in the cookies of life, sisters are the chocolate chips

oh, how i miss my sisters.

me and tay had our little sleepover, and then my parents kidnapped her and took her back to washington.

stephanie leaves for texas on thursday. uhm, what the heck? the whole "having a sister 20 mintues away" was starting to get really fun.

kellie. oh kellie. well, kellie won't stop popping out kids and she's still awesome. i think her kids add to her being so fun.

and then there's april, who is in flippin ohio! do you know how far ohio is from utah? about 1491.98 miles. if only i could time travel.

remember when you're younger and you hate your siblings with a passion? especially sisters. they barrow your clothes, they let you barrow their clothes only if you promise you wont stretch them out. (maybe i'm the only one that got that when i went through my fat middle school stage.) you lose or break curling irons and straightners. you have to deal with their annoying immature boyfriends, and they someimes have to deal with yours. you secretly want to hang out with their friends, but even when you try they throw you out.

well, just an f.y.i. all that crap fades away with time. thank goodness. my sister's are my best friends and i honestly couldn't do anything without them, and the best part is that they all have their own roles. april is the one who pushes me to wear pink, and high heels. and i'm actually starting to love all of it. kellie is a tricky one. sometimes seeing all of her kids running around it's practically the cheapest birth control a girl my age can find. but as i see her handle it all, and when i catch myself actually handling it all it makes wanting a giant family seem so much sweeter. stephanie makes me want to conquer the world. her dating advice is always on point, and she always checks up on me in that area after every encounter. plus, she's a wizard. and taylor marie. i could go on about that little gem for years. she makes me love everyone, and actually boosts my confidence because that little girl isn't afraid of anything, and if she isn't afraid of anything, i sure as heck shouldn't be either.

but let me remind you that no stork just dropped us off on our parents porch.

we all came from my mother and father. except for april technically, because that would just be disgusting and really weird.  

and oh, how we all caused them grief growing up, but i'm starting to feel like that's almost a right of passage. unfortunetly..

i honestly don't even know how my mom still has hair.

if kellie didn't cause her enough grief, and then stephanie, i had to at least almost give her a heart attack.

but then again, in the words of my father; "it's not about where you are, it's where you're going". which i believe works for everything, even the past. 

it doesn't matter where you've been, it about where you are. 

and i'm so happy with where we all are.

we're an eternal family, and so far we've been golden with continuing those traditions in our own families.

i wouldn't trade my family for the world.

random

i love my new place, and i love my new roommates.

my brother lives right across from me, literally just over a sidewalk.. and it's awesome.

i'm actually kind of excited to start up school again on thursday. 

i can't wait for my date tonight, and i'm oh so excited for the rest of them this week. (how baller does that sound?)

i'll be seeing selena gomez with the greatest little sister is in 13 days. hello seattle!

my new mission in life is be a vamped up version of a combination of sandra bullock in the proposal and the blind side.

i love the blind side.

i love having a car.

cheesecake was what i had for lunch, and right now it's looking like cheesecake is what i'll have for dinner. yummy.

i've read dieter f. uchtdorf's talk "your happily ever after" about 19 times today.

i'm proud of the person i'm becoming.

my room is so clean. my bed practically has hospital corners.

living on the 3rd floor is awesome, but you better believe heat rises. either that or i'm just too hot to handle..

i need a nap, and i need to find a job.

this is the third day in a row i've worn a white shirt, and i'm okay with that.

believe or not, i'm acutally becoming a bomb chef. 

my best friend leaves for rexburg in two weeks, and i kind of want to go with her.

actually, i want to go to driggs. and then rexburg. or rexburg then driggs?

steph, kritt, and mason all head to texas on thursday. that one just might make me clinically depressed.

i want desiree to move in so i can finally have the black roommate i've always dreamt of.

i'm obsessed with the pistol annies.

i have two extra tickets to taylor swift in september and i cannot decide who to bring, so i'm currently taking bribes.

