The Last Two Weeks of Summer Break

Well.  The summer break is officially over and the fall semester starts tomorrow.  Bummer.  7 weeks really isn't that long when you're working constantly and have few weekends to rest .. Jed was rushed around all summer long either working long hours or running to other states (WY, UT, WA) on his off days.  Poor thing is exhausted.  On the other hand, however, 7 weeks is a long time when you have no obligations .. I wasn't able to find a job for the summer so spent the entire time surfing the internet, playing computer games, reading, playing housewife, and dreaming of backpacking the Tetons.  And now it's over..

So, as a recap of the last 2 weeks ..

I turned 26 on Aug 30.  I pretty much just sat around all day being bored like I did any other day this summer, then Jed and I were going to go out to Thai but it was closed so we went to Sammy's before gathering a few friends and going out to the Dunes to have a small bonfire and make s'mores.  It was successfully better than last year's birthday that was just a nightmare: my laptop had fried it's first hard drive and Jed and I spent several hours at the computer help desk on campus trying to retrieve corrupted files later to find out the way we did it probably messed them up more and I still haven't been able to retrieve them (all my mission pictures, other pictures, hundreds of hours of family history work and documentation, school work, tons of music, etc), I was sick and in horrible pain from my period, neither parent called and I don't recall getting any gifts, I sped to get to the Thai restaurant before it closed and got a $225 ticket when we literally had $20 between us, and we didn't end up going to the restaurant anyway.  Boring is better than one of the worst days of the year.

I deep cleaned my brains out at the end of the week because both my parents were coming back to back days.  My dad was going to stop by on his way back to IA from WA sometime in the next couple weeks but it ended up being Friday night to Sunday morning last weekend.  We chilled out and hiked Darby Canyon on Saturday, unfortunately without Jed, who had to work.  It was way nice being able to chat with him since we hardly get a hold of each other it seems.

We then had about 8 hours until my mom showed up.  She came out because she wanted more time seeing us and hadn't seen our place.  She was here Sunday night to Thursday afternoon.  Monday we took a 3 hour walking tour of the several trails through Rexburg walking from our place to the east end of the trail that goes along the Teton River, along the river, along the Greenbelt, then through the west side of town to the Nature Park and back.  Tuesday we did a 2.5 hour walking tour of BYU-I campus, going into most of the buildings to see the highlights in each.  We spent a fair amount of time checking out the art in the new BYU-I center - they have a ton of great pieces depicting the Savior's life.  Wednesday we attempted to go on a short hike in the Tetons but left too late, got held up by traffic and construction, then by difficulty choosing a trail, getting turned around, and then finally getting there and there being too many free range cattle for my mom's liking.  Shame.

Thursday I went to the orientation for my new job at the Rexburg Opinion Center.  $7.25 to make calls for hours trying to get people to take surveys, oh boy!  Thing is, I was just finished with applying to every business in town and adding my application to the stacks of hundreds (I'm not exaggerating) and then waiting to get some other minimum wage job when I knew that I could get a job at the call center because of their high turn-over rate.  So there I am since I didn't get the job at the juvenile detention center (they might pick me up in November for their next group but I'll be so close to graduation and a "real" job by then, I dunno if the experience I'd gain would be worth sacrificing the pay and setting me up in the LSW arena).  So I start next week.  But the really awesome thing is that, barring nothing terrible goes wrong in my life and social work agencies don't loose all their funding because of these crazy cuts, this will be the last entry-level/minimum-wage job I will ever have.  That is a small triumph for sure.

Other than that, I've just been tidying up, prepping for my internship and supporting Jed with his class load, I finished The Time Traveler's Wife, and have finally been able to play some more WOW and start House season 7, woot!

In other news, I have been back from my mission 3 years this month.  Yikes, how time flies.