Well...

Well guys, can you believe it, the semester is about over. The first semester of my first year of college is about to its end. This semester has been a great one!  We have classes Monday and Tuesday then tests the rest of the week, not to mention white glove clean checks and packing up the room. Lots to do, but all the way worth it. 

This semester I have been blessed with a lot of "Awesomes":

I have had the best roommates I could have asked for. We have not fought or killed each other, yet, and we get along excellently!  Hopefully the final clean check won't change that.

Our Ward this semester has been great to. We have been blessed by the hard work of the Relief Society presidency, as well as the Priesthood, Sunday School and Bishopric. Our ward is full of fun, happy and spiritually in tune people.  I love it!

Our family Home evening group was awesome! We as an apartment we blessed to be in a ward with more men then women so our FHE group consisted of 6 girls and 9 guys. We made some great friendships with the guys in our "Family."

Classes have been going great as well. This Semester I took 15 credits worth of classes which included: Career Exploration, Pre-Calculus, Book of Mormon, Science Foundations, and Beginning Spanish. The classes are great and the teachers are wonderful. It is so amazing to see how the Gospel fits into every aspect of life, even Math.

Some of the programs I have enjoyed being a part of this Semester include: Stadium singing (Spanish and English), Spanish Choir, national housing and building competition, (which is still going on and I get to fly to Las Vegas for), Architecture and Construction Management society, ushering for devotional and other events including the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Boise Idaho temple dedication broadcast.

I have also had fun, pretending the floor was lava, dancing on commercial breaks, and drooling over cute boys, both on the TV and off.

This semester had been great I can only anticipate the upcoming semester! We will have two new roommates and different classes and work loads to attend to. 

Overall I think that it is going to be great!

I was going to post pictures of recent happenings around here, but I cannot get them to work for some reason, but just know they include Josh Groban, Straightening my hair, Spanish Choir Christmas performance, and more!!! Just know I love them all!!!

Love you and miss family, Wish I could head home to see ya! Wish everyone the best!!!!

Hey guys,

I hope life is treating everyone well.
Here is an update of my life.

Pre-Thanksgiving fun:
The night before we left for thanksgiving a few people helped McKenna and I make a miraculous fort in our living room and had a blast. One of a kind night!

Thanksgiving:
It was delicious! Jessy and I headed to our Grandparents house and got to spend thanksgiving with family.  It was great seeing them! I wish that we could hang out with them more often, we have grown up without each other that I love getting to know who everyone has grown up to be.  We ate turkey, ham, jello salad, salad, deviled eggs, rolls, stuffing and everything was delicious.
We are so grateful to our grandparents who housed us and fed us as well as treated us multiple times. They are wonderful!!!!

Back at home: (School):
The Semester is slowly winding down and everyone is excited to head back home for Christmas. We have finals this week and then we are practically done.  I am excited to have my first semester of school over and anticipating next semester. I only wish that I could for real go home for Christmas, unfortunately the tickets to fly home for Jess and I are spendy, however I am sure that we will have a blast with family in Idaho.

My first social weekend (sounds pathetic right):

Surprisingly I did not spend my Friday night watching "Say yes to the dress". This past Friday my buddy from back home, Shilo, invited me to the Jane Austen Yule Ball held at BYUI. So, Shilo, Amanda and I all dolled up went to dance hoping for a blast.  We learned some of the dances from that time period and we took turns being the boy and girl in the couple. We also made a new friend named Siri who danced with us. We left early and got Kiwi Loco. It was a lot of fun!
We finished off the night by skyping with my best friend in the whole world and Shilo's boyfriend Ibrahim. We had a sleep over and enjoyed a relaxing morning which involved calling and friend from back home.  I also have enjoyed talking to family a bunch. I even got all my homework for Monday morning done by Saturday night!
This weekend was a pretty great one! Oh, and I watched My roommate Amanda dance her tail off at halftime for a basketball game with her lovely dance team.

Luckily it only rained!

