Bishop Youth Challenge

Every year our Bishop sets up a Bishop Youth Challenge. Basically it is a list of things for us to do throughout the year. Some of the requirements this last year were: Read the Book of Mormon, invite a friend to church or a church activity with you 3 times, memorize the scripture theme (1 Tim. 4:12), memorize the young women/men theme, speak in sacrament meeting 3 times, share your testimony in sacrament meeting 3 times, etc. Bishop usually gives us the list at the beginning of the school year and the dead-line is the end of may.

The best part is, if we complete all the requirements we are able to go to the activity that follows. He doesn't tell us what the activity is until the dead-line is past. The first two years we went to Moab for the weekend and rode the Colorado river. Last year we got an all day pass at snowbird (which is a mini alpine slide/zip line) and he bought us breakfast and dinner at Braza Grill. This year we went to Park City and had an all day pass to everything at the alpine slides. It was tons of fun!

Out of our entire youth these are the only people who did it: Sterling, my mom, the young woman's president Christine, the young men's president Jepp, and me. So out of our 5 YW, and about 10 YM, only two youth did it. Pretty sad. That morning when we met at the church we found out that Christine and Jepp couldn't come. So it ended up only being Bishop, momma, sterling, and me.

We had breakfast at village inn. I had the most delicious strawberry crepes! i would definitely recommend it to everyone. Obviously this isn't the real picture of it, (there were hash browns, eggs, and sausage with it) but you get the point.

First we went on the zip line. It took us an hour and 15 minutes from when we first got on the chair lift to when we landed at the bottom. The line was so long and slow. but it was almost worth it. (this is Sterling. Me and mom went at the same time so we didn't get a picture of each other)

We went on the coaster a couple times next, then decided we'd better go in the slide for old time's sake. I was amazed at how lame it was. The track was awful and boring. It was quite ghetto compared to the new coaster. but fun non-the-less.
The coaster seats are so much more comfortable. They have a back you can lean up against. Plus they are attached to the track, so you don't feel like you are going to flip and kill yourself.

going up to the top on the coaster. Twas way fun.


After we had had our fun Bishop treated us to the famous Carmel apples. I got a Butterfingers Carmel apple. It was so dang good.

We went to dinner at Braza Grill. It's a Brazilian restaurant. They bring around different meat on huge skuers. They are like giant shish-ka-bobs . You can eat as much as you want. I kind of felt like i was breaking the Word of Wisdom (eat meat sparingly), but i did have a ton of fruit. It was great! I love that place.

It was a great day. All the hard work was definitely worth it.

New Bathroom...Finally

We finally got Erin and my bathroom done. Mom has been wanting to redo it for about a year. I stripped the wallpaper months ago, Tanner sanded the walls months ago too, so all we were waiting for was mom to paint and decorate. We finally did that this last week and this is how it turned out. Unfortunately i didn't get a before shot...but at least you get an after. The colors are chocolate brown, tan, sage green, and a mix between cinnamon orange and tangerine orange. (in case you couldn't tell from the pictures)

Just pretend the shower certain isn't hanging in the middle of the shower. That is the only thing we need to do. And imagine there are sage green hand towels in the middle of the orange towels. (we haven't bought them yet)
Again, ignore the shower tile. The curtain will cover it.

The lighting is weird, but the brown wall is more chocolate and warm in real life. This picture makes it look weird.

Probably my favorite part of the whole bathroom. I love it!!

This is Amber jo by the way. I have three posts in the process at the moment...so look for those. bye.

Wedding clothes

These are the colors and clothes that Marissa has chosen for her reception. It's an orange red color, white, and tan. They are really pretty together. Here are the shoes that we got from Old Navy.

Here is the outfit both me and Erin will be wearing. It's dang cute. I'm going to cuff up the sweater sleeves. I'm excited

Answers to questions

They met by way of tanner's long legs! Marissa and her mom were sitting in front of Tanner and his friend (they were at a concert or something) and latter he apologized for accidentally bumping into her mom's chair with his long legs. They started talking a bit and right when tanner was wondering how he was going to get Marissa's number, his friend Nikki that he was with asked for her number because she wanted to be friends. So tanner said, "i want to be friends too!" Nikki totally helped him out with that one.

The first time tanner asked her on a date she actually turned him down. It was because she really had something already planned, but tanner still felt a little bad. :) ha ha sucker!

They mainly had fun when they were together. they would go laser tagging and different fun things. When tanner had to study really hard for his finals they would still find time to spend with each other. They would make dinner together. Tanner would often call home and ask for different receipts. I personally think this was so cool! they would cook dinner and sometimes dessert.

