June Update

WOW. I've been busy. And I haven't even gone on vacation! I haven't gone anywhere fun. I haven't been to the beach. I haven't been to a concert. I haven't gone and seen any movies. And my camera is broken. So I feel like this post might be really lame.

I am working my butt off and making some money though. And I went through a cheating relationship and a bad breakup. But now I'm single and happy. And I'm not just saying that. I can go to college single and free now. You know the song Ridin' Solo by Jason Derulo? That's exactly how I feel. And I've become friends with Julie, who we refer to as Juwey. It's fun to have a college-age friend. We are each other's "person", like on Grey's Anatomy. She's putting her papers in for a mission and she's totally awesome. She's super athletic, and we all know I'm not, but we are still alike in a lot of ways. We've hung out everynight for the past 3 weeks and we're still not tired of each other yet. Gracie is in love with her. And you want to know the best part? She's my boss at Adventure Zone. My best friend is my boss. Woot.

I went to Girls Camp as an assistant, not just a youth camp leader. It was so fun to boss those littler girls around haha jk. But I did enjoy camp more as a leader. But the lake was closed because of e coli, someone got really hurt on the zipline, and the spelunking caves were closed because of a bat virus that humans spread. And it's a really old camp so toilets and showers were breaking all the time. Ew. I'm glad I got to come home early.


And we start practicing for the Nauvoo Pageant tomorrow (Red cast!!!). I'll be working when I can during it too. It seems sinful. And I might die from exhaustion, but I'm way excited to meet new people and see the old people. The Core Cast is the best. Gah. I'm excited. We'll find out if we're poor farmers or rich merchants tomorrow I guess. I can't wait to see what I'm in charge of and what I get to do. A lot of my friends are coming to watch this year. I am sad that G'ma and G'pa Limburg won't be in it with us this year though. But I am proud that they are on a real mission.


My mom's baby sister Micaela and her husband Travis came out and visited this weekend. They wanted to tour Nauvoo and see us before they move to Hawaii for a few years. She has 2 little girls that played with Mia and Noah nicely and they're expecting a boy on October 10! (10/10/10) Of course we played Ticket to Ride and ate gooey brownies!


But do you want to know the best news?

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I'm going to SVU for sure now!!!
I got the $15,000 Marriott scholarship which is their biggest scholarship. I'm a Marriott Scholar! I get to have lunch with the college president when I get there. I did raise my GPA and ACT score and worked hard for it. And they were very nice about it and extended the time for me. So now I leave at the end of August. Orientation's on the 27th. My schedule's set, but I still need to buy books, find out where I'm staying and who my roommate is, and go college shopping. I will miss my family. And I thought I would have a hard time leaving home. But it's coming gradually and will get easier and easier to leave. Oh, I lied. I did go see one movie. We did go watch Toy Story 3 as a family. And I loved that Andy was leaving for college. I did cry at the end. I won't lie. It's so nice to say where I'm finally going. I don't know a soul there. I have no friends or family to watch out for me. But I'm surprisingly not scared.

It seems silly that I was so stressed about getting jobs and about this scholarship (read earlier posts.) It worked out perfectly. I feel watched over.

Today was the anniversary of the martrydom of Joseph and Hyrum. I forgot about it. But Micaela and Travis got to go to Carthage Jail today. So that was super special. They didn't plan that either. Once again, life is good.

Work

Well I've been very blessed with getting 3 jobs. I actually like working in the summer. At first I was a little upset because I thought I would have no free time. But I think I would be completely bored out of my mind and just end up wasting my time all day on Facebook or something. And then I wouldn't have the money to go do anything I wanted. And none of my jobs work me late into the night, so I always have time to come home and relax with my family and watch TV or a movie at home, or go to the late movie. I'm getting money for college. So I feel like it's a win-win.

Well, the first place I work, I worked at last summer too. It's called the Nauvoo Fudge Factory. It is absolutely amazing. Like you either need to come to Nauvoo or order some. The family that owns it are just the sweetest. (haha no pun intended.) People come all the way from St. Louis for it (and there's fudge factories in St. Louis, if that tells you anything.) And the fun thing about living in Nauvoo is, people come from all over the world. So even though I live in a tiny town in the middle of the Midwest, I still get to meet people from India, Italy, and South Africa while I'm at work. People ask me how I can keep from eating it. Well, when you're around it all the time, it's not quite as tempting. But I do snitch every now and then. We do make the fudge there, but I don't make it. I just sell it. It's so fun to go to work there.

My second job is at Adventure Zone. I have only worked one day there. It's got go karts, a huge indoor playground, pizza delivery and other food, arcade games, prizes, and a party / theater room. I can't say much about it yet because of just the one day, but I think this one will go well too.

