A comfortable spot

That's where I am right now. I feel very content with life in general. School will be starting in less than a month, which is so exciting, but I'm happy to have that month, too.


Before I came home I fully anticipated this summer being the worst summer OF my life. During March I started getting really worried, just thinking about how terrible it was going to be, and in April I had pretty much worked myself up into a frenzy about it. And when I came home, let's be honest, May sucked. ughh. I was very annoyed to be home. I just wanted to be back in Utah. I couldn't wait for school to start again. But in June, a couple things happened that I think made all the difference.


That is when I got my nannying job and my telemarketing job, and suddenly I started doing much better. I really consider myself very blessed to have these jobs. As much as I sometimes hate telemarketing, it is a good job for me. I choose my own hours, which is pretty much whenever I'm not nannying. So I have only been getting in like five hours of telemarketing a week....which really, how many places would actually think that's acceptable, for an employee to come in 5 hours a week? And admittedly it gets pretty boring, and it's kind of mind-numbing when I don't talk to anyone for a few hours, but it isn't super-strenuous and I actually do enjoy it when I make appointments.

I also consider it a blessing that I am working for Merriweather this summer. Working the Taylor Swift concert honestly made it all worth it! I love how disposable I am there because I don't need to work when I don't want to, but if I want to work a concert I'm totally welcome to.

And then of course there's piano, which I teach to my across-the-street neighbor, my little brothers and sisters, and my mom. We will be having a little piano recital at the end of the summer. I really should be more consistent at teaching everyone, every week but believe it or not, I think it's harder when you live with your students. Anyway my point is I'm excited for the recital because I don't know when I'm going to teach piano next. I'm planning to stay in Provo next summer and every summer from now on, so if all goes well with that, this could be the last recital I organize in a long time. Which I'm kind of okay with, but it's still a nice little way to end my last summer at home, I think.

Another thing that happened in June is Jake going into the MTC. The weeks leading up to his first day there were prettyy terrible. I just felt distraught and achy. But I am absolutely amazed by how happy I have felt since he's been in the MTC. I read his letters and I can tell he is a fantastic missionary. I know that he is exactly where he is supposed to be and knowing that makes me so happy. I never imagined that I would be able to feel this much happiness from something that is honestly the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I thought that it would be so so hard, and I would just feel comforted knowing, deep down, that Jake is doing something that we both believe in, but that's not really the case. I really cannot bring myself to feel sad when I think of him. I know this is such a great blessing and I am so grateful for it.

So I've gotten into a routine that I really really like. I wake up, I go to nannying. At some point I usually take a nap while I'm there. Then I either go home or I go to telemarketing, depending on the day. During my free time, I write letters, scrapbook, talk to my sisters, read, work out, or facebook. On Saturday, I always figure out something fun to do. On Sunday, the pesticide boys come over for dinner. I love Sunday dinner. Now Joshua and Troy are gone :-( but we still have Jordan and TJ!

I guess technically, I work more than 60 hrs a week. Holy crap I just now took the time to calculate that....and it sounds like so much but it doesn't feel like it! Especially since I have naptime during the week and Saturday and Sunday off :-) Anyway, I need this last month at home. I just figured out all my money stuff and I am so excited because this summer I'll be earning enough money to pay my tuition for fall, winter, and spring term. I'm planning on getting a job during the school year anyway, so that works out perfectly! But, I do still need to work this last month.

At the same time, while I'm enjoying this summer, I am excited for school. I love BYU more than I can even express. I love my friends out there. I am thrilleddd that I get to go there and I'm so excited for the classes I've signed up for for next semester. So when the summer ends, I'll probably feel a little sad, but I'll get over it pretty quickly I think.

And that is why I'm in such a comfortable spot now. I love where I am. I am happy to be going at the pace that life is going.

In other news, Troy and Joshua are gone....whattt??? They left on Wednesday morning :-( It was a sad day for all. All the boys in the Sunday dinner crew came over to our house for a Belgian waffle breakfast at 7 am and then I headed off to nannying. I guess I wasn't too too sad because we decided that we (Kelly, me, Joshua, and Troy) are going to have regular lunches when we are out at college. They're going to LDSBC so we won't be able to take any classes together, but we are determineddd to have lunches. So I'm excited.

