Dreams

Many of you probably already know this, but I want to go to Italy. Specifically three places.

Florence

Venice
And Rome

I have since I was in second grade. It was the 2004 Olympics (held in Athens) and everyone had a country in my class, and they had to bring a food from that country, learn about the culture, the coins, and other things. And ever since then I've loved everything about Italy and wanted to go. Italian food also happens to be my favorite, I love the sites there, and I really want to ride the water taxis and gondolas there.
Plus I've always wanted to try real Italian gelato . Apparently it's what ice cream is supposed to taste like, and since I love ice cream, gelato must taste like a little piece of heaven on earth.

Gelato

And I would show you a picture of what ice cream looks like compared to that, but it won't let me upload one anymore for some reason, but I'm sure you all know what ice cream looks like.
I actually love all of Europe, and would love to tour all of it. Italy as my first priority of course, then France, Greece, Spain Germany, and any other place that I could go to. As I said before I've wanted to go to Italy for a really long time, and always planned to go, but I never actually had a plan to help me get there. I just always just assumed some how I would go. A couple of weeks ago though, Kelsey told me that one of her friends is going to Europe, and that she'd been saving up since she was my age.
So I finally looked reality in the face, and realized that the money was going to have to come from somewhere, and I would have to save like crazy starting now, and make a lot of sacrifices. Which it will be really hard for me to say no to my friends sometimes when they ask me if I want to go to a movie with them since movie tickets are 8.50 now. And to say no to myself when I see a really cute shirt I want. I'll say yes sometimes of course though. ;)
That's why I took a jar, and it's now my Italy jar, and in a time very far from now it will be filled with hundreds of dollars. And then I will have to get another jar, or maybe even a couple more, and fill them up too, and then maybe I will have enough to go. So far I am a whole $6 closer to my goal! Wish me luck!

The Forbidden Warmth

For Spring break we were planning to go to the Oregon Coast, but when my mom looked up the weather, and saw that it was raining almost every day she decided against it. So, being the spur of the moment family that we are, we packed up our bags and left 4 hours later to St. George, Utah to visit our grandparents.

It was a ton of fun, and warrrmmm!!! Warmth is something Moscow has been missing for 6 months. And we probably won't have it for another 3, since we have 9 months of winter, 1 month of spring and fall, and 1 month of summer. That is why I will be moving to California once I grow up.
As I said before Spring Break was lots of fun. I loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa Woolley, especially since we don't often see them because they live 17 hours away. We also went hiking, went to the park, played laser tag, watched movies, had the rare chance to experience real shopping, and most of all enjoyed the sun.
If you read my blog you know that our family does not usually remember to bring the camera to places, hence the absence of photos. An unusual thing happened this time though, somehow the camera actually got into our car, and we actually brought it with us. So the first day we got there, when we went to climb the red rocks, we actually had the camera with us. A miracle! But, my dad took one photo, and then it died, and we never went to buy new batteries. So one photo is all we have, and it actually happens to be of me, but I can't find it. Photoless again. At least of us, but here's a photo of the red rocks. And this is about where we were in St. George.

While we were in St. George Grandma reminded me that I hadn't written on my blog in a while, so that's why I wrote this. But the reason I haven't in a while is because it actually kind of bores me just to write what our family is up to. I still will write about that sort of stuff when big things happen, but from now on most of the time I'm just going to write about the things that interest me. Prepare yourself! ;)

CD Covers

So my friend showed me this on Facebook, and I know it's kind of silly but it's fun, easy, and really cool.

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit "random." The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit "random." The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3. Go ...to flickr.com and click on “explore the last seven days.” The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4. Use photoshop or similar software (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together. 5. Post it with this text in the caption and tag the friends you want to join in.

The first two are one's that my friend's did, and the last two are ones that I did. My favorite one is the flower one. And yeah, that's all I have to say. :)

What would we do without Winter Break?

Those are some pictures of my AAU basketball team. The coloring isn't good in the first one, and I look awful in all of them, but you get what you get and don't throw a fit. AAU was a TON of fun. It made me way way way better at basketball, and I loved my coaches, (even if they frustrated me some times), and hanging out with my friends while playing a game I loved. AAU basketball is pretty much over for now. We had a practice Friday, and then we have two more Jan. 1 and 2. But the 2 is a Sunday, so January first is my last practice of AAU. I wanted to have practices over winter break, but Dennis (my coach) decided not to. Then the 3rd is tryouts for school ball. I'm REALLY nervous. I want to make the team so bad, and I think I might, because I'm a lot better than last year. Then once school ball is over there's a time where we can have a couple of AAU tournaments, which I will definitely be going to.