okkayy! i'm going to go read "your happily ever after" one more time now.

their generation forgets what generation raised our generation

leaving home is always bitter sweet.

i'll say it; i miss utah and i miss my college friends. 

but i know the second i'll leave i'll begin missing home, my family, and all my childhood friends.

nothing is better then family, and after a year of being away from home i've realized what friends of mine are practically family, because once you leave high school and move on with your life, only the true friends are going to stick around to see your sequal of life in the real world.

family is an amazing thing. i'm so thankful to have mine. this trip has made us all closer then ever. my first few visits home i would always ditch my family for friends, and never saw a thing wrong with it. my family always going to be there, my friends..? i dont know. 

this trip i've realized that my family is pretty dam(like a water dam) cool . my dad is probably the best guy friend i'll ever have. best part is; he'll tell me if my outfit is ugly. he'll weed out guys for me. he can afford to take me anywhere for dinner. he always opens my door for me. he's honest with my even when i don't want to hear it. he can still spoil me rotten. he laughs at my dumb dam jokes. he can change the oil in my car. he rocks out to "paradise city" by guns n roses. he's not afraid to drill a hole into your toenail to drain blood. he break checks people on the highway, and giggles about it. and can still joke around with my mom about stuff none of us kids get. 

and my mom, she's a silly one. she still thinks i have 19 arms andthat i'm out to get her. i'll ask her anything like, where's your camera? and her response; why? you can't use it. what do you want? or she'll want me to do the dishes, watch the kids, shower, pick up my room, and eat dinner all at once. i always wonder how she expects me to do all of this at once, it obviously being impossible, but it's because she can. my mom can cook a fair winning pie, do the laundry, get a pedicure, go grocery shopping, cook dinner, get her diamond wedding ring polished, play with the kids, do payroll, and kill it on the elliptical all at once. she's also the queen of finding a birthday present of yours months past your birthday, making your birthday last much longer then it should. but she also has a backbone. my senior year i was perched on our over sized footstool in the entry room, giving her sass, when she marched on over to me and shoved me off of it so i face planted into the carpet, her laughing as she waltzed back into kitchen. after a long sunday she walked around the house that night, her bangs blown back, looking like the oh so famous farrah fawcett. she just giggled and continued to own the look for the rest of the night, serving peach cobbler and searching the house up and down for "the blind side".

kellie had her baby last week and my mom stayed behind to help her tend the rest of her 12 kids, so it's just been us siblings at home for the past few days. let me tell you, being home alone with your siblings all day is much more fun when you're older. me and steph have been elbow to elbow getting ready. scott having movie marathons and us trickling in and out of every showing. doing ridiculous things with the nieces and nephews, determined to get a giggle or two out of them. making lunch together. flipping each other off with our ring fingers. and having music education constantly. we're actually about to go fishing, just all of us kids... so i'll catch ya'll later..

:)

in order to love someone else you have to love yourself first

i can honestly say i've heard this quote too many times to actually listen to it.

and i've also been to too many weddings lately where i catch myself thinking about it.

in order to love someone else you have to love yourself first.

we all hear the same thing every day; "nobody's perfect, or the exact opposite, you're perfect just the way you are. or that the best is yet to come, or someone somewhere is looking for you so never give up looking for them." 

lets all be completely honest for a second; at the end of the day when we're thinking about what we truly want it all spirals down into finding our dream match and falling deeply in love. a few have already found that person, and they now dream of having a family and growing old together. some have found that person, and then lost them due to divorce or death. some that did have that person and lost them, find comfort in the new better version they have found but never thought they would. and then there's the dozens who are still searching.

now before you go and sign up for the bachelor you need to remember this quote, and ask yourself if you truly, really do love yourself.

i believe my prime dating years in high school were my sophmore and junior years.

i look back now and wonder what the heck happened!

now i couldn't get a blind rat to go on a date with me even if i was made out of pure cheese.

and then i think to my senior year.

my senior year of high school i dated the spawn of satan. i never talk about him, and i never think back to that time in my life because honestly there was nothing there.

just thinking back to it right now there's no substance and no purpose. really nothing but a big black cloud of thick smoke.

i walked away empty handed, and i also walked away

very very b r o k e n.

ever since that way awesome part of my life (kidding..) my dating life has definitely never bounced back to what it use to be. yes i did date a few guys after all of it, and i fell in love once or twice.. but nothing like it once was. 

