Birthday Weekend

Alright I said I was gonna post this several days ago and never did...not that anyone is really anxious about this fact but still, "I must not tell lies". My birthday was on the 16th and that weekend I happened to be in Monroe, at a scrapbooking house. The women in charge did a great job, making everyone feel welcome and comfortable. We each had a 'glamping' kit on our tables when we got there:

these girls know how to do themes (more on that soon). We also got a smore kabob (not pictured) on the last day. It was so themed and fun. I felt a little bad because I brought my computer which is a little large and I hid behind it for some of the time. I had a lot of wedding pictures to edit that HAD to be done that weekend and I was feeling very behind. So I settled into a photo editing mode and didn't surface for awhile. I'm just anti-social like that :D

Anyways back to themes...Saturday was my birthday!! holllla. Everyone knows I love love love Harry Potter and Nicole made the whole day Harry Potter themed for me!! I haven't had a fun birthday for a long time and I appreciated all the work and effort she put into it. When I woke up, this was on my table:

It's like the deluminator that Dumbledore left Ron which in the 7th book helps him find Harry and Hermione after he leaves them...anyways. Everyone got one of these keychain lights on their table.
A little while later I was sitting, editing and another lady comes up and hands me a single sock (it was way cute, pink polka dots). I had no idea why but I thanked her then read the little card which said this:

way cute right?! Well I wasn't quite sure what I'd do with one sock but I had made up a few plans for a stuffed animal (an idea I found online awhile back). Throughout the rest of Saturday people would randomly come up and give me single socks. I knew what was coming at this point but I was still confused because I had like 8 Different mismatched socks--but again I had plans-- then I started receiving their matches and I got really excited because I love socks. Actually I have an unnatural and perhaps unhealthy obsession with them? "I must not tell lies."

Here are some of the socks I had procured by the end of the day. I'm actually wearing a pair right now :) the black ones with the little polka dots right up there...see them?

That day I had decided I was going to find a movie theater to go see Harry Potter. I didn't think anyone else would want to go since it was a scrapbooking weekend and people get into a groove and don't want to be disrupted but Nicole and Tracy both wanted to go to. So we bought tickets for our 'brunch' showing of HP. Now, Monroe is basically in the middle of nowhere it seems, yet their movie theater, is the best I've ever been too, it's very similar to the Colossus in Vancouver. Stadium seating, plush, wide chairs that leaned back, a HUGE screen. Man it was a good theater to see HP in.

To document the HP day I took a photo of my ticket and it's possible I took a picture of the opening screen...is that legal? I think it is...the movie was much to short but I guess combined with the 1st half it's ok. I really loved this movie. It was my favorite and I think it's probably the best out of them all (although I do have a hidden love for movies 4 & 5). Overall I was pretty impressed and sure there are things I wish they would have kept in the movie, or left out...or lengthened (Mrs. Weasley vs. Belatrix and Fred's untimely death, I also wish they would have included Lupin and Tonks story a little more...) anyways, I digress...I could go on and on but overall I was satisfied.

The rest of that weekend was spent editing, pinning (when I had an internet connection), and working on my 365 Instagram Project!! Yahoooo. I finally came up with an idea to organize all my pictures for this year.

I bought blank 3x5 note cards, printed my explanation and the date on the bottom half of the card, then printed my pictures and glued them to random paper then attached that to the top of the card. Now I'm going to laminate all of them and either punch a hole in the corner and put them on a binder ring or find a card book to put them in. I just bought 44 dollars worth of laminating pockets...soooo ya... but I was glad to have made some progress with that, I'll have to finish them up at the next retreats :D

Overall it was a wonderful weekend, and even though I allow myself to get anxious and stressed out over dumb little things I had a great time. Thanks for everyone who participated in making the weekend super!!

Up next:
Cross stitching projects?! WHAT?! who does that?!

