Kobe Bryant fan

Check out this video about Kobe Bryant and his fans:

Crazy Kobe Bryant fan

Wetzel's Pretzels

Sad story:  I didn't win the election!  I know - I was (and am still) in shock.  I thought that my only competition was Haley Herkert, but apparently some random girl who was running, (and who never put up any posters and only 20 people joined her Facebook group) won.  However, she and Cami Lopez (the future vice pres. of ASB) are pretty tight, so I'm almost convinced that the election was somehow rigged.  We still went to Wetzel's Pretzels that night to try to get past my devastating loss.  Pictures below for proof:

 

This picture's just for fun.  :)

I'm running for senior secretary

So apparently I'm 17 again and running for Senior Secretary at La Canada High School. Who thought that I would be back in high school at age 27? Not me, that's for sure. But here I am. And oh how much fun I am having!! So the elections are on Friday and I made at least 500 posters to plaster all over the school so people would know exactly who to vote for. (side note: I don't like putting prepositions at the end of sentences, ie the previous sentence, but so be it for now...) Oh and since I don't like people seeing me put up my posters during the daytime at school, I like to run around the school at 10:30 at night, taping up my hot green, pink, and yellow flyers. You can tell I know how to be safe - trust me, the janitors were around, so everything was cool. I'm a little concerned for my competition, Haley Herkert (but I do love her first name) because she is pretty popular, even though popularity has nothing to do with the contest.  (I got all of my choir's votes and that's like 60 people. I even did a facebook group and invited - like - 2,000 people, so seriously, I shouldn't be worried.) I just don't think that she can pull it off like I can, though. Her posters are, like, pretty cute, but I would never admit that to her. (Besides, chocolate makes you fat and gives you lots of pimples - gross!)  She probably didn't spend as much time as I did on my posters, though. I stayed up late into the night, perfecting my posters with my originality, including pretzels, suns, and twirly cues. I have created a pseudonym for myself under the name "Leah Wetzel," as you will note in the pictures below. I even found a girl by that name to represent me so I won't have to make a speech or anything. Speeches are for lame people and I am certainly NOT a lame person. So...if you happen to be around on Friday and feel like walking around LCHS, stop in and vote for me. Remember: Don't get your vote knotted up in a pretzel; for senior secretary, vote Leah Wetzel!

(I posted some other people's posters just to show you how lame theirs are compared to mine. Come on - you have to admit that mine are totally epic!)

Here's the Leah Wetzel that I found to represent me and my posters:

Here's the competition: The Hershey's thing is kind of creative,

but not like Wetzel's Pretzels

              Yeah - this one's just weird

On to the Western Conference Finals

Of course they won. We all knew they would. Check out this sweet picture:

Wild cell phone story

You know how we're always saying those prayers to find our keys and we end up finding them in the fridge or the trash? Well, I don't usually have the problem - haha. (knock on wood) For me, it's the problem of finding my cell phone. They (whoever the cell phone inventors are) need to make a "clicker" so that the phone beeps when you're searching for it; you know, like clickers for cars? Anyways, I took Emma outside to the car on Saturday at 10:40 a.m., thought I would be smart by putting my phone on the roof of the car so she could not take it and throw it on the ground, and strapped her in. Funny story: I got into the car without remembering there was a phone on the roof of my car. So I drove away, got to the gas station, realized that my phone was missing, could not exactly remember if I had left it on the roof of the car (I could imagine myself putting it there, but couldn't remember if I actually had) or if I had left it in the house. I took a couple to the Burbank airport, then came home to search around for the 6 week old cell phone. (p.s. I love the keyboard on my phone!) I run some errands, hoping that it will just show up, talk to my dad and stress about it - he tells me to be patient and look around. He said, "Sometimes I leave my phone lying on the laundry shelf and then find it the next day - the same might happen to you." Ok - so I look in the laundry room and find no phone. Since the internet is down at my house (at this point, I am completely disconnected with the outside world and the land line doesn't count because I don't have my contact numbers from my cell phone memorized, so there's no point in using the land line. Later that afternoon, I am frantically typing emails to the people who are at the top of my call log, hoping that they will get a call from a stranger, telling them that they have a phone and they are intent on returning it. Well - one of them did receive a call and he gave the mysterious cell phone holder my address and they told him they were returning it. (Apparently the phone had flown off the top of my car and someone had seen it from his/her car and pieced it back together). I never heard from anyone that night. My dad receives a call on his cell phone the next morning from a couple up the street. They tell him that they have his daughter's phone (b/c he shows up as "dad" in my contact list) and he and I go up there to get it. Wild story: They had found it that morning at the back of their driveway. I thought, there's no way the phone could have flown all the way back there from the street from the roof of the car. I don't think it had because I had no driven up that far when I had orginally left when the phone on the top of the car. I said, "You called out on my phone yesterday, right?" They said, "No, the phone is not in service...The only logical conclusion that I can come to is: The people who originally picked up my cell phone off the ground after it fell off the car drove to the address 5111 instead of my address of 5011 and threw it in the driveway....

