BYE AMERICA HELLO FIJI

i promise i'm more excited then i look...nothing like a solid tool pic to start a humanitarian trip am i right??

5 years ago i went on a humanitarian trip to guatemala.

i fell completely in love with humanitarian work and decided that whatever it took, i wanted to do more of it.

2 years ago i heard about hefy and decided it was something that i wanted to do.

it was one of those things where you tell your parents you're gonna do it, but they don't really take you seriously.

"hey mom i'm gonna go to hefy"

"well you have to pay for it.."

(she thought that would stop me pshhhhh)

"but mom i'm not joking i'll pay i'm gonna go"

"mhmmm hmm ya sure katie"

WELL I'LL SHOW YOU MOM

OH WAIT I DID SHOW YOU

CAUSE GEUSS WHAT I LEAVE FOR FIJI IN 1 HOUR

DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!

IF YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!!

HARD WORK WILL GET YOU PLACES!

(okay now i'll stop shouting at you through the screen and instead just write a book called "quotes by katie" cause wow i'm on a roll)

anyway, i hope you all received your daily dose of inspiration by reading this and right after you finish this sentence you're gonna go start mowing lawns and earing money so you can build schools for children or save the world or something.

see ya in a few weeks my americans.

over and out,
katie

europe video series

the thing i love about pictures is the way they capture the moment,
but if a picture says 1000 words, a video must say 1000000.
videos don't capture a single moment, but a whole bunch of moments strung together, as well as the overall mood of the memory.

so, to capture the ever fleeting memory of our trip to europe, i decided to make a few videos that capture the essence of the countries that we went to.
enjoy.


paris was a dream, so i tried my best to make the video dreamy too.
i'm no master, but this one makes my heart extra happy.


love love love this song.
also, please notice how the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car. it was super sketch.


excuse me while i cry real tears cause i miss this pretty city. hey that rhymed. haheh.
also, i think the guy at the beginning deserves a shoutout cause his socks are so on point.


most of this week i was way too busy partying, so excuse the super good footage.
also, when i got home i was still to busy partying, so excuse the super good edit.
but can we talk about how pretty and GREEN scotland is? i'm obsessed i tell you. obsessed.


scottish bloopers from Katie Powell on Vimeo.

we were in scotland for nearly a week, so we had a lot of time to mess around HAHA. i made this video so that my family and cousins that went on this trip with us could look back and remember how much fun this crazy little adventure was. (but honestly, the real reason why i made this video is because i needed an excuse to use this song haha "nancy whisky" was stuck in my head the whoooole trip. gotta love the scottish jams woot woot) (wow that was a long parenthesis)

p.s. i forgot to put subtitles, but my dad is saying "lets storm the castle" in a sick scottish accent and cute little jane said "my first royal declare is to make katie my princess."
thanks janie.


if you watched any of those, you deserve a hug from harry styles.
even if you're a boy.
everyone deserves hugs from harry styles.

xx

pioneer trek

WHAT ARE THOOOOOSE (i swear i'm not just being weird and saying that, it's a vine)

hey guys, i just spent 3 days phoneless, makeupless, friendless, and nonstop walking.

now this is the part where i'm supposed to tell you that it was h-e-double hockey sticks....

BUT IT TOTALLY WASN'T

GUYS, TREK WAS SO FUN!

now let's adresss the remanining issues:

phoneless: it was sooo nice not to have to worry about anything digital for a few days. in the words of my girl katy perry "i just wan't to throw my phone awayyyayyy, find out who is really there for meeee"
it is amazing how much fun you can have when you put down your phone and just play a game or even just talk. throughout the trek, we were playing games nonstop. whether it was a round of big booty, snort, questions, black magic, snaps, or just straight up rap battling, we were always having a good time.

