The beautiful thing about technology!

Utah...Yep, I'm Jealous of a state!!!!

BUTTTT....thanks to technology I can still talk to some of my favorite people, through a screen!

My Sis has the cutest faces, that pouty face kills me, she gives me that when she misses me! oh how I love her!!

I get SO excited to do SKYPE or iCHAT! it is so much better when you can see these faces when you talk to them...AS you can tell, They all thoroughly entertain me!!

Oh how I miss these cute girls! They make me laugh so hard! They are at BYU, and I wish I was up there with them! They don't even know I took these pictures while talking to them!! ha.

Talking to These amazing people always makes my day! especially since they live 743 miles away from me :(

My 19th BIRTHDAY!!! :)

One year older and loving life!! I had an amazing birthday! I felt SO loved! I was definitely spoiled! To celebrate my family took me to my FAVORITE restaurant...Gecko Grill! I cannot even count how many times I have been there, and I ALWAYS get a Bean and Cheese Burrito! I figure, if something makes you that happy,there is no need for change! :) After Gecko we went to Beauty and The Beast at Hale Theater! I absolutely LOVE Beauty and The Beast, I always have! The musical was spectacular! I loved every second of it!! My mom even bought be a little crown to wear that night, I think she still thinks I'm a little kid, and I love it! I will always want to be the little princess!

On Sunday, my family made me my favorite meal for dinner...once again Bean and Cheese burritos! We even had Great Grandma with us! I just love her! She is always so happy and bright! What a wonderful family I have! They decorated the whole house by the time I got home from church! They really made me feel special. I got to talk to Sis on the Web cam!! Oh how I LOVE her!! It was ALMOST as good as seeing her in person! 

It was a very busy day full of happy, uplifting things. I decided that Sunday is my favorite day to have my birthday on! I had a meeting for my calling (the activities committee) and they made me breakfast and sang to me! Then I went to Ward Choir practice, which I love being a part of. Then church and family dinner and visiting and then I went to a CES fireside by Sister Dalton! It was an incredible fireside, the spirit was so strong and it was a wonderful message. I love how happy she is! She's such a great example!

After the fireside my friends from LIGHT, School, and My ward all came over for ice cream (with many toppings)! I really enjoyed seeing everyone and spending time with people I love! I was able to see some of my friends that I have not seen for a really long time! 

I have such wonderful friends that always support me and show their love. Starting at midnight I had so many calls and messages telling me happy birthday! 

  These handsome boys showed up to my house surprising me with a beautiful birthday quartette! I LOVED it!!! They are so good to me. As you can see in this video, they are amazing! I'm so lucky to have them!

                                          

Ambassadors of LIGHT!!

I had the most amazing summer of my life!! My favorite part about it was being in the Ambassadors of Light and also being a part of the high school group, LIGHT, this past year! I cannot even put in words how much I love it!! There is nothing I love more than preforming! As a little girl I would always say that the stage was my playground, and it still is! :) I absolutely love singing and dancing and the feeling of being in front of an audience doing the things I love most. I love the way that it effects people, I love watching the smiles and laughter on people's faces from stage! It is the best feeling in the world knowing that you made someone happy, especially when doing something that makes me the happiest! There are 18 of the most amazing people I have ever known in this group! They are always striving for excellence, being a great example, following Christ, strengthening and uplifting one another, and entertaining everyone (not just on stage-there is never a dull moment) I have grown to love each and everyone of them and know the little things that make them so wonderful. I will cherish these relationships forever! Spending this much time together, working really hard, having so much fun, and striving to bring the Light of Christ to others. 

I could do our show over and over and never get sick of it! Each time was like the first! We spent only 3 weeks at the beginning of the summer learning the show and then spent the rest of it performing and polishing some of our numbers and most importantly enjoying every minute we had with each other. I just loved being with everyone in this group so much, and the studio is like my second home. After every trip I went on this summer, I would hurry home just in time for practice! I would go to the studio immediately and could not wait!! 

It always makes me SO happy when people I love come to my show! It means the WORLD to me! Thank you all for your support! It is so fun to have someone to perform to! Even when my shows were out of town some of my friends and family came to watch it! My friends took a road trip up to Payson to see a show we had there! I felt so loved! My family has been a support the entire year going to almost all of my shows! My Mom probably went to 20 or more shows! She was our "Light Groupie" the whole year and only missed a few shows, she was definitely our biggest fan! I appreciated her enthusiasm for what I loved so much! 

These are some fun pictures we took in Payson, It was so beautiful! We entertain ourselves with taking so many silly pictures!

AOL... BOOYAH! this was basically our unity chant :) We did it just about anywhere to pump us up for a show, or just end a practice. We even have a little "booyah" on our shirts!

Trip to Cali number ONE! Oh what an adventure! We took a spontaneous trip for the weekend just to go to six flags and the beach! We ended up only having five hours at six flags and about 3 hours at the beach...and the rest of the weekend was spent in the van with Mom driving! She was such a good sport (even through a blown up tire, and almost ran out of gas in the middle of no where) She kept a positive attitude and We all still had the time of our lives.

