Every Day With Kayli J

Be positive.

2012-02-11T17:58:00.003-07:00

I just watched this video and I had to share it with all of you. I've believed everything they said for a long time now, but it's nice to have a reminder from a person/people I look up to. I believe that our attitudes, not our experiences, determine our happiness.

The man on the left is Justin Bieber's manager, and the man on the right is a motivational speaker I hadn't heard of before this video. I highly recommend it, especially if you're insecure or don't believe in yourself as much as you should.

I couldn't resist.

2012-02-04T13:05:00.004-07:00

I realize only like two of you will actually watch this, but whatever. It's hilarious and I had to share with those of you who are willing to have an open mind.

"Smile like you just lost your cat...haha, but now you found him."

Free DOESN'T always come at a price...

2012-02-03T17:13:00.013-07:00

If you've been following my blog for more than a year, you probably know (to a small extent) how much I love free stuff. If you haven't been following me for very long, I'll let you in on a little secret...........I LOVE free stuff. I love samples, hand-me-downs, refunds, gift cards, and anything else that might fit into the "free" (or even "cheap") category. That being said, here's my little story.

A couple weeks ago, I ordered the Taylor Swift Speak Now World Tour Live CD+DVD. That's a mouthful, but it's basically Taylor Swift's amazing concert on DVD (from her Speak Now album), and a CD of all the songs live. The product came out last year, but since new things are more expensive and I knew I'd be in California all through December, I knew I'd be distracted and could easily wait to get it until a couple weeks ago.

I ordered it on Amazon because it was cheaper than getting it anywhere else, and I've never had a problem with any of the transactions I've done in the past. I found what looked to be a trustworthy seller, bought it, and about a week later I received my very own copy of...Taylor Swift's original Speak Now CD. Wait, what? That's not even what I ordered. I looked through it a few times to make sure it was the wrong product, and it definitely was.

I ordered this:

and received this:

I was pretty upset because I was really looking forward to watching the DVD that weekend. I emailed the company I ordered it from, and after about a week of emailing back and forth (because they took a long time to respond each time), they finally said they would just refund my money and I could keep the CD I received.

WOO HOO! FREE CD!

And not only was it a free CD...it was actually one I'd been wanting to buy for a long time, but I hadn't yet because I only like to spend my money on things I'm DYING to have.

But the story gets even better...

Once I received my refund from the first company, I decided I'd have faith in Amazon to do a better job of sending me the correct item this time, so I ordered the same CD+DVD from a different company. Just a few days later (today), I got the package in the mail, and I was so excited that I got it out to watch it while I ate my lunch. BUT, when I opened the package, the CD case was broken in a couple spots! I was disappointed, yet again, but I decided I just couldn't wait to watch the DVD since it wasn't damaged itself. I had every intention of emailing the company to ask for my money back, but I didn't feel dishonest in watching it first, because I knew I would buy it again from someone else once they refunded me my money.

I watched the concert and it was incredible. The DVD alone was WELL worth the money I paid for it. It brought back all my concert memories from September, and I'm not gonna lie...I teared up several times because of how special a night that was for me, and now I get to relive it whenever I want.

Even though the DVD is incredible and I'd pay a lot more for it than I did, I wasn't going to just let that company on Amazon get away with the awful CD case they sent me, so I emailed them just as I planned. Within an hour of my email, they emailed back saying they would send me a full refund, and there would be no need for me to send the product back to them.

WOO HOO! FREE CD AND DVD!

I couldn't (and still can't) believe how lucky I was to get two incredible Taylor Swift products I wanted...free of charge! I just switched the CD case so I won't have to deal with the broken one anymore, and even though it's not perfect since it's not the case that was made for it, this will do just fine. This just goes to show it pays to be honest sometimes, and despite what I've said before, free doesn't always come at a price.

Texas Roadhouse

2012-01-24T14:37:00.007-07:00

I'd been looking forward to last night for MONTHS and it finally came -- my dad's birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Since we haven't been eating many animal products since last summer (since we're trying to be almost completely vegan) and we rarely go out to eat in the first place, it was quite the treat getting to eat a big steak and potato dinner. I ordered the bone-in Ribeye steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli, and it was amazing. I only finished about a third of the steak before I got full, but that's my favorite thing about restaurants...THE LEFTOVERS. I had another third of the meal for lunch today while I watched last night's episode of Pretty Little Liars, and then I'm sure I won't be able to wait to finish it for dinner tonight. Steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli are my favorite.

[I forgot to take a picture of my dinner last night, so I just had to use this one instead. My food looked better than this.]

For Christmas, my family got a Vita Mix so we've been having smoothies at least once a day ever since. It's so nice being able to make healthy, delicious smoothies all the time and not feeling guilty about having it instead of a meal. I don't want to sound like some health freak, but I love these smoothies. I'll put in frozen grapes, apples, bananas, strawberries, oranges, peaches, or any kind of fruit combinations I feel like, add a big handful of spinach and some water, and blend it up! The spinach makes it look..."let me guess, disgusting?" (haha) but it tastes exactly the same as it would without. It just adds so many more nutrients that I just can't leave it out, unless I'm making it for someone outside of my family and I want it to look pretty, haha.

Anyway, just thought I'd tell you all about my wonderful, delicious, rare steak dinner. It was definitely worth writing about, don't you think?

Allstar Weekend

2012-01-21T11:39:00.016-07:00

On Tuesday night I went to the Allstar Weekend concert with some friends I met at the Selena Gomez concert back in September. We went to the concert in the first place because it was for the same band who opened for Selena Gomez, and because it was one of the girls' birthdays that day, Jessie. We liked the band, but we mostly just went because we knew it would be a fun night out. It's funny because even though I've only hung out with them a couple times, I feel like I've known them for years! We all got together and drove to Salt Lake for the show, and once we got there I saw a few other girls I knew from Twitter. It was crazy going to a random place an hour away and actually knowing more people than I would if I went to the grocery store in my hometown.

There were three opening bands I'd never heard of before: Before You Exit, The After Party, and Hollywood Ending. Before they went on stage, I saw a few of the guys from each of the bands, and I high-fived several of them and patted a couple on the back. I'm not really sure why I did, but it made them remember me, because after the show one of the guys from The After Party said, "Two high-fives girl!" (since I'd high-fived him twice.) And then he said, "Let's make it three. Well, four. Well no, let's make it five." Haha, we ended up high-fiving eight times that night all together.

Here were my two favorite guys from all of the opening bands, Brandon and Kenny. Brandon was my high-fiving partner.

Before I continue, I'll just tell you now...I took lots of pictures with me in them, but I hate them all, unfortunately, so I'm just gonna upload this one of me and Kenny.

Jessie had never been kissed or kissed a guy before, so we decided to make it interesting and make a goal for her to kiss someone or be kissed (at least on the cheek) before the night was over. We also made a goal to get the guys to wish her a happy birthday. I'll just tell you now, we achieved and surpassed both of those goals. ;)

I had Brandon and Kenny kiss me on the cheek and then we got a few of the other guys to kiss Jessie, and then at the very end, Jessie mustered up enough courage to ask Kenny if she could kiss HIM on the cheek. He didn't seem to mind that! Haha.

I don't know what it is, but when I'm in situations like that, I'm the most outgoing person ever. I'm usually fairly quiet, but when I know I won't see certain people ever again, I have no problem talking. I talked to mostly Brandon and Kenny for quite a while because they were my favorite.

Anyway, on to the next goal of the night: to get the bands to wish Jessie a happy birthday on stage. During one of Hollywood Ending's songs, I caught the guitar player's eye and said, "IT'S HER BIRTHDAY TODAY!" as I pointed to Jessie, so he looked at her and said, "Happy birthday!" as he was playing on stage. Haha, it was awesome.

Then, during Allstar Weekend's performance, they said, "We'd like to wish _______ a happy birthday, and anyone else's birthday that might be today!" so I yelled, "AND JESSIE!" so Cameron said into the microphone, "And Jessie!" That was great too. I hope Jessie felt sufficiently loved. Also during the show, Allstar Weekend called up about 10 people from the audience to join them on stage for a song, and one of my Twitter friends, Lindsey, was called up! She was SO excited.

After the show we drove to Denny's and had a late dinner/breakfast. I was craving Denny's the night before, so it was perfect how that worked out. Jessie even got her meal for free since it was her birthday. (Go to Denny's on your birthday; you'll get a free build-your-own grand slam!)

It was a really fun night and I can't wait for the next concert, whenever/whatever it may be!

Adventures at the park

2012-01-06T18:21:00.004-07:00

One of the days I was in California, Matthew, Ashley, Alexa, and I all went to the park during Matthew's lunch break. We were just playing around and then a random girl came over and started talking to Matthew about Alexa. She obviously thought Alexa was cute so she was asking questions about her and trying to get her to smile and stuff. She seemed nice, but it was funny how interested she seemed. After a couple minutes of Alexa being shy, the girl said bye and "Jesus loves you!" and jogged off in another direction. Hahaha, it was hilarious.

A few minutes later, she came back over to us and started saying a bunch of random things. One of the things she said out of NOWHERE was, "Sometimes I bring my roller blades and skate down this hill and it just feels like I'm flying." Matthew, Ashley, and I couldn't stop laughing after that one. That was when I knew I needed to get out my camera and record this girl. After another minute or so, she said bye again and we all just laughed about it.

Then, not too long after that, she came over AGAIN and said some more random things and I decided to record her again. Here's the video I got and just wanted to share with all of you. Hahaha the end: "Can I take a picture of her?" I just wish I would've been recording when she was saying all the other hilarious things she was saying.

Favorite lines:
"Hi mommy! What are you buying today?"
"Can she speak?"
"Give me a grumpy face, hahahaha."
"Can I take a picture of her?"
"I'll remember that face."

I'm so glad I got a new sheet for Christmas...

2012-01-05T12:10:00.006-07:00

...because this was what I'd been sleeping on for the past 3 months.

Happy birthday Mason!

2011-12-25T10:49:00.007-07:00

On Friday night around 9:30, Matthew came in my room and said, "It's go time!" Haha. Within a half hour later, he and Ashley headed to the hospital because Ashley was having painful contractions about every four minutes apart. After they left, I got all ready for bed and then went into their room to sleep with Alexa. When I went in, she was asleep on Matthew and Ashley's bed. Haha, she must have woken up and gotten in their bed while they were getting ready to leave for the hospital. It was the cutest thing ever. I wish I could've taken a picture, but obviously using a camera flash isn't the smartest thing when you don't want to wake up a baby. I moved her into her bed and went to sleep. Throughout the night, Alexa woke up at least three times, crying. It was quite the experience. Haha. I didn't really care that she was waking me up; I was just worried I might get sick the next day. Luckily I was just exhausted the next day, not sick.

Christmas Eve morning, within an hour after waking up, Mason Asher Johnson was born! I finally have a nephew! He was born 8 lbs. 13 oz. and was born on 12/24/11 at 8:05 a.m. I got to see him yesterday afternoon and he's so calm and sweet. He's a really good baby. It was really fun seeing Alexa with Mason for the first time too; she LOVES him. She kept trying to share her smoothie and bracelet with him, haha. And she'd point to his eyes and say, "Eyes!" or she'd point to his nose and say, "Nose!" I made sure Matthew filmed it because it was so cute. Hopefully her relationship with him stays positive.

Matthew and Ashley are lucky enough to be able to come home from the hospital this morning. I'm really excited we'll be able to spend Christmas with them! It should be a good day. It's just weird because it's my first Christmas without my parents, so it doesn't really feel a lot like Christmas yet! I'm sure it will later though. Merry Christmas everyone!

Photos from CA so far

2011-12-18T20:09:00.004-07:00

My post title is kind of a lie, actually. My first three photos aren't in California. A couple days before I left, my dad came in my room and told me there was an owl in our front yard! So of course I had to take some pictures. It was awesome! It didn't let me get too close before it flew away, but at least I was able to get a few good pictures.

California, here I came

2011-12-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, Matthew and Ashley bought me a one-way ticket to California so I could be around when Ashley's parents were out of town, just in case Ashley went into labor and needed someone to watch Alexa full-time. I'd been looking forward to the trip for months, and then finally on Wednesday I got to come out here! It had been a while since I'd flown anywhere, but everything went smoothly and the most invasive the security got was pat down my stomach to make sure I was weaponless. Not bad.

The plane trip was great; it was probably the best flying experience I've ever had. We boarded a little before 6 p.m. so I got to watch a whole new episode of Survivor, and then an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond afterward. It was perfect: no screaming babies, no uncomfortable conversations, and no having to wait a half hour for slow people ahead of me. Also, putting my carry-on bag in and taking it out of the overhead compartment was taken straight from a romantic comedy. One guy immediately got out of his seat and offered to help me put it in, and then another guy helped me get it out afterward. Didn't even have to lift a finger. It was awesome.

After I got off the plane and picked up my checked bag, I walked out to the street, waited about a minute, and then Matthew, Ashley, and Alexa arrived. Perfect timing. We drove home, got settled, and went to bed.

Since I've been here, we've just been playing with Alexa, singing karaoke, making and eating delicious food (mostly vegan!), and hanging out. I got to babysit Alexa for a couple hours the other day, and again, it was perfect. It couldn't have been any better. She was happy, talking, playing, and didn't try to do anything she wasn't supposed to do.

It's just been a great trip so far. I just wanted to update a little since it's been harder to get myself to write in my journal every day! (And I wish I could upload some photos and videos but my camera cord is still with my grandparents.) Any ideas of fun activities we can do together while I'm down here?

Why I love Justin Bieber

2011-12-03T19:40:00.005-07:00

People ask me all the time why I love Justin Bieber so much. I usually give the typical answers, like, "He's persistent, talented, generous, hilarious, sweet, and humble." However, what so many people don't realize is what a big heart he has. I understand that celebrities have people who try and make them look better than they are, but since most people have no idea what celebrities are really like, we just have to make our own judgments about them...and my judgment about Justin is that he is one incredible guy. Even if I tried, I wouldn't even be able to recount all the amazing things Justin has done because there are way too many, and I don't even know 90% of them because he doesn't usually talk about them. But today, something special happened that I'll remember for the rest of my life: I was a part of making someone's dream come true.