makeupless: girls, who needs it.. really. i looked like a poor lil orphan the whole time and yet i still made friends with a guy whose favorite quote was "i hate all the orphans in the whole world"
(it's a nacho libre quote i swear. don't worry mom,  i didn't just make friends with a orphan-hating punk)

friendless: the majority of my stake goes to a different school, so going into the trek, i had no idea what to expect. luckily, i got a good "family" with a lotta chill, friendly, dixie kids. one of them was especially nice to me and would always give me the m&m's from his trail mix.... if that's not true friendship, then i don't know what is. #goals

walking: ok i lied, we weren't nonstop walking. i think our company leader's favorite thing to yell was  "WATERRRR BREAAAKKK"
also, the time goes a lot faster when you rap battle with the handcart behind you. we were goin so hard the sagebrush around us almost caught fire.

i'm sure you're already catching the vibe of how fun trek was, but my favorite part of the past 3 days wasn't the things i did, but the youth i met..
i thought it was really cool how all different kinds of people could come together with one purpose and as one big stake family: the dixie kids, the desert hills kids, the kid that would beat box into his harmonica, the kids who would make-out behind the the tent after their parents had gone to bed, the kids who wore button ups/joggers/& a bucket hat and called it pioneer clothes, the kids who refused to use the portapotties, the kids who snuck their phones to trek, the kids who had their whole ancestry memorized… like i said, our stake has all kinds.

but ultimately, i realize that we're not all that different. we are all children of our God and he loves all of us infinitely and unconditionally, and nothing we do will ever change that.

not even wearing a skirt with tennis shoes HAHAHA
(fashion police where u @?)

sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite...

speaking of which, i got eaten alive by mosquitos on the trek.
gotta love camping.

SCOTLAND

because my dad served his mission in scotland, we stayed there nearly a week.

 yes, we drove from england to scotland.

yes, it was 8 hours.

 no, i didn't mind.

why? cause the countryside was breathtaking and i mean, a road trip to scotland? like how often do you get to take a ROADTRIP TO SCOTLAND. its cool just to say. (white girl adventure level 837)

but instead of trying to tell you every detail of every day in scotland, i decided to share this pretty little country with you through pictures. lots and lots of pictures. 

love ya.

the country side is beautifully monotonous: bright green, dark green, light green, and more bright green... with the occasional sheep or castle lol

princess street in edinburgh 

look how cute my fam is

dad's old apartment.. also i have a crush on those flowers

reasons i missed america:^^

WEE, POO AND TP ONLY

also if you need to get rid of your earbuds or nappies, this is not the place HAHAH

i cropped out our kilts..

this was our cute scottish house (weird yellow leprechaun included)

did i creep on a scottish wedding cause i found it amusing that they were wearing kilts? 

why yes, i did.

paddle boarding with the lochness monster. #nessieisreal

smiling right before i went crossed those death logs on the hardest ropes course ever

another day, another castle.

jane photo series:
this is my cute lil cousin jane and her favorite thing to say on this trip was
"hey katie look how cute i am, take a picture!!"
this is just a small sampling of the pictures that resulted:

she's a cute lil boo thang

the scottish coast was dreamy.

also, there were lots of cute pink jellyfish that had washed ashore

they take their plants very seriously, obviously

#awwcute #muchtwinning #wow #love #yellowsisters

nothing quite like driving through scotland in a rainstorm listening to crazy bagpipe solos on the radio, there's just nothing like it i tell you.

these red pheasants were everywhere… struttin round like they owned the place 

(looking for the lochness monster)

when they don't let tourists in the gate but you're a rebel tourist so you find a way to take a picture of the palace anyway...

HAHAHAHAAHAH

can we talk about the cows for a sec?
yes. you heard (read?) me right. the cows.

scottish cows are NOT normal cows. they had big horns and long shaggy red hair, i think their official name was "highland cows"
but since their long hair kinda falls down over their eyes, it gives them a slight i'm-a-punk-teenage-boy-and-i'm-cooler-then-you-don't-talk-to-me sort of look. it made me laugh sooo hard. probably harder then is socially acceptable to laugh at a cows, now that i think about it. 

is it bad to say that these weird cows were one of my favorite parts about scotland? oh well. cause they totally were

like they even made a postcard book of weird cow pics. i'm not gonna tell you if i bought it or not..

fun fact: my great (x7) grandpa was imprisoned at this castle for 3 months but then he was sick of it so he left and went to canada. the end.

and that my dear friends, is scotland.

GUID EVENIN TO YA 

*skips away in a kilt*