music can, if done correctly. Different lighting effects can be used to establish the setting, emotion and main points of a scene. They can add humor or point things out to the audience that the average person might not notice without the help of a lighting designer highlighting it.
One of a lighting designer’s jobs is to do just that: highlight. Light is something that people naturally look toward, so by lighting something insignificant, the lighting designer might be able to trick the audience into believing that it is something important (which, admittedly, would be really funny).
Sorry, let’s refocus.
People look to light. When you’re in a house, and only one light is on, that is where you will probably go. We all mock the little bugs that all just go toward the light, even though their lives may be at stake, but, honestly, who hasn’t tried to “get a seven on the sun stare?” We are drawn toward light.
Let’s go metaphoric now.
Why do so many people wander in darkness, when light is what we so clearly desire? Some of them are in darkness because fate dealt them a lousy hand this time around, but some of them are there because they chose to be.
The way I see it, there is little we can do to actually help those who choose to be in darkness. When you’re in a dark room and someone turns on a light, you are probably not very happy with that person. If someone is in darkness in his or her life, and someone tries to force light onto them, there is going to be some bad stuff happening, maybe a shoe-throwing fight or something, I don’t know. Consider, however, just letting your light be it’s natural brightness. You aren’t forcing anyone to stare at it, but they will end up being drawn to it eventually. And if they lose you, they will remember that light, and how much easier it made their lives, and they will eventually seek to find their way out of the darkness. Forcing anything onto anyone will only result in calamity, but by merely being who you are—or better yet: who you hope to become—you will be infinitely helpful in their lives and you can know that you helped them find their own light.
Now, the people who are in darkness just because they know nothing else, that’s a whole different problem. Their eyes have gotten used to the darkness, because there is simply no light around them. They do not know what they’re missing, because they’ve never seen anything besides darkness. Again, we cannot just show up in their lives and force light on them. Their eyes that are so accustomed to the dark will not respond kindly to that. All we can do is hope that a little glimmer of the light that we have will be bright enough that when we pass by them from a distance, they will notice that something is different. We just have to hope that they recognize that they want to reach that light and happiness, and then do everything in their power to reach for it until someone who has it is able to help them establish their own light so that it will be able to grow and light their way and the paths of others’.



I don’t know where exactly this came from. My brain was just thinking about stage lighting and how cool it is that most people look exactly where they're supposed to be looking based on what part of the stage is the most lit. Then this happened. I don’t know if it is coherent, and I haven’t proofread it at all, but I think I need to go to bed, since Ryan is going to be awake soon and he’s going to pester me about being up too late.
Maybe I’ll edit it later. Maybe not. Probably not. We’ll see though. Goodnight!

it's a secret code. :-D

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Help, Please?

I'm looking for a few ice-cream machines to use for a FHE activity. I'm not sure I'm going to do it, but I'm thinking about having the members of my ward who actually come to FHE break into a few groups and make whatever kinds of ice cream they want (that I have the stuff for), and they'll just be playing games and socializing while it's becoming ice cream, then while they're eating it.

The activity (if I do actually decide this is what I want to do) will be August 10th, so I'd probably want to gather the machines on Saturday the 8th, and I'd bring them back the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

Let me know what you think of the activity itself, and if you have a machine I can steal for a few days.

Please and Thank you!

Wonder of Wonders!

I was “doot-de-doo”-ing a song from a musical last night, and nobody could figure out what it was. Darci, Brandon and Mom all started doot-de-doo-ing it too, and Mom even figured out that the last word in the phrases was “America,” but she couldn’t figure out the rest of the words, and still had no idea what song it was, let alone what musical it came from.

They kept working on this song, while I moved on to like three others. They worked tirelessly, and still couldn’t figure out what show it was. Now, all of them claim to be well-acquainted with theatre, and this is a really old, well-known show, so it was amusing me just to watch them squirm in their ignorance.

Then, something miraculous happened. Dad said, “Guys, isn’t it from West Side Story?”

OH MY GOODNESS!!

My father hates basically everything about musical theatre; he has absolutely NO interest in watching, listening to, or hearing about anything that even remotely relates to the stage. This made his correct diagnosis of the song that the rest of the family had been stuck on for so long all the sweeter.

Darci and Brandon, naturally, started making excuses to attempt to explain why they didn’t know it, but everything they said (things like “I’ve never seen that show,” and “I’ve only seen the movie”), I came back at with the same things. Except that I’ve never even seen the movie. I’ve tried watching it several times, but I never get very far before I leave the room. Also, Darci had just watched Web Site Story, so she really, really had no excuse.

Dad surprised everyone with his superior knowledge of theatre, and I completely stumped Mom, Darci and Brandon.

It was a wonderful day.

Not Okay

Maybe I am really, really prideful, but I think that I am a fairly forgiving person. I know that people are stupid, so I just take it as me getting points for being right when they do stupid things and prove me right then forgive them for being stupid. I don’t really react to, or care much about anything I hear on the news because I know that people are stupid, so I just hear it and say, “Yep, there goes another stupid one,” and move on with my life.

The other day, however, I was washing off my dinner dishes while Grandma was watching the news, and heard about the little girl who had been sexually assaulted by four boys. For some reason, it surprises me more when I hear about kids doing stupid things. I guess I have just decided that adults are stupider than kids, but whatever my reasoning was, I stopped my washing to listen.

I was shocked and upset about hearing that four boys ranging in age from nine to fourteen had lured a little girl into a shed with gum and then sexually assaulted her.

I had mixed feelings about the oldest boy being tried as an adult. Yes, he should have known better, but he’s still not an adult.

I then heard that the girl was in the care of CPS (or something like it), and was really confused. That poor little girl had been through more than I can imagine and she should be able to go home with her parents and be surrounded by familiar, happy things.

But then I heard why she wasn’t going home with Mom and Dad. They disowned her. They said that she brought shame to the family—that she had victimized herself and it was her fault.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I understand that the family is from a different culture, but that is stills so not ok with me, that I honestly am shaking thinking about it, and it’s been a whole 36 hours since I heard about it.
1. Who tells a girl who was raped that it was her fault? Seriously?!
2. How on earth can an eight year-old girl be held responsible for that?! Is she supposed to suspect that every time a boy (even one who is her age) offers her anything, she should think that he’s trying to sexually assault her? I don’t think I even knew what that was when I was eight, and if I did, I certainly didn’t think that some kids I knew from school would do that to me.

