Some Things are Better Left Unremembered

I don't know what compelled me, but within the last few weeks, I decided to get out my old journals from Elementary School and Jr. High. Every night this week I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about the very dramatic life of Kaleena. I thought you might get a kick out of a few of the entries (but who knows)-I sure did though....

An entry from when I was eleven

"Today when I woke up I decided to make an egg. So I did. Then me and my dad went on a bike ride... When we came home I ate "lunch." (I don't know why I believed that needed parentheses.) Then we went to the store. Bethany bought notebook paper, I bought a birthday present for my friend, my dad bought a huge plastic container, a tie rack, furniture polish and we rented movies. The movies we rented were: A Kid in King Arthur's Court, I.Q., Canadian Bacon...Then we got pizza. When we got home we cooked it. It was good but really spicy. After that we watched Canadian Bacon. It is now 8:58...Tomorrow we have regional conference and I can't wait."

-Oh 11 year old me, there are some details that just don't need to be remembered.

The mood swings apparently started to set in when I was about twelve...

"Hello! Today was sort of fun but sort of depressing at the same time. It was fun because, well, it just was. But it was depressing because my friends were all being weird and sort of leaving me out but not completely. So it was sort of depressing but not extremely. School was normal. There was a game after school. That was sort of fun, but not really. When I came home, I didn't really do anything. It was sort of boring, in fact. Well, tomorrow's going to be more fun."

And my favorite...I'll apologize to Bethany and Emily in advance. I'm sure I didn't mean it...

(I was shopping with my family in St. George) "But then I saw it...one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen...It was the most amazing colors and looked so remarkable hanging on it's little hanger! A jacket!!! No! No! Wait! I don't think it should be called just a jacket. It was more than that! It deserves a better name. Something great like...like... Tony! (A guy on tv at the time that I thought was cute.) I guess you could say it was a Tony! Then, when I tried it on, it looked even better! It made me look like a model! In fact, a SUPER model! I tried not to act too needy and I tried every trick in the book to get my mom to buy it for me. And at the very last second she decided to buy it for me but then Bethany and Em had to butt in! Oh! They should die! So, no, I didn't get my DREAM jacket! The best part was that it was originally marked $80 but it had been marked down to...Guess! You'll never guess! It's too incredible to be guessed! $40!!! Can you even believe it? I don't think you can! I think you are in total and complete shock and you're thinking "Why didn't her mom tear all her clothes off and go screaming through the stores because she was so amazed? How can Kaleena sleep at night knowing that she is being deprived of the great privilege of having that incredible piece of craftsmanship for only $40? Is that too much to ask for?"

Oh my! Well, all I can say is thank you to all those who associated with me during my adolescent years-I hope there's a special place in heaven for you. I guess I should say thank you to all those who continue to associate with me because I'm sure a lot of that 13 year old girl is still trapped inside and leaks out sometimes.

Every now and then I feel bad that I don't keep a journal very well anymore, and scrapbooking has pretty much taken the place, but I guess it might be better for posterity not to have some of these memories.

Go Jazz Go!

We went to a Jazz game on Friday. I'm finally getting to the point where I am okay with a Williams-less Jazz team, (but you won't want to talk to me when they finally decide to get rid of Millsap.) It was a really fun game, and I always like watching younger guys play. But I realized it was Meili's first Jazz game-which is surprising only because we used to go to quite a few Jazz games every year and she's already been to an NFL football game, 2 Major-League baseball games, 1 college bowl football game, (I think 2, but for sure at least 1) Bees game, and several Aggie basketball and football games. Not too bad for 14 months! Most of that list took me 26 1/2 years!

Go Jazz Go!

Merry Christmas!

As I've gotten older, I've gotten a little bit more bummed about Christmas. I still love the Christmas season obviously, but it's hard to give up the traditions that you've been used to your whole life. And sometimes it's tough trying to mesh 2 different families' traditions together. But this year, it got pretty fun again! Plus, because of Christmas being on a Sunday, and some other circumstances, we essentially got to celebrate Christmas on 3 different days which was also fun. However, I, yet again, didn't take as many pictures as I wanted-so I didn't get either mine or Josh's family celebrations. Ugh...

But here's Meili's Christmas morning-which we actually celebrated on Christmas Eve morning. I could barely sleep cause I was so excited.

Does that look like a little girl's dream or what?

Meili, of course, was the most excited about her new silverware. These days she's only eating what she can pick up herself with a spoon or fork.

I have a really hard time surprising Josh or shopping for Josh in general and my goal was to make stockings for our family this year. Well, I couldn't really find stockings that I wanted to make, and then as if in a revelation I saw these stockings on Live with Kelly, and I was able to order them just in time for Christmas! Josh had no idea, and I was so excited! Bad news: we don't get to have any more children, because I don't know if we will be able to find more to match-sorry Grandmas and Grandpas!

Meili loved the balls in her castle, but she was hesitant to get in at first. She got the hang of it eventually though.

She loves reading books, and I love that about her!

Her newest fetish: trying on shoes. We can't have another one of THOSE in our family.

I wonder where she gets it from?

We all must have been good in our house because we got quite the haul all around. I think I've been more excited to play with Meili's toys than even she has :)

We spent most of Christmas Eve with my family, then we went to Josh's parents' house on Christmas day. We were with Josh's family for New Year's Eve, and then because my brother was in Arizona with his wife for the holidays, we celebrated Christmas with my whole family yesterday. Add in a few times snowboarding and we've had a good couple of weeks!

I hope you all had a good holiday season, and here's to another great year in 2012!