Last night I witnessed something in my home that I think does a splendid job of describing how things work in my family. Everyone was gathered downstairs in the basement for scriptures and prayer and all was going well. Anyone looking in might have mistaken us for a normal family, calmly reading the scriptures together. Then all of a sudden, my dad made some comment involving a hippo, and that was the cue for Nicole to burst into singing "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." Everyone caught the spirit and she successfully led the whole family in a rousing rendition that was not even cut short by our dad. (I still don't really know why. He is usually staunchly opposed to such displays of musical talent disrupting his scripture study. But whatever, apparently not tonight.) No one so much as batted an eyelash when Nicole started singing. And when the chorus finished up, we resumed our scripture study as though everything was normal.

And I guess, in my family, maybe everything was :)

Hello, Utah!

So I've been back from the family reunion for about a week at this point. It was a great vacation!!!

Highlights:

1. The Oquirrh temple openhouse. I love temple openhouses like more than I can even say. I think that every temple is like the prettiest place in the world and I love just walking through the temple. Unfortunately, we drove to the Jordan River temple so we were almost an hour late to the time on our ticket, but they let us in anyway.

2. Dinner at Shoots. After the openhouse we met up with Winnie and had dinner at Shoots, where she works. It was so delicious and we had a lot of fun just visiting with each other.

3. Seeing the Crafts! After dinner we got to go visit Jake's family and it was so much funn to see them all again. We were sitting inside just chatting for a while and then we decided to go on a walk to visit the Cooks, too. We made it about 4 houses before we stopped in to see the Lees. Jordan Lee was one of Kelly's roommates her freshman year and they were all sitting outside so we stopped there and talked for a while. Then it turned into kind of a block party as other neighbors showed up. I met Jake's old piano teacher who is now the YW president, held someone's newborn baby, and watched two men race their scooters up the street and back. I love the whole atmosphere of this little neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone else and everyone was super-friendly and fun. It's the kind of neighborhood I want to live in when I grow up. Michelle Cook was at a meeting I guess so we didn't end up going to their house but just as we were about to leave from the Crafts, Michelle drove up. I was really excited to see her, too. Apparently Jake hasn't been sending his family pictures, so I showed them the ones he sent to me and then it was really time to go.

4. Back to BYU! Kelly and I stayed with her old roommates on Thursday night and in the morning we met up with the rest of the family at BYU and we showed them all around. It was fun to be back on campus again. I seriously love BYU, it is one of my favorite places in the world.

5. The Alpine Coaster. Friday was a little bit of driving, as we had to get from Provo to Midway, where the resort was that we were staying at (the Homestead Resort). Before getting to the resort we stopped at this thing called the Alpine Coaster which was really fun.

6. Family BBQ. I guess this is what really kicked off the family reunion because we all met up at this point in Midway for the BBQ. The food was way good and the company was too :) My favorite part was probbbbably when I put on my big gray sunglasses and Nick Poole called me a bug and made jokes about them for like 5 minutes straight. It was sO funny.