I think of all my kids. I know that they aren’t technically mine at all, but I picture my little Yareli, Alicia or Angela, and if I knew that their parents had shunned them for something like that, I would have a cow. (Obviously, since I’m kinda having a cow right now, and I don’t even know the girl.) I would go straight to the office and talk to my principal. I don’t think I’d leave until I knew that CPS was coming and getting my little girl so that she didn’t have to go home to parents who would say something like that to her.

And let’s not even start on how I’d feel if something like this happened to my sister. Oh dear.

I am sure that the parents aren’t trying to make this girl’s life even harder, but I just can’t see how they think they’re helping anyone, whether it’s the girl, or themselves.

I just had a thought. Everything I’ve read has talked about the dad, and how he has said that they didn’t want her back. I wonder how Mom feels—if she agrees with what he’s doing, or if it’s just that her culture forces her to follow her husband.

Aaaaaaannd now I’m going to go on a feminist rant, so I’ll stop now.

I guess this just goes to show you that even Brigette occasionally has opinions.

How odd.

Web Site Story

totes brills.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

also: sesame street. yes.

totes.

it may be late, but here it is

I know it's kinda, super late, but I feel that the world should know what my family did for the fourth of July.

The plan, originally, was that Dad and Alex would do nothing, and Mom and Lissa would go down to Rockin' R and just watch the fireworks, but, having worked at Rockin' R for longer than the average bear, I know how annoying the people who do that are, so I convinced everyone that we should all go somewhere together.

Dad suggested going to the casino because apparently they always have a good fireworks show, so we started driving out there at like 8: 45ish.

When we got to the casino, there was tons of parking still available. Alex and Lissa saw this as a good thing: we would be able to be closer to the fireworks, but Mom, Dad and I all knew what this really meant: there weren't any fireworks to be seen here.

So we started driving west. A few minutes into this new drive, we started seeing fireworks afar off. I figured that they were the ones at Tempe Town Lake. Then, a little to the north of those, we saw more. Then there some almost directly north of where we were. I turned around and saw some to our southeast, which I assumed were in Queen Creek. Then there appeared yet another display, this one seeming very close, and directly south of us. This is the one Dad chose to stop and watch.

We drove for just a few more minutes and at about 9:10, found a street where other cars had just pulled to the side of the road and parked, and we decided that we would happily follow in their footsteps... or tire tracks, as the case may be. So we pulled over, and Dad, Alex and Mom pulled out some lawn chairs and sat in a little dirt area off the road, while Lissa and I sat on top of Dad's truck.

We were only there for a few minutes before the show ended, but the adventure getting there was probably more fun than we would have had if we had just been successful in our first attempt to find a show to watch.

After that ended, we got out of the neighborhood where we had parked, and realized that none of us really knew how many times the road we were on had turned, because we ended up going a completely different direction than any of us had anticipated, but it all worked out, and we got to sonic and got our food, then took me home. I don't know what the rest of the family did for the rest of the night, but I finished of my holiday by watching a movie with a friend.

It was a lovely day, with some accidental adventures, but, really, aren't those the best kind?

Totes.


oh, one more thing: go see Sweeney Todd at MCC.
Tickets are $12, or $8 for students.
The only shows left are July 16-18, at 7:30

i dance ... and don't close the blinds...

two posts in one day? i know, i'm going nuts, but while i was writing the last one, i realized that i have been neglecting my responsibilities.
what responsibilities?
to share my opinion, of course!!
now, those of you who know me, know that i really don't have opinions on very many things. so, what am i going to talk to you about?

dance!!

i'm going to post my favorite performances from So You Think You Can Dance every week (just from the performance show, i'm not going to annoy you with the group dances or with people dancing for their lives, unless it's ridonkulously good.

here's my favorite from the first night of couples competition (20 dancers)

first of all: props to caitlin for that sick handstand at the beginning. second, this dance is incredibly intricate. every hand movement means something, and if you mess it up, it could possibly mean something very different. and just look at all the energy they had. i almost didn't pick this as my favorite (because there really basically was a 4-way tie), but i think that the amazing control they had while still having so much energy is enough to get them on top of my little list.

here are the other three that i really, really liked
olutely love this style. i love these choreographers. i wish that the hip hop routines i've done were anywhere near this cool. i love the emotion that they show. i don't think they performed quite as well as chelsie and mark did their lyrical hip hop last season, but when you consider that this was the very first routine of the very first show of the season, what they did was absolutely amazing.


the lifts make this one. yes, the dance quality itself is really, really good, but the lifts are absolutely amazing. the lines that they create are gorgeous.


for this one, there's some fast forwarding, but all the shorter videos didn't look very good. sorry.

this one is all about the chemistry. watching this, i would never suspect that she is married, or that these two hadn't met before just a few weeks ago (if it was even that long), and i would never,ever think that this was the first time they had danced together. it was super good.

this is going to be a fantastic season and i am so excited to keep watching.

I didn't Need the Pain

It was my freshman year at ASU. I was in my very first English class of many, many English classes in college. Unfortunately, it was ENG 101: dumb people English. So I found the one person in that class that I trusted to edit my papers, and everyone knew that Gabe and I would edit any of their papers, and that we would let them edit our stuff, but that there probably wasn't much that they were going to be able to fix. (Yes, that sounds really snobby, but I was forced into the realization that I am an elitist, so I am now forcing everyone else to realize it too.)

One day, I was listening to Gabe discuss with our teacher (who actually wasn't a moron, thank Buddah) the idea of the memory of pain. He argued that there is no such thing as a memory of pain, only pain itself. He claimed that by remembering pain, you recreate the pain. Logic follows that if you are recreating the pain, it is no longer a memory, but something that is actually happening to you.

Apparently this idea has really stuck with me over the years, becuase it was the first thing I thought of when a friend of mine suggested a related, but opposing idea: we don't remember the pain we felt, but we remember being in pain. To relate an example: someone doesn't remember what it felt like when she burned her hand on the top coils of a heated oven, but she remembers that it hurt a lot.

Now, I don't know that I agree 100% with either of these ideas, I'm just throwing them out there to anyone who wants to ponder something that is probably fairly pointless, but interesting nonetheless.

