First Day

Today was my first day of college, and right now I can confidently say that I chose the right major!! One of my first classes was Child Development, and as the professor was describing the course I found myself with a huge smile! I seriously can't wait to be a teacher, to be married, to hopefully have kids. I'm very exciting for this semester and hope that I learn a lot from that class.

Here is my corny first day of school picture..

On another note, I have been moved into my apartment for a week now, and I already feel homesick. I miss my friends so much, and being away from people that mean so much to me has shown me who I really loved and who was there for me. I love getting texts and calls from my friends because they mean so much to me, but it makes me miss them too.

As weird as it is seeing Mormons all around me everywhere I go, there are perks! Like five guys walking me home late at night. I call them my secret service :)

All is well with me here in Utah, I definitely miss my friends more than anything, but I'm hoping to meet some new ones to distract me ;)

Sarah Kimbal

Choir Nerds go to New York

Why not travel with 60 other kids to New York to perform in Carnegie Hall. I hopped right on that plane. It had been almost two years since I had first visited New York City. It was exactly how I remembered it and I still felt super familiar with the subways. I went for my choir at Foothill High School to perform as a feature choir with madrigals and in a huge honor choir with 200 other kids. Our performance was amazing and Carnegie Hall is breathtaking. We got to explore Times Square, we saw the play Nice Work If You Can Get It with Matthew Broderick. It was hilarious. One night some of my friends, my mom, my brother and I all went out to a really popular dessert place called Max Brenner's, so good! Here are some super fun pictures of the trip!

Meet the Sexy Six.

Carnegie Hall

Me and Mother in Times Square

Times Square with some amazing friends!

Turning Point

In less than a month, I'll be eighteen. That is almost scary to me, but so exciting at the same time. I've realized that I have hit a turning point in my life. Spiritually, emotionally, socially. Every change makes me want to know every answer to every question I have. But these answers come with faith, time, and experiences. Its a huge leap I'm taking - getting ready to move onto college(I got accepted to BYU in Provo, Utah), meet knew people, and be so much more responsible for myself.

I sing in the Orange County Mormon Choral Organization, which recently combined with the East Valley (Arizona) MCO and traveled to Dallas Texas to perform at the American Choral Directors Association (you fellow choir nerds know how huge of a deal this is). With 700 performers, I believe that it was an amazing performance. The last song we performed was "How Great Thou Art". I felt the spirit so strongly and reminded myself in that split second that every Christian aspect of my faith is so true and I want to dedicate my soul to the Lord through music and my actions. I got so teary-eyed and wished that the song was longer. A total of 4 standing ovations and a 4 day trip with my best friends and two moms (my mom and my best friend's mom, Marianne Olson) forced me to think a lot about my future and who I want to be. Along with the huge impact it had on me, the trip gave me a weekend to forget about all my trials and get away with my true friends and just shop.


Emily Phillips, Nicole Donahoo, and Annamarie Olson

The next Monday I returned to California, the Seniors had a "senior munch" and instead of going to school we all got on buses and went to Universal Studios. Despite my dizziness from vertigo after going on every ride, I was able to enjoy myself. My friends don't know this until now if they are reading this, but the whole day I was thinking about how I hope I never lose the friends I have now. It brings me to tears when I think about how blessed I have been with the friends that God has given me. I hope that when I get married, they will be at my wedding. I hope that even though college will take us farther apart across the country, our hearts will still be close together. I want our kids to grow up and play together. I want to have those friends that I always believe in and know will be there for me, and I feel that I do have a couple friends that I care about just as much as they care about me. They are the kind of friends who have totally hilarious conversations and five minutes later can be serious and therapeutic. I am truly grateful for everything they have done for me; I love them very much.

My wonderful friends: Annamarie Olson, Mikayla Feldman, Kylie Jones, and Brooke Phipps

I love you all :)

I have little disasters most days, and huge disasters some other times. But every disaster ends up being a blessing and brings me closer to the Lord. One day I hope to find an awesome man, get married in the temple, hold onto my friends, raise beautiful kids, and be the best person I can be. Yes things will bring us down in life, but nothing should take away our hope.

