ENGLAND {part 2: york and whitby}

well. it's almost been like...1 month since we went to England. and boy have I been slacking. I've been so busy with homework, school, work, piano, and friends. Dad finally let me start driving his car to school and I have been taking my friends everywhere. it is soooo fun, and I have been waiting my whole life to be able to do that, and we have had a blast everytime! once a week, my reallllly good friend Kate (who I saw at the airport in the last post ) and I have our special lunch dates, and they are really my favorite part of the week. Today, my saint of a mother left Einstein Bagels and some cookies at my house, and pretty much everything was gone after we went back to school! anywayssssss.... back to England.

Day 3, we woke up at 5:30 in London to get ready for our next stage of the trip: York and Whitby. Most people haven't heard of either of those places, but let me tell you, they are the prettiest places I have ever gone. you know in the movie Pride and Prejudice, the beautiful green English countryside? it almost looks unreal, doesn't it? well, that's actually what England looks like. It is gorgeous. We were to meet our Castle cousins in York, and then go to their house in Whitby and spend 2 days there. Uncle Chris is in the Air Force, and what a lovely (windy) little (cold) place to be assigned!
We boarded our train at Kings Cross Station early that morning so we could board the train to Hogwarts!

(we wish.)

we somehow ended up in York instead. and it was super cold and rainy. but we were excited to see our cousins who we hadn't seen for about 3 years. and boy, have they grown up! Alyssa is 2 years younger than me, Alec is in between Wesley and Justin, and Hayden is a year younger than J. We went to the York Castle Museum (hahahahahahahahahahahaha get it, the Castles went to the Castle museum. I'm going to use that stupid little joke a lot in these posts, so be prepared). afterwards, we went to some viking museum and Wes chose a silly little Viking flute as his souvenir. he entertained and annoyed everyone around him by playing the same 7 notes every chance he could. Me, J, our cousins, their parents, and our parents were probably really close to breaking that thing!

 Alyssa and I. I'm 2 years older and much shorter.

 Hayden, Wes, J, and Alec

 We climbed a lot of stairs at this tower.

 we tried. we really tried.

 the Castle "women": me, Mom, Alyssa, and Rochelle

sometime in the middle of the day, the sun came out. then, we went to the York Minister and BAM it started pouring again. afterward, we got tortured and went to the York Dungeon and watched some really scary shows about the Plague, King Henry VIII, and Mom got put on trial for "dancing naked" (the actual dancing didn't occur, but the trial did. it's hard to explain.) finally, we were on our way to Whitby and stay with our cousins. the boys immediately ran to the backyard to play some soccer, and Alyssa let me take her comfy bed while she slept on the beanbag. what a saint.

next morning I woke up with some pretty nasty allergies. my lips were chapped and swollen, I was coughing up a storm, and my eyes dried up so bad I could barely see. this day was the boys favorite, and one of my hardest. we went to the Captain Cook museum in Whitby and walked by the harbor. we ran into some missionaries there, too! it was so exciting to see our missionaries in the teeny town of Whitby, England!

next, we went to Castle Howard. This was everyone's favorite thing because it had a super cool playground. and I had a really cool experience there. (too bad Rochelle took all the pictures and we don't have them.) so, there was a beautiful grand piano in one of the rooms there, and the lady who works there saw me eyeing it, and asked if I knew how to play. I said "yes" and she gave me permission to play! so, I played a grand piano in Castle Howard in England, and a lot of tourists that I didn't even know were watching. one old man asked me if it was the First Arabesque by Debussy, and indeed it was. I was so proud that I played it well enough for someone to recognize it! for the rest of the trip, I was not feeling very well at all and I had to just live through it. on our way back to Chris and Rochelle's, we stopped at one of the train stations that was featured in Harry Potter!

day 5 in England (day 3 of this post), we just chilled in Whitby again. Mom's camera died, so we didn't get a lot of pictures, and I really wasn't feeling good that day. but I was determined to have a good time on the last day with my cousins. we went to Whitby Abbey (where the boys played Fugitive together) and took a walk around town. we went to the beach and all the boys jumped into the North Sea with their clothes on. I didn't even get close. then, we had Fish and Chips for dinner. It was not exactly what I expected. They gave me a whole fish that I couldn't even finish. It wasn't my favorite thing, but we were in England, and what's a trip to England without fish n' chips?
we went to bed way early that night to prepare ourselves for getting up at 4:40 to drive to york, and catch the train to Edinburgh, Scotland! which, deserves a separate post. so, stay tuned for part 3. could come tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. we'll see.

ENGLAND { part 1: London }

ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of going to England. I had read about it in several books, and had seen it in movies. One of my really good friends in my neighborhood was from England, and I was fascinated. This year, I am in AP World History, which is my favorite class. I love history so much, and find it very interesting and fascinating. We are in our European unit right now, and we had just covered British history. I loved it and I wanted to go even more.
Last year, my dad brought up the possibility of going to England. He often does that about vacations, and we never go on them. I still haven't gone to San Francisco yet, and about 4 years ago, he asked, "how does San Francisco sound?" so I thought he might be joking. but around Christmastime, he was totally serious. He bought a British guide book and announced that we would go during spring break. Words cannot describe how excited I was. I counted down the days until we could leave.

ok this is not actually an England picture. but I just so happened to run into Kate, one of my very best friends, at the airport. Unfortunately, they were not going to London with us (although it would've been fun!) They went to New York instead, which is where we will go in the summer! but still, I had no idea we would run into each other, and it was really exciting. and I know, I didn't look very good. Wesley tried to sneak a picture and I guess Kate got the memo and I did not.

2 flights and 14 hours later, we were in London. We were all very tired, but since we arrived in the afternoon, Dad wouldn't let us sleep. we rested for a few minutes, and got right down to business. 1st destination was Kensington Palace. Prince William and Princess Kate live there with Baby George. Queen Victoria used to live there, and so did a few other people. I don't remember who. I was so tired during this part, that I thought I would just fall over and drop dead.

 

onto Queen Elizabeth's house, Buckingham Palace. this was the closest we could get. we couldn't actually go inside, but at least we got to see it, and it was amazing. we also missed the Changing of the Guards, but..who cares. at least we got to see it! and I would love to live there myself.

 

my favorite movie is Zoolander, and Wesley is trying to copy the "blue steel" look here. he is going through a phase where he won't cooperate and make a simple smile.

Justin got really grumpy because of jet lag, and he wanted us to get out of here FAST. we had to take the subway back to our apartment as quickly as we could before he killed us all. luckily, we had a Nando's right by our apartment and ate there. Nando's is not in the US, which is pretty depressing. it serves Portuguese style chicken, with this amazing spicy sauce called "peri-peri." they marinade their chicken in lime, mango, or lemon and herb, and it is sooooooo good. we loved it so much, we came back on our last day as well! now, if only we could bring Nando's back to America. or at least the peri-peri sauce. 

onto Day 2

 

Day 2 was the Tower of London, where King Henry VIII imprisoned basically anyone who disagreed with the Church of England and had his wives beheaded. I just learned about this in AP World History, so it was really neat to actually see what I had just learned about. Mom has a new obsession with King Henry VIII and watches every TV special about him, and has read pretty much every book about the subject as well. She took about a million pictures of everything, but I had to be selective in what I chose to post. we had a really funny tour guide named Bob, who told us all the history. Justin got bored pretty fast. Mom and I were really interested in everything he had to say. After the tour, we got to go inside and see torture chambers, armor, the crown jewels, and fancy golden dishes used at coronation ceremonies. It was raining in the morning, but in the afternoon, it cleared up. It was still very cloudy. It is rarely sunny in London, actually. as you probably know, I get depressed when I am without sunlight for too long, so I don't know if I could handle living there! although it is an amazing city, and I would love to visit as much as I possibly can.

