The Picture Place

The New Piano!!!! :)

2011-07-30T11:12:00.005-07:00

So I have been slacking a lot... and I figured I haven't posted since January and once school starts I probably won't post for a long time, but this is BIG NEWS.

Ok call me a nerd, but yesterday was better than Christmas!!! (Besides the 11 hour car ride home from California.)

I made a song to express my joy. (to the tune of Popcorn Popping)
I walked in the front door and what do I see?
A gorgeous new piano where the old one used to be
My mommy got me an awesome surprise!
A brand new Baldwin right before my eyes!
I could sit and play it all day long
And nothing in the world could ever go wrong
It's too good to be true!
But its really there!
Sitting in our piano room next to the chairs!

I know, its beautiful, I should be a poet when I grow up:)
Anyways... yeah I walked in the front door from California and put my bags down and gave my dad a hug and looked over his shoulder- and I screamed!!! Its SOOO GORGEOUS and it plays SOOOO well!!! Honestly I have been playing it constantly I am IN LOVE. It's amazing

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California Highlights

2011-01-26T14:38:00.006-07:00

I have decided that California is one of my favorite places on earth and I am moving there as soon as I am old enough. Utah is too cold and dry and I am just really tired of it here. So its a good thing I have been to California twice in the last three weeks!

First I went for New Years, and I just happened to be there for the New Years stake dance and it was the best stake dance I have ever been to! It was really really fun! And Aunt Michele is one of the greatest Aunts ever because she drove us places to shop every single day and I was in heaven. I got purple shoes and they are the coolest things ever!

And we also went to Six Flags, which is like a miniature Lagoon, and it was way fun, too. And all of us had matching jackets with our names on them! Except we asked one guy to take our picture, and he was like, "Of course, Nicole" and he said it kind of in a creepy tone so I don't know how much I like walking around with my name on my shirt...

These next two pictures are two different dogs. I tried to find some pictures that are more alike but I couldn't really. But seriously Zoee and Buddy could be twins. If she wasn't his mother.

Uncle Frank grew a nice mustache for a party, so I colored a matching one with marker.

And he also helped us to build a huge fort in the living room using a camping canopy. It was the most legit fort ever and we slept in it almost every night.

I got to meet my new cousin! :) Jessica and I nicknamed Tristin the Happy Fluffy Chub Ball, and we decided that Stetson beats him in the happiness part, but not the chubbiness part. I love this picture haha

So that was the first trip to California, and then we went out there for Bryson's baptism last weekend. I surprised Jessica this time and she didn't know I was coming, so I ran and hugged her from behind and we screamed and laughed for about 5 minutes. It was quite the sight apparently because Oma said she will never forget it.

We played at the park for a while using the Human Hamster Ball, which is just about the funnest invention ever. As long as you don't hurt yourself.

The best part this time was definitely when we ran into the living room where everyone was watching TV, wearing these... Rick and Debi's wedding dresses :) There were three and they fit us perfectly!

Then we went back down and tried on all of the wedding dresses. It kept us occupied for about 2 hours and it was so much fun! Except the room was a disaster when we were finished.

I decided I am definitely wearing this to an ugly sweater party. This is a mans sweater. Wow.

So ya California is my favorite place to be :)

Volleyball

2011-01-26T14:25:00.004-07:00

I have given up on posting about Christmas because that was too long ago and I put pictures on Facebook so I don't need to blog it too. But I am finally posting! And hopefully I will do it more often now!

Here are some pictures of our first volleyball tournament. It was pretty rough. We won one and lost one on Friday, and Saturday we lost all four. I was really sick with a sore throat and a fever I think (I didn't take my temperature on purpose because I knew that if I had a fever my mom wouldn't let me go) but I think that I played pretty well. The first tournament is always the hardest, plus we played all 16s teams and there is a huge difference between us and 16s. I just wish that we had won, because then being sick for five days would be a little bit more worth it.

I must say that I am proud of my dad because he got some great pictures haha:) I just need to work on keeping a straight face because I look ridiculous in every single one!

This would be demonstrating how NOT to dig a ball...

Christmas Choir Concert :)

2010-12-10T17:12:00.003-07:00

Just so that everybody knows, Mrs. Jolley is the most amazing teacher you will ever meet. Honestly. I don't really know what else to say :)

This is Chamber Choir singing at our concert. There are only 27 of us, so we get to go sing at other places for people. This year we did three other gigs, one of which was a Relief Society party (only in Utah haha). We learned 9 songs but only sang four in the concert, but that's okay because we sang most of them at our gigs. This one was my very favorite.

I'm on the front row, second girl to the left

I'm trying to convince Chamber to be a Flash Mob. If you don't know what that is, look up Hallelujah Flash Mob in Food Court on Youtube... its pretty sweet.

The Only Reason I Love Winter....

2010-12-04T16:46:00.002-07:00

Halloween

2010-10-31T12:46:00.004-07:00

Halloween was successful again. Morgen used my fairy costume, Jolly used Morgen's gypsie costume, and I used McKay's banana costume (and earned myself a breakfast at Kneaders with Uncle Rick in the process). Caleb switched his costume every day, Nate was some scary thing that I still don't know, and mom and dad were Harley dudes. We had sweet costumes this year.

At the YWs party, my dad came to help out so our whole family ended up being there, and we had to find a piece of gum at the bottom of a whipped cream pile without using our hands.

The harley dudes.

Lots and lots of candy. 6 pounds each.

This was before the stake dance on Friday. It was soooo much fun! Except I think the guys were scared to ask a banana to dance because I only got asked once and it was a 17 year old in my ward.

Trading our candy.

Finally Finished...

2010-10-31T12:30:00.005-07:00

This is the quilt that Satan really did not want me to finish. It took FOREVER. But I finally got it done and I am sooooo happy!!! It was definitely longer than 10 hours. It was probably longer than all my other projects put together. My grandma and I spent 6 hours alone just drawing out the design and cutting the scraps of fabric from her closet.

The scraps are probably my favorite part. I have pieces of fabric from my blessing dress, and a quilt that my mom made, and my grandma's trek dress, and a bunch of other things. My other favorite part was that she wrote part of the Young Women's theme in the border. Oma Kim is amazing.

This is what it started out as... just a big piece of paper in a drawing.

Then I sewed the blocks together and that took FOREVER, especially because I sewed the first six squares and then found out that I was sewing a 1/2 inch seam instead of 1/4 inch, and the squares were way too small. By an inch. So I unpicked all but two of them and resewed them. Then, when I was stuck at home while the rest of my family was in Lake Powell, I finished all the squares and left them laid out on the basement floor like this... and Zoee had a little accident on them. Actually, a big accident. Zoee's babysitters washed the squares but it didn't help. So I resewed six more squares. I was so mad.

This is what it looked like before the border was on. I was sick of it and ready to be done with it at this point. Until I found the border, which I am IN LOVE WITH.

Ironing the binding.

The border that I am IN LOVE WITH and the theme in the brown.

I decided that I am really grateful to have such awesome Omas. They are all amazing. I love them a ton. And my mom is really awesome for keeping me sane while I was resewing the whole quilt. Plus she passed on her sewing skills to me. I am related to some pretty awesome people. :)

Baby Champ :)

2010-10-14T20:15:00.003-07:00

From this itty bitty string bean...

... to this handsome chubba bubba...

Champ is so adorable (but what baby isn't?)! Aunt Melissa asked me to take some pictures of him at FHE at Oma Kim and Opa Brent's house a few weeks ago. I did it with a fancy camera from my dad's work, but then the memory card got fried and some guy recovered it and they have been on my dad's computer forever. So I'm finally blogging them! I didn't get a ton of good ones because he is soooo squirmy and he won't smile but there are some cute ones. I love his huge blue eyes.

Church Stuff

2010-10-13T20:29:00.004-07:00

A few Sundays ago we got to go up to Temple Square to listen to Music and the Spoken Word and it was awesome! Jolly couldn't believe how many people there are in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And I found out the other day that only half of the choir sings at once, so it is really twice as big. Crazy. But it was so beautiful. We had the German missionaries show us around Temple Square and that was cool, too. And the cutest part are the boys!!! They are going to be chick magnets when they are older. I'm in the process of convincing Nate to be a chick magnet for Halloween this year. Its going to be great.

PPP PARTY

2010-10-13T20:11:00.003-07:00

Tonight was the awesomest start to the awesomest four day weekend! We had a Personal Progress Party! And a contest to see who could have the best outfit that started with P... so...

