Mommie the Mishunrie

After a long summer of packing up the last 31 years of her life,
After an emotional goodbye to Midland and our house,
After a long drive to Utah,
After an unexpected delay going in to the MTC (pneumonia sure has a way of ruining things),
After an extra week of being a set apart missionary who had to follow mission rules,
After realizing that she forgot to fill out the back side of her shot record paper,
After a nervous but funny ride to Provo,

Mom finally made it to the MTC!!

Bringing a senior missionary to the MTC is a lot different than bringing a young missionary. First of all, they go in on Monday instead of Wednesday so there was hardly anyone around to even take our group picture. So few people, in fact, that I didn't even get a group picture taken on my camera.

Here's my wonderful Mommie in front of the sign for her home for the next few days.

And here she is with her favorite daughter.... named Heidi. :D
We were taken by surprise when, as we drove into the parking lot, we saw a sign directing us to turn right (instead of the left we took to drop off Rebecca at the curb). Once we pulled up in front of the front doors, we all got out and waited to hug Mom goodbye. However, a missionary met us and told us not to take out her luggage yet. Instead we were to accompany Mom to her room and help her with the luggage. WOAH. Crazy. How many of you can say that you've been inside an MTC dorm room without having been a full-time missionary? I can. :) Here's the proof:Once we helped her get her stuff in, we briefly met her companion (Sister Kapp, sister-in-law to Janice Kapp Perry) and then headed back to the front door. After a slight (hilarious) delay of getting stuck in a stupid ditch in the parking lot (Jon, I hope your car is okay), we took Mom here:
Even though we got to take her to the front door, we didn't get to walk in and see her get her nametag. We hugged right outside the front door, and it was still such a foreign feeling than none of us cried this time around either (including Mom!).

BUT, as Spencer likes to fondly remind us, senior missionaries can do whatever they FREAKIN' want. SO.... Mom might even be reading this blog post. Plus also, she called me yesterday to see how everything went when I moved in to my new place. She also mentioned that she even has time to take a nap in the middle of the day! Coolio. Nevertheless, I know she's busy and working hard -- missionary life is never easy. I really admire my mom for having the guts to serve a full-time mission, even though it's not with her husband like she had orginally planned. The California Riverside Mission has one great Mission Secretary in training right now!

I'm glad that both of my parents are now serving missions, even if it's not the same mission. I love you, Mom! Good luck with everything!

Fustrated, Flustrated, Frustrated

However you say it (and yes, I've heard people say it all three ways, annoyingly enough), that's what I am.

Apparently, no matter how much I beg, the Pleasant Grove Library computers don't like to let me on to BYU's homepage. So, despite the fact that I'm elated that BYU no longer has a health and wellness requirement (meaning I don't have to take HEPE this semester afterall), I CAN'T DO ANY STINKIN' THING ABOUT IT. I can't drop that class and sign up for a more fun one when I can't even log on to Route Y to check for class openings, now CAN I?

Add that to the fact that I don't even have my own library card here (meaning I have to wait for a relative to be done with his/her card) and that each card only gets one hour using the computer -- That means that IF the computer EVER lets me sign in to BYU, I'll be down to only 5 minutes of usage left and run out of time to do anything on my account (at least that's what happened yesterday...)

WHAT A HEAP OF JUNK.
I miss my own computer with the internet.

Despite all this, life really is lovely. I promise.
Sometimes I just gotta vent, ya know?

Visitors!

We had Jennifer, Spencer and Whitney, and the Merkleys here to visit last week. They helped out a lot with cleaning the house, our garage sale, and were just a lot of fun to have around! I loved being able to laugh during home videos, eating s'mores cooked over a camp stove, and being able to just stay up late talking.

While they were here, I noticed some things about one of my nieces and a couple of my nephews.

Josh is a very structured kid, he's a great big brother, and he is a fan of creamy (not crunchy!) peanut butter. I enjoyed seeing him play the piano and I envied his ability to make sound effects.

What a cute little construction worker!

Josh, this picture's for you since you requested that I add it to my blog:
(He's the one behind the couch.)

Tyler has a wonderful giggle that I wish I had caught on film, he inherited some stubbornness (probably from his mom :D) that he likes to display by saying, "I can't" in a very cute little voice, and he loves to play with Josh. He seemed to be a little shy around me at first, but he soon got used to me. I loved how Tyler's entire hand could fit on my (for lack of a better word) "nail" toy (see the post just before this if you don't know what toy I'm talking about).

Here Tyler is 'vacuuming' at a Children's Museum.

Sarah is an adorable little baby who likes to be around other people, who crawls very quickly, and who has an eye for any little thing left on the floor. She seemed to be quite taken with Spencer, and she loved crawling through the tunnel at the museum. She was a delight to be around, and I'm glad I finally had the chance to meet my youngest niece!

Here she is in the aforementioned tunnel.

Now Eric and family are visiting, and I'll get to do another post about these cute kiddos sometime later!


Thanks to everyone for coming to visit, for being so much help with packing up the house and at the garage sale, and for helping make this last part of summer so much fun!