I had so much potential…

I love the fact that all my old high school stuff is still on my parent’s computer. It gives me great pleasure to see how great I almost was. 

Case 1:

I was destined for the judiciary.  My judgment was precise and fair and I was quick to figure out the most important issue of a case instead of dwelling on the unimportant details.

Note: I found the article and reread it. The issue with the truck was whether or not it should be brought into court for evidence or just show pictures. Not who should get to keep the truck…

 

Case 2:

I think this example shows my reasoning, logic, and decision-making. Even at a young age, I clearly knew who I was and what I stood for.

Note: the red highlighting was a recent addition. Also, why did I title the paper Catron, Jack??

Case 3:

I got better though, with time. I should have been a reporter or a lawyer.  I was unbiased, cool, calm, and collected.

Note: For the record, this was not supposed to be an attack on anything (see the last sentence). We had to do a current event every week in biology. They were such a drag and because of that, I always forgot to do them. After awhile though, I started taking articles and making them more entertaining (see the drastic change between January and June) and all the sudden current events were my favorite part of the week. Imagine that.

Case 4:

This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure, because I remember when I presented this to the class. Everyone just sort of stared in shock, in awe of the fact that I made a current event interesting and wildly irrelevant (this may be a false memory, but it’s a good one).
I should have been a scientist. I had a knack for hypotheses. Or a dictator. I offer my services in this current event review.

accompanied by these pictures.

Note: But really, I make some excellent points. For example, this summer my mom and I used a shopping cart instead of a basket for the first time and severely overestimated how much we could carry. The walk home was excruciating. Of course, that has nothing to do with shopping carts- but does give evidence to support the “shopping carts are evil” theory…

Note2: I was really into hunting down Osama bin Laden. I think this is the second time I used it (probably because my teacher liked the first and positively reinforced me to do it again). The first time was about an article on the sexual harassment of guppies. I reviewed the article and then said that although it may have been interesting, it was a waste of time because these people could be employed doing more useful things (I don’t think they were actually harassing the guppies) like hunting down Osama. If people had listened to me back then…

 

Another article, “Apes shown to be able to plan ahead,” had a self-created subtitle of “Anything that can think can bomb.”

I should have been an activist. I was really into causes.

I had so much potential! What happened??

Diddy loves General Conference

Diddy, you have no idea what you just got yourself into…
Thanks to Kaitlan for finding this first.

I looked good when I was a baby.

I mean, can you believe I'm not married yet?  Who wouldn't want those stylish hair genes?

Rook high

I was really excited to play Rook with my Uncle Ross. He and Jeremy were talking themselves up so much. Teresa refused to play because the week before Aunt Becky and Emily smashed her and Jer every single game. I couldn’t wait to put them in their place, until I asked them if they played Rook high or Rook low.

The responded with an emphatic “Rook high” and I knew it was not going to be nearly as fun as I thought it would be.  They also didn’t play with 1s high, so it took me a really long time to get into the rhythm of the game. Rook high is the worst. I can live with 1s not being high, but making the Rook the most powerful card in the game makes it really hard to take the Kitty if you don’t have the it. Ah well. After the first round, in which I forgot about Rook high and took the kitty at a super high bid (which would have been suuuper low playing with my rules) and getting smashed, Jer took over and we killed Ross and Becky all the other rounds.

But since no one else wanted to play Rook, we switched to Scum. We played with 2 decks and John became the king right away and kept that position due to having 4+ 2s every single game. I fluctuated between 2nd scum and practically scum the whole game. Here I am in this picture being 2nd scum. Poor Becky didn’t get any 2s during the practice rounds and then finally got them when she was scum but had to give them to John.

Sunday was Aunt Becky’s birthday. We all went to church in the morning; I was surprised that a non-singles ward had Relief Society/ Elders Quorum first and Sacrament last.

After church we all helped with dinner.  Here is Emily making gravy (her specialty) with Jer pretending like he was helping.  Jeremy was most useful for the kool-aid, where he put in twice the sugar the recipe asks for.

Ross and John making the potatoes. I helped peel them- at one point we needed more so someone went outside and got some more from the garden. They probably didn’t actually pull them out of the ground, but I laughed and laughed when they brought them back in.

Lighting the candles.

I love Ava’s face in this one.

Barbara and John were so nice to take me.

