Viva Las Vegas!!

My last vacation of the summer. Because school starts . . . TOMORROW! Truthfully, I am very grateful to be home. I feel like I have been gone so much, I am very out of sorts. But, it was great fun!! First we drove down to LA (my dance partner and I). We went to the beach, where we saw a seal!! He couldn't have been more than thirty feet away from us. From there we met up with my sister and her boyfriend (can't wait to see where that goes!) and had dinner. Pizza on Sunset Boulevard (after spending an hour driving Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd looking for a parking place. And seeing Sunset and Camden and singing it just like Debbie Reynolds. My partner didn't get it) Then we saw Wicked. Fantastic! Amazing! Loved it! So much better live! And we were in the seventh row!! Orchestra! Got to see everything. Amazing. Did I say that already? 'Cause it was!
Anyway, moving on. The next day we drove to Vegas and competed. That was really fun. There was a first round in Pre-Champ, which makes it quite a large event. I think we would have made the final if I hadn't been off-rhythm in the cha-cha. Totatlly sucks. Didn't like the DJ, it sounded as if the music started partway through the song. None of the judges called us back for the cha-cha in the semi and only one or two called us back for the other dances. That's what happens when the judges all watch you first and you start off rythym. But it was fun, I always enjoy dancing. The next day we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which quite possibly might be my favorite restaurant, and had dinner. We competed Amateur, but didn't get called back. Didn't expect to. This event only had a semi final, but there were many good dancers. Watching the Pro events was so much fun. My friend Jeremy competed there and did quite well and the standard event had an excellent level of talent.
Well, that was probably more on dance than you wanted to hear, but now I'm back! And probably won't be going on vacation for a while, considering school is starting. I sure had a busy summer!

Sad, sad day

It is always a sad day for me when I realize the summer blockbuster season is over and there really are no good new movies coming out that I want to see.

Lake Powell

I have decided that next year, my family needs to rent a house boat during the summer and go out on Lake Powell. I had so much fun! It was a decent temperature, not "kill me" hot, and it was fun to be on the lake. I think I might have been a fish in another life

Here are a few things I could have done without . . .
1. The fish that nibbled at us the first night. One of the boys ended up bleeding. I only felt a slight tug on my suit.
2. Forgetting the one swim suit I actually wanted to wear, because it was drying in the shower from going to another lake the night before we left
3. The 20 and 23 year old girls who were already married! How do they do that? Why do I have such a hard time even dating! (oh yeah, and I was the oldest one of the 'kids' who was unmarried.)
4. The abrasion type burn thing on my thighs that I got from lying belly down on the tube while we went insanely fast.

A few really good things
1. I managed to NOT turn bright red!! Hallelujiah for SPF 50! I was just barely pink
2. I went tubing, which I absolutely love. I don't like roller coasters, but I could go tubing all day.
3. I got to go swimming anytime I wanted!! (Really, a fish)
4. Lots of snacks. I ate all the time
5. My friend's husband couldn't come, so I didn't have to compete with him for her attention. (not normally a problem, but when your on vacation with a friend, who wants the friend to spend time with someone else?)
6. Sleeping outside on top of the houseboat and NOT getting eaten by mosquitos!
7. Hiking up to see the Indian ruins and pictographs (and announcing that one of the warriors is Moroni and having an eight year old believe me. I really shouldn't be so convincing. That's what comes from doing too much theater!)
8. Getting ice cream at the dock
9. Coming home and taking a REAL shower and sleeping in my OWN bed!!

Anyway, I had a really good time!

Where I want to go on Vacation

This place looks really cool, and I would love to spend a three day stay there. Now I just have to figure out how long it will take me to save that much money . . .

Need Reflector!

This is a hot picture of me after my shower washing off all the gook from the lake. Ok, I was just figuring out how to get pictures on my blog

On the water . . .

We had a ward boating activity for FHE tonight.. We went to one of the shallowest, greenest lakes I have ever been in. I was wary about getting in the water until they pulled out the tube. I have never been wakeboarding, I don't think its really my style (though I should try it eventually), but I sure have a good time on a tube. The tube we had was huge! It fit three people. They really tried to get us to fall off. The first time I went, both the other girls flew off a couple times, but I held on. The second time I did fall off once.
We were up in the front of the boat eating sour patch kids. Jewelry Girl finished them off and put the bag in the guy's lap who was next to her. All the leftover sugar spilled into his lap. He said we could call him Sugar Britches. So he shall henceforth be referred to as Sugar Britches.

Run, run, run!

So yesterday morning, I was awoken by a small child who needed to go to the bathroom at four in the morning. Now I know I'm a morning person, but I'm not that much of a morning person. Unfortunately, I was not able to go back to sleep. So finally after trying to fall asleep, and reading, I decided to go for a run (well, really more of a jog). The nice thing is that the school by me has posted on the tennis courts how far a mile is along my road. So I ran down to the marker and then back, so a total of two miles. Now I was only gone from my house about half an hour, but I saw EVERYONE running too. There were at least twenty people running on just that one mile stretch of road. As I was running past the hill, I saw a motorcycle coming down. I heard someone whistle. Now, normally, I just ignore whistles, but I realized I know people with motorcycles who live up that hill, so I turned. It was the Sunday School president (ps, in case you don't know, its a singles ward). So I waved and kept going. On my way back, I ran into one of my friend's dad. Then when I hopped in my car to go somewhere, I saw another guy in my ward running. Its like an epidemic around here.
And also of note, I can feel every muscle in my thighs right now. They are not very happy with me, especially since I danced for an hour and a half in the afternoon after I went running.