ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :) : ) :) :) :) :) :) :)

It's Family Time With Santa

Family Time With Santa starts today!!! Melissa's extatic.

And remember... Santa loves you!!!!!!!!

It's Family Time With Santa

Family Time With Santa starts today!!! Melissa's extatic.

And remember... Santa loves you!!!!!!!!

I have nothing to say

read the title.

An entire range of emotions

What a crazy day. WHAT A CRAZY DAY! To justify the title of this post, I will go through the details of my day with the emotions in (parenthesis).

 It was Stewart Montenegro's homecoming/ Curtis's Eagle Court of Honor/ Whitney and Hector's Birthday. They got married, and they were born on the same day. Cute.

We went to Stuart's homecoming Sacrament meeting, and it was packed. He gave a really great talk, and it was fun to see how much he had grown. We stayed for all of Sacrament meeting, but left to our church for Sunday School. I finally got assigned a Sunday School teacher and she is awesome... but I will only have her for a few weeks. ( "this is so not fair.")

We came home and then left to the Montenegro's to hang out, and I drove... which is obviously the downside because I never know what the heck I am doing. Mom and Dad were both telling me to do opposite things at the same time and ....grrr (Here, I felt confused and overwhelmed). But don't worry, I made up for it all by slamming Abby's fingers in the door on the way home. (guilt)

We ate lots of good food and were able to catch up with people, so that was good. (happy, nostalgic)

As we were getting ready to leave, Sister Jackson came up to me and asked in a eerily quiet voice, "Do you have anything you want to tell me?"

Ooooh... Um.  How do you respond to that? Well, I said, "About what?"

" Oh. You don't know yet." I think that was obvious, and then she said." Well. When you find out...call me."

WOW. Cryptic much? (SUPER Confused.)

I came home and practiced cello... and I actually improved on my Christmas Pieces for ZYSC-or whatever it is now. ( happy)

Somewhere in-between this time, the phone rang and Mom answered it. This, in and of itself, is not a life changing event. But remember it. It's important later.

The Stake Christmas Choral event was tonight, and Mom enlisted me to play the cello for postlude in the Gym while people are eating refreshments. Of course... I didn't have anything solid to play... but we played around with a version of Mary's Lullaby and upon some improvisation, it was actually ok. (empowered)

Then Choir practice... and we were late. (normal ;D) By this time my head was trying to kill me from the inside out, (pain) so singing was out of the question for a little while.

Home for an hour, trying to finish my stupid Spanish homework online. Por que? No me gusta! ( frustration) And I was caught off-guard when the Bames came to pick me up. (rushed)

Then the Christmas thing actually started. Dum-du-dum-dum-DUM-DUM! People should really stop asking me questions since I don't know anything. (clueless)

As far as I knew, I was supposed to do the small group number before our choir, and then the two songs in our choir, and then two songs in the Monte Cristo choir because they needed more women. So I did all of our ward stuff, and Eliza and I planned when to go up for the Monte Cristo songs. We ran up to the stand during a congregational number, and sat next to a lady who was all alone in the row. She looked confused, so I explained why we were there. “Your choir director needed more altos, talked to my mom, and here we are."

"Oh," she said, "The altos who weren't going to be here had their plans changed. They are here today, so we don't need you." (Shock) "But thanks for being a good sport!"

CRAP. Now here we are, sitting in the middle of some ward choir trying to figure out how to get out without disrupting the program or looking like complete idiots (but already feeling like complete idiots). And it turns out that Mom had just...neglected to mention that they didn't need us. (betrayed, embarrassed, self-conscious.) 

We made our move after the small group number before the Monte Cristo choir, and got clear out of there. We regained our composure, and went back in for the Congregational Hymn. (Mad at Mom) Eliza and I had to figure out how to get 100 copies of the "Halleluiah Chorus" out to the packed chapel and stage. We did, and it was fine. The actual song was powerful and beautiful.

Mr. Nelson asked if he could talk to me afterwards, as I was re-collecting the songs. (Curious, very curious.)

I met up with Eliza in the Gym, getting things ready for the postlude, and made a hypothesis. Brother Nelson is going to ask me to be a YCD.

Hint #1. Sister Jackson's cryptic message. She is the new camp director, after all.

Hint#2 Brother Nelson wants to talk to me. He is the "Girls Camp Guy."

Hint #3 Ashley had let slip to me in Seminary that SHE was going to be a YCD. You are technically not supposed to do this. I didn't give it another thought until this moment.

I was right. He asked me to be a YCD for girls camp (I guess this means I can't skip it this year...). There are four total, and I am the 3rd to be called. The others are Ashley MacKay... and EMILY ADAMS!!! (Elation. This is going to be fun. Humility. Why me?)  I guess I said yes, and then ran out to tell Emily. If you guys thought I was excited...you should have seen EMILY (loved). Her voice jumped a few decibel’s and her excitement was contagious (excited). She was REALLY hopping I would get called too, and was sure to tell me. Several times. Remember the phone call I mentioned before? That was Bro. Nelson, asking Mom and Dad if he could ask me to be a YCD. And so there we go. 

From there on out, the evening was great. We ate doughnuts and such, hung out and talked, and played our postlude stuff. When Emily played, I creeper stared over the top of the piano the whole time. We had a starring contest DURING her piece for a while, and she didn't miss a note (impressed)! MY song was...not at all what I did during practice because I still don't have a rock-stop, and I spaced. But it was still ok and whoever was listening said it was good (whatever).

The end of this extensively long post, as well as the night it encompasses has come, bringing with it a few questions. How the heck am I going to pull of this off next summer? -but I'll have Emily for that. Why all of the best doughnuts go first? -this is true. And last of all.... WHO IS THE LAST YCD?? Emily and I were going to make bets and guess at who it was until we found out that we both guessed the same person. Emily Barnum, of course. But who knows? We will see.

Full house

TODAY WAS OPENING NIGHT FOR MY PLAY...yyyyyaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT WAS A FULL HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so it does.

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” ~ Robert Frost

An Epiphany!

Our family went to a library production of " The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," put on my a community library. With only two people. It was very fun and pretty creative. And this little red-haired boy in the front row was the cutest thing in the world. Anyway, that's not the point. While I was watching the guy in the cast play "Mr. Tumnus" I HAD AN EPIPHANY! I realized that THIS...

... was James McAvoy...which thing I never had supposed. P.S. I love this guy. You may recognize him like this, from Penelope, as the character "Maxwell Champion."

  And of course, we all recognize him from his most recent role, young Professor X.

I first knew him as "That guy from Penelope," and loved his role in X-Men First Class... and in watching the bonus features they mentioned what a great actor he is, and I wondered why I hadn't seen more movies of him... and now I realized that I HAVE seen him in movies, but didn't know it!
And now for the real moral of this story.
All this time I have spent liking this actor... and I'd already seen him shirt-less without even realizing it.
 Hope this brought a smile to your face (or at least a look and an 'eye roll' ussually accompanied by the phrase, "Oh, Alayna..."). Have a good day everybody.

Thanks for nothing.

I have been mostly "acne free" for the past while. Now, the day before Thanksgiving, I have the makings of a zit the size of Mt. McKinley dead center on my forehead. Thanks.