Me and Jenessa were A Pink and Purple Pregnant Ping Pong Playing Pair. It was amazing. We had socks, footwear, pajama pants, shirts, pretend ping pong paddles, fingernails, hair, and makeup that was purple. And we were preggo. And we put sticker Ps on our nerd glasses because we can't dress up without nerd glasses.

Volleyball or Music?

2010-09-27T18:02:00.002-07:00

I have a dilemma. I have always wanted a scholarship for volleyball, and now I want to major in music, which means get a musical scholarship, and I can't do both volleyball and music in college... So I have decided that I still want to play volleyball in HS, just not for college, which is a problem if we are putting more than a thousand bucks a year for it and its not even going to pay off with a scholarship. But the thing is that I can't just give up volleyball and forget about it. I still want to play high school volleyball, and we can pay for that, but club is the expensive part (in the spring) and I'm afraid that if I don't do club and keep up my skills, I won't make the high school team next year. But, club takes a ton of money and a lot of time that I could spend in voice or guitar lessons to help me on the music track. I really really love music and I know that in the long run, it will pay off and that I will benefit more if I can play the piano than if I can play volleyball when I'm an old lady. But I can't just quit cold turkey on volleyball. I have no idea what to do. Any suggestions? Opinions? Please.

I Love My Dog

2010-09-27T17:52:00.003-07:00

I just have to say how much I love my dog. Apparently I haven't posted in a while and I need to put on more pictures. But my life is pretty much just volleyball and I don't even have any pictures of that, so I can't really post about it. So I am telling you how much I freakin love my dog. She is awesome.

Play? Play? Please, somebody anybody, play?

Yes! Play play play!!! I'm going to chase a rock into the lake and then it will sink and I'll come back so that Nicole can throw another one!!!

Jolly!

2010-09-04T09:26:00.005-07:00

This is Jolly, our new sister! Shes our foreign exchange student from Berlin, Germany. She will be here for the whole school year and we are all soooo excited! So is she. She is pretty much awesome. Jolly is way outgoing and tries everything.

So far she doesn't like licorice or root beer. But that's ok because I hate licorice and I used to hate root beer, so we are weird together. She isn't any religion, so when we went to Church she thought it was really weird. When they passed the sacrament, she turned to me and said, "They are giving us food?" She has also been trying really hard to say oh my gosh instead of the other word, because she knows that we don't say that. She's really sweet like that. She said she felt a little awkward in church, but she didn't complain about it at all, and eventually I think she will like it. I'm so excited to have this missionary opportunity!

Haha she came to my volleyball game and they kept the gym at -10 degrees, I swear, and she came and asked me if I had a jacket in German. I looked at her funny and then she realized she had just spoken in German!

She also thinks that my dad is really funny- which is true. And when he talks about good food, his eyebrows go up and down (which I have never noticed before, but Jolly thinks thats hilarious).

Last Sunday was our cooking day. My mom made rotkohl (which she has only had a few times in her life, believe it or not) and bratwurst for dinner. Jolly and I made banana bread with some really rotten bananas, and she was kind of grossed out, and the sad thing is that the bread didn't even turn out that good. We used a new recipe and it wasn't fabulous. We also made brownies. Lots and lots of brownies.

Family Home Evening on Sunday night. She fits in perfect! And of course the boys aren't paying attention and Morgen is bored and cold.

Young Womens- we had an ice cream social in our backyard. Jolly probably thinks that we are the unhealthiest people in the world because at the moment we have 5 1/2 gallons of ice cream in our freezer. We keep telling her that we never have ice cream and she should enjoy it while we do, and then a celebration will come (like the Fantasy Football draft party) and we go buy more ice cream!

Fantasy Football Draft party- Jolly thinks this is the weirdest thing she has ever seen since coming to America. A bunch of 40 year old men in the same room, each with their own laptop. I couldn't agree more, now that I think about it, but before I wouldn't have even thought it was weird, because thats just what these guys do every year!

For Young Womens this week, we had a Modesty Fashion Show, and it was soooo much fun. Jolly even participated! She borrowed one of my dresses and rocked the runway. She is so much fun to have around and I'm so grateful for this awesome missionary opportunity.

Lake Powell

2010-09-04T08:57:00.006-07:00

Heres a few pictures of Lake Powell. Aunt Angie just bought a new camera and she brought it down, so we all had a fun time playing with it. The sad thing is that even with some of Angie's pictures and my grandpa's pictures, I only came home with 276 total. And I deleted at least half. That is a record for me! Last year, I came home with EIGHT HUNDRED! And now I only have 100... oh well. At least these ones are all really cute.

Working on Sand Castle 2010

We had some fun doing modeling...

Our matchy matchy French braids...

Nate was a MONSTER on the wakeboard! He got up right away and the next day he was jumping the wake! It was so awesome. I can't even do that...

The wave runners were so much fun to take to Lake Powell. We went up and down the canyons all day long, and we got to wakeboard and tube behind them. The only thing with tubing is that the rope is low and it splashes water into your face constantly (thats an understatement), so you have to wear goggles and not scream or you will get a mouthful of water.

Opa Brent took this one. The reflection is soooo cool!

The day before I got there, they had a huge rainstorm and there were waterfalls everywhere. I was so sad that I missed it! If you didn't know, I had to stay home alone for 2 days to go to volleyball practice, and then I went down on Friday with Aunt Angie. I still missed one practice and had to sit out our first game, but it was totally worth it. I love Lake Powell!

Some More Summer...

2010-08-18T12:53:00.006-07:00

I have obviously been busy this summer. Like, REALLY busy. Things have been soooo crazy and I have hardly slept in my own bed all summer! Lately, I have been busy with volleyball, because I MADE THE SOPHOMORE TEAM and practice is every single stinking day. I'm really happy, but really exhausted and already ready for a break. But I think it will get better once school starts and there is a solid schedule, and we play games and have something to look forward to.

Then, I stayed with my new baby cousin Champ and Aunt Melissa for 3 days to help them out. It was super fun, and he is such a good little baby! I just got to sit there and hold him all the day long while Melissa slept. I was in heaven.

On Monday, we went to Lagoon with the Carlsons! That was way fun, too, except I was really bummed that I had to leave at 5:00 to go to volleyball practice :(

Hallie, me, Morgen, and Chloe

Me and Chloe on the swingy ride

Morgen and McKay on the swingy ride

Jen, Mom, Jerry, Dad

Caleb, Morgen, Nate, McKay, and me. I swear we could all be siblings.

On my mom and dad's anniversary, I was gone the whole day, so when I got home and they went to a movie, I made a cake from scratch for them. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

We got to have a sleepover at Oma and Opa's with all the cousins.

We went swimming at an awesome pool

We endured a giant 5 minute hailstorm at Aunt Melissa's house

We had a gorgeous sunset one night

And we finally got the waverunners fixed and took them to Utah Lake! They are a blast! And I already got me, Morgen, and my dad to fly off of them when I drive. They don't trust me anymore...

Last but not least, I have been working on a scrappy quilt with all of the value colors. This is only 1/2, and the squares aren't sewn together yet, but I can't wait! I'm so excited to finish it! I spent 5 hours with Oma Kim one Saturday, and we went through all of the scraps in her closet (which is A TON) and cut everything and put them into organized bags. The only fabric I bought was the teals and the browns. And we got an awesome deal on Minky for the back. Thats the SUPER soft stuff. I am so excited!!!!!

Triathlon 2010!!!

2010-08-18T12:32:00.003-07:00

I'm sure you have all heard that my mom and I did another triathlon this year!!!

It was twice as long as last year, and backwards- run first, 3.1 miles, bike 12 miles, and swim 350 meters last. It was the perfect triathlon for us, and I LOVE doing it backwards.

The run is the most exhausting part, so once its over with, you get to do the easy stuff. I passed a LOT of people on the run, and only a few passed me, so that was really good.
Also, a friend of my dad's from work let me borrow her road bike, another thing that I absolutely LOVE. Road bikes are the best!!! I kind of felt bad when I passed people on mountain bikes, because I know how horrible they are (unless you are mountain biking, of course)
I was nervous about the swim, because my mom and I only went swimming to train twice, but I must have my mom's fish-genes because it was really easy. It only took about a lap to catch my breath, and then I was fine. Except I was stuck behind like 6 people who wouldn't let me pass them.

My bike:

Before the race:

I finished the run really fast, and my dad wasn't expecting me, but this is a picture of me running to the pool after the bike was over:

Mom coming in from the bike:

After the swim:

I was shooting for under an hour and a half, and my dad said that would be pretty amazing (kinda in disbelief, like I wouldn't really do it) but I proved him wrong and got 1:21!!! 3rd place in the 18 and under division, and 1st and 2nd were 18 year olds, and I missed 2nd place by 7 seconds!!! My mom got 1:30 and like 8th in her division or something. It was pretty awesome.

