What I've Been Up To (Contains far too many pictures and similes)

To start off, I'd like to make an announcement:

I AM NOW MAKING MY BED.Granted, it looks slightly sloppy, and yes, there's crap on it, but nonetheless! I will have you know that my bed looks like that every day, Mom. There's hope for me yet.

Also, observe Idaho before the weather bleaked out:Whoa! Wrong one. Never take pictures while falling off your bike, kids. People. Beings. Something.

Ah, there we go. See? Pretty.And more pretty.

And me taking pictures of bridge reflections.


I have also decided that graffiti and train bridges make the world go round.

And then the train came flying at me like a rabid goose on a motorcycle. Mostly.

Here's an interesting story: our FHE brother Chris, whose mother, like mine, seems to think that you can never have too much food from home, gave him this watermelon. It was so huge that the minute I saw it, I knew that I could carve it like a pumpkin. And so I did. Ashleigh gutted it and tried to make the remains into a smoothie, which ended up tasting quite weird and not at all like watermelon. Probably because we added orange juice concentrate, bananas, sprite, and a minimum of watermelon. Eh, it all worked out. I had a rather fun time carving it.
Hannah dubbed it "Scarface," while everyone else called it Pierre. "What is the capital of South Dakota?" "Ooooo-Pierre."
Ain't that beautiful?

"What the flip was grandma doing at the dunes?"

Here's us attempting to have eyes. Hannah failed by showing her camera.

And then me and my buddies went for a hike to enjoy the fall colors before the leaves dropped like a fat man stapled to a hummingbird.




There's David and Ashleigh crossing the river. I attempted to do so also and failed like a mosquito sucking on a mummy. Miserably.


This was taken from the bathroom of a random nearby indoor pool in the mountains. I mean, where else would it be?

As for now, I've spent the rest of my time taking pictures on my way to school...
Taking pictures of myself in the mirror...
And falling in love with this stuff.
And now it's cold. And slightly snowy. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Cold? Fine, I'll bundle up. Snow? Bring it. Wind? I'm fleeing for the border like a menstrual woman for the bathroom.
Well, that should hold you over for a good 3 months. Later!

Oh, also today's my half birthday. Feel free to leave some half-hearted birthday greetings.

"I was a yo-yo!" "WAS?"

I'm not allowed to embed this particular video, but I thought you'd be interested in viewing the Toy Story 3 trailer.

Watch it. Are you excited? Suicidal about sequels? Have sworn off any sequel, even if the makers are passionate about their stories?

I trust Pixar. In their world, story is king. They have phenomenal characters, and they're hilarious. Me, I'm pretty thrilled.

So...

I just got accepted to transfer to BYU Winter semester.

While I'm pretty sure I'm going to go, I'm still considering other options.

Kind of cool, huh?

Okay.

Yeah, I'm still horrible at updating. I'm like Kent in that, because there are quite a few things I would like to write about, but I tend to put them off because it's such a pain to update and upload and all that jazz. I'll just write about one thing that's been on my mind for a couple of days instead.

On Sunday, my friend Thomas Nielsen passed away.

He had leukemia for years, ever since 8th grade, and got meningitis last week. Because of his weakened immune system, he died from it. Yet he never complained, and he was optimistic about his life.

Tom and I were never terribly close. I never knew how to act around him. His father had a very loud singing voice. I loved his mother, who told the best stories. Sometimes, when I'd call her up and Tom answered, I would end up thinking of her as "Sister Thomas" and ask for her, and then feel foolish when I realized I got the name wrong. I always kept track of him, though. I thought about him on and off, and fasted and prayed for him because I really did care about him, although I rarely talked to him and never knew how to approach him. I think I had the fear I'd blurt out something tacky about cancer. Silly me.

When I went home for the 7-week break, by chance I ended up hanging out with him on a Friday night with some other friends, Monica and Lauren and Danny. We watched "The Italian Job" and ate ice cream. We joked around and had a pretty good time, and I left thinking, "Thomas is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind hanging out with him again."

So afterward on Sundays I'd sit with Monica and Lauren and Tom and we had our goofy and funny moments in church, one particular instance of the four of us being squished on a bench with a bunch of other people. When I found out he was out of remission, I told him, "We don't mess around," which was a motto he had about his cancer. He nodded and thanked me. Through those weeks, I got to know him a little better. Just a little, but it resulted in something neat where I didn't feel awkward around the person I only knew as somebody my age who had cancer, and we were friends.

We were friends.

As I said, we weren't terribly close. Still, I cried when I found out, and was distraught during classes. I'm not pleased with the method through which I found out of his death, which was Facebook, but I talked to my dad and Sister Judd, whose son was close friends with him (but also became close to him herself), and they comforted me. He's on a mission now, serving the mission he had wanted to serve all his life. I'm okay. He's okay. And I hope and pray for his parents that they'll be okay.

I'm glad I knew him, even if it was for a few weeks. He became my friend. That was good enough for me.

