awful glad

Well, it's another christmas come and almost gone. Zach called last night while we had our early christmas because right now we are driving on the 5 to get to disneyland. Pretty exciting stuff! Almost the whole family, with the exception of zach, is going and we will probably all revert back to our childhood selves.

We switched from at&t to t mobile and now we all have blackberries. Even dad! So that's good news I guess. Its a pretty good phone. I'm posting this blog from it(like I said, we're driving right now). What else...bethany got a pram and a baby doll from santa and he ate the pumpkin pie we left him. I got a fender starcaster so I am officially a rock star! Rachel got a bunch of movies and a backpack for all of her heavy college books. Mom got movies also and a temporary phone(she's against the whole technology thing and doesn't want one but she'll use it for now until zach comes back). Garrick got some movies(dark knight) and a cool pen that records and helps you study better. Dad got a phone(like I said) and he loves it. Stacie came over last night which was fun and she got some lotion and a candle and a stocking:) coco got a treat. Hahaha

Well we are almost to disneyland sooo I'm gonna jet. That's all she wrote.

christmas time is here!

i looove christmas time! the decorations, the cold weather, the end of the semester, the lights, the trees, the music. after thanksgiving, the christmas music starts playing on the radio and we start singing it in choir. people thinks its too early for christmas but i love it. not all of the music is good[eg: merry christmas darling] but most of it is[eg: everything else]

on thursday, we had our christmas concert[liberty's] and it went pretty well! i didnt forget any words and we all sang pretty well considering how much we mess around during choir class.

chamber chorale sang deck the halls, jingle bells, we wish you a merry christmas, and santa claus is comin to town. and chorale sang oh come all ye faithful, christmastime is here, and the angels sang, angels in seven, and peace, peace.

i was gonna upload some videos but it was taking forev[sorry rach!] so here's some other pictures of our christmas decorations and trees and everything else i said i love about christmas!

joy! ornament[thanks sis urmston!]

my door hanger elf[buddy]

moms gold christmas tree

my christmas tree

bethany's pink and brown[martha stewart] tree

my favorite ornament of the day.
zach made it when he was almost 4. whadda cutie!

we are thankful

[in no particular order]for good health, music, technology, food, shelter, each other, the church, the gospel, missionaries, church leaders, friends, family, extended family, discipline, education.

we're thankful we have things to be thankful for.

and i'm awful thankful of that.

city of angels

huntington pier w/ the wihongis

ohh the beach!

crazy protesters...

i thought it was, a stroll on the beach.
not a segway adventure on the beach...

surfer dude...

the fam and i went to l.a this weekend. it was quite a trip. we went mostly to say goodbye and farewell to some family friends we've known for a while. they're moving back to new zealand[where we first met them] at the beginning of december so this was pretty much the only time we could see them between now and then. we left on friday and got to the temple in time to check in to the motels and for our parents to get ready and go to the stake temple session. while they were there, me and beth watched the movie nims island which was pretty good even tho i thought it wasnt going to be. anyways, we spent the night at the hotel and then left in the morning to go to the wihongis[our friends]. we spent a lot of time with them and we went to the beach which is where most of the pictures were taken. we saw some protesters and a lot of surfers and what not. the usual beach stuff. then we went back to their place and had dinner. then kendall and maddie[two of their girls] took me and beth to see madagascar 2 at the movies[which was also pretty good!] and it was a lot of fun. then we went to another family friends house to stay the night. in the morning we went to the wihongis church and then we went to their house for dinner, said our goodbyes[sadness] and then we came home. it was good seeing them and the beach and the temple and everything! good weekend!

halloweenie

last halloween

cinderella!

belle!

banana & 80's girl[oh the 80's!]

tomorrow is monday...

and i hate mondays, but the weekend was good though!

it was homecoming on friday and juniors got first place on the t-shirt design and we got 2nd on the float:] we were spiderman and it was pretty hardcore. we built a balcony and everything for the bulldog[we played golden valley-thats their mascot] to stand on after he kidnapped 'ms. liberty'. and spiderman swung across a building and kicked the bulldog off [onto a big matress thing] and saved ms liberty. it was tight:] me and my friends were nyc gangsters which was interestingly fun. the same night, bethany had two parties to go to[shes the most popular one in our family...] one was a halloween party and she was belle[shes also the prettiest one in the family]. me and mom did her hair and she wore heels the whole night. what a grown up! here's some pictures:

till next time,

hannah

all is well.

