Watercolors and Wishes

So, I wrote an essay about my experience last summer with Amigos for my English class as practice for College Apps in the fall (scary thought!), and it turned out better than expected so I thought I would share it with you all. Here goes nothing... It is a warm, humid morning. Strangely, the sky is devoid of the large Cumulus mediocris clouds that have plagued the small valley for the last week. The sun is just rising over the green mountains, casting a warm glow on the small cement buildings around the town center. The sun reflects off the tin roofs of the houses where families are beginning to stir. A few early-risers stroll past the small park to catch the earliest bus into the closest city. A slight breeze causes the metal swings to creak and the leaves in the trees to ruffle. The smell of fried plantains and chickens waft across the blue sky, past the gleaming white walls of the Catholic c hurch building, past the Pepto-Bismol pink walls of the mayor’s office, and into the...

I apologize in advance for the serious nature of this update. Feel free to stop reading if you just can't handle the feels. Are you ready  for this? Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere, so you lay down in the middle of a field, and you just watch the world moving around?  It's like you are the only still point in the universe.  You are constant and unchanging,  while everything is shifting around you. That's what I feel like right now. Maybe it's just the new year. I'll have to remember to write 2014 on all my papers instead of 2013. Maybe it's my haircut that I secretly hate, or the sad realisation that I was supposed to start applying for scholarships years ago,  or that my baby brother is learning to drive. But maybe it's the other way around.  Maybe the rest of the world is static,  and I'm the only one moving. Maybe everything and everyone else is exactly the same,  and I'm the one that's different. Maybe I've changed so ...

Pie is a beautiful thing. Throughout the generations, my family has refined the art of pie making. Yes, it is an art form. It's also delicious! Twice a year my family gathers for a pie extravaganza (Okay, we actually gather for General Conference, and the pie just happens to be there) and everyone makes pies. This last extravaganza had more than 16 pies. There were so many people in my grandma's house that you could barely move! Every year we have to make more pie because every year there are more and more people! There is so much pie that we eat leftovers for weeks. The pie is so amazing that we all take pictures and post them on Instagram. There is so much pie, that it takes more than a week of cooking just to make all of them. Recently, my grandma's aquatic aerobics class (which is a fancy name for pool yoga) had a party and my grandma was asked to bring pie. She went a little overboard. She made 8 pies. There was so much leftover that she had an after party a...

I figured that I should probably tell you all about AMIGOS now, because it is pretty much consuming my entire life. If you already know about AMIGOS (probably because I never shut up about it) feel free to stop reading if you want. I wont be offended. Okay, maybe I will be offended, just a little bit. Anyway, Amigos de las Americas (or AMIGOS for short) is this amazingly fabulous international nonprofit organization that sends college and high school aged students to rural communities in South America for 6-8 weeks, where they facilitate community development, live with a host family, and hopefully become completely fluent in Spanish (Haha... it's a joke. I'm the worst gringa I know!)). Once upon a time in 7th grade, there were two lovely people who came into my Spanish class to talk about AMIGOS, and at first I was only interested because at least the spanish teacher had turned of Destinos while they gave their presentation. By the end of their presentation I was hooked. ...

I've never really thought about college before, but for the last few months since I took the PSAT and such, I've been getting emails from tons of colleges. According to my dad, all of them suck. This is how he decides if they suck or not: Have I heard of the college?----->No. ----->It sucks -->Yes---->Do I know where it is located?---------->No.------------>It sucks                      -->Yes---->Does it have the words 'art' or 'craft' in it?---->Yes.---->They suck                                       -->No.---->Are they good at manly sports?------->No.------>They suck.                                                      -->Yes.----->They might not s...

My sister is vertically challenged. She gets that from her grandmother. I think she is about 10ish now, but everyone thinks she is 7. Back story time!!! So Sav (my sister) was 4, and we were at my brother's lacrosse practice (This was back when he went through his lacrosse phase), and we were sitting on a blanket playing with her dolls (because I'm a good sister like that). Suddenly a kid, who was probably 3 or something, who was playing with some hand-held device and not paying attention, almost walked into Sav. The kid's mother yelled, "Careful! Don't step on the baby!" Not knowing that Sav was actually 4, and probably older than her son. And of course, Sav remembers none of this. It is my job, as an older sister, to remember all the funny and embarrassing stories from her childhood (or make some up) to share with her at a later date. Preferably in front of all her friends. What not very many people know, is that although my sister is adorable and...

Still getting used to this whole blog thing... Last night, my mom got home from work and we all went outside to shovel snow. I don't know about you, but in my family, shoveling is an adventure. First we shovel our walks, and then our elderly neighbors walks, and then we shovel our grandpa's walks (he lives next door). It usually takes about an hour and a half. On a good day. On a bad day, by the time we are done shoveling, we have to shovel again because it just wont stop snowing!  Today we got like 2 feet of snow. Joy! And I don't know about you, but if there was that much snow in your city, wouldn't they call a snow day? Right? Right?  No luck. I still had to wake up at 6:30, and carpool to school. My first period teacher was 13 minutes late to class. So we just sat around and did nothing for the entire period. And then we had an assembly. I hate assemblies. You can add that to the list of things I really really hate! However, this one wasn't too bad. It di...