Yes, I'm a dating hazard. But I'm sure worth the danger.

Sarah Kimbal

"Once Upon A Formal"

Preparation: nails, hair, makeup, dress, shoes, flowers
When I make a list, it doesn't look like a lot of preparation for a Winter Formal. But in a split second if something goes wrong, it can become very stressful.
Nails: after getting my fingernails done, I realized in order to paint my toenails I would have to ruin my fingernails. Dangit...
Hair: I was planning on a friend doing my hair, but she sent me a text an hour after she was supposed to be at my house and said she couldn't get off work. Plan B. I had made a bow that matched my dress so I just stuck with that.
Makeup:  I would say it went well :)
Dress: Very hard to take off, but I got it 2 years ago at Nordstrom Rack on clearance for $20
Shoes: I intend to return them this week... They broke when I was taking them off on the way home. But they were so cute, what a bummer!
Flowers: I ordered a white flower with loads of silver ribbon. They gave me a greenish orchid with one tiny silver bow. Fail?

The Final Product

Date: The amazing Michael Mazda picked me up in his brother's Infiniti (a fun surprise). His tie perfectly matched my dress; he was quite a catch ;)

We were in a group with his lacrosse buddies, and had an amazing elegant dinner at one of their houses. The dance was at Soka University in Aliso Viejo. After a stressful prep, Michael made the night so fun I forgot about everything, and it was worth every penny :)

Too Much Dance for 35 people

On my mom's side of the family, there are 24 cousins. So every holiday or big event, it doesn't seem that there is a single ounce of boredom in the house. The second week of my winter vacation I spent with these cousins and their husbands or boyfriends, aunts and uncles, and grandparents in Utah (Provo and Midway). We had an array of events we participated in such as skiing, ice skating, tubing, going to the BYU basketball games, card games, ginormous meals, movies, and a bunch of other things. But most importantly - JUST DANCE 4. A small room in the basement of my cousin's house quickly filled with all the family when it was announced that Just Dance 4 was going on downstairs. The amount of heat in that room is only understood by someone who has participated in Just Dance in a small room with the same amount of people. 

2 days of hours and hours of play and screaming Justin Bieber and One Direction songs, and I was left with practically no voice and a shower. Family members rotated through songs and wii remotes, and I had a brilliant idea of compiling a video. 

Enjoy :)
(It might help to make it full screen so you can see the full affect)

Two Sets of Siblings

When you have a dad like I do, there might be a slight bit of intimidation when the guys come to your door to pick you up from a date. Especially when they are trying to pick up TWO of your daughters.
Our grandpa got this shirt for my dad for Christmas, and he just HAD to wear it when two gentlemen picked me and my sister up for a double date.

D.A.D.D. - Dads Against Daughters Dating

Trying to find a day that both my sister Jessica and I could go on a double date right before disappearing out of state for two weeks was a challenge, but we figured something out and went out with Seth and Jacob Olson. That day they told us to wear crazy and weird clothes, so we took on that challenge and went crazy. Next, they supplied us with a list of strange items to bring, including a shoelace, pepper, socks, spaghetti noodles, and a couple other things. We felt truly prepared for the night, looking like complete weirdos.

My sister Jessica, 19, and I before the outing.

We kept thinking that these guys were going to show up in tuxes and embarrass us and take us somewhere nice for dinner. But they still showed up and had out-dressed us.

Me, Seth, Jacob, Jessica

They wouldn't tell us where we were going, but we pulled up into the bowling alley, and had a blast playing Horse and had lots of pictures taken of us. Afterwards we went to GoBananas (a frozen yogurt place) and used our props to create random skits and races. We had a chinese fire drill on the way home, but my door was locked and I couldn't figure out how to unlock it... Good thing the window was down! They dropped us off, but then thirty seconds later they rang the doorbell and said "We were going to have a dance party in Walmart, but we forgot our dates." Jessica and I got quite a kick out of that. But instead of Walmart we went to Target to play ninja, have a dance party, then get kicked out.
I had such a fun time with these guys and thought it was a very creative date :)