When I became a belieber back in February, I came across this video:

After watching the video, I followed her on Twitter, as well as the girls who made an account dedicated to getting Justin to meet her. I learned that Jasmin is a blind belieber who has been wanting to meet Justin ever since she first heard him sing. It was so sweet to know that she didn't care about him for his looks; she loved him because of his voice and personality.

Every month or so, the girls running the Twitter account dedicated to getting Justin to meet her (@BiebsMeetJasmin) would try and start a trending topic to gain the attention of Justin and his crew. Thousands of beliebers would help out and we'd trend #biebsmeetjasmin. It was really special knowing that we were all coming together to be selfless and help this one girl meet Justin, even though we all want to meet him just as much. Her video and our tweeting helped get the attention of some members of Justin's crew, including Justin's manager, Scooter Braun. I'm not sure about the whole story, but just a few weeks ago when Justin was doing a radio interview on Elvis Duran, Jasmin was able to call in and talk to Justin for a few minutes. It was really sweet because she kept talking and thanking Justin for everything he's done, and it was extra special since I had taken part in helping her to be able to talk to him.

If you want to hear Jasmin talking to Justin, start at 11:26, or if you want to hear Justin talking a little bit about her afterward, start at 14:30.

At the end of their conversation, Justin found out Jasmin lives in Florida, and he told her they should meet up when he would be down there to perform at Disney World.

Then, just last night, one of Justin's security guards, Kenny, contacted Jasmin's parents and had her pack some things, and then they had a limo pick them up and take them to Disney World to meet Justin and the crew. None of us on Twitter had any idea this was going to happen so suddenly, but as soon as she met him and pictures and tweets were posted, we all were thrilled for her. I actually teared up while looking at the pictures and reading all the sweet things people were saying to her. Justin, his crew, and beliebers often refer to us as a family, since we all help each other reach our goals and we don't get jealous when other deserving beliebers get to meet him.

This is what some of Justin's crew tweeted about meeting Jasmin today:

justinbieber Justin Bieber

@BiebsMeetJasmin it was a long time coming. glad we met. tell Jasmin see her again and thanks

justinbieber Justin Bieber

@JasminAlvarez1 NEVER SAY NEVER

AlfredoFlores Alfredo Flores

@JasminAlvarez1 you are an amazing individual and I was privileged to meet you today! :) Keep rockin. #NeverSayNever

scooterbraun Scooter Braun

Today I met an amazing young girl named Jazmin...she is blind and loves JB....this is part of what happened..

scooterbraun Scooter Braun

JB looked at her and said "so you have never seen me?" - she responded "yes but i love your voice." He smiled and said let's change that...

scooterbraun Scooter Braun

...then he took her hands and put them on his face...let her feel thru her hands what he might look like. They both smiled. #specialmoment

Then I read the shortened story from the girls in charge of @BiebsMeetJasmin:

Jasmin meeting Justin, December 3rd 2011.

Late last night, around 11 pm Jasmin was on the phone with Emily. It is kind of ironic because they were just saying how they cant give up, to keep our hope..and then Jasmin gets a call from Kenny. (Alison had called her earlier but she missed it, she’s keeping the voicemail forever c: )

Kenny asked to talk to her parents, and Jasmin gave the phone to them. A little bit later a limo was sent to their house and drove them to Orlando.

Jasmin was staying in the same hotel as Justin in Disney World. Early this morning, she was taken backstage from where Justin was performing at.

She met Kenny, Scooter, and Alfredo. She was literally freaking out, she couldn’t believe this was happening. Alfredo told her that he was SO excited to meet her, and it will be great.

Then Justin came out…

They couldn’t talk for long because Justin had to perform, but they hugged for what Jasmin said seemed like forever. He said, “So you can’t see me at all, right?” and she said no. He then took her hand in his, and brought it up to his face. He let her feel his face so she could kind of get a visual of what he looks like. Somebody in the background was like “BE CAREFUL OF HIS HAIR!” And Justin said “No! No, its okay. She’s fine.”

The whole time this was going down, Alfredo, Scooter, and Jasmin’s parents were taking loads of pictures and videos. (Coming soon)

Jasmin and Justin talked for a little bit and then he said “Oh Scooter’s here!” and Jasmin asked if he could talk to him because Justin had to go on stage.

She went over to Scooter, and they too hugged for what seemed like lightyears.

Finally, they took Jasmin outside into the front row of his concert. She ended up on TV since she was in the front row. :’) At the moment she is on her way back home…but who knows? Maybe they will meet again!

We just want to say thank you for all of your guys’ support. Honestly, we couldn’t have been doing this without you. Thank you for sticking with us for this long journey of 10 months. We all appreciate it so much, and you are in all of our hearts forever.

xoxo- Emily, Tyan, Diane, and Jasmin.

I just loved that, especially when he let her touch his face and didn't care about his hair getting messed up. Here are some photos taken from today:

Click here to read the story told in Jasmin's words. What a special experience. I just can't get over how happy I am for Jasmin today. And the thing is, Justin does stuff like this for people ALL THE TIME. Every day, he makes people's lives. It's such an incredible thing. So people might judge or make fun of me for loving him so much, and they won't understand why I do until they really take a look at where he came from and everything he does. He's such a great guy and already does so many wonderful things for people, even at the young age of 17. I know he'll make some mistakes in the future, but I'll never stop supporting him. He changed my life in so many ways. Every single day, he makes me want to be a better person, and I'll never be able to thank him enough for that.

FA LA L.A.

2011-11-25T16:44:00.007-07:00

Sorry I've been so bad at keeping up with blogging this month. It seems like nothing too exciting ever happens, and then when it does, it all happens at once! So when I have things to write about, I always have LOTS to write about, and it gets a little overwhelming (which is how it is today.) But here we go...I'm going to take a crack at it.

On Halloween, Lindsay and McKay had their baby girl, Madelynn! I was able to go see her at the hospital the day after she was born. She's the first baby born into our high school group, so it'll be pretty different when we get together from now on!

Last week, my parents and I drove to California for my cousin Kristin's wedding reception the next day. She'd gotten married in Puerto Vallarta a week before, so since a lot of people weren't able to come to the wedding, they had a reception at their house in California. The day of the reception, some of my Twitter friends had planned a "buyout" in Los Angeles, so since I was already so close, I had to make an appearance! Since I'm assuming none of you know what a buyout is, it's when a bunch of people in the same fan base get together and buy out all the new CDs in a store from the artist they support and then donate them to charity. I'd never been to one before, but this one was a little more extravagant than others I've heard of. The girls in charge basically organized a Christmas party with the kids from the L.A. Dream Center. It was amazing. I brought 3 cans of soup and a new copy of Justin's new Christmas album, Under The Mistletoe, to donate. It feels so good to give to charity.

When I got there, I met a couple Twitter friends, but mostly met a ton of new ones. It was great! I love them all.

At the Dream Center, there were tons of kids, families, and beliebers. It was an incredible turnout. Since Justin's mom and manager even knew about it, we thought they might come, but once I got there, I realized they probably wouldn't because they would have gotten bombarded with questions and pictures and probably didn't want to take the spotlight away from the kids. However, two other well-known people were there: Todrick Hall and Kingsley. Now when I say "well-known," I mean well-known to beliebers. Haha. Todrick Hall was a contestant on season 9 of American Idol, and he's a super talented singer and dancer. I don't watch American Idol anymore, but just a few weeks ago, I found a YouTube video he'd posted called THE BIEBER. I thought he did an incredible job, so I followed him on Twitter and tweeted the video a couple times so all my followers would see, and he even ended up tweeting and following me, which was pretty cool. Here's the video. I really do recommend it even if you're not a Justin Bieber fan!

Kingsley is a hilarious YouTube star, but I don't watch all his videos because he cusses so much, which is why I'm not posting a video for you on here. He's made a few videos about Justin, which is why beliebers know who he is, but he's a big fan too, so he never says bad things about him. Anyway, so both those guys came to the buyout, so I was super excited. I got a couple pictures with Todrick and then I got one with Kingsley that I don't really like of me too much, so here's the one with Todrick.

When I was talking to Kingsley, I told him I tweeted him a little while back saying, "If I meet you at the LA buyout, be prepared to take a picture with me k?" And he actually responded and said "lol okay." My new friend Jules was too nervous to get one with Kingsley at first, so after a little while we went back over to get her picture. Kingsley looked at me afterward and said, "Do you want a picture too?" I told him I'd already taken a picture with him, but then I said, "But let's take another one! Let's do a fun one this time." He laughed and agreed so I went over and we took a couple fun ones.

After that, we just talked to him for a couple minutes, even though we realized later that there were people waiting in line to still take pictures with him. My friend asked him if he was nervous, because we could totally tell he was shaking and really quiet. He opened up and was like, "YES. I didn't expect it to be like this! I'm so nervous!" Haha. It was just funny seeing him so reserved, since his YouTube videos are so loud and crazy. Then I asked him if he remembered responding to me on Twitter, and after I explained what we both said, he said he remembered. Then, as he pulled out his phone, he was like, "What's your Twitter? I'll follow you!" He has over 450,000 followers and only follows a little over 2,000, so it was an honor for him to bring it up. Haha. Before we ended the conversation, I said to Kingsley, "Just so you know, I'm Mormon and I don't cuss, but I love your videos. So you should know that's true love right there." He laughed and we hugged him again and then Jules and I went over to hang out with our other friends for a bit.

There were lots of activities at the event: t-shirt decorating, card making, eating--of course, taking pictures at a photo booth, dancing, and singing. At one point during the party, the girls in charge got us all together to sing one of Justin's new songs, Mistletoe. It was really fun singing it with such a big group of people! Then, Todrick Hall got on stage and taught us The Bieber dance! All of us were nowhere near as good as he was, but it was really fun.

I got a little crazy on the dance floor. At one point, the DJ played Drummer Boy, which is another one of the songs on Justin's Christmas album, and it's a crazy song because there's rapping on it (I think it's amazing to put RAPPING on a Christmas album), so I was rapping every word and dancing along. I'm just glad no one got that on film. Haha. One of my new friends tweeted me later on and said, "[Kayli] goes hard!!!! Lol at the #LAunderthemistletoeBuyout she rapped the entire busta part on #drummerboy ! It was insane! ;)" Hahaha, it was so much fun. Here's a video one of the girls made the day after. See if you can find me. :)

I left a little early from the buyout so I could get back to Orange to at least be an hour and a half late to Kristin's reception. It was fine though; I'm glad I stayed in L.A. as late as I did.

The reception was good. I got to see most of my family on the Johnson side, and we stayed and just talked for quite a while.

The next day, I went to church and then drove to L.A. again for the American Music Awards. I knew Justin would be there along with tons of other celebrities, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him arrive and maybe even get an autograph or picture with him or something. On the drive over though, it started raining. I parked and walked in the pouring rain a couple blocks to the location. (Thank goodness I was smart and bought an umbrella at Target the day before.) I got there just as Taio Cruz was performing outside, and I asked several security guards if there was any way for me to be able to get inside as a photographer. Unfortunately all the photographers needed credentials though, so I wasn't able to c

onvince any of them to let me inside. It was okay though; one of the security guards I talked to told me the best place to go for pictures. It was across the street, but it was definitely the best place; I was able to see all the celebrities arrive. When Justin arrived, he and Selena were together in a white Rolls Royce, and they both dressed like old, classy movie stars. It was really cute. When he got out, he didn't even acknowledge anyone around him, as if he was on a date with just Selena. He stepped out of the car, walked around to the other side, opened Selena's door, and walked onto the red carpet. When he got out of the car, he was probably only about 20 feet away from me. It was one of the most exciting times of my life, along with Taylor Swift's concert in September!

The only problem of the day was that it was pouring almost the entire time (minus probably about 10 minutes total), so I was soaking wet, freezing cold, and had to hold my umbrella practically the entire time, even though it was barely even doing any good. I was there for about 5 hours, so you can only imagine how wet I got. Let's just say that when I left the house, my hair was perfectly dry and straight, and when I got home, my family thought I'd curled it. Haha. Justin didn't come over to the fans because it was raining obviously, but let me tell you...it was worth every second in the miserable weather just to see him for less than 30 seconds. And not only did I get to see him; I also got to see other members of his crew who I love, and tons of other celebrities throughout the afternoon and evening. Click here to look at more pictures of everybody!

While I was waiting there all day, I made friends with two other girls who live in the apartment complex right next to the theater and got there about the same time I did. They were really fun to talk to and we clicked right away. One thing I love about going to all these concerts and events is that I get to meet all these super nice people who have the same interests as me. I've probably met at least 20 or 30 people just from Twitter, concerts, and events like this, not to mention the thousands I've "met" online. I was just bummed I didn't get to meet two other girls from Twitter who were in the same spot as me that day. Since it was raining and I had a front row spot, I didn't want to go search for them and lose my perfect place to take pictures of all the celebrities. Oh well; there'll be plenty more opportunities.

Monday night my grandparents (Johnsons) took all of us to dinner and then we came back to the house for a few hours, and then the next morning we drove back home to Utah. Needless to say, it was an unforgettable trip.

Ever since I became a huge Bieber fan, I've developed the best attitude I've ever had. Ever since February I've said without a doubt in my mind, "I know Justin will follow me on Twitter someday. I know I'll see him. I know I'll go to at least one of his concerts. I know I'll meet him and get a picture with him. Someday, he'll know who I am." And guess what. Slowly but surely, my list is getting crossed off. He followed me on Twitter. I saw him at the AMAs. He'll have another tour next year and I know I'll attend at least one of those concerts. With a positive attitude, I can accomplish anything I want, and pretty soon I'll get to cross off my whole list. I don't know what it is about Justin, but I feel like I'm a better person because of him. I want to help people, donate money, time, and gifts to people, and his music always makes me even happier than I already am. I know most of my friends and family don't understand why I love him so much and sometimes I get teased for it, but I really don't care. I've said this so many times and I'm sure I'll say it plenty more, but I feel like people should embrace the things that make them happy, rather than get embarrassed about it.

