Beef, Pork, Chicken, mmmmmmmm....

Today's Sunday Sing-along is "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from Disney's Mulan. I watched this movie last night with Katie Murdock. I don't think I've laughed so hard from a Disney movie is SUCH a long time. I used to not like Mulan so much when I was little, but I LOVE it now (perhaps I am finally old enough to understand the humor). I chose this song because it is so amazingly hilarious (as is the rest of the movie). ha ha ha ha...I hope to be "a girl worth fighting for"...but I think I agree with Mulan's views (1:20)...but they are all still so cute (i could squeeze their cute little cheeks). :)



Jassy's favorite Mulan Quotes (my favorite ones are the first two):

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This one is my FAVORITE! I want to be just like Grandma Fa!
Mulan: Would you like to stay for dinner?
Grandmother Fa: Would you like to stay forever?
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Grandmother Fa: Great. She brings home a sword. If you ask me, she should've brought home a man.
Shang: Excuse me. Does Fa Mulan live here?
[Grandmother and Mother dumbly point to the garden]
Shang: Thank you.
Grandmother Fa: Whoo! Sign me up for the next war.
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Mulan: You're, um...
Mushu: Intimidating? Awe-inspiring?
Mulan: Tiny.
Mushu: Of course. I'm travel-size for your convenience. If I was my real size, your cow here would die of fright.
[Khan snaps at Mushu]
Mushu: Down, Betsy.
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The Emperor of China: The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.
Shang: Sir?
The Emperor of China: You don't meet a girl like that every dynasty.
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Mushu: The truth is we're both frauds. Your ancestors never sent me, they don't even like me. But you risked your life to help people you love. I risked your life to help myself. At least you had good intentions.
[Cri-Kee chirps sadly at Mushu]
Mushu: What? What do you mean you're not lucky? You lied to me?
Mushu: [to Mulan's horse] And what are you, a sheep?
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Mushu: Did you see those Huns? They popped out of the snow, like daisies!
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Shang: I don't need anyone causing trouble in my camp.
Mulan: Sorry...
Mulan: [in her 'man' voice] Uhh... I mean, uh, sorry you had to see that, but you know how it is when you get those, uh, manly urges, and you just gotta kill somethin'... fix things, uh, cook outdoors...
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Shan-Yu: I tire of your arrogance, old man. Bow to me!
The Emperor of China: No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.
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Mushu: Beautiful, isn't it?
Mulan: They're disgusting.
Mushu: No, they're men
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School pictures--generations of them

Next week is school pictures (AHHHHHH!). This is my cool weird thing of the day.

Here's a recentish picture of me.

This is my great aunt Jeannie! Doesn't she look a TON like me?!

I don't know if you can beat family resemblance!


-Jassy

p.s. In case you can't tell, that is not a picture of my "aunt Jeannie". It's called lovely photoshop...ha ha ha ha! I hope I gave you a moment of amazement though. ;)

My Wonderful Moments of EFY - individuals!

I am still doing my EFY blogging in sections. This lovely section will be about the amazing people i've become friends with.

My company was not simply amazing; the people who made up my company were amazing!

This is a picture with me and one of the other girls- Cara. Cara is one of the sweetest girls that I have ever met! She has such a fun personality and we all love to be by her. At EFY, there is a musical program. Cara, and her friend, Rachel, (the other girl that she came with) are the most amazing singers! They convinced me, Jaimee, and about half of the guys to come to musical program with them (never realized that girls had such a way to sway guys into doing something like that). I wasn't really in the mood to go, but I am SO glad that I did. Because I went, I found a new favorite hymn (#113 if you want to figure out which one) and I was able to draw closer to the savior through something that I love--music. This is me with my lunch group...kinda. We all ate lunch together every day throughout the week. I did become very close with everyone in this picture though. The girl that I am standing next to in the line is MyKel John. MyKel was my older sister of the week. I looked up to her SOOO much! MyKel is 18 and plans to go BYU-Idaho. She lives in a small town in Colorado called Monument. She and her sister are so sweet and down to earth; I lOVE them! The two of them are definitely a pair! They taught us one night how to flip someone who was grabbing onto us (beware--we practiced on each other) ;).