The Real Story

2010-07-29T07:59:00.003-07:00

So, this is what my mom showed you on her blog: happy little boy, lost his teeth, they magically and painlessly fell into his hand, he is excited for the tooth fairy, etc.

However, this is what she failed to mention...

I rest my case.

Haha but anyways, Caleb is turning into a very odd kid lately. Nobody really knows what happened to him, but he just acts... weird! I can't even describe it... maybe the pictures can...

Again, I rest my case.

My Favorite Cousin :)

2010-07-26T13:47:00.006-07:00

After Dillon's Beach, Jessica flew home with us and stayed for a week. It was the best!!! We had soooooo much fun!!!

We went to the canal (where we usually take Zoee) and swam in it!!! It was about as cold as the ocean, which is FREEZING but it was way fun!!! Especially the dressing up part...

We made cute wooden block letter things. I loved it. Actually, I love anything crafty. Jessica decided I am easily pleased. And easily impressed. I guess thats a good thing?

Please notice what Jessica is wearing- we thought it would be cool to get matching boxers and be like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but with boxers. However, we got extra small in boy's, not men's, so they would have fit Nate and Caleb and we had to exchange them for large.

Uncle Rick took us on a special uncle-neices boating trip and that was awesome. I wakesurfed and got whiplash! Yay! I don't know if I really got whiplash, but my neck KILLED the next day. I was pretty proud of myself though, because I was a crazy wakesurfing lady, or something like that. We did some tubing, too, but we didn't get any pictures. Rick took us around in circles and it was scary. Morgen was getting pretty worked up, for example: "He's known me my whole life, he should know that I don't like fast things! I'm getting so mad at him! SLOW DOWN! Nicole, I don't like this at all. Please just get off with me, I don't want to get off alone, just pretend to fall with me." I was trying really hard not to laugh. But anyways, Jessica said that Rick should pay for her chiropractor, so between Jess and Morgen, you should know how scary tubing with Rick is.

We finally did a spa night at the end of the week.

Yesterday, we had some fun with modeling... I was amazed that we could stop laughing long enough to get some good pictures. We kept talking about how funny it would be if someone's last name was Squat, and he was a grandpa, and they called him Papa Squat (like pop a squat). We laughed about that for like half an hour.

We got our matchy matchy dresses at Ross for $8, and saw the exact same style at Target for $20, so I think we did pretty good on our 4 hour shopping trip. Our legs and feet hurt so bad after that trip.

Camping at Dillons Beach

2010-07-26T13:20:00.007-07:00

Camping was awesome- freezing, but awesome. We had to hike over 3 giant sand hills to get to the beach, and the ocean was like 10 degrees, but there was plenty of food and plenty of things to do, like make friendship bracelets :)

This was the only time we actually got in the ocean because it was FREEZING

I love this picture!!!!

Some stuff around camp- Longtail, the boys' beerbottle pet

Smores

Friendship bracelets :)

More friendship bracelets :)

Gimp. I don't even know what that means but its a cool nickname!

Mom and Caleb

Bryson, Jamie, and Nate

Playing Speed, the best and most addicting game ever invented

Me and Oma Meinzer

Me and Opa Meinzer

TIDEPOOLS!!!

The boys had fun making the little squishy things squirt everywhere

Lots of jumping coming up.

Our feet would get stuck in the sand

Volleyball Camp

2010-07-26T13:11:00.004-07:00

I got to go to St. George with the Junior Varsity volleyball team for a tournament/camp and it was the best vacation of my life. Seriously. All we did is eat, sleep, swim at the pool, and play volleyball. How much better does it get? I'm not sure what place we ended up in, but we played 4-5 teams each day, and the rest of the day was free to do whatever we wanted. We ate at the Dixie College food place, which is practically all you can eat. I was so sick of food after that vacation. I didn't think that was possible, but seriously, you would have thought I was anorexic or something when I came home because I was so sick of food. It was so fun though!

Me and Courtney on the bus ride down there

The elevator had a mirror on the top!

We got a shuttle bus to drive us around everywhere. Luckily the gym was right next door to the hotel, but the food place was 5 minutes away.

We gave each other ball massages!!!

The eating place

I bought a mini volleyball as a souvenir and we were playing with it in our hotel room! It was so fun!

Girls Camp 2010

2010-07-10T14:51:00.012-07:00

I'm extremely sorry for the picture overload, but I had to put on a ton because all the ward is getting the pictures from here, so I went a little crazy. Also, I have no idea why the spacing is so weird, but I can't really change it, so deal with it :)

Anyways, that said, Girls Camp was amazing. It always is. I decided that my family does not go camping enough! It is sooo much fun! It was just our ward this year, and we went to a place called Beaver Ridge (but there weren't actually any beavers). It was awesome. I'm not quite sure where to start, so I will just write as you go through the pictures.

We all sat in a circle one day and played games, like Truth (truth or dare, but without the dare part) and Have You Ever. We found out lots of interesting things about each other (that I would like to share, but unfortunately what is said in the circle stays in the circle)

Before each meal, we had a Cow and a Princess. They got to sit on a toilet seat and fancy pillow for the meal, and read a cute little written poem type thing.

HIKING

We went on a 3 mile hike up to a GORGEOUS meadow (you'll see what I mean)

I did a little touch-up editing to this picture, but not much. Its GORGEOUS.

I absolutely LOVE these pictures- it was the perfect place to do a photoshoot. I wish that it was closer so we could do a real one, but these two will do for now.

SNIPE HUNTING

We got to take the beehives snipe hunting this year!!!! I didn't think that it would work but I forgot how gullible beehives are. Monica 'got bit' (thanks to red food coloring) and the bishop went into the trees and started shaking them. The beehives were pretty freaked out. It was awesome.

CAMPFIRE

This is the other picture that I absolutely love, and its a good thing because its the only one we have of us three. It was so much fun to have both my mom and my sister there with me. I'm in a good position because I fit in with the miamaids (me), the leaders (my mom), and the beehives (Morgen)! (There weren't any laurels that came this year. We only have 2 I think)

I love having long hair because you can do tons of stuff with it, but I also love it because everyone loves to play with it! I sat on Monica and Jenessa and they played with my hair and rubbed my back. It was sweet. If the sourpatch dude cut off my hair I would kill him.

This was our camp dog, Tabby. She was so fun, except she was only there on the first and last day. She went swimming in the lake, which totally reminded me of Zoee. That would be another reason my family should camp more- Zoee would be in heaven.

TYE DYE SHIRTS
We made Tye Dye Shirts on the first day. I already knew about it, so I looked up cool ways to tye dye shirts on the internet before we left for camp. I also had an extra volleyball T-shirt that I wanted to do.

These were the two that I did

CRAFTS

We learned how to make cool necklaces out of washers and cool steel stamp sets and hammers. They are really cute, and I bought a stamp set and I'm going to turn it into a business (probably $5 per necklace and $3 per washer, but I'll post later with more info).

PAPER BEADS!!!! I was addicted last year, and we did them again this year. I could do these for hours. I did a bunch, but then got stuck with crappy, sticky scissors that wouldn't cut, so I tried to clean them with a baby wipe. Yeah... not smart. I sliced my finger and almost couldn't paper bead anymore!!! I was devastated!!! But then I figured out that if you SUPER GLUE YOUR FINGER it helps it to heal! And it didn't even hurt and my life was saved! I am now a super glue fan!

We also made flowers. This is another one of my obsessions. Morgen and I now have 64 total and we are running out of room to put them! But don't worry- I will wear a flower every single day to school next year so that they don't go to waste.

Maika and Jenessa

Hannah, Morgen, Gentri, and Hayley

Ashley and Morgen

The whole gang

THE LAKE

There was a lake down the road a little ways from our campsite, so we brought a canoe and went canoeing. It was fun, except the water was mossier than my opa's pond at the moment (which is pretty gross, no offense Opa Brent) so there was NO tipping whatsoever. Except Hayley got wet, I have no idea why, she's crazy.

Me, Jenessa, Hayley, and Maika

Hayley and Gentri

Hayley, Ashley, Morgen, and Gentri

Because of the pond, there were a million mosquitos, so we got pretty imaginative with our methods of keeping away bugs. One method was to put a bounce dryer sheet somewhere on your body, and for the most part it worked. Except not on me because once again I have 16 mosquito bites (I had 18 no Trek). I swear nothing works on me, so why even try?