Anyway, on Wednesday night one of my friends I met at the Selena Gomez concert in September had an extra ticket to the Ocean Grove concert in Salt Lake, so I decided to join her and a couple other girls. The band used to be the band for The Jonas Brothers, which is kinda cool. (I've never been a fan of theirs, but Nick Jonas dated Selena Gomez, who is now dating Justin Bieber, so obviously that makes Ocean Grove awesome. Haha.) It was a small setting so it was different, but it was really fun. We got to talk to the band members quite a bit, took

pictures with them afterward, and I had the lead guitarist/singer sign my arm since I had nothing else for him to sign. I took a few pictures but I accidentally left my camera cord in California, so I won't be able to upload them until December 7th, when I go back. Here's a picture from my friend Jessie's camera though.

Then yesterday was Thanksgiving and it was wonderful! My parents and I made all the food, and then my Grandma and Grandpa Fairbanks came over for dinner. It was different because we had a much smaller group than ever before. It was just my parents, one set of grandparents, Daniel, and me. It was still really nice though. Everything was perfect! Then after my grandparents left, my family and I watched Anastasia together. It was a great way to finish out the night.

The past week

2011-11-02T23:15:00.002-06:00

Fun Halloween party at Doug and Heather's!

Part of the Halloween group:

Horseback riding with Morgan! I accidentally made my horse trot for a few seconds, which was a little scary since I wasn't expecting it, but it wasn't too bad! Next time I go with Morgan, she's going to take me to the arena so she can teach me how to trot for real.
Lindsay had her baby on Halloween! Madelynn Dawn Young. :) I was going to visit the day she was born, but because of some complications, I met her the next day instead. I can't believe they have a baby!! I'm looking forward to watching her grow up.

October FLEW by, but it was great! November's going to be fantastic though too...I just know it. Thanksgiving is coming, and I'll get to see the rest of my family AND JUSTIN BIEBER the week before! Yes, it's true!!!!! I haven't wanted to say anything to jinx it, but I'm too excited. My family and I are going to California the week before Thanksgiving for my cousin Kristin's wedding reception, and a few days ago I realized the AMAs are that weekend in Los Angeles! So obviously I have to go wait outside and try and get an autograph or picture with him before he walks in. I can't wait.

....

2011-10-28T19:45:00.002-06:00

I used to blog all the time but I feel like I'm really lagging these days. I just don't know what to write about anymore! Any requests? Haha.

More on Taylor

2011-10-21T21:08:00.005-06:00

I was watching a new episode of Taylor Swift on Ellen the other day, and I had to blog about something she said. She said something that was so similar to what I was trying to say in my post about how she stares at the audience several times during the show. I wrote: "One of my favorite things about Taylor was that a few times throughout the show she would just stand on stage, smiling and looking out into the crowd for at least a minute, just listening to the screaming fans as if she still wasn't used to the sound. I loved it. It made her seem like a normal girl in her 20s, amazed that people would actually be cheering for her." Also, when she looked at me and held my hand, I felt like she was saying to me, "Thank you so much for coming. I can't believe all of you spent your own money to come and see ME. I'm so glad to have you as a fan. Thank you so much. I love you."

Well, here's what she said on Ellen. This time, these really are her words: "For a big portion of the show, I do stand there and just stare at the audience. That's a lot of the time that I'm playing on stage...you just look around and you're like, 'I can't believe you guys are all here; this is your Saturday night. You could be doing anything with your Saturday night, and you decided to come and like jump up and down with 55,000 other people.'"

I just loved that. I knew that she thought those things by the look on her face. Anyway, just wanted to share! It was such a special night and I'll never forget the feeling I had the entire time I was in that arena with her.

Jackson Hole

2011-10-20T09:51:00.001-06:00

I got back on Friday from my trip to Wyoming, but it's taken me a while to sort through my pictures and actually sit down to write a post about it. It was really great being able to spend so much time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins whom I rarely get to see. I'm not going to write much just because it would take me forever, so I'll just post a few of my pictures to sum up the trip. You can see more on my photography blog by clicking here.

My first, second, third, and fourth times in Idaho happened on this trip! I got to cross it off my bucket list!

There were arches like this, made out of hundreds of antlers, on the corners of the middle of the town square in Jackson Hole.
Town square had tons of shops and boutiques. I went into a few, including these two, but they were SO expensive that I couldn't even fantasize about actually buying anything, although I wanted practically everything they had.

It snowed and hailed the day after I came:

I saw about five moose while I was there (on different days.) Whenever a moose would cross the street or something, people would stop their cars and pull over so they could take pictures, so whenever we saw cars lined up on the side of the road, we knew there were moose to see! This was the first moose I saw. I was never able to get really good, close pictures, but I'm okay with that.
On Saturday, all the girls went to the Moulton barns and took pictures of them and the Grand Teton mountains. It was such a beautiful, cold day. The Tetons are what mountains are supposed to look like.

We saw more moose as we were driving back from the Moulton barns:

When I took Nathan and Samantha to school in the mornings, I would see this sign for the town, Wilson. It was incredible to me that a town could only have a population of 200 people, but on my drive home, I saw some towns with a population of less than 100. Crazy.
After driving the kids to school one day, I saw a moose about to cross the road! So I quickly stopped the car and turned around, and was able to get a couple pictures of it after it had crossed. I'm happy I bring my camera everywhere with me!
After I took Emily to school one morning, this was the sky. It was incredible.
Before I drove home on Friday, I wanted to take some pictures of the area because it was so beautiful with all the fall colors. Here are a few I took. I love this first one; it shows you exactly how beautiful Wyoming is.

I'm already excited for the next time I get to go drive and stay with them. It was a really great trip!

Sidenote: A few months ago, Modern Family shot one of their episodes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I watched the episode before I even knew I was going, but I watched it again while I was there so I could see if I recognized any of the places...and I did! I know exactly where they filmed a lot of it, because you can see the Tetons in the background! It was pretty awesome, because I LOVE Modern Family.

Oh, by the way...

2011-10-06T22:13:00.003-06:00

I'm in Wyoming! I don't think I mentioned that. I took my first SOLO road trip on Tuesday and drove about 5 1/2 hours to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins at their new house...except they're actually still in their rental house right now. My Uncle Matt has been out of town on business, and my Aunt Trish had planned a trip to The Grand Canyon for a few days to hike with some friends. She asked if I'd like to come out and "babysit" (my cousins are 15, 13, 10, and 8, so it's not really babysitting anymore) while she and Matt were out of town, and I immediately said yes.

I realized on the drive that I love driving by myself. I love being able to just sing to CDs in the car, stop to go to the bathroom whenever I want, (but more like not stop to go to the bathroom any more than once), and even stop to take pictures on the side of the road. Speaking of pictures, it took everything in me to not stop every ten minutes to take pictures on the drive because everything was just so gorgeous. I did stop four or five times, but I wanted to stop about 50 times, so I felt that was a success. (Once I get home I'll be able to upload pictures from the trip...I can't get the Internet on my computer so I've just been using theirs.) One of my few stops was when I came to...THE WELCOME TO IDAHO SIGN! I'm so excited I've finally been to Idaho so I can cross it off my bucket list. Woo hoo! I made sure to straddle the state line just like in A Walk To Remember.

Anyway, so Trish was supposed to go on her trip from Wednesday to Friday, but because of bad weather in The Grand Canyon, once I got to Wyoming, her friend asked if they could postpone to Monday. I told her I really didn't mind because I had nothing I needed to be back for, so I'm staying until next Thursday and it's working out great so far. I've just been hanging out with Trish during the days, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking and picking up the kids from their various activities, and just hanging out with all of them. It's been really fun so far! I love it here; it's such a tourist spot. It's a little town with cute boutiques in the town square and only a few necessary shops down the road, like two grocery stores, Sports Authority, a couple gas stations, and some restaurants. I think the only fast food place I've seen in this town is McDonald's! I bet it would be the perfect place to open up a franchise or new restaurant. (Hmmm...)

The "souvenir" I got (that I could get anywhere else but I saw it at Smith's so I chose to get it here) is a Taylor Swift book, so I'm really looking forward to reading it. I love Taylor Swift; she's practically perfect in every way. :) And speaking of reading, I've read over half of The Help here so far and I'm finally liking it. It took me a while to get into it, but I think I'm going to enjoy it.

So there ya go. Just thought I'd tell you where I was and will be for the next week!

Taylor coming into the crowd

2011-10-03T12:54:00.002-06:00

I've been trying to find YouTube videos uploaded by other people at the Taylor Swift concert of Taylor going into the crowd and possibly holding my hand, but this is the best one I've found. You can't even see me in it, but she got to me probably around 5:03 and then kept walking around 5:06. I wish someone had a video of the big screen so I could see what I looked like when she got to me!

"This night is flawless; don't you let it go."

2011-10-01T12:03:00.000-06:00

Wednesday night was the most incredible night of my life. I don't know how else to describe it. Here's the whole, long story, whether you want it or not:

For the past few weeks, I'd been entering into dozens of contests to try and win tickets to see Taylor Swift in concert. I would've just bought a ticket online, but they were over $100 for a pretty lousy seat, so I decided to just participate in as many competitions as possible and hope that one came through. Sadly though, none of them did. Then a few days before the concert, I heard about a poster contest that one radio station was having, so I thought I should give it a try. I made a poster (and cupcakes as a bribe, haha), and I was feeling pretty confident because of how long I'd been hanging out and talking with the radio station workers. Then about 5 minutes before the contest began, a ton of random people showed up with great posters, AND they brought in a RANDOM GUY to do the judging. WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE TOLD ME I NEEDED TO BRIBE SOMEBODY BESIDES THEM!? Right then I knew I wouldn't win, but I still tried to scream loud enough and jump up and down the most so he would at least notice me. He narrowed it down and I made it to the second round, but not the third or final round. It was a bummer, but at least I won a Taylor Swift shirt because I made it to round two!

I was pretty ticked they brought in a random guy, but I still thought I had a chance with some of the other contests. I walked around and spun some wheels to win some other things, and ended up winning two more shirts, a light up stick, and a pencil. Haha. As I was standing in line to spin one of the wheels, the guy from a different radio station said, "Make sure all your tickets are in! We're drawing for ticket winners in one minute!" I asked the girls behind me to save my spot in line so I could grab a ticket, and they said, "Oh can you get us both one too!?" As I grabbed all three tickets, I thought to myself, "What if I give one of these girls the winning ticket?" but I decided to give them the two that I wouldn't have grabbed, had I only got my own. That way, if I did happen to lose to them, I would still feel like I was honest in giving them their true ticket stubs.

After a few numbers were drawn and no one claimed the tickets, the man said, "TICKET 541!" and I heard screams behind me. I turned around, and...yep. The girls I gave the tickets to had won. I could NOT believe it. I made sure to tell them congratulations and that I was happy for them afterward, even though I was DYING inside. I couldn't believe if I had just taken that ticket I would have been able to see Taylor and been able to make someone else's day by giving them my extra ticket.

I was SO sad at that point, because the concert was starting soon and that was the last opportunity to win tickets outside. Before I headed home though, I decided to go to the ticket counter to check if they happened to have any leftover tickets for the show I could buy. I told myself if they had good seats for $50 or less, I'd splurge.

I spent quite a few minutes at the ticket counter, talking to the employee and asking what the best seat would be for the best price. He said all the seats were $72.50, and he showed me where I could get a front row seat on the side of the stage. After battling myself over the cost and trying to bribe the worker with my leftover cupcakes, I finally decided to just buy the ticket. (I felt like if he could have given me a discount, he would have. He could see how much I was struggling and how much I wanted that ticket, but it was out of his hands.)

After I bought my ticket, I let the worker take all my leftover cupcakes for spending so much time helping me, and then raced back to my car to put all my junk away and get back inside before the concert started. I made it back in plenty of time, and when I went through security and they were searching my bag, I was pretty worried he'd find my nice camera and long lens and not let me in. But luckily he didn't seem to care about finding out what heavy object was zipped up in my purse, and he let me through! Once I found my seat, I was blown away by how close I was.

One of my favorite things about Taylor was that a few times throughout the show she would just stand on stage, smiling and looking out into the crowd for at least a minute, just listening to the screaming fans as if she still wasn't used to the sound. I loved it. It made her seem like a normal girl in her 20s, amazed that people would actually be cheering for her.

The show was AMAZING. Like I said before, I can't even describe it. I went to Selena's concert a few weeks ago, and although I thought it was amazing and it's a night I'll always remember, I had no idea what a concert could be like. Selena's concert was a concert. Taylor's concert was a professional show with huge screens, tons of dancers and backup singers and musicians, aerialists, huge explosions, beautiful decorations and props, and even a few different sets on stage. For example, for one of the songs, they staged a wedding with Taylor singing as one of the bridesmaids. They had wooden benches, a bride and groom, an archway, and dancers as the guests in the pews. The whole show was just phenomenal, especially from where I was sitting.

After Speak Now (the song she sang during the wedding scene), the band kept playing but Taylor walked down into the pit and reached out to the fans in there. I was expecting her to turn around and get back on stage, but before I knew it, she was walking toward ME!

I realized she might just pass me by if I kept taking pictures and didn't reach my hand out, so I reached out and said, "Taylor!!!" with a big smile on my face, and she looked right into my eyes, HELD MY HAND, and didn't let go for a few seconds (which is a really long time when there are thousands of other fans in the arena!) It wasn't just the typical singer reaching out to touch a bunch of fans' hands without even looking at them. She stayed longer than I ever would have imagined, and it was almost as if she was expecting me to reach out and hug her or something. I thought about it at the last second, but I didn't want to feel like I was invading her personal space, even though other people were determined to hug her. For me though, I was extremely happy just holding her hand and having her look at me extra long. It's like her eyes were saying, "Thank you so much for coming. I can't believe all of you spent your own money to come and see ME. I'm so glad to have you as a fan. Thank you so much. I love you." ...Her words.

Hahahaha. Had to throw in that reference from The Office. Couldn't resist.

After that, she made her way through the crowd to the back of the arena and played a few songs on a tree prop. Even though I had to watch her from the screen on stage for most of that time, I thought it was so sweet of her to do that for all the fans in the back that otherwise wouldn't have been able to see her very close-up. I loved that she did it.

At three separate points during the show, I looked at her guitar player, and he was staring right at me, and when he saw me look, he smiled all three times! One time he even made a face. Haha, it was awesome to know that the people on stage actually see individual faces in the audience. Here's a picture of him after he made the face...I got a few of him looking right at me but I never got one of him looking and smiling at the camera. I'll always remember it though!

