Traditions!

                So I’m on my way to Iowa, for college right now! Madie is driving and we are jamming to some Justin Beiber and Chris Brown. It’s been more than a seven hour trip, but guess what that means? Only ten more left! So why this blog is called tradition? Well, honestly I it’s because I felt like singing Fiddler on the Roof as loud as I possibly could in my car... TRADITION, TRADITION….TRADITION! No, I’m just kidding, it’s because some of my fondest memories growing up have been the traditions I’ve had with my family and friends. Some traditions have taken place since I can remember; others happened on accident but were some of the funnest times ever!

                When the end of July comes around every year, there is no question as to where I am. You see, the end of July means that Merina Toninelli is having a birthday which means…                 SLEEPOVER! However, these sleepovers are not your typical sleepovers. These are the best of the best! Every year, since I can remember, we have been having these epic sleepovers! As we’ve grown older, something’s about the party always stay the same. We always order pizza, it’s always at her dad’s house, her mom always makes the best cakes, we rarely ever sleep, there is always girl talk, and generally, it is always the same bunch of rowdy girls(I think I create the most mischief.) There have been frozen bras, beef stews, darts thrown and those sleeping, cake fights, bop-it competitions, and of course, some kind of drama. ;] This year as July approached and we realized most of us would be headed off to college, all ready at college, or had some family thing to attend, the possibility of it happening seemed so far off. But when you have a bunch of stubborn girls who won’t take no as an answer to something they really wanna do, it happened! J And if I may say, this year was probably one of the best! Edye Baker, Ariah Pierce, Erin Olshewski, Merina and I were in the party animal mood! Haha not really, considering we watched YouTube for about two hours… I am proud to be brown, I luuubbbbb myself... Actually, now that I think about it, the party didn’t start till I walked in, the second time ;] Haha really tho, after we left to get our pizza, the party started when we got back. We whipped out the bop-it, the kool-aid, the music and finally started feeling like P-Diddy. Sorry, I don’t really know why I’m quoting Ke$ha! The rest of the night was a blast! We spent most of it watching the same YouTube video, laughing every time because  just got funnier and funnier, in case you ever feel like laughing, you’re having a bad day, or are just bored, go watch Philipeano’s Do Hab Souls, it’s a great one!) We played Kool-Aid pong, Merina and I TORE apart Ariah and Erin! Actually, utterly destroyed would be a better way to describe the ending results. Because we are all responsible adults, well we try to be, and had to work early that morning, we went to bed at a reasonable time……. Well it was kind of reasonable, 3 am isn’t that late. But we didn’t retire into the wonderful world of otur imaginations without some genuine girl talk and watching the sexist man on this planet, Alex Pettifer, starring in I Am Number Four! All together, the traditional sleepover was again, a great success J Ladies, even when we are forty and have our separate lives, we best have these!! Or we could pass the tradition onto our kids ;]

                So my next tradition was not planned to be one. Honestly, it wasn’t planned at all, but is most definitely worthy and will become one! So, it was a beautiful starry night in Moab Utah. Four friends decided to take a starlit hike to Delicate Arch.We were feeling adventurous! Ariah, Tayler, Dallin and I set off for the Arch at about 10:30 p.m. Expecting to be back home around midnight because Ariah and I were born and raised in Moab and Dallin is really familiar to the area. So we started off. The hike was beautiful!! The stars were GORGEOUS, the company was fantastic and everything seemed to be going close to perfect. We continued on the path following the trail markers just as any hiker would, however, we were unaware that there are two paths you can take, a left trail or a right trail. If you want to go to the arch, you should take the left hand side of the trail, if you want to go to the cliff across from the arch, you should go right. This split in the trail in obvious in the day light, however at night, it's not so obvious! Believing that there was only one way to take, we took the right path. Within thirty minutes, we were lost. And I don't mean a little lost, I mean freaking lost, like we had no clue which way we even came from! If Dallin wasn't with us, I'm pretty sure us girls would have freaked!! After wandering around for two hours and saying many a prayers, we decided to say the night there so we wouldn't get even more lost! And so we slept, well attempteded to sleep on a rock! Honestly, I think the only one that slept was Dallin! The rock was our cute little home for the evening! We were fully prepared for our overnight with about 5 water bottles, bug spray and two dying cell phones! To make it even better, Mother Nature decided to drop the temperature leaving our only source of heat each other.. good thing we all loved cuddling ;] We spent the rest of the night talking, bonding and learning more about each other! When the sun started to come up, we felt that it would be okay to start looking for the parking lot. While Ria, Tay, and I were still tryin to grasp the fact that we spent the night on a rock together, Dallin went wandering around. He came back and said we should watch sunrise together, and of course, us ladies agreed :) So while we were looking for the perfect rock to sit on, we found the arch!! :))))) It was about two hundred meters away on the other side of the valley! We were so happy yet so mad at the same time because we were so close yet so far away! The best was Tayler's reaction because she had never seen the arch! The arch under with the sunrise was best way to end the perfect night!! So now, every summer, we are going to go get lost on our way to delicate arch together!! The times that often start out the worst more often than not turn into the best of times! :))