Old News

I can't believe I haven't posted anything on this yet, but here goes...
Natalie (my sister) had her baby on September 30th, 2007. Yeah, I know, I should have done it sooner. Anyways, his name is Benjamin Paul Gardner. He is just adorable!!

I feel bad because I don't remember all of the newborn stuff like how much he weight and how long he was and all that stuff. All I know is that I'm super glad he's healthy because for a while there he wasn't looking too good. They had to do an emergency C-Section and then he had Jaundice for a while, but obviously he's looking much better. He is getting so big, I can't even stand it!!
Also, my niece turned 2 this year! She found the cupcakes my sister made for her, and started eating it really fast before Natalie found out what was going on and why she was being so quiet.

As you can see, she got most of it down before my sister could grab the camera, but she is just adorable!! Anyways, I guess that will be all for tonight. See ya later!!

Me Familia

So today I'm going to talk about my family. I have an amazing family, and I love them very much. I love it when we all get together and have a big party at my house. It's a good time. I have 4 siblings, all of which are older than me. Yeah, that's right, I'm the baby. I like being the baby for certain reasons, but when I was younger I really hated it. I always got picked on and bossed around, but it's really paying off in my older years. I get to do things my brothers and sister didn't get to do. It's pretty exciting.





Here's all of us at my brother's wedding. From Left to right it goes Sylvia, Dylan, Brandon, Natalie, and then Trevor- he was the one getting married. From oldest to youngest though, it is Natalie, Brandon, Trevor, Dylan, Sylvia. Natalie is married and has one child (Rachel, my niece) and another one on the way. Her husband's name is Paul. My brother Brandon is not married yet, and Trevor beat him to the punch. Trevor married another Rachel and they live happily in Virginia as Newlywed college students. So there's the main part of my family. All of us are older now, and it's weird to see us all together like that. I'm finally taller than my sister, and almost as tall as Brandon, but not quite. Why am I telling you all this, do you ask? I don't know, I guess it's just so I don't have to explain things when I'm writing about them because you'll already know about it. It's pretty nice I suppose. But anyways, I think I'll end it there. Carry on, good chaps, carry on.

The First Week of School

Hooray! School finally got off to a good start. I think that I'm going to like school this year. I'm going to be working my butt off, but it will be so good. It's been a while since I've really had to work hard at my schoolwork. I really like a challenge when it comes to school. It may be easier to do regular classes, but what do you get out of it, seriously? Meeting a lot of people who don't care about their education. I did work in Physics last year, but it's definitely not going to be the same this year. I have 3 AP classes and 2 CC classes, so this is not a year to doddle. True, my CC classes are Adult Roles and Computer Technology, so it probably won't be as hard as it sounds. Plus, I got cool people in my Adult Roles class. That class is going to be a hoot! It already has been quite an enjoyable class due to the fact that a lot of funny people are with me. It's way fun. I'm thinking we're going to be sticking it to the man in adult roles, or, as the case may be, woman. Yeah baby!


So other than school, I've pretty much had an awesome weekend. I got to hang out with my little niece! She is so adorable. Just have a look yourself.

Her name is Rachel and I love her very very much. She likes to walk by and say "Hi Syl!" and then she goes up to everyone and says "Hi ____!" It's so cute I want to kill myself. She's a little dislexic too because she calls our dog named Toby "Poty." and cup "puc" and stuff like that. She also can't say the f sound so she says sork and sood and sone. Adorable, I tell you what.
Anyways, I also got to sleep in (hooray!!) and I was able to receive my Patriarchal Blessing. That is such a wonderful thing to have that I would invite anyone who likes feeling good about themselves to get it. It's a once-in-a-lifetime expirience that I will never ever forget.
Well, I hope all of you have had a good time on this vast weekend, and I'd like to leave you with a simple quote: "Live in such a way that people who know you but don't know Christ will want to know Christ because they know you." -Bishop H. David Burton
If you live this way, you will be happy. I know it with all my heart. Believe it! Live it! Be true to it! Stand a little Taller!

The Last Day of Summer

Wow. I don't know about you but this summer flew by. I can't get it into my head that in 2 days I can't sleep in until 10, I can't do things during the day, and I can't stay out really late at night because I report to school. Eeeeeek! I can't seem to wrap my finger around it.

Usually, by this time, I've been left alone by myself all day so often that I'm ready for school. I'm excited to buy my new things for class, I'm ready to see what my teachers are going to be like, and I'm thrilled to know that daily occurances with my friends are just around the corner. But this year, since I was gone for so long and I was having so much fun, I don't want it to end yet. I loved this summer probably most of all. But, alas, school must start again. The education cycle begins. You start strong, get burned out around Christmas, take a break for a while, then start fresh in the new year. Then you have to go all the way until easter to get a decent sized break, and then summer time is just a block away. It's amazing how the years go in and out when you are concentrating on schooling.

