I'm Home!!

Yes I'm home now from Europe! I still can't believe how fast everything went. 2 weeks? No feels like I was gone for a day. Everything is slurred together. This was such a good experience for me. I loved being able to perform for the people of the different countries. You feel such a connection with them and you sing in these gorgeous cathedrals and churches that their ancestors built. The acoustics were every choir singers dream... oh my goodness it was wonderful. I won't post a lot right now because it's 6 in the morning and i should be trying to get over this jet lag but it's hard. It's 2 in the afternoon where i was... so i feel like i should be awake.

So just some random thoughts, Europe is obsessed with HUGE water bottles, they were everywhere. I only saw one public drinking fountain which was at the Louvre so maybe that's the explanation for the ridiculous size of water bottles. I never had to pay to pee! That was one of my goals for Europe and I accomplished... took some skill or just a bathroom in the morning and then one clear once you got back to the hotel that night... suckish. I discovered Paprika chips. Normal American BBQ will never be very good anymore compared to these... so good. Magnum ice cream bars, are divine goodness. Europe didn't have a huge variety of chips like America but they did have Pringles, everywhere. But sadly only 4 flavors. Original, Sour cream and onion, and 2 other spicy ones... paprika and something else, i don't remember. There were way to many girls in France who think they don't need to wear a bra. The people in Switzerland were my favorite, Switzerland is my 2nd home, after Hawaii. I tried fish and chips for the first time in London, pretty tasty but i liked the fish better then the chips. Chips in London convert to fries in America. Crisps convert to Chips. I also tried a crepe in France with nutella.. yummy yummy. I felt the most danger in Paris, and the least in Switzerland. London is so much better than Paris. I missed my ipod and normal electricity. I'm addicted to croissants... ahhh! Snickers are so much better in America, don't know why but they were not the normal goodness that they are. No tax was the greatest thing I kept forgetting. I'm for sure going to miss that.

Our first stop, Windsor Castle

Concert in England, they had sweet chairs.

Saw the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesties Theatre! So Amazing

On the boat heading to France!

Paris! The Eiffel Tower of course

Beautiful Switzerland. My favorite country

Rehearse Rehearse Rehearse

These all day rehearsals have been wearing me out. No strain on the voice though thank goodness! One more day rehearsal tomorrow and then a concert tomorrow night! Feel free to come, it's at Timpview high school at 7:00. I'm not sure how long it goes they haven't told us yet, but I think it'll be good. We have a lot of good singers.

But in 4 days and after a 9 hour lay over I'll be in London... :D oh the excitement that is bubbling inside me waiting to erupt. And I've been meeting a lot of new people. It's been so fun I really like the girls in my group, we already have become pretty good friends. It's fun and this is what I'm loving, doing something on my own not knowing anyone going into it. Just meeting so many new people. It's grand and Europe will be sick nasty.

Family Reunion

This is just about the whole Packard clan. I never got the picture like this one from our last reunion so I made sure to get one this year. And here it is...

Family Reunion

So we had our Packard family reunion this last week, approximately 120 people there for the reunion. Yes water bottles with every ones name on their own, and 9 watermelons for 3 days. We had so much fruit. I ate the most food for each separate meal then I ever have in my life. And if was delicious. And this year was special because it's the first year we've had all the families' there. So that was really neat. I'm really blessed to be in this family. Having so many cousins and we all get along so well. We have such a fun time together. Five of us are all going up to BYU Idaho this fall.

So this year the reunion was in Utah, at a campground near Fruitland. It was so gorgeous, I didn't feel like I was up in the fountains at all, maybe I wasn't, I don't really know where we were but I loved it. There was a river running through our campsite and I was with the first group to float down it. And was that an adventure... it was ICE COLD and shallow in many areas. So if you weren't paying attention your butt would hit the rocks on the bottom. And river would try and pull you right into the bushes so you're trying to guide yourself away while keeping your balance on these ridiculous tubes. It was so much fun.

