• I got sick with a cold.  I turned my fan on one night (bad mistake) and ended up with a sore throat, which then formed into a real head cold by Tuesday.  Not fun when you have not only school, but a game to cheer at until 6 at the earliest (I had to mouth the words part of the time, and coughed a lot when I actually was able to yell).  I had a fever when my mom felt my head after picking me up.  Luckily the day I skipped was a half day and also Career Day, so I had no make-up work whatsoever.  I am better now but still not best.
• At the game, the fire alarm went off not thirty seconds after it started.  The fire-alarm is this extremely shrill sound that hurts your ears.  We all had to evacuate, and then filed back inside after five minutes when it was fine.   Then the only time we have ever lost is against Mesquite, and we did this time again.  Ironically, the only times us cheerleaders have ever messed up extremely bad on our half time routine was at with Mesquite too.  The first time it was because someone didn't put the song on at the wrong time, and it's a repetitive song, so we got really confused.  This time we had people mess up on their tumbling, and both stunts were bad.  The flyer fell out (but got caught) of one stunt, and in mine the girl who was replacing an absent girl didn't get to our stunt until the end, so we just had to stand there awkwardly.  The good thing is that Thursday's game was exciting, going over time, and we won.
• On Friday, three stakes were invited to listen to President Monson's daughter speak.   Although we arrived late and it was short, it was really neat.  There was a peacefulness settled  over the room as her words of wisdom filled the air.
• That night, Rachel, Adam, and I tried out for Jekyll and Hyde.        

  Life flies by so quickly.   When I was younger, it literally felt like absolutely forever until I'd be an adult or a teenager.  Now, it is the 2nd semester of 8th grade and suddenly everything doesn't seem that far away anymore.  At least, not as much.
  Sadly many girls in my classes treat the life I've always wanted to have as stupid. Being LDS, I have always wanted to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, just like my own mom and many others.  Just as women have been doing since who-knows-when until now.  "I'll never get married," they say, "I don't want to be forced to do things.  I don't want a bunch of annoying little kids."
Of course, what they say doesn't make a difference.  The world is changing, but I won't be because of it.
  In college, I want a degree in English.  It is already obvious to anyone that I adore writing, so why wouldn't I?  I want to continue writing in my spare time so that I can hopefully soon publish books.
  I want to get married around twenty-one.  Some girls get married at eighteen.  I think that is too early, because (1) They just got out of high school and haven't learned how to have a true sense of independence first.  and (2) It's still young, and I want to be wise enough to know for sure that he's the one so that there is never a divorce like so common.  Once I hit twenty-four or five, it will be becoming late (and scary).
  Like I said, I want to be a mother.   I love children.  Like my mom and her mom, I want six, (with the oldest hopefully a girl because girls are more responsible).  Here I names I like-
  Girls:

• Isabelle Esther (consecrated to God; religious importance)
• Nicole Sariah (victory of the people; religious importance)
• Evelyn "Eve" Melody (light/religious importance; music)

Boys:

• Ethan Joseph (firm, strong; God will increase/religious importance)
• Isaac Jacob (he will laugh/religious importance; supplanter/religious importance)
• William "Will" Eli (protector; High, my God/family importance) 

  As of the midnight last night, I finished reading the ninth and final book of Gerald N. Lund's, The Work and the Glory.  I am saddened by the fact that no more will I get to read about the lives of of the Steed family, whom I have come to know and love so much.  The series takes place over a period of twenty years, and while reading about all the marriages, births, baptisms, and even some deaths, I have almost felt like I am now a part of their family.
  More importantly, I have learned so much about the birth and early growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For all my life I have heard about some things that happened, but never has it been so real to me, like something that really actually happened.  Every historical figure sprang to life- the Smiths, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, John Taylor, the Fieldings... and all of those other names.  I was fascinated by the faith of the people, that despite the crazy things about "Ole Joe Smith," they were able to join the church.  Not only that, but they endured to the end, being pushed from place to place, facing wild, hate-filled mobs, building and prospering in beautiful cities and being forced to leave them in just a few years....  It was crazy to see how ignorant the anti-Mormons were.  Really.  Only the generation or two before had fought the Revolutionary War so that everyone could have freedom, yet so many Mormon people were, completely robbed, hurt, martyred.  But they kept their faith.
  So it helped my own faith to read about all that happened.  I have nothing to complain about compared to what they faced, and I am so grateful for the example that they set.  I am so grateful that that fourteen-year-old boy knelt in the woods that day and asked just one, simple question.

It is so hard to type right now.
My family went to Ah-So, a fancy restaurant, for lunch.  They cook the food on your table.  The food was so good and the kids loved it!  I am certainly full though!
I didn't get to do my chores yet because we went out.  So now I am dusting my room and cleaning the bathroom.  While I have the Wii remote in my pocket and am jogging in place for twenty minutes.  I am still doing it now.
I love muli-tasking!