The only scary thing coming up besides finals of course is:

THE WEATHER!!
In the words of our apartment, WE ARE ALL GUNNA DIE!

Temples!

Hi guys,
I hope that life is treating everybody pleasurably. 

Life out here is going well, I just cannot wait for thanksgiving! It will be good to see family.

Today was the Boise temple re-dedication.  All the wards on Campus were counseled to cancel regular meetings so that all members could attend on of three dedication sessions.  Our apartment went to the eight o'clock session.  I had the opportunity to usher for the session and direct people where to sit, which is always a pleasure.  I love helping people.

The dedication was beautiful.  I loved participating in the Hosanna Shout, and hearing the words of our Prophet, it is a wonderful experience!  The closing song was The Spirit of God as well as the Hosanna song sung by the choir.  When the congregation joined in to sing The Spirit of God, the floodgates opened and I could not stop crying the rest of the song.  It was a beautiful experience to be a part of. 

Temples are such a blessing in our lives. I always love going there. On Saturday our Relief Society went to the Temple and participated in Baptisms for the dead. I love doing service in the temple.  We got to the temple at about 8 and had a 2 hour wait to get in and were heading home an hour or so later.  The Rexburg temple is a busy place. Which of course is a wonderful thing!!! I cannot wait till I am able to fully take part in many other saving ordinances of the Temple.  There is no doubt that God visits His temples and watches over them and those that serve in them.

I also gain a much greater appreciation for the men that hold the Priesthood.  There is no doubt that they are called by God.  I never want to live without the priesthood in my life!
Well I hope everyone is doing swell,
I love ya bunches.
-Em

Spanish!!!! hehehe!

Hola guys,

I thought I would devote yet another one of my posts to my favorite language, however this post will be in English.

I started taking Spanish when I was in eighth grade and took it through my senior year of high school.  In high school we were only required to take three years of Spanish in order to graduate, however I loved it so much that I just kept taking it.

My high school Spanish Teacher.  She taught me Spanish 2 and AP Spanish!!
I love this Lady!!!

This year in college I am taking Spanish 1 again.  Lets just say that I have an A in the class.  The review has been good.  Little do the people that sit by me know, that I know the answers already.  This class reminds me of when I took Spanish in High School and how much work I had to put into it to get good grades and remember all of the work.  I am glad I learned it then instead of now, because we move so much faster in college.

One of these semesters I will try to skip to intermediate level Spanish classes.

I don't really know why I love Spanish so much, it could be that it opens the doors to communicate, or that I have put so much work into learning it that I have grown to love it, or that it just fun to speak.  Whatever the reason I love Spanish.

I would love to go on a Spanish speaking mission.  That would involve two of my favorite things in the entire world.  (Of course my Family is up there on my list of favorites too.)

At school I have incorporated Spanish into my life in a regular basis.  Every Sunday I  participate in Spanish stadium singing,  I have joined the school's Spanish choir, and every time I get angry at my computer I rant at it in Spanish.  I love speaking Spanish.  If anyone ever wants to talk in Spanish with me I would love too!!! And we could even have a FIESTA!!!!!!

Well I love you guys! I hope all of your days are filled with Spanish and your dreams full of fiestas.
-Em

Questions...

Hi World,

For this post I have been thinking about some questions that have been left unanswered in my life.

...

now don't worry only some of these are serious questions...

Why does the toothpaste I use not attracted boys like the commercial says it should?

Why are some of the yummiest foods not healthy for you?

Why can't I stop eating the yummy foods?

Why does time fly so quickly?

Serious-er...

Why in Spanish do we pray using the informal you when we are talking to God?

What does it mean in hymn 41 Enoch's band?

I have many more questions in my life and I am sure I will find more, but here are a few of them.  Now don't everyone send me the answers all at once.  For the last question I want to search out the answer myself.

For your further enjoyment I shall post some pictures of my life:

Our recent weather

Since daylight savings time, I now see this when I walk home from Spanish class.

