One day I went running

(Hey everyone! My name is Rachel and normally I blog over here. Maggie asked me to “tell about a really good/fun/fantastic/life changing day”. This is my attempt at that)

One day i went running.

It was August 27th. I know, I know, it was forever ago.
The day was cloudy and misty in San Leandro. Not exactly the conditions I had been anticipating. I was wearing a tank top and shorts. Lucky me. Thankfully I was excited because I was about to run my first half marathon. But I was nervous because I was about to run my first half marathon. What if I fainted? Or threw up? Or got eaten by a shark? Or had a foot cramp? The possibilities of tragedy were endless.

Thankfully the closer I got to the race the calmer I became. By the time the countdown for the start arrived I was geared up. I was freezing but geared up. Sometimes I wish I had brought my camera with me on the actual race (like Zooey Deschanel in Yes Man) so I could remember better, but I think I remember it pretty well.

I remember the unexpected smell of black licorice as I traversed the trail. I remember the eternally long bridge with a bicyclist slowly cycling behind me because it was too narrow for him to pass. I remember the girl in the green tutu. I remember the soggy marshes. I remember when the first runner passed me on his way back (I was on mile 4 while he was on mile 9). I remember trying to drink at the halfway station and getting most of the water down my front because my mouth didn’t want to do anything but breathe. I remember hesitating to pass people after I had been tailing them for a while. Were they getting slower or was i getting faster? I still don’t know.


It was exciting. It was exhilarating. It was exhausting. By mile 11 all I wanted was to be done. So I started speeding up. I passed the girl I had been tailing for the last 4 miles. I remember thinking “the faster you go the faster you’re done” and “finish strong”. So the closer I got the faster I ran. Until I was at the park where we had first started; and then I started sprinting. As I closed in on the crowd they roared with applause and cheers by the sheer awesomeness of the feat I had just accomplished (or because they cheered and applauded everyone who finished. You decide). As I crossed the finish line I quickly slowed to a stop. A stranger took the timing device off my ankle and my parents ran to greet me with hugs. I was sweaty and dirty and my legs felt like jello. But I was finished. I had done what I had set out to do.

And it wasn’t 100 miles. Or 50. Or even 26.2. But it was an accomplishment. And I’ll never forget it.

One Day I Went to a Football Game... (profesh status)

Kelsey is right. I've been slacking. My last post was three months ago and I have at least five drafts just waiting to be finished. Let's cut to the chase.

November 6th was my 21st birthday... Yay! My family decided to take me to a Raider game. I know what your thinking, Why do they hate me so much, right? Well if you have the mentality of its-the-thought-that-counts, then it's not so bad. You see, the fam is a big football/raider fan. I took one for the team and stuck it out so i could spend my birthday with them. I got to see my lovely cousin who i haven't seen in months. I got to eat delicious food that my parents made (okay, so i get that everyday). I was able to have the tailgating experience with friends and family. I even saw people I haven't seen since high school. I'm not gonna lie, it was a little weird that my uncle hangs out with people i know/knew. But what's new?

There was only one person missing... Norma. That little ray of sunshine is in Texas. I had the crazy older one, i was just missing the awkward younger one.

This is us pretending to hug her. Yea, I know. We're weird.

Anyway, tailgating was pretty fun. I made lots of new friends. The game itself was interesting. It was going good til the last quarter, then the Raiders completely lost it. What's new, right? My favorite part was half time. Apparently it was military appreciation day. Have y'all seen the show Coming Home? Google it. All I'm gonna say is be sure to watch it in March. I was there when it happened. Yes, i was a smidg emotional. It was great. What wasn't great was the 2 hours it took to get out. I'm not a fan of crowds.

That's it for now. I had some fun. Next is a Niner game with the other side of my family. The End. :)

One Day I had a Sister from Catalunya...

I'm back! Things have been super crazy the last two months. First I had an exchange student from Spain. Then i went to girls camp for a week as the Recreation assistant. Now I'm just having lots of fun because i finally feel like summer has arrived. Now lets get back to Miss Ivet.

This is Ivet.

She was our exchange student this year, and can i just say, she is just amazing! Funny thing, today is her birthday. So here is a birthday shout out to her.

