The Story of My Life /:): March 2013

Well....it's been a really super long time.... And my friend keeps telling me to update my blog because, as gorgeous as the Thing 1's and 2's are, she's sick of 'em. So I will attempt to wrap up the last 5 months in a nutshell (Yeah right)

1. November. My cousins came down from Utah to spend thanksgiving with us and it was so much fun! Taylor and Ben hung out a lot of the time and at the end of their stay, Ben cut off his mullet and actually looked very very very nice :) He and Taylor also got in touch with their inner-musical-selves and played a song I got on video with my dad's phone. I tried to upload it but it is not being very kind and will not :( But it was lovely! Hopefully you can take my word for it...

2. December. Christmas! It was so fun! My dad was blessed with a new law office and new furnishings. He was so excited! Taylor got a morph-suit...yay... My christmas gift was to join EVMCO (East Valley Mormon Choral Organization) and it is BY FAR the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!!!! It's always the highlight of my week! My friend, Sarah, and I both got to join :D It's been great!! LOOOOVVEEE IIIITTTT!!!!! Joyce got a new blanket for her bed. She really likes it because it's super soft and it's blue. So lovely. Blake got a new framed back-pack. He's a crazy nature-hiking-camping-fire-fanatic ("...with a back-pack,"Blake adds). What are ya gonna do?? Adam and Mitchell got remote-control stuff I think. Quite awesome for them :) They were super excited. My Friend, Carlie, got me some more food storage for my room (*wink*wink) and Sarah made a lovely mug with an everlasting note on it :) It was so lovely! Christmas was so fun! :D

3. January. My 16th birthday. Crazy...but crazy fun. On my actual birthday I walked into my 0-hour class and found a big birthday bag on my desk with more canned food in it...I wonder who left that there.... (*wink*wink*cough*CARLIE) It was lovely. She also gave me a sympathy card. Most appropriate, I think, for a 16th birthday(no sarcasm intended). I ate a ton of food, but it was super delicious. On the 18th there was a Laurel/Priest date night, and it was girls-ask-guys. Sister Sharp made sure it was directly after my birthday. Thanks a lot. We had dinner and learned swing dancing. (There were goldfish swimming in vases on the tables that Carlie took home. They died off one by one and most of the time, Carlie told me, they stayed floating in the fish bowl until she had time to bury them. Carlie is so cool.) My date was awesome. Mason Welch. Need I say more?? It was grand. Then the very next day Carlie kidnapped me and Sister Eaves curled my hair and then when Carlie and I drove back to my house, supposedly to get money to go get breakfast somewhere and there we found Taylor's and my friends there for a surprise party. It was super fun! We had a Good-Sport Breakfast. I think Ethan Carrol won #1 Good Sport. He ate an entire bowl of Bran cereal with a whisk. Yup. Winner. Andrew Jensen got scrambled tofu, which I'm pretty sure he threw away and Mason got an egg sunny-side-up. He didn't eat it. So Carlie asked for on just so she could show him up. She ate the whole thing. Nasty. GO CARLIE!! Then we played "Signs." It was so much fun! It's gotta be my new favorite game. It went on FOREVER. We got really good at it. By the end of it all, I was ready for it to be someone else's birthday. I did, however, get a letter in the mail from the super fantastically lovely HANNA OCKEY!!! I was so stinking excited I almost died! THANKS HANNA!!! (By the way, if anyone is looking for a date up in Provo, Hanna is 16 and single!!)

4. February. Valentine's day. One word: AWKWARD. Ugh..... You know that awkward moment when you hardly talk to a guy and then the day before Valentine's day he hands you a piece of paper and he says,"I made this for you, but don't open it until tomorrow," and then your mom tells you to open it anyway and when you do, you feel like you're in Napoleon Dynamite when he draws a picture of the girl, except the picture of you is Pokemon-style and your name is inscribed on the top in super fancy letters, and there's a letter saying "...every time I see you, my brain goes all stupid..." and "...maybe we could go out sometime?" then you don't know what to do because you hardly even know the guy and have never ever ever in a million years ever dreamed of having something like this ever happen to you on Valentine's day???? Yeah.....that was me..... I didn't want to completely shoot down his soul, and I didn't want to end up a sinner in this situation....Then I found a verse:

"And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity preventeth a multitude of sins." - 1 Peter 4:8

So the next day I hoped to reflect just that. I told him the drawing was really good and asked if he took any art classes and when he said no I said that's really cool and that's it. I started talking to my friend, Michelle, and he merely walked off with a sigh. I felt sorry for him, but I felt I had done what I could for where I stand and it felt right. And that was The End.

After Valentines day, however, I got to drive to Kyley Chesley's house for a "Singles Awareness Day" Party. We played Murderer in the Dark and made home-made tortillas and deviled eggs. It was so fun! At one point when we were playing Murderer in the Dark (as bad as it sounds, it's really a light-hearted game that's super fun) we couldn't figure out who was the Murderer and it was freaking us all out. We never found out who was the murderer that round....(Dun Dun DUN). SO FUN though!

