The Royal Ballroom

Sorry. Again. This time I was on a group date with three sleeves of saltines, a bottle of sprite, and--yes---VeggieTales. An answer to prayer, VeggieTales. They, and only they, can keep me laughing and spluttering saltine crumbs all over the place when I have a stomach ache.

Luckily, though, it was fall break and I didn't miss any school classes. So, besides hanging out in my bathroom, I got this idea.

You see, whenever I'm not restraining myself from tossing my precalculus book across the room or scrambling through research reports, my brain gets these silly little ideas. So, since I knew I wouldn't be having any homework for a delicious five days, the creative gears in my head began turning.

I have this idea of writing all the fairytales from the point of view of the princes and including all the 'missing' parts of the stories that were supposedly never told in the originals. (like getting beaned by the twelve dwarves with an apple or finding out the fairy godmother is an enemy in disguise). Anyways, its been a playground for my imagination for a couple months now and so I finally decided to make a little ballroom of them out of clay and a leftover tile in the garage:

Most people go to sporting events or on a vacation when they get a break. I'm the nerd who turns on Micheal Buble and stays home making clay people smaller than her pinky. :)

The royal guests include...

 Cinderella and Evan (the prince names are according to my story idea).

Penelope and Peter (the princess and the pea if the dress isn't a dead give-away :)

Bell and Bryon. Yes, they all start with the same letter. I'm not sure why yet. It just sounded cool.

Lily and Lewis. I was aiming for frog with this scrawny limbs. I think I pulled off string bean instead.

Snow white and Stephen.

Aurora and Adam. I couldn't resist stealing the idea of Prince Phillip's puffy sleeves and robin-hood hat.

Odette and Oscar. It was actually sparky who came up with the color for her dress when 'helping' me by mixing my clay. Thank goodness for stubborn service :)

Rapunzel and Ryan. Funny how characters can become real in your head. Somehow these two's personalities shone through the most.

These two noble souls guard the ballroom. Seth insisted I make a fire knight and an ice knight out of more of the colors he mixed. I never asked their names but since he seems to end all made-up names with a y, I'm guessing Sir Icy and Sir Firey.

 And since its not a fairytale without the bad-guys, I made (from left to right) the fairy godmother that the creepy lady next to her disguises into, her little minion at her feet, Rothbart, the stepmother,and the stepsisters. They're not on the guest list of course but Seth appreciates them. The minion now as a Nemo fin because the knights have kicked him out for troubling the guests on several occasions.
Anyways, I just thought I'd get the little show out of my bedroom and share it. A little piece of 'Dolly's World' if you will. I hope it made you smile :)

Being Homecoming Queen

This week was our school's homecoming week, as most of you know. Because we're a small town full of trucks and tumbleweeds, the theme was western. And I loved it!! I think I dressed up for every day except for western celebrity because I woke up with a cold and was in more of a t-shirt and skater-shoes mood. But the real shocker for me was that me and the two friends mentioned in the last post were voted homecoming royalty.

We laughed because, of all the people they could've voted for, it was us. Us three who really didn't care a whole lot. But it was fun and we spent the week teasing each other over who would get the shiniest crown. What I was more excited for, though, was the fact that my baby brother got to be the cute little crown bearer! After I saw him in his little suit I was ready to take him to the dance.


Finally, during a complete blow-out of a football game that we were winning, the moment of truth came. All us attendants scrambled down onto the track and shivered in the cold until they announced our names. And, guess what? I was voted queen. And well-deserving friend of mine was voted king.

It wasn't until then that all the excitement hit. I guess because I had all these amazing friends and relatives rooting for me and because I was just handed a big, huge bouquet of flowers. And the crown. Of course the crown. Ever since I was little I've wanted a tiara that looked real like that. And now I had it :)

It was really fun! I got all these smiles climbing back up into the bleachers and, because I'm a girl and silly things like crowns and flowers change things, I suddenly felt prettier than I had a few minutes ago. But when I got home and hung the sash on my mirror, really looking at it for the first time, the surprise finally hit.

For some reason I don't see myself as Homecoming Queen material. I'm not sure why. I guess I just don't feel like all those girls posing in the magazines that we order dance decorations from. I haven't lettered in anything sports related. I go no higher than five miles above the speed limit. There are times when I'd rather hide away in my room and add onto my stories than go to most movie parties. Unless I'm singing aloud to my iPod, I can be showered and ready for school in half an hour. I personally avoid having a boyfriend at this point.  I still get grass stains from playing in my grandma's yard. And I listen to Veggie Tales for Heaven's sake!

So maybe I wasn't the paper doll cut-out that I always had in my head for these types of girls. But as I walked back into my place in the bleachers, I realized that there was no one who gave me a dirty look or anyone I felt like I needed to avoid. Maybe it wasn't neccisarliy my amount of friends as it was my lack of enemies. I began wondering if it was more respect than it was popularity which, quite frankly, was fine by me. I'd rather have the first anyday because respect lasts far longer than graduation.