I hear wedding bells!!

For all of you who don't know...Tanner is now officially engaged. Her name is Marissa Hansen and she is such a doll! She lives in Rupert, Idaho. Tanner and Marissa met at BYU-Idaho around December-ish. But i don't want this to be a novel...so I will only tell you about the actual engagement excitement. If you have any questions about further details please ask in a comment! i would love to answer them!

Tanner and Marissa happen to share the same birthday, May 29th. (different years of course). So Tanner decided to make this birthday really special and propose. I will now tell the story in two different points of view: tanner and marissa's and mine/my family's.

Tanner and Marissa: That morning they had a nice breakfast then Tanner took her to Fat Cats to ride on the Flow Rider. It is an indoor surfing thing. I hear it's really fun. (they were going to go to Lagoon, but it happend to be closed that day). After they surfed for a while they came back home then went to The Roof in Salt Lake. It's a way nice resturaunt at the top of the Joseph Smith building. They were at a table overlooking the SLC Temple. Then when they got back to Roy they went on a night hike to waterfall canyon. They used head lamps and finally got to the top. They then went to a spot where there was blankets, a place for a fire, firewood, sparkling cyder, champaigne glasses, and a georgous view of the whole valley. Then latter after they talked for a while tanner pulled out the binoculars and started asking her if she could find things like Best Buy, the temple, RC Willeys, etc. Then he positioned the binoculars to focus on a soccer field that had the words "Marry me Marissa?" written in white christmas lights. He then acted like there was something interesting and said "wow, look at this!" Then she looked at it, then looked at Tanner, then looked at the lights again, then said "oh, my gosh. Yes tanner, yes!" Then she hugged him and he said, "Wait, I've got to give you the ring." Then he pulled out a red velvet ring box in the shape of a grand piano. (she is an amazing pianist, she's majoring in music). She put the ring on and then asked, "Is this for real?" then tanner said, "pinch me." (oohh! tender)

This is where Tanner preposed. That is the view from where they sat. isn't beautiful!

Mine/Erin's/Momma's/Poppa's: I came home from the last day of school and was asked (forecefully) to go on a hike with erin, momma, and poppa. I hate hikes, so i asked why? Because we are setting up for Tanner to propose. And that was the first i heard about it. (nice way to find out huh? (sarcastic)) Anywho, we hiked up the mountain while they were at Flow Rider (in the hottest part of the day) and set up everything for them. Then i went to the drive in with my friends, so the rest erin, momma and poppa did. Tanner asked mom about a week before to collect the christmas lights. They then went to the soccer field to set up the lights while Tanner and Marissa were hiking. Mom said it was really hard settin them up in the dark. They used white forks to keep the letters where they were. They hoped it would work. They then sat there for about an hour before Tanner finally text Erin to tell them they could go home.

This is at Lagoon the next day. This is on the swings.

So now i'm about to have a new sister-in-law. She is so cute! She is funny, nice, tall, beautiful, and so fun to be around. Tanner and her are so cute together. They are always laughing and joking and having fun. I love it!! Well, they are going to be Married in the Twin Falls temple on August 22nd. I can't wait!!! well, as i said, feel free to ask any questions if you have any. I'll write soon about our Ohio trip. bye!

~Idaho~

Over memorial weekend we went to Idaho to spend time with our awsome Harker family there. We went to our cousin's homecoming, moved pipe, shot guns, hung out with g-ma Harker, and had a great time with Pam and Layne's family. One of the highlights was going to a cave there in Idaho. It was so cool. I know pictures are worth a thousand words... so i'll just put some pictures on.

this is the opening of the cave. it's so random. if you didn't know where it was you would never find it. It's the weirdest spot for a cave, it's in the middle of a flat, sagebrushy place.

This is our little lizard friend. My aunt's brother pulled this out of his pocket! ha ha

The cave was about a mile long. It was really fun. It was the first cave i've ever been in.

From the left to the right: Me (amber jo), Marissa Hansen (tanner's fiance), Tanner, Amanda (Marissa's friend).

There were two ladders you could climb throughout the cave. Erin's on the ladder, Marissa is in the red, Amanda is on the left, i'm on the right.

this is my model of a cousin going thourgh a crawl space.


My hillarious cousin, Jordan going through the same crawl space. thankfully there were place matts already there.

Strutting our stuff, yeah that's right! there was some graffette on the walls. One was dated back to the 1940's! it was pretty cool.

This was just our immediate family, there was more there.

There were some parts where it was a bit small, but other parts where huge openings. I felt like i was in Lord of the Rings 1 in the caves. Good thing we didn't see any Orcs

After the cave hiking we built a fire and roasted got dogs and marshmallows. It was so good.