ZIPLINE
There was a zipline right by the lake, and we had it all to ourselves. It was really fun, minus the 3 minor injuries from it. I didn't get great shots of everybody, but here are a few...

Me

Bishop Compton

Morgen

Sister Johnson

Monica

Jenessa

DANCING

We had dance skit things, where we pretty much made up a skit and danced to it. It was pretty much hilarious. I'll post them on Facebook or something once I get all the videos uploaded.

You Can't Stop the Beat group

Footloose group

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun group (1/2 of it at least)

I just have to thank all of the amazing leaders and tell you how much I love you. You are all huge examples to me. I shared in my testimony on the last night how much I love the word example. In my opinion, it sums up our whole religion. If we don't live what we believe, what is the point of believing it? I really just want to be a good example to everyone around me, and if I can do that, I will be happy. I have family members who don't go to church anymore, and it is really heartbreaking. I couldn't imagine my life without this gospel, especially growing up and becoming a teenager, and having Satan throwing temptations constantly. It makes me scared for my cousins, but also that much more determined to the the good example of a virtuous, faithful daughter of God and a person that they can look up to as they are growing up. I am also grateful for the great examples of leadership and motherhood and friendship that I have to look up to. I can only hope to be as great as you are. I love you leaders (and friends and grandparents and mom and dad and siblings) sooooo much! Thanks for everything that you do! You truly are amazing.

Trek!!!!

2010-06-29T15:13:00.007-07:00

TREK!!! Trek was sooo amazing!!! Theres a ton to write about, so I will just write as I go...

This is the very first morning. We were supposed to leave the Stake Center at 5:00, but we didn't actually leave until 6:30. From left to right- Maika, Ashley, Jenessa, Me, Abigail, Mom, Morgen, Bishop Compton, Sister Compton (they are Zoee's babysitters). The stake leaders thought that we would have a really small group with just 14+, so they let 12+ go.

Martin's Cove, WY- we had a 7 hour bus ride up, but it was definitely worth it! We could each take 10 pounds in a 5 gallon bucket that doubled as our seat, but that didn't include bedding luckily!

The trail- there were 400 of us! The first day we hiked 3 miles to camp and had a fireside and dinner and everything. The second day was the reason we were there, pretty much- we did Dan Jones Cove, Martin's Cove, Sweetwater Crossing, and the Women's Pull- 13 miles total. Then we went back to the same camp, and the third day hiked back to the buses.

My mom and dad got to go as a Ma and Pa, but not mine. I visited them a lot, though. This was one morning when we were really tired.

My family, the Allgoods. We called the 2 boys in front Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum because they were complete spazzes, but they were definitely entertaining! We had a big family- 8 kids.

Pulling the handcart

This was the Women's Pull. Oh boy. We did the Women's Pull in honor of the women who pulled the handcart all the way to Salt Lake after the men were called to fight in the Mexican American War. This is what I wrote in my journal about it- The women's pull was the most spiritual out of the whole day, I think. It was a steep, sandy hill and all the brothers were just standing watching us. We sang As Sisters In Zion and had a prayer before going up the hill. We had to run up to the front carts and help them, and then come back a couple times to help others. I was trying hard not to cry because the men were taking pictures of us coming up the hill! Lovely... But I was surprised, even Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum came and gave us hugs and said they wanted to help the whole time. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to pull a handcart by myself the rest of the way to Salt Lake. But we can liken it to ourselves today (my favorite part!) We can be willing to do hard things, and some people are single moms, things like that. I love being able to compare their trials to ours, but experience both! It was so amazing to see all the young women running to help each other, and the spirit was sooo strong. I know that I can count on the women and friends in my ward to help me with anything.

Sweetwater crossing, another amazing experience. We reenacted this because 4 young men were willing to carry the entire company across a frozen river with ice chunks floating in it. It was really hard to imagine what it would have been like then, because at the time it was 95 degrees and we were excited to get wet and cool off, but it was still amazing to see how determined the 4 young men were. They probably crossed the river 20 times, and they were exhausted by the end, but they kept going. It was so amazing.

Morgen got carried by Zac Efron. Not really, but doesn't he look like Zac Efron?

They have 3 new statues of the boys carrying people across the river, and they are super cool.

That night, we were all super hot, so once we got back to camp, we all went swimming in the river. I think that is where I got the majority of my 19 mosquito bites, but it was still really fun. We had to skip square dancing because swimming took so much time, but we got to do about 10 minutes of line dancing. It was interesting, and confusing...

I just thought this was super cute... Morgen and I were in the same company, so we were together for all of the activities, which was really fun!

The bus ride home. I loved these buses. We should have these instead of school buses.

The Tweedles tried to do the McDonalds Rap but completely failed, so I had to go and save them. Yes, I did the McDonalds Rap in front of the whole entire bus! It was awesome. I saved the day.

One thing that I will never forget from Trek is when we shared testimonies around the campfire with our families. Bishop Heninger shared that possibly, when we were in Heaven, we wanted to come down to earth and be pioneers, but Heavenly Father told us that He wanted to save us for 2010. That might not have happened, but I will always pretend that it did. Knowing that I was strong enough to wait until now will always help me to endure anything that Satan throws at me. In our Trek journals that we got, there is a quote by Elder Niel A. Maxwell that says The special spirits who have been reserved to live in this The Dispensation of the Fullness of Times will one day be praised for their stamina by those who pulled handcarts. It is so hard to believe that our trials are harder than the pioneers', and that they will praise us for doing well. I could feel them walking with us as we got to taste a small part of what they went through, and I know that they are always watching over us. I want to make them proud of me, and to rise up and be the person that Heavenly Father wants me to be- Nicole, a daughter of God. I am not afraid to rise up and take my place. I want my Father in Heaven to be proud of me.

Trek was amazing, and if you ever have the opportunity to go, GO! :)

Family Pictures

2010-06-28T17:26:00.005-07:00

What do you do when both you and your sister are bored and its a beautiful day outside? :)
Here is the latest shoot...

I tried an updo... it is definitely not professional, but it was fun!

This picture is pretty cute, aside from the fact that both of their tongues are sticking out!

I was surprised that the boys let me take pictures of them too! I didn't take as many, but here are the best. I am convinced that I have the cutest little brothers in the whole world.

And of course, we can't forget Zoee.

FOOD!!!

2010-06-21T09:20:00.004-07:00

So I decided that I just want to be a plain chef when I grow up, not a cookie chef in specific. Lately, I've been helping out with dinner to help with my boredness, but it's super fun!

Kaya came over the other day and we decided to make a full meal instead of cookies. Obviously, I am still learning, because we almost had unleavened breadsticks (I doubled the water on accident, but didn't double the yeast) but luckily they turned out alright. Actually they turned out delicious. So we had breadsticks, salad with garden lettuce, and spaghetti, and my dad made us strawberry shortcake for dessert that night. We were stuffed.

Here are some other things I've been making lately.

Spaetzle (its German).

They are just flour noodles, but really yummy with cheese, and really fun to make! You use a cheese grater type thing and grate the dough into boiling water.

Enchiladas- these were a HUGE hit! They were super easy and everyone loved them.

POPCORN!!! This kind of popcorn is ADDICTING, I'm not kidding. You put in enough kernels to fill the bottom of the pan and about 3 tablespoons of peanut oil. Then you put about 1-2 tablespoons of salt in a blender, blend it, and add that in the pot. I guess that salt is too big, so when you blend it up, it becomes more fine and goes in all the little cracks of the popcorn. Sometimes we blend parmesan cheese, too. THEN- turn on the stove and shake the bowl until all the popcorn is popped!!!

I have been saving the best for last- MINI CHEESECAKES!!!! These are soooo good!!!! You mix together 2 packages of cream cheese, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla, then squirt it onto Nilla Wafers and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. They are a piece of heaven, I promise!!! The only bad thing about these is that I froze them overnight because I wanted to give them to my dad, and they weren't crunchy anymore after they thawed. But they still tasted delicious! And it makes A TON!!!

Cookie Chef

2010-06-13T15:12:00.005-07:00

I have a new life goal. I want to be a Cookie Chef when I grow up!!! I am now famous for my cookies. They aren't anything special- usually just a plain chocolate chip cookie recipe- but I bake cookies almost every Sunday and give them to people. As soon as I figured out that I was famous for them, I decided to start experimenting and branching out to other types of cookies. Today I tried Oatmeal Raisin with a twist and they are amazing, if I do say so myself. They actually don't even have raisins- they have apples. Just in case they didn't turn out, I did half with raisins and half with apples.

