TeddyPuppy at work and California pictures

Finally, the moment my mother has been waiting for: a picture post!

TeddyPuppy Goes to Work
For several days in my last week at the Deseret News, I brought a friend to fill the empty chair my friend and fellow intern Michelle left behind (she left a week before I did). I made him a tie out of newspaper so he could be properly dressed for the work:

On the day I took this picture, the lady sitting next to me on the bus spied him in my backpack and commented on how cute he was. She asked if she could take a picture of him to send to her kids, who are all grown and apparently still own stuffed animals too, and then proceeded to tell me all about her three pet dogs at length. It was a fun conversation.

The few California pictures I took...

TeddyPuppy shows off the new glasses Jennifer made for him in California, posing next to one of my journalism textbooks.

Jennifer, me, Jen's Auntie Alice and Nana (who is Alice's sister) at Alice's house in California

Lucille's: Jennifer's favorite barbeque place. It was a little pricy because it was nice, but it was good.

Me, Jennifer and Jen's friend Sara H., who came with us to Lucille's

I toted TeddyPuppy around with me like a baby when Jen and I toured the Jelly Belly Factory. I'm sure there were some people who thought that was odd, but I did it anyway.

Basically, Jen and I's week in Cali was GREAT! Her parents were really generous in letting me stay with them and including me in the yummy, yummy, delicious food they cooked. :) Mmm.

A weekend in Cali

This is it: the moment Jen and I have been waiting for since the beginning of the summer, when we planned a week-long vacation at her home in California.

We got here on Saturday about 2. (Jennifer woke me and Nana, her grandma, up at 4 so we could get an early start. I would have complained more about the hour except I was too excited- and Jen was taking the first driving shift, she being used to getting up at unearthly hours for her job.) In our first few days I met her three brothers Ryan, Brandon and Max, her parents, her cat Jasmine, Auntie Alice, Uncle Aaron, and several other people who were friends and/or related somehow. We went with her family to church.

On Monday, Jen drove me to the Drapers' house, where we were quickly introduced to the newest member of the family, a little white bunny with black around her eyes and spots. Marshmallow. Jennifer stayed with me with them for two days. We gave the family home evening lesson on Monday about things we'd learned going to college. The next days were full of piano playing, game playing, and just hanging out. I stayed until Wednesday. Highlights of that sadly undocumented trip (I forgot about my camera snug in my backpack): playing cards with Lindsay and Tyler, going to Target with Lindsay and Shannon, reading a bedtime story and playing Connect 4 and Battleship with Nathaniel, late-night conversation and cards with Lindsay, and having a "You're the fill-in-the-blank in the galaxy" fight with Matthew.

"You're the funniest in the entire galaxy!"

"You're the cutest in the entire galaxy!"

"No, you're the cutest in the entire galaxy!"

Sometimes Matthew included Jen in the fight too: "You're the most beautiful in the entire galaxy!"

At Target, while we were getting Lindsay school supplies, Shannon skipped down the aisles, we made fun of the overly enthusiastic lady with the high-pitched voice that announced at five-minute intervals that the store was closing. On the way to and from, we sang Taylor Swift and "Call Me Maybe" at the top of our lungs.

I love the Drapers.

Yesterday after meeting Jen and Nana in the parking lot of Tyler's and Nathaniel's piano lessons, Jen and I dropped Nana off at Auntie Alice's, who is her sister, stopped briefly at a taqueria (yummy) and managed to get on the last tour at the Jelly Belly Factory. After that, we went back and talked to Alice and Nana (I actually fell asleep for a few minutes there) and went back to Jen's house, where we all ate dinner before Jen and I went to Jen's friend's Sara's house to watch Hunger Games and talk.

It's been fun and I'll try to check in again before Jen, Nana and I leave to go back to Utah on Sunday. We'll see.

This summer reviewed

I'm at a lull at work right now. I turned in my third-to-last story 45ish minutes ago. There are 15 minutes more until it hits the time my editor suggested for my exit interview.

It's been a wonderful summer. I've been working full time at an internship with the Deseret News. It's funny; on a day like today, my last day of work, you'd think I'd feel a little more nostalgic. Maybe it won't really sink in until Monday morning, when I plan to sleep in, in sunny California.

Five minutes. I'm hoping my source for the last two articles on my story list will email me back before 5 p.m. today. We'll see what happens.

The work atmosphere here at Mormon Times & Features is superb. Everyone is super nice. They take their work seriously, but they find ways to have a lot of fun, too. They have answered all my questions over the summer. Aaron (my editor) and Bob (another editor) have even reviewed articles for me before I turned them in because I wanted extra feedback.

Time.

Delayed. I'll go back in 40 minutes. But for now, a continuation of that review I promised you.

From my list of things editors have corrected me about:

1. Remember to put in a dateline (SALT LAKE CITY)
2. Lowercase my headlines
3. Names of newspapers don't get italicized
4. When doing Odds and Ends, always put the publication (where the information is from)
5. When reading over a finished story, look for interesting details that could be pulled up/referenced sooner
6. Be consistent with tense
7. "LDS Church," capital C
8. According to AP style, ages above 10 are spelled out (eleven-year-old, twelve)
9. Capitalize W in "Web" (Web series)
10. "Over" refers to spatial things only; "more than" is numerical
11. According to AP style, use figures with million or billion in all except casual cases: "I'd like to make a million dollars." BUT: "The nation had 1 million people."
12. If you have to use a lot of ellipses in quotes, you need to cut parts of the quote, leaving only the exceptional
13. According to AP style, abbreviate months with days (Aug. 17)
14. According to AP style, numbers below 10 are spelled out. Use figures for 10 and above
15. When it comes to millions and billions, the word "dollars" isn't needed. Just write $3 billion

Exit interview down. Aaron and Christine (assistant editor) had some good things to say about me and what I can do better.

I just reviewed my last article to see what the editor changed. I think it's some of my best work and a good note to end on.

It's time to turn this computer back in and relinquish my bus pass and name badge. Thank you for a great summer, Deseret News!

In the world of Harry Potter

I had a crazy dream last night. It went like this: me, my friends Rachel and Rebecca B. from UCAS and my friend Rachel H. from my current ward, were all Hogwarts students. We were mischievous but really smart, like four mixes of Hermione and James Potter.

In my dream, we were sneaking into Hogsmeade as animals (we were secretly all Animagi)- me as a big, shaggy dog, Rachel H. as a doe, Rachel B. as a gray owl and Rebecca as a little black monkey. Just messing around, we tried to get into Three Broomsticks, but we tripped a magical security system and were caught red-handed. The grumpy old man who caught us demanded that we turn back into people ("I know ye're students!") before he sent us back to the school, and everyone did except me. I was so flustered I couldn't think how to change back.

The man finally got tired of waiting for me and sent my friends to school without me, all the while getting more impatient as I failed repeatedly at becoming human again. The two Rachels came back a bit later with McGonagall just as I changed my mental command from, Human. Human. Turn human! to Dog. Dog. Dog.

For whatever reason, that worked immediately, and my friends and I laughed about it later, after our sentences had been handed down by Professor McGonagall.