Lauren's Happenings

Monday

School consisted of pancakes, kickball and Moana. Not complaining at all. Happy Last Week of school to me.

For FHE, my new ward had a talent show. Madison couldn't go, so it was just Elise and I. It was a good way to see everyone's personality. I made a goal to introduce myself to one person, and I talked to the cutest girl who I think I need to set up with one of my guy friends.
After reaching my "goal", Elise and I decided we were good to dip. We ended up staying at least a half hour in the parking lot just talking.


Tuesday

Sunsplash. :)

Since the beginning of the year, there has been a lot of hype about the 6th grade trip to Sunsplash. Well the day finally arrived.

I still had to go to A hour beforehand, so I had to get semi ready/presentable.


The students all lined up at 9, but the teacher told me to get a head start so I could find a parking spot. **I was the 3rd car there. Lolz. So I got to just sit in my car and jam while I waited for the buses. It took 5ever to get into the park. Once in, we had to wait til 10 for them to actually open it. By this point we were all sweaty from standing in the sun.

I asked my student beforehand if she wanted me close (not right with her but close) or if I should just go on my own. She said to just do my own thing. I did not object. Although I later felt bad because she took off her hearing aids so she could not hear a darn thing. But she was okay with it, so all the more power to her.

There are 3 aids that work in the 6th grade department, and we were buddies for the day. 2 of them are moms, and one is a boy around my age. One of the moms HATED the slides and screamed the whole way. It was too fun to just let loose. We also spent some time on the lazy river until we couldn't handle the kids pushing us over and over again (i felt like the grumpy old neighbor).

We really didn't have that long there. The buses told us last minute that we needed to be LOADED on the bus by 1:15. That meant we only had 3 hours at the park. When it hit 1, all the aids, and teachers walked through the parking corralling all the students. It was quite stressful trying to find everyone. I don't do well with being late or stress. You did not want to mess with me. By the time it was 1:30, we were still missing 3 girls. I just had this gut feeling they had to be on a slide. I told the teachers they could start walking to the buses. I drove myself so I'd keep looking. Sure enough, they were on a slide. They were near tears, they thought they were left and felt so bad.

By this point, I really deserved a DP, and QT was conveniently right next to Sunsplash....


When I got home, I just crashed. I slept until dinner. I debated going to dance because my eyes were just done. I'm happy I went though. We did a fun jazz dance.

Monday

Parents went out of town on a "rewards trip" sponsored by my dad's work. 90% of the time I tell people they went to Bahamas, but they actually went to Bermuda. Oops.
This also meant I was "mom". My hardest mom duty was waking up Alie... haha. A hour is tough round here.

Last Friday, I was MIA at school and supposedly missed a whole lot of ugly between my student and her teacher. I quickly caught on to the drama. That was fun.


Back to mom duties...MAYBE if I didn't work at the office too, I'd actually make dinner...but ya know. So Nate got to pick where we ate tonight so we of course had Canes.

For FHE my gilbert ward played the game of "good, better and best". You start with a plastic spoon, knock on people's doors and see if they have something to trade you that's better. It's a competition of who can end up with the greatest thing. I didn't like the idea of bothering people but I also didn't want to go to my new ward's fhe. So I went to the gilbert one anyway. Everyone must have also felt unenthused because it was a weak turnout.
My group ended up being Lyndy, Colten and Mason. At the end, everyone would just give a nice object and tell us to keep what we had. Hahaha. So we ended up with quite a bit.

Mothers Day

Monday

Mom was in Utah for my cousin's wedding so we got cute little pictures all day.

Monday

For FHE, we were "speed dating". In my group chat someone said we should have our own "fhe" since the last speed dating was so lame. One person decided to be righteous and go, so we all followed. There are a few fun things to relay.

The person saying the opening prayer (bless his heart), prayed all about marriage. He prayed that we would find out future spouse TONIGHT, and said a few other fun things along those lines. Pretty sure everyone had an eye open, glancing at the person next to them, trying not to laugh. I felt bad for the kid.
There were 3 wards there; Temple View, Nauvoo Station and of course Greenfield (my ward). They set up the tables so one side was Greenfield girls and the other was Temple View boys. So we were forced to intermingle. Also when we arrived, they had us put our names into jars which were labeled by ward and gender. They started with the "dating game". They had one girl in the hot seat, and then 6 boys on the other side of the divider (only boys from the other wards). There were about 6 girls from my ward that showed up, so we knew we would all be selected at some point. I ended up having to go in the "hot seat", which is actually the much better end of the deal because I didn't have to answer questions. Also Faye helped me out at the end and held up a "5" so I knew who to choose ;)
I only had two questions and then I had to decide. My first question to narrow it down real fast was DP or Mountain Dew (I figured most guys don't drink Coke, typically Pepsi if anything). The other question the "host" made up; he asked the best meal they can cook.

