Friday with Fanpires and Fairies to Sunday No-Shows

It has been a CRAZY weekend!
WORK was hilarious.

So I get to the barn for my first field trip; Kindergarteners at Farm Country means emphasizing the 5 Senses. I especially love how we say "do you notice it smells different here than at your home?" and I am thinking gee I HOPE it does unless you happen to have cow poop all over YOUR house. We are full of that Teacher-ese, usually with this OVER enthusiasm that I really ONLY can must AT work with my kiddlets. In real life it is just NOT natural to be THAT chipper. "Let's say hi to our friends, Amazing Grace and Annie Oakley. They are Belgians." Or "Oh, this is our little bunny friend!" Occasionally a child asks something like "is this animal your friend too?" "Yep!" But THIS time a more logical and frustrated and confused kid raised his hand and said incredulously, "Umm, how come a horse is your FRIEND?" "Because they work so hard and help us pull our wagons and we love all the animals on our farm!" "But they can't TALK. FRIENDS can TALK." "Well, these are just... Animal friends." "But TEACHER! A horse can NOT be a friend because..." "Lets go see our peacock friends!" Other fun stuff happens at the farm, too. I LOVE Kids. There are kids and then there are kids....

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) /kɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kid] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, kid·ded, kid·ding, adjective –noun

1.	Informal. a child or young person.

2.	(used as a familiar form of address.)

3.	a young goat.

and BOTH crack me up. We've just had quite a few new babies born, too. The newest pygmy ones look like kittens. I love holding the little graham cracker colored girl (and her little black twin brother) most right now. Even my own little Ambrosia participating in a favorite naughty goat past time RIDING SHEEP! The sheep hate it. They fall asleep or wander by a box and those little goats who are tiny enough to slip under the fence between the sheep and goat pens climb onto those soft woolly "blankets" to nap... OR just to stand up while the sheep go nuts while the babies entertain themselves being, though is still just a year old and you can tell she's still young, though she WASN'T chosen as the "official" Birthday Party Goat. Right now that is Ginger. The bottle-fed trouble maker shown here Mutton Busters riding around the pen. IT IS HILARIOUS! Goats are funny and smart. Sheep... not so much. (Though, actually I really like that sheep in the photo. He's friendly. He's a Rambouillet named Cherokee.) Next field trip was 1st Grade at the Children's Discovery Garden which is about Bees and Pollination in plant growth. It is a fun one. However it was HOT outside, and I was an idiot who forgot my hat. So I am once again sunburned... but still hurting from frostbite. Oh AND they were supposed to do rubbings of plants with crayons then label what part of the plant it was? Well the crayons were little pools of wax when the second group got there! (Fun to have the kids practice Fanning like the bees do so their combs don't melt though!) They loved seeing our real bee hive, though it has become disturbingly sparse this year. That whole mystery honey bee sickness or something is... bad. (And right now I am actually learning a bit from a site about ICE CREAM, randomly. But they let you make a bee. And it IS informative. Coolio. AND totally adding some of this INFO for next time.) AFTER a couple field trips at the garden I was headed to the office. The problem? The education office is in the Red Show Barn. It was only 2 or 3 in the afternoon or so but already the line to the Red Barn stretched far out into the hot sun. They were waiting for Stephenie Meyers to come and talk about The Host, at, like 7. In fact, some tried to camp out but security freaked out and kicked them out last night. So they came back this morning. And these are some GOOD tailgaters! They don't just have pizza and chairs and card games. They were making ice cream in a home-made ice scream maker and vegetable kebabs on a butane grill under beach awnings while watching videos on their laptops. It was hilarious! We could not get to our office with out stepping on blankets and asking people to move chairs and such. Truthfully, those Twilight novels are my girlishly guilty pleasure and I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting Breaking Dawn due to come out in August. I AM a fan. But I didn't know about this sold out book talk event until my Aunt L called and asked if since Rinny and I worked here did we have anyway to get in anyway. (We told her no. But that didn't stop ME from later that day attempting to get in under the pretense of working the event. You know, I thought maybe I could be all "Oh, pardon me, employee coming through. Ms. Meyers, can we get you anything? A fresh pen? Here's MY book to test it out on..." Yeah, well, Borders brought their OWN hosting peoples to sort of, uhh POLICE the door. So I failed. Hee hee!) The funniest part to me, though, was Rinny's reaction to all this when I left to run an errand. She called me all panicked. "They were fighting!" "What? Who?" "People in line! There was fighting! Security had to be called!" "SHUT UP! THAT is too funny! PLEASE tell me they were fighting over liking Edward or Jacob more, because that will SO make my day!" "Who? What? No, someone, like, butted or they were squishing closer to get more shade or something..." "Oh." "But THEY WERE SWEARING!" "Okay...?" "I was afraid and couldn't leave my office because there was fighting and they were swearing and I had to call security and..." "WAIT. YOU called security?" "I COULDN'T LEAVE MY OFFICE!" "Why?" "THEY WERE SWEARING!" "Rinny! SWEAR WORDS are not, like, jack knives! They can't actually hurt you! The people in line aren't GANG members! They are NERDS! Bookworms!" "They are KIND of like a cult... and they ARE VAMPIRE books!" I seriously almost crashed my car I was laughing so hard. My sister is such a dork. I love her to bits. But OH MY HELL what a pink and fluffy world she lives in. Anyway, yeah. AWESOME. Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!

