Wyview 2010-11: The Blockbuster

Exclusive video! (one...)

Never-before-seen pictures! (some...)

Laugh and enjoy! (and don't kill me for putting these up...)

Playing Ultimate Spoons and making toffee for FHE

Hiking the "Y"

Boys group shot

(Aaron, Jared, Alex, Zach H., Spencer, JD, Joseph)

Girls group shot

(Mara, Sydney, Kimi, me, Sarah, Alysa, Madeline, Ayoung)

Speaking deer

Mara's mug shot

(from playing with my Atkisson cousins)

[This video is not yet uploaded]

Driving... :)

Jill charges Mara's glow-in-the-dark nail polish (which she used to make a sign) in preparation for *cough* decorating the stop sign by the multipurpose building

Playing Jenga Dominoes with JD

Sara on our Temple Square trip

Looking out the window at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Sugar fell asleep on the way home

Best pizza/bread dough kneader ever :)

Step into Mara's beauty parlor...

SLEEPOVER!

Using an orange bowl and spoon to help Sara eat her lunch... I know you're jealous

"Put the camera down or the cereal gets it!"

Jill's beautifully straightened hair

(I use this picture, not to show off my Photoshop skills -or lack thereof- but because I didn't think Jill would thank me if I used the original picture with the bathroom in the background)

Ah, the bounteous blessings of living close to Sara and K.T., both awesome cooks in their own right

Two of my favorite people in the world...

Note Zach laughing in the background

Dinner at my place on Tyler's birthday

JD and Jill go check out the swans outside Spring Haven

L to R: Heidi, Robin, Ashleigh, Destin

(Middle: Person with pole in front of their face- Evan, I think; Destin's roommate)
Thanks to Danielle for helping me name everyone... :)

Jeremy, Travis and Abby

Walking home with Sara

Tater Tot/ Chicken Nugget Night at the elementary school playground

Feels like a dream

It's funny how time works on your memories. Now that I've had time to stop sorely missing Wyview and all the friends I made there/lived next to - Jill F. and Jill R. and Mara and Sara and K.T. and Jacketh (Joseph-J.D.-Zach) and Anna and Leticia and Robin and the list goes on... - the eight months of memories I made have taken on an odd flavor.

It feels like it was a dream. Sara, Mara (and anyone else who reads this blog), tell me it all wasn't a dream.

Spring Haven: BYU 14th's final ward activity

These pictures are from March. They haven't seen the light of day since I took them so I'm doing the kind thing and posting them now. :)

The inside of Spring Haven Lodge has a huge fake tree and playground, complete with indoor slide!

Jill wanted to explore the outside of Spring Haven - especially the pond. We found a back door that led to a different outside area and had to crawl under this cement wall/bridge to get to it before we realized there was a door leading to the pond part of the grounds as well.

I went first, followed by Jill...

Followed by J.D. (the only one of Jacketh who came)

At this point, J.D. and I just started following Jill.

Jill is fluent in swan.

My ward members mostly played inside

Back to elementary school

Clifford the Big Red Bowl is piled high with tater tots and chicken nuggets in preparation for the walk to the elementary school on Sunday afternoon.

Like Jill always says, "the mark of true maturity is knowing when you can be immature."

Mara was planning to have a chicken nugget/tater tot night yesterday and bought family size bags of tater tots and chicken nuggets Saturday evening to prepare for it. The day was so nice I convinced her we should take them to the elementary school nearby because it has a swing set and a rope "spiderweb" you can climb. (It's like the Spider at Meadow Elementary except it's not made up of metal bars.) It's only three or four blocks from Wyview- a nice walk in weather like yesterday's.

It didn't turn out exactly like we planned because there were a ton of little kids with some adults already running around when we got there and we couldn't swing or even climb to the top of the spiderweb because there were too many kids. Mostly we just sat on the grass eating our chicken nuggets and tater tots and watched the little kids play, climb, swing and run. There was one little boy wearing a striped shirt that was showing off for us on the spiderweb that we affectionately named "Stripe Boy."