SO WHAT HAPPENED?! 

easy answer. i dont love myself as much as i did back then. 

not yet anyways.

 it's simple. our ideal partner is practically a spitting image of ourselves. inside and out. 

then it boils down to our beliefs, which isn't just religion. however if you are head over heels into a certain religion, you will be more attracted to someone who is also head over heels into that certain religion. then music, hobbies, food, and eventually how we all live our everyday lives. if we know that we love the some type of music we'll use that as a security blanket knowing that on some type of level we both understand each other. all of these things come back to how they make us feel. for example; i love cheesecake, and cheesecake makes me happy. so you better believe if i could marry cheesecake and somehow magically reproduce sweet little children, oh i would do it.

i also have my favorite places to get my cheesecake.

either the cheescake factory, or the cheescake factory.

is that the same way ya'll are looking for a partner? 

it's obvious that you'll find them wherever you are looking, but keep in mind who you want to find. when attending a class are you the type to sit in the front row and ask questions, or the one to slip into the back row hoping you won't be noticed and can take a quick nap. now, whichever one of these you are will reflect on who you will be eventually taking home.

i know i want the twerp sitting in the front row, actually maybe second row depending on how much head gear we're talking about. but if i'm slacking in the back, i'll probably end up with nothing but a small pond of drool under my chin. 

after all of that comes the people that we're romantically attracted to. they don't like any of our music, they hate cheesecake, and they don't even go to class. they're totally wrong for you and are missing a brain, but they have something you desire that you just can't quite get. you want to be this person so they can fulfill something you aren't, something you're probably not suppose to have. you want them to change the way people perceive you so you'll feel better about yourself. 

so the question; do you love yourself? would YOU be attracted to YOU?  the things we don't find attractive in ourselves, others won't find attractive. finding someone to fill those weakness won't work either because you take too much energy and risk on maintaining the relationship from the beginning. 

if you truly love yourself, the ones you seek after will come easy.

the match will be undeniable.

but remember; in order to love someone else you have to love yourself first.

dirty thief

on monday my girl lindsay threw a party for our old dance group, the elite. since all of us have gone our own seperate ways is was magical to finally get back together.
i totally forgot how awesome my friends are! i guess i had taken those many many years of dancing together for granted,  because now i was them all back! not only was i in greeaat shape, but i was surrounded by my best friends practically 24/7.. and there was a lot of us!

anywayyss... after people began to trickle off and leave, i was the last one to leave. as i headed towards the door and went to reach for my bag full of my expensive makeup, and many brand new clothes.. it was gone. not only did i have to spend my own money to replace everything and practically throw $300 down the drain, now scott didn't bring me back food from one of the best resturants in town and i'm just a starving ticked off ginger surrounded by 4 kids under the age of four with no money. i need to put a bra on, and eat something before i break someones neck.

peace.

sunday, you're too sweet to me

today was scott's homecoming.

and oh, was it a family affair.

taylor gave a talk, then a musical number with me, scott, and all of our friends, then scott wrapped it all up!

taylor wouldn't come out of our parents bedroom last night she was so terrified.

kritt asked her how nervous she was, her reply; "the most!"

she even mouthed it when she reached the pulpit.

but as usual, she owned it.

she talked about missionary work, and how proud of scott she was.

at one point in her talk she was talking about how scott has completeled an ironman.

right after she announced to the entire ward that scott was indeed, an ironman, she paused, looked up and raised her fist to the congregation. 

scott's talk was all about his mission.

i love hearing his mission storys, and not going to lie.. i love to see him tear up a little.