i dont have much to say. eventful, stressful week...but everything has been going smooth.
here's some random pictures that i found in my pictures:

beth makes thee best faces!

camp picture!

the black and white pic is of dad's dad and his officers in WWII.

this is the new zealand temple. on of my favorite pictures from our trip to new zealand:]

and there you go.

there will be more pics later when i'm bored and have nothing to post. byeee

*warning: may contain sarcasm!

as you might know, my father is a teacher. he is in the cta, california teachers association, which is the largest teachers union. every year, they send out a little packet to "inform" [or influence] teachers who are a part of the cta concerning the upcoming elections or voting events for propostions. personally, i think this is...well, wack in the first place because teachers should be able to vote how they want and they should be educated on the topics enough to know what to vote for but, that could just be me...as we all know, on november 4th, voting will start and will include presidential elections as well as the infamous propostion 8 which, if passed, will restore traditional marriage and ban same-sex marriage. apparently, the cta will be voting no on prop 8 to "support equality for all" because "the cta believes that all people should be allowed equal protection under law". equality is great and really important, but this prop, in my opinion, will only do bad for the education system. the cta, however, strongly opposes the propostion...so much that they have donated $1,000,000 to the No on Propostion 8 Campaign. hmm...weird. did we not just have budget cuts? were there not an estimated 20, 000 teachers who were either fired or laid off this past May? yet, the california teachers association has an extra 1 mil to throw away fighting propostion 8, making them the largest institutional donor, because "the No campaign seems to be struggling." as if the $250,000 they already donated to a coalition opposing prop 8 in august wasnt enough. i'm awful glad our priorities are straight...
[ some information taken from a California Department of Education News Realease, The Bakersfield Californian, and the CTA November 2008 Voter Guide ]

story time!

zach, or elder smith i should say, called this morning, not to wish mom a belated birthday because thats not allowed, but to tell her he broke his hand...yeahh smooth guy. apparently he was playing football with some other missionaries or the youth or something and he fell. he broke the bone boxers brake all the time. its by your pinky. this isnt the first time however...which explains a little bit[his bone was weak already]. here's a first hand[no pun intended] account of the first time he broke his hand:
back in the day when i was a turd....zach and i didnt get along. actually, i didnt get along with anyone, but anyways. i was in 5th grade and zach was a sophomore...maybe he was a junior. all i know is that we lived in the other house by columbia elementary. anyways, he was playing basketball out front and i was bugging him about something and i musta said something really annoying and probably critical that made him burst. i could tell so i jumped on my bike to make a get away. he threw his basketball at my bicycle and then when i came back around, he ran after me and either tried to punch me and missed or tried to punch my bike tire and missed. either way, he missed and hit the metal part of my bike and broke that same bone above his pinky. he didnt know it at first but it swelled and stuff. it was a mess. our parents weren't home and when they got home, we had to explain and a while later, zach finally went in to see if it was broken and sure enough, it was. the story must have sounded fake to the doc cuz he took zach aside and asked him a series of questions. he didnt outright ask if he was abused, but basically, he was asking zach if he was abused. when they were convinced, they fixed it and gave him a cast. this of course was during basketball season annnnd he couldnt play. he did get a pretty good at shooting with his left hand though! i'm awful glad something good came out of that awful situation! haha sooo there you go. a fun fact/story of the day!

time flies.