Peaches 'N' Pirates

Something I have always admired about my mother is that she has never stopped furthering her education. Even after graduation she continued to read books, which is a feat unheard of, especially since the only things people read in college anymore are Facebook tag notes, and even then, they stop reading after 3 sentences when they realize it has nothing to do with them. Mom makes continuous efforts to learn new things by gardening, cooking new recipes, traveling to new places, handling finances (i.e. being cheap) and meeting new people and getting to know them as well as she can.

Her knowledge is exhibited in her cooking (“Mom, what's for dinner?” “FOOD!”), her everyday conversation (“Didn't you think that was funny, Mom?” “No. I thought it was stupid.”), and her fondness for words (“FOOL, FOOL, FOOL!”). She is an example to me and has given me my talent* for writing, and my passion for education, although our tastes vary slightly (“All right! Harry Potter Lexicon! All the trivia I'll ever need to survive in Harry Potter Fandom!”).

And after all this, she still continues to learn. Her latest venture?

Piracy.

Yes, Mom has become a thief, plunderer, pillager, desperado – a pirate. Mom, however, would disagree with these adjectives. She would call herself an entrepreneur, an opportunist, charlatan – a heroine, and all in the honor of her peach ice cream industry.

You see, the Relief Society was having a little get-together in which frozen desserts containing cream were presented in a variety of flavors, and my mother, being highly successful in all that is food, (you should see the size of my dad's gut; pay no attention, however, to my chicken legs and spaghetti arms, it is merely the shallow end of the gene pool in which I dabbled lightly) volunteered to bring peach ice cream. I don't blame her. She's the patron saint of peach ice cream.

One of my fondest memories growing up – that is, when I was actually growing and not developing munchkin-like tendencies due to my stunted growth – is when Mom made homemade ice cream. We'd have family get-togethers, which meant Mom cooked a lot and I ate little. I mostly ran around with my cousins and/or nephews screaming like a banshee as I attempted to teach my sister's Barbies how to fly by flinging them out a window with the Barbies being attached to a hunk of rope, which later became known as the Barbie Bungee, which I am quite sure is now a dance. Or a rock band. Prognosis: Barbies have no wings, therefore they cannot fly, and now they have no heads, therefore my sister is very angry with me.

Anyway, when the ice cream was ready, we children would flock about with grubby, grabby hands high in the air, being impatient to inhale the frozen goodness. Her usual flavors were either peach or raspberry, being made from peaches and raspberries in our yard. It was delicious. It was like heaven in clear plastic cups I love to rip apart. It was then I knew I would not be able to function without Mom's ice cream, because frankly, I never ate. I think the only way I even survived childhood without being malnourished was that I simply photosynthesized by soaking up UV rays and drank the chlorine water in pools when I had my swimming lessons in June. The rare macaroni and cheese with a bacon bit attached would make its way into my system somehow – and how that occurred is still a mystery to this day.

Most unfortunately, however, peaches only surface every other year in our yard, which makes the ice cream rare. When the peaches do make themselves manifest, the birds, having never gotten over their one-hit wonder with Alfred Hitchcock, attack the fruits of our labors. When my parents ran off for a vacation, I took it upon myself to rescue the peaches from those dastardly creatures. The casualties of the peaches were many, for the birds were poopy. Alas, the peaches I bravely emancipated were small in number and plumpness.

So, with our peach count being low in supply and the ice cream high in demand, Mom was growing desperate. But then, it came to her knowledge by an anonymous informant (that is, Michelle told Mom) that a certain person (Michelle's mother, Sister Watabe) was in possession of trees known to produce colossal peaches, and said person was on a quest in Baltimore. I joked, “Just hop the fence, fight the dogs, and you should be able to pull it off!”

Certainly, my tone was a joking one, but when you're marketing peach ice cream to Relief Society ladies, there is no joking. So after Mom obtained this information, she and Tyler schlunked into the Watabe's back yard and made off with their legendary peaches. Tyler told a thrilling tale in which Mom made battle with the dogs while he swiped the scurvy fruits from their nests. I was slightly disappointed in Mom, but the disappointment didn't last long when she gave us all peach milkshakes, which, of course, were delectable, and most likely drugged to make us forget about the whole thing.

But the peach incident did not go unnoticed. Sister Watabe came by, freely offering us grapes and peaches, when Dad caved and confessed the whole thing. She took it rather well, judging by her laughter. Either that, or she was insane.

When Mom came home from the Ice Cream Shindig, I gave her the news that she had been found out. Outraged, she confronted Dad, whose excuse was that he assumed it'd be okay if he told Watabe what was going on. Okay? It's less than okay! “She'll think I'm a thief!” cried Mom. Um, that's because you are a thief, Mom.

Mom's plan of action was to call Watabe and explain her entire plan for world domination, being your basic modern-day monologuing (you know, when the villain explains his plan for world domination and stuff). After that, she took her some peach ice cream, clearly taunting Watabe. If that's not pouring lemon juice on a paper cut, I don't know what is. All that education paid off. My mother is definitely an evil genius.

Happy birthday, Mom!

*See gene pool