Playing Catch Up

Well, it's September, and I haven't written on this thing in forever! My life has been crazy the past few months, and bloggin it all, well let's just say I didn't feel up to the task. But I've learned sooo much! Which has been wonderful. I think that learning is one of the greatest things you could ever do for yourself. I feel so blessed to have gotten the opportunity to make myself better through challenges and study and effort, and I hope that continues the rest of my life!

Right now I'm living in American Fork, Utah with my aunt and uncle and cousins. I'm teaching gymnastics to kids ages 1 through 12 at the Rec center here, and it's seriously my favorite job ever! The little kids are soooo stinkin adorable, and smart too. Some of them pick up on things so fast. This morning, this little girl who's 4 or 5 (can remember which) did a front handspring on a mini vault out of nowhere! and it was really good too! It's so funny cause I get so excited when things like that happen. I'm sure the kids think I'm crazy sometimes. Lol. And this morning I also played mini lacrosse catch with this 5 year old boy named Everest, who is seriously like the biggest five year old I've ever met. It was so fun, trying to throw the ball far enough and trying to catch it when he threw it all over the place. Makes me super excited to have kids of my own someday. In another class, this little redhead 6 year old gave me a leaf one day, and another girl game me a little plastic frog. It's so rewarding to teach. And fun. It takes some patience. You can't get frustrated when they don't always pay attention or want to do their own thing, otherwise you can't enjoy them! So I'm milking that job for all it's worth!

I'm learning how to garden too. Mainly just pulling weeds and picking veggies. And green beans! Oh my gosh I've picked soooo many green beans, and they are so not fun to pick. Lol. Right now I'm procrastinating picking them, so they've gotten really big and are probably no good for eating, but I'm having a hard time caring that much. Haha. Oh, and cucumbers.... I've never seen so many in my life! And tomatoes! Good thing I like them. We've had some huge tomatoes! Ones where you only need one slice for a sandwich and it pops out the sides! My aunt measured one, that was 15 inches around, and I think there has been a couple even bigger than that! Which reminds me, I should go pick some more today. And maybe weed.... maybe.

I went home for this last weekend and had some fun cooking with my grandma. For anyone that knows her, you know she's like the best cook in the world! She helped me learn to make some of my favorite dishes, and she's making me a recipe book (I gave her a blank notebook for it for Christmas... almost a gift to myself. ;) ). I actually wore an apron for the first time in my life! Or maybe the second. I can't remember the last time I wore one. Lol. But I'm definitely wanting to get some cooking skills.

So I'm living with four boys right now. Five if you count their dad. It's way different living with all boys rather than mostly girls. I'm subjected to a lot of farts and fighting, but it's way fun and I enjoy laughing at them or playing with them. My youngest cousin Lazarus (I know, cool name right) tried to teach me how to ride a ripstick a couple of weeks ago, and that was pretty neat. And we went to jump on it, a place with lots of tramps, where all 6 of my boy cousins were throwing pretty sweet tricks. Like flips with twists and stuff. So of course, I had to do something cool. I managed to land a front flip with one twist, and tried and back flip with one twist, (back full) but since in diving I always did back flip with one and a half twists, I didn't stop rotating. I landed on my butt facing the opposite way... but it was pretty cool regardless!

And I have my own room again! I haven't had my own room since high school, so that's kinda nice. It's good to be able to do whatever and not worry about anyone watching me. And eating really healthy, which is cool. I eat a lot of vegetables from the garden, tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and corn and carrots and beets and rasberries and blackberries. Even green beans, sometimes. I definitely want to have a huge garden of my own some day! It will be awesome...

I'm enjoying life right now! I love my job and the people around me and I'm doing things I'm proud of. Life is good.