August- almost married

Sometime in June, (I'm not sure when), Karl and i were talking about what i would do for a job after we got married. He was planning to go to school full time to start the Accounting Junior Core, and i knew that i would be the one bringing home the bacon until he finished school. 

That had always been the plan, and i was excited about it. 

I'd applied to about one million jobs in Provo and had heard back from 3, all of them wanting me to start immediately, but when i explained i was getting married in mid-August and would need 2 weeks off, they all peaced out. 

totally understandable. 

One day, At Six Peaks, my friend Rachel O said, "you know, you should look for some kind of RA job. Like a live-in married RA position."

I thought that was a good idea, but figured i'd have to know someone. I looked on the internet that night anyway, to no avail. I mentioned all this to Karl and he thought it sounded perfect. we both did. 

The next evening, a mutual friend of ours posted on Facebook about a live-in assistant manager position for the complex both Karl and I were still living in!

long story short, we expressed interest, interviewed, and got the job against large odds, all in a whirlwind of about a week. 

I was completely shocked. 

we started working immediately, and it was hard, because we A) weren't married yet and B) We were both working full-time already. My job was 24h a day, 5 days a week, so Karl had to do everything during the weekday, and then we'd both do stuff on the weekends. 

bless his heart for that, because thats the only reason we got the job. 

We were officially the live-in Cleaning Check managers at our favorite apartment complex in Provo!

Here are some pictures that belong to my last Sports Camp post, but i forgot them:

waitin' for an Erin in the rain, in the rain. waitin' for an Erin in the rain. 

FEASTING 

that's not soda, btw, it's a bunch of different juices mixed together, haha

I am intrigued by children's Art Therapy. It is a far-away dream of mine to own and operate an art therapy preschool. Karl and i have already decided that after we've moved away from Provo with a couple kids to wherever he'll be settling down for work, i'll start a higher degree online in child psychology. Then once all of our kids are in school (like, when my youngest starts kindergarten) I'll go back to an actual, physical school for a higher degree in Art therapy from whichever university we live closest to. I'm already excited, haha. And i plan on making my future children little test subjects along the way so that i have plenty of material to draw from. 

Anyway, i've been doing "Art Therapy Thursday" with myself for a little under a year now. I've been researching a lot of adult methods, but honestly i can only learn so much on the internet. I need some books in my life, but i have no time for recreational reading right now. sad. 

ANYWAY. 

a method i've been wanting to try is foil-masking. There are a several projected benefits that i won't go into. 

long story short i mostly just wanted to see how difficult/unnerving it was for me, to know if i could try it with a child. 

So naturally, Karl was my fellow guinea pig. 

okay despite our awful faces, it was fun.

(ps we bought matching shirts at Macy's for $2.00 that day and immediately changed into them because we thought we were cool. ahahaha)

Karl kept making the masks kiss when i was trying to take pictures. hahaha. 

Karlitos

y mi, 

ALSO KNOWN AS GIANT FOREHEAD

consensus: I would NOT do this to a child. 

MAYBE an older child could handle doing it to themselves, but having foil pressed over your mouth and nose is unnerving, and for a child could be frightening, haha. It was a fun date, and had i done it alone i probably would have enjoyed the full range of projected emotions that supposedly come from foil masks.

(If you ARE looking for art therapy ideas for your young children, or even yourselves, i have a bunch of techniques/ideas. Also, i love this blog: "Love that Max"  The author is an art therapist who is the mother of a boy with special needs, and it is FULL of ideas for (mostly) developmentally appropriate art activities.

FLAG UPDATE:

we decided that in addition to the family flag that i would sew, we wanted a painting for both our sons and our daughters to hang in their bedrooms. 

(YES, I KNOW THIS IS YEARS AWAY. It will be at LEAST five years before i have a child who is close to reading anything at all. I know they won't be able t read the motto we hang in their room. I am a firm believer that if you make a decision before the question comes, it is easier to stand with your convictions. Karl shares this belief, and we hope that our future children will come to know it's truth as well. We want t help them in every way we can, so we think a painting of our family's motto hung in their room in a simple, unobtrusive way of reminding them who they are. We feel good about having made this decision far far far in advance. love me.)

