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!!!