7. Meeting Bo. Kelly and I decided to go find the other sisters and Cousin Haleigh at the pool, but no one was answering their phones, and we didn't know where the pool was, so we found ourselves wandering kind of aimlessly along the road. We did manage to find the Homestead registration office, and we saw a worker replacing lightbulbs along the walkway. We asked him if he knew where Bigler Road was, since that's where we were staying, but he didn't know. He had a golfcart and he offered to drive us up to the Registration Center where someone for sure would know where we were staying. When we started talking to him, asking for directions, I had kind of a funny chain of thoughts go through my head. I thought, I know it's late at night, and maybe I shouldn't be asking a total stranger for directions, but here's why I'm going to. This is Utah. Automatically I trust people more when I am in Utah. He works here, so he's obviously not thatt bad, and he only has a golf cart. So what's he going to do, throw us both in the golf cart and go puttering down the road with us to his secret hideout in Midway, Utah? Plus, I was feeling a little annoyed that no one was answering their phones, and I was really supposed to be dancing the night away at Studio 600 with Winnie and Kelly, so if he did choose to zoom off with us in his golf cart, I would kindd of be okay with it. That was my assessment of the risk factor involved in asking this man for directions. At any rate, we got in his golf cart and went up to the office. Bo was a carpenter but there was no work for carpenters anymore, so he had taken the job as a fixer-upper kind of guy at the Homestead Resort in March or so. He said he hated it, but he was very pleasant to us and I liked him a lot. He was smoking a cigarette when we first approached him and as he thought about what we asked he dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his toe. "You girls probably hate cigarettes, disgusting things," he said. I do hate cigarettes but we just laughed when he said that. At the registration office they remembered us and told Bo where to take us. The approximately 2 minutes that it took to drive to our place in the golf cart were punctuated by Bo's half-serious jokes about how he was surely going to crash and kill us all. (The headlights were out and he was holding up a pen light to show the way. But I mean, we were going like 20mph, and I don't think Kelly was anymore worried than I was about crashing.

8. The pool. We went to the pool on the resort several times during our stay. The first time was Saturday day. Practically the whole family was there. I kind of feel uneasy every time I'm in a public pool, just thinking about all the germs floating around in the water, and I wonder if maybe that is why I take so long to get all the way in the water. (I used to think it was because my body just has to get used to the cold water but now I am wondering if it's the germs I keep thinking about.) Regardless, we all had a lot of fun in the hot tub, outdoor pool, and indoor pool.

9. Picture time. We left the pool about 3 hours before it was time to take family pictures to give ourselves enough time to get ready. Uncle Brett made fun of us as we were leaving, saying, "Oh, you better hurry, don't want to be late" etc. but in typical Connor fashion, we came traipsing into the chosen area for pictures slightly late...but prettyy! and handsome. When we weren't taking pictures the girl cousins were collaborating on and practicing the Single Ladies dance for the Talent Show.

10. Luau dinner and talent show. Omg I have never had such good sweet potatoes in my lifeee. The food was all so delicious, provided by the Homestead resort. There was a slideshow going through the dinner in honor of Grandma and Grandpa Hammer (this whole reunion was for their 50th wedding anniversary) and after everyone was done eating we had some time to practice for the talent show. The Connor kids all did a little dance to "I Wanna Talk About Me" which we have actually been trying to get Joseph to agree to doing for like his whole entire life. So this was kinddd of a big deal. Then there was the girl cousin's dance to Single Ladies....we just did the first minute or so and not the real choreography but it was still fun. Grandma and Grandpa gave speeches following the talent show which were very funny and tender. Another of my favorite parts of the show was when Beth told a story about Grandma. She said that the first time she met her was shortly after she had married Nick. Grandma looked her in the eye and very seriously said, "Beth, you have never made love until you have made love in the back of a car." That just showes what kind of relatives I have, I guess :) Gotta love them. Another thing that was funny was that Kelly had one of her FHE brothers, Jordan, come sing "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat (it sounded wayy good) and of course he was teased mercilessly by our family, even though there is about as much nothing going on between Kelly and Jordan as there is between Kelly and one of our cousins. (Kelly I REALLLYYY want to make a joke here but I won't. Just because I'm the best sister ever.) Anyway so they did their number and then we did the girl cousins number of All the Single Ladies and afterwards Cousin Ammon who was MCing the whole event goes, "Do you hear that, Jordan? You better put a ring on it!" And I like, dieddd laughing. I thought it was the best joke of the night. I'm not sure Jordan felt the same way though....oh well!

11. Seeing Christine and Winnie! On Sunday we went to church (Kelly and I sat next to a UofU basketball player in Sunday School =D) and then it was straight to the pool. The weather was perfect for tanning but apparently my skin missed the memo and sadly I am just as white as ever. Christine and Winnie came up to visit and it was great to see them. We talked and tanned and then had dinner with the rest of the family.

