The Simple Truth

I'm a senior................

I'm a senior now and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

This summer has gone by so fast, I feel like school just ended and yet, it's right around the corner.

My senior pictures are in a week... uh oh... then comes school and ACT and AP tests. Then, oh what do you know! Here walks in.. college applications and scholarships... I'm totally freaking out!!

Where to go, what to do??

The choices are limitless and yet, I have absolutely no clue!

I'm glad high school will be over, not that it's bad or anything, it's just... school. But after high school comes university... more school... jobs, careers, being on my own, being responsible..

After HS my life really begins

but what do I want to do with my life??

After HS nothing is the same...

well, that's how I see it anyway. Before and during high school kids are completely dependent on parents and such, but after? Not so much..

I think my issue is change.

I know change is good, and can lead to wonderful things, but

I. Don't. Like. Change.

Change means different

Change means not what you're used to

Change means a lot of things, 

but usually 

Change puts you out of your comfort zone.

I like my zone.

I don't like when my zone pushes me out of my comfort.

I think that's the biggest reason as to why I'm so freaked out.

After high school there's gonna be a lot of change...

Now that I think of it, that's probably why I'm kinda nervous about EFY.

I know, right? Nervous about EFY??

Well, I've never been to an EFY.

I've never had to fly on a plane by myself.. well, the Baileys will be there, but they don't count. I'm the oldest, so that makes me the responsible one..

I've never had to worry about travel arrangements...

For the love! I've never had a roommate (AHH!!) besides Bailey.

Okay, so I get it, change is usually good and for my benefit...

but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Stateside Once Again :)

Things I miss about Canada...
➜ Taeta
➜ Kawas and Shipley cousins
➜ Perfectly ripe raspberries
➜ Late mornings and lazy days
➜ Breakfasts and dinners Taeta made :)
➜ Poutine
➜ Canadian chocolate... it's the best I've ever tasted
➜ Shoe Lace Licorice, the strawberry kind
➜ The street signs, they're centered around the Cardston Temple and are simple... 1st St, 2nd St, etc...
➜ The tiny little downtown with all its awesome little shops
➜ Goofing off with my cousins
➜ Lunies and Tunies

My beef with Canada... eh!
➜ No Diet Coke with Lime... in the bottles. They only sold DCwL cans in the bigger stores..
➜ Too many mosquitoes
➜ They use kilometers, not miles
➜ It's WAY too cold, especially for summer
➜ Everything is too expensive
➜ Everything ends with eh! or hey!
➜ Even though the language is the same I feel like I'm speaking with an accent. My O's are weird now... I don't like it.

I wish I'd...
➜ Hung out with Hayden more... we used to be inseparable, now... it's kinda the opposite. I don't know why.
➜ Jumped off the bridge
➜ Been able to stay longer

Good and Funny

Walking toward the raspberry bushes for my after dinner snack, I jumped on the tramp and heard a bird.. under the tramp. It was hopping around, unable to fly out. I wanted to help it, so 

First, I tried to pull off a spring ... but I couldn't.

Next, I tried to get close enough to grab it through the springs... talk about a fail.

Lastly, I went into the house and asked Hayden for help... why? Because not only is he strong, but he's smart too :)

Hayden tried to pull a spring off... he couldn't.

Then, he said Taeta has a fancy spring hook thing, so we went looking for it in the shed. We didn't find it, but that's where his smarts came in... he made a little contraption to help get the springs off.

So. With this fancy do-hicky and his muscles, Hayden removed 2 springs. Both of us then slipped under the tramp, cornered the bird, grabbed him and let it go on the grass :D

I did have an idea of taking it to the house, grabbing my camera and documenting my good deed for the day.... but I figured Taeta wouldn't appreciate that, not to mention the starved, sun-deprived bird :)

Haha, it was quite fun,

especially just talking to Hayden.

Oh, so funny story.

My mom and I were shopping downtown, just spending time together.

We walked out of the dollar store and passed a mom and 2 of her kids. The little girls were so cute in home made, old fashioned dresses and bonnets... they were Hutterites, the Canadian version of amish.