After a few songs in the back, Taylor made her way back up the other side of the arena and greeted lots more fans, and then got back up on stage and continued the show. That girl really knows what she's doing. I couldn't have asked for more from her. Everything was just perfect.

But THEN, just when I thought the concert couldn't be better, she came back out and sang a few more songs for an encore, and during the final song, the crowd was showered in pieces of confetti. Some of you know it's always been my dream to be showered in confetti just like that, so when it happened, I almost had tears of joy. It was the most incredible experience.

I was grateful I was recording before the confetti started so I would be able to re-live it forever. I love that you can tell how excited I was without even seeing my face. :)

So for $72.50 I got to see an amazing show, hold Taylor Swift's hand, cross off something that has been on my bucket list ever since I saw Kelly Clarkson win American Idol nine years ago, (yep, that's what started that dream), and experience the most incredible night of my life. Needless to say, it was a bargain.

No words.

2011-09-29T01:04:00.003-06:00

I HAVE to go to bed, but here's just a little preview of what one of my posts will be about this weekend...

...AKA the most incredible night of my life.

Warning: Random Post Below

2011-09-20T21:09:00.009-06:00

I don't ever know what to blog about anymore...I always have lots to say about Justin and Selena, but none of you care about them so I don't want to waste my time. Soooooo ya. I'm excited for December though! I get to go to California and spend lots of time with my family again. I'm going down so I can be available in case Ashley goes into labor and she needs someone there to watch Alexa. I'm so excited!

The past couple days have been really good. I've been working for my mom, but since she's out of town, I got a few days off. My dad and I felt like since she got to go to Colorado, Toronto, and then Wyoming this weekend (for work), we deserved to do a couple fun things too. We saw The Lion King in 3D yesterday, went to Texas Roadhouse for the first time, and then saw Transformers 3 in 3D this afternoon.

#1-The Lion King was great! I loved it in 3D. I still remember when I saw it in theaters in 1994. Crazy. I think the adults and people my age probably enjoy it more than the kids just because there are so many memories in it for us, haha.

#2-Texas Roadhouse = my new favorite steak house. (Sorry, Outback!) I still love steak pretty much wherever it comes from, but Texas Roadhouse really knows what they're doing. My dad and I got a free appetizer because of a coupon Lindsay gave me forever ago (Thanks, Linds!) and since it was our first time there, the manager even brought out some complimentary ribs and steak fries for us. By the time our meal came to us (which was super quick), we were almost full! We'd already eaten a few rolls, half the ribs, and a baby blossom, and then we had a huge steak, vegetables, and potatoes too! I ended up eating about 4 or 5 bites of my steak, a piece of broccoli, and a couple bites of potatoes, and then took the rest home. Needless to say, I had a fabulous lunch and dinner today, and we'll be going back again for sure.

#3-Transformers 3 was good, but LONG. It was really neat in 3D, but I still like the first one best.

Anyway, just thought I'd check in!

Cody Simpson Yeahhhh

2011-09-15T16:03:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was incredible! Because of all of you who helped me, I won tickets to see Cody Simpson at the Megaplex theater in Sandy. The people running the contest told us that it would be a meet and greet, so I was really excited about being able to meet him and have him complete all the items on my shirt. However, because of some last minute things I guess, he wasn't able to meet all of us. He only signed one poster (because he promised he would during the show), and then a couple girls got to hug him as he was getting in his van outside because they happened to be standing there. It's okay though; I still had a lot of fun, and it was FREE so I really can't complain!

Since I got two tickets to the show and I don't know any Cody Simpson fans in real life, I gave my second ticket to one of my favorite Twitter friends, Paige. We'd never met before, so I was really excited to finally get to meet her. She's so cute!

We were probably about 20-25 feet away. It was awesome!

Here are just a few of the girls I've become friends with on Twitter, and now we've all officially met! The three other girls with decorated white shirts and I got together on Monday to make our shirts, so I had met them prior to the show, but the rest I met for the first time after the show. We're missing a few in this picture, but it's okay; we'll have more opportunities I'm sure.

It was such a fun experience and I'm so grateful I got to go! Thanks again to all of you who helped me win!

My CODY list

2011-09-13T18:19:00.004-06:00

Because of so many of YOU helping me, I won tickets to meet Cody Simpson tomorrow!! THANK YOU! I'm sure most of you don't even know who he is, but remember back in June when I said he followed me on Twitter? He's definitely climbing the popularity charts. I'm sure you'll hear about him in the next year or two because he's only getting bigger. He'll even be on Ellen for the first time later this month, so look out for that. He's just a kid, but I'm still really excited. I love his music and he's Australian, so you gotta love him. (He's no Justin Bieber to me though. I don't think anyone could ever take his place!)

Yesterday I met with some friends who also won tickets, and we all made shirts together. I probably wouldn't have made one by myself, but since they did I thought I'd join them. Since I couldn't think of any clever ideas, I decided to just do another shirt like the one I made for Selena's concert. I put "MY CODY LIST" and put several different boxes I wanted checked off. He better help me check them off better than Selena did! :)

We Own The Night

2011-09-09T09:45:00.006-06:00

Wednesday night was incredible.

Actually, all of Wednesday was incredible. I decided to head to Selena Gomez's concert really early, just for the chance that I'd get to see her arrive, and I was crossing my fingers she'd come out and meet some fans before the show. I got to the Maverik Center in Salt Lake around 11:45 a.m. and there were only two other girls waiting, so I joined them on the grass. We quickly made friends, took pictures together, and exchanged information. It's funny because even just after an hour of talking to them, I almost felt like we had come to the concert together! A little later, another girl arrived, and at first we were disappointed we wouldn't be the only fans anymore. However, we were pleasantly surprised when we immediately made friends with her too!

While we waited, we saw all the band members of The Scene (Selena's band) and Allstar Weekend (the opening band.) Cameron, from Allstar Weekend, waved to us a few times, but he never officially came over. It was still nice he acknowledged us there though!

A couple hours later, several more people came, but there were never more than 20-25 people waiting. Around 3 in the afternoon, we saw a white van pull up with 5 people inside, and we knew that was the winning van! It pulled into the gate and I saw Selena's step dad, mom, friend, and Selena inside! Once they opened the doors and started unloading, I saw all of them get out too.

(As soon as Selena got out of the van though, a truck got in our way so we couldn't see her anymore. Of course.)

One of the fans thought she saw her go into one of the buses, so we all chanted "SE-LE-NA! SE-LE-NA!" every time we saw the door open. We later realized she probably wasn't in there at all, but it was still fun.

By 6:00, most everyone had left, and it was still me, one other girl from the original four, and a few others that were there. A little before 6:30 we decided she probably wouldn't come out a half hour before the show, so we headed inside for the concert. The concert was AMAZING! I'd guess I was only about 50 feet away from the stage, and it was so exciting when I saw Selena rise up from below the stage. I kept thinking to myself, "I'M ONLY 50 FEET AWAY FROM SELENA GOMEZ!" I couldn't believe where I actually was. She did a really great job, and I'm so glad I felt great and was able to go.

(Sorry, I didn't know whether I should film her or the screen!)

After the show, I ran back to the gate to see if we could catch a glimpse of her leaving. We saw the same white van leave, but she wasn't in it, so we kept waiting. A couple of the staff members told us she had already left, but they sounded like they just wanted us to leave, so we didn't believe them. Once it got to be 11:45 though, we decided that van probably picked her up at a different entrance, so she really had been gone for almost 2 hours. During that time, though, a few band members and back up singers came out to meet us, which was awesome! First, one of Selena's back up singers, Katelyn Clampett, came out, and I was the first to talk to her and get my picture taken with her! She was super nice, and I asked her on Twitter if she remembers me, and she does!

The next to come out was Eric Nicolau, who helped out with guitar and vocals with Allstar Weekend, the opening band. He was really nice too, but we didn't talk to him quite as much as Katelyn. Got my picture with him though!

The next and final person to come out and meet us was Dane Forrest, a member of Selena's band, The Scene. I immediately asked for a picture and autograph, so I was first to get my picture with him as well. We talked to him quite a bit. I asked lots of questions and made sure he knew my Twitter name so when I mentioned him, he'd remember who I was. He was such a nice guy! After talking with him for 20-25 minutes, I decided to finally head home.

Ya know how sometimes when you're experiencing something you don't take advantage of the opportunity, and you wish later you would've realized how much fun you were actually having? Well, yesterday wasn't like that at all. I had SO much fun, and I KNEW it the whole time. I won't ever look back and think, "I wish I would've done this!" or "I wish I would've said that!" I did everything I could possibly have done to meet Selena, and even though I didn't meet her, I have zero regrets.

Yesterday I watched this video again, and I realized I actually saw/met most of the people in the circle. The only people I for sure didn't see were the two people next to Selena: Justin and Christina Grimmie (she was another opening act that had to cancel), and Kenny, the black guy. Isn't it funny to see Justin Bieber on the sidelines in this video? He's usually the center of attention!

My Selenized Bucket List

2011-09-05T16:38:00.005-06:00

As some of you may already know, I'm going to the Selena Gomez concert in Salt Lake on Wednesday. I've been super excited for months! A couple weeks ago, I saw a video Selena posted, and she mentioned that some of her crew members go out into the crowd each show and find about 40 people to meet her after the concert. I know that in order to stand out, you need something more creative or different than everybody else, so I decided to make a t-shirt and sign so that if any of her crew read it, they'd maybe choose me to be one of the people to go backstage and meet her.

So once I decided I'd decorate a shirt for the concert, I started brainstorming ideas, and came up with a "Selena Gomez Bucket List." I made the list, bought the shirt on Friday, and started making my shirt! A few of the ones on the list were "Meet Selena Gomez," "Go to Selena's concert," and "Get Selena's autograph." The next couple days, I tried coming up with something clever to go on the back of the shirt, but I wasn't having a lot of luck. I figured I'd just have to write a couple song titles or lyrics or something, which bothered me, since I wanted it to be creative!

Then today, just a few hours ago, I came up with the PERFECT IDEA of what to write on the back of my shirt! I came up with it as I was making a poster that says "READ MY SHIRT," which will hopefully bring more attention to it by Selena and her crew, haha. I thought of lyrics to her song, Hit The Lights: "It's the boy you never told 'I like you,' it's the girl you let get away, it's the one you saw that day on the train but you freaked out and walked away. It's the plane you wanna catch to Vegas, things you swear you'll do before you die, it's the city of love that waits for you, but you're too darn scared to fly." Okay, HOW perfect are those lyrics, and HOW perfect is it that I thought of them!? So here's my shirt, front and back! It's not as perfect as I would've hoped, but I'm still happy with it. It's tough making straight lines with a Sharpie on a t-shirt!

I don't know if it's because I'm in my 20s or because of the Sharpie fumes, but I did feel a little funny making a shirt for a concert in which the majority of the people there will be girls under the age of 16. I don't really care though; I still feel like I'm 16 sometimes. I honestly believe I have a shot to complete all the items on my list on Wednesday, but even if I only get to cross off "Go to Selena's concert," I know I'll still have a great time, and I'll be happy I made the shirt!

My Alexa-filled trip to California

2011-08-29T13:24:00.005-06:00

As I was going through all the pictures I took in California this past week, I realized most of the ones I wanted to post were of Alexa, so those are the ones I'm going to post. :) It was a great trip!

Spiderman kiss, hahaha

Next step of my Bieber fever...complete.

2011-08-20T10:03:00.001-06:00

So I pretty much have the best friends and family EVER. As you're well-aware by now, I'm a huge Justin Bieber fan. I really don't care if you laugh; I'm proud of my fever. However, I've never bought any Bieber merchandise like notebooks, toothbrushes, and shirts, except for his CDs, movie, and perfume (because it smells amazing.)

As I mentioned in the past, Michael and Breann were so nice to randomly send me some stickers in the mail a couple months ago, which I still love! But just last night, Jeff and Robyn added to my collection. Jeff called, asking if I'd be home so they could bring me a surprise. I figured it would have something to do with Justin, but I had no idea what it would be. So when I heard the doorbell and opened the door to let them in, I was shocked and excited to find JUSTIN BIEBER standing on my porch!!! (Well, cardboard Justin Bieber.) Hahaha. As soon as I noticed, I said, "OH MY GOSH!!" and ran over and hugged and kissed him. (Let me just say it was my first time ever kissing a picture of him. I'm not a total weirdo when I'm alone, haha. I just got caught up in the moment!) And I can't believe I chose to wear my only purple shirt tonight too. What a coincidence! Don't we make a cute couple?

So needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited to have Bieber in my room from now on. That's where he belongs. THANKS, JEFF AND ROBYN!!!! Hahaha.

Random updates

2011-08-14T18:21:00.002-06:00

1-Another thunderstorm the other week

2-Courtney and Matt's wedding

3-Camping

4-Police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance on our street

5-Woman two houses down wheeled out on a stretcher; she was sitting up though, so I'm sure she'll be alright.

That's all I can document (at least in pictures) for now!

This is real.

2011-08-14T10:17:00.002-06:00

In case you haven't already heard, last night at the Indiana State Fair, the stage collapsed at the Sugarland concert. Last night, 4 were confirmed dead, and dozens were injured. When I heard the news, I couldn't believe it. Since this is real, I understand some of you may not want to watch it, but here is an actual video of it happening, if you want to watch. Please pray for the people and families affected by this tragedy.

London Riots

2011-08-08T22:47:00.004-06:00

I don't read the newspaper, and I usually don't go searching the Internet for current events. I've never been the kind of person who cares about politics and government issues, but lately I've been taking an interest because of what's going on in America right now. Also, ever since I got a Twitter account, I've felt pretty up-to-date with current events.

Today I learned about the riots happening in London, and I am in shock. I watched a few videos taken just a couple hours ago, and I was almost in tears because of what is going on over there right now. I have quite a few friends from London on Twitter and it kills me to hear everything they're going through and how scared they are. One girl I'm friends with said that the rioters set a children's hospital on fire just a couple hours ago. I'm genuinely worried for all of them there, but I'm just so grateful that I don't have to go through it...at least not until America breaks down. Just be sure to keep the people of London in your prayers.

If you haven't heard the details about the riots, click here to learn a little more.