This week was only the second week back from the break.  Already I am thoroughly exhausted. I had three nights in a row with games I had to cheer at, along with Mutual and all that homework.  On those same days, at lunch, I had to go back to Spanish before going outside to eat (the first day I only had five minutes before I had to go to 7th hour).   This is because anyone who wants to do Spanish II as a Freshman has to learn the other 15-25% of the words we don't learn in eighth grade, then pass this huge test.  Obviously I do not want to waste my time next year learning the same words all over again, so of course I do it.  Then, after the games, I have to do homework.
The week went by so slow!  Now, we have a three-day weekend.  But that does not mean I get to be totally free.  After the play and being so busy, I have really needed to get back on schedule with doing everything on Saturday that I am  supposed to do.  Today, I cannot forget to do that stuff.
So... chore time!

"Eric wants my teeth to be stinky.  He won't let me brush my teeth!  He's being appropriate and weird either!"
I know I keep posting about Sophie.  But even when I had loads of homework, I still could not help but quickly scribble this down.  Little kids are seriously hilarious. That morning, Sophie had also started bawling because Mom said she wasn't in a certain picture because she hadn't been born yet.

  Somehow on Friday, I was on the bus and didn't realize that Rachel and her friend weren't there until we were almost at our stop.  I had been in such intense conversation with Taylor about the Holocaust documentary I watched in Social Studies and other such sad events that it didn't even occur to us!  They always come on the bus late.  Seriously, the one day I didn't double check to make sure they were there!
  Then at 5 AM on Saturday, my eyes opened for a split second after a dream.  When that happened, I realized my light was on.  Sitting up, I thought, What the heck!  Then I felt that my glasses were on.  I looked around, trying to figure out how that could be.  My book was on the nightstand, so I hadn't fallen asleep reading.  Then I realized that I hadn't read my scriptures or said my prayers.  I had actually taken my scriptures out of the bag to read them, but had been so tired that I just must have thought I would lay down for a moment.  Instead I fell asleep.  It had been 12:30.  I was so annoyed about the whole thing that, after I took off my glasses and turned the light off, I told everyone about it in the rest of my dreams until 9:00.

The other day Dad and Adam were saying about how much drama Sophie was.  Immediately she shrieked.  "I AM NOT A LLAMMA!!!!!"
Oh, how the littlest things make life the best!

A few days ago we were out getting other things for Rachel's birthday.  On the way from one place to another, this strange liquidy substance started raining slowly on are car.  It melted the second it hit.  We weren't sure what it was, then suddenly I gasped.  "Snow!"  Once we got to the phone place, it started snowing more and more, until it became constant.  By the time we left, it stopped, having lasted fifteen minutes.  We had called the kids at home while it was happening to tell them about it, and they had been jealous. We were actually so close to home, and yet they had none. As we drove home, sure enough, there was a giant line where the cloud's shadow was suddenly complete light.  So we picked them up and tried to chase another storm that we could see from a distant that was huge.  The kids really wanted snow.  We didn't catch any, but it was fun to try.
Wow.  Snow in Gilbert, Arizona?

Oh, and I already posted this, but just now Mom said she saw snow on the street,.  We went outside, and it really was a ball of hard, dirty snow, right in front of our house!

Every year we strive to be our best as a new year is born.  Today is 1/1/11.  Although I cannot believe it, it is, so here I am with my new resolutions.
Here are things that will be absolutely necessary for me to be successful this school year.

• Every school day, get up at six o'clock ON THE NOSE.  No sleeping in, even if I'm tired and want to sleep in just a few minutes.  This way I can not be rushed, and we can do our daily family scripture studying.
• Get my homework done ASAP.  There will be no messing around right after school, even though my brain always feels fried after a day of work.  Also, I will not spend more time than I need to on unimportant assignments.  (I have learned the hard way that it doesn't help anything.)   This way, I can not feel stressed, and 
• Go to bed on time.  If I get everything done as soon as I can, I can be in bed by 9 and read until 9:30 or 10.
• Get any projects I have done as soon as they are assigned.
• Keep all A's, of course!

• Exercise as often as possible.  As long as I don't have too much going on, I can do even just small things on the Wii Fit.  If it's a Saturday or I have lots of time, I can run or ride my bike.  Along with this, I will eat healthy (though normally I do anyway, so that won't be hard).  I really want another six pack.     
• Practice piano every day.

And then comes my religious life.

• Continue saying my prayers every morning and night, but always be more meaningful and not repetitive.
• Read the Book of Mormon every day.  I already do this, but I want to follow the program from YW that I used earlier last year that will help me be more diligent.   It is set up to finish it in 100 days, so that way I could read the whole thing at least three times this year.  If not, I want to start the Doctrine and Covenants or read more of the Bible. 
• Go to the temple at least once a month.
• Finish my Personal Progress by New Beginnings.  If I can just sit down every Sunday and see what I can get done, it will happen.
• Blog as often as possible.  Church leaders are always saying how important it is journal, and this blog basically is my journal.  Eventually I want to print it into a book so I can keep it forever.  Especially today after I was looking at family genealogy, I realized that we don't know much about many of our ancestors.  They seem so distant and unreal.  I don't want to be one of those millions that just completely fade away into nothing after death, once a few generations pass.  A journal can prevent that.