Cheers to Harry!

On Saturday night I attended quite the party! I have been told I need to start calling it more of a small gathering since there were only four people in attendance, but it was a party to us! Hollie and her sister Krista decided to throw a Harry Potter themed party in anticipation of the 6th movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which comes out this Wednesday! I am actually not a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies thus far, but I still get into the spirit and go to the premieres and what not. The previews always trick me into thinking they are going to be amazing, but they just can't get as good as the books! Anyway, the party was quite a night to remember! I want to thank Krista and Hollie for all the hard work they put into making a truly magical night!

This is what beheld my eyes right when I walked through the door. It's so festive! I love it! The golden snitch isn't too hard to find this time..that's right people, that is a golden snitch cake! Yum!

Guests at the party included...

Mad-eye Moody, or Alastor is probably what he would prefer to be called.

Professor Trelawney

Moaning Myrtle...now let me explain my lame costume. I could not decide for the life of me who to be when my friends so brilliantly suggested Moaning Myrtle. They think I look like her. Is that good or bad? I'm not really sure. Anyway, in the movie she wears the robes, but I didn't have them so I tried to go for the student look instead. She is in Ravenclaw so I wore blue and I tried to make my face pale with this stuff from Fun Daze that apparently sucks. It mostly just looks like I have a weird skin disease. So it didn't come together very well but me posing by the toilet should be a dead give away.

And of course Harry Potter himself had to make an appearance!

Did I say four guests? Silly me. I meant five. Uncle Vernon joined us via satellite. Isn't this hilarious? Since Holly is now living in Boise, she couldn't be at the party in person but she didn't let that stop her from dressing up! And I would have to say I think she definitely wins best costume.

Here are the five of us ready for a night full of magic!

First on the agenda was finding a wand for each of us. We all had to try a few until we found just the right match!

This wand was obviously not the wand for Moaning Myrtle as it seems to be causing some sort of disaster!

Ooh it looks like Professor Trelawney found her match!

And Harry is conjuring something truly magnificent with his perfect wand! I don't have a picture of Mad-eye testing wands but I am confident he found a good one.

Next up was to get sorted into houses. The sorting hat couldn't make it so we settled for a simple internet quiz that is just as accurate.

GRYFFINDOR!!!

GRYFFINDOR!!!

GRYFFINDOR!!!

RAVENCLAW? Hmm...

Here is Myrtle again with all her goods she stole from the party. Butter beer, firebolt, wand, HP glasses, and HP stickers are just a few of the prizes for the party goers.

After we were sorted it was time for the costumes to come off for an intense game of Quidditch!

Teams: Krista and Alyssa vs. Hollie and BreeAnn

You can't see my shirt very good but it says Gryffindor Captain. I think I proved that I deserved this position during the match.

Since there was only four of us we had to make a few minor adjustments to the game. It went as follows: Two people would play a chaser/beater combo hitting a rubber ball with plastic bats and brooms inbetween their legs across the designated goals in front of Hogwarts.(aka the church next to Hollie's house) This is not as easy as it sounds. Bree actually scored more goals then me but only because she violated the one rule, kicking the ball across the line! While this was taking place the seekers would search for the golden snitch that the beaters had hidden before the match started. When the snitch was found, the match was over!

Bree and I hid the snitch in the dirt. It wasn't completely buried but almost, making it very very tricky to find!

Hollie and Krista made the snitch actually fly by placing it in the trees.

These poor souls got their trash kicked!

Yea for Gryffindor!!! Victory!

Funny side note: a cop saw us playing in front of the church and turned around to see what mischief we were up to. We hurriedly grabbed all of our quidditch supplies and started heading back to Hollie's, but once he saw the broomsticks and our Harry Potter shirts, he just said he was making sure we were having fun! He started to pull away, stopped, rolled down his window, and said,"Harry Potter?" Maybe he was confused as to why four girls in their twenties appeared to trying to create a fantasy game. He chuckled and drove away though!

