Traditions

I love the traditions that we do in my family for Christmas and Christmas Eve. So for dinner in Christmas Eve, we have this soup from Mexico called Pozole. Then after we eat the soup, we open one present from Santa and it is always pajamas. We wear them to bed and all the kids pick a room that we want to build our fort in and we get all the blankets in the house and put them in a pile and sleep on it. On Christmas morning we go wake up our parents and we line up in their bedroom, youngest to oldest and walk down the stairs. Santa always leaves our presents out unwrapped so that we can just walk down and see them. And after we have looked at our presents from Santa, we move on to the presents from our family. We used to buy a gift for everybody for five dollars but it got hard to do that because we're older now and its hard to buy under five dollars. And so now we just buy gifts for the three people that were younger than you for ten dollars. Anyways, we open one at a time from oldest to youngest. And once we are all done, we just do what ever we want the whole day, besides play with friends. We don't even get a big breakfast, Santa brings us our favorite kind of cereal and we just eat that. I don't think we even have a dinner, but that's all right because we are having to much fun to come and eat dinner!

Setting up the Christmas Tree and Yearly Measuring

Christmas is coming! I can't believe that it's December! So this is what we do at the beginning of the Christmas month.

Set up the tree!

And at times get a little wild....

Do I need to explain?

And then we break out the "measuring tools". My dad calls these a level (to make sure it is just right so that no one is taller than him) and also a ruler.

And here is our little dance for you!

Friends

It's always nice to have good friends, especially if they are true friends. I have these friendship quotes that I email to all of my friends and one of my favorites is by Albert Camus, a journalist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957: Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; don't walk behind me, I may not lead; just walk beside me and be my friend. Another one that I think is really cute is by Winne the Pooh: If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred, minus one day, so I never have to live without you. I could go on and on, listing the ones that I like, but I'll spare you the time.

Success!

The Cider Festival was indeed a great success! I was only there for part of it, but the part I was at was sure fun. I was at my soccer game, that we won for the first time of the season seven to one and I scored, and didn't get back until about 4:30. I came back to my house and went on a couple hay rides, talked to a couple friends, ate a couple donuts, and then rushed off to a Halloween party with my friends. I would have some pictures to show but my mom didn't take any. It was very fun and the cider was really good. The donuts were also very delicious.

My soccer game was a success also, as you can see, and I scored! Usually I'm a defender, but my coach put me up in the midfield. It was the first win of the season for my team and the score was seven to one! In the other games the turn out was quite different, the average was about six to zero, us being on the lower side. So this was very exiting for us. That morning my coach had held a team breakfast and that really helped us. Two things in one day, success!

Cider Festival

Guess what? We are having the Cider Festival that we have every year, but didn't have last year! It is going to be on the 17th of October from 4pm to 6pm.
Here are some pictures of the festival from years past.

2006

2005

2003

Soccer

Yesterday, I refereed my first games. They were U6 and U8 games. I was only supposed to ref. one game, but the girl that was supposed to do the other game wasn't there so I got to do it for her. It was a lot of fun. I got a new watch and I absolutely love it. Anyways, I also played my own game and we lost six to three but it was an awsome game. I don't know why it was awsome but it was.

Referee Clinic

Hello, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was the referee clinic. Thursday and Friday were from 6:00 pm to 10. Saturday was from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Me and this girl named Paige, who was also taking the clinic, carpooled. I met this girl who went to Nampa that was my age and her name was Jessi. Well anyways Thursday and Friday we learned about the Laws of the Game. Saturday we learned a little of more on the Laws of the Game and then we took the test. It was 100 questions and it took about an hour. To become a referee you had to get 75% or higher. The instructor said he would give the person that got the highest score a really cool referee flipping coin. The person that got the highest score was this high schooler from Boise, he got 84%. That is really high. A few years back, my mom took the test with Josh and she got 83% and she is a really good test taker, so for this guy to get that score was amazing. Anyways I would like to introduce the newest referee in my family. Yes! I passed the test! I got 77% and I am an official referee. I have a badge and everything. I hope to make a lot of money off of this!

Temple

The temple that our stake goes to said that the youth can get temple recommends from one of the bishopric members and go do Baptisms for the Dead whenever they want to. So when I turned of age I got a recommend and we started going to the temple weekly. Sometimes my brothers and sister would miss a week. Well I didn't miss one. I kept going every week for six weeks and one of those weeks just me and my mom went. She went and did initiatory while I did Baptisms. There were alot of people there. Usually there is just about forty people but this time there was more like 100. Me and my mom were a little late so there was standing room only. And at this point I hadn't had any breakfast. So I was standing there and I felt like I had to sit down or else I was going to throw up or something. And then I thought, what if I faint? And all of the sudden I just started to get black spots in my vision and I thought, I'm going to faint. And then suddenly I was on the ground. It felt like I had just lied down on the floor and went to sleep and I was thinking, am I on the ground, wow this is embarrassing. and then one of the girls that were there said" Mary, you just fainted." And they sat me up and started asking me all kinds of questions. And they gave me some orange juice. Jesse's friend, Kali and her mom were there, and also our other friends, Zoey, Raigen, Brighton G. and Kimi F. Well they took me out to the hall and lied me down on some benches and left me with a really nice lady. When my mom came by to come pick me up she saw me on the benches, she said," Oh, your waiting out here?" and the lady told her that I fainted. So she took me home and also took me to McDonald's. I did get confirmed before we left but not baptized. They figured I fainted because I hadn't had any breakfast and I had locked my knees. These last two weeks the temple has been closed and I had to break my streak but it was a really fun experience and I will start it up again soon.