The only problem was our car. To get to the cave we had drive on a muddy, nasty road. The next day me and mom went to clean off the bottom of the car and the area by the tires. There was SO much mud. It took forever! there was mud EVERYWHERE!! nasty.

They day before we went to Pam and Layne's farm we stopped by at g-ma's. She drove us around Shelley, where she first met Raymond and where they lived for a while after they were married. We saw her house, their farm, their first appartment and this picture above is where my grandpa was living when they met. It was so cool! it was interesting to see proof that g-ma was young at one time. I was amazed at how much she remembered.

This week was so much fun. It was nice to catch up with my family. they are so much fun. Next week i'll tell you all about our visit to Ohio. Then the week after that i will tell you all about Tanner's engagement to Marissa Hansen. So, look for that! Untill next time. bye! ~Amber jo

Chior tour!

This long awaited choir/band tour post is going to take a long time, i have feeling. So maybe I'll just have to do it in two separate posts, or I'll just condense it like crazy!! For your benefit, I'll do the latter. We went to Provo the first day and St. George the rest of the days. thus-Sun. here we go! PS- this whole time i had a cold and without medication 24-7 i would've died!



Day 1

we loaded the bus at 7:00 am and set off for Provo. a couple of my friends went, but they were mainly Jr.'s that i knew. One of my really close friends went though (shaundra). I'll do the activities in bullet form, so you can just quickly scan through them.

• improve clinic at BYU, taught by a hilarious man.


• the BYU choir conducter (a professional) listened to us sing and helped us.


• wandered the campus, then checked into our hotel.


• me and my friend watched a funny movie in our room


• got dressed up for dinner at sizzlers


• Went straight to Hale Theatre where we saw the play "Cash on Delivery". it was a way funny play with a crazy confusing plot. the kids i was sitting with were fun too.


• went to hotel and went to bed.

Day 2-Friday

• woke up early and drove to St. George.


• went to a high school there, where we each heard each other sing/play a few songs. then mingled for about 15 minutes.


• checked into hotels
• at 5:00 we had dinner at golden corral then went back to the high school.
• at the school we met up with the choir and band kids there and had a party. there was a live band playing old rock music, and everyone was dancing. in another room rockband, wii, and other games were set up. in another room "enchanted" was playing. we just kind of wandered between the two fun rooms. IT WAS A BLAST!
• went to hotel and went to bed.

day 3-Saturday

• woke up and toured the outdoor Tuacahn theatre. It was really cool. we got to see backstage and costume rooms and all the secret things. Since there is no backdrop to run behind, you can't get from one side of the stage to the other without being seen. So there is an underground tunnel that gets you to the opposite side of the stage. It reminded me of the Phantom of the opera tunnel. it was very interesting.
• Then we went to a red rock park and were free to do whatever. there were red rocks all over that we were climbing on. it was really cool, but my friends were a little too hard-core for me, so i stayed behind with another Friend of mine who wore the wrong shoes. We talked and caught up on each other's lives. it was really fun.
• then we had all you can eat pizza.
• we went to a place where you could play miniature golfing, bumper boats, batting cages, arcade and go kart racing. that was really fun. We just go karted and did the arcade the whole time. it was a blast. Me and my friend laughed so hard we nearly wet ourselves. it was awesome.
• then we went back to our hotels and went to bed.

Day 4-Sunday

• we woke up and drove home.
• The only problem was that one of my friends got really bad sick on the way home. She was SUPER cold, even though we had every single one of our coats on her. She was dizzy and had a horrible tummy-ache. she was basically writhing in pain. While we were at a lunch stop she got a blessing and a few minutes after she went straight to sleep and slept the whole time.

It was way fun but I was so glad to be home. I learned that obnoxious choir kids mixed with weird band geeks makes interesting company. I saw some sides of friends that i never saw before. Two boys in particular turned out to be a lot more dirty minded and immature than i thought. But then we (shaundra and i) met two other boys who turned out to be way fun.

So with fun activities, super hyper nights in the hotel, and funny movies on the bus, there was never a dull moment. It was really fun! other than the choir kids singing CONSTANTLY and usually only 3 different songs: "I want to start a fight", "Hot and cold", and another that i didn't know. oh, and perverted boys. but other than that it was a great experience.

sorry it was so long. i could've gone one forever. Sorry there were no pictures. bye!

Play pictures

I'm too lazy to write about chior tour now, so i'll just put on lots of pictures. There are a lot to choose from, so bear with me if there are tons.

