Make it Mine 2009-Year in Review!

Well, I've finally joined the world of blogging.  Keep in mind I most likely have the worst grammar but hey...  I don't care so don't judge :)...  but anyways I've put a lot of thought into this first blog post and decided to try and do a year in review.  It might be a long one...

This was Make it Mine 2009... or so the plan was supposed to go, but it's been quite an eventful year.  New years was probably the most awesome New Years I've ever participated in.  I mean I did get to see Styx and enjoyed every minute of it... I mean look at them... who wouldn't?

 

Also check out our chain we made... Everyone LOVED us haha

And no one there could forget our light rail ride there and back...  Free lightrail=an awesome ride that fit everyone!  Looking at this picture one might think I was the only excited one, but don't be deceived they loved it!

 2 Days later I turned 23... Nothing too exiting just dinner, but I also hiked Camelback Mtn and I was quite happy I even made it.  Tyler was so nice to say when I finally got to the top "Wow I'm surprised to see Jackie, I thought for sure she wouldn't make it" thanks Ty.  But it was awesome, from a more recent experience I most likely won't do it again but I'm happy to have said I've done that now.

The first part of February ended the a long 19 months of being in the Relief Society Presidency...  At the time I felt so relieved, it was like a relief to not have so much responsibility anymore, but I soon found out that I missed being so involved...  Little did I know what they would give me to fill that void...  So this picture is the sunday we were released we had planned a big dinner to introduce the new presidency it was so much fun.

A couple weeks later I was called as the ward organist... not my first choice of callings but I've learned a ton and even learned a new talent and I'm pretty sure my granny is so proud of me for putting all those years of piano to use! (Check out the pick I found of one of my piano recitals!!  I miss her!!!)

To celebrate my newly sense of freedom, my friend Chad and I planned a trip to go visit our friends at BYU.  We had originally planned on this specific weekend because it was a very special man's birthday and boy did we make a tribute to him...  So we're sitting at the boy's apartment waiting for Nate to get home from work and still finalizing what we were going to do that night and Nate comes home with the biggest smile on his face and was like, "I just had an epiphany wait and I'll show you what I'm talking about."  So he goes into his room and we are all wondering what he is about to show us.  So he comes out with his iPod and hooks it up and begins, "So I'm driving in my truck on my way home from work and of course I'm listening to 'The Man' (I can't disclose yet) and I think to myself, isn't Whitney having that party tonight that we are supposed to dress up for?"  And then he plays it.... "Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots and ruined your blacktie affair" and he goes "and then I thought we should all dress up as cowboys and then go to the party"... So we dressed like this...

It was pretty much Nate's best idea, and even Whitney thought it was funny...  These boys crack me up!!!

Ps... if you didn't know who sings the song Nate revealed we shouldn't be friends, but what the heck I'll let it slide this ONE time...  Happy Birthday GARTH!!!

So in March, Jenna took me to the Rascal Flats concert it was sooo fun and an awesome birthday present!

March was pretty crazy... I had the opportunity to participate in the Mesa Easter Pageant and it was the most awesome spiritual experience thus far in my life.  Fun times were had by all and most times too much fun...  So side note...  Now if you look back you'll see my now good friend Afton in my new years pics... at this time we weren't really friends, more like acquaintances... Not that we didn't like each other we just didn't know each other very well and our common bond was our friends Matt and Myke who went back to school....  So the Easter Pageant comes along and she was in it too...  We instantly became goods friends and Afton, Marianne (Matt & Myke's little sis) and I were the trio of the Pageant... We were rebels and took pics in the women's dressing room (My favorite pic...)

I also love this pic from the top of the Angel stage

One of the cutest things was my little sister Ellie was sooo amazed I was an angel and was sooo excited for this picture :)

Now that Pageant was over, summer was kind of starting to begin, and so began the midnight showings!!  Now, you may be thinking how weird, but I truly love midnight showings and everything about them, the planning, preparations, getting there 5-9 hours before the showing, and of course the actually show itself...  Wolverine was the first midnight showing me and Afton had kind of put together for a group of friends... we were both nervous we didn't know how crowded the theater was going to be, would we be able to save enough seats?  So many things to worry about, but check out our spot in line...

Why yes that is the front of the line, yes we got prime choice of seats, and OF COURSE we got the seats we needed to save!  This was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

With summer officially here, there were a few trips that had been planned... here is Ty, my cousin Joe, and myself at a family reunion in Duncan, Az.... never heard of it... that isn't surprising because this was the only means of late night beverage services... BUT it was a pretty fun drive to get there

Now I know what you are thinking... that wasn't really a trip and my rebuttal for that is... I drove 4 hours in a car...  it was a trip for me... but next on my list had the potential to be sooo awesome...

So Summer 2009 Jamie and Ty decided to desert me for the entire summer to sell pest control for PPC (I guess it was getting me ready for summer 2010 when both with be moved out of the house again).  Anyways...  Jamie had started dating David Nielson and he was pretty sad she was leaving too, but she had a contract and well felt she needed to go...  So David and I decided to plan a trip to visit them and when the offical planning started I thought to myself....  hmmmm flying to Georgia from Dallas might be cheaper than flying from Az to Ga, so... I worked the trip to awesomely fit a visit to Ty, Jamie AND Jazz...  So the plan was to drive with David to Texas (when Jamie got there things changed a little), on sunday David with drive home with Jamie (I hand it to her for lasting as long as she did), I would stay with Ty till Tuesday and fly out to Georgia to visit Jazz.  It was a perfect plan and I was sooo excited.  So on a friday afternoon me and David start our drive to Dallas...  Ever driven through New Mexico??  DON'T!!!  Worst/BORING drive ever, but we made it bright and early (ok it was 10) saturday morning.  We went to Downtown Dallas and had fun walking around and finding cool things like where Pres Kennedy was assassinated.  Later that night we went to dinner for one of the boys birthdays and it was so fun being with my two favorite siblings again!!!

Ps.. Best Steak EVER!!!  So sunday Jamie and David left with Jamie's fun loving roommate Cherice...  haha and I was left with Ty and his roommates (kind of awkward) we went to church and I made stewmeat gravy for them for dinner.  So monday rolls along and Ty's apt also happened to be the office for their branch of PPC and so their correlation meetings were there in the morning so I was trying to sleep but they were quite loud and I just sat in my room and waited for them to finish.  When the meeting was over, Joel the manager called over for Ty and his two friends to have a little meeting with him.  (Sidenote...  Ty and his two little friends weren't doing too well in their sales... and when i say not well I mean they hadn't sold anything) so in their "meeting" Joel let them know that it would probably in their best interest to go home because they weren't doing well.  To top it off he told them they needed to leave that day!!!!!  So Ty comes in and goes so.... I'm going home today and I was like WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?  I'm stuck in Tx for another day what the HECK am I supposed to do!!!!!  He was like well Joel knows your situation and it's fine for you to stay here since you're leaving tomorrow.  SOOOOO AWKWARD!!!!  So Jamie left me and then Ty left me and I didn't know ANYONE from their group (aside from Stephen Layton and he was never around) and now I was sleeping there!!!  So there was nothing I could do but wait till tuesday and hope that nothing else went wrong!  Anyways Monday finally ended and I was soo excited to get to Georgia!!  One of Ty's roommates took me to the airport, which was SUPER nice of him and I'll forever be grateful for him, and waited for my flight.  I was never soooo exctied to see Jazz!!

Georgia was AWESOME!!!!!  Of course there were tons for Sonic runs, even in Pepper...

Jazz and Rod surprised me and took me to an Atlanta Braves game and even surprised me with this AWESOME jersey!  The game was sooooo much fun and I'm pretty sure we won even though my wannabe boyfriend was on the other team.

Georgia was sooo pretty and I had sooo much fun and even the QT were a tadd bit better in GA look 10 cents cheaper!!!!!  CRAZY!!

Thanks Rod and Jazz for an amazing trip!!!  Love you guys tons!!!!

Ps...  Jamie got engaged while I was in Georgia!!!  CRAZY RIGHT??????

I think this picture is sooo cute of the night they got engaged!!

Later that summer Afton asked if I wanted to go to her ward campout and I was like hmmm i missed mine why not!!  It was so much fun

There was TONS of Rockband (Afton's mom was the best!) and tons of card playing and we had so much fun.  In the morning we were packing up and I was walking and trying to drink a water bottle at the same time and I accidently it my front teeth with the mouth of the bottle.  It hurt really badly, kind of like when you through up a skittle or a m&m and it hits your teeth instead of sailing into your mouth.  Like that but it didn't go away and my fake tooth (my front tooth is fake if you didn't know) was KILLING me!  So the entire next week it continued to hurt REALLY bad and I was dreading making the call to the dentist because lets be honest NO ONE likes the dentist.  So I finally made an appt and this is what they found...

 

NOT GOOD!  The picture isn't great I know but you can see one of the front teeth has a crack all the way across the tooth.  So I had two options.  1.  Do a bridge and ruin the healthy teeth next to it, also causing me to weaken all my teeth by the time I was fifty. Or 2.  Do a Dental Implant-which means removing the entire 1 front tooth and implanting a screw into the jaw, where a fake tooth can then be screwed on.  Option 2 was more enticing but WAY more expensive.  So I went to the oral surgeon to learn more about this dental implant and I was talking with the planning specialist and I voiced my concern about the money and she mentioned that there was financing available with interest free plans.   I also mentioned that my sister was getting married in 3 weeks and I REALLY needed a front tooth for the wedding and asked if we could wait.  The dentist said my tooth would continue to hurt and even get worse the longer we waited and might even fall out before the wedding and then it might be too late for them to do anything.  If we did the procedure, they could at least make a flapper tooth or something that would look ok for the wedding.  So they said to go home and think about everything and call the next day.  So I went home and thought about everything.... the cost, the surgery, the cost, not having a tooth, the cost... ok the cost is mostly what I thought about.  Money stresses me out and I didn't NEED another bill to worry about.  But everything about the procedure felt right.  So I called and we scheduled the surgery for the next week.  So the procedure went a little like this...  They took my tooth out, opened the gums a tadd and grafted the screw into my jaw.  In order for the gums to heal with the stitches I had NO front tooth for 5 days!!! Check it out

Didn't look too bad right?  People's looks were the best, but overall it wasn't too bad.  So for the next 6 months I got this plastic tooth in there while the bone heals.  Meaning that I can't eat with my front teeth, trust me it's not fun!!!  But it's healing and I had a tooth for Jamie's wedding!!

JAMIE'S WEDDING!!!  I can't believe my little sis is MARRIED!!!!  It was the most beautiful wedding thus far, of course mine with be better haha jk.. kind of :)

Anyways Sept 25, 2009 Jamie married David Jon Nielson.  I could not have asked for a more awesome brother-in-law!  He is perfect for Jamie and I hope one day I find someone as awesome, nice and in love with me as he is Jamie.  Here are a couple of my favorite pics from the wedding

Bachelorette party :)

Sisters!!!

Jamie and my Dad dancing!!  SOOO AWESOME!!  I wish everyone had a Dad as awesome as mine!!!

Hands down favorite picture of the wedding!!  Kacey Shaker is an AMAZING photographer!!!!

Another favorite!!!

Overall it was perfect! Love ya David & Jamie! Thanks for being the best example to me!

Mr & Mrs David Nielson

Next in 2009, I went to the State Fair... Got in for $5, got to see Kelly Clarkson and enjoy the fair.

We were super excited and had so much fun with Amber too!!  Sorry I don't have a pic of the whole group my camera was about to die...  After the concert we went to go buy tickets to ride the rides.  There was a HUGE line for an actually person to sell you tickets so I went to the machine and bought $20 bucks worth of tickets and the machine was nice enough to give me ANOTHER 40 TICKETS!!!  Yes another $20 worth of tickets it made the night pretty much perfect!!!!!

November was set to be a CRAZY month.  Jazz and Rod were moving back from Georgia, I had a play I was excited for and not to mention NEW MOON.  Just so many things to be excited for and things to prepare.  So I was trying to prepare to run this 10k at the end of January and so the running regiment started in November to be completely prepared for it.  So I was on track and on Veteran's Day (Nov 11th) it was a recreation day where you didn't have a set running amount but you were supposed to do 30 min of some sort of physical activity.  So I had been wanting to go hiking and it was a perfect day to go.  So I talked to my friend Jenna and she was thinking the same thing.  I then talked Jamie and David into going with us since they had nothing better to do right?  So we decided to hike Squaw Peak, we had hiked Camelback just at the beginning of the year and Squaw Peak was said to be SOOO much easier so it seemed like a really good idea.  So Jenna picked all of us up at my house and we were off.  David knew how to get there and so we arrived parked and started up the mountain.  It wasn't that hard just mostly directly uphill with very sharp rocks.  I was feeling fine, but was kind of thirsty, but everyone was already a head of me so I didn't want them to wait for me so I thought I'd go till this next corner and sit and drink some water.  When I got to the corner I was a little short to reach the top of the wall so I leaned against the wall and started to drink my water.  I looked up and saw David has seen me stop and waved like ohhh you've stopped we're stopping to wait.  When I looked down I started feeling REALLY dizzy and I went to get David's attention and I was out!  All I remember is that my face was ALOT warmer that it should be and I could hear people talking around me but I was trying to sleep.  That's the best way I can describe it.  Jamie said when Jenna looked back she yelled Jackie passed out and starting running down the mountain and that Jamie saw me (what she thought) was seizuring, but I don't remember feeling like I was shaking.  The next thing I knew there was this Mexican dude touching me and I didn't like it and all I tried to keep saying was DON'T TOUCH ME!  And Jamie tried consoling me saying "We're just trying to help you" and that's when I woke up and thought where the heck am I and the mexican dude kept putting something against my head and I kept trying to move his hand away and to get away and THEN I saw David on his cell phone and I knew exactly what he was doing... he was on the phone with 911 and the instant I realized it I freaked out because I DID NOT want a helicopter to be called and get me off the mountain so I kept saying David I'm fine tell them not to send anyone please!!!!!  So he convinced them that they didn't need to send anyone and I was trying to get up and Jenna and Jamie both were like you are NOT OK... and then I kind of realized my face hurt alot!  So David helped me walk down the mountain and Jenna went and got the car.  Side note... the mexican was very helpful and let me keep the nasty bandanna to keep the blood from dripping down my face.  So we rushed to the hospital and that's when everything hit me.  I was completely composed all the way down the mountain, in the car, waiting in the hospital and then when they took me back I couldn't stop crying.  They took a lot of tests to try and find out why I passed out.  They never did find out, but decided that dehydration was probably the reason even though I wasn't really dehydrated.  Anyways, this is what I looked like waiting for the nurse to clean my face and for the doc to stitch me up....

This next one is after I got stitched up and got all the goop stuck on the wounds..

I had pretty bad whiplash so that's the reason for the neckbrace... my neck isn't broken :)

And this is me after I cleaned up when I got home :)  Jazz and Rod and just gotten in THAT day from Georgia and we had planned to have a nice sonic reunion.  I had to get ready for the occasion and wasn't going to miss it!

Ya not looking too great :)

So the next night, me and Afton had bought tickets to go see Marianne in 7 Brides for 7 Brothers at the Hale Theatre.  I was so excited for that show and on thursday I was feeling pretty good at that time and didn't want to miss.

I think I looked like Twoface but it was pretty swollen and I'm pretty sure I scared a lot of people there...  I was feeling pretty rough after the performance and was excited to get home, but Marianne was awesome!

Next, Afton had been invited to this Murder Mystery party and I had already said I was coming and they planned the entire party around the guests and felt really bad that I didn't want to go.  It was on saturday and I had been throwing up and not feeling good at all, but decided that I didn't want to ruin their party.  At first I was a little uncomfortable and I felt everyone kept staring at me, but it turned out sooo fun.  The funniest part was that when we had gotten there they took everyone's mug shot for the murder mystery game and then at the end they gave everyone their "Mugshot" with a short description on them... Mine quite possibly was THE BEST!!!!

"Virginia is a social butterfly and always jumps at the chance to go to the latest party and meet the most attractive men. The only reason she lets her sister drag her to the movies is she is secretly hoping to meet her future husband around any corner."

That was my caption... hahahahaha social butterfly.. I really look like that :)

November was already so busy, can you believe I haven't even started to talk about NEW MOON!!!!  Afton and I had planned this midnight showing for months, got our tickets (30 to be exact!) the month before, and had planned for weeks what we hoped would be an AMAZING night!!!  I will say that Afton and I have these showings down to an art!!  I got there super early at like 4 and got in line and I must say everyone of us 30 people enjoyed the experience!!!!  Here are few pics of highlights of the night.

Waiting outside, yes we're glowing like Edward :)

Rod was nice enough to buy me this Jacob cup for all my hardwork of savings seats.

I LOVE JACOB!!!!

So after they brought us inside, you would have thought they'd seat us in the movie theater, no they placed us in ANOTHER line inside that was super small.  BUT my nice little chair fit perfectly in the line and I was very comfortable.  Jazz calls this chair my midget chair :)

Thanksgiving was the next week.  And it was also the 3rd annual Thanksgiving Karaoke...  I love Karaoke :)  and Mike was even in town.

December started with the fun Christmas Caroling with the Arnett's.  We had a fun time going around my Aunt Peg's neighborhood singing Christmas songs.  We sangs the classics and even Last Christmas was song it was awesome!

Nate was home for the Holidays and had everyone over for his birthday and it was fun having everyone together and catching up.

When the boys would come in to town we'd ALWAYS go to Applebee's and have half price appetizers.  Well we couldn't ignore tradition so we went and had so much fun!

  (Please check out Matt :))

 December wouldn't be December without Christmas!  Christmas Eve my grandma always has her Christmas party and this year was fun like always!  Here are some of the highlights :)

Amber, Gina & Me!!!

Sisters :)

Christmas Eve ended with the 3rd Annual Miracle night, we were excited with what was about to happen :)

Well, That's the end.  Let 2010 begin!!!!