Hair cut

It's been a year since my last hair cut. My highlights are barley noticeable and my ends are so dead. So, i decided to try something totally new for my hair this year. Instead of the A-line and blond highlights that i usually do, I did a more level cut with more layers. Then I added caramel, blond, and dark brown highlights to make my hair look more warm. I love it!!! I don't know why i didn't do it like this earlier. Look out Senior year...Here I Come!

Here's before...

Here's after!

I love all the layers. It makes my hair look like it has so much more body.

Here we go April recap

I know I say this everytime but it's been a while since i last posted. Sorry everyone, but our blog is the neglected-forever-then-eventually-caught-up type of blog. So, here we go.

APRILThe highlight of April was the birth of my first baby niece. Kyla is so dang cute. They came to visit and we all loved seeing them and meeting cute little Gus Gus. Here is Grandma in heaven, snuggling with Kyla Ann. I love seeing Landon with her. I just know she is going to grow up being a tom-boy-daddy's-girl, and Erica is such a good momma. cute little family!
Near the end of school we always have a talent show assembly. I didn't do it my Sophomore year so i figured I'd try out this year, and made it! I was singing and playing on the piano the song by A Fine Frenzy called "Almost Lover". The day of the assembly I was pretty nervous because i've never played the piano in front of people before and I play by memory. When I'm playing the piano and get nervous my mind goes blank and the keys look like random white and black squares. so i hoped i would remember all the piano parts. If i was just singing i wouldn't have been scared at all, because I've been doing that all my life. The the public pianoing was a totally new experience. By the time I got 3/4ths done I was shaking pretty bad. Luckily my voice didn't shake with it. But my foot on the pedal was going ballistic! I was so happy when i got through the whole song without any mess ups! It was fun sharing my talent to the school. I was shocked at how many people congratulated me and said they didn't even know i sang (which i think is funny, because I'm always singing. I even hum in the halls). I have it on the camcorder but I don't know how to put it on here. sorry.

Tanner and Marissa graduated from BYU-Idaho in april and moved back home for the summer. they brought home a fish tank from their apartment with a few fish in it that they keep in the basement. it's a pretty big tank. the dimensions are 20 ft by 10ft. they were in washington d.c. for a wedding in her family, so they left us in charge fo the fish. one sunday i was going out the door to our garage and i heard a weird sound coming from the basement. it was a hissing noise that sounded like high pressured air or something like that. i asked dad what that weird noise was and he said he opened the vents and that it was nothing to worry about. 3 hours later we cmoe home from chruch and i still hear it when i pass the basement door, but i figure dad has everything under control. a few minutes later dad comes rushing up from the basement and tells me in a panicked voice to go get towels and the Shop-vak vacuum. I went downstairs and saw the fish tank was about 4/5th empty. but where was all the water? one step into the room and my question was answered. water pooled up around my foot where the pressure sunk the carpet in. it felt like i was stepping on a giant, wet sponge. the tank had been draining gallons and gallons of water for hours. i vacuumed, by hand, the completely drenched area that was about 10 feet by 6 feet. no lasting damage was done but it was sure a pain, and i bet the fishies will never like cramped places ever agian. they were probably feeling pretty claustrophobic.

Tann

I got asked to Senior Cotillion (it's like Senior Prom, just a different name). My friend asked me in our choir class that has about 130 kids in it. He was the president and i was the secretary so i was always in front of the class taking roll. He got everyone quieted, his friends 'dimmed' the lights, and he started playing his Ukulele and singing a goofy song he made up. I wasn't even expecting him to ask me, so when he said my name halfway through the song and his friends spotlighted my face with flashlights, my jaw literally dropped and i just stared at him thinking i heard him wrong. 130 faces turned right to me in the front of the class. I was blushing and I had such bad butterflies I was slightly shaking. It was fun. :) I answered him back by putting two potted plants in a diaper, then sprinkled frozen peas on them. This is how it looked.

It was way fun. He is an awesome kid, and i loved my dress. It was so comfortable.

We added all the black accents, and I borrowed the jacket from my friend. After all, Modest is Hottest.My hair looked so pretty. Amanda in my ward did it. She is so good and so cute. I just told her to surprise me and i loved it.

This is a picture of a picture, so sorry that the quality is pretty bad.

EASTER

We had a peeps contest to see how many peeps we could shove in our mouths.

We were laughing SO hard. It was hard to laugh and not choke to death. it took a lot of concentration to not gag.
wow tanner that is a lot...
BUT NOT ENOUGH! MUAH HA! TOTAL ANNIHILATION! Right after this picture was taken I closed my mouth over the peeps. Kind of sad when the younger sister's mouth is bigger than her older brother's.
It may look like I'm crying in this one and that is because i am. I was laughing so hard. The sugar coating on the peeps sticks to your mouth and down your throat, so your mouth felt like sandpaper. it was awesome. It was a way fun tradition. I have a feeling we'll be doing this in future years.