All of this is a blessing in disguise because I am having a new phone sent to me for free and if my cell phone had not shown up, I would have had to get a new one for $200. Very disheartening!

I think I said at least 46 prayers over that 24 hour period.... :)

Missionary Work

A family of 5 was recently baptized in the La Canada first ward and I am SO excited for them! It is so neat to see the Spirit surrounding them and the light of Christ within them. Sometimes I get jealous when people convert to our Church because I think it would neat to be a convert. I feel like I have mostly taken the Church for granted my whole life and I wonder if I would view things in a different light if I was a convert. However, when I stop and really think about this, I cannot begin to acknowledge my thankfulness for being a member my whole life. I wish that everyone could be raised in the gospel, but am so thankful for missionary work so people can convert and raise their posterity in the gospel. It is so easy to see all of the imperfections of the members in our Church, and get caught up in this, but it is good to remember that even though we are imperfect in the Gospel, the Gospel is perfect and our Savior is perfect. Sometimes I think that it is so hard to become perfect (it sounds a little stressful), but then I try and remember that we have our whole lives to continually attempt to perfect ourselves and become more like Christ. What if we pick one thing each week or month in which we could become perfect, such as saying our prayers every day or reading scriptures every day? We all can be perfect in doing these small things; how fun to have perfect habits! :)


Pictures below of the baptism of the Pererra family. (Emma loves Kayla (7), the youngest):

The happiest place on earth?

I know that most of you know Disneyland as the "happiest place on earth," but I can think of a few others as well. ;-)
Anyways, I bought a Disneyland annual passport and Emma and I have taken a few trips there in the past few weeks. It was Emma's first time and we had a blast! We went on every ride, except the roller coasters and a few that we did not end up having time for. (ok, it's a pet peeve of mine when people use prepositions at the end of a sentence and I just did...lame) Emma's favorite place ended up being "Minnie's house." When we got home and I asked her what she wanted to see at Disneyland next time, she said, "Minnie's house." (see pics below) I must admit, it's a fun perk about being a Southern California resident.

"Put the nail in the coffin tonight"

Here we go. 3-0. I like to put a status on my Facebook profile sometimes about the Lakers. Nothing that trashes the other teams they are playing, ie the Jazz (currently). I just like to show my loyalty for my Los Angeles Lakers. However, whenever I post a status about the Lakers, I tend to get a lot of negative response. One person was even going to "defriend" me on Facebook until the playoffs are over. I don't get it - why are people such Laker haters? And Kobe haters? Yes, I understand that Kobe chose to make some immoral decisions within the past decade, but other Lakers have not proven upstanding either, ie Ron Artest (think of his year-long rejection when he was on the Pacers) or Magic Johnson's personal relationships that were scrutinized by the media. If one feels that one must be a "Kobe hater," then one must point out all of the other immoral errors committed by the team as well. It is not fair to one player to hate him over the others. Yes - I do not condone Kobe's past, gross mistakes at all. I simply separate his personal life from his athleticism. And many of you also think that Kobe is a self-centered player. I will admit that he has been in the past, but has vastly improved. Aren't all of us trying to improve? Haven't we all made mistakes, in our lifetime and moved on?
Anyways, I didn't mean to start off on a tangent about Kobe Bryant. I admire him for his quickness, ball handling skills, and fade-away jumpers. He is currently #5 in the all-time top scorers in NBA history.

We all know that the Lakers are going to sweep the series tonight in Salt Lake City in game 4. No team has ever come back from being down 3-0 to win a series. I don't think this will change tonight.

On another note, why were all the Jazz fans booing Fisher? We all know that Fisher is on the verge of retirement, but he had several clutch shots in game 3 to give the Lakers a win 111-110. We also all know that Fisher only played on the Jazz for one year, but had to leave in order to take care of his daughter, but apparently the Jazz fans had forgotten that fact. "The anger that spewed down from the scowling Utah Jazz fans in steamy EnergySolutions Arena here Saturday wasn't new. They haven't liked Fisher here since he left in 2007, granted his release to better care for his young daughter suffering from eye cancer, arousing suspicion that he simply wanted to return to the Lakers." Apparently, this incessant chanting and booing of Fisher caused him to score 20+ points in game 3. Perhaps people should boo Fisher wherever he plays. haha. Fisher had an interesting retort: "I would venture to guess that if I was a construction worker...who requested a transfer to another department for the betterment of his family, I would be commended for it. But because it's sports, there's just so much passion added to it." (Los Angeles Times, C1, C7)

Wrap up the series, Lakers. (note the sweet picture below)

A future basketballer

Emma must be a natural (see video below). She's never seen me dunk - because I can't. ;-) But somewhere, somehow, she picked it up...

And...this one goes down in history