besides the fact that i had hardly any homework over the weekend, which is rare, my brother garrick and his girlfriend brittni came down to visit, which is also rare. they got here on saturday morning or friday night, i dont know cuz i was sleeping, and they just left this morning. soo heres an overview of our weekend/beginning of the week: on saturday, we had breakfast and then went to delano to visit my grandma and uncle and cousins. we watched the usc game and played tennis which was interesting on account of there was no net and on top of that, not very much skill. i hit about 4 balls over the wall which would have been good if we were playing softball, but apparently ur supposed to hit it soft and aim or something like that. after that we went to costco and ate some food and shopped for food. that place is amazing btw. that night, we went to the driving range[we being everyone except mom...she doesnt like sports very much.] we got there and the guy had closed up early so he gave us free tokens for the inconvenience and we hit away. we randomly saw a kit fox running around on the range and i sliced almost every ball. after that we crashed and sunday morning, idk if im supposed to tell or not, but we didnt fast. mostly because brittni and garrick had already fasted or something so we'll do that later. went to church of course. good stuff. then we went home and made din-din[garrick bbq'ed tri-tip and we had potatos and bread and green beans]. we read some scriptures and then went to bed. on monday, dad had work and i had to go to school. bethany should have gone to school also, but she took the day off. haha:] monday night, i had a buttload of hw so i stayed home while everyone went to pick out some pumpkins and get some pies at marie callendars. when they got home we carved the pumpkins! as you can see below, we have different 'artistic' styles. so that was fun/messy as usual. if u cant tell the middle one is mine and it's supposed to be spongebob...haha. bethany's is the one one the right and the left one is garrick and brittni's. anyways, the next day which was tuesday, was a very busy one indeed! it was moms birthday! 39 years young again! not. she's now 43. again, i dont know if i'm supposed to tell that, but i did:] anyways, i got my choir to sing happy birthday to her which was good because mom did the type-setting for the choir concert program for free. it was the least they could do;) haha. at 11, i left school because i had an appointment at the dmv........ to get my license.......and well........i passed! thats totally my good news minute for young womens so act surprised when i tell you on sunday! after that, me and garrick and brittni decided it was a good time to go shopping for mom [late much? yeaahh...thats my life] i drove myself to target[which was one of the funnest things ive ever done-driving by myself, that is] and got her a card and bought rachel a rice cooker. kinda ironic since it was moms birthday but rachel needed one. happy birthday rachel! haha. umm i ended up also finger-painting a picture for mom on account of i dont have money and it would be dumb to spend her money on something she prolly wont like. anywho, it was pretty successful as you can see from the pictures[p.s isnt she beautiful?]. brittni and garrick made dinner[salmon, rice, veggies, & bread] and they also made the cake! we called rachel and sang to her which is why mom is holding my phone in the picture below because that was rachel:] we got her a bike helmet because she had been wearing mine from 5th grade when she went bike riding with dad. we also got her a black purse which dad thinks is to store candy and drinks in when we go to the movies...what a funny guy! and we got her a waffle maker that can make heart shaped waffles! which is a necessity of course, i recommend it to anyone who enjoys love filled waffles! after present time, we all had to get ready for my choir concert. i'm in two choirs[one is a zero period and the other is during school] and we did pretty good i think. when the pressure is on, everyone does better. sooo yeah. basically, that was our weekend/visit with garrick and brittni!

Utah!

we went up to utah this past weekend for a couple of reasons. my uncle [dads brother] ngatai and his wife tweetie came from new zealand to slc for conference so we came to see them. also, garrick and rachel are up in provo so we went to see them. we left thursday afternoon when the last daycare kid left and drove to vegas and then we stopped at whiskey petes[cheap, trashy hotel/casino outside of vegas] to sleep for a bit. then we did the rest of the drive in the morning. we took rachel and garrick out for breakfast[at the creamery--hamburgers for b-fast? lol] then rachel had class and i went with her which was interesting. dad and garrick golfed. the gurls went to cafe rio and sallys beauty supply. then me and rach hung out with stacie for the night which was interesting also:] we went to the afternoon session of conference on saturday and we sat as far away as possible, but it was good cuz all 7 of us were togther[me, rachel, stacie, mom, dad, garrick, brittni]. we were gonna go shopping with my aunt but got separated on the tram. bought some new shoes that didnt match. saw gina petersen kinda randomly and then we went to a new zealand gathering where there was grrreat food[of course] and entertainment and lots of old friends. we watched morning conference at our good friends house then started back for bako and got home at 11 ish. tiring weekend but it was worth it! it totally rained the whole time, btw. my camera died and stoopid me didnt bring the charger, but heres some pics from the bookstore, cafe rio, our view in the conference center, the smith kids[minus zach], me and mom with our shoes and the temple: