just a catch up

wow its been FOR-E-VER since my last blog. (please tell me u got my referance to the sandlot...)
anyway, life certainly has been eventful, despite school being out.
first off was a memorial day performance with my school's theatre troupe. we got by the city to perform patriotic songs as a pre-parade show. i sang Danny Boy, Battle Hymn with a few other girls, and sang and danced to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy with two other girls. it was really fun, but it was one of those wierd, unseasonably hot and humid days. after the performance we had some breakfast and watched the parade, then headed out. although this performance as well as its audience was small, it was a big deal to us because it shows that Street Theatre is finally getting recognized by the city as a public performance group, and not just a school organization!
next was TREK...that was the hardest, horrible-est, and most AMAZING trip i have ever been on. the first day we walked with our handcarts i think 18 miles, which doesnt seem like that much, but when u have had hardly any food and have been walking for over ten hours, and are feeling sick, that is when u truely want to throw in the towel and GO HOME. thankfully once we finally got to camp for that night, there was chicken soup and roles waiting for us. i felt much better...haha. the events that day were the ones that truely gave us the pioneer experiance, so even though they were extremely difficult, beyond anything you can ever imagine, i wouldnt trade that experiance for ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. we had walked for long periods of time, and on one of our breaks was the hardest part of the entire trip: the mormon batallion. my family's wagon was the third from the front, and when we rounded a corner we saw a man in time period military clothes standing in the middle of a field to our right, holding a flag, and another man beside him with a similar appearance. we all parked our carts and gathered around in the grass and listened as the man holding the flag read a letter from the president of the united states (Polk, i think it was at that time). the letter said that he had received the letter from us requesting supplies and other aid. the president's response to our letter of request was for us to send every able bodied man into battle in the war against mexico. in return for their service, they would recieve money that could be used for supplies that we needed. some trade off, right?! the men leave all of us women and our children to push the handcarts by ourselves to go risk their lives, and THEN we will get the help we requested. needless to say, the leader of our company accepted the call to duty and all of our men had to leave. the women however had to continue on the trail. what lie ahead of us was the most difficult hill we had to climb on the entire trip. we had a family prayer then we started on the task at hand. we got a running start and not a few feet later, stopped dead in our tracks and had to exert every ounce of our energy to even move a step further; our running start was only good for so long. we made it past the hardest part of the hill and the men had returned, but they were told to not help us push. i guess they were supposed to see what it was like to see us working so hard and not be able to help. so as the hill again got steeper and steeper, all our men were able to do was cheer us on and encourage us, until FINALLY our pa gave them the ok to jump in and take over. we were only without the men in our family for maybe fifteen minutes, and we had found it extremely difficult, almost impossible!! but the real pioneer women went years without their husbands, fathers and brothers. and some of them never made it back...
besides feeling sick that night, the rest of the trek was a breeze. i even got the curage to help prepare our chicken! one of my brothers from my family chopped the head off, others helped with plucking and skinning it, and i helped by pulling the gizzard out!! yummm...haha!! one of its intestines came stringing out with it and it was a LOVELY sight =] bare hands, bare hands...
the chicken tasted pretty darn good too!!
we did other fun activities like learn a "circle dance" (there was too many of us for it to be a square dance) and it was fun! we also had races, rescued a doll from lava, haha!, decorated leather bookmarks, shot black powder riffles, threw hatchets, made human knots, washed our hair, choreographed a dance to our own, Trek version, to "dont stop believin, and even had time that same day for some family free time! the free time was definatly my favirite activity for that day because my pa is HILLARIOUS (and was also my seminary teacher from sophmore year), and while we were just hanging out and talking, my seminary teacher from freshman year came and joined us, and made our little family time even more of a riot! i LOOOOOVE the family i was put in, there is no doubt in my mind that we were all supposed to be together. there was only one odd-ball in our group, but what is a family without an odd-ball, right? but we all loved him all the same.
the Pony Express paid us a visit, with letters from home. after we got our mail we were given quite a lot of personal time to go off and read our letters, read our scriptires, and just have personal contemplation time. out ther in the woods, i felt the most amazing peace i have ever known. i had a perfect view of the mountian and of beautiful wildflowers that were growing in the field below it. it was so peaceful and quiet there, and i realized how much i appreciate peaceful solitude. not just alone time (which is great too) but time that you can just be off on your own, truely enjoying God's creations and feeling the spirit.
my favorite part of the entire trek was the testimony meetings we had. we had one with all of the families combined, where one person from each individual family was chosen to bear their testimony. that was amazing for me because i was able to listen to the testimony of a friend who had recently converted and baptized about a month ago. in his testimony he had said that he had not bore his testimony since he had been baptised and that after the personal time we had earlier that day, he had hoped that he was the one chosed from his family to bear there's that night. obviously he was and that just shows that Heavenly Father really knows what we need in our lives and he listens when we ask him for it.
so the trek was awesome and i had such and amazing experiance!
what else i have done so far this summer is plan for my play. this year i am directing Disney's Alice in Wonderland Jr. it is going to be AWESOME!!!! i have had a couple meetings with the my children's director/assistant director, and also with my set designer, and i am SOOO excited about the show! the set is the cooooolest EVER!! and we are going to use kids in it of all ages, so this is sure to be a box office HIT!
i have also been hanging out with my friends a lot. most recently was fourth of july when some of us met up at the surprise stadium and joked around a lot and tossed a football around. the fireworks were pretty cool, me and my friend Ray were making comments on how we sounded like all the little kids around who shouted in awe at each exlposion, haha. we also tried to barter our friend brandon off for some cotton candy, which failed...darn it! but i guess keeping brandon is a good thing =] then after inching my way out of the parking lot and back out on to bell, i met kari and mandy at culvers and had me sum fries!!! woot woot!!
next on my agenda is girls camp which is actually tomorrow! after camp i have snowflake to look forward to with tristan, my crazy friend who has been going with me for the past two years. we loooovve going to snowflake mainly for one reasone: small town hot guys. too bad over half of them are my relatives...haha!! i guess they are far enough from my bloodline that it is ok. plus i just like the small town atmosphere. you can walk everywhere, go get some icecream at the local parlor, walk to church, go to the city pool, etc, i just love it all!!!
and i am supposed to go paint my sister's new house sometime this summer with some of my friends...better get on that one, lol.
after that is when i get to help run a theatre camp for my school's troupe, and FINALLY get to audition my show!!!
well if u have been able to stay awake through this extremely long account of my extremely eventful summer, then you know how happy i am that i am not stuck at home all day like in previous years! i guess the fact that i have my licene now helps a bit haha.
ill try to keep my blog updated but that is most likely not going to happen, so if u are REALLY all that interested in my everyday adventures, just check my facebook =]