Well, my last update was in January... So, here is, in short, the things that I have been doing since then. Enjoy! :)

February—I was in our region vocal solo/small ensemble contest. I had a solo, and that was it, but I got a 1!! Yay! I also auditioned for our school spring musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

March—Practicing the musical nearly every day except for Sundays. Sometimes it took its toll but it was becoming well worth the effort. Looked forward to it every night just because it was so much fun and because I was meeting so many new people. If you get the chance to be in a musical, please go for it! You won’t regret it. I also went to our large-group choir contest in Freeman, at which we got a 1.

April—Well, for most of April I was practicing the musical too. But DUDE it was fun!!! And we even got some surprises as the cast. We were considering dropping our flashlight bit for “Any Dream Will Do,” but the middle schoolers in the play were so surprised by it that we kept it. :) Yay! And a couple days before performance, we each got our own musical poster, and at the end of the musical we all got to put on glow necklaces and bracelets and glasses, etc. IT WAS AWESOME!!! For anyone that I personally know that didn’t get a chance to see the musical, I have a recording of it if you want to borrow it. Just email me. :) Prom was also in April. Prom was actually pretty fun, even though I didn’t have a date. I got to go for Chinese beforehand, and I stayed at the thing ‘til it was over. I was planning on going to the after prom party... Well I didn’t go because I was too tired and was becoming a bit disoriented. Plus I have bad depth perception and bad night vision. But nobody wants to believe me. :P If you’re reading this Steph, Justin, or Andy, just be quiet. :P

May—Heehee. The after-musical fun began here. I got to go on our annual choir trip (which this year was combined with the band trip) to Chicago!! :D Oh it was so much fun. It took a while to get going on the road, but once we left (about 10:30PM) I had such a hard time getting to sleep. The annoying people behind me would NOT be quiet even after I asked them to. Slept for about two hours that night and stayed up the whole rest of the next day. In the morning, well, we were lost. Somehow, we got separated from the other buses and had been lost for three hours in Iowa. So we finally met up with everyone else at a gas station at the Iowa border, and someone got “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” Yeah, we watched Austin Powers at 6 AM. It was hilarious! Plus it got done at 8:20—when everyone else starts school in the morning. All I could think was “poor saps cuz we’re watching Austin Powers and they have to go learn.” :) Sad but true. That day we went to the Hard Rock Café, the Field Museum (where I got a beheaded plastic dinosaur from the plastic dinosaur generator), the Navy Pier (boring), and some other stuff that I can’t remember. Other stuff that I did was go to the Sears Tower (tall), see the Blue Man Group (AWESOME!!!), go on a boat ride (boring), get up really really early (actually didn’t mind it), and went shopping (fun)! The only bad part was that I was hoping for an Old Navy but it was in a different, but nearby, mall, and they were having a huge sale!! Boy oh boy that made me mad. But it’s all right. And we came home eventually... Our bus looked just like all the other buses on the trip, so we had to make it unique. :) We put a stuffed monkey above the bus door window, hence we were known as the "Monkey Bus." And after we saw the Blue Man Group, one of the Blue Men put a handprint on the side of our bus! :D It was so cool. I even got a picture of me with one of the Blue Men... except that it didn't turn out because I had the flash on but it wasn't working. :( *grr* We also had our last day of school in May—the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The worst last day of school ever. :P Well, at least I got our recorded version of the “Joseph” music (on CD!!), and we all got ice cream bars.

June—And then there was June. Boring. I started making pillows for when I have to go to college. Then I started making a quilt. Quilt is still in progress. Got to spend a lot of “quality time” with Dad—motorcycle-riding and going to the auto parts store every day. It wasn’t so bad. Also, my brother left for camp (where he was staff for the summer), and I joined our church youth choir. Youth choir was okay, but I’m a soprano, and I got the descant in one song (yay!!), but the first few times I sang it it just gave me this immense headache. :P

July—Saw Men in Black 2. Not too bad. Really want to see Austin Powers. :) I had lots and lots of time alone by myself, so I worked on my quilt a LOT. Very boring. Oh hey something very funny happened. :D heehee Okay. In 1995 I lost half of my front tooth to a bike accident, so for the last 7 yrs. I’ve had a temp on, but I was going to get my final for my senior pix. So I got a new temp so they could take an impression of my tooth for my final fake. Well, the weekend my youth choir was singing for church, my tooth fell out. :O I know. It was midnight that Saturday (the 13th) when my tooth fell out. So yeah it was absolutely WONDERFUL to see them freak out when they saw me. It was hilarious!!! Thing is, I couldn’t get the tooth put back on yet because right after church my family and I went down to Omaha to see the Eagles in concert!!! :D Words cannot describe how awesome they were. Really. I loved them. Someone even screamed “I LOVE YOU!!!” to Don Henley in the middle of a song! :D And Joe Walsh didn’t have his dentures in, lest they fall out during performance, so that made me feel better. Well, now the final tooth is on, but I don’t trust the glue, so maybe if you’re lucky it might come off again. :) haha Oh and I got to eat homemade potato chips too. Those were the best.

August—Well, now my brother is back home from working at scout camp. That’s OK. I’m getting my senior pictures taken really soon here, and my birthday is coming up soon too! :) With a combo birthday party and everything (since one of my friends has an August birthday too). And now for the sad news... I had made third alternate soprano for the South Dakota High School Honors Choir, but I never got accepted in. That was my main goal all year long, to get into H/Choir. Didn’t happen. :( I don’t feel missed, but that’s all right. When they were all gone to Aberdeen having the time of their lives, I got to meet the governor. :) haha And I am working on my (hopeful) solo for our first choir concert, which is our student-run Evening With the Stars. Only seniors can have solos, so you can guess what I’m doing. ;)

Well yeah that’s about it. If you want more, wait ‘til the next update! :)