Day in the Life

The other day my brother made a comment that made me laugh. He said we should make a TV show out of our lives...uh...anyone who knows us knows we are the lamest people in the history of lame people. It gave me a good blog idea though. So lucky you guys (whoever you really are?!) get to go with me on a tour of my life for the last 40ish hours!! That means, you should just click the back button now and go back to whatever site you came from... :) Don't say I didn't warn you, because I did.

So, we will start this little adventure starting on Tuesday around 2:30pm. I gotta do a little 'back history' so the rest of my day makes sense ok!

 1. My lunch consisted of wheat ritz crackers and apple cider- straight from the bottle, I know, SO legit right...pish.
2. Packed up my overnight items, my purse, clothes, book, iPad.
3. Looked at the clock, realized I had to be leaving soon.
4. Threw on my new tshirt before heading out the door.
5. The weather finally got better driving into work. It was fogggggy Tuesday morning.

Not Pictured:
6. Went to work, worked, ate a delicious dinner outside then worked some more.

7. Remembered I forgot my toothbrush at home. So I drove to the dollar tree in between my shifts to buy one. I donated a dollar at the store to military families and was embarrassed when the checked announced it to the WHOLE store...
8. Back to work, doing overnight shift. So while waiting to go to bed, I might have pinned a little bit. It's a nice quiet activity that allows me to hear what's going on in the GH before bed.
9. Read in bed with a flashlight until kind of late.
10. Set my alarm for far too early. If I didn't have to be home for Shelley, I would probably just sleep in at work but unfortunately that doesn't work for me.

11. Woops...my alarm was turned down so I have just a few minutes to get all my stuff together and make the bed.


Not pictured:
12. Drive home, it's not so foggy today.
13. Climb right into bed and take a 'nap' for about 2 hours.

14. make myself some raspberry toast with daves bread, which is amazing.
15. check facebook
16. check pinterest...really this is just an excuse to put off getting ready for the day.

17. Drive to the store. Pick out clothes to try on. Buy lots of stuff for Shelley's bday, run into a few friends.
18. Walk down the freezer aisle and hear a lady screech into an open freezer door, I ask her if she needs help, she says (in her fake? british accent) no-tin-the-least, I know how to spell sexist...alrighty then. sorry I asked, it's just not everyday you witness someone yelling at the frozen food...

19. Look at my car, get disgusted, drive to car wash. Usually I love to wash the car but the weather has not been car wash worthy lately so I caved.
20. Had a mild panic attack in the car wash which almost caused me to open my door and run out. I seriously got so claustrophobic and I started panicking so I had to close my eyes (which doesn't help BTW)
21. My glorious clean car!!

22. Tried to open my door with my borders rewards card...hmmm

23. Ate my 'lunch' while pinning.
24. Check my email
25. Painted my nails--which sometimes happens 2 times a day :) it's an OCD thang

26. Tried to cut my swim noodle in half using 3 different tools. The last one worked it's called Fat Max...poor Max. I thought the yellow make him look rather slim...

27. This is what I was doing with that noodle. Sometimes I like to kayak with my legs resting above on the top and it hurts to do that for long so I had this idea to use the lip where the skirt goes (cuz I don't like using the skirt) to put the foam for some nice leg padding. Don't worry, i will adjust it so it's even...


Not Pictured:
28. Made dinner-rice, soy and garlic chicken, with a side of sauteed pineapple, avacado mixed with a little chocolate...sounds weird? it is, but it's pretty good. 

29. Drove to my grandma's house to meet her cousin. My cousin showed me how to use a conch shell. we made up a new conch band. check us out on itunes coming 3214


ADHD:
What do you think the year 3214 will be like? if the world lasts that long, that is...WEIRD. I can barely picture 2014...


30. Went to activity where we had a marshmallow gun 'fight' half the time we ended up just throwing them at each other. It was pretty fun.
31. Started blogging this very blog, hi there.
In my near future I'll:
32. Post this blog
33. Shut down my computer
34. Brush my teeth
35. Go to my room
36. Read or watch a little TV before SLEEEEEPING.


