The Secret Journal of Brett Colton!!!

Okay, this is the best book ever. "The Secret Journal of Brett Colton" by Kay Lynn Mangum. It is such a beautiful story. It is so captivating and makes you ponder even though it's fiction. You get so absorbed into it. After I finished this book, I started writing in my journal again. It had been a while. This book helped me to see the impact that a journal can have on another person, and if something were to happen to me, I would want my family to be able to understand my thoughts and feelings - especially as they relate to them. This story is unique and will make you laugh, cry and grateful for the testimony that you have. I rate this book a 10 out of 10. Even if you don't like LDS fiction, I think that you will find this book is special. A perfect Christmas gift!!!

"Kathy Colton can't stand her brother Brett. Her family talks as if he were perfect! All Kathy knows for sure is that Brett is dead. He died of leukemia when he was seventeen and she was only two. But when Kathy turns sixteen, she discovers her brother's hidden journal—a journal written especially for her—and learns about the brother she never knew. At the same time, Kathy is mortified by an assignment to tutor the popular high school quarterback Jason West, a football jock who, even worse, is a Mormon. Author Kay Lynn Mangum brilliantly weaves dual stories of a dying brother and a coming-of-age sister who learn the importance of loving family and nurturing faith."

Happy Thanksgiving 2007!!!

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all
I have had a good, relaxed Thanksgiving, when it could have been pretty hectic. I will show come captured memories of this holiday with my mom's side of the family at our house:

Father and daughter
Mother and new-born daughter
the roll contest!
Cousin babies Sam and Gracie - they look like twins!

and from my dad's side of the family at my grandma's house:
We just spent the day before and the actual day of Thanksgiving at my dad's parents house. My dad has four siblings, and all of them are married, but only his baby sister, Gina and her family came too. So it was a smaller than usual, but less stressful and more relaxing.
My mom took Christmas pictures for Gina's family. Her 3 little boys are so freaking cute!!!
A cute happy baby poking her head out from underneath the covers after her nap
The baby cousins playing together
one big happy fam
hungry sisters waiting to eat the yum-yummy dinner
our Thanksgiving table
they want pie!
Mia's pilgrim finger puppet show
Hope you had a good day!

Fiddler on the Roof

Here is the other play that I saw that I was talking about.

Noah and Eden, good friends I made over the summer, moved up to Provo before school started. They had done homeschool all of their lives, until this year! They're going to high school up there! Noah is a senior this year, his one and only year of public school.

So anyways, he got the main role in his school play - Fiddler on the Roof!!! He was Tevye! Me, Gina, and Sam (Sam's parents drove us) went up to his school after school on opening night.

Gina and Sam hadn't seen Fiddler on the Roof before - CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! So I knew what was going to happen. But Noah was absolutely amazing. And I'm not just saying that because I'm his friend. He had a crowd of people around him after the play. People who didn't even know him were freaking out at how good he was. His accent, voice, emotions etc...were perfect. You wouldn't think he was a high school student. And his dance - was perfecto. Every time we did it, we screamed like he was a rock star. After the play, I got him to do it for me and I recorded it...

Ahahaha this is Sam with his new Macbook Pro that he got for his 18th birthday from his parents. We took lots of funny pics on it on the way up to the play. Gina kept touching the screen with her fingers on accident, so he had to keep wiping the screen with his tie. ahahaha

Emily, my mini-me

This is to my freakishly cute cousin, Emily.

She will be 8 years old next month...wow!!! I remember playing with her when she was a baby. She was so wiggly, you could barely hold her. And she would mimic everything you did.

Now that she's older, I swear she's my mini-me. And Emma (another cousin), is Tashi's mini-me.

Well, we went on this girls weekend up in a condo in Park City with some aunts and girl cousins from my mom's side of the family. and she was so cute and funny the whole time!!!

It's pretty funny actually, because she's the midpoint between me and 3 other kids at school. Brooke and Bryant, twins that are seniors at our high school and in our ward, and Rachae, who is my age, are cousins of Emily too, on the other side of the family. I'm kind of related to those 3 kids! Because Emily's dad is my mom's little brother, Paul, and they both went to the high school I'm going to now. And Emily's mom, Nancy went to the same school too. So her family and our family are from the same place.

But Emily is more like me. She kept saying the cutest things that weekend. My favorite is: "My heart is set on a manicure~"

Grow up to be cool like me, okay Emily?!

Beauty and the Beast

I've had fun going to 2 different schhol plays this week. I will talk about our school musical!!!

Tashi was a villager and a napkin so grandma and grandpa even came to see. Haha Everyone asked me why I didn't do anything for the play, and I told them it was because I'm already in drama class, and I'm going to be in the school play, our class will be more centered on that while the chorus class is more centered on the musical. And our drama class had just done that short play on Halloween.

I actually wanted to be a silly girl chasing after Gaston, but I think the part fit Kember, DeniAnn, Mekenzie, and Rachae better ahaha

If you can tell from the pictures, it was Beauty and the Beast. The cast and crew were at school 7 am in the morning for practice, and a few hours after school. Tashi got very grouchy from her lack of sleep. The night before opening night, they had practice from 5:30 to 11 pm. Yikes!!!

We had a double cast, so there were good and bad parts about the different casts, and it wasn't amazing because we are a low-budget, 2A school (it was nothing compared to the other school play I saw this week), but I knew all the people in the cast because our school is so small. So it was funny to see almost everyone in our school going up and saying their funny lines and acting totally different from how they usually do.

I loved "Jumbo" as the Beast, and Grant as Gaston. *sigh*
It was sad to see everyone in the cast back to their normal selves at school the next day. That's what I love about plays. They're so magical. Can't wait 'til next year's musical!!!