College

This past week marks my entrance to Brigham Young University Idaho. I am a college student. I'm living with six new roommates. Crazy!

The first weekend (Thursday - Saturday), I participated in their "Get Connected" orientation shenanigans. It was tons of fun. It reminded me of RMSEL in a lot of aspects. They had a whole presentation on how important it is to participate is class and how you're supposed to learn from each other and all that jazz. We were separated into I-teams and did games, tours, and other various activities with them. There was a pretty cool talent show that showcased a wide variety of talents that new students had. There was I-night. Which was basically a huge party all over campus. Dances, concerts, games, raffles, food, all sorts of fun things were going down all other the place.

I'm living off campus in an apartment with five other girls. It's been good so far. Everyone is super nice and fun.

I don't have a camera up here with me so pictures may be few and far between from here on out. I'm going to try to keep this updated. I've obviously never been too good at that but we'll see how this goes. I may never have anything worth posting come up! Whateva. No one even reads this anyways.

Graduation

Graduation was May 27th. I cannot believe that I am done with high school. The past four years have flown by! Since my school is tiny and we only had a graduating class of 21, my graduation ceremony is a little different than most. Each student gets talked about by their crew leader individually. The ceremony is a lot more personal, you don't just get your name called so you can walk across the stage. Below is my crew.

Here is the entire class...

Family afterwords...

The seniors in my crew, plus Shep who decided to hold himself back...
I am for real going to miss these guys like crazy.

Here is me and Rachel, my crew leader. It was also her last year at RMSEL.

Here is my fan club. These two were my favorite freshmen, ever.

Here is me with Emily and Elise.

I am so glad I had the oppurtunity to attend RMSEL. It was a great school and I hope to always remember and stay in contact with the class. Maybe I'll teach there one day...

Senior Prom

So the pictures are all out of order but whatever. So last weekend was prom. Here is a picture of the crew seniors at after prom.

I'm so excited to be graduating but I'm for sure going to seriously miss these people. For real.

Here is Sarah and I in our matching hooker heels.

Here is me partyin' it up as always....

Then here is me and my date. Aww, psych we are only friends. That would be awkward. We did go together, but just for fun.

Sooooo, yea. Prom was fun. It was at the Oxford hotel in Denver. Super pretty, old, rich, fancy hotel. My friend Emily won prom queen! Then her younger sister won little prom duchess or whatever they called it for the freshmen. Too cute. The theme was masquerade, I had a super pretty mask but for some reason there are no pictures of it.

After words I went to after prom and had fun watching drunk people. Who knew they would be so entertaining? Until they hit a certain point and it just got sad. But it was fun while it lasted. Around 4:30 in the morning we headed out to Emily's house like a half hour away. I got to drive! Woooo! Once at her house we watched The Cove, a movie about Japanese people killing dolphins, and then went to bed.

The following morning we got up around one and watched another weird movie. Then around four I went home for Seminary Graduation. Now I never have to wake up and be out of the house by 5:30 ever again...this school year, and hopefully for a little while longer too.

Senior Solo

I just realized I never posted anything about my Senior Solo! So back in March the entire senior class went out to Fish Ford Utah. Here we spent one night together then the teachers dropped us all off in remote locations. So the next two nights were spent alone.

We were only allowed our sleeping bag, a tarp, six 5ft. pieces of string, water, and a blank journal. When I was first dropped off I just walked around my site a little, scouting it out and all. Then I set up my tarp in this cool little tree cove.

I spent the rest of the day writing my senior appreciations. We make a book of all these appreciations and give them to everyone in the class.

Once it started getting dark and chilly I crawled into my sleeping bag and went to bed. I woke up as the sun was rising. It was nice. I spent all of this day writing as well. I needed to write 21 appreciations for classmates and 6 for teachers. I wrote about a page per person. I hate writing so that was a big deal.