Now, on to the funny part.

Mom was telling me about them. They grow all their food, and don't have anything electronic... you know, the classic amish type.. I think, I'm not exactly sure, so don't use me as a reference :D

Well, apparently they believe the world is flat.. I'm not kidding!! They teach it in their schools, and I'm going to take a guess and say they don't travel for fear of falling off the edge of the world :)

I wonder how big the world is? I mean, are all the continents still here or is it just Canada?? What about Magellan and all the other people who sailed around the world?? Hmmm...

I admit, I would be more hesitant to write this but... I doubt the Hutterites will mind :D

Canadian Adventures

I bailed on the all-nighter around 3 a.m. 

It was either sleep or have Bailey and Hannah do my hair...

I chose sleep :)

My first adventure was shopping in Lethbridge at the mall.

I bought a shirt... then later I lost it. So I bought another one since it was on sale..

Not good, but an adventure nonetheless.

Then we saw some family, that was fun :D

My other adventure was climbing the maple tree.

I haven't climbed that thing for years and I wanted to see if it'd be easier now that I'm older and taller... it wasn't.

If anything I had a harder time, but I'm going to blame the swing.. well, the swing that isn't there anymore. We used to have a swing tied to the lowest branch and we'd use that to get into the tree. It's gone, and even though I'm taller, I'm still short. In the end I had to get a chair... but besides that, it was hard because all the leaves are giant and they cover the branches, so it's hard to see where the next limb to climb onto is.. but besides that, I'm kinda scared of heights, well, not scared exactly, just more cautious... and that tree is huge!! 

See the tree to the right of the house?? Oh yeah, this is Taeta's backyard :D

The tree was big in the last picture right? Well, it just grew another 10 feet... I accidently cut off the top in the last pic :D

 

So you see the yellow rope running from the trunk of the tree to the right of the pic ↑? Where it connects with the tree is where the first branch is at... even if it's only a foot and a half long.

Ah, proof I was actually IN the tree :D
Where I cut the tree off before, I was just above that... as high as I could go.

Even that high up, I was swamped in giant leaves and dead twigs. Haha, Taeta actually saw me breaking branches off from the window :) Not to mention I was swaying in the breeze..

From that high up I could see the whole town!! The best pictures were the ones of the temple though :)

My adventures for the day.
Sure glad I have a camera so I can share the moment with you :D

Roommates... Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Megan, Hannah, Bailey and I are trying to pull an all-nighter...

We just finished a show called the Roommate

You heard of it?? It's quite new.

Yeah, it's creepy!

All I'm going to say is that I am now a bit freaked to go to college and get a roommate

and

that I will from now on be doing a full background check on ALL future roommates to make sure they aren't psycho...

just so ya know :D

My Precious, you stole my precious!!!

I'm not meaning to be disrespectful or anything... I swear!

In sacrament meeting today the speakers went on and on and on... and the talks were so boring!!
It was a husband and a wife and the talks were on pioneer heritage. The wife went first. She began with her family history starting in 1000 AD... no joke! She went on from there, for almost twenty minutes...
Again, no disrespect.

It was kinda funny, because this was the first time Grandma and Grandpa didn't fall asleep during the talks :) Bailey and I, however, were on the brink of sleep..

The one thing that did wake me up though, Bailey leaned over  toward the end to tell me that she hadn't been listening to the people the entire time... she was watching the kids 2 rows in front of us and... wait for it, wait for it... the middle girl reminded her of Smeegul!! I turned my attention to the kid and had to hold back my laughter.. This girl had been all over her older sister or cousin for the entire meeting, and one of her faces was an exact replica of Smeegul.. For the next half hour it was all I could do to not laugh out loud :D
Thanks a lot Bailey

After church we went over to visit our Smith side grandparents. That was fun, we had dinner, went through photo albums of our dad and his siblings growing up :) Later, Uncle Brad came over with Cami, and Uncle Rock came with his wife and 2 of his kids. It was good to see them all, especially since we haven't seen them for 4 years.