 

this bridge is Tower Bridge. People mistake it for London Bridge, when actually, this one is more famous. London Bridge is just plain and blah, and is actually in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Us Americans were duped into buying the wrong bridge. we thought we were getting Tower Bridge, but we actually got the boring lame one, and London kept the exciting one. we got to walk across the bridge and along the Thames River, and finished our day off at the Museum of London. It covered many years of London's history, which again, Mom and I found fascinating. we could've stayed in there all night, if it weren't for Justin getting hungry again! Both Justin and Wesley are hitting their growth spurts, and all they do is eat. Justin gets really whiny and cranky without food, and he was practically crying because he wanted to leave so bad. finally, he dragged us out of there and into some bakery, where we had yummy British sandwiches. we then went back to our apartment and ate some more and played a few rounds of Uno before we had to go to bed. We had to wake up at around 5 in order to catch the train to York, which will come in the next post!

PS. If you are already bored, just skip this whole England trip altogether. there are tons more pictures to come! it could take up possibly 3 more posts. who knows. but that's all for tonight. 

MORP: my first date of hopefully more to come.

I don't know about most 16 year old sophomore girls, but the second the date of MORP was announced, I got sooooo excited. It would be the first dance I would be able to go to, and I would get to ask! (which, I guess for a lot of girls, that's a scary thing. even for me, I kinda freaked out just a little bit.) so I tried to talk some of my friends into forming a MORP group with me, and they were reluctant, but they agreed to at least help me ask and be in a group with me. so, I decided to ask one of my best friends, Kalvin. so, this is what I came up with: get a Little Caesar's Hot-N-Ready pizza, write my name under the slices, left it at his house, drove away...you know the rest.

and he said "yes."

"I would be a dum-dum if I didn't go to Morp with you!"

so, that wasn't too bad. I ask in a creative way, he answers in a creative way, Wesley sneaks into my room and steals half my dum-dums, and everyone's happy. but none of my friends had asked yet, but I figured they would let me know when they would. finally, they come up to me and say "We actually aren't going to Morp anymore."

so of course, I can't believe it and ask why. they come up with all sorts of excuses: we don't want to pay for it, we're too scared to ask because we'd rather be asked on dates than ask (k seriously, I just asked on my first date and it's scary but it's not that big of a deal!), they just didn't want to go... bullcrap reasons. so I'm obviously not very happy because my group just bailed on me, and I guess it wasn't really ever set in stone, but still. in Utah, it's just custom to go on group dates for our day date, and to eat dinner with. so, I can't plan a date by myself, so I ask all my friends in my grade, and none of them are going. so I start to ask juniors, which kind of feels awkward because even though we are friends, I'm a sophomore asking to be in a group with juniors, and it just felt a little embarrassing. finally, 2 weeks before the dance, my friend Emmaline from tennis tells me that I can join her group, even though they had no idea what they were doing. and I am a very organized person, and I always have to know what we're doing, where we're doing it, and when we are doing it. this really annoys some people. but I just decided that since I wasn't in charge and they were older than me and have been on dates before, they knew what they were doing, so I would just be good with whatever.

for our day date, we went to Nickel City and wasted all our nickels on the Jackpot game. the most we came out with was 3 tickets. we got a grand total of 129 tickets and couldn't get any of those cool prizes, so we were good with suckers. afterwards, we got some frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. if anyone is reading this, I love frozen yogurt, especially mango or coconut or strawberry. and to be "healthy", I pile as much fruit on top as I can. then we all went home to get ready, and an hour later, we went to the Riverwoods to take pictures.

 yes, I have heels on. I went from 5'0'' to 5'2''. still much shorter than everyone.

the theme for the dance was a masquerade. we didn't have these masks on for long.

 the girls. I didn't know that "cocktail attire" was black. or white. not bright orange. but oh well. makes me look even more like a sophomore.

me, Savannah, Kenzie, Sarah, Daryl, Emmaline, Katya, and Brooke

 me and Kal, Britain and Savannah, Tristan and Sarah, Samson and Daryl, Devin and Emmaline, Jordan and Katya, Luke and Brooke, Preston and Kenzie

 and please don't ask what I am doing with my hand.