Look what I got myself into!

Same old me!

Miss you all and love ya to death! 

-Em

Tortilla pizza and other weird things.

Hey guys,
It is Me! And who you ask, might me be? Well flip me around and you will have it.

Today I was going to share some information with you:  (Its not very important, so you can scoot back into your seat)

Some weird foods I have created or eaten while out here so far include:  Ham and Cheese roll ups dipped in pizza sauce,  Tortilla pizza, grilled cheese minus the grill (basically toasted and microwaved cheese and bread with butter), toast with peanut butter and syrup, or sugar crystals,  no bake chocolate mounds,and since day one my snacks have been tortillas.  Super healthy right.  You might be happy to know though that I have not purchased a single Ramen noodle packet and have only eaten 2 or three boxes of Mac and Cheese.  BUT a lot of Tortillas!!!!

Now, not only do I eat semi-weird things I have done some weird things too, not any weirder then most college students I would think.

Some of these things include:
Tackling roommates and holding them down to keep them from tickling me.  (Or others)
Crawling across the floor to get to my kool aid
Taking designated Kool aid breaks
Eating with weird utensils because the normal ones are dirty
Using frying pans, cake pans, and muffins tins as cookie sheets
Using a frying pan as a popcorn bowl, (Frying pans, who knew?)
Sprinting off a couch to hid behind another couch when a scary movie scared me after exclaiming "This is worse then Harry Potter!"
Over reacting when people fall in love in chick flicks or reality t.v. shows.
Eating way too many tortillas.
Getting way to excited when a shirtless guys is playing tennis outside.
And many more, but If I share them all you might think the little of me that is "NorMAl" is gone! (TOOO LATE!)

College Life has been treating me well.  Not only have I learned how to better be a grown up, but I have had a lot of fun, just doing what I want.

Now all I have to do is my homework, write a resume, write some letters, send in my absentee ballot, eat a tortilla or two, go to church, and exercise.  (of course not all today).

I will catch you guys on the flip flop top!!!

-Em

Wow what a week!

This week has been amazing and eye opening.  Not only did the Prophet announce the change in the age that missionaries can serve, but I had some revelations that changed my thinking a little bit.  But lets start from the beginning (Ooooh sounds like I am leading into a fairy tale with an intense back story, its a good thing this isn't really the beginning...)

Once upon a time..... JUST KIDDING!  this week has been crazy, actually it wasn't even the whole week that was mind blowing but just the past few days.  Here is the low down.  

This week I changed my major.  I was an Architecture major and am now a construction management major with a business management and Architecture emphasis.  My thinking on making this change was simple. BYU-I only has an associates of Architecture and it is an unaccredited program, so basically an associates from here means nothing to employers or accredited schools.  However BYU-I has a Bachelors in Construction Management and many students receive full time, well paying employment and internships during and right out of school.  By having an Architecture emphasis I get to take many of the same Architecture classes that I would being and Architecture major, so my desire to build and design will hopefully be satisfied.  If I am not satisfied with construction management when I graduate I can then transfer to another school that has Architecture and will accept hopefully a lot of my credits, not to mention I will then have employable job skills and be able to work through school.  Seems like a good plan right? I hope that God thinks its a good plan too.  

Shortly after changing my major I joined the ACMS (Architecture and Construction Management Society).  They had a meeting, on Thursday which I attended after a full scheduled day.  At the meeting it hit me:  I am an adult, I have now become what I have only ever envisioned becoming, a responsible adult.  Its kind of mind blowing   It also hit me how little amount of time I have before I have to enter the work world and how when I do I have to be professional.  (I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE PROFESSIONAL, guess Iahve to learn pretty fast)  What a scary thought.  I have to care about and think about not only a job, but a career. That's a lot of pressure. In order to graduate as a construction management major I have to take two internships.  This means one between my sophomore and junior years as well as the summer of my Junior and Senior years.  To find an internship by then means I have to start researching now.  CRAP! LIFE IS STARTING!!! 

