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.  

Dear May,

You were good to me. 

I have some pretty great friends.  

Thanks Provo.  

Dear Swine'ing in style,

8 days until I leave to go home to Ohio.

This gives me approximately 192 hours to find the perfect mask.

Yes.  Cory Eckel is "suggesting" (a.k.a. enforcing) that I wear a "respirator mask" on the airplane on the way home.  He thinks I need to take proper precautions while "I'm sitting 18'' away from 2 people on either side of me, 3 people in front of me, and 3 people behind me who could be from who knows where."  

At first, I laughed in complete shock that he would even suggest something so absurd and ridiculous.  

Moments later after realizing how serious he was about this, my mood went from humorous to embarrassed.  In my head I'm thinking..."Okay... people are going to think I'm a freaking paranoia case."  

After contemplating this idea over the past couple hours, I have decided that I will in fact wear a mask... but not just any mask.  I am going to fight this swine flu with style.   I decided to google swine flu masks to take a look at some of my options.  I had no idea so many people were thinking along the same lines as myself.  

Incredible.  I have so many options!  

Now I just need to make a decision.  

Hmm... which mask would automatically convince 

people of how LEGIT I actually am?  

I think I'm leaning toward either the skeleton or the mustache.

Suggestions?

I have only one requirement.  It can't clash with my plastic footies, rubber gloves, and paper shower cap.   

Dear Ms. E,

Some of you may be aware that I took a class this spring term on teaching physical education to elementary students.  I was assigned a first grade class and had to teach them for 3 weeks.  One of the lessons had to be on rhythm and dance.  SO, last night at about 2am I choreographed this little diddy in Danielle's bedroom. 

As you can obviously see from these clips, we took this VERY seriously.  

Dani made sure to bring the camera to class today to catch the kids on tape too.  HAH!

I love the Elementary Education program.  Aren't you jealous you don't get to do this for homework?  

Dear Sexy Lexi,

I use to call Lex, Sexy Lexi when she was a youngster simply because I knew it drove her crazy.

HOWEVER,

this special little nickname seems to apply now, more than ever.

To be bold, my sister is a BABE.  

The braces being taken off have done her well.  

Congrats Lex.  You are one sexy mama!  

Dear "Honey, I'm home!"

Yep.  I'm back to school, back to school.

The cruise was GREAT! 

Seeing the family was GREAT!

Getting some sun was GREAT!

Overall, last week was not too shabby.

Here are some fun pictures from the trip:

Dinner the first night on the boat:

Getting ready to snorkel with the fam in Grand Cayman:

Holding a sting ray at the sandbar in the middle of the ocean:

Me and mom karaoke night:

Lex and I in Cozumel at the beach:

Kiddos in Cozumel: 

We rented scooters to drive to the beach:

Beautiful sunset: 

Mom and I in the Bahamas: 

Mariano!  Our precious little cleaner:

Fun in Cabin C253:

I love my family.  I am so lucky!