Monday

Today it was so sunny and [relatively] warm! So what better thing to do on such a day with no school than go on a hike!? So that's what we did :) We chose to hike up to Poo Poo point and eat lunch at the top. So Brandon, Josh and I packed up some lunches, plenty of water, tied our tennis shoes, hopped in the car and drove down to Issaquah. It was a beautiful day, but after being cooped up in the house studying for finals for so long, that trail kicked our boo-tays! Suffice it to say that we were sucking wind after not too long... However the top was more than worth it. Being the ever prepared and organized young adult that he always is, Brandon had had enough forethought to bring a picnic blanket, so Josh picked us a spot and we all sat down for lunch :) It was good :)

Here's Joshy-moo at the top :) He is too cute. He had ridiculous amounts of energy and ran nearly the entire way up! (With Josh in tow I think we got some weird looks from other hikers though... If you catch my drift ;))Brandon and I, who were SO happy to have made it to the top :) Taken by Mr.Moo above with Brandon's magical iphone 4S; Josh loves taking pictures for people. I think it makes him feel special and important, and he's even getting pretty good at it too :)

After getting our derriers handed to us by a mountain, we went back to my house, watched Tangled and then made pizza for dinner for everybody. All in all, it was a pretty darn good day :)

Magical Tid-bits

Here's some tid-bits of happiness that I have been meaning to post but didn't exactly want to put up five, two-sentance posts:
Numero Uno: I am a Senior this year which means that I followed social suit and found a really awesome photography duo and bribed them to take some pictures of me. And I was surprised at nice they turned out! Here are a few of them:



The really cool part is that out of the Photographer duo, Ashley and Wendel Schultz, Ashley has a blog about [obviously] her life and sometimes she posts about her photography business every once in a while. Recently she did a "Best of 2011," to highlight her favorite pictures of 2011 and I was on that post! Three times!! How spiffy is that?! I don't know about you, but I think that that is just a nice little ego-boost... And because the internet is really awesome, you can see it for yourself! Right here!


Numero Two: I took this picture the other day and I thought it turned out nicely. And there's even a little story to go with it!
Since the summer I have been slimming down and I really like how it looks. And the best part is that it didn't take a diet or over the top exercising to do it. I just decided that I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and that, because of how crazy my school schedule was going to be/ is, I wasn't going to even make it a goal to work-out; it got crossed off of my mental stress list [and that has been a HUGE relief to not expect that of myself!]


Numero Three: In January I participated in a 21-day Vegan Challenge with my best friend and it was SO much fun!

It's an actual supported group and you sign up and it's quite official. Everyday the site sends you meal plans with recipes to help you figure out what to eat. On that email there was also a vegan celebrity or doctor or popular personality or athlete who had been interviewed about their life-style choice. It helped by showing you that you can be successful, healthy and happy on a plant based diet by showing you examples. It was really cool! They're starting another one in April if anyone is interested; I highly recommend it. It was a little extra work to make sure that I was getting a totally rounded diet, but it was well worth it. I felt so much happier and focused and energized the entire time.


Numero Four: Speaking of Veganism: That is what I decided to do for lent back in November, so it was just magic chance that I heard about the kick-start. It was fun and a good foray into being a vegan. I cannot wait to start it back up again on February 22, 2012!


Wow, that turned out a lot longer than I expected... If I think of anything else, I will edit this child.

Almost Sunny Sunday!

That's the name of the day! Today my mamma asked me to make her a goodie, and classic chocolate chip walnut cookies was the recipe that made it. En route to getting all the ingredients out, the urge was too strong to dump out some chocolate chips and start doodling :)

Here's the finished result! [Or almost finished if you consider baking the last step ;)] They were pretty darn divine. And as a bonus: my mamma said she liked 'em.

Spectacular Saturday!

Wow. Just as a quick side-note, I just chose these pictures in a random order and it turns out that they uploaded in chronological order!! So then, obviously, I started my day off with the...

SATs!! Doesn't get much more fun than that, eh? [It actually does... sarcasm...] Deciding to retake the SAT I had a specific goal in mind and I feel like I did really well. So the possibility that I met my goal is pretty good :) Then, after a mere four hours of standardized testing I...