5. March. TREK!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!! It was sooooo fun!!!! The first day we had to get up at 2:30a.m. (at least, I had to get up that early, cause I tend to be very very slow at everything) in order to be at the church at 3:45a.m. to get loaded into those huge buses. On the bus ride to the Trek site we sat in the back and discovered that when you locked the door to the teeny-tiny bathroom a red light went on above the door. This proved to be exceedingly entertaining. We also got to talk to Kyle (mission call to Kenya) and Zach (mission call to Guatemala) about their missions and what-not. It was fun. Then we got to the Trek site and were told to eat all that we could. And for good reason. Then we got put into our families. I was in a family with Ma and Pa Goodman, Courtney, Mckenna, Aaron, Andrew, Nicole, Ryan, Justin, Conner and....I think I'm forgetting someone...which is really really not good... We got our handcarts put together and all of our equipment in and were on our way. We trekked all day and into the night. About halfway we did the Women's Pull. That had to be one of my favorite parts of Trek, but it was also the hardest. The YM lined the path (which was steep and extremely rocky) and they had their hats off as we passed. It was hardest in the box closest to the handcart but we made it. As soon as we finished we were able to go back and help the other sisters pull their carts. It was really cool. A lot of the girls have bruises from the pull, but it was definitely my favorite part. When people say it's hard for the YM to watch, they're not kidding. I heard a lot of boys say how much they hated it. It was amazing though. It taught me a lot about the strength of Young Women. I loved it.

Then we reached Rocky Ridge. Oh man. We all thought we were going to die. It was crazy hard, but the great thing was that it made every other venture seem easy. We got to our first camp around 8 or 9pm. We were all so tired and hungry. They fed us broth and rolls, and can I just say? It was the best broth and rolls I have ever tasted! It was super windy and dark too, so we couldn't clear away any rocks. We all ended up sleeping on a minimum of 5 rocks. The stars were amazing though! AMAZING! I loved not sleeping in a tent! Best thing EVER!! The next day we packed up, trekked out somewhere and then were told the only reason we had trekked out again was so that they could buy more time for booths and things to be set up! So we trekked back and ate lunch (and again, our whole family agreed, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have never tasted better) and then set up tents using a giant tarp, our handcart, rope and stakes. We got everything set up and then we got to just have fun the rest of the day. People from our Stake came up to wash and braid hair, and run booths like taffy-pulling, churning butter, archery, shooting, leather-bookmark making, and knife throwing. It was really fun! Then our families got to make stew and rolls and all that good stuff using a pot and some dutch ovens over a fire and it was SO GOOD!! In the evening we got to go to a dance! That was also one of my VERY favorite parts. We did line dances and a circle dance :) It wasn't really that much of a dance, but rather an attempt at a dance because we didn't really remember any of it and Sister Smelser was just calling out the steps at random intervals. But it was fun anyway.

This is starting to get really long. Ok. Well. The next day was our Sunday. We did a "Faith Walk" but it was more like a "Faith Sit" (which was really cool) and we had a Sacrament Meeting. Maddy Williams gave a really good testimony. Then we had free time the majority of the day. Taylor and Eric hiked to the top of a mountain. Then we had FHE and Singing Trees without trees. Our whole family was really slap-happy after all this and were soon telling jokes around the camp fire, and we were laughing at everything. Then the next morning we trekked back to the base camp and that is where Andrew Jensen took this picture of us with Carlie's camera (I stole the picture off Carlie's blog) and then we went home with our wards. We were absolutely filthy. But it was all good fun! It was such an amazing experience!

Left to right: Kyley, Sarah, Carlie, me In the back: Mason photo-bombing

Photo un-officially borrowed from Carlie's blog....sorry Carlie...

I came back from Trek and my grandparents were visiting from Idaho and I was so excited!! I learned on Sunday that I have ancestors that actually lived in Mesa (my great, great grandpa Cox). My Great-Great-Grandpa had two sons that died here from Valley Fever when they were 5 and 3 years old. They were buried in the Mesa City Cemetery, so we got to go see their graves. I'm really excited I have ancestors that lived down here. It's so cool! The cemetery was gorgeous. I plan on going back to take more pictures.

Graves of my ancestors: Heber H. Cox and Ray B. Cox

I found this grave and thought it was so beautiful

Today, March 19th, I went over to my lovely Cami's house and got to curl her hair! It was SO MUCH FUN!!! Just as I had started, Haley came over and kept Cami company while I curled for about 2 hours. It was so amazing! Then I curled Haley's ponytail and we went out to take pictures. Kennedy soon showed up as well and stayed a short while for pictures before she had to go home. I had so much fun with my extra 3 little sisters!! THANKS FOR THE FUN TIME GIRLS!!!! WE SHALL DO IT AGAIN!!!! They say a picture is worth a thousand words... so I will let the pictures do the talking...

Just so you know, they are really out of order for some reason...