Dear MIA,

I'm alive.  I promise.

This is an apology to all friends and family members 

who may rightfully feel I've fallen off the face of the Earth.  

I've been in Minnesota:

Loving counselors,

Loving kids,

and Loving the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Life is wonderful and I hope yours is too.  

Call you this weekend :)  

Sincerely yours,

Your STILL friend/sister/daughter/cousin who loves you

Dear EFY,

So lots of people ask me why I love EFY SO, SO much.

In honor of the fact that I am flying out to Minnesota tomorrow for some training before the kids come on Monday, I decided I would share the top 14 reasons why EFY makes me happy.

1. Where else do teenage boys get girls their food?

2. Ha! Taking trays up to the conveyer belt is a coveted responsibility.

3. I've never seen so many teenagers go out of their ways to have missionary experiences.

(My kids ALWAYS rock).

4. I get to go to LOTS of wonderful places.

Case in point:

5. Service activities WEEKLY.

6. Eating pizza is a required activity.

7. Hilarious things happen... like the whole entire floor floods from an overflowing toilet.

8. I get to hang out with the GREATEST youth in the church.

Just take a look:

(p.s. Kelsey was one of my girls TWO years in a row...

this was us feeling ugly before the banquet)

9. I have the coolest coworkers you could ever ask for.

11. Being above the age of 20 and still immature is completely acceptable.

13. Wristbands. Who doesn't want neon colored wristbands?

14. No sleep = Very tired counselors.

And nothing could be better than getting an invitation in the mail for TWO of your girls weddings. YES, two of my girls have been married in the TEMPLE.

My job is so rewarding.

EFY 2009... bring on the memories.

Dear Story Time,

As you may be very well aware, I have been employed by GAP for a while now.

I love my job.

I love the people I work with.

I love dressing mannequins and hanging decals.

I love cleaning the fitting rooms in the morning shifts (no, seriously though...it's my favorite)

I even love work meetings.

SO... since I've been home I decided I would see if I could pick up some shifts at our local GAP. My managers were fabulous and took care of everything for me. I was excited, they were excited... life was good.

WELL, yesterday was my first day working there. It was only a 5 hour shift... not bad.

I arrive to the store 10 minutes early so I can get accustomed with everything. Something you should know about me is that I LOVE sales rallies...opening, closing... I love them all.

You can imagine my disappointment when I asked, "Soo..where do you guys meet for the sales rally?" And the girl looked at me and said, "The what??" In that split second, I think my heart skipped a beat. I gave a nervous laugh and said, "Um you know...where they tell you the goals for the day, special promotions, you know..." She just looked at me and said, "Oh yeah... just go read it off the sheet and then go out to the floor and find a manager."

This was the moment where I had my first "WHAT?!"

My second "WHAT?!" moment came when I walked out on to the floor

and she sent me to GAP Baby. Ugh.

The third occurred as I walked over there and found no one in the store. I started walking around looking for clothes to refold, size, etc. That's when I quickly realized that there were LITERALLY, NO LIE, NO EXAGGERATION, NO clothes to fix. Everything was perfectly placed, folded, sized... it was insane. So, I got on the walky and asked if there were any reticketing jobs that needed to be done or go-backs. Reticketing was done that morning (reticketing is a never ending process at our store... it is never "done") and apparently go-backs are non-existent in their store.

To add to my dismay, Baby's register wasn't open...so anyone who was even going to buy anything from me would go to Kids to check out. This left with me with virtually nothing to do. SO, I Swiffered...yes, Swiffered the store... in the middle of the day! (I was actually happy to see dust... it made me feel like I was back in our store). In our store we do all the cleaning in the morning because there are too many people to do it during store hours. Don't worry though, because that's not a problem here. I had MAYBE four customers walk in the store during my whole five hour shift.

Long story short, if I worked in this store every day...

my career in retail would last about one month... tops.

The people were great.

The store obviously looked perfect.

However, standing and twidling my thumbs for 4 hours straight

just doesn't really hit the spot for me.

EFY couldn't come any sooner...

Dear Bing,

Nope.

Not Chandler.

Bing CHERRIES.

I love summer for many reasons. One of which is that with summer, come the bing cherries.

I hate normal cherries. They are gross and weird.

HOWEVER, these suckers are divine.

Muchos gracias verano.

You rock.

Dear Sweet Sunday,

This was suppose to have been posted a few weeks ago.

BUT, today was a GREAT Sunday for the following reasons:

1. Went to church

2. Went to Elder Allsen's mission farewell.

He was one of my EFY boys last summer.

I always promised that I would go to his mission farewell, so that I did!

3. Elder Busche came and gave our ward an EXCELLENT fireside.

These were some bits of advice he gave:

Give away all fear.

Ask God to fill your soul with love.

The most IMPORTANT thing you can do in life is find love for everyone around you.

I love Sunday's.

Dear Schuyler,

Provo is really going to miss your comedic comments and hilarious antics.

Schuyler is growing up, going to law school, and leaving all his immature college buddies behind. It's heart breaking.

This is us literally moments after he dropped the bomb:

Such a ladies man. He will have no problems in Tennessee.

Sad... we will miss him.

Schuyler, you are the best.

Cheetah - Panther gatherings will never be the same :(

Dear Cake Club,

Back in Provo we use to do this thing called "Cake Club." It lasted about two weeks... but this was one of our creations. Thanks to the creativity of Sara and Daniface, we created this monster.

Truthfully, I'm kind of glad Cake Club died out. That way I'm not missing anything.

Fall '09...Cake Club will live on.

Dear Guilty Pleasure,

...since when do I even like pop?

Ugh. Diet Coke with Lime...you've gotten the best of me.

Dear Lovely Somethings,

I'm home.

I'm relaxing.

Here are the little somethings in my life that I am loving these days:

running.  mixed with a little pilates.

nutrisystem.  already down nearly 5 lbs in 4 days.

these summer dresses from gap.  2 colors down and deciding on a new one.

preparing for the best summer job: efy -- 9 days and counting.

THIS shampoo and conditioner... my hair smells delicious.

shopping... I'm a bit partial to my 2nd home.

propel.  divine. 

reading, reading, reading.  summer is the best.

carpe diem, people.  carpe diem.