Here is the recipe, if you want to try them-

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups quick oats
1 cup apple pie filling

Beat butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar for 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, beat. In another bowl, combine remaining dry ingredients (cinnamon, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and oats). Add to wet mixture 1 cup at a time. Then, add apple pie filling one spoonful at a time. I used homemade pie filling, and the apple slices were pretty big, so I cut them up into smaller pieces, but I don't know what you will have to do with storebought. Drop by spoonful onto greased cookie sheets- bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes.

Summer Projects

2010-06-13T12:06:00.003-07:00

So far I have been pretty busy this summer!!! Thats a good thing!!! Here is some stuff I have been doing so far (besides babysitting).

I cleaned out the entire fridge. That was a 2 hour long project.

We got a 3 barrel crimper finally, so I had to try it out and crimp my hair! I thought it would take forever since I have so much hair, but once I got it figured out it only took my about half an hour.

My mom tried to make Funnel Cakes. They turned out really yummy!

Last year at Girl's Camp, we got a mini postcard booklet with pictures of Jesus, and I didn't want it to just sit in my drawer. So I went to Ross and got this picture frame for $13, and put my favorite pictures in it and put it in my room! I love it!

I finally have shelves, and I finally put stuff on them! Now my room is all matching and I love it!

While cleaning my room, I got distracted with how much freaking change I have! So my dad gave me some rolls to put it in, and I have $41 worth of change! I'm going to cash $36 of it at the bank, but I left about $5 to put in this cute little can I made. I just hot glued a ribbon and bow around the outside and modge-podged scrapbook paper on the top to match my room.

My artistic view of money... $36

Splash Dogs 2010!!!

2010-06-06T18:32:00.003-07:00

We took Zoee to Splash Dogs again, and she actually competed this year!!! She is still a beginner, but she did pretty good. Her first jump was 12'4" and her second was 14'6", but some dogs get up in the 20s, so she has a ways to go. Her problem is that she doesn't look up at the ball, so she doesn't jump high. She just jumps in and waits until the ball is in front of her. It could land right on top of her head and she wouldn't know it!

She got really excited when we were waiting in line to practice, and she would not be quiet! It was annoying, but kind of funny at the same time.

FRIED

2010-06-06T17:39:00.003-07:00

Sooo... I got burned on Monday and was just starting to get better when we went to Seaworld... and accidentally packed our sunscreen. And I got FRIED. It hurts.

SEAWORLD!!!

2010-06-06T13:06:00.008-07:00

Seaworld was the best part of San Diego, except for the fact that we got FRIED. We were going straight from Seaworld to the airport on Thursday, so we had all of our luggage packed, including sunscreen. So we baked in the sun in all the different shows. But it was still super fun! Now, my whole family wants to become dolphin trainers.

The Sea Lion show:

The Dolphin Show (my favorite)

They would go along the edge and flick their tail to splash everyone. We weren't low enough though, so we didn't get wet.

It was amazing how well trained the animals were! At first I felt bad for them because they couldn't be free in the ocean, but they seemed so happy to be performing and stuff. The trainers could just flick their hand and the dolphins knew exactly what to do!

The Whale Show: SHAMU!!!

We actually sat in the front this time, so that we could get wet (because we were getting FRIED at this point) But did we get so much as a drop of water on us? NO! It was still fun, though.

Our family with a dolphin lady

After we sat in 2 shows and went on the river rapids and barely got a drop of water on us, we decided to take on Journey to Atlantis! Finally, after 6 hours in boiling hot sun, we got soaked!

You can't really see how wet we got, but me and mom sat in the front seat. We were not risking staying dry!

Nate got his pants wet, so he waddled a little :)

Last stop- Manta Ray pool. They were slimy and slippery and gross but still cool.

Random animals that we saw:

Super turtle! He got high centered on the rocks

The dolphins played volleyball!!!

Sharks

Flamingo

San Diego!!!

2010-06-06T12:27:00.008-07:00

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD

San Diego was super fun, aside from the sunburns. It was overcast until about noon, but after that the sun came out and it was burning hot- perfect pool weather! We got there Monday morning, and since its really close to where Andre and Becky live, they came to visit us at the hotel pool.

I love the double chins there...

We got to go to San Diego because my dad had a conference down there and his work was paying for the hotel, so we got a free vacation! My dad's friend had the same idea of bringing his whole family down, so we hung out with them on Monday, too, and the kids played the knock-you-off-the-shoulders-game in the pool. It was way fun.

Anything unusual here?
Haha this duck came back every day- it was interesting.

Me and Nate getting ready for a dip :)

I tried an outtie French braid on Morgen for the first time, and it turned out really good, so she modeled it for me

AJ and Isaiah are the cutest little boys- so I got plenty of pictures of them!

Giving a hug-

AJ was so cute just chillin with his apple!

Since we were on the harbor, there wasn't a beach to go to, but there is a path that goes all down the edge of the ocean, with plenty of street vendors and stuff along the way.

This guy has an interesting talent- he balances rocks! It was so cool to watch him!

Our family at the Hard Rock Cafe. We went out to eat for every meal except breakfast, which was cool, but I was sick of restaurant food and ready for a home cooked meal by the time we got home.

On Tuesday, we walked down to the USS Midway, which is an old aircraft carrier that you can tour. It was huge! This is the view from the top of the Midway-

The kids out in front

This was a little path thing that went off the edge.

We could sit in the cockpits of different airplanes and stuff- this was in a helicopter

Underneath, they had a jail for the soldiers that were being bad.

Coming back to our hotel... you can see Morgen in the bottom left, walking on the path

Sadly, we didn't have a view out our hotel room window, but this a view from the hall window.

The boys really just wanted to watch TV all day. They hated anything that had to do with walking, which was a bummer, because we walked everywhere. We didn't have a car.

Caleb playing on my dad's I-touch. I thought this was pretty funny.

All the family at the hotel with AJ and Isaiah

The Hairdo

2010-06-06T12:07:00.004-07:00

What was the occasion? My 1st stake dance
Who did it? Sister Warnick, my YW's leader
How long did it take to do? 45 minutes
How long did I leave it in? 47 hours, 2 nights
How many places did I go with it in? 11- we had to run errands on Saturday
How long did it take to get out? 17 minutes
How many bobby pins were used? 76

Credit to the French braid in the front goes to Kaya
Credit to the pictures taken goes to Morgen and my mother
Thank you to all who made this gorgeous hairdo possible :)

Both Kaya and I had really long days and were dead tired, so we didn't exactly want to go anymore. But, we had to get our hair's worth... and our moms made us. So this describes our feelings in the beginning. Plus no guys asked us to dance because they are lame like that, so we slow danced with each other the whole time.

We were very creative trying to get our hair to stay in overnight.

This is what it looked like when I took it out- I thought it would be scarier!

And of course, the bobby pins... :)

1st Day of Summer

2010-05-28T15:10:00.004-07:00

Today was a very successful 1st day of summer.

Everyone set up a slip n slide on the front lawn.

We painted the shed

And Zoee... well this explains it...

Last Day of School Pictures

2010-05-27T19:24:00.006-07:00

I finally figured out how to get these pictures on the computer...
These are from yesterday, because it was Yearbook Day, so we had all 8 classes in 1 day. I didn't go to school today and I'm not going tomorrow because it is POINTLESS. I have no idea why they still have school, because nobody goes after Yearbook Day. Instead of being lazy and watching 4 movies in school, I stayed home and folded 2 loads of laundry and went for a run with Zoee.

Anyways, this year was super fun!
At school: I had my first real crush, got to be in Timberline Sing with Mrs. Jolley and accompany for the first time, learned that I can actually play sports other than volleyball (and I'm GOOD at them, too!), realized how much I hate drama in all of its forms (plays aren't too bad, as long as I'm watching- I just hate the class and the typical girl drama), aced all three Core Tests, and successfully texted in class without getting my phone taken away once.
At home: I played Libero for the first time in volleyball and had a great season, made the Top 20 Piano recital out of 500 people, hosted a winter clothing drive for Personal Progress, read the Book of Mormon all the way through for the 2nd time, I still have Halloween candy hidden somewhere, I have $1600 in Stock, and I grew half an inch.

