Christmas Eve!!!

This year has gone by soooo fast. School feels like it is zooming by. But once we got off school for that extra week before Christmas Break, the days have been going by really slow. I guess it was because we were all stuck at home. Even now, we can't go anywhere with out sliding all over the roads. So sometimes I will go with my dad to the post office, just so i can get out of the house for a little while. But yesterday, Hope and I went to our friends house that is just down the road and we talked for what felt like 5 hours. That was a good way to pass the time :)

Just the other day we went out in the snow shovel our sidewalks and driveway. Just shoveling snow would be fine, but there was an ice layer in the middle that made it heavier. My arms and shoulders are still sore from it.

(Me holding a chunk of ice)

We cleared the snow off of the the top and bottom of the ice layer to show the arch it made. You can see how much we cleared of from just one side of the car. That is a lot of snow!!!

Climbing this mound of shoveled snow was very difficult for me! I kept falling through, and it took a while till I made it to the top. So here we are posing after our victory.....

(jumping for joy!)

And now it is christmas eve!!! I can't believe that Christmas is tomorrow. We have tried many times to get our parents to agree to have a Mexican Christmas, or even celebrate it on monday, but they didn't want too. So Iguess we will just have get them up extra early for presents!

Work, Work Work!!!

Lately have been working quite a bit. I haven't worked everyday, but enough that I am making some money. But I work for this elderly lady in my ward. She has me come over and clean her floors for her, because she has a bad back.

This 409 spray has been what I have had to use the entire time I have been at her house cleaning. She has me get down on my hands and knees, spraying this chemical on her floors, and then using paper towels to wipe it up. I am no complaining though, because it pays better than babysitting!!! lol


Recently, I have thought about looking for an actual job. My school has all of these trips that they take kids on in the summer time. I really would like to save up to go to Costa Rica, or even Europe! If I want to go on one of these trips, I figured I would have to save about 400 a month, for about a year, to have enough money. We will have to see how that works out, once I find a job. But until then, I will continue to clean for this lady!


What was your first job, and how old were you when you had it?

My Best Friend!

I almost always straighten my hair in the morning, and i won't let my hair down unless it is straight! My hair has this funky wave to it when I let it air dry, but it is blow dried it is a poofy mess. So my flat iron is my best friend!
Recently, my old cheap flat iron's ceramic coating started to chip away. I just ignored it, until the ceramic coating was almost gone. I noticed that it made my hair frizzy, and it wasn't as smooth and shiny as it had originally been. So my parents went out and splurged on a more expensive iron. I LOVE this Sedu iron! It is amazing! I am now able to straighten my hair faster, and it leaves my hair shiny! And the best part is that my hair stays straight for so much longer! Does anyone else have that problem? My hair would be straight for a couple of hours in the morning, and then POOF!!! it starts to curl. lol I guess it is just the moist air up here.

Oregon Primate Research Center

Wednesdays are our activity nights at the church, and we decided that for the activity, we would go to the OHSU Primate Research center.

I had no idea that we even had a Primate center so close to us, so it was quite an experience. I told my mom that I would probably never see that many monkeys at the same time in my entire life! We saw the Rhesus Monkeys first (see picture below). There were about 150 of them in a huge outdoor area. It was fun to watch them all play, and the babies were really cute. The tour guide told us that they live to be only about 8 or 9 in the wild, but here they are living to be double that age. The guide told us that in Seattle there is a male monkey that is 45 years old. She also said that these monkeys were bred specifically for the research. They didn't take any from the wild. Overall they have about 3,000 monkeys.
Next we went and saw some more monkeys. They were another kind of Rhesus, but I can't remember the full name. They were climbing all over the cages, and they had even more babies in their cages. She said that by 2 days old the babies are able to jump and climb around without falling. They were very curious, and the all found their "Buddies" (as the tour guide would say), and sat next to each other while we watched. Below is a picture of the cages where the monkeys above stayed. They lined both sides of the path, and it smelled like a zoo. It is really amazing some of the things they are studying with the monkeys. They are studying fertility treatments, AIDS ( because the type of AIDS the monkeys get is very similar to the kind humans get), Behavior, and lots lots LOTS more. We also got to go inside a Lab where someone was working on fertility treatments. When women have cancer, and they have to go through all of the treatments, they sometimes go infertile. So she was working on helping women who have had cancer but still want children. So we got to see some monkey eggs under a microscope. It was very cool.

School (Again)

I have now been to school for a total of 2 days, and i have now seen all of my classes. Friday I went to all of my Honors Classes. First I had Honors English. I think that this class will be a lot of fun, and the teacher seems really nice. She told us that she was in High School when she was 12! She said that when she started school, they put her right into 2nd grade because her parents and the school figured she could do the work. So she graduated really young, and got her degree when she was 19! I don't know about you, but I thought that was pretty cool!

My next class was Honors Biology. I have a sub until they can find a teacher for us. The sub kept babbling on about evolution, and he didn't stop talking for the entire block (which is about 88 minutes long). Then I had PE. I am one of only about 8 girls, and there are a total of 58 students in all. So I think this class will be a challenge only because there are only two girls who will probably even participate ( My friend and I). And last but not least, I had my Honors American Studies class. The teacher got right to the point with all of us, and he even assigned a Research assignment already! Its on the Spanish- American War 1898. So I need to get started on it because it is due next class.

Back to School

School has finally started! Summer went by way to quickly, but I will be happy to be back so I get my brain working again! :0) I did have summer homework though, but it took till the end of summer to finish it. But at least its done.

Anyways, Seminary, hmmmmm.......I have to get up at 5:00 to be able to be ready by 6:15. Man it kills me! The first few weeks are okay, but then I realize that I have to do it for months, and months, and months! Ahhhhhh! So anyways, when I went to seminary today, we had assigned seating. I was stuck by this guy that is okay and I get along with pretty well. Anyways I walked in and was playing around saying I didn't want to sit by this person and blah, blah, blah. Well I walked out of the room to talk to some friends before seminary started, and when I walked back in this guy from my ward had moved his name tag over so he could sit next to me ( I have a sneaky suspicion that he likes me, but I don't like him, because he does things like this allllll of the time, and it bugs me ). So I was kind of shocked and was hoping the teacher would say something because I didn't want to be rude. Finally she noticed and sent him back to his seat. Whewww! Besides that I am the secritary for seminary and have to take attendance and am in charge of assigning devotionals.

School was very good. I am soooo happy I am not a freshman anymore!!! Even though some people still think I am. My school is on a block schedule, and so we have 8 classes all together but we only have four one day and four the next. So today I had Culinary II, Clay Arts 1, Algebra2, and Spanish 2. Culinary will be fun, as always, and I have some friends in that class so that is a plus. Clay Arts will be interesting because the teacher is crazy and hippyish. But other than that I have 1 friend in that class (who is best friends with Hope), and i am looking forward to making art! Algebra will be okay, but I am never thrilled for math. We had to go and get these graphing calculators, which are HUGE! Well not HUGE but they are pretty big. Spanish 2 will be interesting also, because I have a new teacher to the school. She seems nice enough, but I want the teacher that I had last year (but she doesn't teach spanish 2 :( ) Schools good, and I know my way around, but the school seems much more crowded than last year. Navigating the lunch room is horrendous and same with the halls. When i come to the intersections in the halls, there are no gaps to squeeze through to get to the other side, so you have to make one. I feel bad about shoving people, but that is the only way through! Tomorrow I have different classes and they are my Honors Core classes and PE, so hopfully that will be okay.

Portland

On the Saturday of my friend, Saisha's party, we went to Portland for the "Saturday Market". We ended up riding the Max from Hillsboro there which is always fun with a big group :). When we got there, we went to the fire station because Saisha's grandpa worked there and we were able to get out of the heat for a couple of minutes before going to the market which was just across the street. Here some of us are in the bucket of the fire truck.
The market was just like any other with lots of neat things that people make, but because of the heat, it wasn't very fun. We went back to the Air Conditioned fire station frequently :)

So far this week....

On Monday it was Tayler's birthday, so we all decided to go to Laser Port to play laser tag. Sydney and her cousins from Korea also came and joined in on the fun! I had a blast and I was happy to be out of the house to do something :)

On Tuesday for mutual we had a Tri-ward activity. It was a lot of fun but really messy :) They split us all into 5 teams and we went around to all of the stations to play the games. There was a Banana split making contest Where someone had to lay on the ground in front of a table while their partner had to try and drop all of the contents of the banana split into their bowl! So many people got splattered with chocolate syrup and whiped cream! There were also many water games and an egg toss. At the very end of the activity some people took the eggs and chucked them at people. So everyone went home wet, and gooey :)

On Thursday we got invited to go to the beach with a bunch of other families. Only my mom, Tayler, Emma, and I went though. Hope decided to stay home and my Dad was at work. It was a really nice and the sun was shining for the entire day! Usually when we go to the beach it is cloudy and cold! The best part was that i go a little darker but i got a sunburn on the back of my neck. Not too bad though for not wearing any sunscreen!

Today i just finished the book Angela's Ashes which I needed to read for school. It has taken me a really long time to read because I have been putting it off. Now all I have to do is take about 20 quotes from the book and analyze them and then I will be done! And later today i am going to go to my friends birthday party and I will be able to see all of my friends before school starts up again.

Youth Conference

On Friday and Saturday I went to Youth Conference! It involved 5 stakes, and it was located at the University in our town.
On the first day, we played lots of games on the turf field before going to our classes. The classes were very good, and the teachers put a lot of thought into them. On my first day i went to a Dating class. It was set up like a game show and it was called "So you think you can date?". It was really funny to watch the people tell about their "dates", and in the end we all had to pick the best dater. The next class I had was a Missionary class. The teacher was a returned missionary from my ward and he did a really good job. I learned so much from this class.
Later that night we had one of the counselors in the General Young Women's presidency come and talk to us. We had our lesson in this really large gym, and it echoed and muffled the sound so much that I missed half of what she said :( . One thing that I did catch was that she said the Prophet wanted all of the youth to do three things to help us be better. She told us that it was supposed to be printed in the Ensign in a couple of months, but she would tell us early. The three things are 1. Take 5 minutes every night to read your Book Of Mormon, 2. Say your prayers every day, and 3. Smile. I really liked number three :)
On Saturday, we had the another counselor from the General Young Women's Presidency come and talk to us. She said that in advance, she called a stake president to ask what the youth in Oregon need to hear about. Then she continued and said that what she heard disapointed her. She said that the stake president said that we need to hear about family's and respecting our parents. That kind of hit me because youth nowdays really don't respect our elders, and it made me want to be better.
Then we all spilt up and go and do our service projects. Afterwards we had our classes. My first class was Modesty. I wasn't to thrilled about getting this class because it seems that is all I ever hear about these days, but it turned out to be a fun class. The teacher put it in a different way that was really interesting, and she didn't just talk about what we wear and just focus on the girls. She was talking about how we need to be modest in everything we do and say, not just whether or not our clothes are revealing. My last class was on feeling the spirit, and that was also a great class.
Afterwards we had a testimony meeting. One boy got up and bore his on blessings. He said that his uncle had invited him to go to Hawii for a month so he could help out with his uncle's job. He ended up going, but while he was there he got a terrible eye infection. He said that the doctors told him he could have gone blind if he waited 5 more hours before he got help. Then he said that he got the medicine and went back to his uncles home. He said that he wanted to go home but his mom wouldn't let him. So he asked his uncle for a blessing, and he said that he imediatley started to get better. The next day they went to the doctors again to have a check up, and the doctors said that there was a problem, they had given him the wrong medicine! Can you imagine? Anyways, the blessing was the only thing that made the infection go away so he could keep his sight. I just thought that this story was amazing, and I also know how wonderful blessings can be.
We went home after testimony meeting to get ready for the dance. I don't go to dances, and I really didn't want to go to this one, but my mom made me go anyways. The dance was outside on the turf field, and it was cold and breezy. I had left my jacket in the car thinking that when i got cold i could go get it. NOT! I asked Hope for the keys but she wouldn't give them to me. She said that i would have to get warm on my own. So i ended up having to dance to stay warm. But this turned out to be an okay dance even though i had a bad attitude towards it. :)

Camping Trip

On Friday morning, we all got up early and finished packing so we could head over to Uncle Sid's house to go camping. We had planned to go to Olallie Lake which was a couple of hours away. The pictures on the website looked pretty, and we had heard good things about the campgrounds, so we were all excited to go. On the way there, we had to stop for about 30 minutes for construction and we stoped by this pretty river in the picture below.We all got out and met Sydney's cousins from Korea, and we got to know them a little bit better.

Once we could go on we headed to Olallie. We ended up traveling on this very dusty, dirt road for about 30 more minutes (at least that's how long it felt!) only to find out that the camp ground was closed! The Ranger stopped and told us that there was no running water, and that we could stay there if we wanted to. We decided to travel up the road to see what the conditions were like. So we traveled a long, long, long ways up the road to find that pretty much all of the trees were dead! And the camp grounds weren't that nice.

By this time, we all had to use the restroom because we had been in the car for an eternity. Once we got out we were bombarded with mosquitoes! Only a few of us were desperate enough to use the disgusting port-a-potties.

We decided to go to Detroit lake because we had heard that it was a nice place to camp. On we went to hunt for camp grounds. We hunted and hunted, until finally we found two camp grounds! We had missed lunch and everyone was hungry, tired, and ready to get out of the car!

This was our camp ground. Uncle Sid's was a little bigger and we spent most of our time over there anyways. In the back, there was a trail that lead down to the river below. It was really pretty, but COLD! This is a picture of the river that was just below our camp ground.
A few more campgrounds away there was a trail head that lead to this part of the river which was really really cold, but it was very pretty with the clear water.
Tayler and Charles jumped right into the water (even though it was freezing) and started to splash around. They got along very well! Here is Charles and his sister Natalie. Charles was freezing after splashing in the river! Oh and I forgot to tell you that these names are not their real ones. The names that I call them by are their American names. I can't remember their Korean ones!
Here is Sunny sitting by the river. She was smart and didn't get in! Since it was really cold we decided to go to Detroit Lake because we heard it was a little bit warmer.

They had bought some tubes so they could play on them. Uncle Sid, Sydney, Natalie, Natalie's Dad ( I forgot his name! oops :) ), and I didn't swim, so I guess we missed out because it looked fun!

Emma and Sunny got along very well and they stayed side by side for most of the camping trip.
We brought our snorkling gear and my family snorkled around. My dad said that he found this cool, shiny fish which i guess he was looking at when i took the picture.
We had to think of games that we could all play together, because talking is hard when we both speak differnt languages! When we did speak we had to use hand motions.Uno was a game that we played a lot becuase we all enjoyed it. Charles is in the picture above.Sunny caught on really fast with all of the games we played. She won a lot of them too! Hope taught her Speed, and she said that she beat her a couple of times.
We decided to play Spaz Uno with them one night. It was really funny and everybody enjoyed it. (Natalie is in the picture above) Everyone was laughing at us, because it is an unusual game, but it is one of my favorites. :o)
We went to Uncle Sid's house after the camping trip and we ate dinner and played even more games! This time we played spoons, and Pit. They enjoyed the games, and we all laughed a LOT!
Over all it was a fun trip and we all made some new friends!

Personal Progress

Lately my mom has been pushing Hope and I to do our personal progress, becuause without her nothing would get done. Just a few nights ago my mom sat me down and we started to plan my 10 hour projects. I suggested that I should paint some rooms in our house, but my mom disagreed. So a few days later my mom came home and told me that she knew what I could do for a project. Turns out I was to go and paint a room for her friends little girls. So for the past few days I have been over at their house painting away.
I painted the walls a light blue, and i also painted the plywood on the floor, because they weren't ready for carpet yet. The picture i took doesn't show the colors very well, but it looked really good when i was done.
Also for the past few weeks my mom, Tayler, and I have been going to this charity to get some hours in for another project. Tayler was doing it for a merit badge so my mom thought that I should go so I could do another project for personal progress. So every Monday night and every Thursday morning we drive out to the charity and we put together care packages for kids. I only have to go a one more time, and then I am done with the project!

Binocular Soccer

This is a really funny video that i found on youtube. I can't imagine playing soccer this way...it would be way too hard. But their outfits don't make it any better either! It makes them look even more rediculous.

I Finally Have A Blog!

Finally after everybody else i my family got one, i felt like i needed to join in on the fun, so here i am! Hopefully i will update often and won't be boring!