Surprise Visit

So, Stephen flew home to Indiana on Sunday the 19th. I thought I wasn't going to see him again until I fly out there to take engagement pictures, but he actually made a surprise visit to my classroom today while I was at lunch! The sly dog.

"I came well you wear at lunch love Stphen"

Translation: "I came while you were at lunch. Love, Stephen." I'm not sure why he spelled his name wrong....he must have just been in a hurry?

Again, not the correct spelling of his name....he must have been really concentrating on the border for this one.

Translation: "Dear Heather, you are so good to people. Love, Stephen." I just love how he values and admires my personality!

I'm not 100% sure what this one says, in the bottom left corner, but I won something! And Stehven Conner wanted to let me know.

Translation: "You are the best teacher ever you are as nice as a baby kitten ooooh a simile in there Love Stephen"

Translation: "You are as cute as a kitten (a simile) You are a good girlfriend. Love, Steven. I love you"

I guess Chloe also left a note. But don't worry, all the rest are almost certainly from Stephen.

This one was my personal favorite: "Thank you for saying yes for are mereg Love, Stphen"
AKA: "Thank you for saying yes for our marriage. Love, Stephen"

Just so there was no doubt as to who did such a kind and thoughtful surprise, it was Stphven.

I only wish he could have stayed long enough for me to thank him in person. But oh well, I guess that's why we have Google Hangouts :)

I appreciate

Teacher Appreciation Week. Because it looks like this:

This on Monday.

This on Tuesday at lunchtime (I forgot to take a picture until I'd already started eating it, lo siento...

This on Thursday (almost made me cry, you guys)

This plus rolls plus cinammon butter plus chicken plus pork from Texas Roadhouse on Friday.

Also this on Friday.

I appreciation Teacher Appreciation Week so much, in fact, that when I get home, I do things that you might not expect from me.

For instance, I handed flowers to this guy who came along to help me clean out my trunk, and he  waited until his roommates could see, then handed them back to me, saying "Here you go, Heather" as if he had gotten them for me...

Another instance, I did this:

THAT'S RIGHT I WENT RUNNING.

Outside, you guys. For 2 miles. I was motivated by the following:

- the new shorts
- the guy
- the ever-imminent fear that at any moment, I could be attacked and I would have to run even faster to escape
- the Sidney Bristow
- the new jorts (again)

And, in a truth that is perhaps even more shocking than the fact that I went running outside at all, I actually kind of....really liked it.

Unfortunately

I am here to tell you an unfortunate story.

It starts out fortunate, with some cute boys coming and sitting by my roommates and me in Sunday school.

My fortune started to wane a little when I couldn't hear anything that anyone else, the teacher or my classmates, was saying, so I started to color in a missionary letter for one of my best friends.

Which started up the "do you have a missionary?" conversation, which led into the "relationship status" conversation.

Which isn't too unfortunate, until it reminded me that I had to send a txt. And in my head, I was like: "Maybe I shouldn't txt during church. I'm supposed to be paying attention, after all." But since I couldn't hear anything anyway, I figured it would be okay.

So I just leaned myself forward in my little seat. My phone was mere inches from my fingertips.

And then, my heel slipped. I lurched forward. My face smacked the chair in front of me, and every boy in the ward turned to look.

I didn't even know what to do. I turned to the boy next to me and said stupidly, "Did you see what just happened to me?"

Of course he had.

But the story isn't even over there! Because a few minutes later, I decided I could try to get my phone again. I planted my feet firmly on the ground. I leaned forward. My fingers closed around my phone. I started to sit up to type out the txt I had to send.

My phone went clattering to the floor.

I felt like God was really bugged that I kept trying to txt during Sunday School, so I stopped trying then. Unfortunately, this happened several hours ago, and this is still kind of what I look like, in my head:

Why I Do what I Do

I started my second practicum last week, and I am absolutely LOVING it. I could talk for like three days straight about everything I've been doing in the schools and how much fun it is, but instead I'll just give a brief synopsis. Since I am in 4th grade, here are my

Top 4 Reasons: Why I do what I do.

4. Teacher camaraderie. The teachers at this school are super-nice to me. We all sit together during lunch and talk about everything from church to cooking blogs to the kids in our classes to lesson ideas to whatever else. My mentor teacher is old enough to be my sister. Charlotte's is old enough to be my mother. The other one is old enough to be my grandma. Someone brings treats almost every day. (Today it was me. Yeah! Contributing!) They are so sweet and ask me how I'm doing and if I need any help and are always happy to offer advice. I will miss them when this is over!

