*Note: this blog post, when I began writing it, was originally titled "Oh, September. Will you ever end?" As it took me several weeks to finish it, September has ended. Thus the title change.
Okay friends. I did promise. I suppose a month into the semester is long enough for an update, yes? Now we'll see if you have the patience to endure the novel that is doubtless to follow. The great thing is, this is my blog, and I can write whatever I want. Muaha. :)
I suppose I shall begin with the end of the summer. :(
My last day of work coincided with August graduation, and luckily, our department had four (count 'em!) graduates, so we held a reception after commencement on Friday morning, August 15. You know what that means? I got to serve (and later eat) delicious food while wearing a beautiful new pencil skirt which I had recently bought, then go home ridiculously early. (Like, noon). So OF COURSE I went home and scoured my apartment. Thus, when Mike came home, it was officially time to go to Boise. We spent the weekend there, flew to Seattle early Monday morning, stayed there for a week and a half, then flew back to Boise on Wednesday, August 26, and stayed there until Sunday, because School (ugh.) started on Monday, the 31.
Some Things I learned on my Summer Vacation:
- Never expect the weather to be typical of where you live. Always bring a coat or jacket, and then bring some shorts just in case the places that you are used to seeing through drizzling rain become suddenly scorching. Seriously! It was all cold in Boise! Who does that? It's okay, it was all worth it anyways. :)
- When all the siblings are going to visit at the same time, BE THE FIRST ONES THERE. Bret and Kliss got there a couple days before we did and claimed the back bedroom, and then we had to move out of the front one so Amy and Jared and Spencer could have the room with the crib, then moved back into the back room after Kliss and Bret left. Translation: we slept in two different bedrooms and on the living room floor during the week and a half in Seattle. I like to think we are now connaisseurs of different mattresses, after all the places we've slept. :P
- THERE IS A REASON MODESTY IS A COMMANDMENT. While in Seattle, we all went to Wild Waves, a water/amusement park. We spent the morning on the dry side, doing roller coasters and whatnot and NOT getting motion sick (I never have in my life!) and then, after lunch, going over to the wet side. Seriously, people are constantly bringing up the problems with obesity we have in this country, then they DON'T sell one-piece swim suits? Whose idea was that? Obviously NOT somebody who goes to amusement parks. :) It was still really fun. It was a perfect way to spend the hottest day of the week. There were all kinds of crazy slides (I didn't go down the not so crazy ones :) and raft slides and Mike and I spent the last hour there floating around the lazy river. It was so nice and relaxing after a crazy day of fun. And we only got minorly sunburned! It was great!
- My husband is a Monopoly FIEND. I thought I was good at that game, until he drove me into bankruptcy and got into several different bidding wars with my multi-billionaire brother over everybody else's property. It was crazy. Later, when I played it again at the Morgan's, he didn't do quite as well. He still held out longer than me against everybody else though. But seriously! Sidenote to this one: my in-laws are MUCH cooler than my family when it comes to wanting to play games together. Seriously, I think my siblings all have ADD several times over. NO attention span. Thanks, Morgans, for being cool and playing board games with me. :)
- Mike and I are better at baseball than we each thought the other was. One of the last days we were in Seattle, after all the other siblings left, Mike and I went and found a park by the river and went for a walk and then played catch. I like to think he was pleasantly surprised by my intense baseball-throwin' skills. That's right. I said baseball-throwin'. None of this girly-like softball stuff. :) Then, when we were in Boise, the whole fam went down to the park and had a big baseball game, boys vs. girls. The girls totally rocked them. Totally. Even when we had to put Sarah in the outfield because she just wasn't paying any attention, and then got completely distracted by several screaming girls that happened to walk through the park and see her. :)
- Sometimes it's just more fun to have a bunch of girls to hang out with. I think I spent more time hanging out with mom- and sisters-in-law when we were in Seattle than I did with my husband, and he spent a LOT of time playing video games, between the Wii in Seattle and the PS2 in Boise. Silly Mike. :)
- The Boise River is colder than it used to be. Or maybe I was just really cold and tired when we flew into Boise and discovered we were going rafting/tubing down the river. It was cold. But it was really relaxing whenever the cousins weren't screaming their lungs out on purpose. :S I liked it. Then we went home and crashed. :)
- After two weeks of total vacation and absolutely no schedule or responsibility, school hurts. Like, literally. I think I got sick the first couple of weeks just because I wasn't used to it. Not to mention it gets lonely when Mike and I get home from school/work, eat dinner together, then go to separate piles of books to study and write papers. Gross.
Well, that's vacation. My classes are alright for this semester. My favorite one so far (I think) is actually my linguistics class, where we had to memorize the International Phonetic Alphabet and we learn about all the specific sounds in different languages, but mostly English. It's kind of awesome. My friend (with whom I took French 101 and she's also an Editing minor) doesn't like the memorization and doesn't see how it's related to editing, but I kind of enjoy it. Then again, languages have always kind of been my thing. Ask my mom, I can imitate any accent or dialect I've heard enough of. So this class is totally fascinating to me. It's awesome! I even know all the tricks to practice to be a ventriloquist! Maybe someday I will be! Muahahaha!
My other favorite is Doctrine and Covenants, which I'm taking with Mike. Our class is awesome. I love it when I have a fabulous religion teacher, because even when it's hard, I love the class and I'm willing to actually do the homework, which for my other classes usually isn't the case.
Oh, and one other thing. Our last weekend of vacation, my mom made me a white eyelet dress, just exactly like the one I've wanted since I was like 12. It's perfect and beautiful. And it has a long, full skirt, so it makes me want to twirl all the time. Well, I wore it our first sunday back with a red ribbon around the middle. I guess a lot of people noticed my dress when I went up to bear my testimony that week, because I got a lot of comments. One of my friends even said I looked like Maria from West Side Story. Hee hee, that was the goal! Thanks, mom! You're the best ever!
And now some pictures. :)
This is Nonny. Yes, she made this face on purpose. Thus, it is her fault that this picture came into existence and ended up on my blog. She also cut a deal with Dad that she wouldn't have to pay for gas if she washed all the cars, so Dad picked a day when she would have to wash our car and Kliss and Bret's car along with the rest. :) Muaha.
So, Parker volunteered to help Nonny with said car-washing venture. Or he got volunteered by an adult. Either way, I don't think he was much help.
This is what my hair has looked like for a few months, in varying lengths. Never too short, and never long enough to touch my shoulders. Is it good? :)
Here are all the boys at the Boise Hawks baseball game. I'm pretty sure none of them are in their element until they're at a baseball game. Oh! I forgot to mention earlier. My parents and brothers took me and Mike to a baseball game. Which means Mom and I giggled and talked and the boys got COMPLETELY absorbed in the game. It was pretty fun. :)
This is Mike's kid sister Emily. She's a world-class gymnast and pretty much the silliest thing ever if you get her late at night. In this case, we were driving down the highway to go mini-golfing for family home evening, and Mike (in front of her) had his window open. Yes, she was already doing this. I did not ask her to pose.
Besides this one, I didn't get any good pictures in Seattle, even though we spent the bulk of our vacation there, probably because I kept forgetting that I had my camera. Next time I'll be more proactive. :P
Did I mention I have the cutest brothers ever? Not to mention the phantom of the dining room there . . .
Mike got volunteered to hold the back-to-school pencil cake, probably because he had more self-control about sticking his fingers in it. Ain't he cute? :)
There. Now none of you can complain about me not keeping you informed. :)