I decided then that, though I might not always recieve an award for it, I would continue to be myself. I'd be the type of homecoming queen who could share her crown. The kind who treated others no less than herself and walked with lady-like confidence. Though it may sound silly because its only a school title, I decided I wanted to be continually deserving of the title of queen. Homecoming or no.

General Conference

Sorry about the two week gap. I had a week where my mind had run fresh out of creative insights and then a week where I was gone getting refills on them.

Me and my two friends that I've had since we stole some poor boy's ball in nursery went to Salt Lake to watch General Conference. Frankly, I'm just glad my one friend's parents thought to bring me along. One can only take so many hours of inside jokes and arguing over who should man up and eat the rest of the Doritos.

But, again, I'm sooo grateful!! I'm not sure what my problem was the week leading up to it. Some more pesky doubts probably arose like they always do and I just felt kinda....blah. So this short getaway turned out to be just what I needed.

I remember we listened to the first session in the car. My friend's gracious mother had bought all three of us little notebooks because she knew we would take notes. So we put our old ones away and used the cute, little mitch-matchy ones.
 It always seemed to be a tiny testimony builder for me whenever I would look over and see my two best friends eagerly scribble something down. There are many nights when I thank my Heavenly Father for gaurdian angels both seen and unseen. These two are always in mind. They seem to  know just when to bluntly tell me to stop freaking out or to give a sincere compliment. And since I tend to be the pun of most inside-jokes, there is the constant reminder to laugh through life rather than cry.

Anyways, as we listened in the car, I watched the changing scenery out the window. We were in the mountains at the time and I remember large masses of pink, yellow, and green trees. Some of the more-personal insights I received will be remembered with those beautiful patterns. Already those doubts were being dispersed.

Finally we reached Salt Lake and I suddenly became a little kid all over again.
"Look at all the people!!" I kept muttering to myself, "I've never seen so many couples in my entire life!" "Woah! Look they have a plaque about sunday school at the traffic light!" "Hey look, the tram! Can we go on the tram?" "*Gasp* an escalator and an elevator? My favorite!" "Woah...I want to jump into that fountain! It looks so fun!" "Ohh, look at the flowers. I could just lay in them!"

Another saving quality of my friends is that they have this amazing knack for tuning me and my overly-passionate excitement out. It's probably one of the things that's kept us three sitting at the same lunch table for so long. :)

Anyways, we physically attended the second session. We no sooner tumbled out of the car then a van full of boys pulled up and one of them rolled down their window.
"Hi," a couple of them shyly said.
"Hi," we smiled in return, holding back giggles.
There's not really much point to that, I just thought it was funny.

A classmate had also come and we found out where he was sitting: perfectly opposite of us. So we called him and got him to wave to us across the massive conference center. :) Later, they were trying to fill up some rows so we got to move up to the tenth! I could literally recognize the faces of prophets and apostles that I normally only saw on Mormon Messages or at home on my T.V. screen! If you got any idea of my excitement before, just imagine it now.

Of course, we eagerly continued to fill up our new notebooks and nudged each other to point out little things that we noticed. Then they had the rest hymn. The lights in the conference center came on and everyone stood to sing "Praise to the Man." The force of the sound from so many people brought tears to my eyes. Surely the very man they were singing about, the one who once held meager meetings in mere cabins, must've felt emotional at the sight. I knew he wasn't there physically but with the volume of all the voices I didn't doubt every word reached clear to Heaven.

After the conference--by which point I felt all my fears and doubts peeling away--a photographer, from the business that publishes church magazines, asked to take a picture of us. So if you see three teenage girls and a nice-looking mother in one, that's us. :)

We went shopping and I bought a goofy elephant beanie thing that I felt self-concious about in the Deseret Bookstore because everyone kept giving me weird looks. I guess it should've been nothing more than I expected though. :) We saw a pretty good number of people from our little hometown and I was startled by one of them yelling out my name and throwing her arms around me in the middle of a crowded bookstore. It still amazes me that such a small area could stretch such far distances. We had a citizen who had met someone in a different town who had met an exchange student from Germany who had come here. We may not be on the map, but we're everywhere else.

We listened to the rest of conference at my friend's grandparents' house and on the way home. I can't relate all the lessons I learned nor all the times I felt the peace I'd been seeking for. But I think it'll suffice to say that it took the world a couple months to build up my all my doubts and fears and grumpy attitudes to that point. And how long did it take the Lord to take it all down? A weekend. One of my favorite youth speakers, Hank Smith, points this out. As he says, " He probably could've done it faster." Only I'm sure He knew that any faster and I'd lose it all together.

To finish this up, I just want to share one of my favorite highlights from General Conference: