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."

A taste of my own medicine

Today, i was blog stalked.
haha.
I see stats, you know.
And today, beginning around 10 am, someone MAJORLY stalked me. ha. like, went through 150+ posts (not in strict chronological order) spanning several years. in one sitting.

I mean, i'm flattered. because someone spent that much time reading my thoughts all at once.
and i'm impressed, because someone spent that much time reading my thoughts all at once.

but i'm also confused, because who would spend that much time reading my thoughts all at once?
and a tiny bit creeped out? Cause who would spend that much time reading my thoughts all at once?

Mostly just intrigued.
ha.



hey, stranger, i'm placing a lot of trust in you by putting my whole brain on the internet for you to read. I'm hoping and praying that you'll respect that trust by not murdering me in my sleep or trying to steal my identity like Lana Lang's creepy cousin in that one episode of Smallville circa 2006.


Anyway.

well, stranger(s?).
nice to meet you, I'm Melissa. Feel free to let me know who you are so we can be friends in real life.
k thanks, bye.

#16 - Badminton

"As We Ran" by The National Parks

please hear the "We belong here with the Great Tetons" line. favorite part. I LOVE IDAHO. and i miss the teton valley, i do i do i do.

Today's Happy:

Badminton.

we were gettin' our game on, and we noticed that Curtis and alex were creepin. 

so without even saying a word to each other, we started posing ridiculously. gave them a little photoshoot.

 photo proof for mom that he is in fact taller than me ^

"black girl fashionista pose" was what Curtis shouted at us. Ryan struck this pose and i LOST it. resulting in my super attractive fat-neck laugh. hahaha

also, 

"I'm glad you made it! sorry you got lost"

"oh no worries, we weren't lost."

"usually when you have to ask four separate people for directions, it means you're lost."

*followed by best smile ever*

you get the point, i'm smitten. 

Jenae & Virat: A Love Story (and other tales)

since tomorrow is the last day of the month, here are some highlights from my extremely boring life, haha.

tale number 1.

For some reason myself and the rest of my family have this thing about eating the very last of something. I don't eat the very last of anything because when i was little and did that, then it was obvious someone had been sneaking it. and someone can be blamed for cookies being all gone, but no one can be blamed for the fifth or sixth cookie disappearing...

anyway.

so no one eats the last bite of ice cream, the last cup of milk, etc.

including cereals. 

and apparently the new trend is to just dump a new bag in with the old stuff so that no one has to be tortured into eating the last of that kind of cereal.

but then this happens:

but you know?

 fruity honey marshmallow cheerio comb mateys is pretty good.

2. Jenae and I, SEVERAL times, have had zits on the same day in the same place. so this time, we documented it. pimple twins.

3. speaking of cereal, Jenae eats hers with sprite. gross.

4. Not pictured - Donny, Christine and Evelyn came to visit!!

and somehow i did not take a SINGLE picture!!

Evelyn is PERFECT, though, and she remembered me :) her giggle = the best thing ever.

and as always, Donny and Christine are adorable. Christine got me a super cute skirt, too! champ.

5. I'm a horrible cook/baker. horrible. 

and that is not me trying to be humble, that is me being honest. if it's not something i grew up eating, i struggle making it. BUT i need to feed my family someday, and my mom and sisters are so cute and diverse, and they have little meal calendars with like 235323 different kinds of meals, and i need to be better at cooking. so I've been trying new recipes, and every day that my mom is working past 3, i make dinner. i like it!

this FAILED "Peach Sun Cobbler"

way too much crust, not enough filling. and the wrong kind of crust! not sweet enough. bummer. each of us had a few meager slices and Dad graciously took the rest to work for the dog to spare us all.

not pictured successes: 

Christine's Baked Ziti - (I saw it in her fridge one day and thought it looked good, so i made it when i came home, so it's not actually her recipe. I'm sure hers is even better!) SO YUMMY. it's like lasagna, but easier and less messy, haha.

Home on the Range pasta - AHDFVUKJBAFJNVAFIDHVB i love it. so yummy. 

penne noodles, alfredo sauce, two eggs, chicken breast, and bacon. mmmm. with broccoli on the side.

and this, that i'm still not sure about:

King's Hawaiian rolls thing

so basically you cut the rolls in half and slather them with this sauce, and then you put whatever meat and cheese you want and then you cook it. Simple, but it took WAY longer than i thought because i ad to make a substitute sauce for Dijon mustard, because i hate mustard. haha. 

SMELLED really good, and the first hot bite was amazing! but i was done after my second sandwich. again, dad came to the rescue. i'm sure when made exactly to the recipe, they're super yummy. 

6. this is me and jenae on the front door monitor screen in Walmart. you can't see our faces, but the crocs speak for themselves.

7. AND NOW ON TO THE BEST PART: JENAE AND VIRAT.

so there is a boy named Virat. 

he is the president of FFA here, and Jenae is also on the officer team. they both have heifers right now, and the other day i picked jenae up from school, but she had to move the heifers from one pasture to the next.

so i watched Jenae and virat move the cows, and oh mah GOODNESS it was like a scene from a hollywood blockbuster. the dust, the tall grass, the hay, their silhouettes against the sunset.

*swoon*

so  naturally, i crept:

(can you see the two silhouettes to the left? the barn was kind of covering them up)

 sorry that the pictures are grainier than Sara Lee bread. i was zoomed in as far as i could go.

ANYWAY.

I'm cheering for Virat.

just to be clear: they're not together. they're not allowed to date because they're on the same officer team. FFA rules, and they both take the rules pretty seriously, so i promise they're not dating. 

BUT. here is why i'd be 95% okay if they were:

on the day pictured above, it was only jenae's turn to feed, not virat's. but he drove the hay over to her (via a tractor, looking very manly and adorable) so she could unload it faster. it wasn't his turn to move the heifers, but he helped her anyway because he knows she's afraid to move them herself because they're getting so big.

he is the MOST polite boy i've ever met. hands. down. 

just so kind and happy, even my mom loves him.

also...

(stole this from weasel's instagram)

HE LET HER TEACH HIM TO KNIT. AND HE LET HER WEAR HIS HAT.

okay.

yeah, okay, cool.

also? he's indian, and goodness KNOWS we need some color up in this family. 

and he's a genius

and he's a farmer

He owns a store. 

let me repeat that, HE OWNS AND MANAGES A FEED STORE. IT IS HIS, and it will be his for the rest of his life until he gives it to is son like Virat's father gave it to him.

his last name is kang. so king. so he's a king. 

also:

 THEY'RE PERFECT. 

roller coaster selfies = awesome

his teeth = awesome

jenat = awesome

all in favor of this boy as the newest brother in law say, "Aye!"

 also tomorrow we're going to see this movie on it's opening night in Fresno, and i'm so excited!!!