Back to Life...

Does this here blog still work? I guess so!

I never thought I'd say it, but I'm so happy to be back in school. I had a VERY packed summer, and none of it included a family (ie-Evan, me, and Mesa) vacation. NOT ONE! And no, I don't consider Asthma Camp or Girls' Camp a vacation. What a tragedy! (I think it's a true tragedy because my "downfall" was due to my own actions, right? I mean, I'm the one that chose to work full time while doing summer school, and then added on a second job halfway through the summer.)

This semester is going to be a good one. Last semester we had 4 main "hell weeks". All of our professors had planned their tests for the first week of each month, which basically means we SERIOUSLY crammed the week before. Talk about stress! Hence, one of the reasons leading up to my first school breakdown. But this semester will be so much better because our tests are all spread out. So while it seems crazy to say that I'm glad we have a test almost every single week, I AM! It is so much more manageable when it comes at you a little at time.

Here's a little memory from many years ago. My family goes on a camping trip every spring, and one year it happened to fall over my sister's birthday. We planned a surprise party for her, complete with cupcakes and presents. The plan was for me to take her on the four-wheeler over to the bathroom and stall long enough for them to get everything set up. So, off we went. In order to fully appreciate the story, I have to get a little personal, sorry. Both of us (read: my sister) thought this would just be a quick trip there and back so we didn't take any wet-wipes with us. This was before the days of hand sanitizer, and we used wet-wipes to wash our hands. Little did she know I would be hanging out in the outhouse to kill time...dedication, right? Well, when I came out she refused to let me drive the four-wheeler back because she said I had "poo poo hands", since I didn't have a wet-wipe. Don't ask me why we thought it was gross to not wash our hands immediately after #2, but after #1 it was ok to wait 'til we got back to camp to wash. There's no reasoning. And I don't even think that was the common practice. Anyway, I wasn't allowed to touch anything, and FOR THE RECORD, I didn't even pee...I was merely stalling! Needless to say, she was very surprised when we got back to camp! I almost stalled too long because the candles on the cupcakes were half-way melted.

So, here's me with my "poo poo hands", which has become a favorite saying around here. (It may bring back an entirely different, recent memory for my brothers...that's all I'm sayin'.)
And here's my sister in a lovely dress, complete with a necklace, that we picked out of a bargain bin at a Flying J on the way down. (Wow, that's a lot of prepositional phrases!) It looked smashing over her rain gear, don't you think?
The gentleman in the bottom corner is a long-time family friend. Family, click on the photo so you can get a good look at his face. Can't you just hear him laughing that classic laugh of his?

Asthma Camp Rocks!!!

I volunteered as a counselor at Camp Wyatt this week which is a camp for kids with asthma. I'd like to let you all think I'm just that nice of a person, but the truth is I did it because we get credit for a class up at school. It was held at Camp Wapiti in Tooele. I was so close to home! Here are all the PharmD students that went:

My co-counselor Melissa and me:

It was so fun, but I must say that I do not have the energy of a 13 year old girl anymore! These were our girls....

They were the best-I love these girls! The camp was Harry Potter themed, and our house name that we chose was The Magical Unicorns of Doom, which was shortened to MUDs throughout the week. Here's just a few of the things we did.

Rock Climbing:

This kid Isaac was amazing! He climbed the wall a million times and then decided to try it using only his arms.

Tasting Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans:

Attending Care of Magical Creatures (This is a program called Reptile Rescue and yes, Evan knows the man who runs it!):

Visiting the Owlery (Dissecting Owl Pellets):

Defense Against the Dark Arts (making marshmallow shooters and having a war):This is what our shoes looked like afterwards. It felt like walking on clouds!

Canoeing on Black Lake (Stansbury Lake):

Chores-looking oh so glamorous:

Flying Class (Rocket Launching):

Winning the coveted Silver Dustpan Award for cleanest cabin:

Camping out on the Quidditch Field:

Making Snitch Holders (Egg-drop competition):

Playing Quidditch:

Dancing like crazy at the stomp:This is Cholo and the ladies. He was such an awesome kid:

And pranking the boys’ cabins! I don’t have any pictures, but we pulled some awesome pranks, and got pranked pretty good ourselves.

I don't know if I'm crazy or just a glutton for punishment, but I want to go again next year!

This summer is going to be good!