I helped out alot with her class. I went on some of her trips, played taxi, and took her places i wanted her to see. We went to places like Sacramento, SanFrancisco, Yosemite, the Oakdale Cheese Factory, and Sausalito. I also met some of her classmates whom i just adore.

She's super awesome. We taught her how to make rice crispies, oatmeal, and pancakes. She taught us how to make something called "tortilla de patata" (It's pretty much a potato and onion omelette). She really loves fruit and (all) baked goods.

She's wonderful and I will always remember our great times together. :)

One day I Went On A Roadtrip...

It's really quite horrible that I don't really know how to start this blog. I've already erased the first sentence about 5 times... Vicki's roommate, Cheyenne, went to Hawaii. The thing is, when she left she had to leave from LAX. Vicki, being the nicest person on Earth, volunteered herself to drive her roommate to LA. When Vic was telling Bre and I about this plan, we thought she was crazy for wanting to go by herself. Vicki eventually called and asked if i wouldn't mind driving with her so she wouldn't be alone. I, of course, gladly accepted.

We got to a late start due to a last minute crisis with Vic's roommate but we eventually hit the road around 8pm. We went down I-5 because you really can't go wrong when your going straight. Around 1:30am, Cheyenne asked Vic to look up directions to LAX from her smart phone. Vicki grabbed Cheyenne's phone and spoke into it saying, "destination LAX." I know, you'd think that what she said was correct... Wrong! Here is where is all begins...





We're following the directions from Cheyenne's phone and we think all is going well until her phone says, "You have reached your destination." We were a bit confused. We looked around and we didn't see any planes, we saw a plethora of homeless people, and we saw a bunch of buildings that SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE! At this point Cheyenne gets a little frustrated and she gets her phone and asks for directions to the Los Angeles International Airport. Around 2:30am, we finally get there. Task #1 was officially accomplished.

Our next step was to find our way to Vic's cousin's house. We didn't have directions, my phone was dead, and Vicki didn't want to call her cousin because it was so darn early in the morning. Well now, let me tell ya. That's not exactly the best situation to be in. We kinda get directions from Cheyenne's phone which was dying (still not the best idea) and we're off!

As we're driving, I'm feeling a bit uneasy because I don't know where I am and I'm super tired. Anyway, I'm assured by Vic that she knows exactly where we're at and we'll be there in 30 minutes tops! About 45 minutes later she's angry because we hadn't found our turn-off yet, but soon after we see the huge sign that says Santa Ana so, we go in that direction. Once we hit San Clemente (Google it), I told her to stop to get gas and to turn around because i don't want to go any more down south. We head back up to Anaheim, pull over and finally call her cousin. To skip the rest, we finally get to her cousin's house at 5:45am. I know that for sure because i called my dad to let him know we arrived safe and he told me he was already at work.

  

So that's my story. And that's only getting there. I didn't even mention what we did while we were there or the drive back. Maybe that can be a part 2 to this post. It was a unique experience and i wouldn't mind going far distances with my friends again... I know Breanna and I are trying to plan one for this summer. :)

PS. all these pictures are from the way back.

One Day I Spent The Day With Maggie... (Kelsey Edition)

Hello my fellow Maggie followers! My name’s Kelsey Marie from Daydreams Of A Silly Girl and I’ve been asked to guest post in Maggie’s blog! Yeah! It took me a while to decide what I wanted to write about (is it just me, or does guest posting make anyone else really excited but nervous at the same time???), but I finally decided to write about the one and only Maggie! What better way is there to spend my time guest posting on Maggie’s blog than to write about her??

As I thought about Maggie and all the fun times that we’ve had together (and let me tell ya, there have been a lot!) my mind kept wandering back to one specific day that I spent with her. It was, if memory serves me correctly, in the summer of 2010. Maggie and I planned a whole day to spend together. First, she picked me up on her way to school in Modesto (where we planned to spend the day for convenience’s sake). I didn’t actually go to class with Maggie, but I sat outside her classroom and waited until she got out. Then we went to Subway to grab some lunch for ourselves and headed off to my mom’s work so we could eat with her. Oh that was fun! Lunch with my momma and best friend…yep, our day was off to a great start already!

