We Love Potter!

I will willingly admit that I am a Potter fan. Thus, going to the midnight showing and getting back at 3:00 AM is totally worth it!

Janessa, "Jeanetta," Simon, and I

I went to pick up Shanna at 10:00 PM, but was surprised to find "Jeanetta" flying out the front door instead. ;) She bounced into my car and proceeded to tell me of her adventures and preferences of the British life and how excited she was to see the Harry Potter movie here in America. She was so glad to be an "exchange student" here at this time - it was a bit of home. :)

We pulled into the theater parking lot and put on our magical Potter capes. Jeanetta even brought a wand...it's remarkable - the resemblance between her and Harry! We found some friends to join in line and I introduced them to "Jeanetta." We laughed and had a good time talking and watching the best pieces of "My Fair Lady" on Jeanetta's ipod. Luckily, it was a warm night - so waiting outside was quite an enjoyable experience.

Finally the moment arrived and the theater doors flew open! Jeanetta and I rushed inside to snag great seats. There were some fabulous people sitting behind us who were Harry Potter finatics more so than we were. They gave the movie an extra hilarious twist with each witty whispered remark - Jeanetta and I were dying!

With a flick of her wand, Jeanetta changed her hair color.
It's frightening how much she looks like Shanna when she does that! ;)

We loved "The Half Blood Prince," and declared it our favorite Potter film yet!

Bear Lake Sistas

I'm back!

Thank heavens for friends like Angie Barlow who are go-getters and organizers! Our "momma" Angie arranged for us to stay in a condo and go boating at Bear Lake for the past weekend. It was such a blast!

After work on Friday, me, Angie, Brynne Ludlow, Katie Forsberg, and Janessa Richardson all piled into Angie's Chevy Lumina and made our way up to Garden City. We found out where our comfy condo was located and made our way to eat some food - because quite frankly, that's what we teenagers like to do! We ate at a pizza joint that is the home of the "Old Ephraim" Pizza. It's a 28" Pizza!!! The Papa size that we ordered looked miniscule in comparison, when in fact we had a hard time finishing that between five girls. :) It was so funny to see the faces of customers when their "Old Ephraim" Pizza came out - I wish them luck.

After dinner we made a late evening stop at the lake itself. We played in the water (Brynne played in the mud) and swam from buoy to buoy until it was too cold to go on. We went back to the condo and realized that one of the bathrooms had a jetted tub. So we cranked on the hot water, flipped on the jets, and all crunched into the tub in hopes of feeling our toes once again. It was so funny...and very uncomfortable, but warm - that's all we were truly asking for.

Brynne trying to warm up in the mud

Angie, Janessa, Brynne, Katie, Moi

I learned to water ski!!!! It was so much fun! I was able to pop up on my second try and was so proud of myself - considering my lack of talent in such sportsy events. I was able to stay up for quite a while, but I didn't know how to steer and ended up hitting the wake, which caught me off guard and sent me hurling forward, ripping me out from my skis. But as much as I thought it would hurt, it wasn't so bad - the worst part was the water unexpectedly shooting up my nose.

Angie's dad rescued a boat of people stranded in the water. We had to tow them back to shore, but you can really only go so fast when hauling another boat. The shore didn't appear that far away, but what looked 5 minutes away, took an hour...we caught up on our sleep and enjoyed the sunshine.

Katie's feet

We performed insanely good-looking make overs on one another and laughed at how ridiculous we looked. And we ate trail mix in front of the fire all night.

Angie, Me, and Janessa

My friend Angie announced to us that she was investigating the church! We were so happy and I was especially excited for her. We all had scripture study together at 1:00 AM and said a group prayer at the end - which provided the perfect end to an eventful day.

The next morning, "momma" Angie and her assistant Brynne were up and making us ham and eggs, and getting everything ready for our boating excursion for the day. Angie's dad arrived at 8:00 AM. Angie was scared out of her mind because it was up to her to launch the boat while her dad drove the trailer to the marina. She had never done it before, but she was mostly successful in her endeavor. :) It was up to me to drive the rest of the girls to the beach where Brynne, Angie and her Dad would pick us up in the boat.