I think that I favor the first idea more than the second. As I think about my friend burning her hand, my own hand is starting to shake and I can imaging the pain she must have felt, and that wasn't even my memory. More personally, as I think about slicing my finger open with a gobo, I can feel exactly where the scar on my little pinki finger is, without needing to look at it or feel it with my other hand.

Maybe the second idea is more appliciable to emotional pain, since that is what this friend and I were actually talking about. I, however, can't think of an emotional pain strong enough to be worth remembering that didn't also have physical manifestations, so I can't test this theory.

I don't know. This is just me sharing random thoughts with the world.

And, because I'm in a huge dance mood, I will leave you with the video that introduced me to the song that inspired my title for this post, which also happens to be my favorite dance from SYTYCD last season. : )


Totes.

like a hand-print on my heart...

Here's the thoughtful post I've been promising you. I posted it on facebook a few days ago, so sorry if you've already read it, but I can only have so many thoughts in one week... : )




Warning: this is a little sappy... but it's late, and I've been thinking about this for a long time. Also, I'm in a "Pam at the end of season 3" mode right now, where I basically just tell everyone what I'm thinking, and how I feel about them... so, yeah. You've officially been warned.


I've been facebook stalking people a lot lately, with all teh extra time I have, it just comes naturally. As I was staling a girl I went to high school with, I saw that basically all of her friends are friends we had in high school.

Later I was stalking a girl I went to junior high with. Now, she went to a different high school than I did, so she has a lot of friends who I don't know, but I can identify almost everyone in the vast majority of her pictures as the girls she hung out with when we were in orchestra together in junior high.

After considering the amazing relationships that these girls must have with these other people who they've known and been friends with for so long, I got a little bit sad.

Yes, I have facebook friends from high school; I even have a few from junior high. However, do I ever talk to them? I have one friend who I know I could talk to whenever I want, whose house I will always be welcome to come to and just hang out, even if said friend is not home, who I have known for as long as I can remember—literally: her mom babysat my sister and me when my mom couldn't get home from work in time to pick us up from the bus stop.

I have another friend whom I love to pieces who has been my best friend since seventh grade. We became best friends because we were the fat Mormon girls in the click that we were in, and ever since then we've basically shared a brain. I consider her to be my family more than anyone else I've ever known (who wasn't actually family, and even more than some who are family).

Then I have another friend who I met in high school who I share more interests with than anyone (except the aforementioned 7th grade best-friend). She keeps me updated on everything that happens in the theatre world, and lets me live vicariously through her as she performs in show after show. I enjoy few things more than getting to work backstage on a show that she's in the cast of, and I love our weekly trips to get dessert and just be happy, intelligent, theatre-nerd friends.

And that's about it. Those are my three friends who I have known the longest. I wonder how different my life would be if I had kept the same friends my entire life. How different of a person would I be? I can't speak for these girls who have had the same friends since junior high, or even high school, but I'm pretty positive that, for me, that would not have been a good thing.

My entire life I've kind of thrown pity parties for myself about how people always leave me. In elementary school I had a different "best friend" every year. In junior high my little click of best friends got torn apart first by one of the people being a stupidface, then by going to different high schools. Then my senior year my best friend moved a billion miles away and just a few months after that I lost another incredibly close friend to an even farther away destination. Then my sister left for her mission and never really came back to be my sister; she just got married right away. And I could keep going and get much more detailed, but I’m not going to.

I know that I would not be the same person that I am today if I hadn't had so many wonderful and different friends throughout my life. I won't lie: I still have an incredibly hard time saying goodbye to people, but I know that the things I have learned about people, the church, and life in general, I would not have been able to learn had I always been surrounded by the same friends.

I am thankful that I have the relationships that I have with my friends. I am also thankful for the relationships I’ve had and lost, because I am so much stronger because of them.

Totes.

HAIR!!

First of all, I don’t know what happened to my picture; it disappeared without my permission. It can also be said that it went AWOL.

That was me showing how smart and well-rounded I am: I even know military lingo… jk. : )

So, the Tony Awards were tonight. They were probably the best Tonys I’ve ever watched, and I’m very opinionated about theatre stuff, AND I’ve watched more than your average 22 year-old, so that's saying something. Also, I’m glad West Side Story didn’t win best revival of a musical, but that Karen Olivo won for best featured actress in a musical. She’s amazing. I’m very upset that Sutton Foster didn’t sing when the cast of Shrek performed, because I love her. I wished that the clips of the plays that they showed had been longer, and I saw snippets of some plays and some musicals that I would like to see.

I’ve decided that there’s something truly magical about theatre, even when it’s on tv, and it’s just a song or two. I have NEVER watched an awards show where the audience is just so happy and truly entertained as they are every year at the Tonys. Yeah, there are really good musicians at the other ceremonies, but there’s not the whole package of singing, lights, sets, costumes and a story that comes with the song, and that’s just one song. Imagine an entire musical that has somewhere between 10 and 20 songs. And I don’t mean to take away from plays at all either. It’s true, I have a very heavy bias for musicals, but plays are also amazing. There’s just something about amazingly talented actors combing their talents with the lighting designers, sound designers, set designers, costume designers, lyricists, composers, writers, choreographers, directors and musicians that is breathtaking.

I often wonder if “normal” people know just how much goes in to producing a play or musical.

You should look into it. I’m fairly involved in the world of theatre, and I am still frequently shocked at how much goes on that I completely miss.

Also, I just looked up the touring cast of Legally Blonde; there are TONS of amazing names in that cast. If you get a chance, you should see it and get the following autographs for me:

• Christian Borle
• Nicolette Hart
• Manuel Herrera
• Kate Rockwell
• Dani Spieler
• and Ashley says that Courtney Wolfson is in it too, and I thought I remembered her being in it, but she wasn't on the list on the site, so, if she's in it, get her autograph for me too.

k thanks!

PS. This was intended to be an insightful blog with just a little one-paragraph update bout how happy I was with the Tonys... This is what happens when Brigette starts talking about theatre. Sorry, I'll post a thoughtful blog later. : )

Coincidence? I think not.

Let me tell you about what happened to me last week.
I would consider it a tender mercy; you can think whatever you want.

Last Tuesday I went to wal-mart to print pictures of my kids to give them on the last day of school, and to buy a box for Jenn's present, blush, and deodorant.

When I got home, I realized that the crazy check-out lady had put my four measly little items in 2 bags, but I only had one of them.