Sometimes I have the nerve to think that people that really love Star Wars or Star Trek or some other weird show like that are total nerds, but it is very apparent from the evidence above that I am right along there with them! I can't help it. Harry Potter just makes me giddy! My favorite quote of the night was spoken by Deb Marshall, Hollie's mom. She looked around and said, "I just want to remind you guys that somewhere in the world, there are a bunch of ten year olds having this exact same party." Ha ha! Oh well! It was a great party!

Grandpa Gunter's big bash!

On Monday we celebrated my Grandpa Gunter's 80th birthday with a surprise party at their house. The big surprise wasn't as exciting as I had hoped because my dear grandma put 5:00 on all the invitations, but told my uncle to have him back to the house at 4:30 so he could get washed up. So there wasn't really anyone there when he walked in the door and he was just confused by the random decorations. Ha ha! But eventually he caught on and the party was great! He is quite the popular guy cause he had a great turn out! My grandpa is the cutest man ever and such a good example to our family. I think that he forgets that he is 80 because he tries to do so much! Like he can't see or hear but he continues to drive. Scary? Pretty much. He is always looking for opportunities to help people. I love him very much! Happy birthday Grandpa!

This is when he first walked in with the few people who were there.

My cousin Kent and his son Spencer.
Both of my adorable grandpas.

Me, my cousin Ally, and my cousin Carly. Oh, and Ruby! She was a naughty girl at the party. She chased my little cousin around and made him cry and everyone stopped talking and watched me chase her around the tree. It was a pretty embarrassing mom moment.

My father and his cousin Joni.

My aunt Peggy and uncle Earl. I was hoping some good dance music would come on cause my uncle Earl really owns the dance floor.

Me and my cousin Mackenzie.

Lexi Lou!

Lexi came to visit me in Logan for a week and it was so fun to have her here! I was especially nice to have her come to work with me because it made my job a heck of a lot easier! I didn't realize how good she is with kids. I still think she needs a babysitter so it is weird to me that she is the babysitter now! The kids absolutely loved her though and it was great for me!

It was so much easier to take the kids out and do things with a helper. We went to the park for a fun picnic!

And we also went to McDonalds one day so the kids could play on the toy. Berkley and Lexi got along great!

They spent a few days it seemed like blowing up all these water balloons for an intense water fight. Keaton has informed me many times that he won. Way to go!

Come visit again soon Lexi! Thanks for all your help!

Sad.

Well since this saga has finally had some sort of a conclusion, I thought I better share my thoughts about it. Last night was a pretty rough night for me. I knew I was not going to be able to watch the HUGE announcement live because I do not have access to any television channels here at my home in Logan. This in itslef is a huge struggle for me because, like what am I supposed to do with my life? But it has been expecially hard with all of this Jon and Kate drama going on because I have to wait until the next day at work to see the latest on my favorite t.v. family! So anyway, I was hoping to not find anything out until work today but when my internet pulled up the first thing on MSN was: Jon and Kate announce divorce. I instantly exited out of it and tried to pretend it was a dream but I couldn't stop the tears. I can't really explain why my heart goes out to this family so much! I just feel like I know them and they are a real family. They are not characters, this is really happening to them and my heart just breaks for those cute kids. I decided to just call my mom, who was currently watching the show, to confirm what I had just found out. She told me they did in fact announce their divorce, and I once again broke into sobs. It is just so tragic! And then I did the stupidest thing imaginable and put in season one of their show and just cried and cried watching them in happier times. Anyways, I really have no point in this other than to just get it off my chest because it has been on my mind all day. I watched the episode this morning and it just made me so sad. They both just kept saying that their main focus is still their children, but I kind of find that hard to believe. I think they have both just changed so much. I tend to blame Jon more and he sounded especially selfish during the episode. I hated when he said he was excited to start this new chapter in his life! Like, you can't just choose not to be a dad anymore! And those gay earrings make you look like a mega geek wad! And while I know that Kate loves her children very much I think she is a little caught up in the fame and money the show has brought her. She is so eager to keep the show going when she should really be focused on taking some time out of the spotlight to better their family. I was really glad the TLC announced a temporary hold on their show until August. I think that will be good for them! So these are my thoughts. I hope they really will try to do what is best for their kids in this difficult time!

