YSA and Boys

I got a whole history lesson done yesterday. Got a B on the test. It was hard; I had expected to do better on the test.

I set the table for dinner, played some guitar hero with Andy, and for dinner we had taco salad, cheese quesadillas(sp?), corn on the cob and pinto bean salad.

Then Spencer and I went to the YSA activity where we played Frisbee Golf, using hula hoops as the target. I was on a team with Spencer, his friend Kayla (she was really nice to me ^_^) and a big college guy called Brooks who seemed to be in charge of the activity. Our team tied for first place with a score of negative ten. At the end, there was a tie-breaker match between Spencer and another from the other team whom I got along with very well (can't remember her name, but she talked to me and it was fun), and Spencer won. The members of our team each got to keep a hula hoop, and there were chocolate Creamie Popsicles for refreshments.

After Spencer and I got home, he invited me on the spot to go to a Risk Party with some of his friends. I asked him if he was sure it'd be okay and he said they wouldn't have a problem with it. On the way out the door he told me that I'd probably be the only . I had fun, I watched them play Risk a little and ended up playing a lot of Mario Smash Bros. with some of the guys. I didn't die first every time, either. :-P Spencer has some cute friends, heh.

I read three chapters of 3 Nephi and went to bed without any problems.

Handkerchiefs and Movies

So Seven Peaks was kind of miserable. I felt deeply depressed almost the whole time despite going on rides and playing with the family.

We got home and I changed into nice clothes for the picnic with G&G. I also brought my camera. Kids were playing in the creek and the tables were decorated with yellow table cloths and down each long table, peanut MnM's, skittles, and Sugar Babies were scattered for decoration. It was a very cute and clever idea. I was pretty quiet most of the time, but the s were interested in knowing who I was. I always introduced myself as "Molly, Brother and Sister Priest's granddaughter." Almost every woman I spoke to told me that they really admired my grandma and that she is "a great woman." It was really nice.

There was a double-layered circular chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and rectangular pieces of Hershey bars broken and piled up on top. It looked delicious. I had a small piece of it and it was pretty good.

A while after I got home, I loaded the dishwasher for Andy. Aunt Linda told me that my mom had called earlier, so I called her back and talked to her for about an hour. During the phone call I had started to cry, and Aunt Linda brought me a warm handkerchief . It was a really sweet gesture. After the phone call I intended to go to bed, but as I was plugging Aunt Linda's phone back in downstairs, she invited me to come watch Monster's Inc. with the family.

I went to bed without any tears last night.

Pool and Seven Peaks

After I finished all of my work yesterday, Aunt Linda, Daina, Andy and I all went to the pool and played the same games that Daina, Andy and I had played. A mentally retarded teenaged girl called Sky joined in with us. She looked like a perfectly normal, very fit girl, aside from a slightly unusual look about her face. She was a sweetheart, and was very good at pitching and hitting the ball right back to us. Daina was a little nervous, but otherwise everybody was having a good time. She called me "Mowry." It was so cute.

We came home and watched "Stranger than Fiction," which is truly an offbeat movie. I liked the story a lot.

We went to bed and I cried myself to sleep again. I said my prayers and read my scriptures like I usually do and then just broke down.

I woke up, showered, and Aunt Linda told me that we're going to Seven Peaks in about forty-five minutes and if I wanted to come along that'd be great. So it looks like I'm going to a water park for most of the day, then coming back for a picnic with G&G. If I can slip some schoolwork in I will, but I feel okay about the possibility of taking the day off if I'm unable to sit down and get anything done. I worked steadily for about four or five hours yesterday and I'll do it again tomorrow if needed.

Harry Potter and the Leftovers

So Daina and Andy went to the pool with me at about four 'o clock. Mainly we played catch with a water disk (really cool, skims across the water) and a foam foot ball. Eventually we started using the water disk as a baseball bat, taking turns throwing the football to whoever had the disk. It was hilarious. Andy always hit it across the pool. Once I hit it and it went straight into the open doorway of the boy's locker room! Obviously, I didn't volunteer to go fetch it.

We stayed there for about an hour, then I came home and cried a little in my room again (I know, bizarre, right?), moved the laundry, and then we had leftovers from last night's dinner, which were great. Then we up and left to see the new Harry Potter movie, which was better than any of the others, hands down. I liked it a lot.

