A Look Back: My 2015 in Review

I usually hesitate to assign "favorite" or "best" or "happiest" labels to thing in my life because I am always unsure if there is simply something better in my life that I have failed to consider. But here, I break that trend. Because here, I say something with absolutely no doubt in my mind:

2015 was the best year of my life.

And there are probably a lot of reasons for that. Maybe it was due to all of the friends I made this year. Maybe it was because I really enjoy high school. Maybe it was all caused by the new-found responsibilities and privileges I took up this year. In reality, it was probably a lot of things. But here, I won't talk about general classifications of memories. In this post, I'm talking about the things that happened to me or the things that I did last year that made it so great.

January

January 1: I went to a fun New Year's Eve party to ring in 2015, and I had a blast. I was surrounded by friends and I made a couple more. Unfortunately, my awkward personality just had to make itself appear, and my attempt to tell a girl I thought she was pretty didn't go even close to as smoothly as I wanted it to. It was okay though. She is a cool enough person that she overlooked my embarrassing endeavor and offered a sweet "thank you".

I stole a car that night. Sort of.

January 26: Two of the best things of the year: I got my license, and my brother came home from his mission. Both were very exciting, and getting to miss a day of school to drive my brother home after seeing him for the first time in over two years was the coolest. I didn't even crash.

February

February 16: We didn't have school, and so I received a text that morning asking me if I wanted to go hiking. We didn't even make it up to the peak of the mountain, but I had a blast anyway. I learned that it doesn't matter if you reach the finish line as long as you're laughing with your friends on the first mile.

My parents started talking really seriously about moving. But the groundhog also said that there would be six more weeks of winter, and I didn't believe either of those things.

March

March 14: I went to Real Salt Lake's 2015 home season opener, which was a roller coaster. The game ended 3-3, which was just fine (although I would've hoped for a win). I thought the game was fun, and the conditions were absolutely beautiful.

And then, it became real. We were moving. Throughout my whole life, I had never really wanted to move. I liked my friends and my house and everything and I didn't think I would ever want to leave. But my dad had fallen in love with a house and (by what I believe to be an intervention more divine than coincidental) my parents had been given the opportunity to buy that house. And the weirdest part: I was excited. I can't say exactly why, but I knew that this was the right thing and I understood that this move would change a lot of things in my life, but I was ready for it. And in the months following I would discover why that move was exactly what we needed.

April

April 2/6: I announced on my social media accounts that I was moving (my parents had wanted us to not tell anyone until it had become solidly official so that we wouldn't be put in any awkward situations in case it fell through). The response I got was full of love, but I received a weird feeling of frustration from several people because I "hadn't told them in person". I apologized to them for growing up in an age where communication is digital.

April 10: I created a schedule for my junior year at West Jordan High School. A schedule for classes which I would never attend.

April 18: Moving day. Most of my things had already been in boxes for days, and I had been running several times that week to the new house to drop off things like books and other things that weren't of an everyday importance. I played in a soccer game early that day, and proceeded to empty my house of my family's possessions in the hours following. It was weird, but it was fun.

May

May 7-9: I was able to attend a HOBY (the acronym stands for Hugh O' Brian Youth, named for the person who started the camp and the people it aimed to change: youth) leadership camp through my school. I had a blast and I made memories I will cherish forever. I was put into a group of about 14 other high school sophomores, and we did some various activities that weekend learning how to lead others, what makes a good leader, and so forth, I can't really explain, but it was so much more to me than just a bunch of cheesy group activities and silly games. It was real and valuable and meaningful. Even just thinking about it as I'm writing this makes me realize that it was such a good experience. I was able to change myself and I gained new perspectives and I learned to think about things differently. It was awesome.

May 14: I took my first AP test. I passed it (barely) but I realized that I hate AP tests.

May 15-16: I took a field trip with a bunch of other kids from my history class to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and some Aztec ruins and Ancestral Puebloan ruins in New Mexico. I had been to Mesa Verde before, but I still had a wonderful time. I've never been a fan of studying history, but experiencing it by visiting historic sites and seeing things with your own eyes is just amazing. I can't stand history classes, but that field trip taught me that history is exciting (if you're not looking at it in a textbook).

May 26: I went on a hike with my new young men's group. It was a simple hike, but there was thunder and lightning for most of the hike and a hard stretch of hail through part of it. Even so, it was a fun time and it was cool to get to know some of those kids better.

June

June 5: The end of my sophomore year at West Jordan High School. I didn't know it would be my only year at WJ until a few weeks later.

June 19 (or around that date): I made the decision to attend Bingham High School. According to my father, that was the only choice, but I had been given the option to continue my schooling at West Jordan High if I wanted to. It took me ages, and I agonized over the list of pros and cons for both schools until I came to the decision at a youth activity to go to Bingham. I'll go into more detail about that process in another post, but let's just say this: I am insanely grateful I made that choice.

June 25: I went on a hike with a bunch of my friends from West Jordan, and it was hard for me to realize that I wouldn't be seeing these amazing people everyday at school like I had done for the past several years. I pushed that thought to the back of my head and I had a great time.

July

July 4: Independence Day. I was able to spend it with my family, seeing some cousins that live in California. I also came up with probably the greatest Instagram caption I ever have, but decided later to change it.