Lots of cowboy talk: Haying, calfing, breaking horses, roping... also lots of stories about my daddy-o :D
Hahaha, I had a good time.

Memories...

We started a bonfire in the backyard, that was great. 

Then, I showed my cousin River how to climb on the shed. It was the first time he'd ever been on there...

The reason this blows my mind is because I used to live on that thing.

Me, Bailey, and our cousins Megan, Hayden and Hannah climbed up the gate, then later pounded blocks of wood into the sides like a ladder and added a rope, nailed in at the top.

We were always doing something out there. I'm sure the neighbors hated us, what with our hammering and fighting and laughing going on during all daylight hours.

We would split up and see who could build the best thing. We made chairs, elevator basket things where we'd drop it over the edge then pull stuff up, like hammers, wood, nails, a cat once :) we also made a couple zip lines...

Oh yeah, we made a few legit zip lines. From the pole at the top of the shed going down to a fence. It wasn't very far so it was a really steep drop, and therefore, a fast ride. We actually did this twice. The first time we had bike handlebars.  

I don't know who volunteered to go first, I know it wasn't me :) I mean, we built it, a bunch of kids all under 11 years old. It was probably Bailey or Hayden. Well, whoever it was.. non of us expected them to go that fast. They hit the fence, hard and maybe hurt themselves.. After that we tied a green mattress to the fence. But then, the handlebars came off some how and someone got hurt, whoever was on it at the time.

The next time, we found a seat and secured it to the rope... On the first day after we'd been doing it awhile the fence gave or the rope broke or, well, something went wrong and Hayden, who was still at the beginning and pretty high, fell flat on his back.

After that we weren't allowed to make any more zip lines... That, and now there's no fence to make on with :D

As River was playing on the shed today it just brought back all these memories. And the more I thought about it, we did some really stupid, dangerous stuff. Zip line exhibit #1, even though nobody got seriously injured, we made them ourselves. One of our mom's would take us to get the rope and pulleys and stuff, but we made it. And as I mentioned before, we were all very young. I'm really surprised now that our parents and Taeta were okay with this :) 

Only today Taeta was telling River to be careful and not get too close to the edge... he's 9. The youngest of us, when it was us older kids, was Hannah, she was 4 maybe 5..

Another time, oh, but you have to understand this. The Kawas cousins, Megan, Hayden and Hannah lived in Saudi Arabia back then, but every summer they'd come out to Canada, so we only saw them once a year... during the summer. Because of this, the Kawas kids all wanted their own time with us - plus they could never agree on a movie to watch- so Me and Bailey would get 3 movie nights :) 

When it was Hayden's turn.. umm, I'm trying to think, we couldn't have been that old, maybe 8, 9 and 10?? I dunno, it's just a guess, anyway, we watched our movie, then, when we were sure Taeta was asleep (my mom wasn't there and the Kawas' family was staying at their other grandparent's house) we snuck out to the shed (wooden shed filled with tools and flammable things) and had our bug spray, matches and blocks of wood... You see where this story is going??... Yeah, we were kinda pyro- whatever-it-is, well, me and Hayden more than Bailey. We laid the pieces of wood out on the rocky ground, sprayed them with bug spray and lit them... We were being completely and utterly safe :) After awhile we got tired, but we did have a lot of fun :D

Until we got busted... the NEXT YEAR!!!! Yep, come next year Taeta found out and we got in so much trouble:) For good reason I guess, but still, it was the past and nobody got hurt...

Okay, last one :)

I remember Hayden telling me that spray paint is flammable... we may have also used that in the shed... so one day when no one was home I went in the shed and found a can of green spray paint. We had it because Taeta had given us permission to paint her shed and Kawas/Smith-ify it. I must have been bored, but I went back to the house and sprayed a green dot right in front of the back door.. then I put a match to it :) That circle was on fire for a good couple of minutes. Now, I must have thought that the fire would burn away the paint... it didn't. It's still there, and nobody knows how it got there, well, now they do :D Every time I walk in or out the door I see it and I laugh to myself...

Memories, where would we be without them???