This second night alone I stayed up a little later and was able to see the moon and stars. Awww. The next morning a woke up and packed up camp and sat waiting to get picked up. Eventually my teachers came around and picked us back up. We then went to breakfast together after a full 48 hour fast.

The drive back was fun. I made 5 or 6 mix cds full of crappy fun party music. So everyone was singing along and having fun talking about all the things they did on their solo. We weren't allowed to have cameras or anything so once again no pictures.

Senior Ditch Day!

Thursday night there was an elective showcase up at school. It was nice, there were a few technical difficulties but the talent really shown through despite. Anyways...afterwards the senior class went out to dinner and began our ditch day excursion!

So there are no pictures to document but this was a super fun and exciting night/day.

After dinner we headed over to a kid's house. We stayed up all night playing ping pong, video games, hot tubbing, talking, around the world, and lots of other random things. I personally stayed up until 5, the time I would usually be getting up for seminary.

The next day, the day we were actually ditching, we woke up around 10. His parents cooked us a lovely breakfast. Then hung out there some more, doing much of the same things. After we cleaned up about half of the group left to meet back up with everyone later. At this point the group of 11 that was remaining went to play ping pong again.

This is where it gets super exciting! So they were playing around the world. I can't really explain it without being super wordy or just showing you. But anyways, In this game you run in circles around the ping pong table and if you miss the person who last hit it gets to peg you in the back with the ping pong ball. So that's what happened. Except when this kid hit the ping pong ball, the paddle flew out of his hand and hit another boy in the head! Of course everyone went through the obligatory "I'm sorrys" "It's fine, whatever" You know, anyone's head would hurt after that. So they just went back to playing, being more careful and all. A couple minutes later a kid across the room goes, "Dane, you're bleeding!" Immediately a couple kids ran over. Sure enough right behind his ear there is a cut. So he goes into the bathroom and cut some of his hair so they can see it better and clean it. One of the kids with him, as well as himself is a WFR (Wilderness First Responder) So they are more than first aid certified fyi. After getting a better look at it they decided to take him to his doctors. He handed off his keys to another boy to take the rest of us to our next meeting location.

Later in the day a few more of us went home. Those remaining in the group went to Brunswick Zone for some bowling. The two that went to the doctors joined us there. Turns out the boy got five staples in his head. But he was fine. He bowled. Whatever. After bowling we did laser tag. So I got home around 7:30 on Friday, after leaving 7am Thursday. Over all it was a fun eventful ditch day. I love everyone in my class and am super excited for graduation and prom and all those super fun events coming up.

SLE

So I've started my Senior Learning Experience. I'm working in a few different kindergarten classrooms in the Denver Metro area. Here is the link to my blog all about it if you're interested...

http://kindergartenerintraining.blogspot.com/

College

So I have a 100% acceptance rate. How exciting. I've been accepted at Utah State University, Northern Arizona University, Brigham Young University- Idaho, and Oklahoma Baptist.

I was offered $15,000 from Utah State, plus an additional $400 housing scholarship. They also kept telling me to apply for the honors program. And they sent me really nice chapstick.

Northern Arizona didn't offer me anything. But they keep sending me crap. And they have a whole bunch of cool speakers and events on campus.

BYUI was super frustrating. First, back in October it took them 3 weeks to find my ACT scores, which were sent along with my transcripts. I emailed, called, and chatted with them and each time they told me they weren't there. I even paid ACT to send BYU the scores. So I had my school call, and what do you know? There are my ACT scores behind a piece of paper. Now my application was complete, before the early decision deadline. I checked the application status once a week until the 4 week mark, then I checked every day, since they said 4-6 weeks. Once day, around Christmas - when everyone I knew who applied had already heard - I checked it and it no longer said they had my transcripts and instead said they needed my GED. What the heck. I'm still in school, earning a degree, I don't have a stupid GED. So I called and they claimed I didn't go to a nationally accredited high school. Yea right, my school is one of 7 schools "accredited with distinction" in the state of Colorado. So the director of my school called and talked to the admissions and they told me I have to talk some test. The Compass test, which is basically the ACT. So I had to spend another $50 on a stupid test. Plus, the day it was scheduled was a snow day because it was negative something outside. Coldest day of the year. It broke records. And I had to take the light rail. In the end I exceeded the scores they wanted me to get. They wanted 22 math and 70 reading, I got 42 math and 99 reading. Waste of my time.

