I did it folks

i dyed my hair! but before you freak out and are all, "what? you can't dye your hair! you're a red head dummy!" i didn't go hardcore and change my whole color. I've really been wanting to do something different with my hair lately. I mean have long hair is fun and all, but after watching everyone else chop their hair like Julianne Hough i was really tempted to do the same. However, my sister came to me with the ombre idea and after some googling and pinterest-ing i decided to hop on board and go the ombre route, and i'm so glad i  did! :)

My brilliant hairstylist/sister!

I was getting a little worried i would look like a cave-woman forever! not to mention combing out my hair took a million years, but it was worth it :) 

end result:

Yay! i love it! the best part is how subtle it is, because i was so worried it would turn out drastic and crazy! Luckily it turned out just right :)

our new hobby

One of the things my friends and I have discovered over the past few weeks is apple schmear. I don't really know who came up with it, but its very simple. You start by getting a bag of apples and some racquets. Then you go to an empty park and have one person pitch the apples while the other person tries to hit the apple and it explodes everywhere. I guarantee this will keep you entertained for at least 20 min.

So next time you're sitting around bored, and you have some apples the spare, go ahead and try it. you know you want to. just remember to tie your long hair back. If not you'll end up with sticky apple chunks in your hair. trust me. not fun. 

Winter Break 2k12

After school got out we headed straight up to St. George to spend Christmas with my sister Andrea and her family. Since Amanda is gone on her mission and all of my siblings were spending Christmas with their in-laws this year it would've only been me and my parents. lame. So why not go spend it with three of the cutest kids around? :)

 of course we had breakfast with Daddy (or Grandpa now i guess) on Christmas Eve

On Christmas morning, this is me being the BEST aunt ever while helping Kylie figure out her new Easy bake Oven and her light up sketch thing :) 

Christmas night we went to see Les Miserables! However, no one told us that at the theaters in Utah you have reserved seating! so we showed up almost two hours early and STILL had to sit on the front row. Luckily it was totally worth it! 

When we got back from St. George i went and saw Les Miserables AGAIN, but this time with my friends. still completely in love with it.

For New Year's Eve my family had our first Fondue party. Don't worry we only smelled like oil for three days. Then Me and my friends watched Pitch Perfect (holy crap, super funny), and then headed to a party. High school dance parties never fail to surprise me. Holly and Lindsey both got pushed to the ground and were almost stampeded on, The dad had to break up a fight, the mom was pounding on the windows from the inside signaling the girls to get off the windowsills, and we actually heard several boys keeping track and counting how many girls they kissed at midnight, i think the winner was 26. Oh and this party was thrown by an LDS kid. After midnight we got the heck out of there and went to Holly's to ring in the New Year with some sparking cidar :)

worst picture ever, but the only one we got all night. 

Wednesday, Holly invited us to go Snowboarding with her family. I had never done it before, but have always wanted to. Plus everyone says your first time is absolutely MISERABLE, but i honestly didn't think it was too bad. I was no professional by any means, but for the most part it was pretty good. The next day i was suuuuuper sore. like i could barely move. However, it was totally worth it!

So i guess that's about all, folks. My last few days of break will probably be spent catching up on sleep, and maybe working on my online class. maybe. New Year's day i found out that the my boss sold the Ice Cream shop :( totally unexpected. I'm really going to miss it, but i guess i get to look for a new job for the new year. I haven't really made any resolutions, but seeing as how i graduate this year and begin college i'm thinking it's going to be a pretty spectacular year! :) 

Wrap up of finals week

  So there actually is an explantation for my lack of blogging, and i could easily blame it on my hours and hours of hardcore studying for my finals, but too bad that wasn't the case. In fact i probably did everything and anything other than studying, which probably explains why i didn't do too well on them, but hey for a senior i was pretty proud. They weren't kidding about senioritis.

Anyways, here is what i did instead of studying this week:

Temple lights! it took us about 4 tries to get a picture and it still didn't turn out decent. 

My friend Drew in my seminary class FINALLY gave me the Smeagol picture! I've been begging him all semester to give it to me. For some reason I find it to be super hilarious! But maybe you need to know Drew for it to be funny. 

(yes. i think she is looking at me and saw me take this picture.)

Finally kissed this class goodbye! i cannot wait to never take an environmental science class ever again. Don't get me wrong, i'm no animal/tree killer, but when this woman is your teacher you begin to want to become one. She's exactly how you would picture an environmental science teacher. We begin each class with a namaste, and end each class with a lecture on tragedy of the commons.

Another great way i avoided studying was going to the nail salon with my mom for a few hours for an early Christmas gift. note the magazine article on Les Miserables. You better believe i will be first in line to see that Christmas day!

ok, ok, so i guess i met up with a couple of friends at Thrive to study a little bit, but really i just went for the acai bowl. It really was just an excuse to socialize, but also be able to tell our parents we were working on our study packets :)

 I spent a few hours at a completely EMPTY ice cream shop. No one wants ice cream when its 40 degrees outside. No one. 

Thanks to Ash and David i expanded my movie collection! i've still got a massive list of more to get, but so far i'm pretty proud of it! Feel free to donate ;)

Last night we broke the rules and popped open some Martinelli's. i guess you could say we're just preparing ourselves for New Year's eve... or we were just really craving some sparkling cider and decided to make a big deal of it.

So that was my week of procrastination. Luckily my grades didn't suffer too bad, and now i get to relax for a couple of weeks.

Last semester of high school, here i come. Bring it on. 

This is the good stuff

These are the best kinds of nights. The nights where its just me and my Momma sipping Stephen's mint hot chocolate, and enjoying Hallmark's newest Christmas movie. The ones where you can predict how it'll end within the first fifteen minutes. I cannot even begin to explain how excited i am that it is finally December! There is no other month that gives you this good of a feeling. My one and only complaint would be the 75-80 degree weather we're getting. Come on Gilbert, you can do better than that.

Thanksgivins'

This past week was a pretty eventful one. It started off with Andrea and jeremy and their three munchkins coming into town on Sunday to stay for the whole week! best thing ever! I love love love having them here! Since they are the only ones in our family who live out of state it totally completes us when they're here. And lucky for me i hardly had to work at all this week PLUS we got out after Wednesday for the weekend at school. :)

Thursday we had our family plus some of our extended family join us in our feast. We didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but i did snag a picture of this masterpiece. All credit to my creative sis, Andrea

Thursday night/Friday we of course did some hardcore black friday shopping. i started by going to Walmart and Target with my sisters, and then at midnight me and my friends went to the Chandler mall. I had never really gone clothes shopping on black friday, but it was exactly how i imagined it. We were all crowed around a gate and once midnight struck people were stampeding out! Everyone was running throughout the mall. it was insanity! we ended up staying out until 5a.m. and then crashed until about 12p.m. the next day. It was quite the shopping experience.

(This is clearly not the best picture of us, but i wanted one that showed the crowd)

Friday night was our day date for Winter formal. We ended up having to do the day date the weekend before the dance, because of some schedule conflicts, but nevertheless it was a blast! We went to Castles n Coasters, which is a super ghetto amusement park in Phoenix, but its so fun! there was hardly anyone there so we didn't have to wait in lines. 

The rest of the weekend we laid low and enjoyed our last few days with the whole fam eating leftover turkey and watching Elf.

 Speaking of which it is now officially time to crank up the Christmas music, because my favorite time of the year has arrived and is welcomed with open, loving arms!

Now lets see if the weather will cooperate and go down at least 20 degrees so i can wear my boots without sweating.