Which two items were missing?

Blush.
Deodorant.

I wasn't too concerned about the blush, I had only bought it because the pink I have right now is broken and basically completely gone, so I had bought a new one. The deodorant, however, was a problem. Now, the stick I had wasn't completely gone, but it was down to the plastic part on the bottom that looks like the bottom of an ice cream cone.

It was fairly late at night, and the insane amount of creepers that frequent wal-mart at night made me decide that I'd just use what little deodorant I had left, and buy a new stick on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning came, and I used my bottom-of-the-ice-cream-cone deodorant, just hoping that I wouldn't smell like a boy by the end of the day (which was a pretty big hope considering I had to work at the school, with three different recess duties, and go to the ranch where everything is hot and gross).

I got to work, feeling more self-conscious than necessary, since it was only 9:00 AM and so not disgustingly hot yet. Then I went to the talent show and all the kids were amazing or adorable. Then we went to recess. Oh. No. Here it came. I was going to sweat and start to stink.

But wait.

It still wasn't hot. My next recess duty came: still not hot. Surely this wouldn't last. My final recess duty of the day was from 11:05 to 11:20. I would definitely get gross then.

The weather was still really, really nice.

The day progressed and, although I did sweat a little bit while carrying things that were larger than I am all around the bar (including down the stairs--awkward), I didn't really smell very much.

I am thankful that Heavenly Father decided to let the weather be unusually cool for May 20th in Mesa on the day that I had very little deodorant available to me, despite my best efforts.


P.S. I bought deodorant after leaving the ranch. I now have two sticks at my house and one at Mom and Dad's house.

SHORT POST!!

1. My kids randomly burst into song today. It was glorious.
2. I finally got to clean my bathroom today. I haven't been able to run water in the downstairs bathroom since spring break, so when Dad told me it was fixed, I took that as a birthday present and today I cleaned it. I love cleaning my bathroom.
3. Darci got her appendix yoinked tonight. She’s fine, and the doctors said the uterus wasn’t affected by anything, so there’s no reason to worry. They’re keeping her until tomorrow and they’ll do an ultrasound then, after her body has calmed down, just to make sure nothing’s wrong.

That's actually a lot more info than I intended to post. I was just going to say, "Darci got her appendix yoinked tonight," and that was going to be the entirety of the post, but I anticipated negative/stressed out reactions to that, so I went a different route.

I hope you enjoyed this super short edition of Brigette's Blog.

No, It Is Too Long, Let Me Sum Up... It's Still Too Long

I've already posted on both of the other blogs I can post on, so I decided that it was about time to post on mine, right?

This month has been and will be very interesting. Let me give you a run-down (warning: my run-downs are very long):

• Mommy's birthday, which translates to "make the house look pretty" day. New paint, boxes moved out of sight, triangle thing in the front yard fixed-up, etc..
• I saw Little Shop of Horrors at Desert Vista High School beacuse my friend Meredith was in it, and Sean came with me. The play was good, but the highlight of the evening was that I finally felt like Sean was treating me like a friend again instead of an ex-girlfriend. It was really, really nice.
• Cameron got set apart as a missionary (I set up a blog if you'd like to visit it).
• I helped teach the Youth Council from a stake that isn't mine how to swing dance.
• Cameron left on his mission. : )
• Cameron left on his mission. :' (
• Lowell cancelled my dance lesson and made me go dancing, where I got to meet some of his friends.
• I went to Broadway Bound, and DIDN'T hear a billion Jason Robert Brown songs... well, I guess there were a few, but not as many as usual. It seemed like there were fewer songs that I'd heard 4,684,416,418 times, which was good.
• I went dancing and actually had a boy with me who could dance, so there wasn't any annoying waiting around thinking, "I hope someone asks me to dance," I just got to dance all night.
• I got an AWESOME cake from Ashleyface for my birthday.
• My kids all made me cards for my birthday.
• My mommy got me the coolest toothbrush ever for my birthday.
• Dan sang my voicemail a song from HSM for my birthday.
• Ryan has decided that he owes me ice cream since he was a failure as a home teacher and didn't know when my birthday was until after it had passed. I'll take theice cream, but I refuse to agree that he was a failure.
• I went to a party and pretended to play in the pool and be social.
• We had a nutritionist come to FHE tonight. I wasn't expecting to enjoy myself, but I really did.
• Mark and I started watching season 2 of The Office, so that he can catch up.
• Season finale/ 100th episode of The Office this Thursday, the 14th.
• Kindergarten is going on a field trip on Wednesday to the Phoenix Children's Museum.
• Kinder pizza party Thursday if we all behave while we're on the field trip.
• Subsitute on Friday, hopefully Ashlee will be my sub... we'll see.
• The last day of school is May 21.
• Tenth Kingdom movie day!!! May 22.
• Go up north somewhere to teach the rest of the youth from that other stake how to swing dance for their youth conference. I think I'm leaving Thursday the 28th and coming back Saturday the 30th.
• I'm on charge of the activity for FHE next Monday. I'm thinking paper airplane contest. If anyone has suggestions for different competitions we could have (longest distance, longest flight-time, prettiest, etc.) let me know.

Also, last night I set some goals for myself for this week:

1. Read the Book of Mormon every night.
2. Write in my journal every night.
3. Be in bed by 12 every night except Fridays, and I'm allowed wiggle room on whatever night I have my lesson with Lowell. (Obviously I have already messed this one up, since it's way past 12, but whatever, there's always tomorrow.)

That's it for now. I'll post something more thoughtful in a couple days. I've had lots of thoughtful thoughts, I just forget them every time I open blogger. Oh, well.

Totes bye!

Happy Irth Day!!

Get it? It’s like "Happy birthday," but without the /b/, so it becomes "Happy Earth Day!"

On an unrelated note, did you know that if you phonemically segment the work mule, it would be "/m/ /y/ /oo/ /l/," because it would be. That's what I learned at school today.

Anyway, back to the Earth Day thing: Let’s hear from Andrew and Vanessa to find out what we can do to help the environment.

Table 9...

The other day at work, I was on the kinder playground with a couple other classes, and mine had just left and was heading back to our room. As they were walking past, one of the kids from room three came up to me and excitedly proclaimed, "Miss Shumway, there are two losers over there!" and she pointed toward the wall that my class was walking past.