i'm a creep, i know.

for our musical number, we sang the EFY medley.

when we sang together at the end of the song it hit me of how much of an army we really are.

we've all been called to the earth at this point in our lives, and everyday i'm starting to see why we were the chosen ones for this time.

i'm thankful that i'm able to represent, and i'm thankful that i have thousands that stand behind me.

one week down, one week to go

i suuccck! when i'm home, i suck. only at blogging though.. aaeee! BUT REALLY..

me, scooter, mama, tay, and bree all went to portland this week to be a part of ashley's wedding. my oh my, was it beautiful. the portland temple is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places i've ever been. it's practically in narnia! the temple itself is surrounded by what seems like a pure forest, you can see nothing but tree's on the temple grounds. you almost discover it out of no where, and i love it. ashley was a stunning bride, her and michael made a dashing couple. i'm jealous of their eternal bond. baahhh..

after the wedding reception friday night, me and the crew ventured to downtown portland to the world known "voodoo doughtnuts". let me remind you, it was almost 11:oo at night and terrifying, but we had been waiting to go the second our car tires hit portland pavement. i've never seen so many drunk middle aged man trying to pick up hookers, and girls on so many drugs their eye's wouldn't go straight. the doughnuts though, delish! such random combinations and designs. they even have vegan ones! the one i ate was; peanut, chocolate, oreo.. talk about an explosion in my mouth. loved it.

we dipped out of oregon early saturday morning and made it back in time to see even more family! everyone from the wedding followed us back up to washington, and we meet some others that had came from wyoming. i. love. my. family. it was so nice to see everyone again. our house got owned, and the shaved ice stand was delivering. it was the sweetest random family reunion we've ever had here in good ol' moses. my mom made scones, and my dad made dutch oven chicken.... again. an explosion in my mouth. me and scott helped the missionaries transport one of their investigators around that night. he has cerebral palsy, and taught himself how to talk at the age of 9. i would of never even guessed if he wouldn't of told us. he was such a thug, and was cracking jokes left and right. he kept calling scott a sissy. talk about my new best friend :) we went to the bakers reception that night as well (now that i'm writing all of this i'm impressed with how much we fit in that night). and again, a beautiful bride and another dashing couple to be jealous of. what's up with all these weddings?! sheesh! it was so nice to see all of my old friends again. it's like nothing ever changed.

welp, this week is fair week. which means lots of boating, demo derbys, space burgers, and rodeos. oh, and we got box seats! 

last week in moses.

then me and scott attack provo.

i cannot wait.

no one in the world needs a mink coat but a mink

call me a nerd, but i love any good book or movie about any type of animal.

to name a few recent ones; water for elephants, rise of the planet of the apes, twiiiliightt.... (who's excited for the new movie!?)


after reading and watching some of these i've figured out many things. one; i never want to go to a circus. two; i'm nervous to go to a zoo again, for the fear of slipping in to a great depression. three; some humans disgust me. four; i kind of love animals.


did you know that elephants who perform in circuses are kept in chains for as long as 23 hours a day from the time they are babies? in many circuses, wild and exotic animals are trained through the use of intimidation and physical abuse. former circus employees have reported seeing animals beaten, whipped, poked with sharp objects and even burned to force them to learn and perform their routines. i know us humans look at animals as simply that, just animals. but each and everyone of them are a member of a family. can you imagine your brother or sister, wife, husband, or child being burned and or whipped; in order to be forced into doing something they do not want to do?

more than 25 million vertebrate animals are used in testing in the united states each year. but when invertebrate animals are thrown into the mix, the estimated number rises to as high as 100 million. 100 million animals being tested on daily for products we use everyday. and you may not understand what "testing on animals" really means. every year millions of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed in crude chemical tests being forced to inhale chemicals that are bad to the body. animal testing isn't cheap either, and guess who's paying for it. you are. animal testing costs the american public over $136 billion annually. these tests usually fail anyways. between 25 and 50 billion animals are meaninglessly killed in laboratories each year. you want to know the bitter end of it all? drugs that even pass animal tests end up harming or killing humans about 61% of the time. did you read that correctly? 61% of the time, drugs passed through animal testing end up killing or harming humans. 

it takes 18 red foxes to make one fox-fur coat, 55 minks to make a mink coat.

most of the animals end up looking like this before they are made into what we supposedly need.