FINAL TOUR:

For our big end of the year tour, we toured California! We started with L.A. and San diego, then traveled to Pasadena, went to Long Beach, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, along with many other stops along the way. We squeezed into a Tahoe (with a trailer following) and a fifteen passenger van!! That was an adventure in itself! You know you really love someone when you can sit in a tightly packed van with them for over 40 hours in a week! We learned so much about each other, played games, sang songs of course, and told many jokes! But we definitely took advantage of letting our energy out when we stopped. Each day that passed I would get even more sad about it ending. We spent a night at the beach, had a BBQ, made s'mores on a grill, rode bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge, took SO many pictures, Did a couple shows and firesides for different stakes, Stayed up late in the hotel rooms telling stories and watching movies. We had a show at Pier 39 in San Fran one of the days, and spent the rest of the day exploring the pier. We did some shopping and people watching, and let me tell you, there are SO many interesting people in San Francisco! We stayed at host families home for 4 nights, which were some very amazing ( spending two nights with a cute BYU student, She had all her friends over and made it such a fun night and I loved meeting new people!)...to very eye opening experiences ( one of the homes was full of mold and very unsanitary, it made us really thankful for our homes). They were all very kind to us! We met so many wonderful people through all of our shows, with many different stories and lives, and we touched many of them.

Unfortunately my incredible summer had to come to an end, along with this experience! :( I know I will continue to sing and dance here and there because I love it so much, But I am so sad that this had to end. It has been my absolute favorite thing. I have had experiences of a lifetime and met so many Incredible people, and built relationships I will have forever. I am so grateful for this group and the influence it has had on my life, It has strengthened my testimony, challenged me, and showed me a whole new love for others. Now we have all gone our separate ways for school and busy lives, it is sad not seeing them all the time, but we sure made the best of the time we had!  

Viva Las Vegas!

On our way home from the family reunion we had a family vacation in Las Vegas. I absolutely love spending time with my family! Dad, being the maximizer that he is bought us all power passes for 2 days. It had a list of activities that you could do with the passes, but the catch was you had a 48 hour time period to fit them in. We went non-stop for two days straight having a complete blast. We went to 4 shows, Planet Hollywood, Madam Tussuad's Wax Museum, New York New York Roller Coaster, M&M world, the Adventure Dome at Circus Circus, the top of the Eiffel Tower,rode the ride on top of the stratosphere, the Dolphin and Lion exhibit, F-1 racing, Cosmic Putt Putt golfing, and swimming. I could not believe we fit so much into just a few days! What a fun family I have! I am so glad I get to be with them for eternity! They are truly my best friends, I love the relationship I have which each one of them.

Whiting Family Reunion!!

I don't even know where to begin with writing about the funnest, greatest, craziest, funniest, family bonding, action packed, 4 day Whiting family reunion. Not to brag or anything...but I have THE most amazing family in the world! I love them so much, everyone of them, they are so inclusive and always make everyone feel loved.
  We went to This is the Place Monument and had a picnic lunch and had fun seeing all the sights. There was so much to do that we couldn't get to it all in a day. We went through historical homes, rode pony's, rode a train, made pioneer crafts, saw our great great grandparents home, performed songs on a stage, acted like we were students in a old one room school house.


We came home and were thoroughly entertained with many talented acts at our very own "Whiting Idol". The talent was bursting at the seams. We had a young version and old version of Sonny and Cher. They sounded amazing, and were very entertaining. We all had so much fun preforming our funny little numbers we had been practicing! I was so proud of Dad, although it took him about 12 hours to memorize "Muscular" he pulled through and still had room for his signature improvisation of the words.


We started the next morning on a breathtaking hike up Bridal Veil. The weather was so beautiful, I love Utah in the summer, it was so fun being up there twice this summer!!

We came home and Great Grandma Whiting was there to join us. She even went to the ropes course with us.It made the reunion complete to have her with us. We all made foil dinners for our dinner that night. Megan Gazaway (a dear friend of the family's had everything all prepared for us.) I don't know what we would have done with out her, she fed us every meal for the three days.
And then it was on to continued fun at the ropes coarse and team building games. We all have so much fun together and the competition began. The fun part of it was we worked together to accomplish the goals.

I loved these high adventure ropes courses! It was such a fun experience that we could all enjoy! Even the cute little cousins did the zip line! 

After we went to Nunn's park and enjoyed a wonderful outdoor meal. We played outdoor games,played charades, talked and had an amazing tin foil oreo smores (thanks to Meg)
Sunday was a day that we tried to cram every last bit of togetherness in. We stayed up until 3 in the morning and it still wasn't enough time, but it never is! We celebrated Dad Whitings' birthday. Wade performed magic, Joslyn had a salon in the garage for anyone in need of a haircut, played more games, made crafts, made shakes, cleaned out Grandma's fridge of expired food, and recorded our voices on everyone's cell phones so we wouldn't miss each other so much.

A week in UTAH!

Alexis invited me to spend a week with her and her family in Provo, Utah. They have the cutest little condo up there. It was like home but without any responsibilities! So much fun! The weather was absolutely beautiful there so we spent a lot of time outside and rode bikes every day! We painted pottery, went shopping, tried on goofy clothes at goodwill, had BBQs, huge slip-n-slides in the park, played games for hours, visited friends, and met new people. The Flake's are always doing something fun! We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house, which was beautiful. We packed so much fun into every day! On the last day, before they took me to the airport, we squeezed in one more thing and went to this fun place where we went rollerblading, jumped on huge bouncy obstacles, and went down water slides. It was so nice of them to let me come on their family vacation. I loved spending time with her family, they are so fun and sweet! Alexis and I have been on so many trips together this year, I think we lost count! We've decided we need to make a "Laurisa and Alexis's Adventures book!" She is so much fun to be around and always makes me laugh! I am so lucky to have a friend like her :)
It was so fun being in Utah because I was able to spend time with Sis and the family! We had a sleep over in her little apartment and went into her Cosmetology school to get scalp treatments, which were amazing! She introduced us to all her cute friends and we got to catch up on life since she's moved. She even ditched school to hang out with me! What a lucky sis I am! She made me Delicious meals and surprised me and took me to get "glitter toes" Of course I was in heaven! I love spending time with my beautiful sister, I'm so lucky to have her and it was a lot better than talking to her through the web cam!
I loved spending the Fourth in Utah! There was so much going on! I spent the day with my cute cousins, aunts and uncles, and Grandpa and Grandma. I have such a fun family. We went to the Freedom Festival in Provo, played games, and enjoyed the holiday. 

That night I went with the Flake's to the stadium of fire! Some friends of theirs gave them free tickets for all of us last minute! It was so Amazing! I've never seen such amazing fireworks in my life! She Daisy performed first, I have loved them ever since I was a child, it was so fun to hear their songs again! Then the Jonas Brothers performed (which from where we stood sounded like Kids Bop because of all the little girls singing around us!) But we sang and danced right along with them of course. It was the perfect 4th or July! 

Senior trip with the Girls!

Five girls+San Diego, California=way too much fun!

My best friends have been trying to plan a trip to Cali for a while, but all of our schedules were just so busy, with work, school, family vacations, and other activities. But we managed to get off work, I had a little break from Light, and we put it all together. I am SO glad we did. It is so crazy how all of our different schedules and busy lives make it so hard for us to see each other, even when it is summer and no one is off to school YET. But this trip definitely made up for it! I have the greatest friends! 

They all drove to San Diego on a friday. I had a show for my performing group, Ambassadors of LIGHT that night so I did not think I would be able to go with them. But somehow I managed to find a really cheap one way ticket the next morning! I am SO happy it all worked out! 

We spent five days without any worries or responsibilities, just lying on Coronado Beach, soakin' up the sun, listening to music, playing scum, eating frozen yogurt, watching the surfers and interesting people on the beach, and enjoying each others company. We had many adventures. Allie and Aubree almost drowned in the ocean, but conveniently were swept out of the water by some mildly attractive lifeguards...which of course continued to hit on them for the rest of the week. Kylee took so many pictures with her amazing photography talent and eye for picture moments and we all loved it! 

One beautiful day we decided to take a bike ride around Coronado Island! Aubree and I decided to try something new and ride a tandum bike. Little did we know, it was MUCH harder than it looked. I rode in front first, which i found out very quickly was not something I was very good at! ha! They were all worried for mine and Aub's safety so they voted that Aubree should steer...This was an even worse idea! Somehow she lost control and fell off the curb into a busy street!! It was terrifying...yet we laughed very hard after! 

We loved California! The weather was so perfect, and it was so nice to get away from the AZ heat for a few days. It is such a beautiful place, and I am absolutely in love with the beach. What a beautiful world we live it! The people there are... let's just say-as you heard in my last blog-A LOT different from Baltimore! They are all so friendly! Maybe we just got a lot of attention because it was just five of us girls! We enjoyed it though! We went to eat one night and the guy that worked there gave us a FREE huge brownie cake! haha...not sure why! :) but we had no complaints! 

On sunday we visited the San Diego temple! It is absolutely beautiful! I love going to the temple. It makes me so happy. We are so blessed to have so many around us.

When ever I am with these girls I think I laugh more than I breathe! They make life so entertaining and full of fun! I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends. They are such great girls, full of love, life, and always strive to be good examples. Everyone needs friends like mine, ones you can truly trust, tell everything to, laugh until you cry or pee your pants, look up to, and can always count on to put a smile on your face. 
Hopefully we can make this some kind of tradition! I love being with these cute girls! I always have the time of my life!