12. Movie night! Kari and Haleigh came over for a girl's night movie night complete with bing cherries, triscuit crackers, flip sides, and strawberries. We pushed the beds in the girls room together and all piled on to watch The Dark Knight.

13. The crater. At the Homestead Resort there's this crater that is some sort of natural hot spring. You take this little tiny trail and you end up in this kind of underground pool. They just put in a walkway and a ladder into the water and people can go swimming there. Apparently there are only 2 of these in the world and only one of them in the US. We didn't get to go swimming there, we just went in and saw it for like a second, took a few pictures, and then we had to leave. My favorite part of this was actually when we were walking up to the crater after checking out of the resort. My dad was walking ahead of Kelly, Julie, Sarah and I and was crackingg uppp. He would say a few words, then crack up laughing again. No one could hear what he was saying but just watching him laugh at his own joke so hard made all of us laugh, too. (About an hour later, when we asked about it, we learned that he was laughing because he kept thinking about Joseph's shoes. Earlier this morning, Joseph had lost his shoes and he was now sporting his black Sunday shoes with his shorts and t-shirt. While we were walking to the crater my dad couldn't stop laughing as he thought about what a dork Joseph was going to look like when we went through security at the airport, etc.

14. Cookie-ice-cream exchange. When we checked out of the resort, they gave us enough cookies for all the kids to have one. Nicole, Joseph, Jacob, and my mom were still back at the resort so Kelly, Julie, Sarah and I were holding onto the cookies for the others and we kept wanting to eat their cookie. If we ate both cookies, they would never know we had had cookies in the first place. Then we thought about maybe being nice and giving them each a half of a cookie and saying they had only given us enough for ourselves and then we'd look all benevolent and generous when we gave them their half of the cookie. But dad was all, that wouldn't be right, etc., so he took the cookies so we couldn't eat them. When we were driving back towards the airport, following my mom's car, they suddenly pulled over, Joseph got out out, and came running back to our car with ice cream for all of us. Then we felt really glad that we had cookies to give to them!

15. Seeing Jamie, Aaron, and baby. On the way to the airport we stopped by Orem to see Jamie and Aaron and baby James. We only got to stay for about 20 minutes before we had to get to the airport but it was really nice to see them again. They are doing well and their baby is beauuutiful, he's so cute and sweet.

16. The actual flight home. I don't really know if anyone else in the family would consider this a highlight, but it was one of the most pleasant flights I have ever been on, personally. As a general rule, I hate flying. Every time I've flown I have felt like my head is about to explode. When my ears pop it hurts so bad that the flight is a totally miserable experience, even though I'm sure the flight attendants are funny and sweet and the snacks are yummy and the turbulence is minimal. But I've really gotten better at flying recently--it doesn't hurt so badly anymore and I actually quite enjoy looking out the window as we fly now--so I think it must be because I just wasn't used to it. I took my first flight in February 07 but until I went to college last fall I hadn't flown again since that time. Every time I fly it gets a little bit better. I guess my ears are just getting used to the pressure or something? Whatever the reason, this flight was lovely for me and kind of disastrous for the rest of the family. Kelly left her backpack with her laptop and cell phone charger at the resort. Julie threw away her boarding pass right before we were supposed to board (luckily my dad had printed out two for each of us in a stroke of genius foresight) so that particular disaster was averted. We had to switch planes in St. Louis and on the flight to St. Louis, Sarah managed to spill her burning-hot hot chocolate all over herself, Nicole spilled her water all over Julie, Julie broke her flipflop, and the brothers misplaced the dvd player, all the dvds, and both gameboys. Whereas Nicole's spill on Julie resulted only in mild discomfort, Sarah's spill resulted in a ruined pair of pants, burned legs, and a scream that the people we were flying above probably heard. I'm sure the flight attendants lovvved us on this flight. When we got off the plane, Sarah was wearing a stained shirt and a hoodie zipped up around her legs and tied in front and Julie was stumbling around with no shoes on. Of course, the souvenir stores in the airport had nothing by way of clothing either of them, so we cheerfully boarded the plane back to MD. This was a shorter flight, and less eventful, but when we got out at the airport, we discovered that the boys and sarah each had a bag missing. All in all, it wasn't exactly ideal, but it seems that everything went smoothly for me. Maybe ironically?

