LONG OVERDUE!

I can't believe it took me an entire month to do a post on Choir Tour! Procrastinators unite... tomorrow!

How in the world can I sum up probably the 4 most amazing consecutive days of my life to this point? With a bunch of random paragraphs and a barrage of pictures, that's how! So here we go.

We started Thursday morning with showing up to the airport 2 hours early. This was done to avoid the rush, which we definitely did. We were through security in about 10 minutes and Chris Neu and I watched Psych for the rest of the time. The plane ride it self was pretty uneventful except for the amazing trivia game they had that you could play with everyone else on the plane. I only got through one round with the username of 'Derpy' (as in Derpy Hooves) before the game kicked me out for some reason. The only other entertainment was the television, which had no sound, and therefore I could only watch Tom and Jerry.

When we arrived the sky was mostly clear, and we could see the Space Needle from above. We played Munchkin and watched Psych for the next two hours until the second plane load showed up. By then it was raining pretty bad and a little dark outside. With our stuff stowed safely under our seats in the big tour bus and met the greatest bus driver in the world, the Almighty DAVE! I need did find out his last name, though. We got to the Hotel and dropped our stuff before heading out again to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Fun place.

Next day the sky was clear, and we visited the Space Needle. You can see the video of that below. Near that was the Science Museum and some building called the E.M.P. Museum (the Electronic Music Pop-cultere museum or something). Both were very interesting and informative about all kinds of stuff, including the history of Horror Films and the world's largest Rubic's Cube.

The next stop was the local Aquarium, which was fascinating based on the fact that the city is on the Pacific Ocean front (See pictures and such below).

It was after the aquarium that we gave our performance at the local high school as a choir, and we did pretty darn good with our renditions of "Let me Fly", "Ver Du Ron", and "I Am Not Yours". We still might get the mp3's of those.

The next day we visited Pike's Marketplace where we sadly didn't get to see the people tossing fish around, through we did sing in the street for the crowd. There was also this guy in a suit giving out hugs for a dollar each. Following that we saw the Seattle Mariners vs Chicago White Sox baseball game where the Phillip Humber (the White Sox pitcher) pitched the 21st perfect game in history. That was pretty cool though I could care less about baseball.

After that was the Harbor cruise where we rode to an island that use to house an Indian race of indigenous  people. There was a lodge there where we were served to dinner and a award ceremony where we earned a Gold Award in our division (the best). Caden Larson got a special award for being AMAZING on the piano and the Madrigals took silver in their division.

Last but not least was the Museum of Flight sunday morning (see pictures again). There was a lot of history contained there and it was a lot of fun. We ended the trip the same way it started and my family was there to pick me up.

Over all it was a lot of fun. I'm getting nostalgic just writing this post and I can't wait until Madrigals next year to do something like it again. Happy days, everyone!

Pictures:

PROM 2012!

Oh man, that was fun. The entire experience started a few weeks ago when my mom informed me that she expected me to go to prom with or against my will. So, I planned to make the best of it. I got in a group with some friends, namely Colby Sims, Jake Christensen, and Thomas Argyle. My date was Christina Kimbull. Over the course of two late night planning meetings by the 4 males where we spent over half the time being distracted and not getting anything productive done, we came up with a convoluted that was a lot of fun which went as follows. We picked everybody up about 10 o'clock and drove them to my house. Then (after making the mistake of letting my mom decide what the pictures were) we did a picture scavenger hunt around the Riverton/Bluffdale area where we had to take pictures of us doing various activities that were worth varying amounts of points. If we didn't score enough points, our parents would accompany us to the Prom. We didn't know how much was enough, so we had to get as much as possible.

After we finished our shenanigans, we stopped at the Bluffdale Park for a picnic lunch. Our activities ranged from flying kites, playing kickball, telling stupid jokes and stories, and basic running around. After everybody was sufficiently sunburned, we painted Easter Eggs in the wind.

After this we dropped everybody off for about 2 hours to get dressed, while it took the guys about 10 minutes.