Plus, what I posted earlier was not all of my summer anyways. I got home from Boston on the Fourth of August, and reported to Youth Conference (Trek) on the Eighth. I had so much fun at Trek, 2007. But here's the deal- at first I totally hated it. I didn't want to pull a handcart up a mountain only to come back down it again. It was worthless to me! I didn't really start getting into it until our Stake Presidency held a women's pull. It was so blasted hard! But we did it. We worked together "As Sisters in Zion" and we accomplished this without the help of our men. After we pulled it down and up these steep hills, we all came together and hugged and cried and all of that womanly jazz. I wasn't going to cry- I didn't feel like I needed to- until I saw Wilenys bawling her eyes out. That was a touching moment. Then I thought about it. This whole experience is for touching moments, not just really hard nothingness. If my heart wasn't in the work, it was worthless. For the rest of the time, I had a really strong attitude, and my family and I sang songs the rest of the time. It was so much fun! I loved it. That's what made trek so memorable. I worked at having fun, and so I did! The last day was the hardest, but I had the most fun. 2 carts broke from the strain of the mountain, but I was singing with my family. There was a dead cow carcass on the side of the road. It was gross because you could totally tell it was a cow, but it's spine was all eaten at so the bones were sticking out and stuff. It smelled... lovely. But I still had fun! People could have died by falling over the cliff because the road was so narrow, but no one did! It was an adrenaline rush for me thinking, "Hmmm... if I step a little weird, I could fall off this cliff right next to me," so I enjoyed it. I'm totally an adrenaline junkie so it was cool. Anyways, moral of the story is: make yourself have fun. Even if you're pretending for a while, you'll catch on and relax and have fun. Giddy up!

Alrighty then. I'm pretty much finished for now, and so I'd like to leave you with this quote from Cool Runnings. It's totally irrelevant to everything I've been talking about, but it's a good one.
This is the part where Coach is talking about his Gold medals, and I think it applies to anything in our lives. "If you aren't enough without it, then you will never be enough with it." No thinking "If I just had this one thing, I could be really happy." But you won't!! You'll just want more. Think about it, and it makes sense.

A Fresh Start

School is nigh at hand, and that means friends, dates, and *sigh* school work. This summer was so much fun that I am not quite ready for school to start. Here's basically how it went down:

During the whole month of June, I took driver's ed. At 7 in the morning. Bogus, I know. That was all good, and I can't really expand on that. It's driver's ed. Any questions?

After that, my mom was able to use her sky miles to fly me out to Boston, MA. You have no idea how excited I was to be there! There is a feeling there that cannot be felt in our young state. The feeling of being in the city of the Red Sox is simply indescribable. I was also able to actually go to a Red Sox game!

I indeed went to Fenway Park and saw the Red Sox kill the Devil Rays 15-4. I was screaming at the top of my lungs! My favorite player, Coco Crisp, hit a grand-slam over the monster in the first inning. (Note: a Grand slam is when you hit a home run when the bases are loaded, and the green monster is this huge wall in center field that is unique to Fenway Park.) I also was able to go to Joseph Smith's birth place and camp there overnight. That was a really cool place to be. I went to the Boston Temple as well (which is the most beautiful temple in my opinion) and I loved the flowers. Because of the humidity, they are able to grow beautiful flowers.

I loved it in Boston. I would consider living there even though it's not like Utah. I wouldn't live there for more than a couple of years, but I would like to live in the outskirts of Boston. There's a whole different world out there for me to explore, and so I want to go! But it would be weird not living in Utah. Utah is my home. It's a safe place. Well, sort of, but you get the idea. I love Utah, the rocky mountains, Bear Lake, and all of that stuff. Utah is the place to be, especially when it comes to the church. There are 5 temples on the east coast of the United States. Boston MA, Washington D.C., Charlotte NC, Atlanta GA, and somewhere in Florida... I can't remember if it's in Tampa Bay or somewhere else. We have like 14 in Utah alone. I'm sure I'm missing a temple or two, but you get the picture. It is hard to be the only member of the church in your high school. I couldn't do that. I am so happy to be in a place where LDS people are plentiful and strong. It's nice to be respected for your standards.

Anyways, I also went to Maine on this trip of mine. I got to see some beautiful sites of the Atlantic ocean and some lighthouses as well.

They are so wonderful to look at. (On the picture in the middle, there are some high-roller houses in the background ;)) Everywhere you look is GREEN GREEN GREEN! The roads are really narrow and on either side is a forest of trees. You can't even see houses on the side of the road because there are so many trees. People love to garden there and love to share their goods with people in the ward. I forgot to mention- there are 2 STAKES IN ALL OF MAINE! That's right. It was a total change for me. My Uncle (who is in the stake presidency) put it to me like this: "If we were to measure out our stake in terms of miles it would be like having a ward in Logan, a ward in Salt Lake, a ward in St. George, a ward in Vernal, a ward in Heber, and probably one in Provo. That's how spread out it is." Holy cow. My Stake boundaries go from 11th west to 17th west. And they have to drive like 300 miles to get to the other end of the stake. What a nightmare!! The thing is, the wards aren't even that big either. The boundaries are huge, but the wards are small. This one branch that I visited had their sacrament meeting room double as a primary room because their building was so small. They had maybe 20 or 25 people show up that day. All I can say is, it was a big change when I went there. I was like 5% of their congregation by myself! Well anyways, I'm sure you get the picture by now. We are lucky out in good ol' Utah, and so I am grateful for all of the members out here. I hope all is well in your lives, and I shall speak to you later!