In conclusion. I had a really wonderful time on this vacation! I love meeting up with people I haven't seen in a while and I love my family. They are so cute and dear and even with all their silly little quirks that I'm sometimes shocked by, at the end of the day, I am absolutelyy one of them, and I couldn't be happier if I was anyone else.

Hummmumumumumm, Utah, here I come!

I am really really ridiculous excited to be going to Utah in a few days. We're having a family reunion with my mom's side and I just cannot wait. Of course I am excited for all the normal things associated with any family reunion....seeing the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, taking family pictures, etc. But here is a short list of other things I am excited for:

1. The Oaker temple openhouse. I am pretty sure I left my recommend in Utah with all the rest of my stuff, so I haven't been in so long. I used to go every Wednesday with Jake for about a month and a half, and I loved it. And I realize that going through an openhouse is totally different from actually going through and doing baptisms or whatever, but I'm still just so excited to see the temple and be inside one. This is pretty much the first thing we are doing when we land in UT on Thursday.

2. Horse-back riding? This may or may not happen, it just depends. If we do end up doing it, it will happen on Thursday after the temple openhouse. While we were discussing the logistics and where and when tonight at Family Night (which was another circus, in case anyone was wondering), Kelly said she would be fine with going and remarked that she was excited for the pictures. She then went on to say that every time an activity comes up, she bases how much she wants to do it on the number and quality of photo ops associated with said activity. This is pretty much how I am, too. We seriously love taking pictures, as you can probably tell from my facebook, on which I have like 1700 pictures of myself.

3. BYU tour. We are hoping to do this either after the temple or the horses. I lovvve BYU and I am so excited to be going back. And of course, I think it will be so fun to show all my brothers and sisters where I take classes and eat lunch with Kelly, etc.

4. Shoots. After the BYU tour, we will go to Winnie's restaurant, Shoots, for dinner. Hopefully. Timing may be an issue but I hope we can go!

5. Seeing Jake's family! Apparently the only time we will be able to see them is Thursday night after all the stuff I just listed. But I want to see them so bad. I like, lOVe this family. I keep thinking about how much fun I had when I visited them and everyone played cards or ate or whatever. I guess I just love the sociality that exists in their home if that makes sense. Plus I think it's cool how perfectly our families match up. Jake is my age, Mekell is Nicole's age, Cole is Joseph's age, Cade is Jacob's age, and Lilly is Sarah's age. So Kelly and Julie are the only people who don't match up with someone exactly but whatever that is still so cool!

6. The talent show. After many many many years of failed efforts to persuade him, Joseph has consented to lip-synch the song "I wanna talk about me" while the sisters all dance around behind him. How funny is that going to be. Seriously! He is the first boy after 4 girls, all of whom love to talk, so his whole life pretty much has consisted of a lot of listening to girl talk. All the girls, at least, are pretty pumped about this performance.

7. The pool. There is a pool and a hot tub where we are staying and i HAVE to get a tan during this vacation. I can't tan any other time because when I'm nannying, I'm usually inside, and when I'm outside, I have to stay in the shade because Owen has super-sensitive skin and he gets sunburned really easily. I guess I couldd tan on Saturdays but I typically just sleep in instead. So I have to go swimming and get a tan here.

8. Glow dance party!!!! Studio 600 heard we were coming and they got so excited they planned a party just for US. I haven't gone dancing since, like, December. I mean I kind of went in January to the White-out, but I didn't even get in. And when I went to the Traffic light dance on Center St. in February, I don't want to count that either because I was in a terrible mood and yes. So I'm pretty thrilled about this. I'm going with Winnie and Kelly and I guess whoever else and we are going to have an amaaaazing time. I'm seriously like about to pee my pants about this.

