Christmas Spirit

A couple of days ago, I was with a bunch of my friends and one of them started to talk about a video they saw on youtube. It was of a house that had thousands of christmas lights strung and they were all synchronized to christmas music. Now, my family members that are reading this and myself can recognize what they were talking about. So I had asked if they were talking about Christmas Utah... No one in the room knew what on earth I was talking about. So, for those of you who don't know, here's a video clip of a man in Murray Utah who has brought Christmas Spirit to Utah.


My family found this place about 2 years ago and it is bomb!! You all should definately check this place out. It's literally just there!

*^*CrAzY EiGhTs*^*

8 Shows I Watch:
- The Office
- Grey's Anatomy
- Project Runway
- Heroes
- Desperate Housewives (That's for McCall)
- Arrested Developement
- 30 Rock
- Good Cartoons

8 Things I Did In The Last 24 Hours:
- Played 2 basketball games
- Went to school
- Watched the Office (Soo so so funny this week!)
- Had a dance party
- Made a mug in ceramics!
- Went caroling... sorta haha Neal and I went through the parking lot singing carols! The best way to bring Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for ALL to hear. ;)
- Caught up with an old friend.
- Failed my AP Art History Test.

8 Places I Like To Eat:
- Chili's
- Cheesecake Factory
- Panda Express
- Zupas
- Johanna's (It's a basketball thing. GO THERE! The scones are AMAZING!)
- In N' Out
- Benihana's
- BJ's

8 Things On My Wishlist:
- To know which college I'm going to.
- To find a man! (haha you know what i'm talkin bout McCall!)
- To have some sort of income, and not just rely on Christmas money.
- Basketball to be amazing like we know we can be. Still just preseason, we're workin towards it.
- To get a 4.0 this quarter.
- A new car. Big Red is great and all, but he just wants to roll over and die.
- A getaway trip. Take me anywhere!
- To get fully recovered!!!

8 Tags:
- Courtney
- Amie
- Karli
- Anna
- Emily
- McCall
- Alex
- Dani

I've got Cosmic Fever!!

Hey Hey Hey Kiddos! It's time to strap on your neon and get dancing!! So, to make up for not having a Halloween Dance (lame I know), our school created the Cosmic Fever Dance. Basically summed up the idea of it at the beginning. This was such an awesome dance! Our group looked amazing and we know how to have a killer time! YAY FOR NEON!! ;)

Here I am (oh yeah, I got a super short hair cut!!!),

And this is my date, Mike Sieverts...

And together we are M&M!!!

Hahaha, and above is Neal.... I just had to put this picture in.
It was such a fun night!!! Thanks Mike for a great time!

Ballin! and Girls....

So there you have it. I am now into my fourth, and last year of basketball. I have been nervous about this for weeks now, and it's already starting. Yikes! We have a pretty good team. Six fellow seniors and a lot of youngins. I hope that we do amazing cause I know that we can make it to the top. Lots of talent on the team, we just have to develop it right. As for injuries, we are all hoping I finish how I started... No injuries. :) But a little extra prayer here and there won't hurt. But due to basketball, I won't be seeing a lot of you at all over the next three months. I'll try to keep this updated, but be forwarned, I will have a lot of basketball on the brains.

On another note, lucky you guys because today I will stray away for a minute from basketball and hopefully you're still awake cause this is a real treat. After I had gotten home from basketball, I heard all this hub-bub about a movie my nephew Max made. Hearing the fact that Max was involved, I had to see it. WOOF!!! I was laughing so hard that I was tearing up. For your viewing pleasure, here is a movie written and directed by Max Heyborne. (keep in mind, only 7... A real prodigy)

Unfortunately I do not have the video so you will have to click on this website to view it:

http://web.me.com/heytrish/Site/short.html

so worth it...

Topped That!?!

Alright, so this year for Halloween, I thought I had the best costume out of the family as Elmo. Top that!!! Oh wait, my awesome nieces and nephew did! I should've known that I had such tough competition!

Max went as a dreadful dead pirate, and Sadie a scary witch. Phenomenal painting jobs!

Even Gwen's first Halloween and she blows me out of the water... She's a Pen-gwen, get it?? ha ha ha

You kids better be ready for next year, cause I will be bringin out the big guns!

Halloween, Wa-oof!

"This is halloween, everybody make a scream, Halloween, halloween, halloween!"
I love Halloween! It's a great holiday with all the frights and mischief... Just to touch up, here's a list of traditions, things I miss or love about Halloween:

• Definately loved watching Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas with my cousins.
• Carving pumpkins with the sisters.
• Trick-or-treating and stopping by Laurel Lindley's for some homemade donuts and wassail.
• Trick-or-treating and stopping by the Webb's house to get yourself a crispy pickle.
• Haunted Houses. I totally miss Rocky Point Haunted House. I was an avid fan that went every year.... It was so terrifyingly good. I miss Rocky Point!!!
• Trunk-or-Treating. My first year, Kimi and I made a pirate ship that was kickin out of Big Red.
• Finding scary places to go play in. If you have any ideas of any, please share. I'm always up for a good scare.
• Swapping candy with Christian Payne when we were kids.
• Watching scary movies. Once again, I love a good thrill.
• Doing those parades during school in elementry. My favorite year of that was Second Grade when I got to walk with this boy that I really liked. ;)

Now, for a glimpse to what Halloween was like this year for me.

For this year I was cute little furry ELMO!!! It was awesome.

Elmo met SARAH PALIN!! But really, this is my friend Tess, and she made an awesome Palin. Her dad dressed up as McCain, naturally.

Our car group, we were crazy!!!

Yeah, we had a crazy adventure... It was awesome!

The Creepy tunnel we adventured through.

The Whole Group going through the creepy tunnel.

This year was pretty good, and I hope all of you also had a hauntingly good time!!

What the Blog!?!

M. Ward

+

Zooey Deschanel

=

She & Him

So, my favorite artist and hero M. Ward teams up with equally great Zooey Deschanel, and NO one tells me?!?! I love M. Ward ever since Kirby burned me a CD of his. His sounds are fresh and interesting and lyrics are deep! As for Zooey Deschanel, I saw her in Elf and thought, Dang this girl can sing!! Combine them, and you create my new love, She & Him. Best collaboration ever! I advise that you guys give them a listen.

Stories from the Westside: A True Classic

I realize it's been awhile since my last post so I figure for this post, I'd make it a special one. For this segment of Stories from the Westside I reluctantly will be sharing a West favorite. As a kid, most of you know for the majority of my childhood, I sported the Bowl-Cut. To go along with this Bowl-Cut, I also had the Tom-Boyish attitude to compliment it. Now with this I caused some people a lot of, how do I say it, confusion... Now as for my cousin Patrick, he was one of those people. Patrick grew up with me looking like this: (the little girl on the left, yes, that's me!)

Now to Patrick's dismay, he got really confused when he saw a picture like the one below of me in a dress.... Now, being the cute little tyke that he was back then, he exclaimed to everyone,
"Mandi NOT A GIRL! Mandi's A BOY! Why is Mandi in a dress?"
Yep, because of this, I have been the butt of almost every joke of the West family for years! To tell you the truth, I don't mind it much anymore, but growing up, I dreaded people quoting it or my dear dear family telling that story. But now that it's out in the open, I feel a sense of closure.... Just kidding, but I hope you all enjoyed this segment of Stories from the Westside.

Going Green!

Alright, so my good friend Haley Collett is the one to thank for this video. She texted me and told me that I had to look up this video, and man was she right! Now, I've got nothing against those eco friendly people, but is this really necessary?? I mean, come on... But, I guess if you want to cry over a fallen tree, go do so. Myself on the other hand, I'm going to go out and celebrate life while I can.

One of Those, "Almost Pee'd my Pants" Moments

Now i'm not sure if this was out of sheer delusion, or if it really is funny. A friend of mine told me to search for this video on youtube, but I stumbled across this gem of a clip. In the end, I am so glad that I did, and I wanted to share my joy to all of you. Please, do enjoy yourselves!

Look out for that *BaM*....pole...

All those innocent and naive little children out there, I love them to death. It's great going to family parties because on my mother's side of the family, there are lots of little kids and cute little babies to play with. I'm always chillin with the little ones. There's one of my cousin's kids that really peeks my interest. We all know him as Taters. A little tyke with curly hair, a great smile, and a whole lot of energy. This kid is abnormally off the walls 24/7, even ask his dad. At dinner parties, he can never stay in one spot for very long. It's pretty much inhuman. Well, when I play with Taters, we like to play this game where I chase him, catch him, spin him around, and then release him. We play this for about 30 minutes or so, no joke, and it's pretty much his favorite. Well, at my Grandma's birthday dinner, our game got cut a little earlier. As we were playing, about the third round, I spun him around once and put him down, and pretended to chase him. Well, my bad when I realized that I had released him near a giant pole. I knew what was going to happen next, but wasn't fast enough to stop the inevitable... Naturally, he whipped around as fast as he could to escape me and...*BaM*, nailed his little noggin against the pole. Pretty sure he should've gotten a concussion, but being the little ball of energy he is, he bounces right up, shakes his head a bit, and runs off. Incredible, this kid is indestructible. Of course I felt bad and stopped playing because everyone blamed it on me, but I can't help but replay the whole incident in my head and laugh... Taters, your one of my favorites!