After many rounds of this, we did "actual" speed dating. I met one guy, the first thing he said was, "I was on your panel and you didn't pick me". He was serious and real mad. I felt so awkward and bad. I didn't know what to say. I told him I was sorry and my pick was really just a random selection. I tried to lighten the mood but to no avail. Hahaha.

After all the "dating", we were talking about food and that led to Smashburger. Colten (not knowing I have the worst sense of direction), followed me there. We all stayed there for an hour or so after eating. Turns out, we are all moving sometime this month, so Colten will be the only one still in the ward...Poor thing.



Tuesday

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

Madison had to stay later at school, so in the mean time, Elise and I watched One Tree Hill. I'm basically watching it for the first time because I don't remember ANYTHING that happens. Haha.
Since it's teacher appreciation week, we all get free food. First went to Chick Fil A to get our free sandwich BUT TURNS OUT, no location in the valley is doing it. LAME.
Luckily Chipotle loves teachers every year and we got our "buy one get one free" deal. We also binged a little with Guac too. We were literally in line for an hour though...
In true Chipotle Tuesday fashion, we ate it at home while watching One Tree Hill.

Later that evening was of course my dance class. We started learning the hip hop dance and it's gonna be good. Stay tuned for a possible video on Instagram ;)



Wednesday

My student was in the Orchestra Concert Assembly for the bulk of the morning. It's always a real treat to shake things up and get out of class. Since I am so close to going over my allowed hours, I got to leave an hour early. So all around a rockin day.

After school consisted of working at the office til 4:30, quick temple trip, Costa Vida and learning how to slack line. The boys in the group chat spontaneously decided to get the slack line out. After watching for the first 20 minutes, and getting eaten alive by ants, I finally tried it. Jason came in clutch and "spotted me" the first two times. The final time, I of course fell. I still landed on my feet (thank goodness), but I smacked my leg on the slack line. I already have a super cute bruise.

We had an extra dance practice because not everyone will be there for the last practice next week. Naturally she tweaked/CHANGED the whole hip hop dance so now i don't remember any of it. Golden.

After of course showering, I went and visited my BFF Landon for a little bit.



Thursday

15 days of school left. :)

Post school, I caught up on my Grey's Anatomy and FINALLY finished "This Is Us". I had been putting it off because everyone said it was THE WORST ending but I actually didn't hate it. Maybe partly from hearing everyone else talk about it- I already knew what was going to happen.

My student had her final orchestra concert. But jokes on me, she didn't even show up. I later found out she was getting her hair braided (basically dreadlocks) so she missed it. #priorities. Lolz.
It worked out though because then I got to go to a "pie party" not as late as anticipated. One of the girls on the GC hike made two kinds of homemade pie and had some people over. Her town-home has a community club house. First we played a game of Rock. I made the mistake of playing after Torin and he got me out within my first 4 turns. I beat him (and won) the next round because KARMA. We played a few rounds of rock, and then moved on to fooseball. Sarah and I lost against the boys and then eventually split so it was more even. Torin and I also played a game of shuffle board. TBH neither of us really knew how to play, so we kinda played wrong but it was a good time. He is competitive so there was a good amount of trash talking. I was pretty fired up. He ended up winning by 1 point.

Once the night was wrapping up, Aaron invited us all to go see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. We spontaneously went and Aaron ditched his friends to stay with us since they didn't save enough seats for us all. The movie was pretty funny. It had a lot of good humor. But it was also pretty crude and a lot of unnecessary things.
It was still worth staying up til 1. But really I just really like my friends and have serious FOMO.



Friday

To end off teacher appreciation week, PTO brought lunch for all the staff. They did Costa Vida style and it was right on point.

Nate is in his school play- The Wizard of Oz. Mom of course is the number one parent helper and got to star as stage crew as well. Haha. For some reason, I didn't realize Nate would have so many lines. He absolutely rocked it. I felt like a proud mother watching him up there. He sure has a thing for the performing arts. I'm excited for him to be in plays at the high school level!

Saturday cont...