then, we went to Pizza Factory for dinner. I went there for a tennis banquet back in October and they took 2 hours to get my food. they actually brought it to us right as we left. so, I am less than satisfied with their service. only took them an hour to give us our food. but that made time for lots of talking and laughing. good times.

finally, we were ready to go to the dance and showed up at around 10. some really lame couples were leaving at that time, so I thought not very many people would be there. well, I was wrong. so many of my friends were there. everyone looked so good, and looked like they were having a good time. we danced until the DJ told us to get out. I can't say how fun it was. IT WAS SO FUN. afterwards, we changed into comfortable clothes and went to Brooke's house and made waffles at midnight.

even though it drove me crazy trying to get myself into a group, it was worth it. everyone had so much fun, and I had the best date. we laughed every minute of it, had so much fun together wasting nickels and losing half our tickets, eating "healthy" frozen yogurt, waiting an hour for our food, dancing until our feet practically fell off, and eating waffles at midnight. I could have not asked for a better first date!

gray days

I think we all know that I hate the month of February.
I feel like I am in a depression phase. I really shouldn't use that term, because there really are people out there who really do struggle with real depression and take medication. and I'm not like that. I don't start dressing in black and stop doing my makeup and write deep, depressing poetry in my spare time.
No, this is just an overall gloominess that lasts throughout the entire month of February. you know, that first snow of the year we get, in around December? Or in Utah, it can happen in October or November but I don't really count those..the first snow that sticks. in December. everyone gets really excited because snow. skiing, snowmen, sledding, hot chocolate, and the world is just covered in a white, sparkly blanket. this joy, for me, lasts only a few days.
once it gets to February, I'm over it. I can't take the cold, gray days anymore. I'm sick of seeing snow on the ground. I want to see the sun. I'm just a lot happier when the sun is out. I do enjoy the occasional gray day, where I can just stay inside and play piano and read a good book. but not everyday for a whole month. and then, I get depressed.
oh, how my body longs to see the sun again! oh, how I would love to not wear a jacket everytime I walk outside! to get into my stash of spring and summer clothes, and start wearing short sleeves again. to walk home from school without freezing (because I don't get to use the car until my dad starts riding his bike to work. so yeah, I get the car when it's warm, and I walk or have to get rides when it's cold.), get home from school, rip off all my clothes, change into a tennis skirt and a tank top, and go up to the court to hit some balls. to pull my hair back, and feel the sun on the back of my neck. and yes, I do miss those embarrassing tan lines. they are still there, but they are faded. and I miss them. even though it is awkward looking like this. having skirt tans, racer back tans, sock tans... I miss it.

so pretty much, when I don't see the sun for a long time, I get depressed. I go insane. My happy, sunny self is gone. I complain all the time. I just want to sleep until it's warm again. I want to play tennis. OUTSIDE. the indoor courts are okay, but nothing can compare to playing outside in the sunshine. I eat a lot more than I should, because I'm depressed. but it's too dang cold outside to go for a run. so, have you ever been through a February-depression phase similar to mine? don't worry, you're not alone. here are some things that I have done to try to keep myself sane:

• read a book. I used to be an avid reader,and if I was hooked on a good book, I could sit still for hours until I finished it. once I got into junior high, I lost that sense of pleasure reading because I had so much homework, and it only got worse in high school. I only read when I was forced to. but now, I have been looking for good books to read in my own spare time, and they have kept me happy and helped me forget about the craziness of school and girls and boys and crappy weather.
• make yourself a playlist of good gray day songs, or happy songs that bring back memories of good times. put playlist in car, and go on a little drive in the evening. I like to go up in those neighborhoods on the hill, so I can look at the pretty houses and the gorgeous sunsets. It just makes me feel really good and at peace with myself. or, bring a friend with you, and just drive around and talk and listen to good music. 
• listening to these same playlists, go in your room and read old journal entries, and write some more. 
• clean your room. believe it or not, this helps. I feel like my life is put together.
• play piano. not practice, but play, just for fun. open up to some of your favorite songs and let it out there. pleasure playing. I like that.
• write songs.
• pull yourself together, put on a jacket, and go for a little run. even though the weather may be crappy, you'll feel so much better.
• take your little brother to go get a smoothie at Jamba Juice with you. you get real bro bonding time, and you get a good smoothie as well.
• bake cookies, and bring them to your friends. it's always great to make someone's day.
• go skiing. I used to ski all the time with the ski program at Rock Canyon. I learned to ski through that program, and my favorite part would be exploring Sundance by myself, and doing free skiing. these past few years, I have been way too busy. but this year, i was determined to go at least once. so, on Presidents day, I went up with my family and had the best day of this entire winter, skiing all day. it feels so good to get fresh air up in the mountains, and it is a great workout. and even though I am really sore, it feels so good. even if you've never skiied before, it's never too late to learn. just do it. it's great exercise, it's fun, and it feels good.
• keep looking forward, and know that the sun will eventually come out. and when it does, life will be SO GOOD.

i hate
when a girl is quiet
everyone assumes that
she's overthinking.
she's crying inside.
she's falling apart.
she's done.
she's depressed.
but maybe
she
is
just
really
really
really
really
hungry.

happy sweet 16 to me.

ever ask a little kid how old they are? well, I have and it's pretty cute. sometimes they will look all confused, so then you ask them, "well, how many are you?" they will hold up a small number of fingers, between 3 and 5, showing how many years they are on each finger. well, the day has come. on Thursday, January 23, I turned that many fingers. I had the best birthday ever. for lunch, I invited a ton of my friends over to my house. pretty much anyone who could get a ride could come. I knew a lot of people would come, but I was surprised at how many people actually came. There were 60-70 people there! I live in a nice little house in the Edgemont area, so not too far from Timpview, but not close enough to walk home for lunch. all my friends who could drive, packed as many people as could fit in their cars, parked in my culdesac, and joined like 60 other people to celebrate with me! My mom and my grandma made Cafe Rio pulled pork salad. (ok, not Cafe Rio but the closest thing we could get.) It tasted pretty dang close to the real thing. I would know, I eat there every chance I get! The food was amazing. Everyone ate everything on their plate. Roughly half the population were boys, who ate probably 5 helpings each. They were so nice and didn't throw food at each other, destroy the house, or light anything on fire, so that's good! for dessert, we had cream puffs, lemon cupcakes, and 3 kinds of cookies. Everyone liked everything, but I'd say the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies were the biggest hit. Those are my favorites as well, and I could eat 10 without stopping.

I got clothes and cash. Which is just what I wanted. OK. I really wanted a car, but we know how my parents work. I have to pay for everything, and sometimes I can barely pay my iPhone bill every month. so a car is out of the question. but we have 2 cars, and my dad rides his bike to work when it's warm, so I get a car for part of spring, part of fall, and pretty much the whole summer. better than nothing. but I really just want my own car, so I can drive myself to school every day. I can go to lunch more. I wouldn't have to ask for rides all the time. sometimes I hate doing that, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

speaking of which...

I can drive legally now. I just don't have a car.

so anyways, 16 is a pretty great year. I can't believe I've made it this far. my 15th year was probably the best year of my life. So many good times playing tennis, good friends, good vacations, learning to drive...a year full of good times. let's hope that 16 is even better!

no one even reads this anymore.

I really have nothing to say right now. except 4 things:
1. I turn 16 in 3 days! (the 23rd)
2. I passed my road test, so I should be LEGAL to drive right after I turn 16! Sadly, no car. But I'll figure something out.
3. Justin turned 11 on the 17th, and I still think he's 9. I guess he's either growing up too fast, or I'm a sucky sister.
4. I had a photoshoot the other day with my lovely friend Bailey, and she took these really good pictures of me. and don't ask why I'm holding these rocks. I'm just an interesting girl. and I like rocks.