July 9-11: I went on a sweet camp with the priests in my ward. We went to Moab, hiking to Delicate Arch, canoeing down the Green River, and rappelling in some canyons along the way. It was the coolest ever.

July 20-25: I went on trek with my old stake, because they like me a lot and they didn't want me to miss out. For those of you who don't know, trek is basically a tiny little reenactment of the journey of the Mormon Pioneers on their journey west across the country in wagons and on handcarts. Obviously, my experience was not the same as the experiences of those in the 1840's, but it still gave me a new appreciation for their struggles. I became more and more grateful for their sacrifices with each and every step. I also learned how to square dance, which I got pretty dang good at (not to pat myself on the back or anything).

August

August 9: Celebrated my friend's birthday. Partied hard. Sucked it up at Tellestrations.

August 17: Registered to go to Bingham. It all became real, and I accepted the fact that I was about to start a new school year the the next week, where I knew probably 10 out of the 2500 people that go there. It was nerve-racking.

August 24: I began my adventure as a student at Bingham High School. It was hard and weird and frustrating and I missed my WJ friends tons, but it was fun too. It was interesting to not be included into any social groups or categorized based on my reputation. I started fresh, and it was good. Being the new kid got a lot easier as time went on.

September

September 11: I went to a football team between West Jordan and Bingham, which honestly made me feel pretty conflicted. I love both schools, and I didn't really know where to side. As I plan on doing for the future, I cheered for the home team (West Jordan), and I loved being to see all of my old friends even more than I loved seeing the game.

Oh yeah, I also asked Kenzie Dunford to homecoming that night. That was an adventure.

September 18: I went to Bingham's homecoming game. We played Copper Hills, and, well, we won pretty easily. It made me begin to become proud to be a miner, even though I hung out with kids from Copper Hills for the majority of the night.

September 19: Homecoming. I had the coolest group ever, and I found out that Bingham's dances rock. I suck at dancing, but it was a wonderful night regardless. Plus my date was the coolest (and she seemed cool with me even though we didn't really know each other). Definitely a night to remember.

October

October 17: I watched the movie Hocus Pocus twice in one night. Don't ask me why.

October 20: I turned 17, and I started a blog.

October 22: I went to the rivalry football game between Copper Hills and West Jordan. For the first time ever, I was finding it hard to have fun in WJ's student section. I focused more on finding friends than cheering for the game, and things got better.

October 31: Desperate for some fun Halloween plans, my friends and I spent the night looking for places that were either haunted or abandoned. Ultimately, we ended up driving up the canyon to look at a small metal building covered in graffiti. I took some blurry pictures. It was more fun than it sounds.

November

November 7: I went to Bingham Ball, Bingham's formal girl's choice dance in the fall, which was super fancy. It was at the Utah State Capitol, and the music was overly loud and the dance floor was overly crowded. It was fun anyway. I had a great time (although I still honestly don't know if my date can say the same; am I a bad date?) and I found out that I look pretty dang good in a tuxedo.

November 13: I watched Bingham's football team get run over in the 5A state football semifinal by the Lone Peak Knights (final score: Bingham 9 / Lone Peak 26). Despite the loss, I became even more proud to be a miner, and I'm even more excited for next year.

November 14: I sat in my friend's basement, planning on just hanging out and probably watching a movie. I ended up talking with a really close friend of mine for well over an hour about the really hard breakup she was going through. She asked me, "Is love fake?" I answered, "No, love is the most real thing we feel. It's so real that it's scary sometimes, but it's definitely not fake." I believe that fully.

November 28: I began a real start on my passion for photography, and I purchased a Nikon D3300. I still don't know how to use it yet and I'm still very much an amateur, but it's a start.

December

December 3: I went downtown with a bunch of kids from my school to see the lights at Temple Square as part of our December Charity Drive. We had a ton of fun with a bunch of foster kids and we were able to make them a little happier during the Christmas season. We became a little happier too.

December 10-11: I went down to American Fork High School with the school basketball team to a tournament they were playing at (I take stats for the sophomore team). Ultimately, Bingham would take second in that tournament, but I enjoyed exploring the school as much as I enjoyed watching the basketball.

December 18: Bingham's closing assembly for the December Charity Dive. We raised $68,666.69, which is a lot of money, but we were able to make a difference beyond the dollars and cents. Quite often, giving love and kindness to others is worth more than any monetary amount.

Also, I won a date with Brigham Jewkes, which is freaking sick. (To clarify: neither Brigham nor I are homosexual, but as part of the fundraiser the student government offered themselves in a "date auction" to make money. I entered my name in several boxes, and Brigham just happened to pull my name out. If you're concerned, don't be.)

December 23: My sister and I had a photoshoot.

December 29: I went with a bunch of my extended family to visit the grave of my grandparents. I was reminded how much my family means to me, and how I never express my love to them often enough.

December 31: I spent a lot of my last day of the year sleeping. I got up late, attempted to write a blog post, and went to play soccer with my brothers and a few friends as we have done a lot this year. We went home, devoured some Top Ramen, and continued to play soccer (only now in the virtual form of FIFA 16). We played, and the clock struck midnight.

Then we played some more.

It was a dang good year.