A dinosaur story.

Dear Reader,

Well, today was a sad day. It was friend and coworker (but mostly friend) Lisa's last day at Highlights. We will miss her! 

It's kind of a thing to take pictures with Giggy. We encourage our tour groups to do it and we encourage ourselves to do it. But Lisa had been here an ENTIRE year without getting her picture taken with her head inside the giganotasaurus's mouth. 

And that just wasn't going to work.

So here it is: Our photoshoot with Giggy! (And thank you to Linda who stayed after work to take all the pictures!)

Oh, and then we decided to let Spot join in the fun. 

We took him on a walk and--

Oh no! A dinosaur!!!

Luckily Lisa is really good at bringing people together. 

The end! 

Oh, and an added bonus: Bailey in bowtie! What a dapper gentleman. 

One year!

Dear Reader,

I am currently sick. I hate being sick. I've been coughing non-stop today. I sound like an old woman. Which I suppose is better than how I sounded when I woke up this morning, which was a mixture between a 130-year-old zombie and a velociraptor. I think I looked like it too.

In other news, today is Bailey's birthday! My little boy is one year old! In honor of him making it this long, here are some cute kitten pictures for you to look at. Enjoy!

This is how small he was on the first day I got him. 

Look how huge his paws are!

He loves chasing the wrist strap on my camera.

I believe this is when his love affair with my carpet began.

Hahaha, crazy eye.

Then he got bigger!

He's so adorable. 

Puzzles are...delicious?

Dear Reader,

Last night I started doing a puzzle.
 
This is really brave of me, because Bailey likes to steal things/eat things/attack things at random. So while I was sorting out the puzzle pieces he was sitting and watching carefully, waiting for the perfect moment to attack.

He would slowly move his paw towards the box and I would say, "Hey!" and he would pull it back. One time he got brave enough to quickly grab a puzzle piece in his mouth and then turned to run away with it, but I caught him.

My crafty way of keeping it safe while I'm gone at work is to cover it with the carpet in my room. Only, he knows it's under there, so now his only object in life is to eat away the carpet until he can get to the puzzle. So I sprayed the carpet with nasty tasting "No biting" spray. Hopefully this deters him, but I can't say I have extremely high hopes. When he wants something, he just goes for it, whether or not it will make him throw up later.

So long, 2011!

Dear Reader,

2011 is over! Sometimes it's hard to believe. And then other times I feel like it's already about October 2012, since that's where my brain is at Highlights. (We work 10 months ahead.)

This year has been exciting. Let's relive it!

January:
I began my LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE. This was both exciting and terrifying, partly because I'd missed school during my eight-months-of-internships break and partly because I would be graduating soon, and mostly because I had no idea what I was doing with the rest of my life after graduating happened.

February:
February was slow. Like Februarys usually are. But I did make lasagna with Natalie.

March:
I participated in the Divine Comedy music video "Firebolt" which proves that wizards are real. If wizards are college students running around with sparklers and stuffed owls.

April:
I GRADUATED!!! And then left Provo for Michigan. And then had an interview with Highlights for an internship, which I guess went well because they gave me the job!

May:
I moved to Honesdale and began my internship at Highlights! I also took a trip to DC to visit Natalie on my birthday weekend when I turned 23. And I found the apartment I was going to live at in Honesdale which meant I didn't need to live in the Highlights cabins anymore:

June:
I went to NYC with Natalie and Amber! And I adopted Bailey.

July:
I hit up DC for the fourth. Nothing like Independence day in the capitol! Especially when it rains really, really, really hard. I went to Chautauqua Writer's Conference for work where I spent 8 days on staff working really, really hard while mingling with awesome people.

August:
I went to Philly to a Death Cab Concert and then visited Natalie and the temple in DC.

September:
Natalie came to visit me in Honesdale!! And I went to pick her up in Philly.

October:
It was finally fall! My favorite season. And I went to a pumpkin patch, ate cider donuts and drank cider. It was the perfect fall experience!

November: 

I went to Portland to go with Natalie through the temple! This trip was long-awaited and sooo worth it! Yay Powell's!!

December:
I helped plan and throw the ward Christmas party, oversaw the craft room at Highlight's Holiday Open House, and then drove home to spend Christmas and New Years with my family!

So I got a college degree, landed the most awesome internship, and traveled to some of the country's most awesome cities all in one year! I think it was an excellently productive year. Here's to 2012! May it be just as exciting--and even better (if that's even possible!).

Learning: Just do it already.

Dear Reader,

At church my calling is the second counselor in the Young Women. I love the calling and the wonderful women I get to work with. And I also love my girls. But, alas, they are teenagers.