In the middle of this picture is Steve. Steve is so much fun! On the way to the dance on Friday, Steve wanted to be "lanyard lovers" with me. Right as I reached my hand out to take the end of his lanyard, he decided that he wanted to break the rules and escort me the "proper way" (so I just laughed and agreed to go along with it..what were they going to do...throw us out for him being a proper gentleman?). This was his first year at EFY, so he had never really had experience with escorting. He started escorting me and it was more like he was twisting both of our arms. I felt like he was breaking my poor arm...I am sure he felt the same. He was so confused but then Ashley (my counselor) laughed and helped him fix his escorting position. Steve also asked me to dance during one of the SEVERAL slow dances (gotta love EFY). We were talking as we were dancing and he lit up all of a sudden and asked me if he could dip me. We went over the steps of what we would both do (we had to make our first dip very good) and then we did it! I am happy to report that he did not drop me and that the dip went perfectly ha ha ha... :)
This is the picture of all of the girls again! (I can't seem to get over how absolutely amazing they are!) The girls always had so many ideas of how to have fun! We were always teaching each other games, taking pictures, and telling stories. It feels like I have known these girls my entire life. I think that we've all grown close enough to the point that we would drop any plans if we knew any one of them was in need. Brooke and I became really close over the last week. Brooke is definitely gorgeous (inside and out). She is quiet but you can tell that she has the most lovely personality! Brooke was at Lagoon with me. While we were sitting and talking I found out that her grandparents live in my ward! How lucky am I? Don't you love it when the world seems small? I know I do!

This is a picture of my counselor Ashley with one of the girls, Felicia. Felicia and I had a great time getting to know each other better. Felicia is MyKel's little sister. She is one of those people who you can just start talking with and never seem to run out of things to say during a conversation. She was the one who taught me how to flip someone if they come and grab you from behind. During the dances, she taught me the cutest dance moves. I adore Felicia! On the last day, she didn't feel too good. Her sister informed me at Lagoon that she had pneumonia. How sad! I talked with her the other day though and she is MUCH better. :)
This is me and my most adorable friend Jaimee! Jaimee was the most adorable (I really seem to like that word...I think I need to find another adj. though) roommate/friend! Jaimee and I spent did everything together and it was a blast! My favorite thing to do with Jaimee was to "freshen up" (we had fun spraying good-smelly-stuff at each other and dancing around in it).
ha ha ha... I guess that I am not really a part of this picture, but it'll do. The person sitting next to me is Hayden (I am on the very far left part of the picture). My entire company had a blast at the dance on Tuesday and we were insanely hyper. I was dancing with Hayden on the last slow song of that dance and we were talking about the rest of that week's schedule. He told me that he was trying out for the variety show the next day and was so worried that his voice would be gone. He ended up making the variety show (along with Rachel and Cara...hurray!)When he got up onto the stage, we all stood and applauded for him (he rewarded us with a huge smile--which you can clearly see is adorable). I sat down and he started to sing. I have never been so stunned in my entire life; who knew he had the voice of an angel (honestly---I am not joking)?! He sang an acapella version of "And So it Goes" by Billy Joel. I used to hate Billy Joel music...but no longer (the song is at the bottom of my playlist if you care to hear it). I guess you all know what my new favorite song is. :) Anywho, we became good friends throughout the week.

Hope you got to know a few of my wonderful best friends! They all are absolutely AMAZING (ha ha ha...I still need to get a new adj)!
-Jassy

My Wonderful Moments of EFY -counselors and groups!

I am going to break up my EFY experience into a myriad of posts so that they won't bore everyone to death. ;)

Meeting my Counselors and my counselor groups (all two of us!):
I have officially decided that my EFY experience is probably about the best thing that has happened so far this summer (yes---it did beat turning 16 and getting my license). I've spent hours telling people about my whole experience, but I thought that I should try to spare you from boredom with my writing a novel about the entire experience. I'll have to content myself with only telling a few highlights (I am a bit long-winded though..so this just MIGHT be long--actually, it will be).


This is my wonderful, no tremendous, counselor Ashley London. In EFY, there are several levels of groups. My counselor group consisted of 10 wonderful girls. Anywho, Ashley is 5' 10" and has more energy than a 5-year-old. She is gorgeous, and has a way of captivating an audience with her stories. She told us about her first kiss with her boyfriend Tony, and he sounds PERFECT (just to let you know)! She is moving up to Washington to get her Masters in family counseling. We're all going to miss her!