ANYWAY, I DID end up SEEING Stephenie Meyers, by a weird chance. She and 2 hostess looking girls in yellow sashes were taking a BREAK behind the barn as I drove by and she seriously looked like she was ready to cry. I don't think she had anticipated the THOUSAND people in that barn STILL wanting her autograph and her hand was probably ready to break off. It might have been PLANNED to end at 9 but I would be totally shocked if she got out of there before midnight, poor woman. I mean GOOD for her, because that means more books sold and thus more fame and fortune, but I just looked at her and thought she can NOT be having a good time! She looked a little overwhelmed. But hey, good for her, and congrats for making it big, you might say. :O) Since she seems like a nice person and at least SEEMS like she really does live her faith. Kudos. And I am a dorky dorky fan. So pathetic. SIGH. And yes, I gave in and had to buy The Host, too. JUST started it. (It is for ADULTS, though, not teens. So even though I actually AM 28 rather than 18 it will be slower going than my usual literary candy. Hee hee!) SO, after I gave up trying to schmooze my way in with out tickets and enjoying the hype by proxy I went the OTHER direction on that Thanksgiving Point/Cabella's road out to the sleep doctor place. Because earlier that day they called and asked if my study could be changed from next Thursday to THIS Friday. Yay? My room was decorated in fairies which was kinda fun.... except it seemed a little incongruous when there were cameras in the ceiling and all kinds of monitors and machines on the nightstand. Not shockingly, I didn't sleep much being all trussed up like some sort of robot... (this was NOT all the wires and tubes I actually had to wear when they put me to bed (Oh, and at 11 because they "let me stay up"... as if I EVER COULD sleep that early anyway. They also let me "sleep in" TILL SEVEN. UGH. As they say "Seven has an a.m.?"). Nope, there were more. Like stuff IN my nose. Yeah, as if I could sleep comfortable with THAT. Good Gordon. Well, I don't have the OFFICIAL results but the unofficial ones seem to suggest I will be placed on a CPAP machine for oxygen after all. I am, ahh, Under-Joyed. I know everyone says it will be worth it, to sleep better and stuff. That I will get used to sleeping in a mask. That it won't make me even MORE of a long shot to ever finding love. That if I need it, then that's that. I NEED it.

But I still can't help but feel impending doom about the Mask.

SO, when I was woken up (after such a comfy and relaxing night and sleeping in SOOO late *rolls eyes*) I headed home and did my best to wash off the glue and red markings from my skin before a bridal shower in Brigham City. (Bleh. Showers.) My cousins are getting married... NOT TO EACH OTHER, MIND YOU. We are not polygamists nor are we from Texas, thank you very much. ;O) (Yeah, many of my family are LDS... but I don't think any of us FLDS) One cousins' son's fiance and another cousin's daughter had a joint bridal shower and yes, it was as cool as it sounds. hee hee! Made me feel OLD, too since now it's all the cousins' CHILDREN getting married and having babies instead of the cousins like me and Rinny. It's hard because we are sort of closer in age to the great grands anyways since Dad and mom are both second youngest of sevens in their respective fams, but also because, well, we are not MARRIED right out of missions or highschool, but of course THEY, those baby cousins, ARE.

I miss my baby bro.

OH and yeah, did we get to talk to him Sunday because remember how we were supposed to get a call for Mother's Day? NO. He had to take another 8 hour train ride. WHAT IS HE, a missionary, or Mr. Conducter?! GRRRRR!