I feel like a true American.

2011-08-04T08:28:00.000-06:00

Last night I went to my first baseball game in a really long time. It's been so long that I don't even remember when the last time was, if there even has been another time!

I think this guy's goal the whole night was to try and be in all my pictures. He almost succeeded, too.

Yes, this kid was sporting nothing but his underwear.

So anyway, I'm glad I got to go and participate in "America's past time." I feel like a true American. :)

Hello, Arizona!

2011-08-01T08:21:00.008-06:00

I'm just catching up on some the things I've missed since I've been gone. Since I've been here, I've been spending time with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents. The first night we were here, we went to dinner and then my cousin Alyssa and I played Dance Central from Kinect. I'd seen it advertised on commercials, but it's so neat! I highly recommend buying it, or at least making friends with someone who has it.

I've always known Arizona is really hot, but I didn't remember it was THIS hot. Even just walking outside to the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. makes me sweat. I don't think I'd ever choose to live in Arizona. Here's one of their dogs enjoying the nice breeze from the fan the other day.

Before church yesterday, I took my cousin Brydon's senior pictures, and even though we went at 7:30, we were all dripping sweat the whole time...even in the shade! Here's one picture from yesterday. Don't I have cute cousins?

Brydon came with us to church and then we came back to their place and just hung out and talked for a while. It's been really nice to spend time with them, because I don't get to see them very often; Arizona isn't usually on our list of vacation spots.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the plan is for today, but tomorrow we're driving back to Utah! I've been away from home for so long!

Orange County Fair!

2011-07-30T08:57:00.000-06:00

On Thursday, Matthew and Ashley took me to the Orange County Fair. It was so much fun! It was the first time we left Alexa at home, so it was a lot different not having a baby to take care of. We all missed her of course, but at the same time, it was nice to be able to do whatever we wanted.

Alligator that was 13-feet-long

Piglets :)

Such a beautiful blue eye. I don't think I've ever thought that about any animal's eyes before...

Pig races--so cute!

Ashley noticed this famous chef so we stopped for a bit to watch her cook!

One thing we didn't skimp on was junk food...icees, corn dogs (for Ashley), funnel cakes, and Dippin' Dots; I definitely didn't stick to my almost-vegan diet today!
We each bought a pair of $7 sunglasses, and $7 shoes for me and Alexa. Don't mind cheap accessories that I've already been wanting! Such a fun day!

Even though I got to spend tons of time with my brothers, sisters-in-law, and niece on this trip, I still didn't want to leave California! Hopefully we'll be able to come back down with the rest of my family in a couple weeks though. Crossing my fingers!

Santa Ana Zoo and Laguna Beach

2011-07-29T17:04:00.000-06:00

Another day in LA!

2011-07-28T21:47:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, Matthew took off work and he, Ashley, Alexa, and I headed to LA for the day. Our first stop was Hollywood Blvd. and then to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I'd always wanted to go to a wax museum and it was a lot of fun! Matthew and Ashley were so fun to go with because they weren't afraid to pose however they wanted. We took tons of pictures with all the celebrities, but here are just a few!

Anthony Hopkins was SO creepy. They even had some clips from Silence of the Lambs playing in the background of that particular part of the museum to add to the creepiness.

...I felt he needed a massage.

Ashley with all of her Oscars!

Next, we went to Olvera Street, which is a very narrow street full of Mexican shops. Ashley has told me all about the restaurant on Olvera Street ever since she started dating Matthew because she, her mom, her grandma, and I believe even her great-grandma have been going there for years. It's a cute little restaurant where not many people can fit, and the orders come out super quickly because of it. We ordered taquitos and beans, and it was delicious! Here I am, feeling like a true Mexican on Olvera Street!

Our next and last stop in LA was the Griffith Observatory. It was SUCH a neat view! We wished we could have gone at night so we could see all the lights of the city, but it was still gorgeous and totally worth it, in my opinion.

This telescope was HUGE. So neat to see.

Alexa and I napped on the way home, and then got in the pool for a little bit once we got there. It was a great, tiring day!

Sunday Funday

2011-07-24T23:01:00.000-06:00

I just loved this picture from today for some reason. :)

Hollywood!

2011-07-24T12:13:00.002-06:00

Yesterday morning I drove to LA to visit with Michael and Breann for the day. First we went to this park to take pictures with the Hollywood sign (I'm pinching it.) Then we drove around a couple neighborhoods and just looked at all the beautiful homes in the area. I'm sure we passed some celebrities' houses on our way; I'm just not sure which ones, haha.

On our drive we saw this garage door. Crazy! I don't think I've ever seen anyone do anything creative with their garage door before, so it was a nice little surprise to see this painted on.

We walked around Hollywood Blvd. for a bit and then went to CPK for lunch. I kept looking for celebrities because it was my goal to find at least one celebrity while I was in LA.

Our meals were delicious. :) After eating we went back to Michael and Breann's and watched Never Say Never. (I brought it with me just in case...because they'd never seen it!) I think that makes at least 14 people who have watched it with me. I've definitely done my fair share of trying to advertise for it. (But if you haven't seen it yet, I'll still watch it with you. Haha.)

After that, it felt so nice outside, so we decided to go swimming. I love swimming. We swam for a while and then got ready to go to dinner at BJ's. I was just there the night before with my friends, but BJ's is delicious so I didn't mind going again! And I was sure happy we went, because I met my celebrity! As soon as we got to the restaurant, I immediately recognized his face. Have you seen Sydney White? I met one of the seven dorks: the junior tiger guide, George. (He's the one on the top right in this picture.)

I knew I'd regret it if I didn't ask for a picture with him, so I did. He's such a nice guy, too! (His real name is Arnie Pantoja.) He talked to us for a bit and asked what my name was a couple times so he was sure he knew it. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: You're George from Sydney White, aren't you!?

Arnie: No...haha yes I am.

Me: I saw you and recognized you immediately because I own and love that movie! Could I get a picture with you?

Arnie: Sure!

--I pull out my camera and he realizes it's a professional camera.--

Arnie: Oh wow, nice camera!

Michael/Breann: Yeah, she's a photographer.

Arnie: Oh, the guy who wears the hand puppet in the movie is a photographer too!

Me: Oh really? That's awesome! Um...Jeremy, right?

Arnie: Oh wow, you really are a fan!

Hahaha. I felt a little creepy knowing his character's name so quickly, but whatever. I guess it just proved that I really do love the movie, and I'm good with names and faces. And it was just awesome meeting someone who is in a movie I own and love! He asked my name a couple times and then we took our picture. It's sadly not the most attractive picture of me since we'd gone swimming earlier, but oh well.

So I was able to have a nice day with my brother and sister-in-law, and I accomplished my goal of finding (and meeting) a celebrity! I'm pretty excited about it. :)

California: Wed. & Fri.

2011-07-22T21:19:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday I spent the day with Ashley and Alexa until Matthew got home from work. In the evening, we were all so hot that we got in the pool and just played around for a while. I didn't have my bathing suit with me, so we all just went with our clothes on. Alexa was so cute. She just stayed on the step the whole time, and Matthew splashed Roxy with the water so she'd run around the pool, and Alexa couldn't stop laughing.

Tonight I went to BJ's for dinner with my really good friends from Foothill. We don't see each other very often, but I always feel super comfortable with them every time we get together. Unfortunately not everyone could come, but I still got to see Heather, Chelsey, and Lauren! Hopefully we'll all stay friends for a long time. :)

Tomorrow I'm going to visit Michael and Breann in LA! I'm not sure what the plan is yet, but I'll be sure to let you know if I see any celebrities. Haha.

The Happ...Hottest Place On Earth.

2011-07-21T20:46:00.003-06:00

Today I was able to go with my good friend Chelsey to Disneyland and California Adventure! She works for one of their hotels so she's able to get a certain amount of people in for free. (And remember...I love anything that's free.) It was a lot of fun! I was able to go on some rides I'd never been on before, like Soarin' Over California, and as well go on some rides that were a big part of my childhood, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Snow White. It was such a hot day though, so after a while of being there, I was pretty miserable and developed a minor headache. Those of you who know me know that I pretty much hate headaches more than anything else, so it wasn't too fun having one at DISNEYLAND, of all places. I still had a super fun time with Chels though, and I'm so grateful she used one of her free passes on me. I have the best friends!

Beach Day

2011-07-19T23:57:00.003-06:00

Ashley, Alexa, and I went to the beach this morning. We left pretty early, and it was perfect! The weather was amazing, we got a great parking spot, and not too many people were around (until one family decided to sit 10 feet away from us, even though the entire beach was completely open.) We played with Alexa in the water and sand, got some sun, and took pictures. It was such a perfect day at the beach.
Afterward, we came home and ate, took naps, watched some Big Brother After Dark, and just relaxed until Matthew got home. Then tonight we ate dinner, gave Alexa a bath, and then watched Just Go With It. I definitely enjoyed it with them more than I would have, had I watched it alone! Two favorite parts: "Or they buy the sassy one, who's like, 'Hey I see you, baa baa,'" and "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" If you've seen the movie, you should know what I'm talking about. Hahaha.

I was in my bathing suit from 7:30 this morning to 10:00 tonight. I think I've been in my bathing suit more than I've been out of my bathing suit this vacation. I LOVE IT. Still more fun to come!

California so far!

2011-07-18T21:48:00.011-06:00

I can see no one watched the video from my last post, haha. THAT'S why I got Twitter. :)

I just wanted to say I'm in California and I'm having a great time so far! I spent all day Saturday with Sophia and Tera at the pool at Lawrence Welk. I love going swimming with people who love it just as much as I do. My chest got sunburned within the first hour, which stinks, but it doesn't hurt too much, so I'm happy about that. I just made sure to put extra sunscreen on the rest of the day, and I laid in the shade instead, which was nice. I even went down the water slide--go me! (I've always been terrified of water slides, no matter how tame they are, but that's a story for another day.)

Also on Saturday, we went to the Platt Brothers show, which ended up being pretty disappointing. We all agreed they were talented, but their act was so random and not very clever. When all the screens went black and the theater was dark for a few seconds, I turned to my grandma and said, "Is this your favorite part of the show too?" Haha. What was funny was that two ladies in front of me turned around and agreed!

Sunday we left for Orange and then I went to the singles ward and saw a lot of faces I recognized. It was nice seeing people like Lauren Bagley and Lindsy Bounds after so long! That afternoon I was able to spend time with Matthew, Ashley, and Alexa, and Grandma, Grandpa, and Renee some more. Alexa is so fun! She's walking all over!

Today I just spent the day with Ashley and Alexa, and then Matthew when he got home from work. We watched Big Brother After Dark from the night before and I fell asleep for a little bit and got a nice nap. Then for dinner, Ashley's dad made us a delicious spaghetti dinner with fried potatoes and corn. Just wanted to let you know I'm having a great time so far! This trip has already been worth it, and it's not even halfway done!

July 14, 2010

2011-07-14T19:32:00.000-06:00

This video was taken exactly one year ago.

How could you not love this kid?!

Off to California in the morning! I'm so excited to see my family and friends!

I love my Twitter friends.

2011-07-12T20:25:00.003-06:00

Earlier today I tweeted, "I think I'll feel famous the day that someone mentions me in a YouTube video." Just two hours later, I got a link to this video!

Hahaha! I'm famous! Aren't my Twitter friends the best!?

Congrats, Courtney!

2011-07-09T13:24:00.004-06:00

Went to Courtney's bridal shower this morning! I can't believe she's getting married in just a few weeks. It's funny because even though she hasn't been over in a while, I still feel like she's just part of the family! I'm really excited for her and I hope she and Matt have a long and happy marriage! (Above is a picture of all of the girls from the singles ward who were there. Chelsea, me, Brittney, Catie, Laura, Cassandra, and Courtney.)

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T16:08:00.005-06:00

In the past, the 4th of July has always been one of my least favorite big holidays. I love the excitement and patriotic decorations, but I never seem to do anything too exciting. Every year is completely different, and I never know what to expect. Since it's the main summer holiday, most of my friends either go out of town or they spend it with their families, but my family's not too big on wasting money on fireworks or really nice vacations, so I usually end up sitting at home. Last year, I watched fireworks on a field with Heather and Doug the night before the 4th, and the year before, I randomly spent it with Daniel and my mom at our Fish Lake cabin. I think Daniel and I watched That Thing You Do! on a laptop and just talked until it was time for bed. We didn't even see or hear any fireworks, so it didn't feel like the 4th of July at all! What typically happens each year is I sit at home and watch a movie, and look out the window for a minute or so, just so I can say I saw some fireworks. I'm pretty sure tonight is going to be the same kind of night, but, for the first time, I'm okay with it! Since I've learned how to be happy this year, I'll be happy not really doing anything out-of-the-ordinary! I love sitting at home and watching a movie with a nice piece of cheesecake for dessert. :)

Speaking of food, I just want you all to know we've been doing really well with eating vegan every meal! Once a week though, we choose a really good non-vegan thing to eat for dinner, and then a dessert to eat either that day or a different day of the week. We've had steak and hamburgers a couple times, and homemade vegan cheesecake a couple times too! It's good, but not as good as Costco cheesecake, so we decided to just stick with buying our cheesecake from now on.

Earlier this afternoon, Daniel, my dad, and I saw Source Code at the dollar theater and we all really liked it! Afterward, we barbecued hamburgers and they were amazing. Like I always say, grilled onions MAKE a hamburger. (Even though they're technically sauteed, not grilled, I just always call them that for some reason.) They're one of the most delicious foods ever!

Doesn't that look so good? Ah, it was delicious. So anyway, I think I'll enjoy a nice piece of cheesecake (probably my favorite dessert in the world) and watch a movie tonight! Sounds like a fun holiday to me. :)

23 Going On 80

2011-07-02T16:33:00.004-06:00

My grandma bought me knitting supplies and taught me how to knit last night! When Shayna and Sophia were in town a couple months ago, my grandma taught them how, but since I didn't have any supplies, I just watched. I think I've pretty much gotten the hang of it, and it's fun! I feel like I'm 80 when I work on it, but oh well. I've just been practicing, but I'm excited to actually think of something I want to make. Any good ideas?

Happy Birthday, Kaleo!

2011-06-30T14:06:00.004-06:00

I was just sitting here on my computer, and I randomly thought of Kaleo Hewlett, the guy from my ward who passed away three years ago this August. (I think about him every now and then, but I have no idea what made me think of him right now.) I decided to look up his Facebook page just to remember him and how I felt when the Bishop announced that he passed away on August 17th, 2008. When I clicked on his profile, I noticed that it would have been his birthday today. It was such a coincidence that I had to blog about it. So happy birthday, Kaleo, even though you're not here to spend it with the people who miss you!

You know you're a belieber...

2011-06-29T15:13:00.007-06:00

...when you get Justin Bieber stickers in the mail from your brother and sister-in-law. Hahahahahaha! I just randomly got these from Michael and Breann in the mail today, and as soon as I saw what they were, I could NOT stop laughing. (And I still have a huge smile on my face, 10 minutes later!) It completely made my day. Hahaha thanks again, Michael and Breann! I'll be sure to thank you in person in about 2 weeks! (I put them on my photo collage board for now. I love them!) I guess this proves that if you send me anything Bieber-related, I blog about it. :)

Heathe gone vegan?

2011-06-25T19:30:00.004-06:00

Heather came over and spent the night last night, which was the first time since she and Doug have been married. Doug's been in California for an internship, and he'll be gone the rest of the summer, so we decided we should take this opportunity to hang out and do things like this as much as possible. We ate a nice vegan-approved taco soup with avocados on top (no cheese, sour cream, or meat included), and then we went on a nice walk around the neighborhood. Afterward we just talked until it was time for bed. It was fun!

This morning we woke up and I had Heathe try my favorite vegan-approved cereal with soy milk and blueberries. Pretty sure she thoroughly enjoyed it. :) My mom was then nice enough to teach us how to make her delicious homemade bread. (Here's a picture of them rising.)

We had a couple slices and then I showed Heather how to make potato chips. They turned out alright this time; they didn't bake evenly though, so that was a bummer.
Then, this afternoon, we went to Glenwood to go swimming and lay on the grass. It was so lovely outside! We mostly just laid on the grass, because there were so many people in the pool, but it was still perfect. We even bumped around the volleyball for a bit afterward!

After swimming, we came back to Heather's and made some tostadas with refried beans, lettuce, and tomato. The only thing I really missed was the avocado! I've been eating one every day or two since we started eating healthier, and I've gotten so used to always having them around! I think all these delicious, vegan-approved meals might be starting to convince Heather to start eating more this way...I hope so! :)

June is my MONTH!

2011-06-24T15:52:00.003-06:00

I know most of you don't care about Twitter, but I had to document everything that's happened this month!

On June 3rd, Rebecca Black followed me.

On June 12th, Justin Bieber followed me.

On June 21st, Ernie Halter followed me. (Not sure who that is? He's a musician from California, and Justin Bieber did a cover of his song Come Home To Me recently, so he instantly became famous to all the beliebers out there. Justin then surprised Ernie while he was performing at a restaurant in southern California last month, and joined him on stage for a spontaneous performance! So ya, I was pretty excited when Ernie followed AND tweeted me.)

On June 22nd, Cody Simpson followed me. (Don't know who that is either? He's a little Australian singer, and I love a lot of his songs! But don't worry; he's not another Justin Bieber for me. Pretty sure no one will ever come close to taking Justin's spot. Hahaha.) I couldn't decide which video to post, so I gave you two.

On June 22nd, I hit 5,000 followers. CRAZY.

On June 23rd, I broke my record of the most times one of my tweets has been re-tweeted. (It was re-tweeted 100+ times. After 100, it stops counting, so it just says 100+. I'll never know what the actual count is.) Before then, I think my record was 39 re-tweets (or something like that.) That happened yesterday, and people are STILL tweeting me about it, saying, "BEST TWEET EVER!" and "I'm still laughing!" Haha. I think I gained at least 150 new followers from that one tweet alone.

What a month! The happiest/most shocking though, was definitely when Justin followed me. I'll never forget that day. :) I wonder what the rest of this month has in store for me!

Gosh, who AM I these days?! Last year, I thought Twitter sounded like the dumbest thing ever and I'd never even heard of Justin Bieber. This year, I know pretty much everything there is to know about him and Twitter, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I've actually met a ton of friends from it that I hope to keep for a long time. Man, I wonder where I'd be right now if the Biebs had never come into my life, because he's the reason I got Twitter in the first place!

Green Light Booking

2011-06-22T10:51:00.003-06:00

Remember when I told you I was "published" but not really? Well, my dad posted the video of Kym Johnson and Dmitry Chaplin's performance on YouTube for my mom's Green Light Booking company, and the same person found it and posted it on the same page my photo and blog were on! Click here to see it and scroll to the bottom to watch the video.

Horseback Riding

2011-06-17T15:44:00.010-06:00

This morning was so much fun because I finally got together with Morgan and went horseback riding! The first and last time I'd ridden a horse was when I was probably about 10, so it had been a while. I remember feeling comfortable, but a little scared about how high up I was. I held on to the reins with one hand, and held on to the front of the saddle with the other. This time, I didn't feel the need to hold on to the saddle at all!

Morgan and I have been friends for 5 or 6 years so I couldn't believe we'd never done it together before. She was such a great teacher, too; she taught me everything you need to do to prep the horses for riding (brushing, putting on the saddle and reins, cleaning out the horseshoes, etc.) and then had me do it all after she showed me. After a few minutes of just getting comfortable in the stalls, we rode around the neighborhood! We actually went over to my house so I could show my parents. It was so much fun! This is Chip, the horse I got to ride on. Morgan rode Meg, and she's a little smaller and more difficult to handle. I was lucky I got to ride this one!

The only time I got a little scared was after a couple minutes of practicing in the stall, when I hadn't quite gotten the hang of steering yet. There was a wooden post up high on the stall, and I was trying to get Chip to turn left, but instead, he went straight into the stall, right underneath the post...and since I was sitting up high on him, I had to quickly duck so I'd miss slamming into the post. It was a scary few seconds, but I got over it.

While we were riding, Morgan's sister watched Gabe. He is SO CUTE. Look at that smile!
THANK YOU SO MUCH, MORGAN! But you kinda made me want to go every day now! Haha. We have to do this again soon, and we'll see if I remember how to do everything myself next time!

Update: My back and shoulders are more sore than my bum and legs!

A Week of Veg

2011-06-14T10:48:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it's already been over a week since my parents and I started our new China Study-approved eating habits. We went the whole week completely vegan, and it was great. We bought a lot of good food so I didn't even feel deprived either. We tried a few things I hope we'll never have to eat again (like cheese-less cheese, ew), but we tried some other things that I love! (By the way, do you like vanilla soy milk? If you've never tried it, try it on some cereal. It's delicious!) So many people think that milk is so healthy for you because it has calcium and vitamin D. What they don't realize is that eating fruits and vegetables does WAY more for you and brings in more vitamins, and they're plant-based so they keep cancer away! Milk is animal-based and is a lot unhealthier than people think.

In case you were wondering, don't worry...I haven't turned into some health freak who has to bring their own food to parties or turns down their own birthday cake. I know it's okay to eat unhealthy things once in a while, as long as you're eating well the other days of the week.

To prove I haven't gone crazy vegan, last night my dad and I treated ourselves to a delicious homemade steak dinner, followed by some homemade vegan cheesecake! (To reward ourselves for doing so well our first week.) We decided we'd have a really good non-vegan dinner once a week, like steak, hamburgers, or ribs, but we'd pair it up with it lots of vegetables, so we'd still be eating the meat sparingly. I really hope we can stick with this the rest of our lives. It's such a smarter way of eating. I don't claim to know everything about eating healthy, because obviously I just started, but it just feels good to know that I'm doing something right!

(Photo from cookingkitchen.com.)

CAN'T STOP SMILING BECAUSE...

2011-06-12T16:11:00.009-06:00

THIS KID FOLLOWED ME ON TWITTER TODAY.

I know most of you aren't "beliebers," but I'm sure by now you must know that I am! Make fun of me all you want! I've mentioned before that I have a Twitter account dedicated to him, just like millions of other girls out there. I've made a lot of friends with other Bieber fans over the past few months, and whenever I saw any of them get followed by Justin Bieber, I'd be SO thrilled for them. I knew one day it would be my turn, and TODAY was the day! I saw him tweet something, so I simply tweeted, "@justinbieber hasn't been on a following spree for a while..." and I wasn't expecting anything from it, since he always has so many people fighting for his attention. But all of a sudden I looked at his page and a little envelope popped up next to his name, which meant I could direct message him--which meant he followed me! After I made sure I was actually looking at HIS page and not someone with the same photo and name, I immediately covered my wide open mouth and tweeted "OMG" for my followers. It was the most incredible Twitter moment I've ever had! He has people tweeting him every second of every day, and yet I was one of the lucky ones he noticed!

After he followed me, I couldn't stop smiling, and all my cute followers kept congratulating me and telling me how happy they were for me. A lot of them even said, "OMG HE RE-TWEETED YOU!!! CONGRATS!!" which made me confused because I didn't see my tweet on his wall. Tons of people said it though, and one of my friends took a screen shot of their phone and sent it to me, so I know it actually happened. Not quite sure why it's not there anymore, but oh well. I really don't care about anything besides the fact that he FOLLOWED me. Here are a few screen shots that 3 different people sent me. The first shows people that Justin follows (with my name on the list), the second shows my followers (with his name on my list), and the third shows proof of the re-tweet, even though I can't see it.

I know most of you don't even care, but I had to document this incredible day. Just think...if my church time hadn't changed from 1pm-4pm to 11pm-2pm, this blog post wouldn't exist. Crazy how things work like that. :)

High School Reunion

2011-06-10T22:39:00.003-06:00

Last night I went to Jordan Dolinar's wedding reception. Jordan was one of my really good friends from high school. We've had a lot of good times!

It was a great reception for a couple reasons. Not only did I get to see Jordan and meet his wife, Ariel, but I got to see so many of my other old friends from high school. It was like a mini high school reunion! This is just some of the group...I wish we could have gotten a picture of all of us together that were there!

Sometimes I miss the high school days, but when I get to go to my friends' wedding receptions and see my friends get pregnant and have kids, I'm happy I'm in this period of my life.

Another cool thing about the reception was that both of Ariel's parents are deaf, so there were lots of people speaking in sign language (I had no idea until I walked through the line, which made it a little awkward, haha.) It was so neat though! They even had little papers on each of the tables that taught the letters of the alphabet in sign language; I thought it was such a cute idea.

I couldn't stop smiling during their first dance because I was just so happy for him! He's such a great guy, and Ariel seems like a great match for him. Congrats to THE DOLINARS!

Google Doodle

2011-06-09T16:35:00.004-06:00

Have you all seen the AWESOME Google homepage today!? If you haven't, you should go check it out right now! I told Michael (my guitar-playing brother) about it a little while ago and he sent me this email:

This is how I spent my morning (at work) today:

http://coolblogpostingisfun.blogspot.com/

I created this blog. I created these songs.

hahaha

Michael

I can't stop laughing cause they're actually really good!! Hahaha

Sleeping Update

2011-06-09T11:03:00.001-06:00

I went to bed at 11:30 last night! I'm getting better!

It's 12:42 a.m.

2011-06-08T00:42:00.002-06:00

(I'm recycling pictures, I know.)

I've been staying up way too late these days. It's hard going to bed early when I'm not tired, and it's hard waking up early when I've stayed up so late! And when there's nothing important to wake up for. (Just so you all know though, I haven't been doing nothing this summer. I've been working for my dad by writing articles for all different kinds of websites. I wanted you all to know I haven't just been sitting around! Well, I've been sitting around, but only because I can't easily write articles while walking around.)

Anyway, so about staying up too late...1 a.m. has been a typical time for me to close my eyes these past couple weeks, which is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Bed by 10:30-11:00 p.m. and waking up by 7:00 a.m. seems ideal. Do you have any tips for me to get back in the habit of "early to bed, early to rise?" I used to be so good! What happened to me?! I just want to be the best person I can possibly be, and I feel like this is one of the things that is holding me back right now...

Gone Vegan...Almost.

2011-06-07T09:48:00.010-06:00

(Haha, love this picture of Ashley.)

I've always looked at vegetarians and vegans like they were crazy. Whenever I'd meet a vegetarian, I'd say something like, "Wow, I commend you, but I could NEVER go without a nice hamburger or rib eye steak every now and then." When I'd meet vegans (who don't use any animal products for any purpose), I'd think they were just plain crazy.

A few weeks ago, my parents read The China Study, which is a book about a study that was done over the last 50 years or so (I haven't read it so I'm not positive about all the details.) It has to do with eating plant-based foods, rather than animal-based, to get the nutrition you need, because animal-based foods lead to cancer. Everyone who tries to get healthy seems to say, "I need protein!" a lot, but what they don't always realize is that protein can come from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and lots of other plant-based foods. You don't have to eat chicken or tuna to get your protein.

The book talks about different experiments that were done, and I thought one of them was very interesting. (I found this from hubpages.com.)

"The China Study is a book that presents a very clear case for why meat eating isn't healthy for humans. In one of the studies mentioned, rats (a mainly herbivorous animal) were fed a poison which caused them to acquire cancer. From then on, they were fed diets containing various amounts of animal protein. It was possible to literally "turn on or off" the cancer by varying the rat's meat intake.

Another disease mentioned is heart disease. It's well-known that it's possible to induce heart disease in rats by feeding them ultra high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol...What's interesting, however, is that if you do the same thing to dogs, which are mainly carnivorous animals, they do not develop heart disease. Ever. No matter how much of these nutrients were given.

What about humans? Well, as shown by the Dr. Esselstein (as mentioned in The China Study), humans can reverse heart disease in practically 100% of cases with a low-fat, vegan diet.

Besides these studies there are studies in basically every area of human health that show that eating meat is not healthy.

The case seems clear-cut. Animals which were made to eat meat don't get sick when eating meat, while humans do. Humans are not designed to eat meat.

I just thought that was so interesting when my dad told me about that. The rats were fed POISON but the ones that were then fed a good vegan diet were able to recover. Incredible.