Christmas Spirit is in the air! Today is the first day of winter break, and it's snowing! Which usually I hate snow, and it's already snowed a couple of times this month, but I have been wanting it for a while. So I'm really glad that we're going to have a white Christmas! There's a lot of good things right now. NO school for 2 whole weeks, Christmas, school ball starts soon, and then my birthday. It's just a bunch of sweet surprises wrapped into one package.
Merry Christmas!!!! And a Happy New Year!

30 Random Things I am Grateful For

Warning: This will post will not contain any of the normal, usual, practical things people are grateful for. Meaning anything pertaining to family, religious things, food, or sleep.

1. Back rubs
2. Summer rain
3. Inspiration (from songs, books, movies, and people)
4. The person who invented comfortable pants, such as Sweats and PJ's
5. Fuzzy socks.
6. Summer Vacation!
7. When sunlight leaks through cracks in the curtains, and warms your back
8. Those times where you can't help but to crack up laughing, or even just give a little smile because of a funny memory.
9. Teachers who think Homework is overrated
10. The smell of rain
11. Boys who don't think that it's cool to be a jerk
12. Summer nights
13. Friends that have heard your singing, but still let you listen to their Ipod.
14. That I'm done with 6th and 7th grade, and actually like 8th grade.
15. People who dance like no one's watching
16. People who let you be yourself and still like you afterwords.
17. Memories
18. Friday nights
19. My froggy slippers
20. Those days where you know your hair just looks so great, it can't help but to make you just a little happy.
21. That moment of joy when you see your food coming in a restaurant.
22. Digital clocks.
23. The two songs, Secrets and Just the Way You Are
24. Sinking your toes in soft mud
25. My closest friends, Annie, Olivia, Joelle, Cherish, Katie, and Kim
26. All of my guy friends, Chris, Austin, Chase, Jon, Wilson, Alden, and Justin
27. That wonderful feeling of accomplishment, after you exercise
28. The pool
29. People who make me laugh
30. Days where you can just relax and not do anything

Soak Up The Sun

Camping. Not the best, but not the worst. Everyone in our family was going to go, but Tyler got the stomach flu so him and Mom stayed behind, while everyone else went up to Priest Lake. It was only supposed to take 3 hours, but because we made so many stops at stores to look for dry ice it took us 5 hours. We were all pretty tired out when we got there.
So after we set up the tent in the fading light, we all sat around the fire and roasted marshmallows.


If you look carefully you'll see Kelsey was very careful never to have her face showing in a picture. I don't know why, because to be honest, she looked the best of all of us.


Jenna and Nathan showing off fancy moves with their sticks.





Mom and Tyler decided to give us a little surprise and show up the next morning. Apparently Tyler felt good enough to come up. So we all went down to the beach together.
Because fortunately there was a lake there (which you probably caught onto since it's called Priest Lake) which always makes camping more fun. Unfortunately the high there only got up to like 68 degrees. So the weather barely got to the point where it was too cold to get into the water. Which was a bummer, but me and Jenna had fun playing on the sand, while everyone else just sat on a log and read or watched us.(booorrinnng) I guess Tyler and Nate played on the sand a little, but they didn't even put their swimsuits on.
Here's me building my sand castle, and Jenna building some pit thingy.



Here's the finished product. I know it doesn't look like much. But it took a long time to do, and it's pretty good for me. Plus we had nothing to build it with except out hands and a broken plastic cup. So no laughing.
Here's Jenna's pit. It doesn't look too impressive either, but don't judge it. It was really cool in person.
Here's a couple of pics of the lake (which was really pretty) and of the kids having fun on the beach.



Well I think this is the longest post I've ever done, so I guess Congrats to me.
ps. If you can't tell, I actually had pics on this post. Why? Because I noticed we don't really have any pictures of our family right now, but tons of them when we were all little kids. So I made a commitment to start taking pictures of us whenever I felt it was needed. That's why there's no pictures of me really. But I feel proud to have made a goal and so far have kept it.