I attended another meeting of a construction management and building company that was offering jobs and internships to people.  WOW! (I think I was the only freshman there.)  It is interesting to see what kind of jobs are out there and how to advance in the work world.  I was focused more on what values the company had, while those hoping for work were interested in salary and benefits.  HOW DO I CHOOSE WHO TO WORK FOR?  Ill pray a whole ton!!

 

I cant get over the fact that I have gotten to this stage in my life! Nothing is ever going to be the same again.  WOW!

Well I guess Ill move on, even though my mind can't...

Saturday was the first sessions of conference not counting the Relief Society one that I attended, which was wonderful!

The first session was, as we all know, historic.  The Prophet announced that men can now serve their missions at age 18 and women at age 19.  How amazing and wonderful at the same time.  As room mates we froze mouths wide open in astonishment.  After the announcement I was jumping up and down.  I love missionary work, missionaries and the Gospel more then words can explain.  I cannot wait till I can serve a mission.  Now that the age is lower, I really want to make sure that I am as ready as I can be to serve a mission, so now is the time to keep preparing even harder! 

Later that evening I went to a Women's Walk during the priesthood session of conference where all of the women were invited to walk around campus to different buildings and watch Mormon Messages and videos similar to them.  It was very touching and spirit filled.  I am glad I went.  While I was there I met a super nice girl from Nigeria who is now 21 and excited to serve a mission.  Her and I shared a moment where neither of us could put into words the amount of love that we have for missionaries and for the Gospel.  I know she will do amazing on her mission!  

At some point  during the walk one of the videos hit me and I had another revelation of the week.  The video was full of women that you can only expect people to look up to. (of course the video topic had nothing to do with my revelation  but yea)  I realized that now that I am in Relief Society I have gone from being in the inspired shoes to the one that can be inspiring and that others can look up to.  It brought me to tears upon this realization, I can make a difference in this world, and now I am at the state and have the opportunities where I can change the world.  I want to be inspirational and make a difference and now I can do it.  I have realized that I am not a kid anymore.  This is sad but exciting, there have been a lot of good times in my past, but I am sure even more good times to come in my future, I just have to go out and find them.  I am excited for the prospects that my future holds! (but terrified at the same time...)  

Well that was a lot of words to basically say one thing, It has been a great week! 

After the final session of conference today we invited our family home evening brothers and one of our apartment's Home teachers (he was alone for the weekend) for homemade pizza.  It was a lot of fun and they are some pretty great guys! I am blessed to be at such an awesome place surrounded by such amazing and inspirational people. 

 I LOVE BEING A MORMON!!!!

Sorry there are no pictures this time guys,  pictures cannot describe emotions.  

Hi World,  It is Emily.

I just thought I would let you know that I am still alive.

I am at BYUI, apartment number 314 or 3.14 if you like pie.  My roommates are awesome, and my classes are not half bad either.

Idaho is pretty different then Virginia.
I looks very different:

Virginia trees!

Idaho Landscape

It feels different:  The change in elevation and distance from the ocean not only causes the land to be dryer, but there to be no humidity, thus super dry air.  These changes have messed with my nose and gums, my nose is always stuffed and my gums are sore.  My skin is also dryer.

The people are different:  As with anytime someone moves you get to see a different aspect of life.  There are people from all over; Africa, California, Alaska, Germany, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and Virginia! (Plus so many more!!)  These people all come with so many different backgrounds, experiences, and personalities, all with one thing in common we all believe in the same Gospel and the same Christ.  Now we are all  where each of our lives will turn a different direction.  There are so many different possibilities in life and I cannot wait to see what happens.

There are lots of boys: (And cute ones at that)  This campus is full of Men.  Tall, short, fit, funny, handsome, married, unmarried, we got them all.  We even witnessed someone get proposed to on the Saturday before classes started, and heard about another one.  I have also seen a ton of Return Missionaries, which by the way as furthered my desire to only marry an RM.  It also has made me REALLY want to serve a mission.  Especially a Spanish Mission!