9. The tennis courts. I am not sure where they are, but my mom was saying they will be easily accessible to us. I am determined to learn how to play tennis because if I knew how to play I'm sure it would be so fun. I mean think about it. You just wear this cute little white skirt and a white polo and your tennis shoes and your ponytail and then you go play tennis! And you get a nice tan and they have suchh cute tennis rackets, with like pink handles and all, and I think that would be so fun. Plus it's good exercise.

10. The playgrounds. When my mom read this one during family night, I am pretty sure all of the sisters were thinking the same exact thing.....photo shoot! It's gonna be great.

So all in all, I am very excited about this weekend. However, there is one thing I am a little bit sad about. Jake's p-day is Wednesday, and I get a letter every Friday, so this week, I will be gone when my letter comes. Which I think is a little bit sad. But other than that, I really can hardly wait!

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.

Booties and Dreams

Today I had nannying (like usual) and during naptime I had the funniesttt dream. In my dream, I was nannying for Malan and Owen, except I was in Jake's house. Either that or his whole family had moved into the house I was in. It was so stressful because I wasn't allowed to have naptime anymore and then Lilly (Jake's 7-yr-old sister) peed her pants (she is actually way too sophisticated to do that) and I wasn't sure if I was expected to do anything about it, especially because her mom was right there and she just wasn't doing anything about it. Then Malan peed her pants too, and she just kept peeing and peeing everywhere, on everything. And in my dream there was a pool in the kitchen, and I ended up sitting with my feet in the pool discussing with Jake's dad the pros and cons of us drowning ourselves in it. He was all depressed because Jake is on his mission now and I just didn't want to deal with the peeing anymore. Before we could decide if we should drown ourselves, there were two huge car accidents outside the house. They weren't related but they happened one right after the other. So I went to look at them and the General Manager for the DC Metro System was there, only in my dream, that was Brother McGhie. He saw Jake's dad and I coming outside and he told us that if we did drown ourselves, then he would marry Jake's mom. I guess Jake's dad still wasn't sure if he should go ahead and drown himself or not, because he started telling Brother McGhie all about Halli's favorite Henna tatoo that she ever got, and her favorite gas station, and stuff like that. As they were talking, I started crying because I couldn't bear the idea that Brother McGhie might be my father-in-law. Anyway, then I woke up. I thought it was a pretty hilarious dream, even though it ended with me in tears and Jake's dad contemplating suicide.

Also, today, I brought Bikini Body, my favorite workout video, and Malan and I worked out together. She started coming up with her own exercises towards the end but she did a pretty good job working on her belly and booty. Speaking of Malan's booty, the other day, I was sitting across from her at the table and we were coloring, just like normal, when she stood up, turned around, grabbed the back of her chair, and starting shaking her butt at me. I said, "Malan, whattt are you doingg?" She started giggling and just kept shaking her butt at me. I said, "Malan, why are you doing that?" She said, "Because I like you! That's what you do when you like people!" I hope she changes her mind when she gets older. Otherwise she will have some problems. Not problems with getting people to like her, necessarily, just the right people.

Anyway this week Patty (Malan and Owen's mom) is at Girl's Camp, so I have really weird times for nannying, which means I have more time to work at my telemarketing job. I have to go in tomorrow at 9. I didn't work at allllll last week because Winnie and Helen were in town, and I guess I really should actually go once in a while. I will probably have to blog about telemarketing because it is kinddd of like The Office on NBC, just on a smaller scale. There aren't as many employees. But seriously. Sometimes it is just so surreal working there.

Comfort Zones

Tonight, I went ice-skating with my sisters Kelly and Sarah. Sarah is 7, and it was an institute activity, but we brought her along anyway. As I was skating around, I thought a lot about the ice-skating class I took at school last semester. It was one of my favorite classes of the semester and I think that one of the reasons I liked it so much was because it was kind of out of my normal comfort zone. Usually for electives I take a dance class with Kelly. Which, we still did last semester, but anyway. I think loved that class because I learned something new when I was there. I totally saw improvement in myself from the beginning of the class to the end. I used to go ice-skating almost every year on New Years Day when they have like 2 or 3 hrs of free skating time in the morning, and every year I just clung to the wall or someone's arm and didn't really do anything. I was clearly inept at skating. But by the end of the class, I could go forward without holding onto anyone! I could go backwards! I could spin....kind of.....a little bit. I could do swizzles! I could evennn pick my foot up and glide a little ways. I liked that class because I saw marked improvement and that was nice to be able to quantify it.

