dear readers
sooooo as you can see if you are reading this I redesigned my blog because thats what I do when I'm bored. I was getting tired of having it so dark and wanted something a little more optimistic. I tried a few things out eventually found this picture which I absolutely love because I couldn't decide if I wanted a sky or a road as the background for my blog and this has both! so this is what I ended up with, and im pretty happy about it. who knows how long it will stay, but it should be for a while and you probably dont really care that much haha. anyway, I guess thats it. I just wanted to comment on the aesthetically pleasing page that you are now looking at...unless you are reading this at some point in the future after I have redesigned my blog again.
love,
ashley

Family Week

every summer my Dad's dad and his wife Sandy take the whole family on a vacation. this vacation usually includes TONS of people because not only do we have the Cook side of the family, but all of Sandy's kids too, which means lots of people, lots of kids, lots of food and lots of craziness.
This year we went to the beach and stayed in 2 beach houses. we had a great time except that 9 of the 31 people there got the flu. which meant that the rest of us were all freaking out about getting sick the whole time, but we managed to have fun none the less. we hung out at the beach, went to Monterrey and Santa Cruz, watched movies, ate a ton, and washed our hands about 50 million times a day.

the week I "Did The Hussle!", said goodbye, and had a "Practically Perfect" evening

Hello readers! I cant believe I havn't posted anything for a little while. Its been a pretty insane week or two, so there are going to be three parts to the following blog post.

1: Tri Stake Dance Festival
 The youth is the Lodi, Stockton, and Mantecca stakes have been practicing for this dance festival almost all school year and on June 11th in Stockton Arena it finally came together and ended up being one of the best days ever. we did a tech through, a dress rehearsal, then practiced a few of the numbers again. there were about 600 kids performing which was totally insane! the show consisted of almost 100% dancing, I was in about 6 dances I think with costume changes between all of them. it was a day full of running, dancing, flipping, costume changes, laughs and makeup. and I will never forget it. before I went on for my first dance I had that familiar puking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had every night before Aida, because of all of the stress of waiting. but as soon as we ran on to the arena floor i felt fine and had an awesome time. after it was all over I was actually pretty sad, and SORE! but it was a great day

2: saying goodbye (for now)
two good friends of mine left for the BYU summer term so like all good byes its sad. summer term is five weeks long, and two weeks after it ends, the fall semester starts! so I guess it wont be too long before I see them, but sad none the less, because SO MUCH can happen in two months, but either way Im excited for them, excited for the rest of my summer, and excited to go to BYU in the fall

3. Mary Poppins in Sac

 My brother and I and two of our friends went to go see the Mary Poppins traveling tour in sacramento, and it ended up being an amazing show, the set was crazy amazing, the actors were amazing of course, and they had some great special effect type things, like people flying, walking up walls, and Mary Poppins bag! oh wow it was awesome. Ive had the music stuck in my head ever since I saw it and I am considering buying the album. oh! and I got a Mary Poppins tee shirt because I guess I'm officially collecting Broadway show tee shirts now! So theater + music + a few best friends + almost gettting lost in Sac = a "practically perfect" night!

and I just remembered a 4th very important thing that happened this week...I picked all of my classes for fall semester!! so unless I end up switching classes somewhere along the line, heres what I'm taking

• Writing (not too exciting, but I have to take it)
• Book of Mormon (should be good :)
• Physical Science (science is gross but its required)
• sewing (hopefully wont stress me out)
• Intro to Music (totally excited for this one)
• singing (singing lessons = a very excited ashley!)

so yes, I think that should be everything, this week my family is going to the beach so ill be posting pictures of that.

Adventures in art class

Now that high school is over, one of the things that I will miss a lot is art class, I took art my sophomore year and my senior year and absolutely loved it. So I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of some of the projects I have done. most of these were from this year, but a couple are from a few years ago

oh, and yesterday I rearanged my room to make room for me to paint. so im pretty excited and at some point this summer Ill post some more pictures paintings/drawings/whatever else I do this summer!

my graduation speech

I thought it might be a good idea to post the speech I gave at my graduation, so here you go!

Class of 2011 we made it! After 4 years of feeling like this day would never come, here we are, about to graduate. It’s actually pretty hard to figure out what to say during a graduation speech. I think this is because it’s hard to put into words what you’re feeling when you realize that this is the last time that we as a class will be together with each other and our teachers.  As a class we have grown up together. Some of us have know each other since sixth grade. Or even since elementary school in some cases. The majority of us came to Ben Holt in 6^th grade from two separate schools. Over the years we have gotten to know each other very well. Many people have left our numbers, and a few have joined us on the way. And now this is it. These are the students who never left and stayed here until the end. And I’m so glad I did.