Teachers

Well, I got the teacher that I wanted. We are going school shopping on Saturday. I was going to be a Library Aide but there was a form that you had to turn in and they didn't get mine and so they didn't put me on the schedule. The only spot was during choir and I didn't want to give choir up so I gave up being a Library Aide with all of my friends. But my friend, Terrika, has almost the same schedule as me. I am so exited!

School

Oh my gosh! Summer has gone by so fast!! Today is registration and I get to find out who my teachers are! I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I can't wait to see if any of my friends are in my classes. And my friend Bailey is going to be in 6th grade so Me and her friend, Allie, get to tell her that she is a little 6th grader! haha Well that was done to me a lot by my sister and other people. Its only two weeks until the first day of school and we haven't even gone school shopping. I just can't wait! I really hope to get a teacher that Jesse and Joseph have all ready gotten. Jesse got him twice because he was in sixth grade at the time and Jesse and him moved up to seventh at the same time. They both really liked him. I really hope at least some of my friends are in my class!

Failure Daddy Daughter Pack Trip

Last week we had a Daddy Daughter Pack Trip. This is where Jesse and I get some of our friends and their dad's and we go on a llama pack trip. This year we invited Kami and Alesha C. and their dad. We also invited Sarah K., her dad, Savannah, Kenzie, Annie M., and their dad. We planned to go to a place called Boulder Lake. Then when we woke up the day that we where going to leave, it was really rainy and we decided that we didn't want to go if it was going to be like this the whole time. So we just set up a tent upstairs and had a sleepover, bu before that we went to a movie. The next morning we woke up and we felt like we could stand one night in the rain and we packed up and went to a different place southwest of here. Well, we were driving and we had barely gotten thirty miles away and the Suburban broke down. So we called Sarah's mom and she came and got us. When we were halfway home, her car ran out of gas and Kami's mom had to come and give us gas. So we got home and we didn't have a car to go in because the truck's brakes were bad. Instead we went to opening night of Night at the Museum 2 and after that we went to Carl's Jr. and played on the toy there. It was very fun and we had a good time. It wasn't a total failure. In fact it wasn't a failure at all.

Fair was this week and I showed my lamb.

I named her Bonny and Peter also had a lamb, he named it George, it was obviously a boy.

I've done this for three years and this is Peter's first year so I had to help him a lot. These are pictures of us showing Market. Market is where the judge places your lamb and the Fair Board puts it on a list and gives it to the buyers. The higher you are on the list the more money you get from your lamb. And Peter got first in his class and 27th out of about 150 lambs. And I got third in my class. So Peter was in the ring when they chose the Grand Champion.

The next day we did showmanship.

Showmanship is where the judge judges you and your lamb. you have to set it up right, keep your eye on the judge at all times, wipe off your lamb after he touches it and answer all the questions he asks you. My first year I got Reserved Grand Champion in the novice portion and I also got to go to round robin and you have to learn how to do all the animals in a couple of days. and then show them. And in my second year I didn't even get to show my lamb because it got really sick and they wouldn't let me in. So this year I thought I was going to get Grand Champion, I mean I was positive. Oh how I was wrong. I got dead last in my class. I was doing everything they had taught me to do and the only flaw was that I wasn't bracing enough. Oh well there's always next year.

On Saturday I get to sell it, and showmaniship doesn't have anything to do with selling, so that's lucky.

David Archuleta

I'm officially obsessed with David Archuleta. My friend Bailey got a CD of him for her birthday, we listened to it and I immediately fell in love with it. I put a bunch of his songs on my play list and my family is going to be sick of these songs by the end of the week.

Warm Weather!

I just love warm weather! I would way prefer being hot than cold because being hot is just uncomfortable but being cold hurts. Today we were planning to have a picnic in our back yard after church, but it didn't work out because my mom was sick and my dad was in the shower. I packed it and everything so Josh, Joseph, Jesse, Peter, and Libby came, but half of them didn't eat all of their food. Oh well, I guess things don't always work out, especially in this family. It's very warm day and I want to do something outside. Maybe we could go for a walk.

Sorry I haven't posted in so long its just that I've been so busy! If you go onto my mom's blog there is this really cool video. Jon Schmidt made this video for his daughter that is seven years old and her favorite song is Taylor Swift's Love Story and so he made this song for and he says that he just felt that it should go into Coldplay's Viva la Vida. By the way I also like Love Story and Viva la Vida so I liked this song a lot. I just love the cello guy how he just looks so happy when he plays. I was sick the day that my mom first found this video and while she was playing it I asked her "'What is this song?'" because I heard the Viva la Vida and the Love Story and I was really confused. I watched the video for Love Story on YouTube and I love the look on her face when she first sees him coming back at the end. It is just so cute!