Also. Speaking of comfort zones. I think everyone has two comfort zones, and one of them is what you are comfortable doing like all the time, no problem. It's what you do in a normal day. Or what you would be willing to do in a normal day. Then there's another comfort zone that is what you would feel comfortable trying, even though you kind of feel uncomfortable about it. And then past that, there's all the stuff you would never ever try because it is just so far removed from your comfort zone. And I think that some people have a huge outer level of their comfort zone. They are willing to try pretty much anything that they don't feel comfortable with. And other people are willing to try like nothinggg out of their comfort zone. I think that I am kind of in the middle. I am willing to try new things if I can see the benefit that it has for me and I am willing to try new things that won't really benefit me but can't hurt if someone I like wants to do them with me. For instance, skydiving. I have never had any interest in skydiving. Whatsoever. I think it sounds scary and totally unpleasant and kind of dumb and overrated. But if my boyfriend really liked skydiving and he wanted to take me, I guess I'd go with him. But I'm pretty sure if this scenario never happens, I will not be going skydiving um ever. That's all for today :)

NYC, DC, and Baltimore

So I guess the starting / keeping of this blog was inspired largely by my sister, Kelly, who got a blog like in February, and also by Jake leaving on his mission, because now I'm writing letters and I am seeing all these things that I should probbbably be writing about....so here I am.

I'll just start out by talking about this past week. Winnie and her sister Helen came out from Utah to visit for a week and it was sO fun. They flew in on Friday and we drove up to New York, where we stayed until Sunday afternoon. We stayed in New Rochelle with Laurel Lan and her family....she used to be in the YW presidency with my mom about 2 years ago. They were so sweet and hospitable the whole time and it was really nice of them to let us stay with them because they are about to move in like 2 weeks and things must be so crazy for them. We took the train in to NYC and saw the Statue of Liberty, walked on Broadway, took the ferry to Staten Island and back, ate some New York pizza, shopped in Chinatown, and went to the giant Toys 'R' Us in Times Square. We had so much fun taking pictures and all, even when it started raining as we walked from the World Trade Center memorial to Little Italy for dinner. The whole thing was really fun for me because even though I live like 4 hrs away from NYC, I've only been a few times in my life and the only reason I went was because of Winnie and Helen. I guess it's true that you never really appreciate what you have!

When it was time to go home, the lady at Grand Central Station told us the wrong train to get on and after waiting an hour to board the wrong train, we were dropped off at a train station in Connecticut and given tickets to get back to New Rochelle. We then proceeded to miss our stop and ended up stranded at the train station in Pellham, New York, watching the last train for the night leave the station. Thankfully Laurel was able to come get us and it wasn't too far!

And of course, no road trip involving Connor girls would be complete without us getting lost. Which we did on the way home the next day. We missed one exit and when we tried to backtrack, we found ourselves driving around some town in New York full of one-way streets, missing street signs, and unhappy-looking townspeople. This time, Brother Blasko came to our rescue. He stayed on the phone with us until we were back on the main highway and I really don't know whattt we would have done without him!

On Monday, I had nannying from 8-5. I started nannying 2 weeks ago for this family who lives about 5 minutes away. There is a little girl named Malan (May-lynn) who is 3 (but when I asked her, she said she was 14) and a little boy named Owen who is 9 months. They are suchhh sweet kids. Malan is probably one of the girliest girls I have ever met. She loves makeup and nail polish and dresses and fancy shoes and purses and dancing and singing. She also really likes talking. She is so chatty and she says the funniest things. On my third or fourth day nannying, she said: "I love you all my heart" to me. It was so cute!

