So, as you all know, last friday I got to play back up to David Archuleta. How did this happen you might ask? Well this is what happened, earlier in the week my friend heather came and told me her secret. She had gotten a "gig" as we musicians call them, but she was hesitant to tell me what it was. Finally I cracked her and she told me all about the David Archuleta concert. I had known about it for a while as all of my roommates had gotten tickets except for me. I never watched him on American Idol and I didn't really care...who needs another pop star anyway right?

However, on friday morning I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Two violinists (Both dudes) had dropped out of the orchestra and Sarah (the girl putting it together) was having a panic attack right in front of my work desk. then as if in slow motion her head turned to acknowledge me sitting at my computer. She came up and asked me If I was feeling like a confident violinist at the moment. (I told her YES of course) and then she asked me to play with them that night. Heather was right there and both of us got far to excited! I promised I would never be one of "those" girls... ya know...a "groupie." Well I skipped the rest of my classes to rehearse. My professors didn't mind, they were just as excited as I was.

This was my first POP concert EVER and the best part about it was I was getting paid to go and I was in it!

I was so sure that they were going to have him sing to a track and just have him mostly lip sync...but NO! He doesn't do that! he has such a good voice and he is very kind and loves his family a ton! I know cause I saw how he reacted when they came up to him after the concert. So If you buy the His new Christmas Album...all the orchestral parts in the background...those are me. Well, at least at the concert they were me. yup so thats that....It was fun...Ya jealous?

You have all been to one of those restaurants where you walk in and you know that somehow, inside that place your life might change for good. Well I had one of those experiences the other night. Ben had so kindly looked up an authentic spanish restaurant for us to go to! so about five thirty we packed up the kids and headed out. this was my first taste of maryland traffic...I was very slow going. However, we finally found the place...but, there was a sign on the front door. Diana got out into the rain to read the sign, only to find out that the only day the restaurant was closed was on mondays...Lucky us, it was monday! So we headed off to find another place to eat. We ended up at a little place in called "Roys Place." We walked in out of the rain and were quickly shown to our seats because, we were the only ones in the place...unless you count the busboy and his friends.

We opened up our menu's and proceeded reading off the names of all the sandwiches. Some of the names however, were less than reputable like, "mothers distress", or maybe "delilah the obscene!" Finally after scanning the 200 choices of sandwiches, half of which included "tongue" in them we came to our decisions!

It didn't take long for our food to get there, after all we were the only customers at the time. the sandwiches were huge, held together with toothpicks that could be replaced as jousting spears! I bit into my sandwich and wasn't all to bad.

I was about halfway through with my sandwich when I unfortunately looked up. Above me upon the wall there was the biggest, harriest moose you could ever imagine. It's nostrils were flared as if it was about to charge right through the wall onto our table. It's eyes were big and glassy looking at the scene before it with scrutinizing eyes! But last of all I noticed a thick band of moldy looking duct tape wrapped around the muzzle of the enormous bull moose. Upon closer examination I realized the purpose for the bad of tape... The jaws of the moose had been compromised and had at one point fallen of the original head...yes thats right! The JAW had been lagging and walloping so fervently that it had at one point fallen off, no doubt onto the very table we were sitting at!

Sheepishly I looked down at my stomach and my mind flashed violently back to images of reading that menu and seeing the word "TONGUE" printed all over the pages of riskay sandwiches! I knew for a fact that I could not finish the last half of my sandwich...and as we heard the train barrel past the restaurant outside I knew I would never forget this experience. I don't regret eating at this restaurant one bit...when we left I was laughing hysterically and Bella and Lucy must have thought that I was absolutely insane. Diana got mad at me for laughing, but she was laughing as well. It was an experience to be remebered!

My trip to Washington D.C was incredible! It was my first time flying alone and it made me feel very "independent." As I walked off the plane I was so excited to see Diana, Bellie and Lu! We had an absolutely marvelous time. Diana and I went to the temple that same night, and I have to say that the washington D.C. temple is by the most beautiful temple I have been in so far. If any of you have driven past it on the freeway you can understand why...one minute you are driving on this windy road surrounded by trees, then the next moment you are blinded by sheer heavenly light issuing from the most glorious building!

On monday after Bella got home from school we decided to have a party. This party consisted of hot chocolate and the Tinkerbell movie! We had a grand ol' time there watching Tink save pixie hollow from missing spring! Then that night Ben and Diana took me to dinner (see following post) and Diana and I went to go see "New Moon." I love my family so much! they love me even though they know how weird I am and Vice versa! We have a really weird family! however...we all are quite a bit alike...even if we don't realize or admit it. I had so much fun with diana as she showed me her home! I wouldn't trade any experience for the world. Especially this next one..................... :)

THE CALL FINALLY CAME!!!!