Katie and Janessa on the boat

We also went tubing on Big Mable, which is this giant red two-man tube that the Barlow's own. It makes me laugh so hard to listen to Angie and her dad talk about Mable becuase they refer to it as another member of the family. "Hurry Ang, tie Mable up!"; "Hey dad, will you help me get her down?"; "Are we going to lose her back there?"; "Do you have a hold of her Ang? Help the girls get on to her!" :) It made me laugh inside. Janessa and Katie weren't too big on attempting water skiing that day, but Big Mable was alright...except that we discovered that Janessa has an irrational fear of water - her face was always so classic when she rode Mable.

At some point of the day, we got our thrill-seeker attitudes together and attempted piling three of us onto Big Mable. It was sick! We three girls hanging on for dear life and Angie's dad whipping us every which way trying to make us bail. My forearms ached in ways unimagineable. :) There were points in time that the only thing keeping me or Brynne on the raft was when our legs were tangled together, and as soon as one of us flipped off, the other was doomed. Angie got to the point where she was dragging in the water, but didn't have the strength to pull herself back up. The last time I did it, my arms were jell-o. I willingly bailed after flopping around like a beached whale. I hardly had the strength to pull myself back into the boat! We all have very intense bruises that we are all so proud to claim as our own.

Brynne, Me, and Angie on Big Mable

It was such a fun day! On our way out, we picked up some raspberry shakes at Le Beau's and listened to Bon Jovi the whole ride home. We were so tired and sore, but we all managed to survive without too major of sunburns or life threatening casualites - which I suppose is the most important thing. :)

Now I want a boat.

A Not So Typical Day in The Life of Jessica

Yesterday, my friends and I had nothing to do. I suggested walking down "Historic 25th Street" in Ogden just to kill some time - it was something I had never done...and I live 15 minutes away.

We turned it into a photo shoot!

Ashley Torman, Kirsten Dove, and I were camera fiends - taking pictures of each other every few seconds with each of our cameras. It was a blazing hot day, but despite the sweat rolling off our faces and being careful not to raise our arms too high, it was fabulous!

Ashley

Me

Kirsten

We walked passed all the antique stores and restaurants, the barber shops and art supply stores. We soon found ourselves at the Union Station taking pictures in front the old architecture and in the train yard. Now I understand why so many couples get their wedding pictures taken there - it's beautiful!

We wandered into an expensive furniture store and cooled off in the air conditioned building; dreaming of one day having the money to by a $3,000 gong.

All of us went back to my place and made ourselves some pizza pockets...and Kirsten had a turkey sandwich. We sat in my treehouse and talked for a few minutes until Ashley needed to go to work.

After the girls went home, I called up my friend Shanna Banana Peterson. She had asked me if I would be willing to go with her to our stake's young single adult ward's Family Home Evening. They were having a barbeque and playing soccer. I'm not a fan of sports...at all...but I could tell Shanna really wanted someone to go with her. I then realized that I had just eaten dinner...and I would be having a second dinner an hour later. :) She picked me up at 7:30 and we went to the YSA FHE. We felt out of place at first, but we ate some hamburgers and hot dogs and started warming up. We had a lot of fun socializing with some girls and laughing together. Luckily, they had a volleyball net set up - one of the few sports I CAN play :) - and so we joined in the game. It was actually a lot of fun! When Shanna asked me if I was ready to go, I wasn't really prepared for it! But we had plans...

Shanna and I have vowed to watch all of the Lord of the Ring Extended Version DVDs this summer. :) We watched the first one last week and now it was time for the second. So at 9:30 PM we came home and found my family on the TV. Their show wrapped up and they wanted to watch LOTR II with us. Shanna and I are random. Last time we had decided that anytime we watch LOTR we have to wear capes...and this time we added crazy hats to the list of requirements. My mom and my sisters all joined in and we all watched LOTR II with crazy hats and capes. :D It was really fun.

We only got through the first disk...and it was late. Shanna stayed a little longer and packed out around 12:30 AM. My eyelids were heavy, but my mind was racing over all the adventurous things I had done that day - sleep found me at 2:30 AM.

Item No. 1 - California Vacation '09

Consider it my family senior trip. It was fabulous! This was my family's third time heading over to Cali, and I must say, it was probably my favorite adventure there yet.

Day 1 - Dad, mom, Val, and Marie left on Friday afternoon. The plan was to drive out to Cedar City and stay the night at Todd and M.J.'s house for a night and keep on driving to Chula Vista, California. Me and Jord left Saturday morning and drove over to my grandma and grandpa Sorenson's where Jeff would drive us to the airport. Airplane tickets were wonderfully cheap and we thought it would work out better to ship half of us with grandma and grandpa and the other half in the car so that it wouldn't be so squished. Things worked out great! While I was in the airport, I caught up with Chinese Foreign Exchange Student Chris, who was also on her way out to California to spend her final week in the US with her friend. We had plans to meet up in Disneyland later that week.

So our flight arrives in San Diego, we pick up the rental car, and beat ma and pa and girls to the hotel. When they finally got there, we went to the beach! I TOUCHED THE OCEAN!!! I was so excited. The only thing I truly wanted to do that entire trip was make it to the beach and my wish came true. It was lovely even though there was cloud cover - it gave it a totally different feel that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Day 2 - We went to the San Diego Zoo (after we attended a ward in Chula Vista). I hadn't been there before and was very excited to see the world-renown zoo. But you know, a zoo is a zoo is a zoo. :) I got to see a Panda Bear and a baby koala bear. Marie was in love with the koalas! Made me laugh hysterically. We rode a sky coaster thinga-ma-jig and took a pretty sweet tour where we got to sit on the top of a safari bus. Definitely saw some animals I never knew existed, so that was a perk. I was rather fond of the otters and gorillas myself. It was a good day!

Day 3 - SeaWorld baby! Every time we head out to Cali, we go to SeaWorld at some point of the trip. The dolphin show doesn't change, Shamu is intense, and the Clyde and Seamore show always makes me laugh, but it was so much fun for me because grandma and grandpa Sorenson hadn't seen it before. We saw the penguins this time, which is something we had never done before - and I LOVE them. And we saw a daring side of grandma Sorenson as she willingly came on the Atlantis water ride with us. We left SeaWorld that day completely wiped out, but we were all able to recover as we drove out to Anaheim that evening.

Day 4 - Disneyland! Disneyland! Disneyland! The happiest place on earth. :) We got there early enough in the day (thanks to my go-go mother whom I adore dearly) and hopped right onto Pirates of the Caribbean and then Indiana Jones. That's a rush to start your morning! We also happened to meet up with Chinese Chris, just like we had planned! So she stuck with us for most of the day as we rode ride after ride after ride. My favorite? Space Mountain of course - even with our fast passes we had to wait forever, but it was TOTALLY worth it.

Day 5 - California Adventures, located right across the street from Disneyland, is an excellent place to chill. Chinese Chris was with us once again - and this was her last and final day in America. She was to hop on a plane for 14 hours the next morning...ugh. I miss her, just thinking about it. I got to ride California Screamin' this time! I was so stoked! The first time we went to Cali Adven, I was deathly afraid of rollercoasters. Second time? CLOSED!!!! This time, it was OPEN and I got to ride it. My head hurt...so even though it was fun, Space Mountain still wins. While we were eating lunch we got the call that my aunt Shallen had had her baby boy Tyler. Tender moment - grandma was ready to hear about it all. :) We convinced grandpa Sorenson to ride Tower of Terror with us - that was awesome! And we bumped into Mickey Mouse. Oh! And I met my hero Lightning McQueen!!!! I also bought myself a Jessie the Cowgirl shirt because it had my name on it. :) I quite love it.

Day 6 - Disneyland!...again. Chinese Chris had now left our party, so it was back to me and the fam. We just rode all the rides we loved and bought Mickey hats. I got a coolio Mickey hat that says "Class of 2009" on it. When you wear Mickey Hats, you suddenly are no longer just another face in the crowd - the workers told me Congratulations and made me feel special. I could get use to that!

Day 7 - Universal Studios. Hot dang! The first time I ever went to Universals, I hated it. I hated all thing rides and didn't want to really enjoy myself. This time, I loved it! I met Lucille Ball (star of my favorite show ever, "I Love Lucy") and got my picture with her (after my mom pushed me to it - I hate approaching people...let alone crazy red heads). We took the studio tour and went to some hilarious work shops. We saw Water World and rode the Jurassic Park ride and the Mummy rollercoaster (which apparently is Chinese Chris's favorite ride EVER - she wouldn't stop talking about it while we were in Disneyland). It was just fun and then some.

Day 8 - We got up and headed out. This time the girls flew back on the plane with grandma and grandpa and Jordan and I drove with the parental unit straight through to Utah in 12 hours. It was so nice to be home - I hate long car rides. It was a busy, busy, go, go, GO, kind of vacation, but I have no regrets. I can't believe that it's already been a month!