There ya go. A very long, drawn out look into my last 40ish hours.

What's the difference?

So I'm typing this on my kind of new iPad! So no pictures I dunno how to upload any. The first thing I wanted to talk about is polygamy. Totally weird I know...so I'm LDS and everyne always asks me if we are polygamists...we are not. There are other versions, for lack of a better word, that do practice plural marriages but they have nothing to do with us. Anyways tonight I'm at work doing the night shift and I decided to watch this extreme weight loss show to try to get motivated to restart my own healthy lifestyle. the show that happened to be on before it was the bachelorette...I've never watched that show, never have any desire to but it confuses me why they are allowed to date sooo many people at the same time and its acceptable!! Isnt that like polygamy?! I don't see any difference. Ya they're not married (legally the poloys aren't either) but it's the same concept basically. I'll admit I watch sister wives...I'm fascinated by different cultures and customs and so naturally the Brown family intrigued me. I don't agree with their lifestyle but there's is almost better than this bachelor show to me. I dunno I think it's a pretty immoral show from just the few previews I've seen...theres lots of those out there.

Well that was random but I'm tired so that's my excuse...this weekend wAs fun. I went to Monroe for a scrapbooking retreat and my bday!! I was gonna blog about it now but decided I want to include what little pictures I took so maybe I'll blog about it tomorrow...?

Mischief Managed.

I'm not sure why but I felt inclined to write a blog about Harry Potter at 10:14pm on the eve of the final movie, The Deathly Hallows part 2. It might sound silly to some and positively ridiculous to others but it's kind of sad to see this day. I have been reading Harry Potter since...FOREVER. Well at least since I was 10-ish. I did book reports on several of the books while in elementary/middle school. For one of them I actually made Voldemort's He Who Must Not Be Named's snake, Nagini out of fabric and little filler beads. It was huge. Arry Pottah was is a huge part of my childhood and ever since the movies came out 10 years ago I've watched them and loved them. Although everyone will always say, I could have done it better, there is no way to fit every little detail from the books into the movies, there's no way. So we all have our favorite parts and maybe we're upset they didn't make the movies but the main parts of the story are there for the most part.

I can't wait to see this movie. I was gonna go to the midnight showing tonight but tickets for my local theater were sold out quickly. I also decided I wanted to really enjoy it and be able to stay awake for it. I've been really tired lately so it's prolly better if I wait. I'm going to a scrapbooking thing this weekend but I might sneak away for 2 hours and 5 minutes to see it. but surprisingly I'm not in a huge hurry, the sooner I see it, the sooner the suspense and series will be over for me.

Anyways that's all.  I gotta get packed and go to sleep soon otherwise I could go on and on, and on, and on, annnnnnd onnnnn.

Birfday

It's almost my day of birth. I'm not sure how I feel about this..actually I DO know how I feel about it. I'm not thrilled to be another year older but I have to admit I DO like birthdays. I don't just like my own birthday, I like all birthdays. I've always wanted to celebrate half birthdays too like in Alice in Wonderland when they sing that Happy unBirthday song....maybe I just made that up, I never really liked Alice in Wonderland until they introduced it to JDepp and TBurton, just saying.

ANYWAYS. I've been madly pinning birthday wish list items for a few months now because I usually have zero ideas when asked so I've been able to compile a small-ish list. I was gonna share my pinterest birdday board with you but it seems even pinterest needs a break cuz their site is down. But I can guarantee it's a legit list. I might have focused a little too heavily on all things Harry Potter but I can live with that :)

This is one thing I REALLLY want. It's a bag for my ipad. so cute. I've actally made two for myself this last week and neither turned out, such a huge waste. I knew I should have just bought one instead of wasting the money on fabric for a homemade one.
There are several other items on this list, if yer {p}interested here's the link :)

Welp I'm gonna go get ready for my first night of my new fun overnight shift at work!! Be jealous.

