The Beanie Baby Cat Ladies

One of these days I'll end up as an old spinster with nobody to keep me company except my many cats. This sentiment has become a joke among some of my friends, namely Anna, Kaitlyn, Hannah and Kara. It started one time when Anna and I were with our grandparents for the weekend, fourth Sunday dinner. On Saturdays we're the only ones there but by Sunday evening the rest of our family arrives and all the excitement begins. We have to fend for ourselves for entertainment before anyone arrives, luckily we're good at that.

On this specific day, I stole Anna's phone (with her knowledge) and was texting Kaitlyn really ridiculous things which were definitely out of character for Anna. For some reason, Kaitlyn had no idea. I told Kaitlyn how Anna was going to live alone forever as a cat lady. Anna added to the conversation when she said, "I'm going to buy cat beanie babies because I'm allergic." We were already lying down on the floor (granted, when I lie on the floor, I tend to go crazy so it all added to the excitement) so that easily enabled me to roll on the floor and laugh until I cried (not unusual for me). Now it's pretty much an exclusive group, the Beanie Baby cat ladies.

About a month before last semester ended I had a strange dream. I came home and my friend Hannah hid two kittens in my apartment. I found them and was really surprised that my friend would give me kittens. The next morning I told Hannah about my funny dream. To me the dream meant something along the lines of, my friend randomly gave me a kitten which is awesome and cute. Hannah's immediate response was something different. She interpreted it as her enabling me to become an old cat lady, which she said she did not want for me. I guess even my subconscious is telling me I'll be a spinster cat lady one day.

I hope that all these funny pictures make all who read this laugh. Otherwise I don't think we can be friends.

Summer Quotes

Random texts I got from a girl I don't know.

Congratulationsssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!
Way to go! You're awesome :)

The girl somehow responded to everyone who received a mass text from a different friend. It wasn't clear that was how she got my number until I asked after the second one. It was awesome getting those random texts though, it made my day.

"There are no special effects, except the toilet flushing." -Beth
"Right or left?" -Beverly
"Doesn't matter." -Ronnie
Beverly goes left.
"I would have gone the other way." -Ronnie
"You were directing us!!!" -Laura

"That giant bird just cut in front of us!" -Beth

"Those are the buffest twelve year olds I've seen in my life." -Beth

"I love a good beard." -Beth

At work: "Yes we had a conference call about your inability to participate in contests." -Andy (my coworker is still technically from a temp company)

"Sorry my knees are really long." -Beth
"Your knees or your legs?" -Laura

"He didn't mind growing up to look like Santa Claus." -Beverly

All of the things from Gettysburg:

The names Ethan was called by various people: Larry, Ian, Theenuh

"Take a gander..." -Ethan

"Gander? hahahah" -Me

"I'm sorry that not everyone uses the word gander in the vernacular." -Ethan

"Vernacular? hahahah" -Me

"I give up!" -Ethan

"I reckon..." -Ethan
"Reckon? hahaha" -Laura

"Hot dang!" -Ethan

"There's something in that tree." -Laura

"It could be a kite or a beach ball... or a small child." -Ethan

"A beach ball? Who brings a beach ball to Gettysburg and gets it stuck in a tree?" -Laura

"Are you a jumping bean?" -Laura

"If I were to be a legume..." -Ethan

"You do not have talons!" -Matt to Ronnie

"You can touch her!" -Laura to Spencer

"Somebody stole my unicycle in Hawaii!" -Ethan

"Hey Luke... uh I mean Matt..." -Laura
"And how do you know my brother?"

Apparently I reference a lot of unexpected things, or say things my friends wouldn't have expected me to say...
"Blithering Idiot!"
"Brother from another mother!"
"I will cut you!"
"Nope... Chuck Testa!"

Post Gettysburg:

Creepily: "I've never been down that hallway before..." -Laura

"I called in sick at work. I've got a fever... dance fever!" -Matt

How Long Has That Food Been In Your Purse?

"Is that a stromboli in your purse?" -Andy my coworker

Yes, yes it is. On the third Wednesday of the month all of my work gets lunch from somewhere around the area. In June, I got a stromboli and stuck it in my purse when I was about to leave. It was kind of funny because he thought I just left it in there the whole day.

This reminded me of a similar incident. The same day a bunch of friends and I went to Macey's to get King Kong Kones I decided to grab cream cheese for something I planned on making. Then we all tried to do the moonwalk around Macey's. We then went to Kaitlyn and Hannah's to watch the Mormon Pride and Prejudice. I think we even fell asleep on their floor for a couple hours.

The next day Kara and I were hanging out. We got kind of bored. When Anna came home from work we decided to get haircuts because that was something exciting. Kara just watched. When I went to pay I pulled out my wallet and noticed the cream cheese boxes in there. I looked at Kara, laughing, and I asked her if she wanted to hear a funny story. Because Kara is a cheater, she looked in my purse while I got my hair cut and had already discovered it. It made me laugh so hard. Then later we used it for a frosting a cake. I mean it was already softened...?

Pennsylvania at a Glance

This is just a list of everything I've done, just for my own sake.

• Week One- An introduction to the area, and I went to the ghetto mall by my hotel.
• Week Two- The vice-president of my company came, and West Virginia trip.
• Week Three- My mission call! Memorial Day barbecue, and cleaning the girl scout camp.
• Week Four- Break the fast at the New Oxford building, then my New York trip!
• Week Five- Party with Hershey ward ladies, start of my acid degree value testing, Romeo and Juliet in the park, and the Walk for Autism.
• Week Six- Hershey museum, YSA barbecue in the park, and the DC temple.
• Week Seven- The infamous rolls incident at Texas Roadhouse, City Island with Ivan, Drive in movie and the beach.
• Week Eight- Trip to Lancaster County, and Ronnie's house for a pool party.
• Week Nine- John Bankert's birthday party at Ronnie's, RS swim dessert party, and our overnight Palmyra trip.
• Week Ten- Making cookie dough brownies with Beth, I gave away a Book of Mormon, and the Philadelphia trip.
• Week Eleven- Murder in the dark with our super late night, cupcakes with Ethan, and the Gettysburg conference.
• Week Twelve- Frisbee golf, watching the Olympics, book club pool party, pizza with Beth, and more Olympics.
• Week Thirteen- Swimming, my family came to visit me, Hershey Park, skydiving, and the Sister Surprise.
• Week Fourteen- Dinner at Beth's with Ethan, Matt, and Emma, dinner at Ethan's house, my going away swim party, and my flight home!

So this list is kind of crazy. I did a lot of things... A lot. I look back on it and think that it is amazing I fit all of this in. But then, there were some times I was bored and thought about the time I still had left.

All I can say now is that I am so glad for this summer. It was probably the best summer I've ever had. It was so much fun, and I did a lot of things I have wanted to do for awhile. Living in PA has allowed me to do a lot of traveling which is one thing I don't do enough of. It will be interesting at home for the next six weeks without the amount of activities, I will surely get bored. Anyway, that's it!

Week Fourteen

L-R Ethan, Emma, Matt

On Sunday, I gave the Relief Society lesson for my last week. They are just so nice assigning it as my going away present! After a nap, I went to Beth's to make dinner. We were both talking to various friends and decided to invite them over. Ethan, Matt and Emma came over and we had spaghetti. We played Phase 10 and chatted for awhile. Towards the end of the game we were less enthusiastic, nobody knew whose turn it was, and a couple people forgot which phase they were on. The best was when Matt rolled on the ground and said that he forfeited. Luckily we only had one round left and Emma won. We decided that we would hang out until midnight and then make a frosty run. While we waited, we watched youtube videos, especially a lot of Divine Comedy ones. At Wendy’s, we were very disappointed because they ran out of chocolate! How on earth does that happen?

Monday I hung out with Beth. She was sad because she didn’t come the night before for frostys, since it was so late, so I went and got one with her. At least they had chocolate.

On Tuesday, it was my last Institute. It was actually pretty sad because it was also Ivan’s last one as well. He is such a big part of the activities here, it will be quite different without him. There was a group that went to Outback after as a last hurrah. I came a little bit late, and that meant that I got to sit on the outsider table. But it was alright because we had a couple people order their fries which come covered in cheese and bacon, and they were nice enough to share.

Wednesday I went to Ethan’s house and we made dinner—enchiladas and Spanish rice in very huge quantities for his whole family. Then we walked around to work off some of our massive dinner. We made brownies and watched the movie Encino Man.

Thursday was my last day at work. They brought doughnuts in celebration and I got to say goodbye to everyone. After work, I went to Beth’s apartment and we talked for awhile. Then Ethan came, and the three of us headed out to the store to buy food for my going away swim party.  We bought lots of chips, sodas and cookies. We went swimming for a couple hours and generally had a good time. Eventually we got out and talked around the fire pit. There were some funny stories , and we were all laughing. All in all, it was one good last night in Pennsylvania.

On Friday I went to Beth’s house very early in the morning to give back some of her stuff. Then I sat in the airport for a very long time, both before my flight and during my layover. It took longer to fly than it does to drive so that was ridiculous.

IT'S OVER!

Now what? I’m getting ready for my mission, and a couple friends will come see me one weekend! Other than that I don’t have anything else until I go. And this blog will be less exciting for awhile. I may even make a different one for my mission, I'll keep everyone posted if/when that happens.

Week Thirteen

Monday I went swimming with Ethan. Then we went to the park. It was one of those awesome old wooden playgrounds that is awesome to climb on (which I did not do). I also got bitten by approximately a million mosquitoes.

Tuesday we went to Texas Roadhouse once again. I sat with Matt, Spencer Giles, and Cassandra. It was very funny because Spencer and Cassandra are really good friends and they told stories from when they were 12 up until now.