3. Read-Aloud. Right now, I am in charge of doing the read-aloud every day after lunch. We are reading "Running out of Time" by Margaret Peterson Haddix. The kids in my class are so cute about it and every day when they come in from lunch, they act like it's a new thing that we are having read-aloud. They pump their fists and rush over to the rug and sit in front of my chair and throw their hands in the air to review what we read the day before. When read-aloud time is up, they sigh like it's the end of the world. They hold up one finger and mouth "Just one more page?" all pleadingly. They are dang cute.

2. Recess. Do you remember how much you loved recess in elementary school? Let me let you in on a secret: it's even BETTER when you are the grown-up. Today my teacher had recess duty so I went with her. Parker ran over to us immediately.

"No way!" he said. "Miss Connor, you finally get to come to recess!"

"I know!" I said, just as excited. "What do you do at recess time?"

He bounced ahead, happy to show me around. At this school, there is a huge blacktop. A couple portables are parked on it, but that just means the kids can play fun games where they run and hide and sneak around the portables. The playground is new, and slides, monkey bars, swing sets, and zip-lines sprawl over a huge field of fresh mulch.

Jaden R., Jaden T., Emilee, Emma, Harley, and some of the other kids came and joined us at the monkey bars. They all wanted to show me their awesome tricks, which all had awesome names. I saw them "caterpillar," "double-face ninja," and "slip-n-flip." They flung themselves fearlessly at the bars, reaching and tucking at just the right second.

I asked how they knew how to do so many cool tricks. "It kind of just comes naturally for us, I think," Harley said.

Then they all wanted me to try, so I asked them to teach me. They told me they'd start me with an easy one and just to grab on, pull myself up, and hook my feet on the bars. They laughed when I tried and couldn't hook my feet. I laughed too, because when kids laugh at you, they're not being mean.

"I can't believe you just did that!" Jaden R. said.

"Yeah, I've never seen a teacher on the monkey bars before!" said Parker. "I've just seen a teacher play basketball and sometimes jump rope." I wondered a little bit if I was not supposed to be on the monkey bars. Then I decided it didn't matter. I'm not a real teacher here. Not yet, anyway :)

1. And This is the #1 reason why I do what I do:

How cute is that??

Today I don't feel like......

Doing anything. Friends, I'm afraid that this song has become the theme song of my life.

Except the part about meeting a really nice girl. But everything else.

To make myself feel better, I have compiled this list of

Productive things I have done since leaving Florida:

1. caught up a little on Nikita and Gossip Girl.

2. caught up on everyone else's blogs.

3. figured out my dress for the Rose Ball. (still have yet to figure out my shoes and accessories.)

4. painted my nails.

5. painted my toenails.

6. picked up Jacob from school one day.

7. made dinner two nights!

8. took Julie to the store to buy ice cream.

9. went to NIH for a screening for a study.

10. went to Institute.

11. went to Alyssa's house and helped her cut her hair. Even though she had to cut 6 inches off the next day. And she says she hates it now. I bet it still looks beautiful!

12. caught up on sleep. (that's productive, right?)

13. made a photo book of my time in Florida.

14. started writing some missionary letters.

15. worked out with Julie.

16. wrote this blog.

I think when I go back to Utah, this song will be the theme song of my life.

How delightful

Sometimes, at random points in my day, I will feel bursts of excitement, for no reason in particular. I hope you know what I'm talking about...when you feel just thrilled to be where you are, to be so unalterably you, whatever the circumstances.

Here are some things that make me feel like this more often than not:

1. Popsicles. I don't know what it is about them, but popsicles can make my day instantly better. They are so delicious and not even really bad for you. I get one every time I take a test and now, I actually look forward to going to the testing center because of them.

2. Letters. I usually feel a little sick when I'm walking to the mailbox, because I am disappointed more often than not :( But on those days that I actually do see my name on an envelope casually leaning against the wall in my mailbox, I get so happyy. I can't stop smiling and I usually can't wait until I get back to my apartment to open my letter.

3. Walking through campus. Today I had one of these moments when I was walking from the back of the library to the front of the library. I realized I was walking among amazing people, and I got goosebumps at the thought that I was allowed to be in this place that I love so much.