After lunch, Maggie and I drove to our favorite store (which to the eternal breaking of our hearts is out of business) BORDERS! We had been talking for a while about how wonderful that store is-all the books, the comfy chairs, the smell of the coffee, the calming atmosphere-can you see why we loved that place?? We both agreed it was an amazing store and that we wanted to spend a whole day in the store just browsing and reading…so that’s what we did. We looked around the store for hours-reading parts of good books we liked, checking to see if new ones we had our eyes on were in stock, and picking up random books we never would have looked at. We spent quite a lot of time in the foreign section looking at traveling guides and language translators. We had a blast reading some of the things those books taught and trying to pronounce the phrases in our best foreign accents..

I’m not all too sure what we did after that. Probably drove back home and hung out for a while. But that day is so special to me, not because it was some huge adventure, but because I was with a best friend doing things that we loved, being ourselves, and enjoying each other’s company. That’s what I love about Maggie. I never feel that I have to hide anything or part of who I am. I don’t have to pretend to be excited about something, or happy, or anything else. I can wear my heart on my sleeve with this girl and she is always there beside me no matter what I do. I love my Mags very much and I’m so grateful that I have her in my life. She is one of those rare type of friends that is completely understanding and accepting of those she loves and the love and honesty that flows between our friendship is very precious to me. I don’t know what I’d do without Maggie in my life. She’s truly great and I love those crazy random days we have driving around town listening to country and stopping in stores or anywhere else for no other reason than we are bored and we can.

One Day I Spent The Day With Maggie…and it was a great day!..

One Day I Was in the Dance Festival...

 Tyff's a dancer. With that being said, she was asked to be apart of the dance festival that our Church was putting on. (It's was a free event so anybody and everybody could see.) They also asked if she would be oh-so-willing to help put together a routine for the YSA's to perform. (Her) Accepting this calling, i knew that i would have to support my dear friend with her newest project. (not "have to" like she made me but because i wanted to, just wanted to clarify.)

Did that entire last paragraph make sense? It did in my head.

About 3 months later,  we dance a pretty awesome routine to Ciara's Turn It Up.

Here's how it goes...

                                         Intro... so dramatic

                                         Tyff's solo. She was amazing!

End Pose.  Pretty cool, i know.                                

                                          We felt SO accomplished.

Here is what i kinda looked like. (no bandana)

One Day I Went Camping...

Me and my friends have had a camping trip every summer for the last couple of years.  We go to this awesome (maybe a little dirty) place called the Woodward Reservoir. Here's the breakdown.

We usually leave Friday morning to set up our tents and what not. During the day we go swimming, ride the jet-ski, play games, you get the point. At night, well that's a different story. We start by making a fire (real girls camp type of stuff). Then we get our s'more on. Once we get our sugar high, that's when the real fun begins. At night is when we start the messin around, we create aliases such as "Moon Beam" and "Star Child." We form boy bands that consist of nothing but girls. We dance around the fire to other people's music because we ALWAYS forget to bring a stereo.

Bottom line is, we have fun. I'm currently trying to plan this years trip. Anybody want to join? I'm thinking of making it a mother-daughter trip. (If the mom's want to go)

Here are some pics from years past.

Enjoy ;)

One Day I Got Frustrated...

You know those times when you get really irked and you just want to yell on the top of your lungs because of lack of communication. Yea, i'm feeling that right now. I've been in a blogging funk lately. I've had many things that i want to share but have nothing to say. We'll let's see if this puts me back into blogging...

Okay, so here's the thing. I got kicked off the computer for about an hour and i've cooled off a little.

Today is just not a good day. It started off good but then things took a turn for the not-so-good.

I want to rant so bad but Tangled is on right now and it's at the part where Rapunzel and Flynn (Eugene... does the way rapunzel say his name bother your too?) are sitting on the boat, waiting for the floating lights... Now she's singing and i can't help but to start feeling better. You learn something everyday right? Well i just learned that Tangled makes me feel happy. How cheesey is that!

Back to my post. I know i'm not making any sense but i need to get everything out of my head. I'm not even checking for spelling errors. oh well.

Anyhow. Blogger isn't letting me comment on anybody's posts. Like Rachel's post, Tell me those painting aren't amazing? I love them! Anyway. This post is a whole lot of nothing but it's making me feel better. If people don't read it i won't be offended but if you've stuck around for this much then that's cool too.