We probably stayed at the school for about an hour until I got a little cold in my shorts and T-shirt and begged everyone (aka Jill, Mara and Zach) to leave. Jill, who had long pants and a sweatshirt (AND a dog) on, said, "You should've brought a jacket." To which Mara, in her capris and short-sleeved shirt but curled up next to Zach, added, "I'M not complaining." Zach, in his long pants and long-sleeved shirt, said nothing.

I eventually won the argument when I laid my hand on Mara's arm to prove how cold I was and she jumped up and said, "Guys, she's not kidding. Let's go."

Go Mara. :)

Mara dips a chicken nugget in fry sauce (notice we brought two bottles) while Jill studies next to her. See the Spiderweb in the background? And Sugar, lying in front of Jill? And the back of Zach's head and ear? Yep, this is a quality picture, all right.

The contents of Clifford the Big Red Bowl are reduced by half after about 15 minutes of determined eating. The tater tots were my favorite.

Weekend

Highlights (because bullet points are just faster):

• Sugar

We got Sugar to puppysit Saturday! Jill had to call and beg Kris (Chris? Cris?), Sugar's "mom," to let us take her. Then when Kris (Chris? Cris?) showed up she said Jill could keep Sugar for as long as she needed her. Yay!

• Made homemade pizza Saturday with Jill, Mara and Sara. It turned out yummy (see picture below)
  

• Jill got triple blessings Sunday for 1) going to church, 2) playing in sacrament meeting and 3) teaching an awesome, totally inspired Relief Society lesson. She asked Mara to do her hair before (Mara straightened it last Sunday and Jill liked it so much she wanted her to do it again; picture below). When Jill asked her, Mara said very casually that one of these days she wanted to give one of us an "up-do". I did not meet her eyes.
  

• I should also mention we used my brand-new Christmas crockpot for the first time on Sunday. Jill made us very yummy bean soup, which we ate with homemade rolls baked from Saturday's extra pizza dough.
  
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Hooray for no school! It was a full day:

• Spent all morning (7-noon) "babysitting" Sugar while Jill was at work because she couldn't take Sugar on such short notice. Part of that time I was able to sleep (but only like a half hour), part of it was spent on homework (hooray), part of it was spent writing a letter to Kiera in her new apartment (she says her roommates are great), and the rest of it was spent trying to cheer up Sugar. She missed Jill the whole time and wouldn't even play tug-of-war with me, her favorite game.
• After Jill got back, I spent several more hours trying to read the assignment for my Comms class- we have to read a whole book about how technology is destroying America's culture and I'm not really enjoying it so far. I have a goal to finish it tonight. I still have about 50 pages to read. But then I will be finished!!! And ready to start my paper expanding on its ideas... Due Thursday.
• Mara saved me from an early death by severe boredom by taking me, Jill, Sugar and Zach on an "apartment adventure" to Cold Stone. We also went to Kohl's looking for an ice shaver (Mara is always craving shaved ice) which we couldn't find, probably because it's a little out of season... And Summerhay's to play the grand pianos and guitars. I even held an alto sax. It's much smaller than I remember. I couldn't even remember where all my fingers were supposed to go.
• FHE was canceled last night because so many people were out of town, so we invited Jacketh* over (Zach was already over) and played Apples to Apples, then B.S., then Hearts. (Jill won Apples to Apples, Zach won B.S., and J.D. won Hearts) Sara dropped by for a bit carrying some XBox games from her house, which she's lending to Mara for the semester. She watched us play B.S. and then left at 9:30 to go to bed. Jacketh, Mara and I barely finished our game of Hearts by the midnight deadline, at which time I went to bed and Mara went out to hang with Jacketh some more. (Jill went into her room to do homework after Apples to Apples).

*Apt 217's nickname for Joseph, J.D. and Zach. Mara hangs out with them all the time and got tired of saying all three of their names and so invented this one. It stuck.

Dominoes! with Jenga blocks