The Best Laid Plans of Mice, You Know...

Remember this list? This great list of things I wanted to do this summer? Out of the nine specifics, I've done three. Only three more are plausible. (Seriously, $15 just to PARK at Disneyland? No thanks.) But I believe I've done generally awesome things, too.

picture by jill rich

Like get to know these fabulous ladies better. You guys all know Seraphine by now, but her mom, Sabrina, has become a really close friend. We can get together and just talk for hours on end. I don't know how I would have survived the summer without her. 

Ohmygoodnessilovethepeopleinmywardtheyaresoawesome. 'Nough said.

Running a business almost on my own has been one of the hardest and most stressful things of my life. But I've learned a lot from it and it's paying for school.

In short, I have three weeks left of my summer. I'm going to make an adventure of it. 

I am the Queen of Day-After Birthday Tributes.

Yesterday my sister-brother Chris turned 18!

 He's one of the most stylish guys I know.

 He goes to great lengths to maintain his vegetarianism. (It's been two years now, right?)

He's a BiF, a wonderful shopping buddy, and an honest friend.

He's going to be valedictorian at UHS this year. This is his bracket for picking the college he'll go to next year. He applied to many, many other excellent schools and they all wanted him (except Tulane. How backwards is Louisiana?)

Happy Birthday, Chris!

"Cubans don't eat cupcakes because cupcakes are happy and communism's not!"

Today you get a lot of sporadic thoughts and images. Have fun!

Some skills need to be constantly cultivated. Otherwise they go away. Like sometimes you're performing in Carnegie Hall one day and a year later you're struggling to sightread an easy alto part.

Today I found myself missing my long red hair. And New York. And Dallin. I like how this picture has all three.

I've also noticed that after I hear barbershop live, I impulsively have to say "Get some!"after every song. I can keep it quiet in a BYU-Idaho setting, but I just know that it's because of Diva Day '09. Good times.

Maddie is the coolest eleven-year-old ever. And I bet Minnesota wishes they still had the Lakers. (Even though Maddie is about nine in this picture and while we were at Staples Center, it was a Clippers game.)

I declared today a Day of Cupcakes. Since we were watching Obsession in my sociology of religion class today, we were supposed to bring food. I made Nutella cupcakes first thing this morning. Then I somehow found myself in The Cocoa Bean getting a Madagascar Vanilla Vanilla cupcake after my last class. Then I made myself stop.

I'd have pictures of all this, but they're all on my phone and I can't send pictures from my phone anymore. (Hey Dad, can we fix that, please?) So you get this one of Noah, Kendra, and Kylinn on top of the fort back home.

I like Butter Pecan ice cream. Except for the pecans.

The title of this post comes from the May 2009 Quote Book. I definitely said it in AP Bio, but I can't remember the context. Do any BiFs remember?

Corrections

1. I said in this post that my favorite smell is coffee. That is wrong. It's my second favorite. Over the Christmas vacation I remembered what it really is and always will be. It's the smell of salt and smoke and sand that stays on my sweatshirt after I've been to the beach. I slept in that sweatshirt every night until that smell went away (yesterday). And now I have to wait until April to get that back.

2. I forgot to include Taylor Swift's "Love Story" in the 2009 Playlist because it reminds me of BiF Prom.

That is all.

Songs to Sum Up 2009

"We don't live in a in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist." ~David Levithan in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Heroes and Thieves--Vanessa Carlton
Empire State of Mind--Jay-Z
"Coronation" Mass in C K.317--Mozart
Gravity--Sara Bareilles
Larger Than Life--Backstreet Boys
Magic--University of Chicago's Voices in Your Head
White Houses--Vanessa Carlton
I've Just Seen a Face--The Beatles
In-N-Out (Animal Style)--We the Kings
Home--Vanessa Carlton

Extreme Makeover: Bedroom Edition, YSA Conference, and BiF Prom!

I can be either the neatest or messiest person in the world, depending on the day. So my room either looks like it did on Sunday night when I got home from YSA Conference:

Or the way it looks now:

Hopefully I'll be able to keep it this way!

Speaking of YSA Conference, it was a BLAST! I think it's really changed me for the better. It was a statewide conference, but we met up by temple district. The Redlands Temple District met in Riverside.

