I wore sunscreen.

Yesterday, I went to the beach with my dad. 
I got very burnt. 
Like to a crisp on my face and stomach. 
Aaron says I just look tan, but I was in quite a bit of pain, and still am. 
But, i wore sunscreen.


Today is July 18th. 
It is crazy how fast time has been going. 
My mother and sister come home tonight. 


I'm tired. 
I just wanted to update a little bit. 






Ok, 
facts?
1. We got new neighbors.
2. I can't tell if who actually lives there though.
3. Like 17 families keep coming in and out and staying and leaving.
4. It seems like quite a hectic life.
5. I'm glad I have my own room. 
6. I want to go to disneyland. 


So apparently Wicked opened back up. 
That's exciting. 
Maybe Aaron and I can go with some friends before I leave for college. 
It's funny though because it was called Wicked: The Musical and now it is Wicked: The Encore. 
I think that is funny because they closed the entire show and then reopened it. 
Silly people. 
I'd probably do the exact same thing because the show makes so much money. 
Money is good. 


Another family just came to the house. That makes like 23. 
Weird. 
Ok, done blogging for today. 
Adios. 

Successful Cake Making, Party Planning Day

Success.
i made the cake, helped set up the party, cleaned, picked out outfits, and helped execute a very successful party. 

I am very proud of my cake, here is the finished product. 

Around the body of the cake it says "Meagan 15" and then the top candles say "Happy Birthday" 

It was a lot of fun to make and I really enjoyed myself. 

It took about 4 hours to make, mainly because I did it all as Meagan's favorite colors, and then realized that her candle's were rainbow so I redid all the lettering to match the candles. 

All the teenagers at the party, including the adults that saw my cake think I should become a cake decorator. I think it'd be fun to do that as a side job maybe when I have kids, or in college. I think it'd be fun to make cakes on Saturdays when I don't have anything going on. 

Wow. I am exhausted. Today has been a long day. A good day. 

My favorite parts of today: 

1. Finishing the cake

2. The yummy breakfast I made myself

3. Having my devotional in my quiet house

4. Working out

5. Playing the "cheerio" game with Meg

6. Aaron laying on the couch with me as I write this blog. 

I'm pretty positive that I will like going to sleep so... 

7. SLEEPING, finally. 

Oh, and i discovered something...

Even if you pick up the dog poop a day before the party, you still have to pick it up again on the actual day of the party. 

I knew that, I just forgot today.

ha... goodnight.

The sun rises early...

I woke up at 7:00 am this morning, and I have no idea why. I couldn't go back to sleep. 
It's really early but I thought I'd update my blog on what I've done the past 2 days. 


Sunday was Meagan's 15th Birthday!! We went to Reno and along the way stopped at 4 7-eleven's because on 7/11 you get free 7.11 oz slurpees. Drinking 4 slurpees made me a bit sick... Then we went shopping at the mall and got cute clothes and I got a new bathing suit. After we shopped, we went to GSR to ride the swing, but it was CLOSED! :( Basically the whole point of going to Reno, destroyed! Then we went to Olive Garden, ate so much we almost exploded. Meg loves to read so we went to Barnes & Nobel to let our stomachs settle, and then finally we finished off at BJ's with their famous pazookie... 

  

I slept the entire way home and couldn't wake up when I got home. I honestly think I was in a sugar coma... literally. Eating that much sugar and fattening food is not normal for me and I think I just about died. 

  


Monday, I woke up and picked up my sister from swimming, like always. We hung out around the house and then I left to go hang out with Aaron. We had to stay close by his house because he was doing laundry so we ran some errands, and I got a new iPhone case! We just hung out a bit and then I went home to help my mom get dinner ready. We made baked ziti, it was tasty. 


This morning, I woke up and decided to begin on my project for the day... making Meagan's cake!! I am using fondant and everything... I've never made a formal cake that I'm trying to make perfect. We'll see how it goes!  

Burning up

My house is hot. Extremely hot. 

I think if it got one degree hotter, a fire might start. 

I love my room, but it is the worst room in the house. In the winter it is the coldest and in the summer it is the hottest. If it would switch seasons I'd be happier. 

I have iTunes money from my family for graduation but I don't know what music I want. 

Every time I buy new songs, I listen to them like twice and then go back to listening to my old music. I'm stuck in ancient music world. 

Today I am in one of those moods where I wish I could be anywhere but at my house and be doing anything but what I am doing. Probably because today is chores day. I hate chores.

I think I might like blogging about just random things in my day than one specific event. Tonight I am going to Reno POP's on the River with some friends! It should be a lot of fun! I am very excited. 

I think I'll go turn the AC on now... 

Meagan is the tiny head in the picture.