Well! My call is finally here! I can't believe it! I knew it would come this wednesday and I oculd not concentrate all day long! Class was useless....I would just stare off into space with a dreamy look on my eyes wondering where I might possibly be called. To be quite honest I never really believed the day would come!

I was studying my "Genetics for Dummies" book when my phone buzzed on the table in the music building. the entire symphony was out in the hallway on their lunchbreak. I answered the phone, my hands shaking. I heard mom and dads voices as they opened my call in anticipation...then they began to read....Dad read silently to himself then started laughing. this did not sit well with me as he had been joking all week that I would be called to Boise Idaho.

finally they told me where I would be serving...My mouth dropped and my heart almost stopped. MALAGA SPAIN!!!!! I could not believe it! Spain had to have been the only country that never crossed my mind! But It felt right!...and It was my call!

Beauty Around Us

My psychology professor assigned me to meditate for 20 minutes every day for two weeks... with the "om" and everything. I tried it today but fell asleep, I kept making fun of myself in my head for actually humming to it. However, even though I find this exercise to be a little odd I can see the usefulness of it.

Sometimes I just wish life would quit being so busy and sit down beside me so that I could enjoy its company for a while. But that is not the way life works...or my life anyway. But I do remember a time when life was laid back and one could just gaze in silence as a summer day walked serenely down the road.

Sundays at grandmas house always seemed this way to me. The men would go into the back room and watch the sports game or 60-minutes. the women would sit in the front room and talk about whatever thoughts had been playing about their minds for the past week. On the cupboard there were always two glass dishes, one with "hot tamales" and the other containing "mike-and-ikes." And in the kitchen every summer you could find a tuperware of freshly cut watermelon (courtesy of grandma and grandpas amazing watermelon picking abilities).

The children would play together every sunday, we always had a number of things that we would enrapture our minds with whether it was sitting in one of the cars and listening to "hip music" which I never knew the words to. or playing night games like "ghost in the graveyard" or "Annie-i-over." However, one of my favorite things to do was to take a short hike up to the waterfall that was located in ogden canyon right behind my grandmas house. It was beautiful, and the pipe with the water running through it was cool and you could lay on it when the day was sticky and hot.

I recently had a chance to go back and visit my childhood hike and remember those days when life really was slow and easy. It reminded me of the beauty that is in this world, sometimes we pass it by to easily and we don't notice the colors and vibrancy surrounding us. I'm grateful to have these memories...I'm grateful to my aunts who I grew up listening to and most of all I'm thankful for the beauty that is constantly surrounding me.

Maybe it's not that life is to busy to sit with me for a while, but maybe it's that I just have not invited it over in a while.

All Grown Up Now?

As you all know I am the youngest of seven...(see title picture) and being the youngest I have always felt that I was expected to act a little more mature than my age...or maybe that is just how I was being raised with siblings that are a bit older than myself. I think maybe I tried to grow up to fast. I think I might still be growing up to fast. sometimes it feels like I should still be twelve and going through that awkward pubescent phase...I never really ever got that many zits. what happened? Sometimes I find myself saying..."after this next phase of my life I will be happier" I should be extremely Happy right now! Why do I always think that the next phase will bring happiness? It must be my attitude! My whole life I have been trying to catch up to my brothers and sisters. I wanted to go to college when i was 13 so that I could experience the joys of living on my own. I wanted to serve a mission as soon as I graduated high school and was very upset that I had to wait. (patience is not a virtue I have) When I went away to good ol' BYUI I was brainwashed to think that if I am 20 and unmarried that I am a spinster! THIS DOES NOT SIT WELL WITH ME!!!!

I figured out today that I am probably never going to catch up to my brothers and sisters...they are all at different parts of their lives. I love them all so much and thats why I have striven to be like them. but it's time for me to live my own life. I am 20 yrs old, getting ready to serve a mission. and I just went through the temple for the first time. I am happy where I am.

For once I'm gonna act my age!

I'm getting ready to serve a mission! My papers are almost filled out and I'm beginning to prepare. I was trying to choose the proper picture to put on my mission papers. they were all "selfies" as Anne used to call them. However, it was still me in every single picture, so they all looked (of course) very similar. Dad told me the process of how they issue the calls and looking at the picture was a very big part of it, so I had to have the perfect one. I was going through each one wondering if it looked like I should be sent to a specific place...(I was hoping for Europe) But most of them looked like I would be sent to mexico or texas (to me anyway). Well this is the one I chose...what do you think? Do I look European?

A legion of Five

This summer has been so incredibly hard but beautiful at the same time. Life can be so horrible sometimes, to the point where you think that the world will implode upon itself...and for a while it seems that way. But someway or another we pull out of ourselves and we become something different, something a little more refined and beautiful. it is love that shapes us this new way. here is my favorite passage By C.S. lewis.

To Love is to Be Vulnerable

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell.

(C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 169)