Okay, I'm kinda defensive of my kids. I know they're kinda losers sometimes, but I'm the only one who can say that (and I'd never say it around them, because that would be incredibly inappropriate). So, when this girl told me that there were two losers over there, I was like, "That's really not a very nice thing to say. You need to be nicer to out kinder friends." And she looked at me like i was smoking something. So I returned the look of utter confusion, as I tried to figure out 1.) which two of my kids she thought were losers (yes, I had a few ideas) and 2.) why she would tell a teacher that. "OH!! Wait! Say that again!"

"There are two losers over there. One of them is running on top of the wall."
"Do you mean 'There are two lizards over there.'"
"Yeah! Come look!"
"Okay, I'm coming."

Decide, Decide!!

Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed by my Heavenly Father’s trust in me and my judgment. As I ask for his guidance, the response has been, “Well, what do you want to do?” or, “What do you think you should do?” and these questions have been coming with increasing frequency lately. It’s a little bit terrifying to know that He trusts me so much, but it’s also incredibly comforting to know that God, my Father, the supreme creator of Heaven and Earth, trusts me, his little, young, naive daughter to make decisions—that He trusts me enough to make the decision that will help me the most in my life. And not only that, the decision I make may affect my future family, it will have an effect on every person with whom I interact as a result of that decision. It will affect every person I don’t interact with as a result of not making a different decision.

Wow. My Heavenly Father trusts me a lot.

Also, this makes the command that I so frequently give my kinders of “Make a good choice,” seem a billion times more complicated.

Totes.

Yeah… this is what I’ve been thinking about since yesterday afternoon when I asked a question and got one of those “What do you want to do?” responses.

Between God answering me by asking what I want to do, and Lowell just staring at me until I tell him what I want to do, I’m starting to wonder why I even ask for advice.
Ok. Not really, I know I need it, but seriously.

Thank you Morgan for talking me through it and not just staring at me.

Did that really just happen?

On Saturday, April 4th, I had an amazing experience. I got to help with the coolest fundraiser ever.

Any of you who haven’t heard of Project Book Babe, please come out from under your rock. Or just check my facebook more often, because my status was PBB-related for like a month. Anyway, The “Book Babe” is a friend of the teacher with whom I work, and she has worked in the book industry for a long time, becoming great friends with anyone who met her, and developing an entourage—made mostly of authors. The Book Babe (alias: Faith Hochhalter) was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Her retinue of authors and friends quickly put together the fabulous event known as Project Book Babe.

There were ten amazing YA and Children’s Lit authors who are all hilarious and wonderful, five artists, and two bands. The bands played. The artists drew (I assume they were just drawing and not painting) whatever anyone asked of them, provided they would pay for it. I’ve been informed that Twilight drawings were the most popular. What did they authors do?

They signed 150 books each (or 600, if the author happened to be Stephenie Meyer).
They signed 1000 posters each (one even took the time to draw halos/horns/vampire teeth/eye patches on herself and her friends).
They sang/danced to Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You.” (You should watch the video, but it cuts off at teh best part, so if you have time, see if you can find the next part. It will be worth it to see the back-up singers rock out. Totes. This one isn't as good of an angle, but it has the whole song. I'll keep looking for a good angle and the end of the first clip.)
They participated in an awesome Q & A panel.
They raffled and auctioned their books, manuscripts, ARCs and a few personal belongings.
They worked together to write a new horror story—“Stephenie’s Dress”—each writing one line at a time.
They had a signing/reception with the people who bought the Platinum-Level seats.

(Most of the event, or maybe all of it, is on youtube. Just search for Project Book Babe.)

That’s where I stopped getting to hang out with the authors, but I know they went out to dinner because I’ve seen some of the pictures. They’re adorable.

So, throughout all of this, what was I doing? I was supposed to be being, essentially, slave labor to one of the authors (Jannette Rallsion), but she was so low maintenance that I ended up helping everyone sign posters by checking all of them to make sure that all ten authors had signed. If one hadn’t, it was my job to track down him or her and make them sign it. I’m pretty sure that some of the authors (Brandon Mull) wanted to throw Sharpies at me, but in a good, thank-you-for-helping-us-help-Faith kind of way.

I did other stuff, like entry-level techie stuff: move the table, find the light, move the table again so it’s in the light, find a chair, etc., and I helped Stephenie figure out where she was sitting for the panel. She was the last one in the wings and couldn’t see any empty chairs, but I reassured her that there was an empty one between Dean and Brandon. So, as a techie, I was quite satisfied with myself. As a book nerd, I was in heaven. TEN authors!! All of whom I actually talked to and several of whom knew my name by the end of the event. WOW.

I decided that Brandon was my favorite of the day. First of all: he’s quite attractive, Second: he was the first to ask me my name (besides Janette). Third: he was totes fun to talk to. Fourth: he was hilarious (if you didn't watch the video of the Aretha Franklin thing, you really should). Fifth: he doesn’t even really know Faith, but he cancelled other plans to come and do this for her (yes, I know that probably should have been first, but you all will just have to deal with my poorly aligned priorities).

If he weren’t married… Jk.

FYI: There is still an online auction going on and new items are added every so often. You should check it out. It’s totally worth it.

We’re almost done.

In case anyone is still interested, I thought I’d post how much the things that were auctioned at the event went for (remember, there was a raffle too, but these things were auctioned):
Twilight ARC - $1500
The Host skateboard deck - $1200
Forever Dawn epilogue - $5100
Eclipse prom dress - $5600 (I got to touch it!)
Lunch with Stephenie- $6500 (two winners)
There were also early, marked manuscripts of The Host and Eclipse, but I don’t remember how much they went for, I’m sure it was over $1000 each though: those people were spending their life savings for this stuff.
If you want to see some pics, you can go to Shannon Hale’s blog. The other authors all have websites too, but I haven’t looked at them yet, and I don’t think any of them would have as many pictures as Shannon, but I’d definitely encourage you to look into more info about Project Book Babe, and each of the authors that participated: they are amazing.

Last thing, are you ready?
I read through and decided to link you to all of the author's websites, just because I can.

Frank Beddor was supposed to come, but couldn't make it because one of his kids got super sick, so didn't meet him, but still, by the sheer nature that he agreed to come, I've decided that he deserves a link on my little blog.