Hogi Yogi's

So I got a good deal of schoolwork in at G&G's... I have to make another essay for my final lesson. I also need to read the last two chapters of "A Night to Remember." About half the test is based on it, and I don't know where I put the book. I think it might be in Aunt Linda's PT Cruiser, which is in SLC at the time, because for some reason Shelley and Trevor took two cars back to their house. They're supposed to be back Friday... and I'd like to finish my English course by today... we're still looking around for the book.

Aunt Linda, Daina, Andy and I went to Hogi Yogi's, I think the place is called, and ordered sandwiches. The people were nice, but I thought the system was obnoxious. You go through the drivethru and it's like going to Subway and telling them what to put on your sandwich as they go, but it's over the speaker and it's just annoying. The sandwiches were good, though. We ate them at a park outside the library and then went to see Spencer at the music shop he teaches guitar at. Then we filled up the Element with gas and came back home.

I feel really depressed today, and I just have no idea why. We came home, I walked upstairs and cried on my bed for several minutes. Then I pulled myself together and got a load of laundry started, and now I'm here.

There's talk of going to the pool later on. Andy and Daina would go with me, at least.

Disneyland and Shakepeare

After I went to bed last night I had a breakdown and started to cry. It took me forever to get to sleep. I didn't go swimming this morning and slept in until nine this morning. Maybe this afternoon I'll swim...

All of the Disneyland tickets are booked. Every ride will be open the three days we are there. The hotel we're staying at is nice and has a good pool. I'm not as breathlessly excited as Aunt Linda and Daina are to go, but then again, I haven't been to Disneyland since I was about seven.

I finished Shakespeare this morning, took my English chapter six test, and got a B.

Every car at the cousins' except for the Suburban, which has a trailer hooked up to it, is gone, including the elctric scooter. So today I rode a bike over to G&G's to work on some journal responses and stuff.

I'm in a bad mood. Not because the cars were all gone and I had to use a bike, and not because I didn't go swimming this morning. I just kind of want to cry and I don't like myself very much right now.

Apples to Apples and Pedicures over the Creek

The rest of my Friday consisted of more schoolwork, baking cookies, washing Shelley and Trevor's car, playing the piano, helping Spencer and Uncle Jeff set up a new entertainment center downstairs, playing with Walter and Tiber, and watching some Monty Python and part of another movie (Keeping the Faith) with Andy. At eight thirty in the evening, Aunt Linda suddenly asked me if I'd eaten dinner. I didn't realize that I was hungry until she asked. "We forgot all about feeding you! Don't be afraid to speak up!" I was embarrassed, and Spencer took me to Taco Bell. :-P I went to bed at about nine thirty that night. I was beat.

Saturday morning I got up at 5:00 again to swim. I asked Daina if she wanted to come, but she said she'd stayed up too late the night before and would try again on Monday. So I headed off with my earphones in, walking down 900 South Street towards the pool. I got there and discovered a completely vacant parking lot. Shrugging it off and thinking this was a good day for Daina to sleep in, I headed back to Uncle Jeff's place, thinking that maybe I could use the elliptical they have in the basement.

After I got my workout clothes and running shoes on, though, I discovered that Shelley and Trevor were asleep in the room next to the elliptical. At six thirty in the morning I didn't want to make noise, so I went up to the main floor again, where Walter was waiting for me, ears perked eagerly. I decided that a brisk walk would be better than no work out at all, hooked Walter's leash onto his collar, and headed out the door once more.

Four blocks into the walk, Walter decided to take a fairly sizable dump in someone's yard. Rolling my eyes, I turned around and we went home. I found a plastic grocery bag in the kitchen. Feeling rather put out, I left Walter home and headed back to the place he had squatted. I picked it up, disposed of it, and decided to go to G&G's to get something to eat, and do some school work.

At G&G's I had a cinnamon roll, orange juice, milk, and a bowl of thawed out peaches. Grandma came into the kitchen as I finish preparing breakfast. After I washed my dishes I headed downstairs to the laptop.

After about forty minutes of reading clips of stories and answering questions, my eyelids were drooping considerably. I crashed in G&G's guest bedroom for a couple of hours before I got another couple of hours' worth of work in.

I had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa. Later in the early afternoon Grandma took me to the local pool to see if they had the shampoo and soap I had left there the day before. I collected it and then we headed to the library to check out The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Then Grandma took me over to Aunt Linda's where I met Andy, who had just gotten home from EFY.

