Well it’s 2012 now. 2011 seemed to go really slowly, and really quickly at the same time. When I look back on 2011, there are a few things that really stick out to me. Mock trial of course, the play, frolfing, and all of or gang’s trips to McDonalds. Weird how the trips I went on aren’t what I remember the most, but it’s the small things that I remember best! I’m going to go through each month from this year, and list some of the biggest things from each months, maybe some memories from them, stuff like that. 🙂
January:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
–Crown Bible Quizzing tournament!! Crown was awesome. I got to hang out with Sebastian, Mark, Holly, LG, and my mom and Nick for 3 days straight, and it was pretty much the most hilarious 3 days of my life!! I loved it 🙂 And of course, it was where one of the best quotes ever came from… “Holly, you look like a snuggly bear.” 😀
–Spanish class McDonald trips: This is when the McDonald trips began! After Gabe and my Spanish class on Thursdays, we would go hang out with some people from our class at McDonald’s taco bell, whatever, and it was super fun 🙂
–Mock trial begins… I’ll talk more about this later 🙂
–Started reading Les Miserables! I don’t know why, but this book was amazing. Our literature group worked on it for months, and then went to see the play in April, and it was pretty much the best part of literature. 🙂
FEBRUARY:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
–Got braces…DIE.
–Started getting to know Allie!!! I love Allie. 😀 And it’s been great getting to know her this year! 🙂
-Started hanging out with the gang just because 🙂
–Mock trial still in full swing!! This is the month that we started to get it together in mock trial. Our team got to know each other, got to understand the case, and started to get good at what we did. Our practices were always the highlight of my week!
MARCH:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-MOCK. TRIAL. We went to regionals. SOMEHOW, our team miraculously made it to state! It was awkward. We didn’t know if we were allowed to be happy about going to state, or if we should be sad for the other team. It wasn’t fair for us to go to state and we knew that, and the other team was not shy about letting us know what they thought of us. But after a week or two, we were all excited for state, and mock trial completely took over most of our lives. And then we actually left for the competition. After all of our hard work, we got paired up with the team that had won for the past 3 years our first round. That was tough. And then we got an evil judge the second round, who hated us. That was tougher. And our third round we got a great judge, and it went great. “Can you please read exhibit 5?” “…..” “Moving on…” and “ARE YOU COLE!?!?” are some of the MANY amazing quotes and memories from mock trial. 🙂 There were lots of other memories from mock trial, and some other ones that weren’t related to mock trial, but in general, that was pretty much all of March for me!
APRIL:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Les Miserables Play! We went to see it!! FINALLY. After starting to read the book way back in January, we actually got to see the play in April. But it was amazing!!! SO MUCH FUN.
–Spanish class...that was a pretty great part of April. Lots more movies and lunches with our class, as we finished up our level 4 class. It was so fun 🙂
MAY:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-The “frappe group” was formed! Me, Ben, and Allie started to hang out, (with frappes of course!) mostly watching Phineas and Ferb or something like that…and came up with dumb nicknames for each other. “Babby,” “Carly,” and “Allie-Ka-Zam.” 😀
–Blogging competition!! I don’t remember exactly when this began, but I know for a fact that it had been going on for a while once May got here. That was great. It was a good way to practice writing and get to know more about my competition as well! 🙂
-Band Competition/Valley Fair- That was fun. 🙂
JUNE:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Pride and Prejudice Auditions! Oh my goodness, that was stressful. Also, it was amazing. Also, it was the beginning of Pride and Prejudice. Also, Pride and Prejudice was AMAZING.
-Friendships. I grew so many friendships this summer!! It was great. I got to know a lot of people a lot better, and the “group” started to form. 🙂
–Helped with Theatrical Camp…that was a good lesson in teaching, patience, and it was fun! 🙂
–Counselor at kids camp!! Nothing teaches you responsibility, patience, and the ability to pour water out of a leaking jar into a little kids mouth like being in charge of ten 6-10 year olds for five days…
JULY:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Hanging out!! July was a major month for hanging out. Whether it was taking pictures with Ben and Allie, popping bunnies with Alyssa, Luke, Olivia, Mark, Sebastian, Ben, Gabe, and everyone else, or going to a baseball game (and being totally humiliated at it,) with my church, this was a month where I grew friendships and hung out with my friends a lot. 🙂
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 midnight premiere! AAAAHHHH that was so cool!! Although it was the beginning of the end of the blogging competition…
-Student Life: DEVOTED conference. That was a big deal for me. I can’t even start to cover all the stuff I learned from it, so if you’re interested in it, you can go look at my old posts about it. 🙂
AUGUST:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Became a sophomore!! Woah, do I really only have 2.5 more years of high school left? :O
-Lost one of my best friends. That was really hard. I wasn’t expecting it, and I felt really confused and mad for a couple weeks, but God put some great people in my life and they helped me trust God, realize that I was fine, and move on, and I’m happier now then ever! I’ve found out who my true friends are. (I think.) 🙂
–Started being ok with myself:) This might have something to do with getting settled in with a new group of friends, but around the beginning of my sophomore year, I started to stop being so self conscious, and started to be ok with being who I am! 🙂 So that was a blessing. August was a hard month, but it was an important month, and it ended up being great. 🙂
SEPTEMBER:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Frolfing! (Or frisbee golfing) 🙂 We went frolfing about once a week for a lot of the fall, and it was so much fun! There were so many memories made, and it was fun to go out and try something new for a change 🙂
–Pride and Prejudice practices began!! 🙂
-McDonald’s trips. I don’t know what it is about our group’s fast food runs, but they’re some of my favorite memories from this year! They’re just so fun, and I love them so much!! They’re a lot of the reason that I love Thursdays! 🙂
–Campfires. We had some campfires this summer that included, (but were not limited to,) worship, praying for each other, sharing verses that had impacted us, and things like that. They were amazing.
