The Fat Teenager Inside

Yesterday I got some taquitos out of the freezer. Behind the taquitos was a box of chocolate ice cream bar things (no idea what they're actually called. Fudge bars? That sounds right.). And then I thought, "Hey. I like those things. I should eat one." So I pulled it out, unwrapped it, took two bites, and then realized that I didn't actually want to eat it. I hate when that happens. So of course I had to eat the whole thing cuz if I threw it away that would be wasting. I wandered around my house slowly eating it and wondering how this happened. It was then that I became aware of the fat teenager that is inside all of us whether we like it or not. No matter how fit or nice you are on the outside, there is always this evil fat little being telling you to be fat. Even though I really like spinach. It still tries to convince me. Anyway. The moral of the story is to beat up the fat teenager because it is evil. And always eat your spinach.

BYU baby!!!

BYU, here I come!!

I am sooooo excited that I got accepted! My whole life the only college I've wanted to go to is BYU. As I got into high school, I realized how hard it is to get in, so I started noticing other schools too, just in case. I got accepted to SUU and BYUI, and last night was accepted to BYU Provo! I seriously would have cried a TON if I had not gotten in. I'm so excited to go to the Lord's school and live in the dorms and meet new people! It's gonna be the bomb. And now Michael and I can hang out at BYU together once he gets back. We'll both be sophomores together! :D

Is Orem the best high school ever? YES.

Pretty much Orem is the best. There is something seriously wrong with anyone who says otherwise. This week (on Valentines Day actually!) was the Orem v. MV basketball game. I couldn't stay for the whole thing, but I heard that it was super intense! Orem won by three points, which we scored in the last two seconds. I wish I had been there.

Reason #2 Orem's so cool: Our very own Kaleb Egbert is the State Wrestling Champ! How cool is that! And Austin Snow is the Region Wrestling Champ! I'm very impressed. We watched recordings of their matches today, and I had no idea what was happening, but it looked hard. Way to represent!

My Addiction to Baked Goods

No, this whole post is not about baked goods. But we'll get there soon enough!

First off, this weekend my friend Alexa got married!! She is a year older than me and I've known almost my whole life. We're basically like sisters, so this was a pretty exciting event! I unfortunately couldn't make it to the actual wedding, but I went to the reception, which was a blast!

I think this picture's really funny cuz it looks like my mom is Alexa's mom instead of Sis. Hubert.

Me and Thomas at Sweethearts! It was a blacklight dance, so we wore clothes that would glow in the lights. I loved seeing people's different clothes at the dance. There were so many bright colors and even a group that wore reflective traffic cop vests!

Overall it was an awesome date, but there was a really scary moment. At the end of my date Thomas walks me up to my door, says thanks and all that jazz, then says he has a question for me. I was pretty shocked, and a little worried (what the heck would someone want to ask you at 11:20 PM dropping you off? seriously.) so I didn't even say anything. So then Tom asked me if I would permit him to leave me with a kiss  before he left. I was still speechless. And not in the good way. And then I thought, 'He'd better be talking about a chocolate kiss" but of course I'm still thoroughly scared. And then he pulled out a bag of chocolate kisses. Goodness gracious Thomas. Goodness gracious. I can't even explain the relief I felt at that moment. I was still pretty terrified, so I sorta just awkwardly said bye and walked inside. Haha good times...

Ok, so this is where the baking comes in. These are my variation on homemade Reeses. They are AMAZING!!! I love anything with peanut butter and chocolate, so I went online and put together different homemade Reeses recipes, and I'm pretty proud of the result!

To make these, you need:

12 oz. Peanut butter (I did not measure this precisely. I just used 1/4 of the can.)
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
16 oz. powdered sugar (Again, not an exact measurement)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 bag chocolate chips (Yet AGAIN, not exact. I actually just combined all the chocolate chips I could find for this)
1 graham cracker

First, wash your hands. Yes, I did just include that, because you are going to mix ingredients with your hands. So now, with your clean hands, take the graham cracker and put it in a plastic bag. Crumble it up. I don't know if there is such a product as "graham cracker crumbs", but I figure this works just as well.

Now mix the graham cracker crumbs, peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl with your hands. I found it easier to use hands because then you can get rid of chunks of butter and such.

Using a medium scoop (although any size would work), drop the mixture onto a wax-lined baking sheet. Freeze for at least an hour.

Before taking the sheets out of the freezer, melt your chocolate using whatever method is on the bag. You can experiment and try to roll the balls in the chocolate so they're completely covered, but that didn't work for me. So we put the melted chocolate into a decorating bag and squirt onto the balls like frosting. Then put the baking sheets back into the fridge for an hour.

And that's it! I have a serious addiction to baked goods (mostly cupcakes) but I prefer easy stuff. So if you're a fan of peanut butter, chocolate, and easy recipes, this is for you!

So pretty exciting stuff's been goin on around here...