I had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa later as well. When I got back to Uncle Jeff's, the volleyball net was set up and Aunt Linda, Andy, Daina and two of her friends sported a five-gallon bucket of water balloons. We tossed them back of forth with our hands until Daina's friends (who were really nice) left. Then we played with towels, with one person at each end of the towel on one side of the net so we could catapault(sp?) the water ballon over the net to the other side, where two other people had to try and catch it with their towel. We listened to The Lion King sound track and Hercules sound track. It was loads of fun. At one point Tiber and Walter took off after the neighbor's dog. Andy (a much faster runner than myself or Daina) had to chase them three blocks down before he managed to start hearding them back to the house. After that we decided we were worn out and went inside to snack and watch movies. After that I went to bed.

Today I went with Spencer to the Singles Branch. It was alright. After church I read Shakespeare for about an hour fr my English class.

For dinner Aunt Linda made tomales (she had started them the night before--making tomales is roughly a five hour process) from scratch, rice (the only thing NOT from scratch), anaheim pepper slices with cheese, and home made Spanish beans. It was absolutely delicious. For dessert she'd made strawberry-rhubarb(sp?) pie. It was awesome. Grandma and Grandpa were over for dinner also. Later they left and we all played Apples to Apples, which was hilarious. Afterwards everybody was hanging out outside on the trampoline (huge trampoline!), the bench swing, and on the deck over the creek. Aunt Linda gave me and Daina pedicures on that deck. Then we came in to finish the movie we hadn't gotten to finish the other day, and I talked on the phone to my family a little bit.

I need to get up early tomorrow and go swimming with Daina again (woot!), so I'm hitting the sack. Night!

PT Cruiser

The first night I stayed at the cousins, Tyber, their sweet yellow lab, slept on the bed with me all night long. What a good dog. :-)

The next morning I woke up at about eight thirty, had some juice, grabbed my MP3 player, and at nine thirty I jogged to G&G's house and back. It was hard on my lungs, and my gums hurt oddly by the time I got back. I showered, ate a real breakfast, and headed over to G&G's house to get schoolwork done. I'd only gotten about an hour of work in when Aunt Linda called up Grandma and invited the two of us out to lunch with her and Daina. Of course, we couldn't refuse. Aunt Linda let me drive her PT Cruiser and they directed me to The Trolley, where I've been with them once before a couple of years ago. Afterwards we went to an oldish drugstore with an ice cream bar. I've never tasted ice cream soda before I went there. Aunt Karen ordered some and let me have a taste. It was sensational. Grandma and I both had Rocky Road in a cone (mine was a scoop of Rocky Road and a scoop of strawberry), and Daina had a vanilla cone. It was good stuff.

Then we went to the library to pick up a book I need for my schoolwork: "A Night to Remember," by Walter Lord. It was written in 1955. It's a pretty intense story. I like it a lot. When we got to Aunt Linda's house after dropping Grandma off, I read the two assigned chapters while Daina practiced for her voice lessons and eventually went there and back. By the time she returned I was done with the lengthy chapters, and Uncle Jeff, Aunt Linda, Spencer, Daina and I went to see what Uncle Jeff calls "The Rat Movie." It was a really cute movie; I liked it a lot.

We got back home and had pasta, garlic bread and corn on the cob for supper. Following that, Aunt Karen taught me how to make big, chewy chocolate chip cookies. They were really good... I think I still prefer Mom's chocolate chip oatmeal, but it was a new kind of chocolate chip cookie to try. :-P

After this, I went upstairs and got suits, goggles, shampoo, crocks, and clean clothes ready to take with me to the pool the next morning (Aunt Linda renewed the family pool membership).

Then Daina and I washed Uncle Jeff's suburban with a very powerful pressure hose that hooked up to the regular hose. It looks like a vaccuum with a long, thin cord, and the water comes out so sharp and powerfully that it could cut you-- I have a bruise on my arm from it. We used dish soap (contributed by Aunt Linda) and an old scrub mop to scrub down the dirt all over the front and sides of the car, and took turns switching between the spray hose and the scrubber. After this, Aunt Linda asked us to try spraying off the huge burn marks on their front walk and steps from when some kids blew off fireworks in the middle of the night as a prank. It worked pretty well, but their are still several black specks that burned deep into the cement.

