Getting Ready for Halloween

Halloween is coming up, and we are just about ready for it! First, we made a whole bunch of milk jug ghosts. You just wash out a milk carton, draw a face on it, and then on Halloween, you cut a hole in the back and put a light in it. (We use strings of Christmas lights.) Here are some of our best creations:

"The Screamer"

"The Pumpkin"

"The Glamorous Cyclops"

"Casper"

"Vampire-Cat Lady Thing"

"Frankenstein"

"The Minion"

 

Those were mine. I'm pretty proud of them, but everyone else made some too. In fact, Ben made some nice ones, although, I did notice some distinct similarities between his and mine.. But that's okay, I'm glad my work is so inspiring. :)

 

Both of our "Screamers"

And our "Frankenstein"s. But Ben added a nice touch of nails in the sides.

Our "Pumpkins"

And the minions.

 

We had a lot of fun making those. But Halloween isn't just decorating. We needed costumes, too! My sister Leilani decided she was going to be Elsa from "Frozen". So, of course she managed to convince me to be Anna. Our Grandma was supposed to make our costumes, because she can make anything with some fabric and a sewing machine. But, unfortunately, she fell on a sidewalk while she was visiting some ladies from our ward. Anyway, she fractured her arm, and has a cast on each arm. She can't even brush her hair, let alone sew two gorgeous costumes for us! So, my mom has been making Leilani's Elsa costume, and I've been making my own costume. Leilani's is going along great, but I'm a little afraid for mine. I had to veer from the pattern because I didn't think the pattern was totally correct in the shaping of the vest. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 My full costume

 The kids

 Elsa and Anna

 

They turned out pretty well. 

Youth Conference

So, we had Youth Conference last weekend, and it was SUPER fun! Leilani and I drove up there with Sister Melton, and Natasha and Marin. We got there and settled in. when they finally started, they gave us this AMAZING speaker, who flew in from Canada just for our Youth Conference. He was a magician who compared how a magician fools their audience to how Satan deceives us with his tricks. He showed us tricks and explained how they worked. (And then he continued to amaze us with even better tricks that he didn't explain.) His name was Richard Young. After that we all had dinner. They fed us Chinese food. we had sweet and sour pork, and noodles, and other Chinese foods. Finally, we had the dance. It was a "White Dance" so everyone was wearing at least some white, and it all looked really cool with the lighting and the decorations. The DJ was pretty good. Unfortunately, none of the boys were asking girls to dance, so the girls had to take charge and ask boys. It was really fun, though! After the dance, we all went home with our host families. Leilani, Marin, and I all stayed at the same house. The lady's name was Sister Harvey, and her daughter and one other girl from their ward stayed with us. Sister Harvey let us stay up, eat popcorn, drink soda, and watch Studio C. we had a lot of fun. In the morning, we all got ready and ate breakfast. (During breakfast someone asked if Leilani and I were sisters. They were surprised that Leilani was older. Apparently they thought I was the older one!?!) We all drove back to the church. We got to listen to a few nice talks, and then we got to hear from Brother Young again! This time he talked about dating. He gave another wonderful talk. We had lunch, and went to classes. Leilani and I went to a class called "It's Time To Get Real About Missionary Work". The speaker was really good, and he definitely had a sense of humor. He first played a rap version of "I  Hope They Call Me On A Mission", and then later told us something to the effect of "you don't want to be on the" as he then played a short clip of "Highway to Hell". He said, "we should be climbing the" as he played a part of "Stairway to Heaven". We had diner, and a closing speaker, and then we left. I t was a really fun youth conference. (Sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn't take a camera, and my mom wasn't there.)

 Our ward and 1st ward taking a selfie before Youth Conference

Brother Richard Young the magician

Brother Longmore, who taught our missionary class

My Mother's Camera Addiction

My mom paid for us to get our pictures taken professionally. On our way home, we were trapped by a train, so my mom decided she would pull out her camera and start taking pictures of us. She took a whole bunch of pictures of us. Then, by the time the train left, she was so into it, she didn't want to stop. She even took pictures of us on the train tracks.

 

 

Mom wanted a "serious" picture

Then a happy one

This is Ben

And this is me

Here's Elisabeth

And here's all four of us

This all of us, including Robert

This is Leilani

And the adorable Robert

This picture is one of my favorites, especially because his hands weren't even in his pockets. He just stuck them in his pants

This is Elisabeth

Me sitting on train tracks

And walking on train tracks

And posing

And looking down

And jumping!

Ben being.... a ninja?

Robert the cutie

End of Summer

So..... I really haven't posted for a while, and a lot has happened. This summer I took a ballet intensive and had a performance, I went to Girl's Camp, we went camping as a family, and I started school.

I had the opportunity to go to a ballet intensive at my studio, and it was really fun. We did ballet, modern, jazz, hip-hop, and broadway dances. It was three weeks long and we had a lot of fun.

 

We did a song from "Chicago" here

It was called "I Just Can't Do It Alone"

This was our hip-hop dance to 'Problem" by Ariana Grande

This was another song from "Chicago", "Razzle Dazzle" 

This is our modern dance, called "Sacrifice"

Girls camp was way fun. Unfortunately, it was only a three-day thing, because we had trek way back in June. But it was still a good camp. Each unit was a ward, except ours, which was first and second wards. We were the rubies, and first ward was the sapphires.

Molly, Abby, me, and Charlotte up in a tree

Same people here

This is all of the girls in our unit

This my friend Shannon and I

This was our "funny" picture, as requested by some of the girls

And this is me up in a tree, because... that's what my mom wanted.

 

We went camping as a family on the coast this last weekend. We brought Natalie, one of my Mom's daughters from trek. She was a lot of fun to have with us.

 

This is Robert and me at the beach

This is my Dad trying to take a selfie 

This is me. On a stump. In front of water.

 And this is me pushing Elisabeth of the stump.... oops

She didn't even make a very big splash.... that was kind of disappointing

This is me in a tree, again?!

 

I'm in going to high school at Connections academy, an online school. It's been kind of fun. I've already had multiple opportunities to babysit during school, and it's really nice to not have homework.