The church is different: SIKE!!!!!!! The church is the same everywhere!!!  I go to church at 1 and have Relief Society first, then Sunday School, and then Sacrament meeting.  Our ward seems pretty awesome! We are one of the few Wards that has more boys then girls. YAY!  Our Family home evening group has 9 boys and 6 girls!  The FHE group is pretty fun.  Two of the guys came over and visited us one day and they were a lot of fun to hang out with.  I saw them while I was ushering for Devotional and they recognized me, but I don't think remembered my name. (Which is understandable because I stink at remembering names)  I saw one of them in the hallway and he punched me and said hi, so I guess he knows me. :)

There are a lot of things different about Idaho, but it is not bad.  However I still think that Virginia is the best!
Well I have to head to church! Ill write more later and put some more pictures up.

Spanish!

Hola familia y amigos,

Yo quiero escribir en espanol hoy.  Yo no pienso que me Espanol es perfecto, pero you quiero tratar.

Esto semana es la primera semana de escuela a La Universidad de Brigham Young en Idaho.  Esto lugar es lleno de possibilidades.  Yo empiezo mis clases in la manana.  Yo pienso que yo voy a tener un tiempo dificil a ir a mi clases porque yo no se donde esta los clases. Todo esta bien. :)

Family Vacation!

This year for our family vacation we decided to take some day trips.

This is how the events of the week took place.

 On our first day together we took a trip to the zoo:

We drove to the metro station, then took the metro into DC

Check out those two bear sloths

Didn't take a ton of pictures, but here is one of my favorites!

On our second day together Lydia wanted to go to splashdown, however the cost of splashdown for seven people seemed unaccomplish-able. So...

We built our own:

 Homemade slip and slide

complete with a pool...

and water guns!!!

We also took turns sitting on our homemade tree swing and throwing water at each other! It was fun!!









Our next adventure was rafting!!!

We took a trip down to the Shenandoah river in Front Royal and rented two rafts.

Between racing the other raft, getting stuck on shallow rocks, and losing paddles, half of the family ended up in the water. Some jumped in and swam, others fell in, and some were even pulled in. It was one of the most adventurist things that our family has done.

 This is the beautiful river we rafted down!










The office and paddle return

Life vests!!!!!!!

Our next part of the week we spent at home spending time with family and participating in events.

The girls went to a bridal shower one of the days, we went on a hike one of the days too, and we camped out in the back yard for three nights.  :) It was a lot of fun!!!!

Hike:
Those that wanted to, went on a hike to a water fall.  We never found the water fall...
We got lost, and taking direction from a hiker we decided to follow this road back to our car. just fyi, there was no sidewalks, we walked super close to the cars and thought we were going to die...

Camping:  looks totally like camping huh?  We have always like watching movies in the tent.
Can you guess what movie this is?
AGENT CODY BANKS!!

Today was a great day!

This has been one of he most pleasant Sundays that I have had in a while. Everything is just so peaceful and happy.  Everywhere I turned there have been smiles and joy.  At church today I received my Young Women medallion.  I have really enjoyed the young women program and have grown so much through out it.  I have had so many great leaders and have been surrounded by so many beautiful and inspiring young women. I did not realize until recently how much influence that I can have on these girls and the amount of influence they have had on me.  I will miss them dearly, and am so excited to see where they go in this world.  There is no other group of young women that I know of that can make as much of a difference in the world as these girls will.  

This church is so unbelievably amazing.  I cannot in words describe the joy that it makes me feel.  I know that the only way to truly be happy in this life is to stick to the teachings of the Gospel.

My friend also received her medallion today as well.  It is her last Sunday in our ward before she heads off to BYU.  I will miss her dearly. She has one of the strongest testimonies that I have ever seen, and will definitely do amazing things with her life.  I am sad to see her leave this week, but I know she will do amazingly.