We went inside and I jokingly asked Daina is she was sure she didn't want to get up with me at five fifteen to go swimming. She raised her eyebrows. "Yeah! Yeah, I'll go!" I was stunned that she wanted to go with. "Cool! If you're too tired in the morning, I'll understand," I said, "But if you're planning on coming with, make sure you have your suit and clean clothes ready tonight." At that she nodded and ran upstairs to prepare. We sent an alarm and were in bed by ten thirty.

The next morning (well, this morning) she got right up with me and we got ready to go. The dogs barked at us as we went down the stairs and thought we were getting up to play with them, but we squeezed past them out the front door and started to walk.

The pool had several elderly people scattered throughout the lanes. We had to split up to swim, but she stayed the whole time while I did my sets. We were in the pool for almost an hour. Then we changed and went back home, grabbed a bowl of cereal and went back to bed for about another hour and a half. Uncle Jeff seemed really pleased that we'd both gotten up to go work out.

After I got up again I helped myself to some delicious California strawberries in half and half milk with Splenda. Then I got my stuff together, asked Aunt Linda if I could take her car to G&G's again (she said yes), and got another hour or so of work done before they called me and told me that they were going to SLC to help Shelley and Trevor move out of their duplex. Since G&G weren't even home, I didn't want to be in Springville all by myself so I said I'd go.

We helped them bring boxes and other stuff out of the little trailer Uncle Jeff has behind his suburban, and stopped by the Ikea store so Aunt Linda could get the entertainment center that she and Uncle Jeff wanted for their TV. She stayed at Ikea and waited for Shelley and Trevor to catch up so they could all shop. Daina and I went home with Uncle Jeff. On the way there I called home and said hello to Sally, Gracie, and Oliver (Laura was at YC, Mom and Dad were out). We got back home and I drove over here to check my email and do more school work.

I'll update again later.

Chicago, Phoenix, SLC

I am now at my grandparents' house! I'm excited to be here. Soon my aunt and cousin Daina will arrive to take me to their house.

Gracie hugged my goodbye four different times this morning. She is such a sweetheart.

My flights went pretty well today. At the Chicago airport, traffic was bad. My mom dropped me and my dad off, and it took her so long to find any parking spots that I had to leave and go through security without saying goodbye. We called her on her cell phone, though, and said our goodbyes then. I had needed to get through security quickly, because for some reason the seat we booked online was not on the boarding pass, and I had no assigned seat.

At the gate there was a very long line of fairly cranky people who all seemed to need to be re-assigned to their seats. It was pretty disorganized and there was come poor, chubby German(?) guy at the desk all by himself. I was right behindvery cranky couple who chewed out the poor guy because they "needed to be home three (later they changed the amount of days to 'four') days ago." They were going to Las Vegas. This plane made a stop in Phoenix, and then went to Las Vegas after about an hour's stop, and the girl was furious because they wouldn't have time to eat between flights, and said that they should at least get first class seats... It was really quite stupid.

On the flight to Phoenix I sat between an elderly woman and a guy who was on his laptop with headphones on the whole time. The woman and I talked a little bit about her kids and where they all live. Her husband died a few years back, so I was glad she was getting out to stay with her daughter, who is a nurse, for a while. When we got off I helped her find her next terminal. She was really nice.

On the next flight, I sat in the very first row behind first class. I sat between two older men (between the ages of 50 and 60?) and listened to them discuss the republican politicians. Then then man to my left and I figured out that we were both LDS and talked about geneaology, and the difference between Utah wards and wards all over the rest of the earth. I thought his idea summed it up: "Outside of Utah, wards are a great big family group. Once you get into Utah, wards are just a group of families."

Once I got off my flight, I remembered the SLC airport that I knew exactly where to go terminal. Grandma and Grandpa weren't waiting for me where they usually were, so I went and got my luggage. By the time I got back to the main entrance, they were waiting for me. They took me and my starving self to the Taco Bell drive thru, where Grandpa had me order what I wanted from out the back window, and the ride there was very short.

There's so much smoke from the fires! It looked like a flat plain with an overcast sky. The smoke was so thick that I couldn't see the mountains!

Well, Aunt Linda, Uncle Jeff, and Daina are here, and we're going up to have cinnamon(sp?) rolls and milk.


And is it Pheonix, or Phoenix?