Somewhat boring tales from Haggens

Tonight on my way home from work, I stopped at Haggen to pick up some flowers for my lesson on Sunday (cross your fingers they last :)) I ended up buying two bunches so there would be enough for each girl to take one home. So anyways...after waiting in line for several minutes I observed a little boy helping his dad load the items onto the belt and after each item he'd proudly say (insert item name)  CHECK! Then move on to the next item. It took the dad longer to unload the cart than it would have if he had just done it himself but he was patient, the line wasn't moving anyways, and that kid got to help his dad. That has nothing to do with why I'm writing this blog post but I just liked that. So often when I go into a grocery store (or any store for that matter) most of the kids I run into are considered more of a hinderence to their mom or dad than a help. It's always a nice change when I see parents who are praising their children and being patient and kind to them. Sometimes I have to stop myself from saying something when the parent is literally dragging their child by the shirt down each aisle. I know I can't judge what anyone does and I'm sure they don't always do that but I gotta think if they are more positive the child would react in kind...maybe?! Maybe not. I dunno because I don't have kids!! haha

So the real reason I'm writing this post is because like I said, I bought 2 bunches of flowers and a box of ice cream treats for the YW on Sunday. When it was my turn to check out the lady rang me up and told me my total but I noticed on the screen that she had only rung up one of my bunches of flowers. Without thinking anything of it I reminded her to scan the other bouquet (which was already in the bag at the end of the check out). She looked at me strangely, apologized then scanned the other. My price was now accurate. On my drive home I kept thinking that if I hadn't caught her mistake, I would have had to drive all the way back to Haggens to pay for it so I was grateful I was watching the screen. I was also grateful for my parents and church leaders/teachers who have taught me how to be honest over the years, then I was sad for all those out there who weren't taught that. I know what I feel like when I know I did something dishonest or whatever it might be and I can't imagine living my whole life like that!! yikes.

It's simple, it was just a few dollars but I'm still grateful for my unconscious immediate reaction to let her know she wasn't charging me enough. Maybe it was a good example to the others in line with me, maybe they didn't notice at all, maybe the checker didn't think anything of it but I noticed. And I can go to bed without that feeling of guilt.

Girls Camp 2011 Wrap Up

So girls camp was last week. We got home Friday evening. It was such a fun week. I'll be honest, I hated girls camp when I was a youth. I remember only liking 2 of the years that I went, the others don't bring fond memories to mind. I don't know why that was, probably because of my anxiety and whatnot. But I'm happy to say this is my 2nd year as our wards leader and I LOVE camp now. Seriously I wish I had been able to have better experiences as a youth. It's like we're in this safe bubble, free from the world and all it's temptations. Even during free time when everyone is acting goofy, you can feel the spirit. It's so neat to be surrounded by good, wholesome, like-minded people.
Here is our week in a nutshell (beware, this might be a pretty big nut):

 waiting for the ferry for 2 hours gave us time to explore nature...we were the starfish this year at camp so we gotta represent :)

 On the windy ferry. I love ferry rides, I wish they would have lasted longer!!

Goofy girls, 'milking the cow'...some old guy thought that was hilarious for some reason :)
After we got to camp, we spent time setting up camp. Half of us had cabins, the other half stayed in tents. I was in a cabin with four of our younger girls. So we helped set up tents then unpacked in our cabin. After that they had certification time. 

Later on that night we had the faith walk. That's always one of my favorite parts of camp--I had to miss it last year :(-- this year they had 3 ladies read part of a talk from Women's conference which was really good then we went on a walk down to the pretty lake. The sun was setting and it was perfect!! Every girl lit a luminary (white bag with sand and a candle) and put it on the dock. It was pretty cool- even if the dock did start to sink.

Finally a group picture of ALL our girls. We had 7 girls this year!! Last year we had 3 (plus 2 that were youth leaders) Seriously I'm pretty sure we have the best girls in the stake, if not the world. They are all such good examples and they are all amazing friends. We didn't have any problems or issues.