When I was driving home from babysitting for the Bishop's wife, I was thinking about all of the fun I had just had with the three cute kids, and I was looking at the beautiful nature of Virginia, and the thought that came to mind, was that I am really going to miss this place.  I have had so many good memories here and have made so many good friends that I will never forget this place.  At the same time I also had a huge sense of peace, I knew that though life from now one will be different, it will be okay, and it will be good.

I am excited to start this new area of my life and I feel ready for it.  Young womens, church, family, school, seminary, leaders, and friends have prepared me.

One week from yesterday till I will leave on a plane to explore a new part of my life.

Here comes a grand new adventure!

-Emily Ward

CATAPULT!!!!!

Bet ya' didn't know that I built one of those.  Unless... you read my Moms blog, I think that there is a post about it and my house on her blog.

 Well...

This is my Catapult.  My partner Kat (Featured below) and I were the only girls in a class full of about 20 boys, so of course we named our catapult LAS CHICAS!   Kat is an amazing partner, she is on our schools winning robotics team, and is going to be an Engineer after college.

This is also in Mr. Schmitdke's class! We started off the project with researching the best ways to build a catapult, and all of components that a catapult entails.  We had to keep a daily journal of our progress, which in the end turned in to a required 10 page paper on the project.

Not to go into too much detail, the requirements were that it had to fit in a shoe box, we could only use the supplies given to us, and it had to be released with one hand.

 Ours was the smallest catapult in the class, not to brag, but it also looked cooler then everyone else.  Just kidding there were some pretty intense designs.  With the help of the teacher and the the internet we put in ample supports so that a drop would not break it.  The above video is a launch of the catapult. Its technical name is a penny launcher because that is what it launches, but either name works.  

The penny launcher was graded on two tests.  The first was accuracy.  

 We had to aim for the mug in the center of the bulls-eye.  You had ten shots where each shot landed was the grade that you got.  The final grade was an average of all ten shots.  Our launcher got the penny into the 9 circle nine of the ten times and the last time it landed in the ten circle.  It got pretty close nicking the cup the final time.  Out final grade was a 99% the highest grade that anyone has ever gotten. I believe the mug is 15 feet away from the launching spot.

The second grade was distance.  We had one day to make adjustments to the launcher and then we saw how far we could fling the penny. With our extra wood, since our catapult was so small, we made an extra long arm.  In a practice round our penny flung 40 feet after hitting the ceiling and the wall. During the graded three launches we didn't get it that far, but we still got 30ish feet, (because we put to many rubber bands on it and broke it, and the repairs didn't hold well.) :) Mr. Schmidtke took he furthest of the three launches.  It was a ton of fun to build and test and was amazing to see what we could do with it!    

One day I will have to show you the monster truck that we made in another one of Schmidtke's classes. :)hehe!

 Thanks for reading!

Architecture!!!! My Favorite!

In the past post I mentioned that I may major in Architecture, So I thought I would show you some of what I have done in my Architecture drafting and design class in High School.

 Meet my house!!!  My group and I were three people in a class of 6 students in a level two architecture class.  In the two second level classes there were I think 12 students total.

 Each group of students designed a house following certain guidelines.  We then built every component of the house on the AutoCADD program first, then used those designs as models for our 3D model.  The entire designing and building process took the entire school year.  With many mistakes, corrections, frustrations, changes, and perfections.

 From the pictures the house looks like one 'big' house, but it is actually three separate parts so that you can see the inside as well.  The siding and roofing also only covers the front and one side of the house so you can look into the house as well.





Look its a covered porch!

 After all of the designing, we built each wall starting with the first floor.  Then we built the floor of the first floor, following all building requirements and standards.  After connecting all the walls to the floor and making a ton of corrections and adjustments, that made the house a little less up to code, we had the first floor.

The first floor contains a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet, and living room.  It is pretty open, but in the picture by where the roof part is the bedroom, the bathroom is right next to it.  The kitchen is in the back corner opposite of the stairs.  Out of your view is a spot for a sliding door into he back yard, (its near the stairs).

