Emotional Week

November 18th - November 24th

This Sunday Noah gave a talk and it was really good actually, for a deacon! Actually better than most of the youth's talks.. if he just gets his act together he could be really great one day. ;) Oh, and Boyd sang in church today, and he was really good! I just love him! :) I don't know why, but I'm his only favorite person out of my whole family. I'm not complaining. ;)

Jen and her family got here on Monday!! I'm SO excited that ALL of my family (excluding like four cousins) are coming down for Thanksgiving!! It's been forever since I've seen them all, and ahhh I just love love love my family so much. <3 Jen also gave me a whole bunch of her old clothes, too. I love not having to pay for clothes.. Thanks Jen!! :)

Wednesday was a half daaaaay! We went to Peter Piper Pizza with Mike and Erika and Jen and her kids and with Josh and Liz... and MY GRANDPARENTS!! They were really who I was excited to see the most. I haven't seen them in such a long time because they've been on their mission in Washington, so it feels like even longer. I gave them a huge hug and I started to cry! I was seriously so happy to see them. Because whenever they're around I feel closer to my dad and to the rest of my family, they're the glue that holds us all together, and it's been kind of weird having them in Utah for the past six or so years and then up in WA for almost a year. I missed them so much!! They go back on Monday, so I have to make it a good time.

"It's Thanksgiving, GIVE 'EM THANKS, Y'ALL!" we had our traditional Thanksgiving lunch at my old church building (since we can't fit everyone into one house) and we ate and talked and laughed and ate and talked and laughed some more! Oh it felt so good to be surrounded by the people I love most, all in one room being so happy to be in each other's presence. How blessed am I to have such a loving family, FOUR sides of family, who all get along and love each other! (also even a couple of 2nd cousins families we see quite often, too!) Most people don't even have one family who they can get along with, but I am extremely blessed to have over like 300 people who I love and love to be with. :') My family is definitely the thing I am most grateful for, and I'm so grateful for my strong relationship with all of them. I can't even find the right words to say it, but I just love them! A lot! :) This Thanksgiving was for sure one to be remembered. I got to Skype with Ashlyn, too. She couldn't come down since she had to work, but at least I got to talk to her, so it still was Thanksgiving! :) Taylor, Jayne, Sara, and Natalie all made up a dance to Barnacle Man by They Might Be Giants and performed it to us a good three times. It was so stinkin' cute, though! We also played Just Dance 4. So, one of the cousin's fiance was there, and he looks JUST like Brad from The Middle!! Me, Jen, Mia, and my mom couldn't stop giggling and watching him and quoting his lines from the show... it was really bad, we were getting a little out of hand..
Before we went over to the church, I had a little blunder.. you see, the cotton field by my house was getting picked and the farmers left their tractors along the side of my house, and so naturally, I had a photo shoot with the tractors. My mom took some pictures, and it was a lovely time. But there is a fence separating the field from my house... it's probably only two and a half or three feet above the ground, and I have long legs. So I thought it would be a good idea to hurdle over the fence, track runner's blood runs through my veins, so I thought it would come quite naturally to me since my mom and all my uncles were track runners and hurdlers... so I (for whatever idiotic reason) grabbed the camera, and was holding it in my hands as I jumped over the fence.... my foot had other ideas and wanted to remain planted firmly on the ground... my foot hooked the top bar on the fence... and I realized in mid air that something was utterly wrong.. so I tucked the camera in my stomach and hugged it like a motherly instinct, and I rolled into fetal position as I plummeted to the gravelly ground, totally scraping up my elbow and the palm of me hand. BEAST MOVE. Yeahhhh.
So that was my Thanksgiving.

The next day we had our family pictures taken over at the Potato Barn on William's Field. It was awesoooome. And painful since I couldn't take them myself, obviously. I was getting all fidgety and having anxiety attacks because I was freaking out that they weren't going to turn out decently.. but they turned out just fine. I just get really nervous when people use my camera... it makes me freak out and then get all weird like.. geez. I'm a freak.
Later that night, KAMI GOT HER MISSION CALL! Yay! Finally! It's about time, we've all been on pins and needles since Tuesday saying that it could arrive any day. So we ran home after getting our pictures taken... I was getting really weird, again. Maybe today wasn't my day.. I knew this day would eventually come, but I didn't actually think it was going to happen? I don't know, it was all surreal. She opened it at seven. And I was already in tears by the time she was holding it in front of everyone. They were mostly sad tears because I knew I'd be losing my best friend for 18 months (I kept telling myself that it would be just fine, and that I'd be okay, and that she was going to be doing far better things, etc.) but I couldn't shake the sadness, I put on a sad smile for the rest of the night, and tried my hardest to be excited... she finally opened it.. and none of MY family was there on time(figures.) and the other people who I wanted there (The Cluffs) were driving home, so I had no shoulders to cry on.. but when she did open it and read "Antofagasta, Chile" I cried some more. But they weren't sad tears. They were tears of feeling comfort and love. I knew she was going to the right place, doing the Lord's work, and I didn't have to be sad about losing her.
So I avoided the tears for a while while the rest of the family was over, and I finally lost it when my mother told me that "this next year is going to be full of heartache.. Kami's leaving, Cal is leaving, Caleb's leaving, Lauren is leaving, Ashlyn's leaving, ... you're going to have NO ONE!" I'm sure she meant for it to have some kind of joke, but I wasn't even THINKING of those people before she mentioned it.. so I just laid there and cried and cried and cried while she played with my hair. Well, my mom officially won the Best Mother of the Year Award. :'(

The next day, I just wasn't myself. I couldn't really smile, I was just stuck in a depressed mood and all I could think about were all these impending "goodbye"s.. and that takes the most toll out of me more than anything else you can do to me. I still haven't learned my lesson of goodbyes.. and I have a feeling I never will.. :(
I had plans to hang out with my old friend Shea Lenna later in the day. It's been months since I've seen her! Back in middle school we were inseparable, so it still it odd to not see her more often. Her aunt works for this rich guy who remodels shopping centers, and he does all of these parades around Arizona as an advertising thing.. so we used to do TONS of parades together. Everything from carrying the HUGE balloons, to dressing up and dancing around the float, to just sitting and waving on the train. I remember them being so much fun! It had been a few years since the last one I'd been in, so I was pretty excited on the inside. :) Unfortunately, the previous day's events had me in a funk and I couldn't shake it. Luckily I did once I got to her house and it was just like old times. I'm so thankful for my old friends, and how we can always jump back to where we left off. :) Those are the true friends, people. And all my friends are like that. :)
Anyways, I eventually let go and did have a lot of fun! We all dressed up in toy solider costumes and danced around the train and did a lot of waving, and it was actually fun! I remember when I was about 12 and wanting to be a toy solider, but I was too little, but now I'm 17, and I finally got to do it! Karson, Avery, and Kenzie went with us, too. Side note: I haven't been eating a lot in the past few weeks, I don't know why, but I have been getting full after like not a lot of food, and it was driving me insane. Well, when I started eating the lunch they gave us, it was like my stomach opened up a mile wide and I just kept eating and eating and eating.. I got payback afterwards, because when the parade was done, I threw up. Typical me. And Cal wasn't even anywhere around! What?! That's not allowed! ;) Haha but OUR FOOTBALL TEAM WENT TO STATE! AND WE WOOOOOOONNNNNNNN! I was super upset because I couldn't go to the game because I already made plans to go to the parade, but as it turns out, the game was right across the street and was finished before the parade even started!! So I totally could have gone.. but we won! 9-7! First time ever in Bulldog history! Now I gotta make a yearbook page about this... ;)
After the parade, we went bowling! And it was sooo much fun! That was definitely the highlight of the night. We were being so ridiculous. It was awesome.