Of the sketches below we chose the gradient mountains for our future Sons

and this floral one for our daughters

I drew these all while on hospital duty one day. We were in the waiting room for like 4 hours, but i didn't even notice. 

I don't know if i've posted this picture already, but Jonathan left this note in my scriptures and i thought it was really sweet :)

One weekend when i came home from Sports Camps, i literally opened the door to find a tower of presents with my name on it. 

OH, my roommates. We had a great time last summer. This summer it was all the same girls, and one new one, and i don't know if it was the fact that i was engaged, the fact that i worked more, or what, but things were different this year. hahaha. Leah still rocked, though. 

I HATE BEING HOT. it is gross. you can only take off so many layers! You can literally have zero clothing on, and still be miserably warm. 

I'd much prefer to put ON layers in the cold and control my temperature. 

my roommates liked it HOT

one night i sent Karl this picture on Snapchat to summarize my annoyance. 

seriously though, folks, this was early August. WHY IN THE WORLD WAS THE FLIPPING HEATER ON. WHY DO YOU NEED IT TO BE EIGHTY DEGREES RIGHT NOW, I CAN'T BREEEEEEEAVE. 

I love a lot of things about Karl, but my absolute favorite thing is that his faith in God is literally his top priority. While we were just dating, i remember him telling me one night, "You're not my top priority. God is the most important thing to me. If He wasn't, i wouldn't be a very good husband and father." 

It took me a few minutes to let that sink in and be appreciated. At first i was a little stung, to be honest. But after a minute or so, i just felt grateful for a man so devoted to what he knows to be true. 

August 7th was the anniversary of our first official date!

Karl, the expert re-creator, was at it again. He took me BACK to JDawgs and Rita's. He wanted to park and sit in the same places, but there were a lot of people out that night, so we didn't exACTly replicate it. I still thought the effort was cute :)

He was so excited!

He got Smores.which is chocolate custard on top of marshmallow gellati on top of graham crackers. it was delicious. 

I got Swedish fish gellati with vanilla custard on top, and IT WAS THE BOMB. 

we sat in the same place that we did the first time :)

we were being super goofy, and we both talk with our hands a lot, even when we're not signing, haha. there was an old man in his adorable truck to our right. we saw him, Karl made a remark about loving old people, but that was it. we didn't think anything of him. about half way through our dessert the old man got out of his truck, walked up to our table and handed me a $2 bill. He said, "get another treat. you two are so sweet."

ADORABLE.

slash what?

we really do love old people. 

On August 8th, 2015, i received my Temple Endowment. 

That experience will get its own post. 

I didn't want to post this without referencing that one, because it was the best thing I've ever done.

I didn't want it to go unsaid. 

July & August: Goodbye BYU Sports Camps

These pictures are making me feel quite nostalgic. 

The past two summers have been wonderful. the best times of my life. 

I met many lovely people and felt the spirit in miraculous ways. 

Every monday night we had field games, but several Mondays it rained, and we had Field games in the IPF. This is us bringing Kyle a Creamie as we walked the perimeter, keeping lil children safe and stuff. 

I like leaves. 

BYU has some pretty cool kinds. 

an update on Cornmeal:

this was probably a month after the incident. Healing nicely, but definitely going to leave a scar. I stopped bandaging it, but reapplied neosporin every night and aloe vera every morning. 

I was a real happy camper most of the time. 

I LOVED that job. 

There were a couple of instances this summer where, as a DC, i needed to take over for a counselor for one night because of extenuating circumstances. 

This was one of them. 

they called me Nana. hahaha. 

i was taing this picture of a heart-shaped leaf for Karl, and they all jumped in. 