Chris Gall was a little upset that his was the only picture in black and white on the poster, but was ok with it when I told him that black and white pictures are more artistic. : )

P.J. Haarsma has an adoreable little girl who fell asleep part-way through the panel, so she was left to sleep on a couch backstage, he kept coming to check on her. Good job, Dad.

Shannon Hale was hilarious to listen to during the reception with the platinum ticket-holders. I'm glad we were sitting next to her.

J.S. Lewis was one of the main players in bringing this event to life. Thanks, Jon.

Dean Lorey modled Stephenie's Eclipse Prom dress. It was hilarious.

Stephenie Meyer donated things to the auction that I never would have donated ie.: manuscripts, ARCs of books that only have a few ARCs, her PROM DRESS!!

Brandon Mull is totes adorable. And he wants to have police and the next event he does, now that he's gotten used to the safety he feels when they're around. : )

James A. Owen missed the party that everyone else had to get a head start on signing the posters, so he had to sign all 1,000 that day. He started less than 2 hours (I think it was closer to an hour)before it started, then signed a few more after it ended.

Jannette Rallsion was tons of fun. I almost wish she had been more diva-esque so that I could have felt useful, but she was fun. Go buy her books, they're awesome.

Laini Taylor was volunteered to give birth on stage if things started getting slow. I don't think she knew that, and we're all glad it didn't come to that. She's adorable though.

Ok. That was probably the best saturday of my life.

That’s all for now. Goodnight!

Paciencia y Fe

Many months ago, my favorite online series began its break between its first and second seasons.
In January (I think) it was announced that the second season would premier March 1st.
In February (I think) it was announced that the date would be pushed back to April 1st.
(I can check all these dates if you really want me to, but it's almost 12:30, and I'm supposed to be in bed by 12, so if you really want them, ask and I might eventually find out for you.)

Now, when I say "April 1st," that means midnight, Eastern time, of the first, which means that it would drop on the 31st here. So I was totes excited and all geared up to watch it last night. Then it wasn't on. I kept checking. I couldn't find it on the The Battery's Down channel on Youtube. I couldn’t find it anywhere. So what did I do? I went to Andrew's Blog and good old trusty andrew keenan-bolger informed me that youtube was being stinky and that they would have the video up asap. So I went to bed, setting my alarm early so that I could wake up and watch it before work.
When my alarm went off, I jumped out of my bed in anticipation of the totes phenom video I knew I was about to watch. Then I heard Grandma and Grandpa walking around upstairs.
"Like, woah, what is going on here?" First of all, it was like 6:00 AM and I'm not usually up that early (this goes to show how extremely excited I was about this show), but I also know that Grandma and Grandpa aren't usually up that early either because they're often still asleep when I go to work at 8:30. However, Shandi left on her mission today, so she was over telling Grandma and Grandpa bye, so that's why they were up.
I decided that my grandparents probably would have thought I was insane for getting up that early just to hop on the computer to watch tv, so I decided that I could wait until after work to watch it, and I went back to bed.
While at work, I was texting Ashleyface, and was informed that it still hadn't dropped.
Around 6 I checked youtube again: still not there.
Then I watched Even Almighty with Daniel. Then I went to Pizzookie with Ashleyface. Then we went back to her dorm and checked again. It was like 10:00 and it still wasn't there.
As I was driving home (like an hour later, because Ashley and I tend to talk for very long periods of time), Ashleyface texted me and told me that it was up.
As soon as I got home, I put on my jammies and turned on the computer.

AMAZING.

Totes.

Pop!

(To get the full impact of how this sounds in my head, you have to read really, really fast, like you're trying to take as few breaths as possible. Also, remember that I'm sometimes a really rambunctious little girl: think Kelly from The Office.)


Ok.
Spring break was AMAZING.

Monday:
~~I found out I do NOT need to get a tooth pulled nor do I need a dental implant and a fake tooth.
~~I went to the zoo with Mom, Alejandro and Squishy (pics on facebook).

Tuesday:
~~RENT!!!! Second row seats for only $20. Wow.

Wednesday:
~~I met P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast (the authors of the series that is currently my favorite).
~~I got autographs from Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascall, Nicolette Hart, and most of the rest of the cast of RENT.

Thursday:
~~I had the best private lesson with Lowell. We worked on Viennese Waltz. AMAZING.

Friday:
~~DANCING!!

Saturday:
~~I don't really remember Saturday, but I'm certain it was good.

So... That was spring break: The Reader's Digest version.

Last week was interesting. I was testing my kids and almost all of their scores had gone down. I told a couple friends that my kids are being stupid, and they didn't believe me, but then I explained how high their scores have been, but what happened to them last week... then they believed me. They're being smart again now, just so you know.

Thursday Cameron got his misison call: New York New York North, Spanish speaking. He reports to Provo May 6th.

Friday Katie and Landon got married!! YAY!!! I love my little Aussie friend and I'm so incredibly excited that she's going to live like 15 minutes away from me.

Saturday we took family pictures. They should be on Facebook soon. My cousin Erikk took them. Darci wore pants with a huge hole in the knee: I wanted to die.

I'm currently losing a game of Spider Solitaire. I won once, then bumped the difficulty up to whatever is just harder than beginner, because I'm really not a beginner at this point. Now I'm losing and I'm afraid that I'll never see the pretty fireworks again.

I vacuumed part of the basement today. It looks pretty. Now I just need Dad to fix the bathroom so I can have running water so I can clean it.

New episode of The Battery's Down on April first!!!!

Ashleyface and I are trying to go out for dessert once a week. It's fun. I love Ashley time.

Stephenie Meyer!! Janette Rallison!! Dean Lorrey!! Brandon Mull! AHH!!!!

Amelia and Josh are engaged.

I think that's all for now. I'm going to watch The Office.

I love Jim!!!

totes bye!

urg.

Seriously, why do people leave voice messages that say, "Hey, Brigette, call me," and nothing else?!

1. I may not know who you are.

2. I do not know why I need to call you.
--I do not know if you have a question.
--I do not know if you are in trouble.
--I do not know the level of urgency of the situation.

3. I do not enjoy talking on the phone. I prefer to spend as little time on the phone as I can (there are only 3-5 people I enjoy talking to on the phone), so I believe that we should be as efficient as possible and "Hey, call me," does not give me any information about how I can be efficient in my phone-talking-ness.

Sometimes people bug me.

