FIRST STOP: IRELAND

when i was little and people would ask me that classic question "if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?" i would quickly respond, "ireland!" most little kids would choose disneyland or hawaii.. not this girl! maybe cause its cause i had reddish hair and i was born in march, or maybe deep down inside i just felt like the irish were my people, who knows. fast forward a few years:

DREAMS DO COME TRUE

my 7 year old self would be so proud of me convincing my parents to make a stop in ireland.

okay, and now for my scatter brained travel log:

our flight flew out of vegas friday, had a layover in london, and then went on to dublin, ireland.

let me tell you, the vegas lights at night from a plane are BREATHTAKING.

i didn't have a window seat when we took off, but i leaned over a whole row of people and looked at the lights for as long as they were in sight. did i ever tell you i have a thing for lights? well ya. I'm obsessed with lights. city lights, string lights, sun light... all of it.

anyway.

as soon as we landed in dublin i immediately noticed how green it was. there are as may trees as there are in all of st. george in about one mile of irish countryside. it's so pretty, so lush.

also, i am soooo obsessed with irish accents.  i could marry an irish man and be perfectly happy listening to him talk tome all day. me and anna spent a full hour trying to master a decent irish accent...no success. we just sounded like, well, american tourists trying to pretend like they have an irish accent. lol.

after a night of sleeping off the jet lag, it was sunday already. we found an LDS church (after getting lost about 859 times) and it was one of the coolest experiences i had on the whole trip. i love how the church is the same wherever you go, even ireland.

the youth in the ward there were chill too, we're now bff's.

shoutout to you, viktor, ethan and frida!

after church we went and explored st. patrick's cathedral while a boys choir with 5 year old sopranos serenaded us. the windows in that place are beautiful.

st. patrick is a homie.

we walked around downtown ireland for a while and i still can't get over how cute it is. everything is just so picturesque. there were hundreds of little red brick apartments with vines growing up them with different brightly colored doors.. aka my dream house. (hey mom can i move there after high school??) also i didn't see one asphalt road in downtown dublin, its allll authentic and classy cobblestone.

monday we went out to malahide castle. it made all my medieval princess dreams come true. and the gardens surrounding the castle were beautiful!

love my cute family^^ (photocred: tripod lol)

we rented bikes and rode around the grounds and i just tried to resist all the tourist bugs inside me itching me to take a picture of everything but it was hard cause 

ITS JUST SO DANG PRETTY.

also, while i'm in the caps lock mood.. i have something to say to the american government

AMERICAN PARKS ARE LAAAAME

while we were riding around on our bikes we passed this giant park and the inner children not-so-deep-down inside of us made me and anna immediately turn around to go play.
there were 2 zip lines, a 50 ft spider web thingy, a few slack lines, and a lots of other cool park ride/toys that are too legit to explain. oh oh, and there was this giant slide that made all the other slides i've been on look like tilted straws. it was awesome.

after the castle we went to the irish coast and had the breath knocked out of us by this pretty country, yet again.

the cliffs were rugged, dark and gorgeous. (like my dream man, obviously)

they looked so pretty with the ocean beating up against them and the little red lighthouse it the distance.. it felt like a scene from a movie.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't shed a tear or two as our plane flew away from ireland.

i swear i'll be back, someway, somehow.

i love that little green place.

(you knew it was coming)

IRELAND from Katie Powell on Vimeo.

I WENT TO EUROPE WOOT WOOT

first of all,

i listened to england skies as we flew over england.

i listened to love lock down on the love lock bridge.

i listened to clouds as the plane flew threw the clouds.

i listened to london bridge on the london bridge. 

oh, and i started "99 bottles of beer on the wall" in an irish pub.

it was awesome.

i loved everything about this trip, from climbing on our train as it starts to pull away to the french boy that kept winking at me from his red moped to how my dad named the voice on his maps "shannon" just so he could say "hello thar shannon!" in a heavy scottish accent every time it came on. HAHA

i could tell you more, but i just got off a 10 hour flight and i'm a bit scatterbrained.

be prepared though, cause i have hundreds of memories and thousands of pictures and i can't wait to dump europe all over this blog! wanna virtually travel through europe? stick around!! i'll cover each place we went in a different post.

goodbye for now!

(or as the scots would say)

cheerio, cheerio, see ye efter!!

gosh i miss it already...

rain is a good thing

tonight was one of those crazy summer nights that i dream of when fourth quarter hits hard.

just me and my girls, doing the usual summer activities:

eating good food,
jamming hard in the minivan,
watching (or rather getting freaked out by) lightning on airport hill,
 plotting revenge on dumb boys that don't know better then to mess with my friends,

attempting to water balloon strangers that we thought were our friends (oops),

and watching chick flicks that we know will make us cry, just for the heck of it.

gosh i love my friends 

they're the sickest.

is that word still socially acceptable? was it ever? whatever.

xox

katie jane

p.s. it rained harrrrrrd tonight.. hence the title. also, that song has been stuck in my head for like a week.
please send help.