This is Andrea and Chelsea during lunch, right before the speed dating started. Due to a shortage of men, there were some points in the speed dating where there would be one guy to two or three girls. I met a few guys one on one who were really cool, though.

We had AMAZING speakers who really put some new perpective on the Atonement, covenants, and prophets, and the sacrament. Saturday night we did a service project, tying quilts. The conference website doesn't have any pictures of that up yet, but I met some really awesome people like Taylor, Brian, Nyles, and Carlos doing that. We all talked about politics and southern accents (Brian served his mission in Missouri) and whether or not it is sissy for boy scouts to tie quilts for their Eagle projects.

Me and Katie, a girl from my stake. We're the same age and were KITs, Counselors, and YCLs together at Girls Camp. She's schizophrenic and has been through the foster care system her whole life. She's had a hard life, but she is SO sweet. I love Katie.

Me, Taylor, and Andrea at the dance. Not the best picture, but we like it.

And the night before THAT was BiF Prom. Dennis had gone home the day before, but we still had a good time.

from left to right: Caitlyn (owBiF), Diana (obBiF), Me (fBiF), Chris (wBiF), Liz (aBiF), and Kyle (hBiF)

We started out at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.

the oBiFs

a blurry Kyle

Liz was my "scrub" in junior high when I was in 8th grade and she was in the 7th.

Me and my sister-brother! Chris is like the cool sister I never had. Chris has three brothers, but to him, I'm like the cool brother he never had, so I'm his brother-sister.

Liz got a tiny little plate.

I got me a BIG bowl of pasta.

And of course, it's not a trip to Cheesecake Factory without Cheesecake.

Kyle and Liz didn't want any, but Chris, Diana, and Caitlyn shared a slice of Stephanie's Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake™. The Cheesecake Factory website describes it as "Moist layers of Red Velvet Cake and our Original Cheesecake covered with our special Cheesecake Factory cream cheese frosting. 25¢ from the sale of each slice will be donated to Feeding America, the nation's food bank network." They let me have a bite and it was delicious.

And I got a slice of Vanilla Bean Cheesecake. Again from the website: "Layers of Creamy Vanilla Bean Cheesecake, Vanilla Mousse and Whipped Cream." This is my new favorite. mmmmm.

After dinner we took pictures outside the restaurant.

Diana and me

I ♥ Caitlyn!

We earned lots of weird looks for our formal dress. We didn't care.

Then we went to Kyle's house for hot tubbin', movie watchin', guitar hero-in', and lots of junk food. Driving there was quite the adventure.

Caitlyn and I took offense to some of Diana's jokes.

and some of Chris's.

We also blasted silly music and sang along to it while driving down a major street. Caitlyn has yet to upload that video, which only has Taylor Swift's "Love Story." Also on our playlist was "Bye Bye Bye" and "Make a Man Out of You" from Disney's Mulan.

Overall, an excellent weekend.

No More Summer!

Ok, I love summer as much as the next guy, but I'm done! I want to go to school and live in Perkins Hall and make new friends and walk everywhere and HAVE SOMETHING TO DO.

Okay, I guess I should be spending a little more time on my Personal Progress (three projects to go, including Virtue), but that can only occupy so much of my day.

And I do have a few things to look forward to. Like the Nickelback concert on September 3rd. My cousin/coworker Audra was able to find $7.11 tickets. Sure, with other charges it's about $20, but still- it's $20 to see Nickelback.

And BiF Prom. In my AP Bio class my senior year, my lab group became VERY close. Diana dubbed us "Best iternal Friends," shortened to BiFs. She claims to have intentionally misspelled "eternal." So we have our BiF nicknames. Caitlyn and Diana are owBiF and obBif (for original white BiF and original black BiF), Chris is wBiF (for whipped BiF -he's so much a gentleman it's almost silly), Liz is aBiF (for absent BiF - she was sick a lot this year), and I'm rBiF or fBiF ( for redhead BiF or fat BiF, depending on the day). WE soon befriended Kyle from the next table over and became hBiF (honorary BiF). Since we weren't able to all go to prom together, we decided to have a summer "prom" - we'll get dressed up and go to dinner together and then I'm not sure yet. Chris's friend Dennis is visiting from Germany, so the gBiF will also be coming.

And Raging Waters tomorrow. Good night!