The first scene i'm in, Iowa stubborn. I'm usually pestering a girl who stands next to me, but she wasn't there that day.

This is in the trouble song while Harold Hill is telling us our kids are in trouble.
This is me and my "boyfriend" Tommy.

This is us dancing in the Library scene.

Library also







This is the picture where he gets really close. This night though, Tommy accidentally skipped most of our lines in this scene. but at least Mr. Shinn came in on time!

This is my "family" in Wells Fargo Wagon.

This is our whole cast in Wells Fargo.


I have to wear a microphone. The mic tape hurts SO BAD to take off. there is one piece on my cheek by my hair line, there is a bit behind my hear, and another lower on my neck. My eyes almost start watering when i take it off. OUCK!!
This is the shipoopi dance, when marcellus is singing and dancing. (we are bouncing)

We are dancing the Shipoopi dance here.

This is when my "dad" catches me and tommy holding hands after the shipoopi dance.

I'm standing up to my dad right now, because he insulted Tommy. this picture is right after the one before.

This is our amazing band. Don't they look so dashing in uniform? I wish you could hear it, they sound horrible (on purpose) but all the parents are gogging over their kids. it's pretty funny.

This is my favorite dress. if you look in the pictures above there is a better shot of it. It is so puffy! i feel like a hot pink cupcake. it's so fun.

Well, That's pretty much it. Those are the best pictures from each scene. Maybe dad will get some live footage next time. That would be fun. Well, tah tah!

Music Man

My play has finally started preforming!! Our opening night was last Saturday and it was tons of fun. I was a bit worried that i would forget something, because i had only gone through it ONCE! yikes. I missed the tech-day (which in a play is a HUGE thing) because of choir tour. speaking of choir tour that will be my next post. Anywho, I didn't get nervous at all. I only got a couple butterflies right before i entered the stage for the first time.

I had a little bit of a shock when i got to the theatre and hour before the play started. come to find out, my "boyfriend" in the play, Matt, sprained his ankle the night before!! He was goofing off in the parking lot and slipped on ice. Luckily, both me and Matt are double casted (in other words there is another Zaneeta and another Tommy who perform every other night). So Aaron, the other Tommy, was with me that night. I know it's kind of mean to say, but i was kind of glad. Matt is good and all, but Aaron is so much more animated and fun to play off of. He kind of encourages me to be more outgoing and have more expression.

The only problem that happended was when Tommy and i are supposed to get really close to kissing, as in our faces are about an inch away) and my dad Mayor shinn is supposed to enter and Tommy runs off. So, apparently Mayor Shinn forgot, so we were standing there on stage, an inch apart, for literally a minute or two. It took forever. We started laughing (more like giggling) until the Mayor FINALLY came in and rescued me from my near fatality!! Thank goodness Aaron happened to be my Rolf from "sound of music" last year, so i knew him pretty well. I had to kiss him in S.O.M., so just standing really close to him wasn't as bad.

Other than that the show went great and I had a blast. I can't wait for Friday when my family will be able to come and see it.

I'll write as soon as i can to update you all on my choir tour to St. George. It will probably be really long, so i might do it in two posts. Just thought i would give you something to look forward to. Bye ps- if you didn't figure it out, this is Amber jo writing.

Driving!!

I'm sure you have all given up hope on our blog. But I actually have news for once!

As you know I've been 15 for a while. We finally went to the DMV on Jan. 20. So now I'm pleased to say that I have my permit!!

Driving is so fun. it feels weird to be in complete control of a moving object. but I'm getting the hand of it. We have driven around a bit. We never go on busy roads. I'm not quite ready for that yet. So it still feels like I'm on a driving range or in a high tech virtual game. I sometimes forget that if i don't look really good, there really could be a car or something. But don't worry, I'm still a very cautious driver and I'll get better. Papa gets mad when mom takes me driving around. He says that I shouldn't drive just to drive, I should drive to get somewhere. He's so silly! I always tell him I'll never get my hours if i just drive to go somewhere.

We had a bit of excitement when i was crossing 5600. (a pretty busy road by our house). It was like the second time I had driven on the roads and my parents wanted me to cross 5600!! I was kind of scared. There was a big van across the intersection. Their blinker was SO dim. i could barely tell that they were turning left. When the brake in traffic came i went blank. I completely forgot that I had the right-of-way. For some reason i thought that they had the right-of-way. Mom and dad were yelling to go, i was yelling (and terrified). Thank goodness it was a big break in traffic and i didn't hesitate too long. other wise our car would be wrecked, my parents would be furious and i wouldn't have my parents trust or my permit.

Anywho, I'll keep ya updated on any more fun things that happen. Well, tah tah.