4. Kisses. I think kissing is fantastic. I don't do it very often, because I'm really picky about who I kiss. Like, reallyy picky. But maybe that's why I like it so much; I've never had a bad experience with kissing.

5. The Cougar fight song. Last night the Cougars took on the San Diego Aztecs in basketball, and I was in attendance. I had heard it would be a really intense game and I was not disappointed. Usually I think of human sacrifices when I think of Aztecs, but our boys were far from being sacrificed. Final score? .....Not sure. BYU scored 80 points, so I got cake. And that's what is really important. Anyway, every time we sang the fight song, I just felt this huge sense of pride. I'm here, I'm in college, I'm a cougar, and I'm sO happy about it :)

6. Motorcycles. Ever since I was little, I have LOVED motorcycles. When I see a boy on a motorcycle, he is instantly 5x cuter than I might otherwise think he was. Wrapping my arms around one of those boys and zooming off through traffic gives me such a high. And when I get off the motorcycle after my ride, I have to consciously hold myself back from kissing the boy. It's embarrassing. We won't even be dating, I won't even like him, and for some reason I have to actually remind myself of this so I can stand up straight.

7. Giving blood. Last time I got so excited that I had to come back 2 days later because my heart rate was too high. That's how much I love giving blood.

8. Pickles. I am seldom happier than when I am eating a really good pickle. I get one every Wednesday at the Blue Line Deli and in those moments when I am eating it, all my problems disappear.

Of course, there are other things that make me feel happy, content, or pleasantly surprised. I love talking to my parents on the phone. I enjoy working out. I'm pleased when I do well on a test. I used to like driving and singing along to the radio, when I had access to a car. I love holding babies when they're happy. I like getting new clothes. I think it's fun to get dressed up and go to dance parties. But these aren't the things that randomly thrill me, that make me so happy that I am myself. I guess it's the little things that really do that!

"Today you are you,
That is truer than true.
There is no one alive
That is you-er than you." ~Dr. Suess

Happiness and Familyness

On Friday of last week, I got my first letter from Jake, and on Saturday, I got part two of that letter. So Friday was pretty much the best day ever...I made appointments for 4 people at work, went home, got a letter, and then went out with Kelly to Rita's. I've always loved writing and getting letters. I think I'm a good letter-writer, and when people write back it makes me sO happy. Especially this time! Jake is doing so well. He is loving the MTC and he's learning so much and making so many friends and he is so happy there. Reading his letter, I could tell that he was just happyy and it made me happy, too.

I also taught my sister Sarah a piano lesson on Friday. She's 7 and she lovvves piano. She reminds me a lot of myself at her age actually. I used to practice so much and I would go ahead in my book and try new variations on the songs and I thought I was so good and I just loved it. She is a fast learner and she likes to go ahead in the book, too. I'm also teaching Jacob piano, and Sarah is just a few songs behind him. I am worried that if she catches up to him, he will lose motivation and he won't want to practice as much anymore, so I've been trying to assign Sarah more songs from other books to make it take longer for her to move ahead. But she keeps trying new things on her own and that makes it a little more difficult too.

This week she started working on this one song that Jacob is still working on and even though it sounded good, considering that she had had no instructions from me on it, her timing was off, some of the notes were wrong, and it definitely wasn't ready to be passed off. I told her she did a really good job and that it was cool that she had worked on it on her own and she got really excited and said, "So I can pass it off?!" I said that we would have to keep working on it. As I was writing that in her book, she got really quiet and when I looked over she had tears in her eyes. I was alarmed because I had just told her that she had done a good job! How could she expect to pass off this song that she had been working on on her own after just one week of self-tutelage?

Then I stopped and thought a little more about it. She probably had gone on thinking of how much she would impress her piano teacher at her next lesson. Surely I would be so impressed by her initiative that I would enthusistically allow her to pass it off right away. She probably imagined me gasping in shock at her impressive abilities to learn a song of such difficulty on her own, me calling in other family members to hear her play. When you are seven you have such high hopes for yourself. Kids can envision themselves performing any number of things. They will be astronauts, ballerinas, firefighters, and actresses. Even though I told her she had done a good job this week, my praise was so much less than what she had anticipated, what she had worked for. And so, realizing this, of course I felt a little bad.