Every window, door, doorway, hallway, bathroom and stair is scaled to the normal measurements that a house has.

All together the house is a over 2,000 square feet.

Next we built the second floor.   This floor contains a master bedroom, bathroom, walk in closet, bedroom, bathroom, and linen closet.  Its pretty intense! We wanted our house to have character so my teammates Karol and Kat and I choose a T floor plan for the top of the house.







We built the stairs next!  Our teacher said ours were the best looking stairs he has ever seen from students.

 Next we built the basement.  It is made out of foam board, spray painted grey to look like a basement.  And of course we had to build another set of stairs.  Our teacher Mr. Schmidtke also told us that this was the best basement that he had ever seen.

Just a sidenote: Mr. Schmitdke is one of the best teachers that I have ever had.  I took one or more of his Engineering or Architecture classes each year of high school!  He owns and runs an alpaca farm, fixes up Jeeps, and designed the new front landscape for our school to beautify it.

 After all of that building we built the roof rafters and all, and completed the roofing and then the siding.  We worked on this project up to the very last day we could!  It turned out amazing.

Our group got the furthest on our house out of all the groups, had the coolest design (In our opinion), and did the highest quality work.  Mr. Schmidke was so impressed with our work and said the it was the best house that he had ever seen.  Since he liked is so much we decided to leave it for him to use as an example for years to come!

Some of the other completed houses
from students in our  level, my buddies
Vivian's and Jen's is the house to the
right and  another group's in my class is
 the one on the left.

This is Vivian and Kathryn. They have taken all of Mr. Schmidtke's classes with me.  They are Awesome!  Kat was my partner on my house and catapult, Vivian was my partners in past years, but wasn't in my class this year.  I have to find a picture of my other partner Karol for you, but yea these are some pretty awesome people! 

Catching up on ME!

Hey guys, Its been a while since I have posted on here, about a year in fact, but Im here.  I thought I would let you know how life has been.  THIS IS ME! The above picture is me in a dirty mirror, don't worry I haven't washed it yet so you'll see more of mister dirty. :)

Since my last birthday some things have and haven't happened:

 

I graduated from high school 23rd out 400 some-odd students, with an advanced diploma, and as a member of the Spanish Honors Society.  

At my friends house the night of graduation, I believe I am in my pajamas and I put on the gown again,
because I loved it so much!

I also graduated from seminary this year.  I attended four years of seminary as 5:50 or 6:00 in the morning for four years AND never missed a day.  That doesn't mean that I was never late, but I made it.  

I participated in my final year of Girls camp. Had a blast, made some smiles, and had an influence.  I received the Liahona award with the point of light known as the woods.  

I also participated in my final youth conference, which was a seven stake Youth Dance Celebration.  I posted about it on my Mom's blog, lets just say it was AWESOME!!  There will be more about it.  

I as of tonight will have completed every requirement to receive my Young Women medallion.  

I am heading off to college in the fall.  BYU-I here I come!  I don't really know how well Ill fit in, or how it will all work, but Ill find out.  I am glad that I decided to go to BYU-I instead of Virginia Tech, both are amazing schools, but I think it will be easier to figure out how life works in Idaho.  I plan to major in Architecture, but we will see how that goes.  

I haven't grown, still the same 5'6" or 5'7" me, while my brother Willy is now 6' tall and Austin is one inch shorter then me, and yes they are younger then me.  Lydia is more then half my height and I never caught up to Jessy or my Mom.   My family calls me short, but I'm taller then most people my age, so I think our familiy is just freakishly tall.  

There is a ton more to my year, but I'll fill you in as time goes by.  Here are a few pictures o fill your mind with.  

My best buddy and I at the Senior Picnic!

Ibrahim and I paddle boating at the Senior  Picnic.  

Me shaking hands with my Principle as he hands me my Diploma!!

Best part of the swing dance at the youth celebration was the lifts and having such and awesome dance partner!
Willy is AWESOME!!!