I think i just thought of another post. I'm gonna go start on that one now.

One Day I Went to Ikea...

The friends and i tend to go to Ikea, alot. We don't actually buy stuff, we just go around running through the store. Our most recent trip was for my friend Desirae's birthday. (but she really did buy something)

Have you ever been to Ikea?

Don't you just love the different rooms? The kitchens, the living rooms, the bedrooms... etc

I discovered Ikea about 2 yrs ago when my cousin, Eddie wanted to go on a random trip to Sacramento. The first time i went, i actually bought something... just know that they are really cool picture frames.

 We like to act out movie scenes.

 We like to play around.

                             And we like to mess around with the props.

One Day I Went Geocaching...

Let me tell ya!

I've never been geocaching before so i decided to have our group do it for FHE.

I didn't know what to do so i went to geocaching.com to see how to get started or you can get the app on your phone.

I don't really know how to explain it but i guess it's like a big scavenger hunt. Let me show you.

Pic#1: Joe is explaining how small the geocach will be.

Pic#2: You start looking for the piece where told.

Pic#3 Find the piece, like Tyff did.

Pic#4 Open the little thing and take out the paper and sign it.

Pic#5 Take group pic. Okay, it's not required. It's just fun.

So you see, this is geocaching.

There are geocaching events all around the world so if your ever interested go online to find where.

You can also just find the local pieces like we did.

Have Fun and Good Luck!

One Day I Had A Kyle Moment...

Tyffany found my camera!!  I luh it. (luh means love but when i get really excited it just comes out as luh? just have me say it for you sometime to get the full affect, effect?)
Anywho! Just to let ya'll know a Kyle moment is also known as a random outburst. But it's more than just an outburst. It's an  it-made-sense-in-my-head outburst. You know, when your thinking to yourself then you make a comment and everybody around you is like, what? Yea, it's that.

At FHE I had at least 3 of these moments.

KM#1:

"You should join the church and go on a mission"

Miss Davina (who is not a member of my faith) was talking about wanting to go to Australia. Micheal G., Tyff T, Ali T, Dav B, and I were talkin about Michael's time down under and Davina mentioned how she would love to go sometime. I had a quick stoops moment which led to my Kyle Moment. When she said she would love to go, my brain took it as "i want to go on a mission to Australia." I was wrong.

KM#2:

"Tyffany doesn't scratch"

Matt C. is fresh off the mish. Last night, he was standing, so being nice people, we offered him a seat. (Too many comas?) He gracefully declined our offer then we moved on. Later he sat on the stairs. We offered him a chair again and he finally accepted but he was sitting way far from the table. My mind went off again. I don't like when people say they don't bite so i substituted the word to scratch. When it came out it didn't sound as good as it did in my head.

KM#3:

"I hated Fort Worth, Texas"

Matt was telling us about his mission and what i meant to say was "I hate the weather."

That's it for now folks. I have a feeling that I'm still missing one. I hope i made you great people chuckle for a bit. :)

One Day I Lost My Camera...

So, I've been wanting to blog about my trip to Sacramento for the last week but I lost my camera... Again. I'm really upset about this because today is Easter and it's one of those picture taking days. My mom made an incredible rice krispie Easter bunny (i think she should have a show on TLC called the Krispie Boss, she's good at that stuff) and i want to show the world! Today is one of those days where you dress up really pretty, get together with the family and just have fun.

I've been wanting to post pictures on my Facebook but i can't because i don't have my camera. Only telling about my little cousin trying to eat a fish whole isn't enough. I need to show you the picture! She's a weirdo and i want to share it with the world (and by world i mean only my friends, not really the whole world)!

So there you have it people. I lost my camera and because of this i can't share anything with my friends.

Sad Day...

My  friend is off to school again. I'm not sad that she's going. I'm happy for her. I'm just sad that i didn't get to say bye. we usually get to have one more goodbye after the an event but not this time. I pray for her saftey on her roadtrip back to school and hope she has a great semester with her awesome roommates (that i've never met but i'll take her word for it).

It's also raining, no, poring here. that doesn't make me happy either. I hope this Wednesday goes by fast because i'm just not feelin it.

One Day I Had Fun With the Cuddies...