Jr. Prom (condensed version)

I was surprised when I found out I was nominated as a Jr. Prom Candidate. This picture is at the Prom assembly. It was fun to feel like a princess in front of the school.

Notice all the modesty? All the candidates but two were in my group of friends. They were all such great girls.
The day activity was way fun. We went to Speed Street and Go-karted it up. I wasn't in it for burning rubber and glory so i just had fun going my speed. :)

It was snowing when he came to pick me up, but then it was gone so fast. It was weird, but it made the picture awfully cute!


He was a fun kid. I had the best time. I think it was the funnest dance yet. And i loved my dress!


My young women adviser did my hair for me. I loved it so much.

This was our group. It was such a great group. There were a couple people that we know from school but don't regularly hang out with us outside of school. It was tons of fun getting to know them better.

We had dinner at Prairie Schooner. It's a pioneer theme restaurant and every table is decorated to look like a covered wagon. So we sat in our covered wagon in our formal gowns and ate barbecue chicken and country fried steak. It was so cool.

We danced the night out (but got home at our curfew, don't worry). It was such a fun time. The entire day was great.

My Crazy Life

Between school, work, homework, and the life sustaining necessites, I don't have much time to blog. So, sorry our blog is so ancient. Here is my traditional picture and sentence update.


Papa got a new look (finally). He looks great. It was weird to get used to at first, but now i don't see why we didn't do it years ago. It makes him look younger, less neglected, and more dashing.


Thanksgiving was great. Tanner, Marissa, and Erin came home. Erin loved dinner so much she decided to make a portrait of herself with it. You would think her mother would have taught her not to play with her food.

Christmas was good, but oddly quiet and laid back. It was the off year with the married folk, so it was only Ma, Pa, Erin, and me. it was still fun.





In January Logan, Ashley, and Gavin came for a visit. it was the first time i met Gavin so i was in heaven. It was great to spend time with everyone. All we needed was Landon and Erica and our family would have been complete.




I can't get enough of this adorable child.


His eyes are so gorgeously blue. I have no idea where they come from, both log and ash have green eyes. oh well, i'm not complaining.

This is him all the time. he is the happiest baby i have ever seen. He is so easily entertained. man, i love this little boy.


In Feb. I went to the Mr. Royal dance (a girls choice dance like Sadies) with my group of friends. Instead of having a group of a lot of specific couples we decided to try doing a big group with the same number of girls as guys. That way you weren't obligated to spend the entire time with one guy. It was the best idea ever. It was a blast, i totally recommend it. The theme was Neon, so we tie-dyed tee shirts into these sweet colors.

My friend Tyley being funny. We were kind of nervous the shirts wouldn't turn out so great. thank goodness they did. because 24 people had to wear them all night long! (okay just till 12:00)
The orange is what the shirts looked like while they were drying, the green is the finished product. my camera washed them out a little, the colors are more bright and we also did bright blue.

The whole month of March Logan, Ashley, and Gavin stayed with us while Logan had a rotation here in Roy. It was such a fun month. One of the weekends i went on choir tour with my school. A few of my close friends are in choir so it was so dang fun, even if we did only go to Boise, Idaho.

The first night me and my friends broke in our bed with some recreational activity. i know it was naughty but we didn't break anything and it was so dang fun.

One of my guy friends body surfing up us all while we were standing some stairs getting our picture taken in Boise. that's got to feel weird, surfing upwards like a demented escalator.

We toured the old state penitentiary. It was so morbidly cool! it was creepy and interesting to think that olden days prisoners were stand right were i was. they had some cool stories on the tour too. it was one of the highlights.

One of my friends posing in a penitentiary cell. creepy, and cold! (for some reason we weren't thinking and I took all the pictures of my friends and my friends took all the pictures of me, so there won't be very many pictures of me. Just pretend :))

We also had a tour of the Basque Square. it's a culture that settled here in the late 1800's. They are kind of like Switzerland/Italian people (or something like that). There were some guys playing a Basque game. it was a lot like racket ball, but the paddle is that small wooden thing and the ball hardly bounces at all. it is a lot harder. there was a guy there playing hand ball. it basically racket ball without a racket, you just use your hand. the ball is literally as hard as a rock, so each time you hit the ball it feels like you are volleyball spiking a rock. OUCH. it was really interesting though.

Well, that's all i have time for right now. I will post about my recent excitement soon. (hopefully) Bye, Love, Amber jo Rencher

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