48. Go geocaching with my family

Completed: March 16, 2010

Before I get into our actual experience, I have to explain what geocaching is because whenever people read my list, they ask me... "What's geo-catching?" Every. Single. Time. It is pronounced "jee-oh-cash-ing." For anyone who was confused. For this activity, you grab your GPS, plug in some coordinates, and basically, go on a wild goose chase. Usually these will be set up in a forest of some sort, one that you can not just simply drive up to and complete. Most of the time, you will be stopping in a random spot on the side of the road that is pretty much the most terrifying location you have ever seen. This is when I would usually think "My family is going to kill me."

Just so that you have an idea of what the forest looks like...

You then walk into a forest with your GPS and looking for this hidden treasure (no joke, they are actually hidden). My father was the one who found this little activity for our family. We used to do them every other weekend when he had found one that was themed The Seven Deadly Sins. That was fun, and we did it a lot. Until one time, we had entered our coordinates incorrectly, which brought us into a hunting zone... Needless to say, the children were terrified. Dad thought it was hilarious, even when the sun went down and the forest was suddenly a lot like the one in Beauty & The Beast. We all know how well that went for Belle...

From that point forward, no one wanted to go geocaching... ever again. When making the list, I figured why not just go one more time? For old times sake!

Worst. Decision. Of. My. Life.

Since it was my idea, I had to participate. I am not going to lie. I thought it would be a fun afternoon with my family. Spring break, no school, hunting a treasure with my family. We found NO treasure. We pretended to be wizards, and fought with every single Harry Potter spell we could think of.

On the plus side, my dad found a family friendly non-hunting zone geocache and our location looked like this!

After we had given up on this very well hidden treasure, we walked back to the van, which took forever because my father was convinced that the farther we walked on the path, the more likely we were to find the treasure. And when everyone was ready to go home... My dad went to hunt for ANOTHER geocache. Most of us refused and took a nap in the van.

My family is hilarious... And embarrassing at times. But I love them and I am glad that we went geocaching, one last time.

81. Buy a camera to document every task on this list

Completed: February 27, 2010


This goal was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I imagined it to be something like... My dad and I making a trip to Best Buy and picking up a camera for our trip to General Conference that we had planned. But instead, two of my friends came to visit me in Toronto from London, Ontario. (I'm not that cool, to have friends come visit me from London, England.) We were shopping downtown when Daniel had the great idea of going to Best Buy and grabbing a camera for my list since he works there and could get me a discount. BRILLIANT! Off we went to Best Buy and looked around. We ended up choosing this one...

Isn't it beautiful?! It was supposed to be $200 but I got it for $168.03! AMAZING! It pays to be friends with Daniel, I'm telling you. With that, I also got a 2 year protection plan on this lovely camera. So for 2 years if anything goes wrong, like it breaks or just will not function the way I want it to, I can return it - no big deal. I have had this camera for almost a year now and I love it. It is so good! I have even dropped it a few times (which was simply inevitable, I am a total klutz) and it was fine. We were meant to be together.

Back to the actual purchasing! I got it in the afternoon/morning - very, very exciting! Our plans for the evening were to go to the Toronto Temple, so I got some pretty sweet shots of my friends and my beautiful temple.

I actually love this camera, it went with me to Utah (twice!), a couple weddings AND Nauvoo. It takes amazing photos and I could not be happier with my purchase.

56. Make a nice dinner for people I love

Completed: February 14, 2010

If there is anything I have come to realize during this entire experience is that nothing ever goes according to plan. When I made this goal, I intended it to be a beautiful dinner with a couple of close friends. All of us dressed to impress for an evening of laughter and class. The kind of class that Grace Kelly could not compete with.

I decided that because I was going to spend my Valentine's Day alone, that this was the perfect opportunity to have someone over. Mostly with selfish motives, I did not want to be that girl who sat alone on Valentine's Day eating large amounts of chocolate, caramel, strawberries and a combination of the three. All of these scrumptious treats being swallowed almost instantly and unattractively, hysterical sobs emerging, with her VHS copy of the Titanic playing in front of her. I'll never let go, Jack.

Anyways, I decided that it would be my best friend and I for dinner. I made us two heaping plates of beautiful spaghetti, set the table with my moms fine china, pulled out the dried roses and used the champagne glasses for our orange juice. It was beautiful.

Wasn't it gorgeous? Well, this is where things started to go south. My friend sent a me a text message. It went a little something like this...

Friend: oh hai, i can't come tonite cuz my evil step mom kidnapped me.

Julie: what?

Friend: lol, jk. my godmother is taking me shopping for ugly clothes that i don't like and who doesn't care that i have a life outside of my godmother/goddaughter relationship.

Julie: oh... i guess i'll see you at school on monday...

Friend: yee. peace & blessings.

Well... It was not exactly like that. But you get the gist. She was not going to be able to attend our extremely classy evening. What was I to do? This night could not go to waste. Well, I called up another friend and she was available for the evening. (This is the benefit of having friends who are single - I AM TELLING YOU.)We decided together that we would invite our lovely Sunday School teacher to dine with us for the evening because after all, she is single too. But when we called her, she had plans with her kids. Who does that?! Make plans on Valentine's Day. Doesn't everyone just sit at home devouring delicious chocolates on Valentine's Day? And watch the Titanic? Well, apparently not.

We ended up going back to my house and having a casual candlelit dinner. My sister got home sooner than expected, and joined us. It was a beautiful evening altogether.

The dinner was the total opposite of what I had imagined. But it was nice, I got caught up with a friend I had not spent time with in ages and I realized that I make stinkin' amazing spaghetti. I learned that you can have a lot more fun having dinner with someone than you can crying over your inability to be Kate Winslet or Leonardo DiCaprio. Overall, nothing went as planned and it was exactly what I needed.