New Year's Resolutions

For New Years, we had a party with some cousins on the Friday right before New Year's Eve. Then on New Year's Eve we went to a stake dance, so those were both fun. I sat down to write some New Year's resolutions, like I do every year, and was pleased to see that I met one of the resolutions I made last year, and that was to read 100 books during the year. I finished the last book on New Year's Eve, in the morning. For the complete book list, click here.

Sad to say, that was the only goal I know I met for the year. I will try to do better this year. I am going to try to read 100 more books this year. There are just so many that I want to read...

Happy New Year!

Gingerbread House

This post is a little late, but I finally got around to posting it. We had a family Christmas party the weekend after Thanksgiving, and one of our aunts and uncles gave us a gingerbread house kit. So the next weekend, we put it together. Here are some pictures of it. I think it turned out pretty good from what we had to work with.

First Snow

We had the first big snow of the year, and my younger brothers went out and made this snowman. I think it looks great! I'm pretty sure it's the biggest one we've ever made. It used up pretty much all the snow in the yard...

Halloween

Only the youngest two went trick-or-treating this year. Here are their costumes. It's funny because my brother said at school, nobody knew it was him behind that mask. Apparently, he thought it was funny, so he didn't tell anyone, and he avoided talking so noone would know it was him.

Book Festival

I went to a book festival with my family a few weeks ago. It was pretty fun. We got to hear Brandon Mull and Obert Skye talk about their books. Also, we saw Alex Boye. He's a singer in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He sang some songs from his CD, but they weren't Mormon Tabernacle Choir Songs. He had one about scouts that was the best. He even had a little dance that went with it. He had all the scouts in the audience come up and do it with him. It was pretty funny, but my brothers missed it. They were off somewhere else and missed that song. Also, we got to see this magician. He was pretty good. He said there were three things you can supersize at McDonalds: fries, drinks, and then from this tiny paper sack he pulled the third item - straws. He pulled out a six foot straw. It was huge!

The funny thing was, there was a McDonalds that was sponsoring the event and were giving out free smoothies. I told my brother he should've asked to supersize the straw, but he wouldn't. It was really fun to go, even though we didn't even buy any books. They gave out prizes and stuff though, which was cool. I hope they do it again next year.

Vacation Pictures

Here are the pictures I said might be coming:

On the ride there



In the condo





Playing basketball



Tennis



Tea party with a cousin in the play room in the rec center



Barbecue on Saturday

 There's a few snapshots of our trip.

Family Vacation

I went with my family on a short trip over the weekend. We went to the Wolf Creek Resort in Eden. All of my family on my dad's side were there. My uncle has a time share there, and he decided it would be fun to have a family reunion type thing up there. This was the first time we've had a family reunion on my dad's side from just my grandparents and down. Usually it's from farther back, and there's a whole bunch of people there I don't know.

Anyway, at this place, they have a bunch of condos, and pretty much, each family had a condo to themselves. Ours had as many bedrooms as our house and was two stories. I was totally not expecting to have so much space. I thought it would be like when we go on vacation and get two hotel rooms, but with a tiny kitchen area. But no, we had beds for everyone, except for Emily and I had to share a King sized one. We also had a dining area with a big table, a kitchen with all the dishes and silverware provided, plus multiple bathrooms, and a living room area with couches and a TV. It was pretty sweet. The only problems I had with it were the pillows and the fact that the thermostat was stuck at 72 degrees, which I thought was cold.

Also at this resort, they had swimming pools, which were pretty cold, a hot tub, basketball courts, tennis courts, volleyball nets, horseshoes, tetherball, and a rec center. At the rec center, we could check out any equipment we wanted to use for the courts, including the racquetball courts that were inside the rec center. Between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening, I managed to do everything except for the racquetball and the horseshoes. I didn't care so much about the horseshoes, though. I even played basketball with Emily and all my guy cousins. My mom said watching it was funny, because the only guys that would get close to us were our brothers. I guess guys don't know what to do when they play sports with girls. I'm happy to say that they actually passed me the ball quite often when I was open, but only after my uncle passed it to me I think kind of as a joke, and I made a basket.

Anyway, Saturday night, we had a barbeque, and then we went home on Sunday morning. It was really fun. I got way sunburned, and probably got more excercise in two days that I got the whole rest of the year, but it was way fun. I wished I could've stayed for a week.

Pictures may be coming in the future.