A couple days later I was accepted. I didn't care. They were too frustrating. At this point everyone that was accepted was getting track assignments. They were all getting fall/spring. That is the worst track ever. Who wants to go to school for a semester, go home for a semester, then school for a semester, then break for a semester. I decided that I would go somewhere else if that was the track I was assigned to. Thankfully I was put on the fall/ winter track. If BYU wasn't so cheap I would definitely consider other places more seriously.

Oklahoma Baptist sent me one of those, "Send us your name and your grades and we'll let you know if you're in deals" No essay, no fee, why not? So I did it. They offered me like $14,000 in scholarships.

So yea. The end. I'm a whiner.

Last Crew Trip Ever.

This past August I went on my Senior crew trip. It was so much fun. It was sad at the end though. So all the seniors drove up together in a car while everyone else was stuck on a bus. This is how it turned out. I was the only one awake besides Rachel who was driving.

We then hiked up to the hut. We got lost and turned around. Then finally found it. It was a super nice hut.

I put together a 1,000 piece puzzle. We were missing one piece though.
Here is the puzzle making team.
We stayed at the Polar Star Inn which is a part of the 10th mountain division huts. It was really pretty up there. It was also the nicest cabin I have stayed in through the 10th mountain division.
Here is the whole crew. We hiked to this meadow and played music memory.

We had knife throwing competitions. It later turned into blade throwing after it broke. I was really good at it in case you were wondering.
We also played boy vs. girl pictionary. The boys here won. By a lot.
I didn't take a lot of pictures so that is the end of it. We had the senior roast the last night. It was so sad. I cried like the entire time. I could barley say anything for Dane, I had to stop halfway through Tessa and talk to her later, and I didn't even say anything for Shepherd cause' I was trying to keep it together. I was a train wreck. Anyways everyone was super sweet and all us seniors slept outside together the last night and reminisced. I love my crew, especially the seniors, I've loved spending my four years of high school with them. I am going to miss them for sure.

So...

I actually need to post something here. I'm on at least once a week reading everyone else's blogs. But I never have anything eventful going on.

But I'll do a quick review of every thing since girls camp. Since thats where I left off.

I started my junior year. Which I am so completely done with. I wish I were a senior. School is boring.

Labor day weekend Meaghan flew out again and we got to go spelunking, it was super fun. I was kinda glad in the end to go with a small group. It was nice. And my daddy got to go with us!

So then for fall break I went to Arizona as a birthday present. It was so much fun. I love visiting family. I got to see all the new babies and cousins and all that jazz. Fun fun.

Then Elle came home for Christmas and that one weekend in October for Spencer's mission farewell. Meaghan also visited again! That was delightful. I really need to get out to CA to visit her. We had a few close friends over as well, I'm sure you know them,

They visit often, It's like they live at our house. Whatever, we got them all snuggies.

Then nothing happened and now it is March. The Stonegate girls basketball team is dominating, we remain undefeated and we will stay that way for the new six seasons. Thanks to Char. One of my first years from camp. Soooo yea.

Right now I'm on my two week independent study for school. I interned at Associates III design. I also re-did one of the bathrooms in the house.

March 15 -26th I will be adventuring into Chaco Canyon to unveil the mystery of the Anasazi. No one knows what happened to them, but I defiantly do. Maybe I'll share with you upon my return .

That is all I remember from my uneventful life over the past long while.

Tata peasants!

~Princess

P.S. If you are reading this Landee I think we should have a blog night for YW, I don't know how to do anything on this. And you are a pro.