A Family-Filled Thanksgiving

On Wednesday the 26th, we had a half day at school (excuse me, "early release") and we had Thursday and Friday off for the holiday. We left for Utah right after school on Wednesday, heading toward Donna and Aaron's house (my aunt and uncle). Mom, Dad, Chrissie, Carter, and I were in one car. Keith and Craig were in my dad's car because Craig worked Black Friday and had to leave right after Thanksgiving dinner. In the car we were very bored so we had a little fun with the camera :)

(Chrissie and Carter on the left, Me on the right before I got my hair cut)

We got to my aunt's house and I just hung out with Craig and Keith. Thanksgiving day I woke up and got ready then went upstairs at about 8. We were all sitting in the living room talking and looking at the sales for the next day. When we were all ready to go, we hopped in the car and went to my other aunt's house where we planned to eat our Thanksgiving meal. We helped my aunt work on the meal until everybody showed up. Then, of course, we ate and talked and enjoyed ourselves. My cousin set up Rock Band downstairs and I played it for a little while then decided to go back upstairs. Sami had Audree on the ground and she was so adorable I had to snap some pictures!

Isn't she so beautiful?! I held her for a long time (I kinda stole her from Sami... I hope she didn't mind too much) and all the women were in the family room talking (that seems to have filled up my whole weekend so far). When we were about to go I was holding Audree and Sami wanted to take a picture of me holding her. It just so happened that Audree spit up right when the picture was taken. Fun for me, eh?

It seems like we were both taken by surprise. I went home with Sami, Mark, Audree, and Amanda that night. I stayed at Mark and Sami's condo and it was so much fun. I always love staying with Mark and Sami! The next day Sami and I went to the beauty store to get hair dye for her, my mother, and me. In the afternoon our family came over to the condo and got haircuts from Sami. Of course when Chrissie and Carter got there, they started playing the wii :). I stayed the night at the condo and my family went back to Donna's. Saturday morning Sami started dying my hair. Then Mom, Dad, Mark, Sami, and Amanda went to the temple and I watched Audree, Chrissie, and Carter. We went out to eat at Carino's then Mom, Dad, Chrissie, and I went to Temple Square to look at the lights. We went back to Donna's house (me included) and went to bed. Donna's ward started at 9 so we all got ready and left. We planned to stay for all three hours but I really didn't want to (their ward was so lame!) and neither did Marlana (my cousin). We were in our third hour class when we saw our mothers going out to the car. We thought it was unfair that they got to skip and we didn't. We went out into the hall and we saw our moms in the church library talking to Marlana's dad. We ran by, hoping we weren't caught. Their church building was walking distance from their home so we started walking and when we were halfway there, our mothers passed us in the car and honked at us. We were caught. While we were walking we thought of an excuse and it was perfect. We were going home to help them with dinner. Since the next class would most likely be boring and they got to skip, we felt justified in skipping. It actually worked! We ate and then left. On the way home we had more fun with the camera :)

(Chrissie being silly on the left, Me and carter on the right with our new haircuts)

Keith home-sat for us and it was a little messy and wasn't exactly how we left it, but our neighbor brought us a treat as a "welcome home" gift. It made us all happy :)

My Saturday

It is still early in the afternoon and I have done quite a few things this morning! When I woke up at 6:37 (seems kind of random, I know) I finished watching the last half hour of Cinderella that I had started the night before at about two o'clock but stopped because I was falling asleep. Then I went downstairs and, of course, Carter was already up. He was already done eating breakfast, which was oatmeal with brown sugar in it. At our house, the brown sugar is in a big container and is placed in the pantry about 5 feet above the ground. When Carter got the brown sugar down, it was almost empty. While Carter was eating, my dad filled it up to the top and now it was a little heavier. Since Carter was done with it, I asked him if he could put it away. He had a little trouble with the height issue, but not the weight! I had him flex his muscles for me and I got a picture of it!

Then afterwards I made some dessert (I was craving peanut butter and chocolate) and went upstairs to do some homework (yuck). When I was finished, I went downstairs and Chrissie's friends were over and they were watching a movie. They all had silly looking glasses on and I noticed they were watching a 3-D movie. Chrissie said they had one more pair of glasses and offered them to me. I put them on and sat down. The movie was Journey to the Center of the Earth. I have never seen it before so I didn't know what to expect. It was a little cheesy, but pretty good. I get scared really easily so my mom snapped a shot of us right after what I thought was a scary part. She thought it was hilariousYes, I'm the one on the far right. The only one that was actually scared. And yes, all of those kids are at least 5 years younger than me...
So that's where my day is now. I am babysitting tonight, but other than that I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. Maybe I will do some good and actually finish the chores I was given this morning, though I highly doubt it :)

P.E.'s Favorite Game: Dodgeball

I have fitness first period every morning and today was somewhat relaxed. We went to the weight room for twenty minutes and then we went back downstairs to the main gym. There my teachers put a huge bag of balls in the center of the grizzly head (yes, our mascot is the grizzlies. Sigh.) for us to play dodgeball and separated us into girls and boys. In my class there are about 15 girls and 30 boys. Yet my teachers didn't even them out at all. I personally hate dodgeball. It is basically just a mini version of war. Why would we want to replay those tragic events? Anyways, back to the story. We started playing and of course the girls were losing by far within the first minute. When about half of the girls were in the "jail" one of my coaches told the rest of us that were still in the game (including me) to move up further. We took about one step and called it good. I didn't have a ball and a boy from the other team walked right up to me. I was thinking he would just touch the ball to my shoulder or just toss it at me. No, he decided something different. He thought it would be funny if he chucked the ball at my head. It hit a bobby pin on my head (which made it feel worse) and all day I have had an awful headache. To make matters worse, I had Biology today. And that means I had to sit right in front of my teacher which I can smell a mile away. His stink didn't help my headache at all. I hate school.

Teresa Ehrler

We will be getting a foreign exchange student in January and her name is Teresa Ehrler. She is my age and will be going to the same school as me, and hopefully have some of the same classes as me. She is from Germany and I am so excited to meet her! Just from her e-mails to me I can tell she is a wonderful person. Well today a friend and I were walking from our last class of the day to the stairs. An idea suddenly popped into her head and she was excited to share it with me. She said, "Becca! You should invite Teresa to participate in the Dance Festival (a church dance thing) with us!" In one of her recent e-mails, Teresa said she wanted so much to learn American culture and more about my religion. I think this is one of the most Americanish Mormonish things she could possibly do. At least in Meridian. I hope she wants to do it with me though. If not, it's totally her choice.

My First "F"

Oh, goodness. Today I had history; the worst class in the entire universe of classes. A couple weeks ago we had to write a 4 page essay about how The Enlightenment figures influenced our founding fathers and crap like that (and please tell me. How am I supposed to do that?). I spent thirteen and a half (THIRTEEN AND A HALF!) hours researching, drafting, writing, editing (and no, this is not an english class) and so on. Today we got our papers back. My teacher grades our essays out of ten points total and I was thinking I would get maybe a 6 (I guess I was being optimistic) or something like that. I looked at my paper and on it was a big, fat, red "F" on my paper. I looked to see what I got out of ten points and she gave me a 0. A ZERO!!!!!!!! Seriously, if a student actually tries you should give them at least some points! But oh no. My teacher doesn't grade that way. I spent thirteen and a half hours of nonsense just to get a zero on it? Lame! This is the first "F" I have ever gotten on any assignment in my life. I decided to post my shame to the world so I would be more encouraged to work harder on my assignments from now on. I still think I should have gotten at least one point for effort though. How. Freakin. Gay.