What summer's been lookin like

     The people I've been chillin with this summer are hiking Timpanogos all day (since it's a 16 mile hike), but I got pretty sick yesterday so I couldn't go anymore and I'm kind of bummed about it because look at this...

Oh and I just got these snapchats from my cousins...

(pretending I'm there)

     So anyway, I'm just chilling at home watching chick flix with the dogs- and I thought I should update my blog on how my summer is going so, well, here we go.

     The first week of summer was so nice. It's so weird being free all day, ya know, like no homework. What's really nice is Olivia got here drivers license and we love love love to drive around. We've found that our favorite place to drive around is the Avenues, because that's where the prettiest views are. For example:

(lol)

     Sometimes my mom is busy and can't take me anywhere, and my dad is in India for the summer, so it's just nice to have that extra driver who is always wanting to drive anywhere haha.

     My first summer trip was so amazing. As you probably already know from Facebook or Instagram, I went to Zion's National Park and Havasupai. (this was our last trip with Leonie *cry) Both are so beautiful. One day when we were in Zion's, my family decided to hike Angels Landing, which is the most difficult hike in Zion's (and one of the most dangerous hikes in the US). I was like "Heck no" and was just going to go around on the shuttle and explore the smaller hikes with Ollie, but literally the last second possible- Ollie and I jumped off the shuttle to hike Angels Landing and IM SO GLAD I DID BECAUSE: 

     I remember that the hike was called Angels Landing because when it was first seen the people said it was so high that only angels could land there. If only those people could see me at the top. I thought about that for a long time.

     I have so many stories from Havasupai. I think I will write a separate post for that little big adventure.

     On our way back we stopped in vegas for a night. We showed Leonie's mother around the strip, haha it's funny because the first time we took Leonie to vegas she hated the strip. She said it was sad. Leonie's mom hated it too. I'm not a big fan of it either, or vegas in general really. BUT HOW WEIRD IS IT THAT THIS WAS OUR LAST TRIP WITH LEONIE?! Actually really depressing how fast time passes because as we were walking/talking around the strip I was thinking of the first time we came to Vegas over spring break (when Leonie and I snuck into a casino buffet and ate tons of dessert whoops, or got invited to the club. lol. "no".) and how here we were again, same place. Anyway, selfie on the strip. 

     And then the Porter cousin overload begins when Gracie comes to Utah. Grace is so funny, she never ceases to crack me up or do something crazy with me. Since I only get to see her once a year, I try to take our time together in as much as possible. 

(Wearing "Barbie Lipstick" around town)

     And then we had to let Leonie go...

(When we said hello)

(When we said goodbye (for now))

     Letting Leonie go was definitely the worst part of summer so far. Leonie was our Austrian exchange student and she lived with us for 10 months. She became a part of the family and having her gone is so so strange. It almost feels like she's just on vacation and she'll be back soon. On the way to the airport we were talking about how next summer we want to go visit her in Austria so I'm wayy pumped for that. We look happy in this picture but right after we all started bawling. So many happy memories happened between these two pictures.

     More and more cousins flooded in for the Porter family reunion. Every year we have a reunion in a cabin in Park City. I wish I could write and write about our crazy reunions but that would take a while. The first night my cousin Emmy, Ambryn, aunt Julia, and I all slept in this room with two bunk beds and can I just say I was like dying because I was so hot and I woke up at 12:00am and never went back asleep so I laid in bed for 5 hours until I heard Emmy tossing around and I was like "Emmy." and she was like, "Ya." "Do you want to go watch the stars or something?" "Yes."

So we took our blankets outside and watched the sky fade from stars to a beautiful sunrise. 

 And then, at about 7:00am, we decided to have a cute little photo-shoot (because who wouldn't want to take pictures in a pretty place like this) and I kept reminding Emmy of my fear of moose and how we are probably going to see one and how this might be our last view of life etc. etc. (last year my cousins and I were walking up the road from our cabin and we came within maybe 15 feet of a moose and my cousins looked at it and then looked around and said "Where's Annie?" and I was already halfway back to the cabin within like 5 seconds, booking it down the road.) And anyway, a couple minutes later, just with our luck we saw two baby moose right next to our cabin and I was like "WHERES MAMA MOOSE" and ran through a ditch to get back to the cabin. Worth the pics though-

     Emmy and I left the reunion a day early because we were going to EFY (A five day LDS youth camp) at BYU (Brigham Young University). We had gone together the year before and it was way fun, so I'm not sure why I was so nervous for this year. 

     We met up with our cous Abby, who couldn't make it to the reunion. She was in a different group as me and Emmy :( But she loved her group and made tons of new friends so it's okay I guess. Me and Emmy were roommates, and we were in the same group (so so grateful she was with me okay). Sooo honestly the first two days of EFY were hard because I was being shyyy and I wasn't making friends and I had a bad attitude and I sooo wish I could re-do those days because looking back on them- I could have been so much happier. But things starting getting a lot better when I read Ether 12 in the Book of Mormon on wednesday for morning gospel study. After that I knew I could do anything, and I needed to stop worrying about what people thought of me.

     hahaha^^^ this is called escorting. Whenever we left somewhere our counselors would say "Gentlemen, grab an escort." (Sometimes girls had to choose) and we would walk sweaty arm in sweaty arm. It's funny to just soak in the awkwardness of yourself and everyone else around you as you walk and try to find something interesting to talk about, or something you have in common with your "escort". 

Emmy and I partying

Hot air balloons surrounded us during morning gospel studies!!

The company :))))

     The bad part about EFY is right when you start to actually form real friendships with the people around you, you have to go. This picture was taken on Friday. The last day. tears were shed and everyone gave each other big goodbye hugs.. It's been almost 3 days since I left EFY and I still feel like it changed such a big part of me. Its crazy how much I learned in 5 days. I could talk and talk and talk about EFY but this post is getting long and I'm not sure if it's getting boring or not which is probably a bad sign. BUT I SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND EFY TO ANYONE WHO CAN GO,  even just asking for it as your birthday present or whatever, I promise it will not disappoint :)))

     I've wanted to do a post about summer for a while now and these experiences just keep piling on each other. I totally could have done a separate post for all of these (that would be a lot of posts.) and I hate just kind of rushing though all of these experiences!! At least I can have this post to look back on when I'm old and hopefully I can somewhat remember everything. I know I kind of tried to summarize everything which could have made some things suuuper confusing, so if anything is unclear please let me know!

p.s. If you care, I love posting tons of random summer pictures on my VSCO photo grid everyday. That's where my life's at. haha

p.p.s. I changed my blog URL to vwbf.blogspot.com so it doesn't take half your life to type in..

Happy July!