Jenessa and Me

Riley and me

Mikkia, Sheridyn, and me

Addie, Jessica, and me

Jessica Hair and me

Jenessa, modeling the yearbook that I didn't buy

The Timberline Sing page of the yearbook

Some of my math class, and my math teacher Mr. Barker

My whole drama class, except the person who was taking the picture

Ashley and me, on the bus

Me and Mrs. Jolley!!! :)

An interesting picture taken in PE

An interesting picture taken at our table at lunch

An interesting picture of me skateboarding on 2 yearbooks and desperately trying not to do the splits, while Ryan tried to push me

Team Pictures

2010-05-25T17:04:00.005-07:00

Here are some team pictures of the very last tournament. Torie's mom took them with her amazing camera!

Top row: Coach Moea'i, Candace (AKA Nemo), Brooklynn, Brooklynn (AKA Gilmour, Happy, Hap, etc), Aly, McKayla, Carly, ME, Savanna, Torie, and Emily

My Volleyball Tournament

2010-05-16T12:26:00.004-07:00

Friday and Saturday was my last volleyball tournament of the season :( Its very depressing to think about. I'm going to be soooo bored without volleyball! Luckily, I am going to a camp this summer and I can play for Lehi High School in the fall, and then club will be in the spring again, so I will still be playing.

We didn't play too well on Friday, but Saturday we won all of our games except the very last one. Unfortunately, because we didn't play well on Friday, the highest place we could get was Bronze division (we have been in Silver all season, and even Gold once). But, we won all our Saturday games except the final one- the Bronze championship game- which we lost by 4 points. It was a really good, intense game. Even though we lost, I think we played really well. On both teams, everyone was super tired since it was the end of the day, so little things like serves were what got us behind.

Here are a few highlights. When I am wearing the red jersey, its because I am the libero and that means I can only play back row, but I can go in and out whenever, and without it counting as a substitution. When I am wearing the black jersey, I have to do a substitution, but my coach still has me just playing back row. I'm not tall enough to play front row :( Thats okay though because I still got a couple hits from the back row at this tournament!

I'm the red jersey in the first video, but I'm black #7 in the other ones.

The Last Puppy Pictures

2010-04-11T14:55:00.007-07:00

K you're probably getting sick of dog pictures so these are the last ones, I promise! Buddy is in California with Oma and Opa Meinzer, Jeff, and Emily, and Finn is in Idaho with Aunt Amy and her family. If by some miracle you aren't sick of these puppy pictures, they both have some on their blogs.

We gave Finn a bath before Aunt Amy came to pick him up

I did a little experiment to see how much Zoee and her pups look alike:

Buddy:

Zoee:

Buddy:

Zoee:

Buddy:

Zoee:

Buddy:

Zoee:

Shocking, huh?!?!

These last ones are all Buddy from our trip to California over Easter. He is barely 3 months old now.

Easter

2010-04-11T13:57:00.006-07:00

We had a ton of fun in California for Easter! I was really really excited to go somewhere not 20 degrees and snowing, so the rain was only a little bit disappointing. I was hoping for blistering heat, but anything except snow was fine with me.

I tried to post pictures that aren't on the Meinzer Mayhem blog, so hopefully there aren't a ton of duplicates. And just FYI, my mom emptied my memory card and there were 600 pictures. Then, I deleted about 2/3s and now there are 258, and out of those I narrowed it down to about 20 that I posted, so you should be very proud of me!

Decorating eggs:

We kept our 3D glasses from How To Train Your Dragon (cutest movie ever)

Aunt Emily got Dillon out for us to ride. He's a really good horse!

Easter at Oma Kim's:

Kyson found these sunglasses and wanted me to put them on him. He's so cute!!!

More puppy pics...

2010-02-27T13:26:00.004-07:00

They are pretty easy to tell apart in real life, but not in pictures. So we tied a blue string around Bo's neck and a green one around Finn's. Just FYI.

Green: Finn. I can tell him apart from Bo because he has Eyore eyes.

Blue: Bo. I swear he is 5 pounds lighter than Finn.

It is sooo funny to watch them play together! We made this rope for them out of fleece and the love it!

Zoee loves it too. She gets a little too excited when we bring the boys upstairs to play. And as my mom says, she is "reverting back to puppyhood" and she does not listen at all. Its very annoying.

Haha i love this picture

To help them learn their names, my dad would call one of them and only give that one a treat. After they caught on, they followed him everywhere, waiting for a treat.

:'( Only 2 more weeks until they are gone!!!

Bo and Finn

2010-02-14T13:47:00.005-07:00

All of the puppies are gone now except Bo and Finn :( We almost have our garage back, but its a very lonely garage with only 2 puppies left. I am just really happy that we still get these little boys until March!

Finn and Bo are both super relaxed. All of the puppies were. But Bo would just go and sit back all alone and watch the others play. Finn isn't a huge bully anymore, and he actually is calmer then Bo is. Bo definitely has Zoee's retriever genes in him because he already plays with a ball at 7 weeks old. This is Bo:

The weather was good today so we took them outside to play for a little bit.

When they are tired, they just crash wherever they are. Yesterday we were playing with Finn and all the sudden he just dropped on the floor and wouldn't get up. It was soo cute.

Nap time!

Caleb with Finn...

Caleb with Ellie... he was really sad when Ellie left because she was his favorite.

Me and Layla.... she was probably my favorite. Either her or Ellie.

We went to get the mail one day and we decided to take 3 of the puppies on their first walk. But it was a little cold, so...

We put them in our jackets!

More Puppy Pictures

2010-01-18T14:45:00.005-07:00

The puppies are almost a month old now and they are sooo stinking cute! Their eyes and ears are open and they are starting to walk around now, and we tried puppy food for the first time today!

This is Duke, Oma and Opa Meinzer's dog (he used to be Marley)

We think that Zoee has dog mastitis, so she has been laying around with a hot rag on her for a while. We are taking her to the vet tomorrow, so she will be okay. She is just in a lot of pain and its really sad!

You can kind of see how huge her milker is- its her top right shoulder

Puppy Food! We just watch them to make sure that they don't get their feet in it, and we only do 4 pups at a time.

Ellie with milk on her nose

Morgen holding Lucy

Ellie loves Caleb, its soo cute!

All the boys-

Ellie, again. She reminds me of a bear.

Lucy

This just cracks me up. We didn't pose them like this.

They started to crawl out of the pool so this is the new setup in the garage. Its insulated and we have the heat lamp and a space heater, so it will stay pretty warm.

The Late Christmas Present :)

2010-01-03T14:38:00.007-07:00

Zoee had her puppies!!!! There are EIGHT- 4 boys and 4 girls- and they all have names. We gave them each a different colored yarn collar so that we can tell which is which. There's Finn (his name was Dug from Up but he is going to be Aunt Amy's dog, so they named him Finn instead) Ellie, Marley, Carl (also from Up), Lucy, Noni (we called her 'no name' forever, and then thought of Noni), Joey, and Roxi.

Zoee was due on New Year's Eve, but they came a little earlier, on Monday, December 28. On Sunday night, Zoee was acting really weird, but we thought it was just because there were a lot of people over for Sunday dinner. She would be shivering one minute and panting the next, and she was really restless. Plus she wouldn't eat anything. So, we borrowed the neighbor's plastic pool and put a bunch of leftover carpet and sheets in it, then put it in the piano room. That was the 'birthing pool.' But Zoee didn't like being in the piano room and she kept going up to my parent's room in her crate, so we moved it up there for the night. Monday morning came and she was really in labor. We were all awake by about 8 o'clock and it wasn't until 10:30 or so that the first puppy came. My mom and dad were downstairs and it was just me, Morgen and Nathan in their room with Zoee. We couldn't get her to lay down in the tub but she was in her crate, and then all the sudden she squealed and out popped a puppy! She didn't know what the heck just happened to her, so she ran out of the crate but the umbilical cord was still attached, so she dragged the poor little puppy out with her and the cord tore off. By then my mom and dad were there, so we cleaned the puppy up, but Zoee was almost scared of it. It took a lot of coaxing to get her into the pool to nurse the puppy, but she finally did. The next puppy came half an hour later, and we just had to tie the umbilical cord off for her. After that, Zoee did everything herself and had 6 more pups. She eats all the 'stuff' because it has a lot of nutrients and its really healthy for her, so we don't really have to do much for the first 3 weeks. So far its been really easy. We just get to cuddle them and love them and Zoee does all the dirty work!

The puppies are back in the piano room for now, and she takes care of them. She is a really good mama and the puppies are adorable, obviously. Even though they are so little, they each have personalities and its sooo funny to watch. Finn is a big bully and when they are eating, if he doesn't have the teat he wants, he will knock all the others off their teats until he finds the one he wants. He is the biggest eater, too. Noni is the loudest eater. Ellie is a sweetie and she sleeps all the time. Well, they all do I guess. Carl is my very favorite- he never cries (yes puppies do cry) and he loves to snuggle. But they are all adorable. I'm going to be really sad when they are gone.