This was my other "guy" counselor of our company. He was in charge of the group of 12 guys. Shane is HILARIOUS! He started to show us all of his "amazing" pick up lines at the beginning of the week; by the end, that's all my company did during meals and after devotionals (as you can so see by the picture). If you ever need a pick-up line, I have PLENTY! :)

This is my lovely group of girls. These girls are all so adorable. I don't think that I have ever seen such a strange group of girls bond so quickly. We are all very different from each other, but we've formed a bond that is stronger than you could imagine. We can talk like we've all been best friends for years with each other even though we've only really been together a week. My favorite memory of these girls is after every devotional in our room, (one at night, the other in the morning) we would all sit in a circle together on our knees. We would hook pinkies with every other girl, close our eyes, bow our heads and then a prayer would be offered. At the end of the prayer, we would all swing our arms around our heads so that we would all have our arms around each other. We'd all lean in to give everyone a hug and at the same time say, "Love ya girls". At the beginning of the week, it was a bit strange. By the end of the week, it felt like a family tradition. These are my guys! :) I love my 12 new best guy friends. They really are just as amazing as all of the girls. Other than everyone throwing pick-up lines at one another, we love to play games together. You should have seen how the guys lit up when they learned how to play "wha"! They are so much fun (if you can't already tell)! Usually at EFY, the guys escort you everywhere. Swine Flu got in the way of the "normal" escorting (darn you swine flu), but lo and behold, EFY came up with their own escorting (of course). To escort, the guys would offer the girls one end of the lanyard while they held the other end; it looks like we are all walking the dog (thus sparing us from rubbing sweaty arms on one another). ;) It usually is really awkward waiting for a guy to ask you to be escorted (sitting around while trying not to be in clumps is a lot more difficult than you would think...but they tell us guys are too nervous to ask a girl in a group--I honestly don't understand why), but it was not with these guys. They were so cute! They all were so excited to ask us to escort them all week long. We went everywhere in pairs (or sometimes we, as girls, had two guys with us--lucky us!) and I think that some of the other groups were a little jealous of how close we were.

Thornton vs. Darcy

I was wandering around the Internet (with a good direction in mind--aka North and South) when I came across this humdinger of a dialogue between Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) and Mr. Thornton (North and South). I love P&P and N&S with all of my heart (if that is not too hard to believe), so I decided to put it up on my blog. You won't understand any of it without watching both movies (something I HIGHLY suggest) but I love it nonetheless. Ohhhh...and Thornton wins (in my opinion) by a landslide; just thought you should know. :)

