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!

There's hope after all!

Three years ago we made a seriously impulsive purchase and entered into the world of dog owners. We were sooooo not prepared for what would follow. Escapes, mischief, terrorizing the neighborhood, destruction of shoes, cell phones, delivery packages, flowerbeds, windshield wipers, furniture...the list goes on! (And it hasn't just been our possessions, either. Sorry neighbors!) I've been waiting patiently for the day everyone assured me would come...that she would calm down. I was told she'd calm down after getting spayed...that didn't happen. I've been told she'd calm down by the time she was one...that didn't happen. I've been told she'd calm down when she was eighteen months old...that didn't happen. I've been told she'd calm down if she had a playmate...that didn't happen. I was really beginning to lose my patience!

But this last week we saw a glimmer of hope! We went camping with my family in Southern Utah and brought Mesa along. We had forgotten her tie-out and we were concerned with keeping her under control, but it turns out our worries were not necessary. She was so well-behaved! She's such a curious dog, and we were worried that if we let her wander she'd wander right over to someone's camp and get into their gear, or worse-terrorize the little kids running around, but she didn't. She preferred wandering out in the fields, chasing ground squirrels and other critters, and the rest of the time she spent following Evan around. If he went into a camper, she'd plop herself down at the door and wait for him. If he went for a walk, she was right on his heels. If he was eating, she was sitting right at his feet. If I hadn't been there to witness it myself, I would never have believed it.

So this morning, I thought I'd try an experiment...walking her off the leash. Most of the Tooele canyon roads are closed for the winter, which provided me with a perfect traffic-free area away from neighborhoods to let her loose. I drove up til we reached the gates and let her run around. She ran all over those hills, sniffed out and followed deer tracks, splashed through a small stream of runoff water, and each time I whistled or called to her, she came running back to me. WHAT?? Is this really my dog? I sure hope this isn't a phase! I'm definitely going to take her back there. It must be a popular spot for dog owners, because on our way home I passed a few others walking with their dogs.



P.S. The trip up there served its purpose-she has been so worn out that she's slept most of the morning!