Went over to this kids house, no big deal ;) [A brief history: We became friends last year due to the fact that we had two classes and lunch together and had a little theatre experience in common. We grew to be really good friends by the end of last year and I even changef my flight down to UT to spend the summer with my Aunt and Uncle for his surprise birthday party (which ended up getting canceled last minute, so I postponed my flight about a week for nothing... but that's okay.) But then we didn't really talk again until about a week before school started. School started up again along with our friendship and we have three classes and lunch together. Things just kind of moved on from there. He asked me to Homecoming the end of September and we started dating October 7th. :] I think he's a really great guy and I am lucky to have a bestfriend that has high standards and has interests and talents [you should hear him on the piano! Dear goodness... He was the Jazz pianist for our Choir before I was. Wow, I think I'll have to do an entirely separate post about this kid...]

Anyways: We got Schindler's List and got to watch just a little bit of it before it was time for us to go to...

The Bellevue College Jazz Festival. It was an all day competition that high schools around the area could participate. My highschool didn't compete, but a lot of our Jazz group went to the evening concert where the top three High Schools got to show their stuff, Bellevue's Jazz group Celebration sang and then this super amazing professional group called Groove for Thought performed. For those of you who watch The Voice, they competed this past season and made it pretty far. Celebration and Groove for Thought totally blew me away! They were both so talented and their voices all came together and made magic. My favorite song of the entire night was a jazzy rendition of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors by Groove for Thought. I couldn't find it on youtube or anything so I'll just direct you to their site where you can just buy their entire album!

HAPPINESS

I promise it will be one of the best musical investments you have ever made.

[Just click on Happiness. The word is quite apropo.]

Wonerful Wednesday!

Today was such a wonderful day! And these black and white keys made up a good several hours of it :) I love playing the piano so much; it's a stress reliever and playing is something I do when I feel discouraged because it makes me feel accomplished and talented.

This year I am the Pianist for our school's jazz choir and it has been such an adventure to learn another take on piano, it's like another language. My teacher officially assigned us an hour of practicing [at least] per day and after school rhythm sectionals three times a week. Jamming with my friends is so much fun and I always look forward to it!

Along with Jazz piano, my teacher sometimes lets me accompany the Concert Choir too. Even though it's absolutely terrifying, it is really great learning experience and I know that since September I have become a better Pianist :)

I love Piano.

Marvelous Monday!

Monday was [kindly] declared yet another No-School day due to power outages. So the only morally right thing to do was spend at least one day of the 10 day surprise weekend on homework. [one tenth to the homework GODs, right?]

After eight hours, this is what I ended up with. And yes, those are double sided. I just put all the prettier sides facing up ;)
This is one of my favorite pages. Incase you can't read it, it is ALL about different types of solid structure, crystalline cell structures and different crystalline solids.
And this pretty [and evenly spaced] chart is on the gas laws!!
[*QUE: crowd cheering with glee and excitement*]

This page is on the very first part of Ch. 11 of the Zumdahl and Zumdahl 6th edition Chemistry text book: Properties of Solutions.

Finally, this beauty. A Phase Diagram. IT is pretty legit I cannot lie. Even though you must proceed at a snails pace when taking notes like this, it really is fun and a good way of processing knowledge to permanently store. Plus in the end when you have a HUGE stack of adorable doodles that are intelligent at the same time, you can't help but feel a little proud and accomplished ;)

AP Chemistry Test in May, You're going down.

[P.S. Click on the pictures to make them bigger!! It's such a cool addition!]

Splendid Sundae

Over winter break 2011 I commenced sewing this little bunny below, but other "stuff" came up (aka I got distracted,) and it didn't get finished by the time school rolled around again. The white one [or lemon bunny] was sewn about a year ago. I'm talking about the chocolatey, flowery one :)

I got the patterend fabric over the summer at a specialty quilting store near Provo, UT called American Quilters. The name made me kind of weary because let's face it, American Quilters sounds just a tad cheesy. However upon walking in I was pleasantly surprised. And to top it all off, they were having a fabulous fabric sale I just couldn't resist ;)

For this little guy I'm thinking Gregory... He looks so masculine (comparatively speaking,) in his little sweater!

The pattern was purchased from this genius little store: http://www.hopskipjump.bigcartel.com/

Her name is Fiona Dalton, she is a creative sewer and makes awesome patterns for dolls and toys. She actually just came out with a book filled with new, rad patterns and toys. Check it.

Aww! See, they are best friends all ready. [The lemon bunny's name is Cora.]