My third job is helping my old seminary teacher, Sister Smith around her house. She's in a wheelchair. She has 2 teenagers in the house, but they both have jobs too. And I'm very ambitious to get some college money haha. But I haven't gone and done that yet either.

Well, all my bosses are members of the church, and I know them all really well, which is exactly what I wanted. All the placed I work are closed Sunday, so I don't have to worry about working that day at all. In the past I've had bosses where I told them I couldn't work Sunday, but after a few months started scheduling me for every Sunday or asking me to come in for somebody else (and this was in Utah!). It got old after awhile. It was slowly affecting my life for the worse. Missing church a few weeks in a row is no bueno.
Work makes me happy. Come see me at work!

Robin Hood

Ohmigoodness. I loved this movie. As my dad says, I have fixations. And then my mom says I get bored in between the fixations. I don't believe them.

I went and saw it with the Steen family when it first came out. I loved it so much I was begging my family to go again with me. I finally got Tash to go with me 2 nights ago.
It depicts Robin Hood as a very honest, hard working, good, clean guy fighting for liberty. I hate it when they take a hero from history and make him into a nasty perve that's lazy, dirty, nasty, dishonest, and disrespectful to women and gets whatever he wants but he's still the "good guy" somehow. This movie wasn't like that. Hooray.

I can't even explain why I like it so much. But I think I really like movies where the manly men are being macho and fighting for a good cause. They're standing up the right things. And the women are strong, but they don't act like men and the men respect them. I'm really tired of all this super feminism crap.

And I've been watching a lot of movies with Russell Crowe lately. He has made it onto my "good actor list" along with Cuba Gooding Junior, Johnny Depp, Dustin Hoffman, Christian Bale, and Heath Ledger. His facial expressions are so good. And me and Tash think he treats Cate Blanchett so "cutely" in this movie. I love Cate Blanchett too.

Oh, and Russell Crowe has 2 sons that look just like him and are super cute haha I sound like a stalker now. I'll stop.

All my friends think I'm crazy for going and seeing it twice. They thought it was "okay". Maybe I am just fixating. I don't know. But I was excited for it for a long time and it didn't disappoint. The second time, I made a lot more connections. The guy who plays the Sheriff of Nottingham is Mr. Darcy in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. But he was such a dirty gross guy I couldn't tell. And Eleanor of Aquitaine is Miss Deborah Jenkyns in Cranford, which we've been watching as a family. Also, Prince John is Joseph in The Nativity Story.

It was nice to have a movie like this be rated PG-13. There's so many movies like that are rated R. So I was very happy. Good acting and a little violent, but pretty clean. I love chick flicks and guy movies. Hee hee

Me and Tash love the little old blind guy. And when Robin Hood says "ask me nicely." And when he's bleeding on Cate Blanchett's face when they kiss at the end haha not really.

Go see it! Lexi's orders!

A Cute Squish

Gracie turned 3 on May 26th! Me and Gracie are becoming better and better friends. Now that she can talk better she doesn't scream as much. Well in that one week that I was out of school before the rest of my siblings, Gracie would come wake me up. And we would cuddle. I had her all to myself. I remember one morning I was totally dead and she came in to wake me up but I was so tired I couldn't even grunt. So I heard her run back out to my mom saying that I wouldn't wake up. My mom said, "she's probably just not ready to get up yet." And then I hear Grace say, "but it's morning, mommy!" Oh she's so cute.

Well I wanted to go shopping for her birthday out of town but I didn't get the chance so I had to make do with the little shops in town. I got her a chocolate covered marshmallow in the shape of a star from the Fudge Factory. I went and got streamers and a blown up helium balloon from the drug store, but nobody in town sold little rubber balloons. So we came home and did streamers in the living room. And I gave Gracie her helium balloon. Right away she had somebody tie it to the air vent in her room. She's graduated from the crib now, and sleeps on a little pink futon right next to Mia's bed. You can see part of it in the picture. But the happy part about it is that pink futon was my first bed too :)

Well Gracie is very strong-willed. The other night my mom was trying to put her down for bed. My mom was in the kitchen and had sent Grace up to go to the bathroom. I heard Grace crying and asked my mom what was up. My mom said, "she's crying because she has to go potty." I thought that was kind of odd, so I thought about it a little longer and thought back to when I was her age. Suddenly I knew exactly what was happening. I went up to Grace and I was right. She wasn't crying because she had to go potty, she was crying because she wanted to get her kitty night gown on BEFORE she went potty. Once she had that nightgown on, she went potty very willingly. I was like that when I was little. So I feel like I can read her mind all the time now. I have a lot of negative memories of my childhood. It makes my mom say, "don't you remember anything happy?" Of course I do. But now my mom is starting to think I was meant to remember the negaative stuff so I could deal with Grace and my own future kids better. Who knows.

But I do love Grace. She is a cute squish.