After we picked everybody back up and got lost trying to find Thomas's house, we had his dad do our pictures for FREE! He does wedding pictures as a part-time professional and he did an AMAZING JOB! (His website is dbaphotography.com)

We then attended a lovely private dinner in Grandma Jello's Basement Restaurant. With a delicious meal cooked up by the moms, we savored steaks, potatoes, salad, green-bean casserole, and Sparkling Sprite.

Then we actually attended the dance. The music was loud, the moves fresh, and the sweaty armpits. It was an extremely enjoyable time of socializing and making a fool of yourself.  We were so busy having a good time making up dance moves ranging from 'the shopping cart' to 'change the lightbulb' that we didn't get any pictures or videos.

We then ended by driving the Jake's house to enjoy Brownies and Ice Cream while winding down. It was an extremely enjoyable evening that I'm glad to have enjoyed. And Christina, when you read this, thank you for saying yes. You are a great person and I had a great time with you. ;)

CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR VIDEO!

Major Update Needed

So much has happened recently that I haven't even considered writing it down, but now that I have a chance to breath I have come to consider it as a good idea. The first major thing was my entrance into the world of a Youtube video creator. I haven't done much but my channel is here. I'm working on an Abbott and Costello thing at the moment. Next, two weeks ago was probably the hardest I've had in my life up to this point, with a combination of major schooling challenges and State Debate over the weekend. I managed to get to the Quarter Finals and took "6th" place but it wasn't easy and I almost killed myself with a cold. It was fun though and worth it. After that my mom insisted I get a prom date for this weekend and I've been stressing over that since I have no idea about how to do dances on dates and especially what's expected for prom. You'll be haring about my experiences later.

Pioneer Children Sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked...

Recently on a Venture 'campout', enjoyable experiences were had by all. We got to go up to our Bishop's 'cabin' and snowmobile the next day. It was a lot of fun, starting with many of the boys in my crew flirting with girls on the highway that ended up going to the same cabin community as ourselves. We then hiked up to the cabin on what was supposed to be a fifteen minute hike that turned into a 45 minute hike. We'd gotten there later then expected, and it got dark as we hiked in snowshoes. The result was that we walked past the cabin in the dark, and when we asked them to turn on the lights, we were fifteen minutes off course and had to hike back. It was worth it for the cabin alone however. The house was completely furnished and decked out with ever modern convince including a huge flat-screen and remote-control fireplaces. We had a lovely dinner of chili-cheese dogs and ended it with a night of hot-tubing, karaoke singing, and Mario Kart Wii that ended at midnight. The next day we went snowmobiling for a few hours, and had an incredibly enjoyable time of it. We were incredibly sore the next day for church and it didn't help that mom got me up at 8 and had us all go out to shovel driveways. It was way fun though, and I suggest watching this.

The Game of Public Education

The story of my life for the last two months was incredibly boring. Nothing except school week after week and Debate on some weekends. Not to say I didn't enjoy it. I learned stuff, including Chinese and the definition of Proletarian. I played Magic and Munchkin with my friends at school. I did average at 3 debate tournaments and am slightly looking forward to regions this weekend. I am reading a good book though, 'Life and Death in Shanghai'. It's a true story about a woman who lived through the Proletarian Revolution in China and the atrocities and afflictions that beset her through the reign of Communists. I'm glad I read it as it shows exactly those behind Occupy Wall Street are idiots. School though, is a game. Its about playing your cards right and keeping vigilant to get that little blot of ink that says you're smart to the world. It determines your fate and career and how you will be treated by those above and below. I think its broken, flawed, and biased against those who don't quite fit the system, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I just hope it will be some day.

On that happy note, look what I can do!

LAST FUNDRAISER!

Hey everybody! As you may or may not know I'm am in A'Capella Choir this year and as you may or may not know Choir Tour comes with it. We are going to Seattle Washington and that costs a lot of money for the trip and Hotel. Fortunately we are taking orders for buckets of Cookie Dough and Carmel Corn and other delectable treats for 14 or 15 dollars. This is the last Fundraiser we're doing and if you could contribute it would be extremely helpful! All profits will help us on our way.