The next day was Wednesday. We woke up to RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN. It was a bummer to see but actually it wasn't that bad, it was quite warm actually. This was also our hike day. Me, being the spaz that I am, forgot to bring shoes besides my crocks and slip-ons which are not hike friendly...so I got to drive a load of girls up to one of the trail heads on Mt. Constitution. After dropping them off, my assistant Hannah and I went into town to pick a few things up from the store. Then we decided to drive to the top of the mountain to see the view, this is what we saw:

Fog, and more fog. BUMMER. But it worked out. The girls got done with their hike early so on our way down I picked up a group of girls and brought them back down the Mt. Then went back up to get another group. That's when I found out two of the girls from my ward were LOST somewhere on this blasted mountain...
I don't remember panicking because I knew they would stay together and they wouldn't veer from the trail. So I never thought we wouldn't be able to find them I was just worried someone had fallen and broken their leg and they were stuck on a trail. But I knew we would find them, there wasn't another option. I volunteered to drive back up the mountain to the other trail heads to yell for them. No girls. I went all the way back to the top and grabbed two trail maps so we could start planning our rescue. In my mind I kept repeating please go to the road or stay put on the trail. If you go to the road, we'll see you if you stay put on the trail, we can find you faster. I didn't realize until I started driving down another group of girls back to the campsite to get a few other leaders that I was shaking uncontrollably and felt like I was gonna vomit. Prolly not the best to be driving down this crazy switch-backy mountain (For the record, I was up and down that thing 6 times in one day :))
So I loaded up the last girls and started driving down while the two other leaders stayed at the trail head just in case (PS NO cell service). After driving down almost the whole mountain, we saw two girls walking UP the road back towards the top. They had made it almost to the bottom of the mountain in about an hour and were going back up...crazy. I honked my horn so loud and they climbed in the car. We turned around, went back to tell the other leaders then back down to camp. The girls said they were fine but that would be totally scary. At least it wasn't longer than it was!!

After the hike, we had free time. I stayed close to the cabin to get my gitters out. We had the 'cool' hang out cabin. Last year our tent site was the hangout of choice for most the girls and it was the same this year. We made bracelets, ate, talked, laughed. It was a nice tension reliever.

Our two lost girls after their adventure. SO glad they are safe and not hurt!!

Tuesday was our skit night. It was good. Pearl was our 'pearl of great price' perfect. 

 Even JBeibs made an appearance at camp. Apparently it's tradition for our ward to use a cardboard cutout in our skit...last year we got Taylor Lautner, the girls went CRAZY. This year half the girls were excited, half can't stand him haha.

This night I ended up going home. We had a really sick leader so I drove home with them just in case. We got home around 2am. Then that next day I went to the airport to pick up my aunt and uncle from the airport (just got back from their mission to russia!) 

Then I hopped in a car and drove back to the ferry to go back to camp. This was a funny story (now looking back, at the time it wasn't). The ferry left at 4 and we live about an hr away and we left at 3...we ended up parking at the top of this hill and had to run down to the ferry. I'm not a runner by any means especially with a heavy backpack and a pillow...luckily they held the ferry for us for about 5 minutes but we made it!! It was well worth it plus the dinner that was waiting for us was delicious!! As were all the meals!!

It was bishop's night that night which is always fun. We roasted marshmellows inside since all the other fire pits were being used. Then we walked down to the lake and played (laid) on the floating dock. We almost lost our YW pres. when people got a little excited on this dock..woops.

I wish we could have stayed out longer but 10pm was the curfew. 

That night we stayed up a bit too late and painted nails and did hairs. 

After packing up camp and testimony meeting, we headed back to the ferry. We had about a two hour wait. Bye bye Orcas Island!!

Overall it was a great week. And I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to go again this year. I'm not grateful for all the unpacking I STILL have to do but that's ok. It was fun!!