Owen has a birthmark on half of his face and his skin is super-sensitive to sun and stuff, so whenever we go outside I have to put lots of sunscreen on him. At first I noticed it a lot but now I hardly even notice that it is there. One day I took Owen and Malan on a walk and when we were waiting on a street corner to cross the street, this guy who was probably about 20 or so was walking by. He stopped and looked at Owen and said, "What happened to that baby's face?" all stupidly. And at first I was alarmed, because I didn't realize he was talking about his birthmark and I thought something had happened to Owen's face while we were on the walk. Then I realized what he was talking about and I said, "Oh! It's just a birthmark." But the whole exchange actually really annoyed me. You know how some people just exude stupidity? This guy would definitely fit in that category. If I were to totallyyy judge him, I would say he had no job and no gumption whatsoever. He was overweight and smoking a cigarette (which, I don't understand in the first place, why would anyone smoke in this day and age when we know so much about smoking and there is pretty much a direct correlation between smoking and everything unpleasant that could happen to your body) and I really wanted to say something snotty to him. I wanted to say, "Oh, his parents were smoking when he was born" but I didn't because, even though Owen isn't going to pick up on it, Malan probably would, and people are going to ask questions about Owen's birthmark. It's just something that people aren't always aware of. And if I could respond like it was a natural question with a natural answer, then it wouldn't seem so much like something to be embarrassed of.

Anyway, Owen is a really sweet baby most of the time and taking care of him is fairly straightforward. Malan, on the other hand, needs something different every day. Most of the time she will be happy just coloring, but 8-5 is a long time and she needs a big variety of activities. So sometimes we will go on a walk, or play with sidewalk chalk, or make something to eat, or have a dance party. One day she had so much energy and Owen was being really fussy so I just gave him a bottle and put him down for a nap and then I timed Malan running from one side of the living room to the other with the stopwatch on my phone. She did that for like a half hr and then she was ready to just sit and color.

So on Monday, Winnie and Helen slept in and then at about noon they came over and played with Malan and Owen and me. After that we went to the temple with my family and took some pictures there. I love living close to a temple, and I think the DC temple is so beautiful, so that was fun.

On Tuesday, I had the day off from nannying, so Winnie, Helen and I just hung out the whole day. We went to the Columbia mall and did a little shopping. It was probably the most successful shopping trip of my whole life! I got a pink dress with sleeves, a headband with a bow, some sunglasses, and some Chick-Fil-A fries for $10. I KNOW. It was pretty sweet.

Then we took the metro up to Woodley and spent a few hrs in the National Zoo. It was a perfect day and we got some cute pictures. By the way, I love elephants. A lot. They smell like terrible but their mannerisms are so cute to me.

On Wednesday I was nannying again. Jake went into the MTC so I talked to him for the last time on the phone for about a half hr before he had to go. Then I just sat in Malan's room for about 2 hrs while she handed me tissues and asked me why my heart was breaking. She was being so sweet! At one point she started making faces at me to get me to smile and I had to laugh at that.

Thursday was the girl's last day in Maryland :( and I was nannying again. My Aunt Carol and Uncle Brett and Grandma Hammer came for dinner and after that Kelly, Winnie, Helen and I went up to Little Italy in Baltimore for some frozen yogurt and just to see the Inner Harbor. We went to this place called Mr. Yogato's that we discovered on Kelly's birthday celebration this year and it is like, my favorite place. It is so good and pretty cheap and there's a room in the back where you can decorate a spoon version of yourself, just stuff like that. And the walls are bright yellow and hot pink and I love it.

Today, we dropped them off at the airport. The last time Winnie and I said goodbye when I was leaving UT to come back to MD for the summer was miserable and we were both such a mess. This time there were no tears because I will be seeing her again in July when my mom's side of the family is having a family reunion. I'm prettttyy excited. I miss Utah! Then I went nannying and now I am babysitting for the Walburgers. I seriously think that babies and little kids are like, therapeutic. I love themm. I guess it's a good thing I am going to be a teacher!

Anyway, I think that this is like the world's longest blog entry so I'm gonna close now. Good night!