Braces?

Yippee! I have had my braces on since I was 7. Now doing the really tricky math here. It's been 7 years! My teeth feel so wierd and I feel like I don't have any teeth in front. Let it be known through out history that I got them off on October 19th, 2010. I pitty those who will have them and I am so excited for those getting them off. I hope I won't ever have to have them again.

KSL Book Festival

This story and pictures would have been up a lot sooner if I wasn't so busy with school and the process of getting cell phone pictures on a blog was so confusing. One Saturday, we went up to the University of Utah because my mom had listened to KSL and they talked about a Book Festival so we decided to go. We listened to stories, got free books, and bought a way cool t-shirt. We watched some cooking demonstrations from the Lion House, The Food Nanny, and my favorite (the real reason I wanted to go) Wendy Paul! She made the recipe Black Forest Cupcakes (from her book) and had samples of a cookie in her new cookie cookbook. It was called Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookie. They are sooo good! So I just had to get a picture with Wendy. The bottom picture is of her during the demonstration. It was so much fun. I hope that they do it again next year and I will definately go again. Thank you Wendy!

What does every women want?

Today I went with my sister and my mom to the South Town Expo Center to see "What Every Woman Wants" expo. They had a lot of purses, weight loss treatments, jewelry and spa booths. I was very very suprised that there wasn't any chocolate! That's what this women wants! My mom got her eyebrows waxed and it looked so painful and it was so fast but when she got off the bench after she was done her forehead was bright red. :) Then we looked around for a little while and I bought two necklaces. One of them came with earrings. I felt a little powerful buying them on my own. I felt so proud. It was so much fun. Now I have seen for myself WHAT EVERY WOMAN WANTS.

First Region Dance

Last Saturday I went to my first Region Dance. I thought it was going to be so weird because I didn't know whether to wear a dress or a skirt. I really didn't know how to dance and what kind of dance. When I arrived, there were girls from my ward and from my school and I was so happy. I tried very hard to act as if I had already been to one but it didn't work out so well. I challenged some of my friends to ask a guy to dance on a ladies choice song. They said they would do it if I did it too. I did ask a boy and they stood at the side and giggled and watched me. Then it was their turn to ask. The last song of the night just happened to be a ladies choice. We saw a group of guys in the middle and my friends walked up to them and asked if they wanted to dance. They said they would and so it was my turn to stand at the side to watch and giggle. It didn't happen. One of the guys that my friend was dancing with told his friend to ask me and so I danced with him. It was so much fun. I cannot wait to go to the next one! The night ended with a shake at Iceberg with the Bishop and my friends. It was a blast!

Fair week

The very last week of summer, right before school, my family and I headed to Idaho to go to grandma and grampa's house and to go to the fair and rodeo. It was the BEST thing I did this summer. It was a blast. This is my older sister and me eating (what i would call) the best corn in the world! My sister made me try it and it was so good I wanted to get another one. They dunk it in the best real butter bath and then we add the seasonings. So ...so.... good.

My favorite part of the rodeo was the bare back bull riding. (say that 10 times fast). Everyone did a great job and some of the riders live in Utah. Go them! This stupid bull wouldn't go out of the arena.


The raising of the colors. (don't worry you don't have to take your hats off while reading this)

The piggies and me, after taking this picture I am highly afraid of pigs. They make the loudest, scariest, squeals in the world. It sound to me like someone is about to either scratch fingers on a chalkboard or they are falling off of a very steep cliff. It scares me. It sqealed in my ear and I went jumping back about 5 feet.

This bright lime green binder behind me is my scrapbook. I won 2nd in over all, but I won "Best Youth Scrapbook". For that I got a $5 gift card to the "Keepsake Cottage". By the time we got to the store to get something with it we fjound out they have new Saturday hours and we were 4 minutes late. What a bummer.

In 8th grade sewing class, I made this pillow along with another one. I was over the top excited to see this. I worked hard on it and it paid off.

These are my cookies that I made for the fair. I got a blue ribbon and I was (and still am) excited. I used my neighbors recipe to make "Peanut butter and Chocolate chip" cookies. They were so good, with last minute help from her. So thank you so much if you are reading this.

One of my all time favorite things to do up at the fair is riding on grandpa's go-cart. It is so much fun to drive and I could ride it all day long. I think it would be kind of fun to ride it around town. All the motorcycle gangs would be highly jealous. Don't you think so?

This is my dad and my younger sister. This is the first year she got to drive by herself she is really very good.
This is my aunt on the go-cart with me. I love her to death.

This is some of my family at the parade. It started late but that' s ok because it was well worth the wait. We jumped for the candy just like any other joe. (only the good ones of course)

(bottom picture) This is my cousin on the left and my grandpa on the right.

Can't hardly wait until next summer!