On a happier note: the nurse came to my class to teach my kids how to was their hands and she brought a little thing that makes the germs on your hands glow. When she was leaving she said that my class was the cleanest class of kinders she's ever seen.

Arizona Day!

Hmm... That title is only clever if you know the rhythm and melody that I have in my head. Sorry. If any body wants to guess what song my sad, tired brain is trying to reference, I'll give you a hint: I'm in a You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown mood, but it still doesn't really work.
Well, now Ashley gets it; everyone else is still lost though. Sorry friends, go brush up your theatre and you'll get a lot more of my references. (There was another really vague one in there: think Kiss Me Kate.)

Anyway, let me tell you about my Arizona Statehood Day adventures.

Chelsea and I decided that this year we were going to celebrate modestly and just do a cake. In years past we've gone to wal-mart and bought Arizona-themed paraphernalia (the only thing I really remember buying is a bag of chips, and we only bought that because it had a picture of a saguaro cactus on it), but we're lazy now, so a cake suffices us.

I was in charge of the frosting, and Chelsea was in charge of the cake mix.

Well, Chelsea never picked up the mix, so after the show we went to wal-mart and got the essentials of cake-making: a cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, and cooking spray (if you haven't guessed, Chelsea's family doesn't bake much, so every time we want to bake anything, we have to buy EVERYTHING, I still love them though).

Let me tell you of our little adventure in purchasing these items:
We approached the self check-out lane, and Chelsea, who was in front touched the screen to select the English option. Well, she thought she did, but then the nice, automated voice started speaking Spanish to us. I figured that she had just accidentally pushed the Spanish button, but that it didn't really matter because we both know how to self check-out without instructions. Seriously, if it were an Olympic sport, Chelsea and I could probably go pro.

Hi. I'm Brigette, and I get distracted easily and go off on tangents.

So I'm thinking that we can just ignore the Spanish voice and do what we always do, but for some reason the unexpected language really, really flustered Chelsea, so she exited the screen and went back to the one where shoppers choose which language they prefer. This time I saw her push English, but that nice, automated Spanish voice was there again. Weird. But again, we didn't really need to be told how to do this, so I convinced Chelsea to just ignore it and start checking-out. We get to the point when we have to pay and I'm thinking, "Okay, we can still do this, there are pictures so we don't really need to be able to read the screen, but she was really startled and still more than a little flustered by the Spanish, so this could take a while." It is at this moment that Chelsea turns to me and blurts out, "I didn't live in Spain for nothing!" and she finishes the check-out process with amazing gusto. Maybe it was just a "you had to be there" thing, but for some reason, her bold proclamation of "I didn't live in Spain for nothing!" was really amusing to us, so we were still kind-of laughing about it as we walked away so that another nice lady who didn't speak Spanish (we know because she looked at Chelsea like a crazyface when Chelsea said something to her in Spanish) could purchase her items. We were a few feet away when we hear the same lane that we just had such a problematic experience with say, "Welcome to Wal-Mart; please scan your first item." We turned to each other and both practically yelled out "How did she do that?!" Then we were able to amuse ourselves the entire way home with re-creating the whole experience. We're now considering making a movie reenacting it, so watch for it on Youtube. :-D

Anyway, that was the shopping experience. Then we got home and made the cake in Chelsea's amazing microwave. Please don't think we're both insane for putting a cake pan in the microwave; it's not a normal microwave. It can function as a microwave, or as a convention oven. Because it's still microwave-sized, though, we have to make to small, round cakes instead of one normal-sized rectangle one. The first one took forever to cook, because we couldn't find the little rack to put the pan on, so the heat wasn't able to fully surround the cake, but we eventually got that done. As we were cooking the second cake, we sang "Happy Birthday," and cut the first cake and let Chelsea's family begin to devour it. After a few minutes though, Mom (aka:Sweet Mary) said, "Girls, why is your cake sparking?" OH. POOP. We turned off the oven when we took out the first cake, then accidentally put the second cake in on microwave. Oops.


Here's what we learned this year, on our beloved state's birthday:
Sometimes, the self check-out lane at Wal-Mart just knows when somebody needs to brush up their Spanish.
It is always good to have a video camera on Chelsea, especially when she's with Brigette, because weird things just happen.
If you microwave a cake for about 15 minutes, it turns out fairly well, provided you cut off the 2 small burnt patches on its bottom.

hot dog fingers!

Last Monday, my ward played Ultimate Frisbee for FHE. Now, anyone who knows me knows that this was not something in which I participated. I, however, am on the FHE committee, so I feel like I need to go every week, unless there is something huge that I can't get out of, so I went, dubbing myself the official photographer.

Well, I failed at taking pictures because the action was too far away and it was dark, so Jessica and I just talked while everyone else played (Jessica wanted to play, but right when we started, she hurt her ankle again, poor girl). So we stood by the food (the fruity pebble-style rice crispy treats and the veggie tray that I was in charge of bringing) and talked and told everyone else to eat them.

So there we were, talking and advertising the lovely treats, when we notice that nobody is playing anymore. They were all just wandering around looking at the ground: a few of them had phones out shining them at the ground.
"Did you lose the frisbee or something? If so, that's really impressive, since it's a light-up frisbee."
"Jonathan lost his key."
So Jessica and I join the effort at wonder around the retention basin in the dark looking for a key. Not a set of keys, or even a key on a chain, but one singular key. Several times I hear Raymond say "why don't we form a line and walk from one end to the other?" but nobody listens to him, so I told him to be louder, but he decided to be snarky instead. So when Blake had everyone form a line so we could walk from one end of the basin to the other, Raymond muttered under his breath, so that only I could hear him, "Gee, that's a good idea. Why didn't I think of that?" Totes snarky.