Here are some pictures. I sent an email with some other ones, so I'll keep sending emails, but I'll update the blog too. Let me know if you didn't get an email and you want one.

This was taken a few days before she had the puppies. She wasn't very big, but that's probably because she is such a skinny dog to start with.

The whole setup

This was puppy #5 or so but all the earlier pictures were a little bit gross...

This is puppy #1- Finn

They find the funniest positions to sleep in!

Nursing- Zoee is much skinnier in this picture than the one when she was pregnant! Haha i guess there's a reason... what I'm trying to say is that if you compare the pictures, she looks pregnant. Otherwise, you wouldn't know.

All 8 of the puppies-

When we were moving them from my parent's room to the piano room we transported them in a basket. Its like a huge heap of gold fur. I love it!

Random Christmas

2010-01-03T14:01:00.007-07:00

Decorating the Christmas Tree-

For my Young Women's Project I did a blanket/winter clothing drive. I had an open house with lots of food and people could come and drop stuff off and eat. It was really fun planning (not just to make all the food) and we had tons of clothes! We dropped them off at a homeless shelter in Salt Lake City called the Road Home.

Me and all the food. I told you there was a ton!

Nathan was Scrooge in the 3rd grade play this year! I had only heard Nate practice his lines at home, so it was so cool to see him act for real and see everything put together. Everybody calls him Scrooge now, even his teachers, and its so fun to be Scrooge's older sister. I love this kid sooo much!

Christmas Morning-

The stockings- the Weber's were like 3x bigger than ours- what's up with that?

I thought it would be super crowded but it wasn't too bad

Jamie

Me- I got a new phone! Morgen did too except hers is orange.

Jessica

Morgen in her footsie pajamas

We got GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR!!!!

Christmas at Oma Kim's house

Christmas at Oma Cheryl's-

Christmas with the Webers

2010-01-03T13:37:00.006-07:00

I know I haven't updated for a long time, but I'm gonna try and do some shorter posts cuz I have waaay too many pictures :)

This Christmas the Webers came out from California and it was sooo much fun! Here are some pictures from when we went sledding. The faces are the best if you can see them!

Joely

My mom

Jessica, Nathan, and Me

Uncle Frank and Joely

Caleb

Me and Jessica

Almost the very best one- me, Morgen, and Jessica

The very best one- me of course haha :)

We also went hot tubbing and dared each other to do snow angels in the snow. It was very fun.

Me and the pregnant dog. I am wearing my dads 18 year old maroon sweats that he tried to give away to the homeless shelter. They had holes so I figured I should keep them. They are awesome.

The Smith Family 2009

On Christmas Eve, me and Jessica decided to stay up all night. We made it until 6:00 when we decided we should go to sleep so that we could have some energy. We drank lotsa Dr. Pepper and ate lotsa food, played games, painted nails and curled our hair, listened to Brian Regan, and made up stories. It was sooo fun!

Our curly hair at 3:00 AM December 25

On Christmas Day we went swimming in Uncle Rick's pool, which was heated to about 90 degrees.

After swimming the kids went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks and the adults went to Avatar. Since Avatar is about an hour longer than Alvin and the Chipmunks, we just hung out in the theaters and played games. It was so much fun and I decided that I have the awesomest family ever.

This is random, but I love it! Me and Zoee. Haha the look on her face is priceless. :)

Lotsa Babies!!!

2009-11-08T16:39:00.005-07:00

Zoee in her diaper- that should explain a lot.

She is pregnant, hopefully!!! Its still too early to tell for sure, but she most likely is! The puppies will be due the week of Christmas and we are so excited!

She still loves to lay in the mud puddle when she is done playing and its so annoying, because you have to give her a bath afterwards.

Me and my puppy! I love her so much! Everyone missed her a ton when she was staying with her boyfriend (thats what we say). She was gone for a whole week :(

Wrestling with Morgen - Zo is seriously that big!

The puppies are exciting, but we also have MORE baby birds. Ugh... if anyone wants a bird, please TAKE THEM!!! They are cute (well, they will be, eventually) but messy and loud and expensive. Haha thats probably not the best way to advertise!

This is the first week after they were born. They hatch every 2 days so they arent the same age or size.

When they first hatch, they look like slimy aliens and they have a high pitched shriek.

After a couple weeks, they look like aliens with slivers all over their bodies and they sound like screeching frogs.

Eventually, they have a happy friendly chirp and they are soft and fluffy. Thats also when they eat the most and poop the biggest, so really, I just want to sell them.

Week 2, I think. The last one hatched on Halloween, and this was taken a few days ago.

Now the biggest one is almost 2 weeks old. Both the older ones have feathers coming in, and you can kinda tell that their wingtips are gonna be yellow, and their heads are gonna be some dark color (either blue or black)

I am very proud of myself, because I haven't taken a billion pictures of them. They don't even have names!!!

I just felt like putting on a random picture of our sexy cat. We decided that he is sexy. I mean, just look at him, its pretty easy to decide.

Halloween!

2009-11-08T16:23:00.005-07:00

My mom and dad were a pilot and flight attendant (or Easter Island from Get Smart- thats what he looked like with his wig on- there is a better picture on my mom's blog)

I was a fairy. Me and my friends Jenessa and Jessica all made matching tulle tutu skirts in different colors, and they turned out super cute!

Morgen was a gypsy.

Nate was a zombie- it was pretty darn cute!

Caleb was a vampire

Me and Caleb with our pumpkins (the other pumpkin pics didnt turn out too well, but there are more on my mom's blog)

I went trick or treating with my friends up in Alpine this year. This is me and Jenessa, she was a pink fairy.

Me and Jessica- she was green.

After a while the boys stole our wings because they didnt dress up in the first place.

Me and Kaden

All the girls- Ashley, Jessica, Jenessa, and me

My First Professional Photoshoot

2009-10-11T19:43:00.004-07:00

One of my Young Women's Leaders wanted me to come and take pictures of her family today, so I did! I was so excited to do it and the pictures turned out super cute! If you want family pictures or know anyone who does, I am available, and I need plenty of practice! :)

My Amazing Party!

2009-10-11T19:25:00.003-07:00

We finally had an Amazing Race Party with my friends, like the one that our family did in Lake Tahoe. It was super fun, and definitely AMAZING, haha!! My mom planned the whole thing and I wasnt allowed to have anything to do with it, so I couldnt cheat. But we still won first place. I was on a team with Jenessa, Kaden, Nate, Caleb, and Connor, with my dad driving.

Another team- Jesse, Jessica, Ashley, and Kordell, with Brother Compton as a driver

A third team- Ryan, Courtney, and Maika, with Kris Compton as a driver.

There was a fourth team, too, with Morgen and her friends Madelyn and Bethie, and my mom driving, but I dont think we got a picture of them.

All the teams had a different order of clues, so that we weren't at the same place at the same time. But our first clue was to go to Fox Hollow Elementary and do everything on the playground. Second, we had to go to our house and shovel a wheelbarrow full of mulch to the garden, third go to Mike and Kayley's across the street and eat a caramel apple.

Fourth, we went to the pumpkin patch and had to find a pumpkin that was the exact diameter as a piece of string attached to the clue, and the last clue was taking our picture in front of the T-rex at the dinosaur museum. It was sooo fun! Thanks mom for doing such an awesome race!!!

After the race we went back to our house for soup and other food. It was a lot shorter than we thought, so we hung out at our house and played night games and stuff for about an hour. It was pretty 'amazing'!

Me, Connor, and Caleb

Kaden, Jesse, Me, and Caleb

Me and Maika

Caleb, Kaden, and Nathan- It was so adorable! The boys loved Kaden! Caleb had to go to bed before Kaden left, and the first thing he said to me in the morning was, "Where did Kaden go?" Also, I am no longer Nathan and Caleb's best buddy, Kaden is. But thats okay, I guess.

Me and Ashley

Aah I love the Amazing Race. It gives awesome party ideas! And thanks a ton to my amazing mother for all the hard work she put into it!

Youth Conference

2009-10-11T19:14:00.004-07:00

For Youth Conference in September we went to Heber Valley Camp again. It was awesome! We had an amazing fireside, really really good food (and lots of it- we probably all gained 5 pounds) and the challenge course was way fun.