  

i don't understand how we could attack something so innocent to accompany whatever we want. how can we be so selfish?

take a stand. get to know the products you're using in your homes.

and while you shop, remember what you want to be wearing and who you don't want to be wearing.

set an example.

save the animals.

i don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.

holy cannoli. i am slaaacking..

every dang time i come home, i fall off this whole blogging thing and i hate it!

being home is amazing.

it's been constantly family time, and some of breanna here and there of course.

today me and scott painted my dad's new building he just bought.

i swear that man wants to own the city, he keeps buying whatever lot he wants and looking and new ones every day. such a beast.

me and scott vowed not to tell anyone, but after we painted our little hearts out we went to the sno shack and indulged. then some sibling bonding, and some nagging from my mom about not using our own shaved ice stand once we met up with her and the rest of the family at the bistro. 

by the way, welcome back aja! i had no idea you were in moses. what a sweet sweet surpirse darlin'.

i came home and died i was so full. literally, my stomach exploaded.

me and scooter went to matt palmers for a peachy party! delicious peach ice cream, peace cobbler, peace nums nums, and nintendo 64. bringing it back!

we had to leave that party early, to continue a whole other type of party.

THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES! i've been dying to see this movie, and taylor has had her shoes and purse on since 7:00.

the movie, kind of dissapointing.. i won't lie. it definitely made me change my mind about a few things though.

i love being home. and i've only really been home for a few days. tomorrow we're off to ashley's wedding.

yay.

this city is a tradition

i love lincoln city because every time we come here we have that favorite restaurant we need to go to, or the favorite little shop we have to run into, and mostly every activity we do is a tradition. whether it's having the boys go crabbing, going skim boarding, or just going and getting a salem roll. it's tradition.

after everyone was finally ready we heading to the outlet mall again so we could eat at one of our favorite restaurants; momiji express. it has a sushi bar that the boys love, and general tso's that is unbelievably delicious. their famous for their salem roll, which i honestly have no idea what is in it, but the boys obsesses over it and after three or four orders they're full enough to last until next year. after we ate, we wondered around the outlet malls one more time and then we came back home.

the mitchell's came over and i took the girls to go do a photoshoot. they're beautiful little thaaangs, i will tell you! the neighborhood we're in this year isn't as photogenic as the ones in the past, so we ended up venturing off into the woods a little bit. one spot we found was a little close to a house, and the middle aged man who lived there stared out his window and smiled at us like a pedophile the entire time we were taking pictures. i kind of started to get the david brian mitchell vibe, we called our quick 15 minute photoshoot to a wrap and heading back to the house. it's sooo nice having family close on our little getaway, and to think that we'll be in portland next weekened for ashley's wedding surrounded  by family is even better!

afterwards we ended up going to mo's for dinner. let me tell you, you haven't experienced oregon until you've gone to mo's. that is defiantly a tradition. they have all the seafood you could dream of, and delicious garlic bread. oh, and did i mention most of their locations sit right on the ocean? gawjuss...

we came home, and all of us snuggled up on the couch and watched iron man 2. when your brother comes home after two years of zero entertainment, everything becomes cool again. no song or movie is too old to be interesting anymore. you don't even know how hot "airplaines" by B.o.B. is right now..

today we're finally heading to the beach! we've all been watching discovery channel every day all day, since it is "shark week". and you bet we're watching "soul surfer" tonight. this ginger won't be afraid of nothin.

we're leaving on monday, but the thing is, i don't think i'll ever want to leave...