My stake, and Mesa West stake put on a Luau. To be honest, it didn't quite live up to the hype of last years. It was ight. They had some Hawaiian performers, and then a dance. Literally no one was dancing, so we didn't last very long. Some people in my ward had an after party. First they deep fried oreos and put them in ice cream- so unnecessarily unhealthy but so good. To top it off, Colten put his "bartending" skills to use and made us a drink complete with sugar around the rim. Also a 10/10. Naturally now that we all had food babies, we put on our swimsuits and got in the pool (really just the hot tub). We then all just talked and Colten told a funny, long-gated story of 5 guys in my ward all going for the same girl at the same time. We were all very engaged and soon it was 12:40! Whoops.

The party was not over at my house though. Al had her prom group over watching a movie in the backyard. I eventually tapped out at 2.


Sunday

Mom was a gem and road with me to pick up a chair from my old Gilbert house. Then drove us over to my new house in East Mesa to drop it off. Then I crashed again for 2 hours til it was time to get ready for church.

I feel like I talked to no one at church. Which tends to happen on Linger Longer Days because we are all over the place trying to get everything ready. I left church wondering what I even did those 3 hours.

For dinner, Elise and Madison joined us. It was pretty lowkey. Around 7 everyone dipped and I went to the temple visitors center to see the new Joseph Smith movie. It was like we were all back in high school walking around the temple for a few hours after just talking. The movie was definitely good though- I'd recommend!



Monday
24 more days of school :)

FHE was literally the best it's been in a long time. It was all because SYDNEY RICHARDSON was there!! And she was the cutest and got on her knee and asked me to be her bridesmaid. I won't tell you what she gave me just in case one of the other bridesmaids are reading. ;) I'm so excited to be in her wedding party (bridetribe)!!!!! It's definitely going to be a party!!!!!!!!!!
It was also so prime because Elise, and Madison came, plus my friends in my ward AND all my high school friends that are still single. I left with my socializing tank full.


Tuesday

My student and I had the best day we've had in awhile. She did her work, and we were able to have fun. 10/10.

I had a long list of things to do with the move. Having the day off (from the office) was perfect because then I could knock it all out in one day.


At my dance class, we learned our whole dance for the show. Granted, it's like a minute long, but we learned quite a bit. Also, my teacher doesn't give compliments too freely, but she told me I look great doing the dance and I should do the show with them. I felt very honored.

I also left the dance class with a text asking me to teach the lesson in RS. Wish me luck!


Wednesday

My ward friends finally added me to their group chat so now I am officially a wardie. Now I have a party crew. ;)

They ended up having a crap ton of work at the office, so I didn't get out of there til after 6. I still decided to go to the temple since I already had a skirt on (who would want to get all ready the next day too???). The rest of the night was spent doing laundry, going for a run, taking more stuff over to the new house and finally buying tickets for the D-Backs game on Saturday.


Thursday

Another awesome day with student. Those are always treasures.

My bff Elise is a teacher at Highland. A lot of her students are on the dance team, so she invited me to go see their end of the year show with her. I of course gladly agreed. The whole theme was about movies. It showed the great difference in Elise and my taste in movies. I loved the High School Musical, hairspray, etc. She loved the Insidious, suicide squad, etc.
It was so fun to reminisce on my high school dance years. Even after 5 years of being graduated, I still feel so sad when the seniors do their final senior dance. Although I think I was the most sad when my sister did her dance as a senior (and I was a sophomore). I was so sad we wouldn't be in school together anymore.


Friday

Sometimes, I'm really stupid. Sometimes I stay up way too late and then work off of 2 hours of sleep. A hour and the initial waking up was a little rough but I was a-okay the rest of the school day.

This is a tangent but it will become relevant. Typically at schools, interpreters are kind of outcasts. Especially if you are the only interpreter at the school. We don't get a lot of interaction with other adults because we follow our student all day long. For lunch, we/I typically eat in the lounge with whoever else is in there. Typically an aide or maybe a PE teacher. This year, I got super lucky. The 6th grade department is so much fun! I love the teachers I work with and the aides. I can always count on lunch to turn around my day and give me a good laugh.
Anyway, today was "my teacher's" birthday. So we had a little party for lunch. We had Mexican food from Mangos, plus a chocolate cake (courtesy of my angel mother). James and I were the lucky ones that got to leave campus for a little bit to pick up the food. I guess you could say it's been a party day all around.

That evening I hung out with my ward friends. We watched Dr Strange (it wasn't really my type of movie), and had snow cones. I left a little early for an ice cream date.


Saturday

I spent the whole morning planning my lesson for RS. I had a good outline going, and then decided to make a powerpoint with it. That of course took a lot of extra time.
We were going to get sushi for al's birthday for lunch but she got home too late. So instead Nate and I got chick fil a.

Every summer the all the YSA's have a "night out" at the D-Backs game.