My Birthday & My Baptism

I AM FINALLY 8 YEARS OLD!!! Last Saturday, July 25th was my birthday!!!

I woke up in the morning and got dressed for my baptism. Last time, when Annie got baptized we couldn't find an unlocked door but this time, the door to the baptism room was WIDE OPEN!

So the first thing I did was I went into the bathroom and changed my clothes into my baptism suit. Its all white and tight around the stomach. Its white because you're supposed to be all nice and clean when you get into the water. I even wore white undies, mostly so they didn't show through. :) I wore no shoes after I got the outfit on so I was just running around barefoot but trying to stay clean.

I was so excited that my dad got to baptize me I was really nervous but that made me feel a lot better. I had been waiting for this day for a long long long long time! I sat with him and waited as my family started to show up, and every time one of my family members got there I ran out and gave them a hug but then came back in and sat down with my Dad. I felt really nervous and excited and happy, and nervous. ALL at the same time!!!

When my baptism started we sang, " I am a Child of God" and then My Grandma said the opening prayer, and then my friend Brielle from church gave a talk about Baptism. It was a really nice long talk. Brielle is very nice and she is a Valliant 9. The bishop came up and said that now I was going to get baptized. So I was really nervous and happy. I walked into the water and it was warm but also freezing. Then my Dad put his hand up while I was holding onto him and he said a prayer, then dunked me all the way under the water and then I was baptized. Right after I got baptized I felt Very Warm inside and I felt happy that I knew I had made the right decision. Then I got out of the water and my mom wrapped me up in a white towel and I went into the bathroom and dried off and my mom helped me get all dressed. While I was getting dressed my Grandpa played the paino and everyone was talking.

Then I came out and sat back down and my aunt Bebah gave a talk to me about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Bebas talk was very long and very good, it made me feel very happy, and it helped me understand about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Then My Dad, Grandpa, Eric and the Bishop all put their hands on my head while my Dad said a prayer and then I got the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It felt like I got wrapped up in a big blanket.
Then our friend Jo Lynn gave the closing prayer and we sang Families Can Be Together Forever.

After my baptism lots of people came and gave me hugs and said nice things. Some people even gave me cards. Then we took some family pictures.


After my baptism we went home and then all of my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins came over. We ate Pizza and Strawberry Soda for lunch. Then after lunch we all got our bathing suits on and then we went to the big Swimming Pool. We were the first ones in line and I was the first one in the pool! The swimming pool was where I had my birthday party. Lots of my friends came from School and Girl Scouts and Church!!! Almost everyone went off the Small Dive and the Slide. I went on the HIgh Dive TWICE! We swam and swam for 5 and a Half Hours!!! We played Marco Polo for a while, then we ate yummy ice cream sandwiches that my mom made with Cookies and Ice Cream! Everyone sang Happy Birthday and then I opened up my presents. I got so much REALLY COOL stuff!!!! My friend Sammi got me All set up for school! Then we swam some more and got tattoos!

Then when the pool closed we all went home, I got to open even MORE presents and then it was time for bed.

It was the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE SO FAR!!! I got baptized and that was really important and having a birthday is AWESOME and I got to have BOTH on the SAME DAY!!! Plus I got to see all my cousins, and friends and family!

Summer Reading

This summer I've read 6 books !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#1 Katie Kazoo Switcheroo #1, 2, 3 & 5
#2 Franny K. Stein, Attack of the 50 ft. Cupid

#3 Ivy + Bean Break the Fossil Record

And right now I'm reading Franny K. Stein & The Invisible Fran.

My favorite one is attack of the 50 ft Cupid because its a really good book about Franny Fighting the 50 foot cupid with her dog IGOR. Igor saved Franny by biting cupid in the bottom.I was reading it on the way to pick Eli up from school. I'm not sure what I'll read next there are so many books. I love the library very much that's where I find most of these awesome books. We also have a library in our garage and we don't even have to check them out!

CAMP MENZIES!!

Last week I went to Girl Scout Camp. It was called Camp Menzies. We were so afraid we were going to be late because our GPS broke on the way there and we got lost. Then when we were driving we drove into this place then realized we had to go back out and turn our car all the way around then we went to another place and had to turn our car all the way around again and drive back to where we were in the first place. I kept trying to hold the button down to restart it but it didn't work so I gave it to my mom, then she finally got it working again. It took us basically forever to get there but luckily when I got there everyone was singing songs. I got to see all the CITs there but there was WAY more CITs at camp. They were the biggest group at the camp. The CITs are the Counselors in Trainging. I hope I can me one someday. It sounds so much fun because they get to do everything and they get to sing the songs with everybody and they know the songs the most. On the bus ride I was feeling really homesick, but then we got to sing lots of songs with the CITS my favorite one was Old Mc Donald. Its a totally diferent Old McDonald then the one I've heard before. Its REALLY funny. I ate my lunch. At one part we had to turn off the fans because it was a really super steep hill. We drove on a long dirt road when the forest started. We kept going over pine cones it was really bumpy. The cool thing was there was a bathroom in the bus that could actually FLUSH! I went on the way back, but didn't know how to flush. The bus was SO big! I liked the pockets that you could put your stuff in. When we stopped everyone started screaming and they looked so happy. My counselors names were Bana and another one's name was Brooklyn, like my cousin. And my last counselor's name was Nala. They were so awesome. When we first got off the bus, everyone was screaming and was so excited, I sorta just felt like I wanted to go home. But then they introduced me to my counselor. Then after that we ate some food then we went and got a tour of the All That Art (which was our camp) they showed us a place called Cobra's Art Gallon. Cobra was one of the counselors. She was the Art person. It was like a castle and the cool thing is there was a mystery that we never figured out, It was that there were GOOGLY EYES everywhere! 9 in the bathroom and then 3 more and there was one on the wall and we never found out who put them all up! I went to wash my hands after lunch and the paper towels didn't work they were all clunked so a couple days after that they were working fine for like 5 minutes then it got clunked again. After that got a tour of the art center, then a tour of the nature place. There was deer skin, bever skin, rat skin, and even bear skin, we got to see hard shedded skin from a snake, it was hard like a rock. We saw fossils and then so we went to our cabin. Our cabin was a small place with only 9 beds. But it was cool. It was cabin #2. Everyone says 2 is the best because its in the middle of number 1 and 3. After that we had dinner in the dining hall. The chef's had names, Cookie & Pepper. And when we finished our dinner if we were still hungry we got Honey Bunches of Oats Cereal and that's my FAVORITE kind!! And after that we went to bed. And everyone had a hard time sleeping because of Sophia. Every night she would cry and cry because she missed her mom. I missed my mom too but I wasn't crying, well maybe a little bit. But I totally knew how Sophia felt. The next day we went out for breakfast and it was FREEZING COLD! It was freezing cold at night time too. At breakfast I sat at a table and we didn't have to sit with our group. I sat with a CIT named AMAZON. She was really funny and we played a game that everytime we took a drink of a drink and every time we set it down we had to tap it twice or else we'd have to go to a counselor and say something really funny. And one time Amazon forgot to tap it twice so she had to go up to one of the counselors and she said, "I have really smelly socks" and the counselor was like "WHAT?!?!" She then she came back and we bursted out laughting. Soon breakfast was over so I got the job of rinsing dishes. Because we did have chores, just not on the first day. I rinsed the dishes and the washer was Amazon.

So after rinsing I went to the singing logs and we sang a WHOLE BUNCH of songs. There was this one song called Really Cool Cats. It was a dismissing song we sang while everybody got dismissed. But every time we sang a dismissing song they always forgot to say our group. Except for the last day. Next we went back to our cabin and had "Me Time" I mostly just had fun with our girls. I got a letter from my Mom!I was SOOOO excited! After me time we went over to Cobra's Art Gallon, and there on the second day we were planning what we wanted to do on days 3 & 4. We planned 2 things for each of those days. I'll talk about that later.

After that we went over to the swimming pond. It was freezing cold but we had to do swimming assesments. There was Duck Frog or Beaver. We didn't know until day 3 what we were. So I was swimming and it got REALLY deep. It went from really shallow where I could touch then it got SO deep! 7 feet! Luckilly there was a wall I could hold onto. I did the puppy dog paddle all the way there. It was the size of our living room the whole way. I was trying to do as good as I possibly could because I really REALLY wanted to be a beaver! So then they told us about these things called buddy tags. Every time one buddy got out of the water they had to flip their tag to red. So both buddies were out like if you had to go to the bathroom or something they both had to get out and go because you had to know where your buddy was at all times.

After that we went to the Canoeing lake which was AWESOME! I went Canoeing with Morgan because my buddy Sienna was crying,she was too scared, Sienna was holding on so tight that she was squeezing the dock! So she didn't go. So I went with Morgan, and we had a much better time!
We canoed around and I had a lot of fun. I realized later that Sienna was out in the canoeing lake with a lifegaurd! The Lifegaurds names were Puma, Chico and Thumper.
After canoeing we went back into the dining hall and had lunch, then after lunch I was dish fairy which meant I had to take the dishes into our sink that was like the size of our couch!!! Then we went over to the singing logs and then we went back to the cabin for Unit Time. Which is the same as ME time except Me time we have to sit by ourselves and do something but Unit time you can play with the girls but have quiet voices.

After unit time we went on a trash hike and picked up lots of trash and put it in a big trash bag. After that it was dinner time. We had hamburgers, and get this I ATE ONE!!! Even though I didn't want one, and I didn't like it at all but I didn't say ANYTHING about it. But luckilly there was CATSUP! LOTS OF CATSUP. The person in back of me was called Rocco, everyone thought I was crazy because I waited in line for a long time for more catsup even thought I only had two bites left. But it was soooo worth it because for desert we had BROWNIES with ICE CREAM! And I made a funny joke. I said, "We can't eat Brownies because I'm a brownie! You can't eat me! I don't even taste very good!"

So after dinner we went out and got our sleeping bags out of the cabin. I got some extra sleeping bags because it was sooo cold. But luckilly I got a SUPER thick one, and then....we got to SLEEP UNDER THE STARS!!! Out in the meadow. It looked really pretty and I even found the big dipper. It was so awesome. In the middle of the night I woke up right when it was starting to get light. I went asleep for like two more hours even thought it felt like 2 seconds. When I woke up again I was completely under my sleeping bag. Morgan woke me up and pulled my sleeping bag off of me. But then she told me the Morning Bell already rang! The morning bell was SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY LOUD and we had to wake up at like 7:15!!! Bana pulled my sleeping bag off of me and I was even wearing EVERY SINGLE PAIR of my pajamas I brought! I was like, "Are you guys kidding me! My eyeballs hurt when I opened them because it was so bright, I felt like I was looking into the sun!"

Next we got dressed and then we had a breakfast COOKOUT! Just our All That's Art Groups. We made Chocolate Chip Pancakes and BACON! I got to be one of the assistants who held the fork over the fire and I got the most special job of listening to the bacon crackling and bubbling! All the bacon had like 5 million bubbles coming off of it. It was crackling so much it sounded like sparklers when they're sparkling. It was loud! Like volume turned up to 10!!! Everything tasted so yummy. The Chocolate Chip pancakes were sooo good and it was cool because we got them late and when we got them were were already making SMORES with the nature person!

After that we played LOT LOT LOT LOT LOTS of games in one someone had to close their eyes in the middle and we had to try and tiptoe and everytime they heard a noise they had to turn and point in the direction that they heard it and if you were standing where they were pointing you had to go all the way back to where you were standing when you began. The first person to tap the person in the middle was the winner and they got to be the person in the middle. I WON TWICE! It was really hard because the grass was really tall and loud but I walked so slow and quiet that I was able to win. We played like 10 times. The only other game I remember was one person was a PLANT, one was a RABBIT, and one was a FOX. The Rabbit eats the plant. The Fox eats the Rabbit. IF you're a rabbit and you eat the plant the plant becomes a rabbit if you're a rabbit and you get eaten by a fox you turn into a fox. Then if you are a fox and the fox that got turned into a fox then the fox that ate you if it eats another rabbit then it goes all the way around and turns into a plant. So obviously its really cool. I was saying its sorta like a life cycle. We were talking about how the sun is really important because if the sun wasn't there then the plants couldn't grow then rabbits couldn't eat then the rabbits would obviously die then it would go back into the earth, but then the foxes would die and go back into the earth. So that was the whole point of that game...

Ok LUNCH, now what we had for lunch.... I don't know, but at lunch there was LEMONADE because it was really hot during the day. After lunch we went back and had ME time and I got another letter from MOM! It was shaped as a heart with a blue background. I read it twice. And then we went to Cobra's place. We did this thing called Linyars. They're cool. We also did CLAY that day. I made a Snowman and a Crab and I spider with only 4 legs. I put two little antenna's on it. I was just using my imagination.
Then we had unit time, and I played with my friends. It was like an hour. Then we had dinner. Then bed. Then I was cold, then that was the day I started crying.

Oh wait, after unit time we played MARSHMELLOW PAINTBALL!!! IT was AWESOME!!! There was a red team and a blue team. Each team got a red or blue bag of marshmellows. With chalk at the bottom. Everyone would go to this place. I was on the Red team, Cheyeanne was on the Blue team. So that was good. I would go with my red team and I decoreated my whole face with red chalk. With lines under my eyes and my forehead and my chin. It was so awesome. So there were all these figures you could hide behind and benches you could hid under n' stuff. I'd get a marshmellow then peek over the bench and then THROW my red marshmellow! There were little jails and you try to get as much people as you can in your jail. I never went to jail but the blue team did win. After the game walked over to the edge of the canoeing lake and we looked down the end of the dock, down there the heaviest person, her name was Tink, the first person (Tink) would bump with her hip and the whole line would bump too and then the last peson would fall into the water. WITH THEIR CLOTHES ON! After that everyone started screaming. Then Dinner, Then Bed.

The next day we got to go HORSEBACK RIDING!!! My Horse's name was COWBOY and he was the BIGGEST horse and the BEST listener. And all the other horses wouldn't listen. Like Morgan's horse, when the trainer said stop it just PEED! My horse was such a good listener. I was scared at first because he was shaking when I got on but then the trainer said it was just because of the flys. We got to ride around in the horse pin for a long time. Like an hour!

We got to go swimming again I was really used to the water because I got to use a boogie board and flippers. I was happy to be a FROG no one was a beaver, everyone was a frog or a duck. My buddies name was Morgan and Grace. We swam back and forth all around in the water. Then we had dinner and bed.

The next morning the morning bell woke everyone up. I woke up excited because I knew I got to go home! We ate breakfast and started packing up our cabins. We played games. I got to hoola hoop and jump rope. I had a hoola hoop contest with Gupy. She was using one hoola hoop and I was using TWO and I STILL won! After that we had lunch and everyone signed our Girl Scout Shirts!!! I got SO many signatures! After that they called everyones names to get on the busses. I was going to Rancho Cordova. On the bus I sat next to Sophia. Then we sang songs and I talked to Becka and Cheyeanne a little bit. I was SO excited when I got there. I saw my Mom walking down. I was SO excited I ran up and gave my mom a REALLY big HUG!
GIRL SCOUT CAMP WAS AWESOME! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK NEXT YEAR, I MADE A BUNCH OF FRIENDS. I HOPE I CAN BE A COUNSELOR SOME DAY.

Tomorrow I'm going to ART CLASS.

I am going to have soooooooo much fun.

I'm taking an art class at UC Davis.
Everyone there is in college except for me.
Its 6 hours long, two days a week.
Every day at lunch I meet up with my Dad,
and we walk downtown and get Jamba Juice or other food.

My teachers are really nice and we get to try all different kinds of art.
I like to draw "Before and After Pictures"
I like to use charcoal the best because of thick lines.
I like to use Ink too.

I LOVE ART!

Me

Hi, my name is Harper. My favorite color is blue.
My favorite food is ice cream.
My favorite sport is soccer.
My favorite thing is ART!
I am 7 years old. (but only for another week)
I live in Davis CA.
I have 2 little brothers and 1 big sister.
I have a great family!