dear family,

Lets go back to our favorite place on Earth.

                                        

WE LOVE SAN DIEGO. 

18 years ago.

I will be 18 in 11 minutes. goodbye childhood. i loved every minute. i'm on the phone with walker, my best friend forever. last childhood chat with the child thats always been right by my side for as long as i can remember. Dear Walker, thanks for being the best part of my childhood. My happiest memories are of you and I just being together. I love you.

good thing i'm supposed to be the adult and he's more mature than me.

cried.

On Friday a big tear ran down my chubby cheek as I sat in Women's Choir. I like my new director, I really do. But I miss Larry. His classes were the best part of my day. I miss it so much. I cried. And I hope no one saw.

love and miss.

I love my roommates, I love my new friends, I love how people are drinking and smoking and watching R rated movies all over campus and we stay at home and paint our nails and pop popcorn and watch a movie. I love Logan. I love my bike. I love this campus and I love laughing with all these random girls that we met at lunch or at a party or downstairs or at church. I love that I'm friends with so many people that I would NOT have been friends with in High School. I love my new ward. I love meeting people from tiny towns in Utah and big towns in Alaska, Pennsylvania and New York. I love Utah State University.

I miss my mommy. I miss her so much. I just want to hug her for 3 seconds. I just want her to hold me and tell me I'm doing a good job being friendly and outgoing and kind. I wanna watch a movie or go on a walk with her. I miss my bed. It was so big and so perfect and it was made just for me. Everybody has the exact same beds here. I don't like it. I miss the sound of the chickens squawking in the morning and I miss talking to dad while he plays in the garden. I miss Walker and his constant rolling his eyes at me and Nolan always being SO weird and Satchel always writing me nice notes and giving me hugs and Gabe wanting to help cook and mowing the lawn with me.

Loving and missing.

we done did some picture taking.

cheeseily thinking back.

as a child i fell asleep in my mothers bed as she read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
my greatest childhood dream was to be Hermione.
I wish I had counted the times I had read each book. it would be a lot.
I wish i could say i didn't cry as Harry, Ron and Hermione sent their children to Hogwarts. but I did.
They grew up. and now it's my turn.

for me, the books and the movies have never been about Harry. They've been about Hermione. They've been about good and evil and Hagrid and Dumbledore. They've been about Ron, Ginny, Sirius and Snape and Lily. They've been about growing up and figuring out where you belong in this crazy world, they've been about love and revenge and they've been about friendship.

3 girls.

three girls meet at ten o'clock at night to work on a homework project thats due the next morning. among them is an artist, a musician and an athlete. they are best friends. They know each other like an apple knows it's stem and a... dog knows it's... house?

I cannot believe how much I have been through with these girls. both seem hard to read and come across as indifferent to everything around them. But deep down, they're not. We have gone through so much in our lives as friends. Understanding; it's in the looks we give each other, the laughter we share and the details we grasp. Every time a tragedy has struck, and between the three of us they sure have struck, we overcome together. As our senior year ends and we go off to three different universities, I realize how much I overlook them and how fortunate I am to have such close, caring and understanding friends.

Childhood memories #2: trumps pool/field

to pretend it's not freezing outside i'm going to try and think of how I spend/spent my summer days. When I was probably 10 the trump family put a pool in their yard and opened it to the nieghbohood. We always had a blast swimming and playing water games while our moms sat around and talked. Even after brother trump died his wife lets us come and swim twice a week during the summer.

Whenever we wanted to play a game of soccer or flag football, we'd always meet at trumps field. We used to all get together when it got dark and play nightgames. So many incredile exciting memories. Funny, Walker has been right by my side every step of the way.

I introduce to you.....

my new blogging series.

i have decided that I WILL NOT FORGET MY CHILDHOOD.

in order to prevent myself from forgetting important things, i will blog about places, people, events and memories that shaped my childhood. here we go.

DICK'S MARKET
i've always loved having a grocery store so close to my house. i mean seriously how convenient to jump on my bike and go get some candy in like 10 seconds flat? The best part about Dick's is that i never have to look for anything. seriously. i know the store like the back of my hand (oh thats new(robots)) anyway... The other best part about Dick's is the bakery. There is no other grocery store bakery that can compare. i have tried EVERYTHING at the bakery at least once. i'm obsessed with it. all of it. YUM. The other best part/not so best part if you're in a bad mood, is that i have never been to Dick's Market without seeing someone i know. you just have to see someone there, which is why it's never a quick thing, you always have to stop and talk and see how many grandchildren they have now, how they like school, what their parents are doing, how the divorce is going... it doesn't help that i know everyone who works there (by name) and that they're all in love with my mom (and brothers) ever noticed how EVERYONE likes my mom and only the really weird/unique people like my dad? anyway... i go to buy something and no matter who checks me out i always get a question about my mom/brothers, "oh my! you're Sally's daughter, how is your adorable mother!?" "how about those cute little black boys?" the other best thing is that it's very old fashioned (as much as they try to be all hip) my cousin from Vegas once asked why there was no self checkout and why the baggers help you out to your car. Dick's market is great. (they do not, however, nor have they ever, carry trifold posters. just fyi.)

Also when i slide on my boots and trudge through the snow in the morning to gather the eggs that the hens have laid, i make sure the rabbit has food and remind myself that i am not a farm girl.

a conversation.

as walker and i walk past a construction site.
(since we get grounded if we don't do our daily exercise)

walker- that'd be fun to bike around in.
grace- i love that smell.
walker- that's what i was gonna say. i love it.
grace- yeah well, ya know we grew up around that smell
walker- yeah it's like a comfort smell

P.S. yesterday i had 30 followers...? i didn't realize my blogging was THAT bad.

my childhood.

we used to walk to the neighborhood pool
we jumped fences and ran fast to keep our feet cool
here come the Smedley boys all five smile
they joke and push 'till one slips on a tile
we walked to the snow cone shack to get a treat
and sat in the shad to escape the hot heat
on beautiful summer nights we'd meet at the church
to laugh and play and climb that big birch
sometimes we might chill out and calm it down
to watch the stars blink above our cute town
when winter arrived we'd throw snowballs and sled
then drink our hot chocolate, our happy cheeks rosy red
a girl that i met became my best friend,
we sat on park swings and for hours on end
one boy had the newspaper route
we all hung around to help him out
mud, ramen, the fourth of July
pink throw up cake and it's okay to cry
making cookies (as many as we could)
that's my happy, simple childhood.