We had our annual archery contest, and those bows are dang hard.. of course I'm just wimpy anyways. There were two 50 dollar bills up for the teenagers and if you hit one, it was yours. Nate the lucky dog hit one. I was nowhere near... Jared hit the other 50.

The cousins! Left to right, Mckenna, Quinton, Aubrey, Me, Nate, Kent, James, Jared, Emma, Spencer, and Ben. We were only missing Caitlyn whose in college right now and Steven but he came up later that day.

But the reunion was really good. I'm sad my mom wasn't there, she was the only sibling not there. But it was still good, my dad compensated for the difference. He brought up his spa stuff. So the aunts got facials, or foot massage, and he had his paraffin wax and speakers. The whole parade.

I love my family. Reunions are the best. The next one in two years will be different.. all my guy cousins will be on missions and I'll be 20! Scary!

Camp fire song

So at our family reunion there of course was singing around the camp fire. And one song that just made me laugh was our Sophisticated Row, Row, Row, Your Boat... this is how it went.

Propel, Propel, Propel your craft
Placidly over the liquid solution
Ecstatically, Ecstatically, Ecstatically, Ecstatically
Existence is merely an illusion.

I had to sit there and think for a minute of what it was really saying... had to refer back to the simple version!

LOST

I just love this show. I now own the first 3 seasons... and in a weak attempt to hook one of my friends... I managed to re-hook, I guess, myself. So I've started from the beginning again.

Oh and my no sugar... I'm weak sauce and only lasted a week. So.. try again? Sure we'll see how far I go.

Beauty and the Beast

Friday night I went and saw Beauty and the Beast at the Scera Shell Outdoor Theater. They did an awesome job. The set was so cool. It was all made of books, staircase walls. The books lining the staircase could be pulled out and opened into the walls for a new scene. It was very clever.

The actors who played Belle and Gaston were by far the best. They had awesome voices and did a really good job.

Schedule

College scheduling is a pain. And being the last to pick classes... makes it worse. I had everything planned essentially around my main most important class. And of course it's all full so I have to wait till next semester to take it and I had to re-do my whole schedule basically.
But here's what's happening..
I'm taking 15 credits total.
mondays/wed/fri include nutrition, choir and math
and tues/thurs include english, communications, institute and math on thursday again.

Shadowing

Well I went in for my first official shadowing. It's weird how chill the back room of radiology is. Because really, they just sit and wait for a call. People are on their laptops, reading books, really just doing whatever. Which is pretty cool. I can handle that. But I think I went during a slower section of the day. I saw in the hour and a half I was there, I know not very long, but I saw a chest x-ray done 3 times. That's it. Cool the first time, and the lady I was with was sweet and talked to me... but the last 2.. eh it wasn't too great. But apparently I'm allowed to shadow in the ER so I'll look into that next time. And I need to go earlier, the guy that needs to see that I'm coming in shadowing was not there so no brownie points this time. I'm also going to try and shadow in the Cath Lab. Hopefully things pull through there. I'd like to see an actually procedure done start to finish, instead of just video footage from the x-ray. Which I do love looking at, but I want to see the procedure... see how things work.

But walking out of the hospital, there's an 'information' desk. And it made me smile, all of the 4 people in that tiny area were cute little old ladies, all of their hair curled to perfection with their glasses. They all just looked sweet, I'd walk up and seek information from them.

Coming Up!

How does time just slip away like that! Right now, there are 22 days left until I leave for Europe. And 16 days left for me to memorize music. dah.. I should really get a move on.

But I got my credit card today! Platinum baby. Silver and kind of sparkly, I'm thinking it'll blind me once I get it in the sun.

I register for classes on Wednesday I believe... I still need to call and figure a couple of things out but hopefully I get the teachers I want, and my schedule works out!

It's been a week since I went off sugar and today at my aunts house, they made those really really good rice crispy treats, just the plain ones all marshmallow-y... I couldn't resist. :( So I guess I'm starting all over again. We'll see how well it goes second time around.