Special Needs Mutual is FANTASTIC as usual! The spanish ward came and taught us Latin dancing, and Taven requested that we take a picture of us dancing. So in this picture is Taven and his buddy, James. The girl in the pink, Chelsea, is temporarily my buddy while her real buddy is gone. She's super funny and loves to hug me. She laughs a lot when Tanner tries to break up our "fighting" and gets super embarrassed if I suggest she go dance with a boy. Taven's awesome like always. This week he asked me if I would be his princess and I told him that I wasn't sure that would work out since I'm not a princess.

This is my group from Preference. And yes, we totally did go visit Rapunzel's tower! ;D

This is Thomas (in the middle). He is taking me to Sweethearts tonight and I'm so excited!! We're going power tumbling for our day date, and I'll admit that I am pretty nervous about that. Especially since the only time in my life I've attempted a flip I landed on my back and have had back problems ever since. But I'm sure it'll be great. :)

English oh English

Today in English had to be one of my favorites this year. We each read two essays (one that was due today, one due last time), and I was in a group of all girls. They are blonde. That's all the description they need. One very talented girl who is blonde but not so blonde wrote an essay about her first experience with kissing. Oh boy. I was trying so hard not to cry from laughing so much! My essay's were not nearly that funny. But apparently one was slightly humorous. I'll put it up here:

The lights dimmed. This was my cue to walk offstage. I knew that I had to change my costume before I came onstage again. I ran to the dressing room, beginning to unbutton my dress as I entered. I looked up at my friends and froze. Something was terribly wrong. Never in my theater experience had I encountered this dilemma. There was a boy in the dressing room. A boy. Perhaps one of the more shocking aspects of this was that the other girls didn’t seem to care. The group was talking as if nothing was wrong. I buttoned my dress back up, acted normal, and changed in the bathroom. I thought that surely he was only there momentarily and would be gone soon.

            I thought wrong. At the end of my next scene, I hesitantly approached the dressing room, only to enter and find the boy still there. I sat down on the floor, my mind racing with the challenge of trying to figure out what to do. Looking back it seems it shouldn’t have been a very hard decision, but at the time I was stuck. I knew this boy. He was very talented and I knew him to be uplifting towards other cast members. I didn’t want to ruin his reputation. I also didn’t want to be mocked by the other girls. There were so many of them and only one of me. Then I heard a girl say to the boy, “I’m about to change. Close your eyes.” This seemed completely unacceptable to me. The girl was entirely exposed, and her only protection was the boy’s eyelids which were not guaranteed to stay closed. The situation was still unfathomable to me. I had always thought these peers were so virtuous and proper, values clearly not being demonstrated here. For a moment my mind wavered, almost willing to overlook the situation. But I knew it was wrong.

            Luckily we were still in rehearsal, so I left the dressing room and approached the director in the auditorium, voicing my concerns. She was shocked at my news and assured me that things would change. That evening she announced that she would not tolerate students being in the dressing room of the opposite gender.

            The cast returned to the dressing room to change before we went home. I glanced at the boy and his outrage was obvious. It was surprising though that back in the dressing room, all of the girls were voicing their happiness that somebody had spoken up. Many girls were uncomfortable with the situation but were too afraid of their peers to stand up for themselves. Our peers have such an enormous influence on our lives, and many are so afraid of that influence that they cast aside their values or choose to overlook problems. They are scared that their peers will mock them. I used to be scared of that. Now I know that if I do what I know to be right, everything will work out.

Well that took a LOT of space... but hey. It's about three pages shorter than most essays in that class.

Well it's been pretty exciting around here. Many many things have happened.....

I swam in the Battle for the Paddle!!! (we won. of course.)

Secret Garden opened! Tonight is closing night. This show has been amazing and so different from every other show I've done. There hasn't been any conflict, we're not super stressed out, and the cast feels so unified. Usually at the end when I'm bowing it's really hard for me to keep smiling, but after this show I can't stop! It makes me so happy to see the accomplishments of the other cast members and share our message with the audience.

 I play a Dreamer (ghost) as well as Mrs. Winthrop of the Aberdeen School for Girls. She's not very nice. It's such a fun scene. :) Mary throws a huge tantrum and then I storm away (while making sure to not forget to take with me the money that they gave me).

Preference!!! My group was so so fun. I took Kahai Fa'alafua and I think I might have scared him a little bit because I was so loud and laughed so much. The only times he really sees me is in school (usually in English) and I'm VERY quiet there. So it might have been a little shocking for him.

My Uncle Chris went to Afghanistan about a week and a half ago. He is so awesome for being able to do that, especially now that his family has grown so much with his recent marriage. This picture makes me so sad because of my cousins in it. (Thank you to Deseret News for the picture.)

Spinach smoothies are still fantastic, although they look super disgusting. I haven't had much time lately to make them. Maybe I'll make one tonight. We'll see.