Random Update

Well the week with Laura home was really wonderful. I spent a lot of time with her and her family and we had a lot of fun, it was nice to have her around even if it was only for a week. We did a bunch of things including shopping for her internship attire, while everyone else is buying all sorts of grown up fancy business professional clothes for work I am trying to figure out which shirts in my closet I care the least about to wear to "work". :o) We also went boating! It was suuuper fun, the water was probably waaay to cold to swim yet but we went out and ate at the Nau-ti-gal on the lake and then just boated around for a while until we went home. We had six people on the boat, Laura, Matt, Lauren, Mrs. and Mr. Montgomery and I. While we were on the lake the "Lake police" stopped us. We were about 50lbs over the weight limit, which I guess is understandable, but they were trying to get Laura's dad for other violations, but it didn't work out so well. We had life jackets coming out of our ears and his registration was up to date. They were really big jerks about it to and clearly the "power" they have over the lake had gone to both their heads...it was a bit ridiculous. We went out of Perkins her last night in town with TJ, Zach, and Matt and witnessed quite the scene of quarreling waitresses, it was actually pretty funny especially given the commentary by our server Evan. I miss working at Perkins sometimes...but those moments are definitely few and far between. Anyway I saw her off to the airport, and spent Saturday morning with her before she left, and now I can't wait for the cabin trip and the few hours she'll have at home between Texas and the UP. She arrives on the 15th of August at 2pm and we leave for the cabin August 16th at 7:30am. We basically plan on using team work and running around like crazy people unpacking, repacking, shopping, and possibly cooking so she's ready to go. :o) It's going to be awesome.

In other news my "job" babysitting Clark, Jack, and Grant starts next Monday! I'm a little bit nervous because I know they have crazy schedules this summer between little league, swim lessons, swim team, and various other things there involved in and it's going to be a bit crazy to try to get all of them rounded up in order to make it on time but I believe in myself. haha. I am excited however to be able to be callow all summer and not have a real person job to worry about. (callow is one of my recently learned GRE words and it means to be young and immature. :oD) On top of their crazy schedules I'm going to be coming home to my own crazy schedule between various doctors appointments, working on my dance capstone, studying for my GRE's, trying to be a little bit social, art I want to finish and books I want to read I think I might have my hands full. Another thing to add to my schedule which I'm pretty darn excited about is a hip hop class!! I'm hoping that I don't look too ridiculous trying to do it and that I won't embarrass myself to terribly much but we'll see. :o)

As for my health update! The scan itself was not pleasant at all. Drinking a ton of barium really fast and then being turned this way and that and having to roll around a few times to get it to coat your stomach...not exactly my cup of tea, however I've been through worse so I suppose it wasn't THAT terrible. It just tastes really bad, and they make you swallow these crystals that are just like pop rocks but they taste terrible and it's extraordinarily hard to just swallow them while their fizzing and exploding in your mouth. And the barium they make you drink is like a thicker version of Pepto-Bismol except it tastes a lot worse. Gulping down the first 3/4 of each glass is fine but when you get towards the end it gets thicker and harder to swallow and so I would basically choke down the last 1/4 of each cup. From my experience having contrast injected no matter how icky that can make you feel is much preferred as far as I'm concerned to ingesting it. Anyway it was a bad experience with good and bad results. Although the scan came back normal...which is a good thing, they still don't know whats wrong with me. Now it's on to the next tests and so I'm on a no gluten diet for 2 weeks. At first I was a bit distraught about it but now I'm feeling much better as I realized that there are plenty of substitutes of gluten foods and it's only for 2 weeks...well unless I feel better during the 2 weeks and then it might become a very real part of my life, however I'm not going to get ahead of myself.

I went to Manitowoc yesterday to visit my Great Grandma. The last time I saw her she was really distraught because she needed to move, so it was a relief to see her much happier this time around. We sat and talked with her in her new apartment for a few hours and she showed us lots of pictures of when she was a crossing guard when she was younger. They weren't called crossing guards then though, I think they were called "traffic control women" and they were all women. She had all sorts of articles in the news paper published about her efforts and she had lots of letters from various city officials thanking her for her work she was doing towards making the city a safer place for children. It was really fun to look through the pictures. They wore these cute dark uniforms that were dresses with white trim and they had badges and cute what almost looked like sailor hats. They also had the crossing guard stop signs and there were lots of pictures of her helping the kids cross the street. I guess she made a decent amount of money spending it and her husband used to joke that she made a good amount and spent it all, which she admitted that she usually did. It's neat that both my great grandma and both of my grandmas worked during a time when women didn't really. My grandma Betty worked as a nurse and a school teacher which is more common but my Grandma Barbara worked in clerical work which when she was growing up was mostly a man's job. She said she was the only woman on staff most of the places she worked and now to find out that my Great Grandma Elinor also worked is just really cool. Maybe it's my women's history class getting to my head but I really enjoyed listening to all of their stories about it.

While we were in Manitowoc we ate at this little burger joint in town that my Grandpa said he went to all the time growing up, the owners changed since he was growing up (obviously) but the burgers are still comparable, at least that's what my grandpa claimed. It was REALLY good! The burgers reminded me a lot of the place we stop at on the way up to my cabin, they were small and they didn't serve much outside of burgers and fries and other various sides but boy do they know how to do burgers. I'd love to learn how to make them myself that way maybe I'll have to do some experimenting... Either way the burgers just made me even more anxious to get up to my cabin...I can't wait. Speaking of my cabin we have the porch screened in finally! And also the mismatched stain problem solved! It looks really great. We also just bought love seats to go on either side of the porch it's going to look really nice and it'll be a great place to sit. I think my family and I are planning a trip up there over 4th of July weekend, I'm really hoping that I can go.

Also! This is mostly just to the girls who will be living with me next year but, I entered a drawing to win us a grill!! I really hope I win, and if not my dad and I have been checking them out at Menard's and what not and they have some basic charcoal grills for between $35 and $50 dollars. I also have my Grandpa and Uncle Neal on a hunt for one at auctions and what not so we'll see what we come up with! Also! My parents say they're pretty sure we can take my fire pit from home to go to with me to school as well!! It's one of the stand up outdoor ones but it has a grate around it so it should be safe :oD. You know just in case Jenny, safety always comes first. OH! And I haven't done much browsing through our fabric just yet but my mom says she will for sure teach me how, and help me make curtains for our living room! Yay! I'll look at the fabric and post pictures for you girls on facebook so you can decide which you like best. :o) Overall I'm just really excited for school to start again.

Anyway I always ramble way to much considering my life is really pretty boring and I'm pretty sure very few people care to read about it. So next time I write in here I'll try to make it because something exciting happened...we'll see.

ps: This is the first ever really good picture of my cat Emmi... she really hates the flash and so it's nearly impossible to get a picture of her with her eyes open... so I thought I'd share it. haha.