On Wednesday, my family came! My family has not taken pictures together in about four years so we were up for a new one. We will only be in Virginia for one day all together so we got some here. As we were leaving, my dad dropped his phone and it broke. Interestingly enough, the nearest AT&T store was two doors over. So we went to look there for a new one. The one he picked was actually out of stock though so they came back another day. We ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. I had some delicious blueberry pancakes with the cutest bottle with my syrup with actual blueberries in it. At my hotel, we went and got in the hot tub, then watched the Olympics.

On Thursday we went to Hershey Park. We went on a few rides, a roller coaster and log flume and ate lunch. After lunch we went to the water park. They have long lines for the lazy river so we waited a bit for that and went around a few times. Then we went on a water slide and into the wave pool. The wave pool was fun, the waves were coming from all directions so it was a pretty good imitation of the beach. At some point there were some threatening clouds in the distance. We waited it out in the pool until it really looked like they might hit. When the thunder and lightning officially hit we had already gotten out and we beat the rush. We wandered around and found one of those shooting games. My car was pretty awful, I got half our score--mine was 72,000, and we lost to the other team. The storm passed and we went back to the water area (nobody else had changed). I went on a wooden roller coaster. We went on the monorail around the park and the town of Hershey. Then we decided to leave. It was also good timing as another storm came rolling in with no plans on stopping. We went to Wendy's for a late dinner then went home and watched the olympics again.

On Friday I went to work while my family went to Lancaster (Amish) County. We had a nice dinner of chicken alfredo, salad with my dressing, vegetables and one of my cheesecakes.

On Saturday my family headed home. After they left I went tandem skydiving!! We had to wait around for awhile though. We had a short lesson and filled out paperwork then up we went to 10,000 feet. Ethan and his instructor, and me and my instructor were crammed into a tiny plane with our pilot and I got to go first! I kind of forgot what they told me to do with all the adrenaline. When I did jump, we flipped head first a couple of times. Then we went into formation with our legs up and arms out as we free fell. It felt so weird, and it was really overwhelming. After a little bit, we let up our smaller parachute to slow us down a little bit. Then our main parachute went up and we were upright. Then we spun around a few times as we came down. I mainly looked out on the area, it was just amazing. When we landed it was like we were sliding into third base. Or well it was supposed to, according to Beth I landed on my knees and was all bunched up. Overall, skydiving was such a strange sensation, my ears hurt like crazy, and my stomach was doing flips, but it was nothing like I had ever felt before and I'm not sure there's anything else like it. The sad thing was how short it was, only a few minutes with just a fraction of that as free falling.

After skydiving we went to a YSA activity, the Sister Surprise. When we got there, all the girls had to wait to be escorted in. Ethan escorted me in, and we sat with some random people. The entire time, we hardly sat down, we were talking with friends at other tables. After dinner, the dance started. The dance was pretty fun, it started with a lady teaching us some salsa, and a couple of other dances. Then we got frostys at Wendy's. This was my last major activity!! This summer is almost over which is both saddening and very exciting!

Week Twelve

Monday I went to the park with Ethan. We played frisbee golf which was fun. There was a random man with a metal detector there, not sure what was up with that. A few holes in, I almost hit a dog with my frisbee, then I cleanly broke off a tree limb and the frisbee kept going which was entertaining. Later, Ethan lost his frisbee in the woods, meaning that I won by default (my favorite way to win). Then we went to the store and got ice cream and different candy and chocolate things to put on top. Mmm.

Wednesday Ethan and I watched the Olympics. I really wanted to watch the women's team gymnastics final so we watched it on DVR from the night before. It was amazing to watch the women's team take gold! We also had watched some synchronized diving and some swimming. In the diving, the Mexicans and Canadians (?) won silver and bronze. They were visibly excited and were hugging and smiling. The Chinese won gold and it was kind of hilarious because the commentator said, "For the Chinese it is business as usual." They were unsmiling and it looked like they just wanted to leave and go home. Seriously? You just won in your event at the Olympics, show some sort of emotion!

Thursday I went to a pool party with Beth. Not many people were there (five total), so that just meant more fabulous dessert for me. Afterwards, I watched more Olympics, specifically the women's individual all around gymnastics final. Gabby Douglas won gold which was really exciting!

Friday I went to Beth's and we made pizza. It was delicious, with pepperoni, spinach, olives and mushrooms. Then we watched Pride and Prejudice, (the Kiera Knightly version) and went to Wendy's for frostys.

Saturday I went shopping for more mission clothes. Then I watched the Olympics for a few hours. After I couldn't take my hotel room for any longer, I went to Ethan's house. We watched the Olympics, (women's trampoline) and played Stratego. Since he had not had nutella in years and wasn't sure if he liked it, I forced him to try some on peanut butter cookies we made. He is now a fan!!

Two month mark for my mission! And two weeks here in PA. So that means you won't get these obnoxiously long posts anymore, not true actually, wait two months!