As of just yesterday, my parents and I have been trying to eat a more meat-free diet. We've been incorporating lots of fruits and vegetables with our meals, and I think it's going well (even though it's only been a day so far.) Although we're not going FULL vegan--cause that really is crazy, haha--I'm looking forward to getting healthier and hopefully never developing cancer or heart disease. And it's nice because it's not like we're being deprived; just for breakfast this morning, I had a banana and hashbrowns! (Made with vegetable oil and potatoes, which are plant-based!) I even made my own ketchup from a fresh tomato, vinegar, onion juice, and a little bit of sugar and salt...and it was great!

I've never gone on a "diet" because they never seem to last. This isn't just another "diet." It's a new way of life that I'm really going to try to stick to. I'm not saying I'll never eat another brownie or piece of meat again, but I'll just limit it as much as I can. So I'd highly recommend all of you to start eating more plant-based foods from now on. And if you have any good recipes for vegan or almost vegan meals, let me know. I'd love to give them a try. I'll be sure and update all of you with how it goes!

I'm published!

2011-06-05T09:41:00.002-06:00

Hahaha just kidding, I'm not. But someone on my previous Las Vegas post commented and asked if he could put the photo of Kym Johnson and me up on a fan website. He included an excerpt from my post and a link to my blog. Kinda cool. Thanks, jmthoughts! :) Click here to see the page!

What happens in Vegas...ends up on Blogger.

2011-06-03T18:08:00.006-06:00

As you already know, this past week my parents and I took a trip to southern California and Las Vegas. My mom is a booking agent, and she booked some of the Dancing with the Stars dancers and a party band for a big show in Vegas, so we decided to make a whole trip out of it. (Just so you know, I mostly blogged this so I didn't have to write it all down in my journal. So sorry that it's SUPER LONG and there are a lot of details you won’t care about; I just wanted to include everything!)

We started the trip Friday by waking up early and driving straight to my grandparents’ house in California. My grandparents were actually out of town for my cousin’s baptism that weekend, so we didn’t see them until they got home Sunday night. It was so weird being there without them! We hung around for a bit until Matthew, Ashley, and Alexa came over, and then we just visited with them for a while. We played with Alexa, and then Ashley and I read through and answered some tabletop questions. It was a great day!

On Saturday they came over again in the morning, and we just hung around some more. Later on we went to the grocery store and I made some salsa and guacamole for everyone to snack on, and my mom made stroganoff for lunch. Then Michael, Breann, Patti, and Clyde came a little later and visited for a few hours. Since everyone seemed to want some chocolate chip cookies, I decided to make some, and Ashley was nice enough to stay and talk to me in the kitchen while everyone else talked in the family room. It was nice too, because people naturally came in and took turns talking with us, so we pretty much always had at least 3 people in there talking. First Breann, then Michael, then my dad, then Matthew, then my mom…it was just funny how everyone did it without even realizing. I took a few pictures of Ashley’s pregnant belly after they left, and then Ashley and I read through a few more tabletop questions.

After church on Sunday, Matthew and Ashley came back over with Alexa, and we just spent some more time together (it’s obviously our favorite thing to do.) Then we watched Never Say Never together in the afternoon, and here's Alexa enjoying it. :)

That night, my grandparents and Grandma Maude got back, and Grandma Maude took a liking to Alexa’s Care Bear right away, hahaha.

After Matthew and Ashley had to leave and put Alexa to bed, my grandma and I broke a wishbone she’d kept for me from a couple Thanksgivings ago. She always keeps them for me, so we decided to make it a tradition to break them together from now on.

It was pretty ridiculous this time though, because it broke in about 5 different pieces, and it broke RIGHT in half at the top. Neither of us got the big part, so both of our wishes will come true, right? (I actually wished something realistic for once, so I’m excited for it to come true so I can cross off two more items on my bucket list: “Have something I specifically wish for come true,” and of course, the thing I wished for!)

Monday morning before we left for Las Vegas, Matthew and Ashley came over again for about an hour. It was nice having another visit with them before we had to leave.

Usually we leave so early in the morning that they can’t do that, but this time, since we were just driving a few hours to Vegas, we didn’t need to leave so early. It was nice not being exhausted on the drive, for once! (We usually leave around 5am when we go on road trips.)

When we got to Vegas on Monday morning, we checked into our hotel room at the Rio and then just rested a while until we had to get ready for our two shows that night. My family has been friends with Johnny Stewart since [I think] before I was born, and since he's a big producer and has tons of connections, he got us tickets for 5 different shows this week (although we only ended up going to 3 of them) and great discounts on hotels! Without him, our trip wouldn't have been nearly as fun! Anyway, so we went to our first show, The V Show, at Planet Hollywood.

We had VIP tickets and I sat in the front row! I could literally reach out and touch the stage if I wanted!

The V Show is a variety show with a bunch of different acts, and a few of them were incredible. The host was my favorite though; his name was Wally Eastwood and he is the fastest juggler in the world. He was hilarious too! He's this little Mexican guy who makes fun of himself for being a juggler, haha. He was really great. During the show, he even asked my dad a question and then ended up giving him a free DVD of his juggling. Love free stuff! Haha, and he even signed it for us after the show! Love free stuff even more when it's signed!

After that show we walked a little ways down to Vegas: The Show. Since we were just a little bit early, we got to hang out in the VIP lounge for a few minutes. Definitely felt like a celebrity in there!

The show almost seemed like an evolution of Vegas...but not really. I don't know how to explain it. It was enjoyable though, minus the scandalous outfits! We got to sit in the front row for that show too. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the actual shows; they made it very clear that if you took pictures or videos, you'd be taken outside and in their words, "be beaten senseless." Hahaha, so I didn't want to take any chances.

The next day we spent the morning at Mandalay Bay since my mom had a meeting with her client and the producers for the show. That's where my dad and I had to sit around for a long time, so we walked around and ended up sitting at this wine lounge for a while, even though we don't drink. Everyone seemed to be fascinated by this wine tower because they kept taking pictures of it, so I decided I needed a picture of it too!

After that, we went straight to the airport to pick up Afton DelGrosso. She's been on Dancing With The Stars (not as a main dancer, but she and her sisters have all been on it; her sister, Ashly DelGrosso was one of the professional dancers for several seasons though.) Afton was also one of the dancers in High School Musical! If you want to see her, press play on the video and then press 2 and it should skip to her scene. She's the girl at the table in a blue sweater.

Afton also used to be a dancer for La Reve in Las Vegas, but she's married and lives in Arizona now. After picking her up, we drove to a dance studio where Afton's mom and sisters met up with us a little later to rehearse.

A little after that, Maksim Chmerkovskiy came to rehearse with Afton for the dance they'd be performing the next night. (Maksim has been a professional dancer on DWTS for 10 of the 12 seasons.) He's a really funny guy and it was crazy being able to meet him and just hang out with all of them for so long!

(Sorry for the poor quality...I took some videos with my phone. My dad videotaped the actual rehearsal the next night.) After the rehearsal we drove Maksim back to his hotel so we got to chat with him in the car for a bit. Here's me wearing the hat he used in rehearsal and then for the show the next night. I wanted to get it after the show, but someone else in the audience ended up keeping it. Oh well. I have no idea what I would have done with it anyway!

That night we had In-N-Out for dinner and then went to the Legends in Concert show, which had a bunch of impersonators singing and dancing like musical legends, such as Elvis Presley, Britney Spears, and Michael Jackson. We'd been to the show many years ago and it was incredible, and although this time was great too, it lacked a little of the magic that the first time had.

Before I go on, I just want to apologize again for how long and boring this probably is to you! I just figured if I'm going to write it all out anyway, I may as well post it for people if they're bored enough to want to read it!

The next day we checked out of the Rio and then spent the day at Mandalay Bay. (My dad and I know that place backwards and forwards now!) A little before the rehearsal started, my mom asked if my dad and I could pick up Kym Johnson from the airport. (She has been on DWTS as well. She won in 2009 with Donny Osmond, and she won just last week with Hines Ward!) She was so nice, and it was great talking to her for so long! While we were walking with her in Mandalay Bay for the rehearsal, people definitely recognized her, and one group said, "Love you, Kym!" and then she responded in her Australian accent, "Thank you!" It was crazy actually walking and talking with the person that so many people knew.

Once we got up there, we got to watch the whole rehearsal a couple times. I made sure to take photos during the rehearsal because I just knew they'd "beat me senseless" if I took any during the performance! So just pretend they're in costume and have all their makeup and hair done. (More photos will be on my photography blog, just to keep this post from being even longer!)

Kym and Dmitry

The DelGrosso sisters

I loved this picture of Afton.

Maksim and Afton during rehearsals (that's the hat!)

After the rehearsal, I took a little nap at the hotel and then got ready for the show. Once we came back to Mandalay Bay for the performance, I officially got to meet Dmitry Chaplin, another dancer from DWTS, and we had a little photo shoot since everyone wanted pictures with the dancers! I got a couple with Kym before she was all ready too, but they're not the cutest of me, so I'll just stick to these.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Dmitry Chaplin, and me

Kym Johnson and me--I looked SO white next to her!

All of the DelGrosso sisters and me--

I look even whiter since there are 6 of them!

Also, as we were walking backstage to watch the show, I got to meet Hubert Keller, who is a very famous chef. He owns several restaurants, has been on tons of cooking and talk shows, and even has his own show, Secrets of a Chef, which is now entering its 3rd season. I made sure to tell him I was considering going into culinary arts, and had my picture taken with him as well.

The show was incredible; everyone did such a great job, and it was cool seeing all the routines come together! Maksim was definitely a crowd favorite though. He's so hilarious. Everyone knew who was coming out before the announcer even said his name! After the dancers finished their routines, Party Crashers (the band my mom booked) came out and performed for another hour or so while people danced. It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it!

This was such a great trip because we started in California with my family, and even though we had to leave, we still had more vacation coming for us in Vegas, so it wasn't as sad as usual. And then leaving Vegas wasn't sad because we didn't have any family we were leaving behind! It was also really nice to have a significantly shorter drive back home to Utah!

Wow, I can't believe how long this post is. At least I won't have to write it all down in my journal now though! If you skimmed through this or just looked at the pictures, I don't blame you. But it was a trip I'll never forget!

Scarlet takes a tumble

2011-05-28T15:47:00.001-06:00

I feel like such a horrible person for posting this, but I just can't help it. I think I've laughed harder over this video than any other video I've seen on YouTube. I'm sure a lot of you have already seen it, but I had to post just in case.

Normally I don't think it's funny when people get hurt, which is why America's Funniest Home Videos NEVER appeals to me, but this is one of my few exceptions.

We're going to Vegas, baby!

2011-05-27T14:16:00.002-06:00

There's a little story to this, but I don't think anyone would really care to hear it (including me), so I won't elaborate too much...at least for now. The other day, my dad came in my room and said, "We're going to Vegas, baby!" Hahaha. It's not quite as spontaneous as it sounds, but it was hilarious. So right now my parents and I are in California (just drove out today) and on Monday we'll head to Vegas and stay in a couple hotels and see a few shows! I'm pretty excited. Just wanted to update you all!

Pray

2011-05-18T14:37:00.017-06:00

With all the difficult things going on in the world right now, I just thought I'd share this music video. Yes, it's of Justin Bieber. But it's more than just a music video of Justin Bieber. It shows just a small fraction of why I think he's such a great guy. In all the interviews I've seen him in, I can tell he doesn't do this just for the money; he does it because he loves singing and performing, making his fans happy, and attempting to make a difference in the world. This song always reminds me of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror because he always talks about how God made him who he is so he could help make a change, (and because he's said that Man in the Mirror is probably his all-time favorite song.) So if you decide to watch, enjoy. :)

This video was taken just yesterday while Justin was in Japan. Since he couldn't perform at the actual tsunami location, he wanted to meet several survivors of it. Just thought I'd include a more recent time when he did something great for others! And I know it was his decision to meet them, not his crew's to help boost his career even more, because even his manager said they discouraged it. I also wanted to include a couple of the comments on this video as well:

"I have no idea how anyone can hate him. Dislike his music maybe, but hate him is shocking. Such a kind guy."

"I cant believe that. Usually celebs will say i will pray for you and your family and give money. But i have never seen someone go to a place where it might mess him up physically because of the damage and still want to play at a place where there is nothing but dirt. You dont find ppl like that now days.You might not like him for his style or whatever. But face it, at the end of the day he is Gods child and he is doing what god would have want him to do. he is something special. :)"

"I don't think he did these things because his managers told him it would be good for his career, which is humming along just fine, thanks. He went the extra mile, both literally and figuratively, because he's a good kid at heart who knows what's right and insists on showing it."

Weekend with cousins!

2011-05-14T16:39:00.015-06:00

Lots of photos in this post--hope you don't mind!

This weekend, my cousins Sophia and Shayna came up to visit and stayed with us! Sophia had some time off work, so she and Shayna decided to come up and see Gabe and Holly's new baby, London, and be here for Reagan's 2nd birthday party today. (I can't believe she's already 2!)

When they got here Thursday night, we all went to Sonic (it's a Johnson tradition whenever they come.)

Reagan was so cute. She kept trading drinks until she got the one she wanted, haha.

Then, since we were still awake after midnight, Sophia and I made a stop at Walmart for a couple things...including the Never Say Never DVD, which just happened to come out right at midnight. What a little coincidence. :) We were pretty excited.

On Saturday, Sophia, Shayna, Holly, the girls, and I went to the Hogle Zoo. I hadn't been to the zoo since about my freshman year of high school, so I was pretty excited! We saw tons of animals: camels, kangaroos, rhinos, elephants, alligators, leopards, tigers, snakes, gorillas, giraffes (and tons more.) Reagan was in heaven, and it was so much fun to take pictures of her enjoying herself so much.

Baby London. :)

Rhinos lounging in the shade

We went to the half hour bird show, and it was AWESOME! It was a show made for adults and kids, and all of us really enjoyed it. I felt like Shayna's un-posed face in this picture showed our reactions to the show the whole time!
They would have lots of the big birds fly over the whole audience, and the feathers came about a half an inch away from our heads--if that! You can kinda see it in this picture; the owl is beginning to fly over all of us. It was CRAZY and a little scary!

How cute is this little face?! She's so adorable. I can't wait until Alexa can walk around and say tons of funny things too. :)

Sisters. Precious.

