Lauren's Happenings

Week of August 28th

For FHE my ward was combined with my favorite Gilbert Ward. My bff Colten was in charge and needed a ward to be combined with, so I volunteered my ward. We played "yoga ball" which is a mix of basketball and soccer with a huge yoga ball. It was super fun to be with all my Gilbert lovers AND I did actually participate. Also pre FHE Brent and I went to Cafe Rio and it reminded me that I'm still 100% Costa Vida.

On Wednesday we had our first ever RS Activity. I actually delegated really well and left it up to my 2nd counselor. She decided to have a "social" at Kneaders. In the past, they would only get about 3 girls but we had 20, so I called that a huge success!! It ended up being super fun and we all stayed 2 hours!!

Thursday my friends and I went to ASU's first game. During the game they had a Pac-12 commercial and it showed a short clip of UofA- it did my heart so much good. It made me kinda wish I was at a UofA game, but it was still fun nonetheless. We left at the start of 4th, which is kinda a bummer because then the game actually got good!





Syd's bachelorette party!!! Kenzie has been looking forward to this since they were engaged, so I knew it was gonna be good! Syd rented out an Airbnb and it made the whole thing so fun. We all met up at the house (in Scottsdale) and got bridal tattoos while we waited for everyone to arrive.








Sunday

My friend Mason decided to serve a mission and he got his call- HOUSTON TEXAS. What a time to go there!!

After the mission call opening, I went to Brent's and watched some movie that is similar to the office. I'm sure there's a word for that kind of movie.



Week of September 4th


Monday was labor day which meant no work for all of my roommates. We slept in, and then went grocery shopping. Well I only needed a few things at the grocery store because I rarely cook for myself, so I mostly just hit up Downeast. I found quite a few essentials.

Madison and I treated ourselves to lunch at Kneaders. My roommates love Kneaders and we recently discovered there is one only a mile away. So we frequent it often.

In the later afternoon, I met up with Cariann, Lyndy and Torin for a hike. We did a trail on the superstition mountains. It was shaded most the time or we for sure would have died. It was definitely a pretty hike. We kind of naturally split and it ended up being Cariann and I most the time, so we chatted more than we hiked.






Friday I invited myself on the Gilbert Stake camping trip to Camp LoMia.
I drove up with Steph, Cariann, Lyndy, and her friend Katie. I started it off right with some Soda Shop, which also meant we had to stop in Payson for a bathroom break.
We checked in at the church building, were assigned a cabin and then were shuttled to the campsite. It came to light that I brought multiple shoes and I got so much grief for it the rest of the trip.

We sat down to eat right when the rain started (I was happy we were situated before the rain). Thankfully they had an indoor eating area. So we ate, socialized, met up with our friends that drove up in another car earlier that day, and then went to the devotional. Spencer and I got separated from the group and we were in the very back, so it was kinda hard to pay attention. But the parts i listened to were really good. The rest of the night was spent dancing!! Some others played sports like glow in the dark volleyball, basketball, soccer, bowling, etc. Once we were all dead and sweaty, we turned in for the night. Cariann and I had pillow talk for awhile and then attempted to fall asleep.
I woke up every even hour and laid there for at least an hour. It was pretty miserable.

Saturday. Our friends planned to go on a hike. My car didn't want to go but I wanted to say hi/bye to them, so I went down to the meeting place with Cariann. Well the boys stood us up. So we ended up waiting 2 hours- until they came down for breakfast. They redeemed themselves by driving us back to our car at the church.

Back to school, back to school. To prove to dad that i'm not a fool.

The skinny on my life everyday from 7:45-3.


First hour is prep. The first day my first hour student didn't show up within the first 15 minutes, so we went to the DHH room to see. Sure enough she was just chilling in there. She dropped the class and no one let us know. So now I have first hour prep since my class was dropped and there aren't any other classes that need an interpreter. We are supposed to prepare for our classes and look up concepts that may be tough to interpret. There are 4 other interpreters on prep at that time too, so we digress but it sure is fun. TBH, I hated having 1st hour prep at first because I would show up to school ready to work, and then would have to wait another hour. But I like it now. I get to chill for a bit/prepare for my day.

Second hour is english with a freshman boy. He has deaf parents, so he has a good handle on ASL (you'd be surprised how many different levels of communication we have between all our students). He also doesn't have any other disabilities, so he's pretty independent too. Here's the real highlight- I get to team with my work BFF, Olivia. That means we split the class time in half to interpret. It also means that when they are doing independent classwork (which is often since it's english) we get to quietly chat. It's the best thing ever.

Third hour is science with two lower functioning students. It's a Sped class so it's smaller and more relaxed. The content is fun to interpret though because it's very precise. Still getting a feel for the students signing style, but we are chugging right along. I also have a team in this class, and she is full of sarcasm. Love her.

Fourth hour is culinary with one of my students from third hour and a team. The real perk is the aid, Amber! She's the one I would interpret for on Sundays and "grew up" with. She's the cutest and I love chatting with her when we get the chance. So there are 2 types of days in culinary. 1- super chill, independently reading a chapter from the book. Literally nothing to interpret. 2- SUPER HIGH STRESS, YELLING, ALL OVER THE PLACE. Aka when they are in the kitchen. I literally feel stressed the whole time. I don't particularly love cooking days, but it may get better over time?

LUNCH.
The school has realized that interpreters are kinda here to stay. I mean they have 15 deaf students this semester and the number never really goes down. It is a hub for deaf students since they have so many amazing accommodations. So there will always be a need for multiple interpreters...so they are finally giving us an actual office. Unfortunately, they didn't start working on it until the week before school started. It's projected to be ready for us in October. In the mean time, we decided we'd take over the teacher's lounge for lunch. It's actually been the best thing ever (especially because they play music in there- HOLLER). We have decided that we are staying down there for lunch even when we get our office.

Fifth hour is my most taxing class. I have a team but we have 5 deaf FRESHMEN boys. They are all BFFs and quite rowdy together. They definitely claim that freshmen title. I high key love them though. A lot of the interpreters refuse to work with them, but I enjoy their liveliness. There is one student that is very low functioning. So we decided to split the class. One interpreter sits on the left and interprets for the lower student and the other sits on the right, interpreting for the 4 boys. We do it at the same time, but we are matching the students level of intellect so we aren't necessarily signing the same thing.

Sixth hour. I originally had prep this hour which is the greatest thing of all time (or GOAT if I'm going to try to be hip) because then I can clock out a few minutes early and beat traffic. But now I have 3 of the freshmen boys in a science class with the most deaf friendly teacher of all time. I've literally never met a better match for deaf students. She's the best. I don't really care for science but this is my favorite class because of her (and the boys).

There you have it.



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1. The first day of school, I made sure to stop by my parent's for the traditional first day of school cookies. Later that evening I went to a diamondback's game with Brent and his schoolmates. They got invited from some insurance group and had box seats. It was quite the high life. Also a good celebration to the first day of school.



2. The first week of school, our AC went out at the house. I tried to go there Friday after school but it was awful. Madison dodged the bullet and went out of town for the weekend. Elise and I packed a bag and stayed at my parents. Which worked out because my parents were out of town celebrating their anniversary.
Friday night I was EXHAUSTED. Probably because I never caught up on sleep from the beach trip. I was in and out of sleep all night. I finally crashed around 11. Later found out that Elise and my siblings went to IHOP at 1 am. Haha. I wasn't even mad though because I needed sleep!

The next day was Syd's bridal shower. In true Richardson fashion, it was perfect. I ate waaaaay too much but they had oreo truffles, so I'm not all that shocked. They also had a soda bar, so that was a must have.
Kenzie put together some fun games too- my favorite of the bride guessing the grooms answers (they were literally spot on, and so in sync), guessing how old they were in pictures and guessing who said what. The age one was pretty funny for Zach. We were all way off. It was a 10/10 shower!




In the afternoon, Elise and I didn't know what to do, but we wanted to do SOMETHING. So we ended up going to As You Wish and painted coasters. There were 4 altogether so we each did 2. It was fun and relaxing!
Then we picked up Nate for some Thai food in Gilbert.
That evening was a little crazy. I had to take Nate to a stake dance by the Mesa Temple, then drove to my friend's house near the Gilbert Temple. He of course called me an hour in and asked me to pick him up. DJ of course didn't answer his phone, so I drove 40 minutes to get him and go back to my party. I wasn't too thrilled. At the game night while I was actually there we played two of my favorites- the game of things, and Code Names. PLUS we had ice cream!


3. THE TUCSON TEMPLE IS DEDICATED!!!!!!!!!! I will definitely have to go back now. Ironically, I was in Tucson when the Gilbert Temple was dedicated and I was in Gilbert when the Tucson was dedicated. Ironic. It was fabulous though.


4. My ward was combined with DJ's ward for FHE. Which I was super looking forward to! We did "Feed My Starving Children" and most of my group was CSP (high school friends). It was a good time. Although TBH, my wrist was done scooping by the time we were done. And I was sweaty??


5. Bachelor in Paradise has started and i have watched only like 20 minutes of it. The night after it aired, Katherine came over to watch it with us, which of course meant we had to go to Rubios beforehand. GNOs are always too fun.


6. Brent and I are both introducing eachother to all the good food we know. Somewhere in the last month I have tried Rudys (craving it as I type), and a pizza place in Chicago. The location in Phx is the only restaurant that is outside of Chicago. So we are pretty lucky. And yes it was WELL WORTH the drive to Phoenix. So far I have only introduced Brent to Gecko Grill and Canes. We are still at war over Cafe Rio and Costa and frequent both.


7. Brent and I somewhat spontaneously went to Disneyland. He has season tickets AND his sister lives in California right now. She was heading back to Utah soon, so he wanted to go one last time. So I tagged along. Brent and his family are regulars there AND his sister used to work there. So they had the park DOWN and knew all the good food places to eat too. The real disney magic is the new disneyland app with the max pass. It allows you to get fast passes from your phone no matter where you are. It is the most convenient thing. We were very efficient and did all the rides we wanted with no waiting. TBH, I warned Brent a head of time that I'm not the best person to take to disneyland because I don't love the big drops. But he lives for going on the craziest ones. He somehow convinced me to go on the new Tower of Terror-Guardians of the Galaxy. Not gonna lie, I was super anxious. I was not looking forward to it. SOMEHOW I ended up going twice. I will admit, it wasn't as dreadful as I remembered and I learned how to breath correctly so I didn't feel like i was going to die. The best part is, the whole time you are "dropping" they are playing music. I think they kinda helped too. Poor Brent probably had a bruised left side though.

Anyway we spent ALL DAY Saturday at the park. Brent and I got there right before it opened, and then his sister and cousins joined us later.


Sunday his sister took her husband to the airport and then woke us up for church like 20 minutes before we had to go. So we got ready real quick. The meeting I kid you not, started 15 minutes late. And that isn't out of the ordinary either. Crazy huh! The speakers were this cute old couple that basically just told stories of their lives.
After church, we crossed the street and checked out the temple, then got lunch and headed back to AZ.


8. Last Saturday I went on a hike for the first time in a looong time. Since June! That's a pretty long time! We kept it small, just Colten, Cariann and Viktor. We were on a time crunch so we hiked South Mountain for about an hour. We stopped at the little hut and set up a hammock. I hadn't seen Cariann and Colten for a few weeks so it did my heart good to see them again!