The choices are:

Cookie Dough 14$:

Chocolate Chunk

Peanut Butter

Oatmeal Raisin

Snicker doodle

Cookie Dough 15$:

White Chocolate Macadamia

Triple Chocolate

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

White Chocolate Oatmeal Raspberry

Lemon Drop

Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bits (yum!)

Churros

Pumpkin Rolls

Carmel Corn (all 14$):

Chocolate Delight:

Chicago Style:

Buttery Carmel

Cherry Delight

Mint Delight

Peanut Butter Delight

If you can help us out, then please e-mail me at coy@jrchristensen.com. If you're worried about quality, don't be. I've tasted this stuff and it is very good (especially the Oatmeal Raspberry, that stuff is like Heaven on Earth!).

I'll never forget

Today will be in my memory forever. It started about a month and a half ago when Annie asked me if I would like to baptise her (How can you say no when someone asks that?). Last night I took her on a date to Carl's Jr, discussing what would happen this morning. It was truly amazing to be a part of her ordinance. We'd been practicing the baptism for about a week and, with the water barely reaching past the top of my thighs, I nearly had to double over to get her completely in the water. This was also because she's just about half my height. Overall, the experience was amazing and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Happy Holidays

I love this time of year. Besides the fact that we didn't get school off until after Christmas, it has been the perfect break from everything so far. For the last two years my Dad has been unemployed, which has been hard for us in varying ways throughout, but it has only served to strengthen our love for each other and our savior as he has blessed us with every challenge that came our way, not only with miracles but with the help from countless friends and family members. This Christmas probably wouldn't have happened without Him, but with him it was literally the biggest and greatest Christmas we've had to date. My Dad was able to get employed about a month ago, which helped enormously, and the community we have has shown us so much love that its still sitting on our counters as we eat it slowly throughout the days. We were able to receive and give so many amazing and fun gifts that we've been often brought to tears. I will remember Christmas 2011 for the rest of my life.
In closing, this video is what we gave my Grandparents on my moms side for Christmas.

My Recent Life (last few weeks) in a few carefully chosen pictures and sentences.

Hey everybody! So much has happened so recently that I could do 3-4 separate posts, but I unwittingly decided to jam it all together! While reading this, stop the playlist music above and have the following link playing in another window/tab!You Won't Regret it!

1. My Birthday: Last Nov. 2nd marks my 17th year being alive on this earth. My presents included a new Kindle (my old one was stolen), the Son of Neptune book, and a Fluttershy model. Here's a picture of my cake.

Yes, that be Doctor Who in the background. JUST REMEMBER I DIDN'T MAKE THIS!

2. Two Debate Tournaments: Being L.D. captain is fun yet hard, and these tournaments were pretty average except for this sign.

3. I joined an Acapella Group: I saw a sign on the whiteboard in the Choir room at school advertising an acapella group for the battle of the bands in two weeks. Were practicing now and we'll probably get an official recording I'll show you later.

4. Book club: Yay! They chose the book I suggested! Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons! IT"S AMAZING!

5. I did a recent presentation in my Language Arts class on this article that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

6. Just watch this for like three minutes!
7. And Read This!

You can stop the music now. I should do these to music more often. I was listening to what you were while writing this, so you can tell me how it turned out!

I look out the window, and what do I see?

Chocolate Carmel Popcorn? That's unexpected. Anyways, whether you're here of your own free will or not, here's how its gonna go down.
We're going to Seattle Washington for Choir Tour in January and we're doing a fundraiser to help pay for it. If you would be willing, we have some holiday treats (in the form of Carmel corn) that will greatly help us on our way.
If you are interested, we'll be delivering in about 2 1/2 weeks. The Carmel corn comes in 10'' by 3'' circular tubs that are filled to the brim. The objects in question are listed below.
 Everything below is 14$.
Chicago Style
Chocolately Delight
Buttery Carmel
Cherry Delight
Mint Delight
Peanut Butter

Another delicious option is that of Cookie Dough Bites, chocolate covered balls of cookie dough, in 21oz buckets for 15$ if you so choose.
 For orders or questions, you can reach me at coy@jrchristensen.com.
Thanks!