Fitzwilliam Darcy: “All right?”
John Thornton: “I’ve been better.”
FD: “Hmmm, I know that look. You’ve got woman trouble and I bet I know of just what kind. Don’t tell me. You met a girl with more than the full complement of opinions. You then spent several weeks trying to tell yourself you didn’t like her, in spite of the fact that you were thinking about her all the time and pretty much wanted to – er – marry her without delay. You popped over to share the glad tidings and, instead of being deeply sensible of the honour and sobbing into your shirt front with gratitude, she read you a lecture about your shortcomings and started eyeing the fireirons.”
JT: “That’s exactly what happened – how did you know?”
FD: “Been there, done that, bought the cravat. There’s more. Having trodden her dainty feet all over your heart, I’ll bet the ranch she then made some crack about you being ungentlemanly.”
JT: “Oh yes – I got that off both barrels.”
FD: “Thought so. Me too. Classic ‘get-lost-you-lowlife’ tactic. I take it you exited stage right in a bigger hurry than you arrived?”
JT: “I did.”
FD: “And then your own family started getting on the case and, before you knew where you were, you’d got some funereal old bird giving you the yap about how your bride of choice was, in fact, Satan in petticoats.”
JT: “Yeah, my mother did have one or two things to say on the subject.”
FD: “I had an aunt sticking her beak in. Did your girlfriend get a visit from the old crone?”
JT: “She certainly did.”
FD: “I knew it. And did the light of your life give the old dear a flea for her trouble?”
JT: “Yep. Big time.”
FD: “Your woman-of-choice and mine aren’t sisters by any chance are they? She’s got a load of sisters, I lose count ….”
JT: “Only if her father’s a deceased ex-clergyman. Shame he’s deceased - he was a nice old boy, I really liked him.”
FD: “Not sisters then. My father-in-law is still among us. He’s a good bloke as it goes, but the mother …. don’t get me started.”
JT: “Nightmare?”
FD: “The full ticket to dreadful. All I can say is thank God there are a lot of miles and bad roads between Derbyshire and Hertfordshire. What’s your girlfriend’s old lady like?”
JT: “Dead.”
FD: “Result. How’d you manage that?”
JT: “I polluted the local climate with my factory and it aggravated her consumption. Cost me a fortune in fruit baskets before she finally shuffled off though. Never bought so many flippin’ grapes.”
FD: “So, to recap: you had the offer of your heart and mattress callously given the full frosty. I take it you’ve spent the time since being thoroughly miserable and reforming your character?”
JT: “Check on both counts. If you knew how much stew I’ve had to eat in the company of oiks just to impress her.”
FD: “I know the drill. I had to cosy up to my tenants and bribe my housekeeper to spread the word. Believe me, it’ll be worth it in the end - women lap all that stuff up. What you need now is some family crisis that you can sort out on the QT, so you can look heroic but modest with it. I had a stroke of luck in that department. The beloved’s silly cow sister ran off with a total scumbag. I strongarmed the scumbag into doing the decent thing. Cost me a packet but the dream date started to look more favourably on the old suit so it was worth every penny.”
JT: “I’m already sorted on that one thanks. There was some trouble with this girl’s brother. Never met him but he sounds like a bit of a numpty to be honest. Anyway, he landed her with a possible court appearance which made her lip wobble big time. Couldn’t have that, so I put a stop to it.”
FD: “What did she say to that?”
JT: “Not much, although she has stopped lecturing me about my moral duty every time I enter a room, so that’s a step up. I’m going to see her later this morning actually. She wants to lend me 18 grand.”
FD: “18 grand eh? Well, it’s none of my business mate, but I think you might be in there.”
JT: “I dunno. I saw her at dinner last night and she wasn’t very chatty. Looked a bit pink though.”
FD: “Well, play it by ear. See how she is this a.m. Have you got some romantic gesture up your sleeve just in case the moment presents?”
JT: “It’s not up my sleeve, it’s in my waistcoat pocket. I’ve got some roses in there that come from her hometown. She’s completely sentimental about the place.”
FD: “Impressive. If she doesn’t want to snuggle up after that I think you’ll just have to cut your losses.”
JT: “Oh well, better get going – don’t want to be late. Just one thing though …. do you think there’s any truth in the saying that if you want to know what your wife will be like in 20 years, just look at her mother?”
[Long, long pause.]
FD: “Let’s hope, for your sake and mine, that there isn’t.”

Ohhhhh..this cracks me up! You've got to love those two! Hope you enjoyed!
-Jassy

Sunday Sing-along

I decided to do my "Sunday Sing-Along" on my blog this week because I have not attended to it as well as I ought.

Every year on Halloween, I would get dressed in my Halloween costume (in my mind, the only kind of costume was a princess one...does that surprise you?) and go trick or treating. My mother, being the eternally sensible person she is, would always make me wear tennis shoes while I tromped around the neighborhood. I used to despise (with the fiery passion only an extremely pertinacious red head girl could muster) the fact that I always had to wear my worn-out humdrum tennis shoes with my sparkling dresses. I would be slightly provoked throughout the night as I watched all of the other princesses prance around the area in their sparkling Dorothy Gale shoes. Don't misperceive my Halloween memories; I honestly had a blast every year (who doesn't have a blast dressed up in a princess dress?), but the tennis shoe thing always bugged me. Whenever we came home though, we would always sit and unload our candy as we watched "Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin". The movie always scared me a little; who wanted to venture out to school? Christopher Robin had goes off to school, and Pooh has a wonderful adventure going off to try and find him. I choose these two songs because "skull" (what pooh and his gang considers school to be) is coming sooner rather than later. The song, "Forever and Ever", makes me so sad, but everyone has to start say goodbye to their lovely summer things as they get ready to go to school. I also chose the song "Adventure is a Wonderful Thing" because, honestly, it is. So, while you guys are enjoying your final month (I guess it's honestly less than that now...but we'll call it a month for my sake), I hope you have wonderful adventures!

"Forever and Ever"

"Adventure is a Wonderful Thing"