GIRLS CAMP

favorite thing about the church: GIRLS CAMP

i feel like girls camp kinda gets stereotyped as a place where girls just sit around a fire with no makeup on and cry....but let me tell you, it is so much more then that

especially this year.

this year when my leaders asked for suggestions of what we should do for girls camp, i suggested a high adventure backpacking trip... and of course i immediately got what-do-you-think-youre-doing-im-gonna-kill-you glares from most of the girls....HAHA oops.

but although we didn't go on a back packing trip.. we did do some major high adventuring.

sorry wardies :)))

the day we got to camp, we took a tour of lehman caves.. and let me just tell you.. IT IS SO PRETTY.

it's the kind of pretty that just makes your jaw drop. 

mother nature is the hottest mom everrrrrrr.

it is so fascinating to me how things like this are made... over millions of years, layer by layer.

it is impossible for me to ever doubt that there is a God after seeing things like this. 

God is real, and he is truly an artist.

the next day, we had the opportunity to hike wheeler peak, yet another natural beauty.

wheeler peak is a harrrrrd hike though. we hiked to 13000 feet, and it took us almost 8 hours.

but every step was worth it.

 the majority of the hike was slippery rock.. the kind that looks stable , and then you step on it and it flings you to the ground.

 so most of the time, (especially on the way down, when i was creating rockslides with every step) i found it was easier just to walk like a little prissy girl: arms out, hands flexed..ready to catch myself when the rocks decide to be unloyal. 

not gonna lie, it worked pretty great.

as well as being hard, the hike was also pretty dangerous. part of the time you're just walking across this ridge of snow hoping that your life does't slip out from under you. 

but, i trusted my leaders and Heavenly Father that we would all make it out of the hike safely, and we did.

as we were hiking, i had one of those moments when you look around and just think "this is the way life should be"

i was surrounded by amazing people and beautiful scenery. 

i was pushing myself to be faster, stronger....better.

(of course i had another one of those "this is how life should be" moments when i was peeing under the stars later that night... but that's not the kind of thing you should put on the internet..oops)

another great thing about girls camp is spending time with the girls.

going into this camp, i was going to be the only girl above the age of 13.

HAHAHAH AKA DEATH BY TWEENS.

(you were thinking it too)

but luckily another 16 year old came and i was spared.

and actually, i learned to love those occasionally annoying beehives.

they're kinda cute….
especially while you watch them sleep as you decide if you should prank them or not...

HAHA

okay.

funny story time.

have you ever been snipe hunting?

wellllllll basically, if you're a first year at girls camp, you're basically guaranteed to be a victim of the snipe hunting prank. 

we had one new beehive this year, and let me tell you... she fell for it SO HARD

i told her that we were going hunting for these nocturnal rodents called "snipes" and that we couldn't use flashlights cause the light makes them mad (cause they're nocturnal ya know) and then i gave her a spoon with toothpaste on it and told her to wave it around cause they have a good sense of smell (cause they're nocturnal ya know) HAHA and then we got all the other beehives in on it and they were totally going along with it like it was just another day, another snipe hunt. HAHA and then the other laurel was tickling her foot with a feather and she thought it was a snipe and she was jumping up and down and freaking out and climbing on my back and i'm running out of breath just typing this mile long sentence.

anyway, it was hilarious.

maybe you just had to be there. 

and now.... for the mandatory post-experience vimeo:
GIRLS CAMP from Katie Powell on Vimeo.

I'M GOING TO FIJI

THIS IS REAL

THIS IS HAPPENING

I'M 16 YEARS OLD AND I'M PAYING FOR MYSELF TO GO TO FIJI!

so much is going through my head right now, so i thought i better get it out on paper (screen?)

first of all, whenever i tell people i'm going to fiji for three weeks this summer, they have the classic "omg your so lucky!" reaction. happens every time. and yes, i am lucky. 

but part of me just wants to slap these people in the face cause, ya going to fiji is cool, but it's not just luck that got me here. it's work that got me here. 

HARD FREAKING WORK

i have mowed hundreds of lawns,

changed hundreds of diapers,

washed hundreds of windows,

and done hundreds of other chore-related tasks to earn money.

you think i'm kidding? i wish i was kidding. 

oh, and i just counted, i actually mowed 208 lawns. but sorry, i didn't really keep track of the diapers.

i am the type of person that is stubborn tenacious. 

if i set my mind to something, it will happen, some way, some how. 

and i did it!!! i made it happen!!

i would just like to give a little shoutout to my little red mower that made me feel like a strong mexican man (which is beside the point…buuuut) and carried me across countless lawns, earning money. i'd also like to recognize my parents, grandparents, friends and neighbors, for employing me with all the little nasty jobs that you didn't want to do. <3 looove you.

I'M SO EXCITED

just take a quick gander at where i'm going^^

and who i'm serving (heart eyes)^^

(yes, i did get those pictures off google, but trust me, when i get back, i'll have 934093 of my own to show you)

but hey there, don't start getting all jealous now, if you start cleaning toilets now maybe you'll be able to go by next year!!

signing off,
your fav wannabe world traveler,
KP

LALALALALADIEZZZ

i am convinced i have the best girlfriends in the entire world. 

if you knew them, you'd agree with me too.

i'm anxiously awaiting the day that TLC decides to make a show about us.

it'd be entertaining.

they'd make bank.

we're awesome.

kiss kiss