The Loneliest Churro...

So this night all kind of started out random. Those nights usually turn out to be the best, and this one was definately one that I will never be able to forget. Kimi, my second married sister, comes over trying to get me to take some of her stuff she doesn't want anymore. When she told me that Ryan, her husband, would be back soon from doing laundry, I suggested that we should go bowling. Long story short, we ended up going miniature golfing.... What a laugh... let's just say, i'm no Tiger Woods. I'm more of a Happy Gilmore when he first starts out. If you want a good laugh, come watch me play. I swear, the only way I can get a decent score, is when I use my "Pool Table" technique. You know, when you get down to the ground and try to poke the ball into the hole. It works! But let's be honest, I look like a fool, as seen below:

Now compare my picture, with Happy Gilmore...LOL

After golfing, we decided to treat ourselves to some dessert and went to try out the mexican joint called Gecko's across the street. My new favorite place, it's so... charming in it's own kinda way. The reason we went there is because Kimi had to get her some sopaipillas (so-pah-pee-uh's). At first I had no idea what they were but I thought i'd give them a try. When we got there and ordered, it turned out they only have enough dough for the two out of the three we ordered. Well, me thinking i'd be the hero, I offered to keep it safe and just stick with the churro. To my dismay, when the waiter brought out the sopaipillas, I had realized that I had them before on a trip and thought they were SUPER delicious!!! (even said that out loud and the waiter felt bad) So while my sisters were happily spreading away the luscious butter onto their sopaipillas and eating them, the waiter brings over this meesly stick of a churro and hands it to me... I didn't realize it, but when I took my first bite, apparently I made this really depressing face which in turn made my sisters laugh so hard they almost choked. Of course, they had to take a picture documenting this event. So they told me to make another sad face while taking another bite out of it, and at that time the waiter had come back to check on us. Being the great actress I am, I sold him the fact that I was unhappy and he asked if my churro was okay. I started to laugh way hard, causing me to spit some of it out, and told him that it was great. Yeah, I felt a little stupid after that. But I did enjoy my churro very much! (and the two leftover sopaipillas my sisters had) The waiter I guess felt bad for me though, and gave the churro to me for free, so all in all, I couldn't complain. However, after the second sopaipilla, I think I got a little tipsy because as we were walking through the parking lot, I totally ran into this tree...BAM! In the end, I should have just stuck with my lonely churro....

Alright, Alright, I know.....

This post of mine will be used to shamelessly promote my brother-in-law, Kirby Heyborne. I'll have you know that I am all too proud to do so, so i don't care what you say. Kirby is hilarious, talented, and hansom to boot (sorry still married). But uh, I realize that I don't promote him like I should when someone asked me if I went to his concert recently, when in actuality i didn't realize he was in town.... But that's only because I have been to soooooo many of his concerts that he is so sick of seeing me there. Ha ha ha, I really hope that isn't the case. But honestly, I love his concerts! He has a talent in combining great music, funny stories, and getting the audience involved to create one heck of a night. Let's see, for those that I might have sold on seeing him, he has a show coming up, info below:

Monday, Sept 29, 7:30 PM

CONCERT Covey Center for the Arts

423 West Center St. Provo, UT 84601

Tickets: $10

Concert tickets available online, click here.

He's totally legit, I swear to everyone. It's great for the family, and he appeals great to the youth. You won't be dissapointed. I do have the hook-up, but you have to speak to me fast because requests are beginning to rocket.

For more info and to hear some of his music, you can go to his official website at kirbyheyborne.com.

That is all.

Gwenyth June Heyborne

August 27, 2008; 3:57 AM

I am pleased to introduce to you all, my beautiful and gorgeous new member of the family, Gwenyth (Gwen) June Heyborne. Yay for another niece!!! AAaahhh! I totally wish I was down there to hold my new niece, she looks like a bundle of joy, doesn't she?

This is Gwen. She looks tiny! I was expecting a chunk like the others! ha ha jk She's 7 pounds and 20 inches long.

My sister... She's a wonderful Mother. Something for me to aspire to be.

The Kirbster is always one proud papa. I'm glad to see he gets another joy to smother with kisses. From the looks of it, the chin chopper is out of business... ;)

Oh Max... ha ha I wish I had such an awesome big brother such as yourself.

Lastly, we have Sadie. She's so excited to be an older sister and teach her new little sister all the ways of being a girl.

Viola! One big happy family! Welcome to the world there Gwen, I think you will enjoy it. :)

An Ode to Summer

Oh Summer, how I will miss you so. That was one heck of a legit summer. Great Friends + Awesome Family + Grand Ol Times = AWESOME SUMMER!