So we line up. Every other person has a flashlight/cellular phone device to provide as much light as possible. We started walking and Blake decided that we needed a code word so that if someone found it they could yell that out instead of saying "I found it!" Why this makes sense to him, I'll probably never know, but whatever. His code word was "hot dog fingers." Yeah... weird. So we're going along and suddenly Blake Yells "HOT DOG FINGERS!" so we all stop looking and get excited and look toward him. "just kidding." Thanks, Blake. Well, by the time we're about half-way through the basin, our dear friend Blake has become very invested in finding this key, so he starts offering free Golden Spoon to whomever finds the key. Jessica then yells "Hot dog fingers!" After she let everyone complain about not winning the trip to golden spoon, she reveals that she just wanted to yell "hot dog fingers" really loudly at 9 PM in the middle of a retention basin in a fairly nice neighborhood and see what happened. All that happened is that a bunch of YSAs stopped looking for a key and whined about not winning golden spoon. And the search continued. We're approaching the end of the retention basin. We're losing hope. I hear Wendy say "You know, it would probably be more effective if we prayed to find it." A couple people scoff (seriously, there was scoffing), but I thought it was a good idea. So I'm still walking in my little section of the basin, the last one to maintain the life effort. I will not give up hope. I reach the point where the basin starts to go up to meet the level of the street and, because I was watching the game, I am pretty sure that Jonathan did not go up there, so I turn around. I'm walking back to where everyone else is eating (and loving) my treats when I walk past Wendy as she says, "Here, I found it."

Prayer works.

I Love My Kids...

Thursday was one of the most amusing days I've had in a while. I got to work and my teacher looked at me and said, "Miss Shumway, I have to tell you a story or I'm going to burst." So we took the kids to the computer lab and got headphones on all of them so they couldn't hear the story, and this is what she said:

"Last night I had my conference with Angel's family. His brother and sister were both there with Mom. We were just talking when Mom asked each of them what they want to be when they grow up. Christopher said he wants to be a police man. Aliah said that she wants to be a doctor. What did our little Angel say?
'I want to be an underwear model.'"

SERIOUSLY?!?! What kinder kid knows that that's even an option?!

Well, the day progressed and nothing particularly exciting happened, then after lunch I was sitting with Alicia making her card to give to our librarian who just had brain surgery (seriously). Alicia is one of my highest kids, so I told her to write whatever she wanted to write on the inside. This is what happened:


Translation: "Miss Palson is crazy. We are stuck with this crazy teacher."

On the other side of the card it says "come wil son," which is a mixture of "get well soon" and "come back soon," but we aren't sure what she was going for exactly.

Now, my teacher is amazing, and definitely not crazy, so why did precious little Alicia write this in her card? The previous day one of the kids had asked what to write and Miss Palson said something under her breath that was along the lines of "They're making me crazy," and Alicia heard and remembered it. Then wrote it. The only things I helped her spell were "with" and "this." Yeah, my kids are smart.

Only a few minutes after the card incident, the class was doing quiet work, and we had some music playing. It was not overly-rambunctious music, but it wasn't falling asleep music either. It was just normal kinder music. Miss Palson tells me to look up and what do I see?
Alejandro and Ruben in closed dance position, swaying to the music like two little Mormon kids at a Saturday night dance. It was hilarious. Then I kept watching and what does Alejandro do? He leads Ruben in an underarm turn. Amazing.

I love my kids.

Totes.

We forgot...

Here's a lovely little story for you: very common around my parents' house.

I was talking to my mom and she started leaving the room, so I started talking louder. Within just moments, I realized that she had probably traveled too far to be able to hear me anymore because 1.) their house is really loud, 2.) for some reason my mom just has a hard time hearing words that are coming out of people's mouths, and 3.) my voice doesn't carry very well.

I didn't know where Mom had went in the house though, so I got up and started walking toward the TV room to see if she was in there. As I got to the kitchen, Cameron came in. I told him, "I think Mom left while I was talking to her again."

He just kinda laughed and replied with:

"I think we just forget sometimes."

"What do you forget? That I exist?"

"No. That you're talking to us."

And people wonder why I have middle-child syndrome. I talk to people and they just forget to listen--they forget that I'm talking.

Wow. I just realized that this sound a little bitter. It's really not. Cameron and I were laughing when we had this little conversation. It's a funny, laughing thing. Promise.

five, four, three, open sesame

Happy New Year!

Sorry, I couldn't help it, but I'd be willing to wager that most of you don't get the title anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

Umm, I know I just posted stuff a few days ago, but I couldn't turn down the chance to use that title that is wasted on the general populous, so I'm going to tell you all about my new year's eve adventures.

Ok, so I was aware of five activities to which I could have gone:
Dance at the tri stake center
Dance at the Red Mountain Institute Building
Masquerade dance somewhere in downtown Mesa
F1 Racing somewhere in Phoenix
Ice Skating at Polar Ice

Ok, you know me, do you think I wanted to go to polar ice or the racing thing? If you guessed "No," you can go ahead and give yourself a chocolate, because you're correct. I wanted to go to the dance at the tri stake center because it was only $2 and it's super close to my house, so Emalie and I carpooled and got there at 10:01, I remember because it's one of my favorite minutes. As soon as we sat down, a slow song came on and these two guys came up and asked us to dance. We decided that it was going to be a good evening.
Well, it turns out that from 10:01 to 1:00 (when the dance ended) there were only 3 slow songs played. It was kinda totally lame. The DJ would make a really good DJ for a club, but not so much for an LDS dance. Anyway, once Lowell showed up and I had someone to dance with to all the fast stuff they were playing, it was fun. He's all sorts of hyper now that he's not burned out from working like 100 hours a week for almost 3 years. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with him. Seriously.

After the dance, Emalie's friend Jolene invited us to go to her YSA advisers' house. We got there and everyone was playing guitar hero, and I'm still waiting for Musical Theatre guitar hero to come out, so I decided to go off with Emalie and Jolene and just talk. Some time around 3 we left to go home, Jolene with us because her car is being wonky so she needed a ride.

Instead of going home, we decided to go on an adventure. We went to the rez and Emalie took us to an old creepy graveyard. We were going to get out and take pictures, but then decided that that would be a bad choice, but it totally reminded me of something The Gifted Girls would do.

Then we went back to Emalie's house and took her dog for a walk. We just went around her neighborhood, but we talked about things that so many people are uncomfortable talking about. It was so much fun. After walking and talking for a while, we found ourselves back at Emalie's house. Now it was time to go home.

I don't know what time I got home, but I got a text that I was awake enough to read and remember reading at 5:01 AM. I crashed shortly after that.

So, that was my New Year's Eve, and the first few hours of 2009. It was totes enjoyable.
This is going to be a good year.

I also just put the pictures from December on my computer, so I'll have to upload them soon, but I need to go watch Monk right now, so toodles!

luv ya!

PS. I fixed the links from my last post, so now you should all go visit them.
totes.