TBS

taking back sunday released a new album.

and it's actually pretty amazing.

yes please!

a vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.

oregon, how i have missed you!
it's beautiful here, and our beach house is amazing.
i guess it's only a year old, and it sure shows. such a beautiful home right on the lake.
so maybe it's considered a lake house? but the beach is only a few minutes away. 
since me and taylor are the last lone soldiers that either; don't have any kids, or aren't freaked out sleeping with two girls in  a room alone (cough, cough, scott), we've been snuggling in our bedroom which is equipped with an xbox 360 and a butt load of games.
the kitchen is amazing. except for the face that after me and scott hammered down handfuls of swedish fish last night, jess figured out the bag was infested with ants.
yesterday morning the boys went kayaking in the lake, and up the smallest river in the world, (it literally is, the smallest river in the world.) "d-river" and into the ocean.
afterwards we all went and ate, and then went shopping for a good 5 hours.
the entire time scott kept telling us how his kneecaps itched and how he thought his skin wasn't use to jeans and that they were chafing his skin.
little did he know, his kneecaps were sunburned, only his kneecaps.
after being hidden for 2 years and then exposing them all morning while sitting in a kayak probably wasn't the best idea. but i wouldn't of ever thought of his kneecaps getting sunburned.
that's just one of the hilarious moments we've had down here in lincoln city.
i've noticed we've all been neglecting our phones, which i love.
we've had giant pilow fights with the family room's oversized throw pillows, watched taylor break it down to some techno, seen my dad teach me the valuable lesson of; "if you're not first your last.", seen conner catch a fish down on the lake, made fettucini alfredo at 10:00 at night, and when i joked around about what i wanted from the store late last night, my dad really picked it up and brought it home. cheesecake. 

day 2 at the beach house. well, lake house; and i already don't want to leave.

the ocean is my only medication

being an hour ahead of washington for the last few months is working to my advantage.

i'm up at the crack of dawn with my mother, and this morning we found her iphone 4 drowning in a sprinkler soaked lawn chair. 

hopefully the bowl of rice will save her phone, but i would've missed this action if i would have woken up a few hours later.

seeing mason bright eyed and bushy tailed right when he wakes up is also pretty priceless.

he'll laugh at anything, and just sits in his high chair munchy on whatever steph throws on there.

plus, breakfast.

today we're heading to the oregon coast.

we use to go every summer, different beach houses same little beach town. 

since scott's been in mexico we haven't gone, but now he's here, and we are loading our things into the car, and escaping to the beautiful oregon coast. 

moses lake, i'm not going to miss you.

oregon, come at me.

he ain't heavy, he's my brother

scott being home is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

after he was released, we went home and scott headed downstairs to change. he came back up in his old jordan basketball shorts and black tube socks with a plain gray t shirt and it was like he never left.

the difference of scott pre-mission, to now is shocking.

they say missionaries change people, but i'd like to think that missionaries save people. not like there was anything wrong with scott before he left, he was nearly perfect. the best big brother a girl could ask for. but that boy i knew two years ago is nothing compared to the man i see now. him being worried about coming home, just afraid of the world, makes me wake up. i forgot the big picture, and i think we all do. but right now scott has the big picture as his only picture, and how deep of a reminder that is to me.

of course he's still in his awkward, weird stage... but we're slowing bringing him up to speed. we did some music appreciation, forced a phone into his phone, but to be honest.. the old scott will never be back, but the new scott is such a stronger spiritual man that is the prime example of what any man his age should be.

welcome home scott.

let's party

WHOA!!!!!! JUST KIDDING! HES LANDED!!!!

we've landed! and now we're waiting for scooter.

his flight is 8 minutes late. and we're all about to rip our hair out. a bald reunion, how sexy.

t minus 9.5 hours

i've been waiting for this day for two years.

they actually held him down there three days longer than they were suppose to.

i was waiting for july 29th, not this august 1st crap.

but today, i can't complain.

it's august 1st, 2011; and i'm finally going to see my brother.

hallelujer!