For the first time, I have felt like a had an accomplished summer. (Even though Basketball was out of the picture this year). I will cherish all of those crazy times forever, and here's a look back on what a crazy summer it was. Summer in a nutshell if you will. :)

1: The Fam Fam

Got to see a lot of the fam, and hang out with them this summer. Once again i love my niece and nephew, they are great to hang with. I am the Mandi Toy and I am just fine with that title. As for the sisters, we had an amazing California Road Trip.

Here's A shout-out to my cous, Amie Purles, she is the best! I am so glad that we got to have that cousin night we were planning for so long. LOVE YA COUS!!! Let's hang out more!!

2: BATMAN

Need I say more?? This movie was awesome!! I saw the Midnight premiere of it, and since then I have seen it a total of 4 times! I totally recommend this movie.

3: Ward Family

Oh man, my ward family is great! I love everyone. It's kinda sad that i am the only one my age out of the girls, but the youngins are fun. We get along great. I'm like the older sister of the group. As for the boys, love them!!!! Andrew and David are favorites, we get along swimmingly!

Below is sara, aka shadow my gangsta gurl! She's hilarious!

4: BASKETBALL

Alright, so it's true, I love my basketball team. Even though i couldn't play with them this summer, it was a real treat, as always, to join them on the colorado trip. They are some great girls to hang out with, crazy beyond all reason though.

5:POOL

Man, we just love the pool so much! I wish I could've gone more over the summer. It's where I got somewhat of a tan!!! I'll miss the pool days!

Okay the story of the picture below is the fact that we just barely made it to the dock after attempting to go boating and getting stranded out in utah lake for 3 hours. It was a bad day. ha ha driving home for instance, a rock hit the windshield and cracked it bad... scared me so bad!!

6:CONCERTS

Alright, so if you haven't heard of Kid Theodore, I suggest you give them a listen. They are great, and we go to many of their concerts. Many good times down at Kilby Court. We also took amazing pictures down there too we were so inspired. :D

7:The Friendlies

Below is the historical girls night that we were planning for months and finally had. It was great! Thanks Tiff!!

Alright, the next two pics are from Karli and Alec's birthday parties. They were great fun, and hope they had awesome birthdays cuz i had an awesome time. You guys are great!

AAAaaawwwwww!!! I am pleased to introduce to you all Con Con. This is Conr Kinman who is friends with tiff and stayed at her house for some time. He's a great kid, who we all enjoyed hangin with! We miss ya Con! I will miss being called Mandacious..

I would just like to put in real fast that i love all the girlies! You guys are awesome and always great to hang out with! Love ya, that is all!

We also enjoyed some firework shows, they were great!

Alright, this next pic is from Mole night. It's a new game we started playing and it is awesome... i am one sneaky mole though so you better watch out! ;)

YAY!! Finally, we were able to do the sleepover night we were planning forever!! Sleep outside under the stars, and chill out late...Unfortunately as you can see in the pic below, Tiff was dying that night. Symptoms: Awful sunburn, Hives everywhere, hands swelling, very cold...Tiff, i'm so sorry that night was awful for ya!!

Oh and uh, me and karli took silver in doubles volleyball... Yeah, we kick butt basically.

8:Simply Up to No Good

Whoops...where did this picture come from?? That's strange, but good looking. ;)

We love trying to prank the guys, even though it doesn't work out. But we still have good times. The first picture was when we wanted to surprise mike by leaving a box full of tiffany in his room. ha ha, failed. The next ones, we wanted to plaster pictures of the joker on Alec's window. Ha ha...once again, failed. (sprinklers came on, and wrong window.)

So, don't trust those innocent smiles cause in reality, we just made a dry ice bomb and threw it off the balcony and were waiting for it to blow. ha ha Just give us a bunch of 2 liter cokes, mentos, dry ice, and we can be entertained for hours! So much fun.

Yep, that's right, i got a tat... ;)

Oh man, this was great... The unveiling of Vicky! The funniest story ever, for more info, go to this site and read the post. You won't be dissapointed. http://justinpdavies.blogspot.com/2008/08/jersey-girl.html

This is a picture proving that me and tiff are tough and can prevail over anything. Ha ha we had just survived another hike, but wasn't as bad as the last one we went on. Let's just say, Tiff and I scaled a cliff barefoot, tiff in a dress, late at night, and with some crazy boys. ha ha it turned out to be quite a fun night...when we were safe.

That's basically what my summer was like. I'd like to thank my family and dear friends for making it spectacular! As for school, I may not be exactly ready, but I'm ready to rule as a senior! Hope it's fun!!