They thought my engagement was SOOOOOO romantic and asked me nonstop questions about him and the wedding plans. 

I loved it. 

5 weeks after:

I continued to send Karl cheesy I love yous via text. 

This is cookie crumbs. 

Speaking of Karl, i watched Tarzan and realized that baby Karl looks EXACTLY LIKE KARL. 

sometimes, Karl will be sitting across the room while we both do homework. He'll reach out both of his hands as far as he can, and then open and close his fists really fast, motioning that he wants a hug. I think it's cute. 

In this frame of the movie, Tarzan is doing the SAME hand motions. aka my husband is baby tarzan. 

Karl hated the comparison. 

Now it's a joke. 

hahahahahahahahahahaha

Baby Tarzan. 

ahh, DC life. many a chapter of Jane Austen was read while on Door duty. 

a little harder to decipher, but an I heart you, nonetheless. 

plus leaves in general because there are SO MANY COOL KINDS on BYU campus. 

A+ for landscapers. 

6 weeks after:

I passed this tree every day, and every day i thought to myself, "that tree looks like an angry muppet."

this one? Sam the "eagle"?

whatever. 

can these two please be a thing? K, cool. Erake fo life. 

dat SAB view, doe.

mmm, those mountains in the summer. 

btw:

a typical meal at the cannon center (although i usually had a bowl of salad instead of an additional entree. cause you know, veggies an stuff. )

I love good counselors. 

I love them so much that i made up an award for them with the help of the DCs and head counselors. IT was called, "the Real MVC" Most valuable counselor. 

At the end of each week, the DCs and Head counselors, during their daily morning meeting,  would talk about counselors who impressed us. Ones we were consistently pleased with, ones who were obedient and trustworthy, all the scout motto and such. 

Each DC would name one of their counselors from the week who they thought deserved to be the MVC, and why. 

We'd all discuss. 1) the counselor in question must not have ever been a source of disobedience or defiance. 2) The counselor must have always been with their campers when they were supposed to have been. 3) We usually picked one girl and one boy, but one week there were two guys and one girl.

Every weekend i went to DI and got smei-matching super weird gifts for them that i definitely should have taken pictures of, but i forgot. 

these are from the last week:

hooray!

I'm a fan of making cards. 

I'm a fan of drawing dragons. 

they often merge. like this one:

The last week of camp, so many of our zorb balls had popped that we only had a few left to blow up! It was a cinch and only took us a few minutes. most of the DCs hopped into them and had a chat. My chat turned into a nap. 

meanwhile, Karl was loving his last transfer teaching ASL missionaries. 

TWO MONTHS after incident:

one rainy monday night, we had bounce houses and a velcro wall for field games. i tried the velcro wall and got STUCK TO THE WALL BY MY HAIR. i got off the wall, but fell down and then my hair was stuck to the velcro suit that i was wearing. I hobbled to the bathroom and slowly tried to peel it away. I was groaning and crying, when a tiny Asian woman came out of a stall, gasped, and said, "oh no! I help you!"

SHE PROCEEDED TO RIP THE VELCRO SUIT AWAY FROM MY HEAD, TAKING A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF HAIR WITH IT. 

I yelped, and then slowly peeled the remaining section away from the velcro, withOUT the woman's help. I looked like hermione for the rest of the evening. 

and my scalp hurt. 

I finished another journal. 

I spoke five words to Steve Young while he dropped his daughter off at a camp. 

I compiled this package with the help of a lot of other counselors after our dear friend's mother passed away and she needed some happy things. 

a big drawback of doing 'flashback' blog posts is that they lack the passion of the moment. I remember feeling so many beautiful things while this picture was taken. 

I love these people. 

This was the best summer i've ever had. 

I wish i could say more, but just look at our smiles!

The picture speaks for itself. 

and one last thing.

"oh, you're trying to sleep past 7:45 am? LET ME PLAY YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE. THERE IS NO BETTER TIME TO BLOW DIRT AND LEAVES THAN NOW."