Aunt Becky got a kindle from her kids. She was so excited, it was really cute.

Duke recovered from the snow escapade.

Before we left, Ross took Austin and Ava out to play in the snow. Look at the pure excitement on Ava’s face.  :)

Also, Jeremy has super long toes. This is Emily’s finger next to his toe. Nice.

Deep Snow

The reason for going out to Manila (besides the previously mentioned pros) was to get a Christmas tree! 

My family always had a fake tree growing up, and I never had any problem with that.  It was easy, looked the same every year, and looked a whole lot more full than most of my friend's sparse but real trees.

But when my cousins invited me out to get a tree with them in Manila, I couldn’t miss the chance to go out to the grand old town or get a tree in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to a Christmas tree farm, where I actually have been.

We drove probably twenty minutes outside of town.  Here are some views on the way to the “middle of nowhere”

Momma moose and baby moose

Big horn sheep
 

The Catron’s love animal spotting, so it was a pretty big deal to see these animals.  We saw a ton of elk too.  Who knew people could get so excited every single time they see an elk?  Since I can’t really tell the difference between the elk and deer, I rarely got excited and forgot to take hundreds of pictures for your viewing pleasure.

About 20 minutes outside “town” we just chose a random place to stop, parking practically on the highway.

The snow was so deep.  No one really saw it coming until we parked.  Jeremy and Duke led the way most of the time. 

The snow was as tall as Duke was, so he looked like a fish jumping out of water. 

The snow was about as tall as Austin and Ava.  These pictures were taken near the road.  It was even deeper later on, but it also got colder, and the kids got sadder, so there are less pictures later.

Thanks to Jeremy for leading the way most of the time because I struggled when I took a turn.  I was glad that Teresa let me borrow her boots, because mine would have been pretty useless in this snow.

 

The worst idea of the night was when I tried to make a snow angel to make Austin and Ava laugh.  I got so much snow down my back and pants.

After the kids got more tired, Jer and John were nice enough to carry them on their shoulders.

As we went on, and as it got darker and colder, the trees started to look much better.  The ones at the beginning suddenly seemed so full and beautiful!  John and his family found a really pretty one near the end of our trek.

John dragged the huge tree back through the deep snow to the truck.  I tried to help the most I could by lifting up the back so it would drag along the snow better, but I’m not sure I was much help.

They were nice enough to take a picture though, so it seemed like I did a ton.

The kids were happy to back in the warm truck.

Jeremy and Duke.  These two love each other.  Since the trees were in the back, Jeremy, Duke, Ross and I all got to share the front.  Poor Duke had to curl up in a ball on the floor for the whole drive.

    

What a pretty sunset.

Drive to Manila

My cousins live in Manila, UT. 

To give you an idea of how big Manila is, here are some stats:

-the population in 2000 was 308 people

-the population is 379.3 people per square mile

-therefore, Manila is less than 1 square mile.

-there are 401 housing units

-therefore, there are more houses than people

-one of my cousins had 7 people in his graduating class.

-there are 0 stop lights

-there are TWO gas stations though!

Obviously, it’s a hot spot to visit.  There are some pros to living there though:

-they’ve never been turned down for the deer hunt

-to get to the church, market, school etc… it’s less than a mile walk

-the smog levels are nearly 0

-you only have to drive a few minutes to get a Christmas tree, go shooting, or my cousins personal favorite- “elk spotting”

 

I drove over with these cute kids: Austin and Ava

 

It was an extremely exciting drive for them:

Poor Barbara had to go sit with them for a little while.  Their youngest, Tyler was starving so she tried opening this baby formula.  I keep thinking the white on her scarf is a reflection of sunlight or something, but it is a result of the pressure in the formula.

 

I kept asking John if we were in Utah or Wyoming.  He was patient with my annoying comments, and then finally told me that I would know when we were getting to Utah because Utah salts the roads. I didn’t get it until I saw this:

Utah: Throwing it in your face since 1896.

When my geekiness comes out

A friend showed me this today.

You’ll either think it’s very funny, not funny at all, or somewhat funny.

I love Google employees.

Thanksgiving

All you need to know about Thanksgiving is that I ran 5 miles or something like that. And I didn’t even get a red face. That should tell you a little about the time I got when Cydney, Megan, and I finished…