The food-

The Challenge course-

The fireside-

Me, Jenessa, Monica, and Maika

On the zipline

This is the high part of the challenge course- you go up a spiderweb, across the planks, and then you zipline down. Its way fun, but a little scary.

The entire ward

Sports

2009-10-11T19:04:00.003-07:00

I have been playing volleyball for Lehi High School's 8th grade team. We have been doing really well and its a lot of fun, plus I will go to High School with all the girls I am playing with! I am usually setting, but lately my coach has been putting me in as a back row passer and I love it!

Haha I think I was trying to get it out of the net!

Digging is my favorite!!!

Nate has been doing really well in football, too. Oma and Opa Meinzer came out to watch Nate and Connor's games, and I admit that 3 hours watching football in the freezing cold is not fun, but usually they are really fun. The coaches get really excited, which makes for an interesting game.

Jon Schmidt Concert

2009-09-06T18:33:00.004-07:00

Last night we got to go to the Jon Schmidt Concert at Thanksgiving Point! It was way awesome! He played a couple of songs for the first time ever, did an amazing song with someone he had never met before, and a boy proposed to a girl at the very end, on stage. It was way awesome (like I said)!

The funny thing was that last night was also the night of the BYU game, so my mom and dad were listening to the radio on their MP3 players while Jon was playing. When it ended, he got up and asked who won, and the cheering was so loud that my ears hurt. There were a lot of people!

Jon and his friend Steve playing Love Story Meets Viva La Vida

Jon playing a song upside down! It was pretty awesome!

Me and Caleb. He was like my buddy last night, it was so cute! He always wanted to sit on my lap and play around with me and he even fell asleep on me! He has never done that before!

One half of the family

And the other half...

This is Caleb having a lot of fun...

More Bird Pictures

2009-08-23T15:14:00.007-07:00

Dwight meeting the family...

Haha this picture is awesome!!!

Penelope (25 days old) Almost all of her feathers are in, and she looks nothing like Dwight (29 days old) He is super colorful, and she is yellow and a gray-ish green color. But they are both super pretty!

You can see the difference really well in this picture...

Dwight is so cute! They both love to cuddle and snuggle and crawl into the blankets, so its really hard to take pictures of them. I found a small box and put the blanket over it, so they couldnt get out or crawl into the blanket. It was so cute because Dwight would stand up as tall as he could and chirp, trying to see his mommy and daddy over the edge of the box!

Its hard to think that they went from this... (hideous, naked, rubbery pink things)

To this... (adorable, cuddly, soft, fun baby birds)

This is Libbie, doesnt Penelope look almost exactly like her? The only difference is that Penelope has a few stripes on her head!

I decided that Dwight looks a lot like Peri, but with yellow instead of white.

Like I said before, they love to crawl into the deepest darkest place they can find!

Today we put Dwight on the perch in his cage. He didnt move at all, and Libbie couldnt figure out why he wasnt in the box! She (or he, I still dont know) would jump all around him and chirp and peck at him. They are all so cute! Nate still thinks hes getting a baby, but thats not going to happen! Its gonna be super sad when they leave. Dwight and Penelope are so fun and adorable! Ill miss playing with them and taking pictures of them! Haha :)

Zoee- 1 yr old!

2009-08-23T14:57:00.004-07:00

Shes been a year old for a while now, but I havent posted about her in forever! So this is her 1 year old post!

Zoee definitely does lots of this...

And her tongue does a whole lot of this after...

And she does plenty of this...

And shes learning to do this... (he's eating a sucker)

She loves to give big wet slobbery kisses...

And hopefully after all of that she does a whole lot of this... but we arent always that fortunate!

And people wonder why she is so skinny? SHE DOESNT STOP PLAYING!!! But I still love her!

The Triathlon

2009-08-23T14:26:00.004-07:00

So, I was just looking at my mom's blog and I realized that I never posted the triathlon that we did in Layton, clear back on August 1st. It is on her blog too, but I tried to put different pictures on!

The boys playing in the pool while we waited for about 2 hours to start. There was a bunch of different races that were staggered, and the team race was very last, so it took forever!

Mom starting her swim...

Me starting my swim...

We finished!!! You cant see our time in the picture, but my mom did like 49 minutes and I did 57, but only because I got lost on the biking. They have either cones or people on the corners, and coming back I was looking for people when I should have been looking for cones, so I went straight for a while before I realized that nothing looked familiar and I had no idea where I was. Then I turned around and found a person and figured out the way to go, but 6 or 7 minutes had passed. I was not very happy.

But we still finished!!!

I think that running was my best leg, honestly! Im a pretty strong swimmer, like my mom, and the biking was okay, but I was feeling great on the run and I kept a really good pace. Ive done a few 5K's, too, so that helped. Triathlons and 5Ks are really fun! Hopefully I can do a 10K and a full sprint triathlon sometime next year. Ive heard of the Spudman, too, and I think that would be fun when Im lots older! We were even talking about doing a shorter triathlon than this one for a Young Women activity, because we only have 7 young women. That would be way fun!

Dwight & Penelope Pics

2009-08-16T14:50:00.005-07:00

Here are some more pictures of the new babies-

They love to cuddle and dig in the blankets until they are completely covered.

Penelope, 15 days old-

Dwight, 19 days old-

Penelope, 18 days, and Dwight, 22 days-

I think their tails are really cool for some reason. Its like little sticks growing out of them!

Their heads are cool, too. And very pretty!

These are the most recent pics, from today, 19 and 23 days old.

Trying to show how pretty his belly is. Its emerald green, on his head and back is black and yellow stripes with a yellow spot on his neck, and his tail has a little bit of blue in it. You cant tell Penelope's coloring very well yet, but she will be almost the same color. I think there is some blue on her belly though.

This picture is really bright, but I thought it was still awesome. It shows how gorgeous his coloring is.

My New Room

2009-08-15T14:43:00.004-07:00

Before:

Still before:

A cute picture of Kaya, Lexi, Caleb, and me when we were done painting: (still before- is the suspense building?)

Almost to the after picture. Me in my 5th grade outfit, ready to tackle this paint job. Please notice that I am wearing the same pants in the picture above, from nearly 3 years ago!

Finally, the after picture:

We were up until 11:30 painting this room! But I love it! We have been talking about redoing it since the beginning of summer, and a couple weeks ago, I saw this adorable bedding. We bought it, and then had to paint the walls to match! I'm not allowed to change it until I move out of the house, but thats okay because its waaay better than my old color. I dont know why I wanted yellow and orange. Blue has always been my favorite color. I have tons of ideas for cute vinyl and pictures.

On the back of my door, I want to put, "Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?" and above my mirror, "Can you see His image?" And I got this little postcard booklet of pictures of Christ, so I'm going to make those a collage and hang it on my wall. Above that, I think I want to put, "Be loyal to the royal that is in you, for you are a child of God" My room is going to be awesome!!!

Girls Camp

2009-08-13T14:41:00.008-07:00

TM3 is Anchored in Virtue!!! Arent we awesome?! There were only 6 of us this year, and 2 were YCLs, so there were only 6 people in our cabin, with 16 bunks. It was really fun though, because we are all best friends, so it was a good thing it was so small.

Me and Kayana

Me and Monica

Me and Jenessa

Me and Katie

Me and Maika

I woke up from my nap one day hugging my ball! It was weird. My mask thingy says 'Dreaming of Boys'

I was so addicted to paper beading, it was ridiculous. Its really fun though!!!

We tied a blanket for Sister Thayne, the ward camp director.

Our whole ward doing the service project for the camp. We unloaded firewood from the trailor into stacks.

Me and Monica and Maika in the cabin

Our pantry... We had like 10 extra bunks in the cabin so we made a pantry!

Our Skit in a Bag. You are given a bag with random props and 3 quotes, and you have to make up a skit uncluding all the props and quotes. We did a version of the Little Red Riding Hood.

Ness was Little Red Riding Hood, and I was her boyfriend named Kaden, who tried to convince her not to take the cookies to her grandma.

For one of the crafts, we drew self portraits. That was interesting! :)

A random ward picture at the ampitheater.

Our ward with a singing group called After the Storm. They came to do a devotional one night.

On the hike that was supposed to be 5 miles, but ended up being much more than that. We got a little lost, and we were gone for about 3 hours!

The view was really pretty though.

Me and my bishop. Isnt that the cutest picture ever?

Our AMAZING leaders! Sis Thayne, my mom, Sis Compton, and Sis Dieterle.

Around the campfire before testimony meeting.

My mom tried to do a monkey face. It didnt work out too well.

Me, Kayana, Jenessa, Katie, Monica, and Maika