OK, I do realize that I'm really not that old yet. I mean, I can fairly clearly remember my high school days. But I just want to point out that even in my twenties, my life is still really not that different from theirs. I still spend all day working, I wake up early, I'm tired all the time, I love hanging out with friends, I have boy problems, and I'm trying to juggle my life with church. Um, hello, who isn't dealing with all that stuff?? Teenagers, you think your life is so hard? Please. Wait until college. And then wait until you graduate college. I don't actually know what you should wait for after that because, like I said, I'm really not that old yet. But I hear have a family is also challenging. We're talking 24/7-for-the-rest-of-your-life time commitment. Yikes.

Anyway. The point of all of this is that my young women's generation has a complete lack of interest in A) Doing anything that will require any effort on their part and B) Learning anything they deem "unnecessary."

I'm stepping up on my soapbox now. Please bear with me.

Kids, you have got to work to get anything in life. Deal with it. If you're expecting life to be easy--well. Just get back to me and let me know how that worked out for you.

Now, when your teachers, parents, or other adult authority figures ask you to do something, I really suggest that you listen. I know that you think you know everything, and you're too cool to actually do something that would make you a better person, but come on. Let's get real. You are not as cool as you think you are and if you keep up this behavior you're going to end up an unsuccessful lump living in your parents dank basement.

Is that what you really want?

And when you find times in your life when you are learning a skill that you think is useless for you to know, I hope that you will take the time to learn it anyway. It is always better to know how to do too many things than to not know how to do anything at all. Kids of the world--just learn! You will never, ever regret being too smart.

And pretending to be stupid is the worst. Just don't even do it. It's annoying.

On a weirder note, Bailey really likes to be up high. So this is his new favorite game:

Jumping off the entertainment center and balancing on the top of the door. Uh...OK, whatever floats your boat, dude.

Portland--aaaat last!!!

Dear Reader,

Natalie went through the temple this last weekend (because she's going on a MISSION! Sapporo Japan watch out!). Because I'm something of a temple junkie, and because Natalie is like the most amazing person ever, I flew out to Portland to go through with her.

I'd never been to Portland before, which Natalie constantly reminded me of these past few years. But no more! Now I've been! And I love it.

We'll do this trip in installments.

I left last Friday and had two layovers. One was for like 3 1/2 hours in Detroit--so I got to stop by home for a bit! When I saw Mittens I realized how different she looks compared to Bailey. As in--her tail is tiny and she's fat, and he has the poof of a raccoon. See for yourself:

(She wasn't really cooperating for pictures.)

Anyway. It was awesome to see the family. I also had a layover in Salt Lake...so pretty much I stopped off at every spot in the country that I've lived. Whatevs.

Once I got to Portland--the magic began!!!!

On Saturday Sister Crofts made us waffles before we headed off to the temple! And the temple was fantastic. It's seriously the best place ever and I'm so glad that Natalie's endowed now!

Afterward, Natalie, her friend Melissa, and I went to dinner at this really good restaurant on the waterfront. 

And then Natalie and I went to 23rd street to get gelato and stop by Lush (which I will forever associate with London, where I was when I discovered it). 

I was very tired by the end of that day, thanks to the jet lag. I got better, though. No worries. 

Stay tuned for Portland: Day 2!

Snow Day

Dear Reader,

So this was my day:

While the cats slept (the extra cat on the right is here because I'm petsitting her. She and Bailey are like BFFs now), outside it was doing this:

I mean SERIOUSLY?? It's not even Halloween yet!!! The snow has been coming ALL DAY. Yeah, it's pretty. But I'm pretty sure that's because I haven't gone outside all day. Instead I...

baked sugar cookies for a ward Halloween party that was cancelled because of the aforementioned blizzard. So now I've got a bunch of sugar cookies in my freezer. And someone is going to benefit from this. Could it be people at work? Or the ward if the party is ever rescheduled? Only time will tell.

I also cooked some pumpkin seeds

and did laundry! The reason this is exciting is because....I now have a washing machine!!! I could clean my clothes without even leaving the house! Thanks to my bishop for hooking me up with the machine--and then hooking the machine up for me. :) 

After awhile the kittens decided to move from the kitchen to my bed. They pretty much just slept all day. Typical.

Personal Greeter.

Dear Reader,

When I come home from work each day, Bailey bounds into the room to greet me at the door.

It's so nice to have somebody love me. :)

(Picture taken by Natalie. Go here for more of this cute little devil!)

Bailey is a literary giant.

And the name is--

Bailey!

It's actually the name he came with, and it just seemed to suit him. I appreciate all the name suggestions though. :) They were good ones.

Also my parents came through town this week and were here the last couple of days. About 78 percent of their visit was spent doing some home improvement stuff in my apartment. The rest of the time we spent cruising the town of Honesdale.

One stop was at the Cliff--where you can see the town from above.

And my house!