With all the stresses of school, I have severely neglected this here blog. I've been told it only gets worse. However, until then, I'm going to have the best summer! I'm working full time, (Weird that I'm looking forward to that, huh? I'm tired of being broke!) I plan on hitting the pool a lot with my sisters and their kids, and since I'm eating candy this year I get to enjoy cotton candy on the 4th of July! :)

For a great kickoff to my summer, I found quite a treasure at my parents' house last weekend. It's a picture collage that used to hang in my room. It's essentially all my favorite memories from high school to about a year after my mission. Oh boy, are there ever some gems in there. They're too good to wait til next Monday to do an official "Memory Monday" post. They're just too good. I will space them out, however, because otherwise this post would go on forever.

Here's one of my favorites:Oh, Darwin Avenue. You know, I'm not a big fan of surprises. But Darwin Avenue...oh-ho-ho Darwin Avenue...what a pleasant surprise that turned out to be! I always think that in order to be guaranteed the most absolute best time of my life doing anything I must plan every little detail of it. My apartment on Darwin Avenue could not have proven me more wrong. It didn't turn out ANYTHING like I had anticipated, and I loved every minute of it.

When I was looking for a new apartment for my second year at Utah State, (I'd say my sophomore year, but let's face it. I didn't exactly follow the standard 4 year plan with college) the place I wanted to live still had tenants in it. No one was home at the time I went to view it, so I just had a peek in the windows. It had a nice big living room and a fire place, and from what I could see through the bedroom window, it looked really spacious for 2 people to share. My room-roommate and I were friends from high school, but we didn't know the other two girls who would be living there also. I told my friend Katie that we should hurry up and snatch it without really seeing the inside because it was pretty cheap for being right next to campus. So, imagine our surprise when we arrived the weekend before school started and found out that we had signed up to live with 2 other girls in a one bedroom/one bathroom apartment. That's right, there were two sets of BUNK BEDS in that room whose window I peeked through. I saw two cute little beds, it just never occurred to me that I should look UP to see if there were more beds on top of those cute little beds. Now, had I known this before-hand there is NO WAY I would have signed that lease. FOUR GIRLS? ONE ROOM? ONE BATHROOM????? And if that had happened, I would have missed out on one of the funnest years of my life. I have an entire journal full of the things we did, but since I said this post wouldn't be long, I will get on with it. Why are we in the tub together? Well, I believe we were coming home from a movie and we were in a giant 12-passenger van (which is random and irrelevant). I don't even remember whose van it was. Anyway, it was spring and in Logan that means one thing...rain. It had been pouring all night, and for some reason we decided to stop at the Chevron on Main and 4th North and splash in the GIGANTIC puddles in the gutters. When we got home, we were all cold and since our complex didn't have a hot tub we made one of our own. I had just ordered two lovely swimsuits from J.Crew, my red one and the yellow one that Katie is wearing. It fit her better than it did me, so I gave it to her. My swimsuit's color was named "Poppy". Leslie (in the pink) bought a matching green one named "Stem" but I think she returned it. Basically, when you spend all year in the kind of close quarters we had, sharing a tub just isn't that out of place.

Now as for this picture...you'll only get this picture if you've seen this movie:


Just to highlight a few more memories from that year:

• Weird Dan (that we met while picking up firewood at Anderson Lumber)
• Katie making papyrus on our porch for a school project
  
• Sleeping outside only to have the sprinklers turn on that night
  
• Getting pet frogs for my birthday
• Mark falling in love with our great friend and neighbor, Hailey
• Hailey climbing through her window anytime she got locked out
• Mark entertaining us with his guitar
• Tara falling in love with Greg
• Tom McKnight, the meteorologist, making biscuits for the ward talent show
• Our "laser" show (flashlights) for the ward talent show
  
• Watching (at home!) a special copy of Titanic when it had just barely been released in theaters
• Silent Scott...oh my gosh, he is going to get his own post soon. I can't pass that up.
• Leslie doing a workout video with hand weights and me trying to follow along with soup cans...and they were too heavy for me
  
• Getting hooked on Days of Our Lives for a month, all thanks to a ridiculous character named Susan Banks
• Playing pranks on J. L. Roring and his roommates and accidentally breaking their window
• Relief Society slumber party at our bishop's giant lodge
• Lagoon rides on the bunk bed

LOVE YOU GIRLS!!!

25%!!!!!!

I am one-fourth of the way done with pharmacy school!!! Yay, yay, yay!!!!

Time sure flies...

Has it really been six years already?


Happy Anniversary Evan! I love you!