There are people in my life that i love oh so very much. Our adventure started March 26th. We went to the my little cousins birthday party where we ate ALOT, played musical chairs, danced, sang . . . you get the point, right? The baby is already 9! Oh my, she'll be in the double digits next year. Ewa! She's gonna be a pre-teen soon! The next day was my grandma's birthday. After church, we went to JC Penny to take family pictures, well "grandchildren" pics. Let me tell ya, it was a blast. We had the photographer laughing like crazy. (we get them on Thursday. when they get in I'll post them) When I upload the pictures you'll see something wrong. I'll tell you what it is later. After pictures we went to had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. (shh, don't tell anyone!) Everybody had their cool iPhones/ Droids out and on Facebook documenting our great time out. (except me. apparently i didn't get the memo about modern technology. my phone only calls and texts.) On Monday the older one called me. She wanted to have lunch in San Francisco. So, when I got off of work I got ready to go on our lunch date. Spaghetti and Meatball picked me up and we were off! We were in SF by 2:30. They took me to a place called The Crab House. Let me tell ya. It. Was. Amazing. After eating we walked Peir 39, took a couple of pictures, bought chocolate, then went home. We were back home by 6:00 pm. ps. do you like our bibs?

I thought that was the last of our adventures but later that evening the older one text me again and said we should have breakfast before her flight. So the next morning, before work and before her flight, we had a family breakfast at Johnny's. It was great.

The End. or Fin. Whatever you prefer.

*My cousin Drew was missing from the picture. Apparently his video game was more important than taking pictures with us. Me, Bitter? A little.

One Day I Was Stumped...

So, I'm at work right now. I have nothing to do. I've already done all of my daily duties. What to do next? Naturally, start looking at my friends blogs. after wanting to start wanting to blog myself, I run into a little problem. I don't know what to blog about... Well let me tell you. That is the most frustrating thing ever! So, this is my blog for today.

Sincerely, Maggie.

Ps. Here's a random picture of me playing at the indoor playground.

Pss. A client just walked in with his son asking for a Lequisha. I'm staring at them with a "priceless" look on my face. Seconds later the little boy says, "Just kidding. Her name is Vicki" haha. I love when clients entertain me for about 30 seconds. :)

One Day I Wandered the Internet...

Blogs: Here I am, minding my own business when i suddenly felt like putting an "I'm a Mormon" button on my blog. I'm not as blog savy as I'd like to be so naturally I went to Google to try and figure things out. As I was wandering in the world wide web, I saw this blog. I'm sure you'll see why it peaked my interest. I hope none of you are uncomfortable by this post. I'm just simply sharing my thoughts.

Thought #1: umm...

*Okay, I started writing this post a couple of days ago and I've officially forgotten my thoughts. If I remember them later then I'll say what they were.

Anywho, I really like this guy's point-of-view. I also love reading about his testimony and how strong it is. For example, this post. I absolutely love it! I would never be able to think of something like that.

I also like really like their blog (i freakin LOVE it), her blog (awesome stuff), and his blog (it's just nice to know what's going on).

Okay, Okay. This post isn't going to be focused on blogs. Let's move on to other things...

Youtube: Let's just say, I love it.

Some of my favorite people are Mitchell Davis, Julian Smith, and anybody on Vevo.

I can spend hours on Youtube, which is kinda scary. I love that I can learn things from other people. It's just genius.

I really like this.

Google: "Google it" Google-ing things is one of my favorite things to. It's awesome. I google EVERYTHING. I google people like him. I google song lyrics like these. I google questions like this.

Now that I've gotten all link happy, I'm gonna go back to work. :)

Have a good day!

One Day I Celebrated Pi Day...

Happy day-after-pi-day!

I must say. I hang around some pretty cool people. They're kind of a big deal.

Last Monday Rachel thought it would be a good idea to have a pie eating contest for FHE, then she suggested we learn math. I was puzzled. She started to explain to me that it was Pi day. I was still puzzled because i thought she said pie not pi. To read her awesome post about our night go here. Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally figured out what she was talking about.

Here is how our night went:

Round 1: Monique vs. Tyffany

Round 2: Elder Winger vs. Elder Holyoak

Round 3: Maggie vs. Kelsey

Champs!

2nd Placers

I think it was a success. It was really fun and i'm looking foreward to celebrating Pi day, with pie eating contests, next year.