But then I thought about it again. Sarah would recover. She really hadn't done well enough to pass the song off. And that was okay, because eventually she would get it. She would walk away from her piano lesson, practice really hard for another week, maybe another two weeks, and then she would pass it off. If she had imagined higher acclamations than a simple sticker and a few words of glowing praise from her teacher, she might be disappointed, but that was okay. Everyone is a little bit disappointed sometimes when others don't think their joke is as funny as they think it is, when a relationship doesn't work out because one person isn't as interested in the other, or when they don't get a job they feel they are perfectly qualified for because whoever is hiring doesn't see your potential the way that you do. Little disappointments happen, but we recover from them, and if we handle them the right way, we will grow from them, too.

Moving on....today at nannying, I showed my letter from Jake to Malan. Jake also sent me a picture he drew of us which I thought was reallyy cute, so i showed that to Malan, too. She got very jealous and said that she wanted Jake to write her a letter too. I told her that if she wrote Jake a letter, he would probably write her one back. She dictated to me the following letter:

Dear Jake,

T. Please send Malan a letter. M. Or a fan. It was so great of her. Jacob. I want you to hold my hand too. Why didn't you say I love you, Malan? Jake. Jake-a. I love you and you want to hold my hand. Can I hold your hand please in one two three days? I did it so you love me. My grandma Tori loves me too. I will send you a mail but you didn't send one back but you don't love me. Look I have. You will hold my hand too. The fan is not for you, it's for my grandma Tori. Because you don't love me, but I said I love you Jake so you will hold my hand. Thank you. Thank you to your mom. Jake-a. Write me a letter too or Heather will cry and her family will be mean to her.

Love,

Malan

which I thought was hilarious. Nannying was so good today because Owen took a four-hour nap, which he practically put himself down for. While Malan and I were coloring, he started to fall asleep on the floor, so I fed him a bottle and put him in his crib. I seriously love nannying. I love Malan and Owen and I know I am going to miss them when I go back to BYU. I like hanging out with people my own age....I like it a lot, but I also really like hanging out with kids. They are just sweet, and even though we learned in my human development class that kids are very egocentric and they aren't really capable of thinking about other people as separate individuals who have feelings too, I know that kids care about other people. They understand raw emotions better than pretty much anyone else in the world. They haven't learned all about propriety and social taboos and so they are as pure as can be. Plus, how can you not miss getting paid to color, eat, and take naps?

Tonight we had family home evening. With 7 kids.....all of whom are really weird.....it gets pretty loud at my house. We all really like each other, and there is so much weirdness and so many inside jokes that it can get really crazy when we are all together. I can't even begin to explain it. People just use weird voices and say stupid things and then everyone else cracks up. I often think that living with my family is like living in a musical, or in a reality tv show. (I swear that would make money if it existed.) At this particular family night, we were talking about the family reunion that is coming up on July 9th. We will all be flying out to Utah at about 7 a.m. We have never taken a flight as a whole family so it should be interesting. As we were going over the calendar for the upcoming two weeks, the noise level kept rising and rising. I am pretty sure my dad's blood pressure is directly related to the noise level in our house, so as we got louder and louder, he got more and more stressed. By the time we were halfway through Wednesday and our neighbors could have listened in if they wanted to, my dad decided that was enough and started yelling about how we really needed to be quiet because it was way too loud and he was going to start sending people to bed and they weren't going to be happy if this kept on, etc. My mom decided to start a quiet game in which participation was mandatory and for the rest of the night she kept a running tally for everyone who was talking out of turn with the promise of a fantastic reward to be given to the winner. Things quieted down considerably, but my dad was still very stressed and I guess he felt like someone had to be punished so he stopped listening to the calendar entirely and glared around the room instead, pouncing on anyone who opened their mouth too widely. It turned into a big pick-on-everyone-else-fest and by Friday, July 10th, feelings were hurt and three people had left the room in annoyance. With the calendar over, Dad yelled that it was his turn and that everyone had better get back in the kitchen for his lesson on.....etiquette?

....Ironic? Maybe?

Regardless, everyone came back and soon the musical started up again, our collective good humor restored by togetherness. It is one of my favorite things in this life that I am friends with the people in my family. I love love love all of my siblings and my parents. They might drive me crazy sometimes but I honestly wouldn't trade them for anything.