They had some dinosaurs on display and Reagan was scared of the T-Rex when it roared. Haha, it was really cute.
I think seeing the tigers was one of my favorite parts of the day, because they were JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLASS. It was crazy that we were able to stand only a few inches away from it!
The giraffes were really fun though, too. Their tongues are SO crazy! This one was licking its face and its tongue could reach all over! It was so weird to watch.
The giraffes were some of Reagan's favorites. She kept saying how cute they were and she just loved watching them walk around!
Another one of Reagan's favorites was seeing this baby bobcat. (I assume it's a bobcat...I'm still not sure.) When we first saw it, it was roaming all over, and it looked like a house cat, so Reagan probably thought that's what it was. You can't tell from this picture, but the head was so funny-looking!
Cousins and London! (Reagan wasn't being too cooperative with photos at this point, haha.) The ONLY thing I don't like about them coming to town is that when we take pictures, they make me look even MORE white, no matter how tan I am! Haha. That's what I get for having Mexican and half-Mexican cousins, I guess.
Then this afternoon was Reagan's 2nd birthday party! It was an ice cream party with tons of flavors and toppings. Again, here's Reagan being adorable and sharing her ice cream with another baby:

Pin the cherry on the ice cream cone.

I thought it was such a great idea!

Grandma getting a kick out of Holly and Reagan dancing:

Reagan, after opening all of her presents:

It's been a great weekend so far! I'm so happy Shayna and Sophia were able to come up and visit for a couple days. I'm just sad they're leaving tomorrow; wish they could stay forever!

Sorry, but I had to share.

2011-05-10T11:48:00.007-06:00

Don't click here unless you want to change your

entire understanding of "reality!"

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T09:22:00.004-06:00

Happy Mother's Day! And especially Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in my family.

My mom

My Grandma Fairbanks

My Grandma Johnson

My Grandma Maude

My sister-in-law Ashley

Also to all of my aunts, my cousin Jenny (who's pregnant with her first), my friend Lindsay (who's also pregnant with her first), and anyone else I may have missed: Have a wonderful day today!!!

Happy Cindo de Mayo!

2011-05-05T08:44:00.004-06:00

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Just wanted to say I'm looking forward to tonight. I'm getting together with some people to watch Nacho Libre and eat nachos, in celebration of Cinco de Mayo today! I'm pretty excited, because I've only seen the movie once, and I remember I thought it was hilarious...and also because nachos are amazing.

The Graduate

2011-05-01T08:59:00.008-06:00

It's been a busy past couple days! Friday was graduation. I woke up around 6 a.m., got ready, and then head to school. I met up with a couple of my friends who were graduating too, and we all just waited 45 minutes together before the ceremony started. The ceremony was just how you'd imagine a graduation would be...an hour and a half of sitting there, bored. My grandparents all thought one of the speakers was excellent, but it was pretty tough for me to sit there the whole time. Something kinda cool though...in the slide show of photos before the ceremony, the art department chose to show one of mine! It was obvious they didn't show one from every visual artist, so I was proud mine made it in.

Afterward, Heather was nice enough to take some pictures even though it was freezing outside! Here I am, pointing to the random red X that I clearly had to stand on (in real life, I promise the lower half of my body is not that distorted!):

Heather got all artsy with these shots. Haha. :)

The day went really well, in my opinion! Afterward we had strawberry waffles for brunch in Pleasant Grove, and then I went back to my apartment and packed as much as I could. Then we had a nice dinner back at home and everyone (in Utah) was able to come: all of my grandparents, Mom, Dad, Daniel, Heather, and Doug. Dinner was great, and then (Michael, you'll love this), Heather, Doug, and I had THE BEST discussion about our favorite episodes and scenes of The Office! It was great.

Saturday morning I woke up and went to my apartment to pack some more so I could move out. It was a long day, but it was still great. I didn't get everything done though, so everything should hopefully be done by Monday.

After church today I think I'm going to spend the day unpacking. Is that an okay Sunday activity? It doesn't feel like work to me because I love unpacking and organizing!

Twitter Friends

2011-04-29T22:10:00.012-06:00

Before I start, I'm just going to get this out in the open to those of you who don't already know: I have a personal Twitter account and an account dedicated to quoting Justin Bieber. Just fyi, I'm not embarrassed about it anymore, whether you make fun or not! I got the account because the only reason why I got Twitter in the first place was so I could follow Justin Bieber, and I felt bad for the people following my personal account who didn't care about him. It's nice to have my Bieber account because I can make friends with other fans from all around the world, and they don't get sick of my tweeting. Haha.

(I have a reason for telling you that.) Since most of my Twitter friends are younger than me, I know that a lot of them are going through difficult times right now. I remember what it's like to be a teenager, so I've made it a goal to always talk to people if they say they're having a bad day or something. So just yesterday I was talking to one of my Twitter friends who was having a bad day last week, and after we were talking for a bit, she said, "It's amazing because you brighten my day honestly, you're so happy!" :) Then a little bit later she said, "Did you know that you're a pretty cool chick; like awesome?" Haha. It was so nice of her. We said bye and I went to sleep, and this morning when I woke up, I had a tweet from her that said, "You know what i'm DONE being mad/sad, it's NOT worth it, life is too short. @quotesfrombieb knocked some sense into me over the computer." Whether she actually makes a conscious effort to be happier or not, I was so happy to have been able to inspire her.

I just wanted to share that for some reason because it made me happy! Twitter can definitely be a waste of time; I'm not denying that. But I think moments like that, when I can help other Twitter friends be happy and feel special, make it all worth it.

Epic Birthdays

2011-04-27T22:06:00.006-06:00

A few weeks ago, I realized I've had some pretty epic birthdays in the past. So, I decided to have my dad put them on a CD for me so I could post them on YouTube. I felt like they were too epic not to share. The first is my 3rd birthday. I bet what I was thinking was, "Why are they laughing at me? Aren't I smiling normal?"

My favorite: 25-30 seconds.

Then here's my 4th birthday party...

My favorite parts of this video:

Michael's shorts
The enormous knife in Michael's right hand (luckily he chose to use his left hand to put out the fire)
The fact that blowing out the rest of the candles is the most important thing to me at the time
Kari's face to the left (when you see her)
And of course, licking the candles afterward.

(If you've ever seen me blow a candle out, you now know why I've learned to hold my hair back.) I know those were random, but I just had to share!

It's done.

2011-04-23T13:06:00.003-06:00

I FINALLY THREW AWAY THE 9-YEAR OLD KISS. It's gone forever. I just had to share my triumph with you.

No idea what to name this post!

2011-04-22T19:36:00.015-06:00

Just fyi, this post is really random. I just felt like rambling a little.

I love when a video, TV show, or movie makes me laugh out loud when I'm by myself. That's when I know that I truly thought something was funny. Last night's episode of The Office made me laugh out loud a few times (as usual.) I LOVE The Office. Some people have said that it's been going downhill the past couple seasons, but I still think it's super clever and hilarious. And the more times I watch, I pick things out that I didn't notice the first time, so it keeps getting better and better!

(Photo from possibly my favorite Michael Scott scene of all time. "This is the worst!" I'm really going to miss Michael Scott.)

Last night's episode wasn't the BEST EVER or anything, but it was still great. They even re-did a song from Rent! It was awesome. I'm still in love with Rent. Probably one of my top 5 favorite movies, (as long as it's the edited version.) I just watched it again a couple weeks ago, and I can't get over how much I love it. It inspired me to share something I wrote about it in my journal a couple months ago (February 18th)...don't make fun of me for writing this in my journal! I know it's kinda weird, but I love making lists for some reason, so I made a list of reasons why I love Rent, haha.

Reasons why I love Rent:

The music--amazing songs and amazing singers
The characters are very loving toward everyone
The characters try to live in the moment, rather than in the past or worrying about the future
Most of them are so open to love
Money isn't the most important thing to them
Even though the characters have made poor decisions, they know they have, and they're trying to be better people
Their lives are so difficult (because of their choices), but their attitudes make all the difference of whether they are happy or miserable
It makes me want to be a better person

So there ya go. I know I'm weird, but I don't really care. If there's one thing I've learned this year (which there's not; I've already learned a TON this year), it's to embrace who you are and take part in the things you love, and don't worry about what other people will think of you. If you're constantly thinking about how others perceive you, you'll never find out who you really are.

There's my wisdom of the day. Haha. It's so true though. I can't even describe how happy I've been these past few months, and whatever happens next in my life, I know how to continue to be happy. No one can bring me down! :)

Parenting Magazine

2011-04-16T14:29:00.000-06:00

Go check out the photos I posted on my photography blog!

Help me get the chance to meet JB!

2011-04-15T14:18:00.010-06:00

First of all, don't make fun of me. Hahaha.

Adam Braun and Justin Bieber are involved in a charity called Schools 4 All, and they're having a competition where whoever raises the most money on their fundraising page will get to have money donated to the school of their choice, and Adam Braun and Justin Bieber will fly out to meet you and go to the school. Even though I'm graduating from college soon, I thought I should at least take the chance, JUST IN CASE. I'm not expecting to get very much, but you never know. With all these 13-year-old girls around, maybe I know more people who would actually donate! So if you'd like to help donate to this great charity, CLICK HERE and help get me the chance to maybe meet Justin Bieber this summer! If not, don't worry. I'll still be your friend. :)

Easter is coming!

2011-04-15T10:19:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Rachael and I got a package from Rachael's mom for Easter! It's so nice of her to always remember her kids' roommates when she sends cute packages. I'm always so appreciative! And isn't this little felt bucket SO cute?! It just reminded me that Easter is so close. I can't believe it's already the middle of April. Where has the time gone? Pretty soon it'll be Easter, then graduation, then WHO KNOWS what happens next. I picked up my cap and gown yesterday too; I can't believe this is all really happening!

Random thought

2011-04-06T15:27:00.002-06:00

I'M GRADUATING IN 23 DAYS!!!

Birthday Celebrations!

2011-04-02T11:27:00.003-06:00

On Wednesday, Jeff and Robyn invited Heather, Doug, and me to dinner for my birthday. We ate a delicious steak dinner with mashed potatoes, rolls, and asparagus, followed by chocolate cake for dessert! It was so nice of Robyn to make it and for all of them to celebrate my birthday with me. :) On my actual birthday yesterday, here was the run-down:

Woke up to an early birthday phone call
Decided not to do ANY homework. It was great.
Watched the video of Justin Bieber singing happy birthday to me
Spent a while on Twitter where all my cute Twitter friends wished me happy birthday and tried to get JB to follow me and wish me a happy birthday (no success, but it was so nice of them!)
Made myself a lovely breakfast of hashbrowns, toast, and a sunnyside up egg (first time I'd ever successfully made one, and it turned out perfect!)

Tried to get caught up with Survivor (didn't work)
Got ready for the day and sang along to JB songs as I drove to Pleasant Grove
Had an amazing steak lunch with my family and Grandma Maude and Earl (steak, mashed potatoes, and caesar salad, followed by COSTCO CHEESECAKE for dessert! Everyone knows I love a good steak dinner!) By the way, sorry those pictures are such horrible quality; I forgot my camera battery and had to use a horrible camera.

Visited with my family for a while and then sent a package at the BYU post office (I thought it was going to be about $30 to send, but it ended up only being $10. Happy birthday to me!)
That evening, Heather came over straight from work and we ate dinner and then she sent me on a scavenger hunt!
She sent me to outside my apartment to find some Skintimate (I've been without shave cream or gel for years and Heather knows how much I am in love with Skintimate!)

Then to Rock Canyon park (where I had to get on all fours to find the next clue, haha)

Then to her and Doug's place where I was supposed to say "BIEBER!" to be able to be the next clue "RECEIBER." Hahaha, it was so awesome.
Then back to my place to find an adorable headband Heather made for me! I love it.

After the hunt we watched She's The Man (our favorite movie) and ate cheesecake again.

It was such a great birthday, and I'm so grateful to everyone who helped make it so relaxing, fun, and special! I can already tell 23 is going to be a great year. :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-04-01T07:06:00.001-06:00

Here is Justin Bieber singing "Happy Birthday" to me...he just had to pretend it was for the American Cancer Society so he could get some money for it.

Happiness put to the test

2011-03-29T11:12:00.009-06:00

As I got in my car after school this morning, I saw a folded piece of paper attached to my windshield. I thought it might be a nice note from someone I know, so I was excited to open it. However, when I opened it up, I was very surprised to see the meanest note I've ever gotten. It was from someone I didn't know, and I'd tell you what it said if it wouldn't lower my standards to write it. I couldn't believe someone would write something so mean to someone they didn't even know. I spent about 2 minutes wasting my time thinking about that person, and then I decided to brush it off and move on. Even just those 2 minutes weren't worth my time thinking about the situation. As I drove, I thought of ways that I could make others happy. I thought the perfect opposite action would be to write nice notes to random people and put them on their windshields. So I'm going to do it! I'm going to try and do it a few times a week, and I encourage all of you to do it too. As I've seen on Twitter, I need to #killemwithkindness! So I'm going to show that stranger that even though they stole those 2 minutes of my life and tested my happiness, I passed the test. Their note failed; it just inspired me to be even happier, and to share that happiness with as many people as I can.

More color

2011-03-28T10:57:00.004-06:00

The whole group!

And here's a group photo but this isn't the whole group though, unfortunately!

Color!

2011-03-26T21:56:00.008-06:00

Every year, Heather, Doug, and I go to the Festival of Colors together and we have a lot of fun getting dirty. This year we got to go with a big group, and it was a lot of fun! I'm pretty sure this is our whole group...even though a few aren't looking, and I don't know the girl at the top left. Haha.

I didn't notice this guy until I got home -- I LOVE when people do this and I find it in pictures later! Hahaha so funny. It reminded me of when someone smiled in the back of some pictures Heather and I took together at a football game years ago. Always makes me laugh!

Some of us are still pretty clean in those higher pictures. We have before and after pictures, but I don't like them at all, so you only get to see these (unless someone else got better ones on their camera.) Haha. We had so much fun though! Can't wait for next year!

Guess who...

2011-03-24T18:21:00.002-06:00

You don't have to watch this. I just love this video though--so cute! I thought I'd share for those of you (probably none of you) who want to watch it, hahaha.