OCTOBER:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Allie 😀 Lot’s of good times with Allie this month!! Hanging out at Coralridge Mall, staring at the stars, seeing giant chickens on motorcycles…it was all great. 🙂
-PANTS!!!!!!! This was the month that “pants” came to be. And oh. my. goodness. it is one of the best memories I have from this year! It’s just a silly little joke, but it makes me smile everytime I think of it, and it’s one of my favorite things from 2011. 🙂
-Yet another month of memories that I can’t put on a specific event…I got to know so many people better this month!!
NOVEMBER:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-Helping with Spanish 1/2! SU CASA. Enough said. 😀
–The Purpose Driven Life: Rick Warren. I did a Bible study with Mark on the book the Purpose Driven Life, and it was pretty much the best book I’ve read in a LONG time. Everyone should read it. EVERYONE. 🙂
–After play practice McDonald’s trips…SO. MUCH. FUN. 😀
–PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!!!! I can’t even begin to cover how amazing that was here. So you can go read my post about it for a recap…but it still won’t be able to cover all the amazing-ness of it. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I miss the play so much..but that’s ok! Mock trial is starting soon. 🙂 (Oh, and I can’t mention the play without saying “RUMPUS!” right?) 😀
DECEMBER:
*MAJOR EVENTS*
-PLANET WISDOM! That was amazing. I’m so glad that I went. I never wrote a blog post about that…sorry Sawatzky and Juan! :O But it was incredible. Especially the worship. Dutton is astounding. 🙂
-Mock trial tryouts and first practice!!! This year looks like it’s going to be amazing. I mean, an immigration case? What could be better?? 😀 😀 😀
–Lots of silly little things. Random things at the literature Christmas party, (like Sawatzky being a little girl, and me being a goose,) or my brother tweeting everything he possibly can out of context to make my life ridiculously weird, or hanging out on New Years Eve outside, and greeting 2012 with sparkling grape juice and Hersheys kisses on a hill with a bunch of friends…it’s the little moments that make life fun. Not the big things, just the little things that make me smile!
There’s so many other things that I couldn’t list here…I mean how could I list every great thing that happened in 2011? It’d take WAY more than 1700 words. But I guess I just have to say how blessed I am to have the friends that I do. They’re really the ones that made 2011 wonderful, and that make me excited for 2012!! Happy new year everyone 🙂
thoughts 
The act of putting all the awesome things that happened this year is a great task indeed, and one you accomplished quite admirably. As I think over the events of 2011, sometimes it kind of feels a little bit like cheating. Like it’s unfair that the entire year counts, because so many amazing things happened. I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get the feeling that other years in my life were wasted. Not because they weren’t nice, but because they weren’t even close to this. 2011 really was an amazing year. And if 2011 was any indication, I would say that 2012 will be even better.
If I was motivated enough to make a full list like this, all I’d have to do would be take away a few things, add in Tag Team, and then replace all references to Allie with Ryan 😛
Same here!! I could have just written a post that said;
“MAJOR EVENTS OF 2011:
*2011*”
And been good. 😀
Well I’d be interested to see what you’d write about 2011 if you want to write something! 🙂
Indeed. Merely the mention of this year and instantly many memories come to mind.
Well, I kind of half did something with that fairly long facebook post of mine. Of course, it was completely disorganized and didn’t cover everything. But I don’t know, yours and mine really would be so similar that I’m not sure it would be worth it compared to writing a post about something else.
I thought that was an awesome post!! Yeah, I guess you could just post a link to this post and say “add Tag Team, replace Allie with Ryan,” and call it your New Years post! 😀
But that would unethical, not to mention downright lazy.