In my opinion Ben Holt is a special place. Yes its small, but that is one of the many things I love about it. When I think about the other seniors who are up here with me, I can’t help thinking about the class spirit that we have. Some of the best experiences we have had at Ben Holt have been when we were all unified for a common purpose. Weather this was making tee shirts, planning dances, recycling, pulling pranks, playing football, or dancing during a spirit week skit; we did these things together, and have grown closer because of it. But having a graduating class where every single person knows everyone else isn’t the only thing that makes Ben Holt special. At Ben Holt we have a faculty who knows each of us personally. The class of 2011 has been blessed to be taught by some of the best, funniest, and most caring teachers on the planet. Our teachers know our strengths, weakness, dreams, and want to help us reach our full potential. On behalf of my fellow seniors I want to thank all of the teachers and staff of Ben Holt for supporting us, believing in us and inspiring us. We couldn’t have done it without you

And now after all of these years of being together, here we are. The class of 2011 is about to graduate from high school. I’ve always been excited to move on from high school, but in these last couple of days, the idea of graduating has started to get a little scary. Ben Holt is a place where we all are comfortable, in many ways its like a family, and tonight we are leaving this comfort zone, and are about to set off on a completely new adventure in college. It may be tough sometimes, but I know that we are all ready to take whatever challenges life decides to throw at us in the next few years.

So I just wanted to say thank you Ben Holt. Thank you for providing us with an education that will enable us to succeed in college and go on to do whatever we want to do in life. Thank you to our parents, if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here. Thank you to our teachers and the other staff members for caring about us. You are a huge part of what makes Ben Holt such an amazing place and we will miss you so much. And lastly, I’d like to thank my fellow seniors. We have had some crazy times over the years at this school, and I loved all of it. Each of you made being a member of the class of 2011 a wonderful experience and one that I know none of us will ever forget.

wow...its finally over

well everyone, Ive graduated, and its definitely been an emotional week. tuesday was the only day we had to go to school, it went by pretty fast and we finally got all of our last school related things done with. that night we went to the school late and did our last senior prank which included a 7 food giraffe statue, 15 alarm clocks, 2 miles of plastic wrap and lots of burnt uniforms and school work. All of the seniors had a great time helping out with this, and at about 1:00 am when we finished, we got on a bus and headed for Disney Land! our day at Disney Land was seriously one of the best days ever, I mean how many times do you get to go to the happiest place on earth with your friends and teachers?! I spent most of the day with some of my best friends and our two teacher chaperones hitting as many rides as possible in our 15 hours or so at Disney land and California Adventures.  we had an awesome day in which we got to be with sopharry on her first trip to disney land, we broke Sill's Indiana Jones curse and I finally got over my fear of upside down roller coasters! by the end of the day we were all so tired im impressed we got back to the bus. half of us could barely walk, Zareen was being hilarious with all of her complaints and comments and I was laughing uncontrollably about everything. once we got the bus we all pretty much crashed until we got back to Stockton and at that point most of the seniors just went home and slept for the rest of the day.
Then finally, Friday was here, the day that we had all been waiting for for SO long. we had a senior breakfast/awards ceremony in the morning at moo moos of all places, then had graduation rehearsal. when we walked into the empty Scottish Right temple I think everyone had a moment of realization that it was finally happening, and in a few hours that room would be filled with our loved ones to see us graduate from high school. once rehearsal was over the long awaited yearbooks had finally found their way into stockton, and into our possession. a few of the seniors drove back to the school as fast as we could were we got a few lower class men and quite a few of the faculty sign our yearbook. this is where the tears really started for me. after signing the year books of so many people I would miss I was a little emotional, and it just took me reading one note in my own yearbook (it happened to be from Mr Sills) to make me start bawling. Needless to say I decided it would be better to stop reading my yearbook until I was home. After we left the school I had a few hours to get ready for graduation before heading back to the scottish right temple. we signed more year books and waited for the ceremony to start. I fortunate enough to give a speech at my graduation and was so thankful for that opportunity. I started crying again as soon as I sat down and didn't stop for quite a while. the ceremony seemed pretty quick. before I knew it I had walked up to get my diploma, the ceremony ended and I had a few more minuets to say goodbye to my classmates before they disappeared into the crowd of people.

And now Im not exactly sure how to feel. I mean obviously I'm excited to move on with my life and see what happens, but I loved high school. Ben Holt was like an amazingly crazy, supportive,awesome family. Now I understand why so many alumni come and visit all the time. so its definitely sad to know that I wont go to high school and see all of those people every day of my life anymore. No more jacob and enrique making me laugh in art, no more of mr Sills sassy comments or Ms Powells hilarious accents. no more of the senior class super team that is Ashley and erin, and no more shows with Ms Kindred and the rest of the drama people I love so much, and of course a million other people and things that I will miss about high school.... but this is it! graduating high school and going off to college was one of the reasons I made this blog in the first place! so that I could record this journey as my life changes in so many ways. So yes its sad to leave high school, but I know I'll come back and visit, thats what happens when a child leaves a family. But in the mean time I am unbelievably excited to spend my last summer before college with my friends and tackle my next big adventure!