I don't like coffee

It is 5:12 pm on a Friday night/afternoon. I don't know if I would consider it to be night yet because of how light it is outside, night time usually refers to a time in which the sun has set. I realize I usually don't say night unless I'm saying "goodnight" which isn't even a word. It is spelt good night but I always say goodnight. 
I am sitting at starbucks because Aaron is at school until 7pm tonight, he gets out early today because his teacher is going to California so we are going to have dinner and go to the movies after class gets out. 
A woman just walked in to starbucks with a very young boy, i assume it was her son but they looked nothing alike. She seemed to be Indian and the boy was more of a hispanic ethnicity. She seemed so confused when she walked in, almost as if she had never been in a starbucks before. The boy knew exactly what to do and walked to the counter and ordered, she looked around and asked the barista what exactly she was supposed to tell her. The barista explained that she can have whatever type of coffee she wanted and explained the menu briefly. Seeming to be very confused the woman said she wanted the thing in the picture - a passion tea lemonade. She then stood at the counter watching the barista very intently. The barista then handed her the drink she had ordered and she looked at it with disappointment because it wasn't in the ice-cup as it showed in the picture i assume. She then walked out. 
It is sad to say, but I was completely amazed that someone could have NEVER been in a starbucks before but it makes complete since. In third world countries, they don't have starbucks... it's just a reminder of how lucky each one of us is to live in such an amazing country. 
Some random facts:
The music in here is making me have a headache.
I don't like coffee. 
I like passion tea lemonades, blended and unsweetened. 
Every time I'm order a blended passion tea lemonade, they tell me that they can't do it, but then they do. 
I guess they have superpowers. 


Ok done with that now. 
I really am bored at the moment, I'm probably not as bored as Aaron though... as he is in school at the moment. I'm glad I'm not in school. I was going to drive to borders, I wonder if their music in borders is as loud as it is in starbucks. It might be because of the spot I chose to sit in.... hmm, I think it would be weird if I just got up and moved to another table. The lady sitting near me might think it's because she smells. She doesn't. 
I'm sorry for anyone reading this blog, it is very pointless. 
I just don't have much to say, but I want to blog every day. 


The reason I blog is because I have decided that it is impossible for me to have a journal. 
I have tried and tried to journal but it NEVER works. 
Probably because my brain is so scattered. 
Also, I have this weird way of wanting to tell the back story to everything I write. 
Like somehow I will forget everything that has ever happened in my life and if I don't write it all down then I will most certainly have memory loss. My theories are a bit ironic though because I have an amazing memory and rarely forget anything. 
With a blog, I don't feel like telling my whole life stories on each page because of who might read it I guess. I don't think everyone needs an open ticket into my brain. 
But in the event of memory loss, I write down random things so maybe I can piece back together stuff. 
I also take lots of pictures so I think that would help too. 


It is now 6:00 pm. Well 6:02 pm, sorry I lied. I was going to go shopping too today, but honestly, I don't like shopping alone. I think it's boring. It's funner to shop for you and another person or at least have a second opinion incase you pick out something really ugly. I know I should be more confident in my choices, and I actually am. I just think it's really boring to shop alone. 


Today I told Aaron a few reasons of why I'm going to be a good college student. 
I'll repeat some on here:
1. I like kraft mac and cheese as long as there are shapes for the noodles. 
2. I could live on pepperoni alone. 
3. I really enjoy grocery shopping because I only get what I know I'll eat. 
4. I like eating Ramen Noodles. 
I'm probably going to get the freshman 15 because every thing I just listed deals with food, unhealthy food... hmmm. 


I've decided I like grocery shopping alone, just not clothes shopping. 

This text is purple, to match my shirt.

I didn't know you could change the color of the text until now... Actually I didn't know you could change the position of the text or put in bullets or numbers on this blog until now. I just never looked at the upper toolbar. 

Interesting. 

Purple is my favorite color, incase you didn't know. 

This is neat. 

Have a nice afternoon... Ok I guess 6:11 pm is considered night. 

Simple Trust

Today after picking my sister up from swimming, i went to get gas. My light was on for a while and I desperately needed some fuel. I went to the gas station and i began pumping my gas, as I walked back to my car I remembered I had left my purse at home. I had forgotten all my ways of paying for the gas I was pumping, and I was super embarrassed. I walked guiltily to the lady at the counter, who I am distantly familiar with because I always purchase my gas from the same gas station. I explained the situation and how far away my house was, explaining that I could leave my sister there until I came back (Meagan had already agreed to the plan). The nice lady behind the counter protested saying that it was fine and that I could just come back and pay later. She had no reason to trust me, but she did. She didn't make Meagan stay or even make me leave anything to come back for, she simply let me leave. Getting back in the car and driving home, Meagan and I talked about how easy it was for her to trust me, we didn't understand why she didn't want some kind of proof that we would come back and pay her. 
It amazes me how trusting of people we as humans are. Yes we use lots of caution but we generally trust the majority of the people surrounding us. For example, I eat out with friends quite a bit and people cook and serve us our food, it easily could be poisoned but we trustingly put the food in our mouth. 
These types of situations really make me wonder why I don't trust some people, or things more than I do. I have the hardest time trusting my Heavenly Father with simple things I would allow a human to deal with. I hold onto certain parts of my life so that God can't or won't "mess them up" or do something I wouldn't want him to do. While I can sit back and leave my car at a car shop with the keys, trusting that they will not steal my car, I can't trust my Heavenly Father to provide me with friends at school or simply keep me safe. I take my paths or ways, praying along the way asking for help, but not surrendering daily with minor (but especially major) decisions. 
Surrendering.
Probably the hardest thing for me to do. Not surrendering half-way or allowing God to have part of my plans, but completely on my face before him, in awe of his majesty and trusting him and allowing him to do whatever he wants with my life. 
Whatever HE wants, not necessarily what I want. 
I want to be honestly surrendered everyday, not just when it is convenient and when life is easy. I want to trust God more than I trust myself, I want to become like Christ who in the garden could have taken the crucifixion into his own hands but he instead trusted his Father, who knew the entire plan of what came to be, my Salvation. 
It's hard for me to not plan out my entire life and be disappointed when God changes my paths, but I need to trust him more and know that he has my best interests in mind and he knows his plans for my life. 
I shouldn't need physical proof to have God earn my trust, I just need to rely on him for anything and everything, daily. 


"Don't put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them. But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the LORD their God."
-Psalm 146:3-5, NLT

Trip to Walmart

Today I had to return all my Africa supplies back to Walmart. I had like 4 entire bags full of all this stuff I had to return, everything from bug spray to hand sanitizer to bowls and spoons. I walked in and immediately I saw the dislike run across the door persons face. Apparently, at walmart instead of being able just to go to a customer  service desk or something to return everything at once, you have to have a ton of little stickers put on everything! Thankfully my mom told me this before hand so I went in to the store determined not to spend an hour at the door before walking in. I immediately asked the man at the door if I could just have one sticker and if he could just walk me to the customer service desk and give them the one sticker instead of sticking all of them! He was relieved just like I was... and walked me to the customer service desk! Of course there was a line and the people behind the desk were slow but I was happy because I had saved soooo much time!! Then when I finally got to the desk I asked the lady to put everything back on the credit card I had used... it took FOREVER! I finally finished and called my mom who had to make a trip to the dollar store to return only a few things, it had taken her longer!! AMAZING! I was so surprised. But anyways, my sister and I looked at hair dye for her project she wants me to do and then my mom arrived. We went over to the food section and immediately the frenzy began.. Meagan and I wanted certain things and we had to go get them. Meagan almost died by getting run over by a lady with a full cart and a baby, and the funny thing is that even when Meg was almost out of the way but not quite she KEPT moving!!!!!!!!!! It was so funny, the lady was obviously determined to go shopping asap.  Well the good news about this shopping trip was that mom let me and meagan buy captain crunch and trix cereal! Ever since we were little my mom would never let us buy those cereals, we were stoked! That is about all that happened at walmart, it was greattttt... When I am a mom, I think I might get a babysitter just for the trip to walmart because it will be hard to deal with shopping and KIDS! 

Sister Night

It always seems that my sister and I want to do crazy things when we have our sister nights! At the moment, we are stalking out aaron's work in hopes of "kidnapping" him... We probably will fail at this task but still we are determined to try! We always have these insane ideas like borrowing a van and kidnapping people or driving to stop lights and stopping even if they are green and waiting for them to turn red again while sitting there. We always have so much fun and we are always so silly! We fight sometimes about really stupid things but we always work it out and are there for each other when times get tough!
Meagan is an amazing sister and I will miss her so much when I go off to college! Shes awesome and I wish I could always be there for her and go to college at the same time! It's one of the reasons I've been doubting if I should really be at liberty.. I don't feel like I can stand only seeing my baby sister on holidays!
She's awesome! Love ya megs!

Lovely Picnic Day

Today was a lot of fun! After a relaxing day at some family friends home last night for the 4th, I awoke ready for some sweet summer fun with my boyfriend. 
We got started roughly, bored and tired. Aaron picked me up in the afternoon and we were stumped on what to do... it always seems that there is NOTHING to do in the town you live in! I bet, even if I lived in Hawaii, I would find some excuse to complain regularly about the lack of activities for people my age! It seems like it'd be so much easier just to stay little forever, because one of the advantages of being small is never getting bored. Or at least that's how I feel looking back on my childhood, I was always SO busy and always having fun! 
Anyways, Aaron and I finally decided to have a nice, sweet picnic at one of the parks near where he lives. It was very pretty outside and we were in the shade, so not too hot. 
So today was very delightful. 


I realized as the day went on that I should be on another plane today, surprise surprise! It seems like every time I turn around there's another moment in which I feel like I'm experiencing the wrong summer! Right now I should be on my way to South Africa... weird huh?


As I was enjoying my summer afternoon, my sister was busy planning my future life. 
Apparently I am supposed to become some guru at hair styling (THIS WEEK). She wants some crazy hairstyles and she is desperate to have me try to make them happen. 
You see, I have dyed her hair before but she's always stayed within the natural hair color scale; however, this time it's a whole new ballpark! She wants either rainbow black and brown, or purple and a combo of other colors black and brown! Her ideas are insane, but don't think for one second she'd hand me a bottle of dye and let me play around, no... She's drawn me some ideas! She isn't done quite yet because most of the ideas seem pretty impossible but here are some of them...

So that was my day, maybe tomorrow I'll change my college choice and just go to beauty school.. That'd be fun... Well, We will see I assume... 

Babies in the Yard

First, I would like to say, Happy 4th of July!

It is so amazing that we have all our freedoms from people fighting for our country. Please honor our country and pray for our troops today! :)

So, the adventure this morning will probably be one of my favorites this summer!

My mom and dad go on a bike ride every so often and my mom and I always look for baby ducks and baby quails in our neighborhood. You see, we live in Rural Nevada and there are adorable little animals that tend to run around right near our home. 

My mom told me that she saw probably around 30 baby quail run into a bush earlier this morning and that she wanted me to go see them. I immediately agree, still wearing my PJ's, and we leave the house to go look 4 houses over, trying to spot the little babies. 

We look in some bushes near where she saw the babies but they all had no noise of any baby quail in them. The house we were looking at was empty, because the people have since moved away, so we peaked into their backyard. Still nothing. It was quite disappointing, and I had forgotten shoes, so my feet were hurting quite bad on the rock landscape. 

Just as I was about to give up, my mom had another genius idea! She told me to look on the other side of the fence because she knew she could hear baby birds. So we walk over to the other side and look into the fence, and... NOTHING! again. 

My feet hurt, and just as I turned away, my mom whispered. I turned around, very doubtful of my mother's sight at this point because of all the failures on hearing the little birds. But just as she had said, probably around 30 little baby quail were running all around the back yard! They were probably the cutest thing I've seen in a while! 

They were all so tiny, and there were 3 adults watching over them. 

The way my mom and I found them, was by following the two adults who we assumed were the mommy and daddy quail. I assume the other adult was probably a teenage babysitter. 

They were all so adorable, cute and tiny. If I could have one, I would but I'd never take them from their home! 

That my friends, was the adventure this morning. 

I learned always to be quiet and to wait on God's creatures. 

The babies are small and timid, we should always be gentle and loving towards our Heavenly Father's gifts! 

Switching Summers

Yesterday, at 10:00am, there was a plane ticket with my name on it.
I am supposed to be in Lynchburg, Virginia, right now, with all my things packed and ready for the adventure of a lifetime - Zambia, Africa. 
Obviously, I'm not there. 
I have been looking forward to this trip since January of this year and have been anticipating the journey I was about to partake upon. 
I'll give you some information, however, I didn't choose to stay home. My doctor did. 


It all started about 3 months ago, with stomach issues, but I got cleared for Zambia shortly after some medical procedures making sure I wasn't actually dying from the pain I thought was slowly killing me. I was set to go, everything was ready. Then, I got mononucleosis in mid-June. It was 3 weeks away from my trip but my doctor assured me as long as nothing else went wrong I would be cleared to go, problem free. 
And then, the monster struck! I got a nasty upper respiratory infection, which slammed me on the couch for a few days, I was in and out of states of delusion, due to my high fever. If it hadn't been for my mom, boyfriend, and loving puppies, I might have had them just pull the plug on this lifeline, and I'd take my chances with the rest. 
So all this story for the conclusion, I'm no longer going to Africa. 


Lots of people thought I was a bit crazy for wanting to go anyways. You see, I'm not the most adventurous girl ever to walk planet earth. Sure, I love hiking and being in the outdoors but when it comes to spiders, I'd rather jump off a cliff to my death than deal with the nasty eight legged creature. 
Despite the spider danger, there were also many other dangers to speak of, such as the diseases and native people. I hadn't done lots of research on the topic of danger, mostly because I didn't want to be scared out of going. And my counselors had assured me it was safe where they were taking us. 


So we go back to the point, I am supposed to be on my way to meet a mission group right now, and I'm not. 
I'm stuck in someone else's summer. 


I will not make this blog a tragedy, however, I am determined to make the most out of this summer and live it to the fullest. 
I quit my job in anticipation for Africa, and have cleared my schedule. 
Let's see where this takes me.