Holla for Holly!

Holly came down from Boise(where her parents are keeping her prisoner for the summer) to attend the Taylor Swift concert. She was able to stay with me in Logan for a few weeks in order to see if she got any work from intermountain. While she was here we did loads of fun things! It really made me miss living with her here. We cooked dinner, went to movies, tried to go swimming in first dam in below freezing temperatures, went out to eat, and lots of other things! It was a blast and I can't wait to go visit her here in a couple weeks!

Rumbi Island grill...yum!

Apparently she wasn't only cold, she also got attacked by a shark. And lived to tell the tale!

Holly won the brave award this night becasue she went in past her knees. I think I put my big toe in.

We also went to Crystal Hot Springs and it was quite an adventure! It down poured for a good portion of the day but it was still really fun! I am choosing to not post those pics for a number of reasons. Come visit again soon Holly!

Nature Woman.

So apparently I am a total outdoor girl! Like I got this idea to go hiking yesterday and I just did it! That is totally not like me but I am trying really hard to move my body more than once a year. So, Hollie was up for the weekend and we decided to go to the wind caves. I remembered doing this hike one year for girl's camp and I also of course remember dying on it. That is not really saying much because I die when any sort of exercise is involved. Seriously. But I was really nervous we were going to pass out from exhaustion on the trail and ravenous animals were going to drag us deep into the woods to enjoy us as a Thanksgiving feast or something. Thankfully that didn't happen. We started out really motivated and happy with our decision. I was in a jolly mood taking pictures of the pretty nature scenes around us. About twenty minutes into our hike, our cheerful moods had disappeared only to be replaced by self loathing because of this terrible choice! Who goes on a death hike on a friday night when we could be enjoying a yummy Fh'zookie at the local Firehouse? At this point we asked some people coming down how much farther we had because we knew it had to be almost over judging by the fact that our legs had pretty much stopped working. To our dismay, the super skinny wench mom told us we were just getting started! For a brief moment we considered turning around. But we didn't want to feel like big fat failures so we kept going! We got a good timing system that helped us stay motivated. We seriously asked everyone we passed how much longer and one man a little past the halfway point really encouraged us! He told us that we could do it because the terrain was not any harder than what we had already done. He lied. The last half was killer! But I am still glad he was such a nice man to motivate us and make us feel strong! I am proud to say that we made it to the top! And it really was fun to do something active for a change! I want to keep climbing this same hike to see how well I progress.

We had no idea what was in store for us. Poor innocent souls.

We were a little nervous about the rough terrain ahead of us when we had to cross this river full of rapids that could have easily knocked us down within the first five minutes of the hike.

Here is one of the many beautiful pics I got when I still had energy to pull my camera out.

I believe we are trying to portray how exhausted we are, not quite sure.

Yea! We are the champions of the world! Nothing can stop us!!!!

We were so happy to finally see Winnifred again we just had to take a mament to hug and kiss her.

Taylor Swift and Vegas!

So, this is pretty lame of me to do but because I do things with the same people all the time and those same people have blogs, we end up having identical posts. So I am going to go ahead and tell you to check out either Britney's, Hollie's, or Jamie's blog for a complete synopsis of my experience at Taylor Swift. Let me just say that it was a night to never forget! Defeinitely one of my favorite concerts ever! It was a really fun girl's concert! And go ahead and check out Britney's blog for a summary of our fun weekend in Vegas. Also really fun! I had no idea I even liked Vegas. Like I thought we would run out of stuff to do but we actually couldn't even fit everything in! Crazy.Next time I will try to beat my insanely fast friends to the posting finish line!

I felt like I had to post at least one picture so here is a pic of me and my cousins when we were just wee ones. My cousin put it on facebook and it brought back so many memories! Plus, I just really felt like everyone should get to see how adorable I was.