Just one Sunday

About 2 weeks ago my family and I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It's pretty cool. They have a map of the whole cemetery and they tell you where each of the prophets are buried and some other important Latter Day Saints. We followed the map and probably went to at least 20 graves.

This plaque was placed on the back of President Hinckley's monument. I thought it was so cool to think about. I thought about the pioneers that helped build the temple and the many stories of the people's sacrifices. How cool that there was stones left for monuments like this.

We found a playground and played for a while. I love my sisters.

Stake Girls Camp

Early this Monday morning my sister and I got the chance to go to stake girls camp. It was so much fun. Our theme this year was "S.O.L.E" which stands for "Strengthening Our Lives Everyday" Each day we learned more about each value with a scripture and a poem. The rest of the day revolved around the value. At the beginning we were given tiny Book of Mormons. They are so cute. I have started it again and I'm almost to second Nephi. Yeah me! The meals were amazing just looking at them I gained 5 pounds. The camp we went to was up in Heber Valley. We got cabins which was fantastic, during Tuesday night when there was a down poor of rain, thunder, and lighting. We got to take a couple of showers during the week but they were extremely cold. So during the downpour a lot of the girls went outside and washed their hair. My leaders in my cabin wouldn't let us go outside and they were asleep, but it was so loud I don't know how they could have stayed asleep. Wednesday during the day we hiked to a lake where we went canoeing. It was so much fun. We tried to have a race with another canoe but in the process we bumped into other boats. We lost. It was great anyway. That night our stake president joined us and we had a fireside we wrote spiritual questions for him and he answered all of them. He also gave us a challenge to learn every ones names by the end of the week, it was hard because there are more than 30 girls give or take a lot. I tried but I probably got maybe 45%. I don't do well with putting faces to names. Thursday night we had a testimony meeting. It was spectacular. The spirit was there. I loved every minutes of it. About 3/4 of the testimonies they said that in the beginning they did not want to come and that they had better things to do. By the end of their testimonies they described how much fun it was and that it was all worth coming for and that's where the lord wanted them to be. I am so glad I went and I know that the lord did want me there this week. I am so happy I went.

YOUTH CONFRENCE

Youth Confrence was so much fun! The theme this year was "NO FEAR" One of the first activities was playing Fear Factor here were some of the challenges. The hardest challenge for 3 contestants including my sister, had to put a REAL LIVE WORM in their mouth. My sister said the main thing that triggered her gag reflects was the dirt on it. I am so glad I didn't have to do it. As you can kind of see in the picture she is blindfolded. That's how come tasting the dirt was the worst. After they did that our leader said they had to do it One more time. But instead she brought out gumy worms and the ones who did it the first time where freaking out because they thought it was the real worm this time. Gross!

Another activity was to see how many marshmellows you could fit in your mouth at once. It was painful! My sister in the picture fit 15! I only fit 8. The other struggle was to try not to choke. I also had the most impossible job of trying not to laugh, it was sooooo hard. I think that's why I only fit 8.

One of the other challenges was guessing what kind of baby food was in the container which ever team got the most right won the game. Now I know why babies spit them out of there mouth. I don't blame them for their sour expressions. I didn't like any of them. Some of the other players thought they were so good that once the game was done they ate the rest. Yuck!

Youth Confrence was so much fun! Our theme was NO FEAR. One of the activities was fear factor we divided up in teams and got a lot of weird challenges. This challenge we had to stuff as many dog bones in our mouth as we could then make it to the other side to spit them out in a bowl and which ever team had the most dog bones in the end won.

Chocolate Chip Mint Pictures

My Favorite Cookbook!!

Chocolate Chip Mint

ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup milk

1 box chocolate cake mix

1 tsp. mint extract

1 1/4 cups mini chocolate chips

(I used semi-sweet)

In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs until it's fluffy. Add the milk and stir. Pour the dry cake mix into the egg and milk mixture and stir it until it's combined. Don't overstir. Add the mint extract and 1 cup of the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into paper liners and fill 3/4 of the way full.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool.

Frost with any frosting. (I used Pillsbury Chocolate frosting out of the plastic container) and if you want to you can top the rest of the chocolate chips on the top like I did. That's where the rest of the chocolate chips come into play.

Chocolate Chip Mint

Today I made some cupcakes called Chocolate Chip Mint. They are going to my mom and dad's visiting teaching families. Those lucky ducks! So far I've only tasted batter but so far so good, they are in the oven. I'll post pictures once they are done. I got the recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks it's called "101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes" By Wendy Paul. She had too much time on her hands which I'm glad for because all of the recipes I have already tried I didn't regret making. No wasted ingredients there.

My Blog

I had help with my blog from my aunt and my mom. I am so excited!! Thank you so much for helping!