"He gave me my eyes that I may see the color of butterfly wings..."

8.21.11

Oh I know those words well... one of my favorite primary songs, "My Heavenly Father Loves Me," wrapped up my summer in Lund. Lucky me, I got to sing it as a solo in church on my last day at home. I was so nervous. But that day was great--everything about it. The smiling faces at church, that amazing lesson on sacrifice, the wispy clouds in the bright blue sky, that giant field of sun flowers, and yes, the color of butterfly wings.

I was sad to leave. Like really sad. Nychea made me cry at the door dang it. And I drove that six hours by myself back to Reno. I left behind the wide open spaces, the amazing Sunday dinners, my mom being at an arms length away, a job I really loved, and that security you always feel when you're at home.


I'm going to miss my family a lot. I used to want to be so far away, but now all I want is to be closer. I am so grateful, though, that I got to be home this summer. I needed that so much. I loved every minute of it--even chasing the piglets when they got out. Those little oinkers.


Some positives about a six hour drive alone:

-you can stop and take pictures and no one complains.

-you get to play your music as loud as you want and sing as loud as you want, too.

-you notice how beautiful--oh I don't know--EVERYTHING, is.

-you can think a lot.

-yeah, I'm fresh out of positives at this point.

So I'm back! 

when you steal, you lose.

8.19.11

was the day that nychea wished she had never eaten my peach o's.

because i colored all over her face with a hi-liter.


and maybe it didn't come off that easy.


but maybe she shouldn't have eaten them. because i reallllly really wanted them. i was saving them. they were basically like buried treasure. minus the fact that they weren't exactly buried. and also that, well there was no map. she didn't even need a map though! she just scoped those things out and ate them all. that's right. she didn't even leave me one. 


but i win. because i graffitied her face AND got pictures. ha!

In between my Utah trips I was home for a couple days and had some serious family time. Some memories from those two days:

Listening to Nychea's stories from Youth Conference.

Painting my grandma's toe nails.

Every minute with Odessa.

And the night before I left, my adventure with Nychea and her friends.

Basically my boring Wednesday (July 13th) of cleaning, packing, and playing catch up on here turned into a really fun night! Nychea's friends Hannah and Autumn came down from Ely and brought James with them from Lund. Nychea had made us all hobo dinners earlier and so we headed to the 4-H camp pond to swim and have a fire.  When we got there, the gate was not open as we were told, so we ended up having to throw everything over the fence and then hop over it ourselves.  Well, it was more like climb over it; it was a really tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top (so serious). We all made it over with out any injury and quickly made our way to the water.

Swimming turned into a n a s t y moss fight, and I don't think I have laughed that hard in quite awhile. I felt a little silly hanging out with a bunch of 16 year olds, but hey, I'll take what I can get out here. ;) 

We started a fire and threw on our dinners then continued to swim while they cooked. The moon was sooo bright, casting the prettiest light on us as we all sat around the fire eating our hobo dinners...with NO forks. Haha. We truly were hobos. So sloppy.

After making some delicious s'mores we packed everything up, put the fire out, and had to climb over the fence again. This time, I came out with a small wound. Those barbs can be kinda tricky sometimes... When we were all back in the truck we headed back to Lund to drop off James and then came back to the ranch for a little scary movie. I thought, "I am pretty much over scary movies, this won't even be fun." Wrong. I ended up in the same recliner as Nychea, holding on to her for dear life. At one point we both jumped and screamed at the same time and definitely banged heads. I guess I underestimated this one, but never again. I freaking HATE scary movies. Yuck!

Favorite quotes from the night, "You can't touch my chastity boob-basket!" "'Sup wit it!?" "Ew." "He's 14!?" "ohh, you mutha uh uhh." and on and on...oh I miss being 16!