Skeeewll!

Well, so much for summer. The season left before I even felt like it had arrived. It was sure fun though. I'm too tired and lazy to go into too much detail so here's a list of activities that happened during this far too short of a season:
-went to Seven Peaks with a bunch of girly friends for Jessica Steven's bachelorette party. afterward we had dinner at the Olive Garden, watched a chick-flick at the Dollar Theater, and pretty much bawled our eyes out. haha. good times
-home remodel. speaks for itself
-hanging out with the folks!
-farming and such. which involved a lot of broken sprinkler pipes. and no, I will not take responsibility for their failure to function properly
-attending (without any force) and actually enjoying the Fillmore Institute. haha. I really had fun with the activities we had and the lessons that were taught. Maverick Yogurt after class and swinging in the park. The boating activity was so fun. i got fried. and i don't think my body has ever hurt so bad in all my life. but it was well worth it. The camping trip was awesome too. except no guys showed up...pansies. well that activity didn't get well advertised. but those of us who showed had lots of fun and excellent food to eat. mmmhhmm banana boats.
-Mom and I climbing on the roof to get into the house. haha. I wish someone would've drove by at the time just so they could've had the opportunity to capture the picture of how awesome we were.
-consumption of many otterpops and honeynut cheerios
-lots of eating out due to the lack of a kitchen.
-a mixture of two batches of baby kitties! 12 to be exact. the mothers decided to combine forces. weirdest and coolest thing I've ever seen.
-making fun of the baby froggies in the window well
-playing the piano in the laundry room. and playing for primary on sundays. love those kids
-watching movies/TV/doing yoga on the awesome projector with surround sound!
- Lavender Days 5k thanks to Melissa for the encouragement!...oh and Jake for cheering us in at the finish line and holding my car keys. haha. we loaded up on free muffins and not-free sugar cookies, almost died out on the paddle boat, checked out the garden that put our home ones to shame, and watched a cool gunfight show.
-The 24th of July when the whole family was home. Just like old times. haha. I wish everyone could have stayed longer!
-well there's a whole boatload of other stuff that went on but that's all I really care about remembering. ignore the latter part of that statement. some might take offense to that. and i don't intend for that to be the outcome. ah heck, go ahead and be offended. i'm too tired to care. haha. sooooo to sum it all up, the summer was just fantastic. i'm still really bummed that it's gone. don't tell the boss, but i kinda miss moving sprinklers and stuff. some mornings i'd rather be out in my high-wader boots moving hoses, than reading a boring, pictureless, crusty, and overpriced textbook. I don't know, maybe I'm just weird.

But it's all good I guess. Now I get to be educated! hooray... just to clarify, that had only a 'slight' amount of enthusiasm added to it. Actually, not even slight; more like miniscule...maybe even a little less.
haha. No, school's alright. The first week is always super tough for me. I tend to get homesick before I've even left Flowell. And to top it off, the bookstore is always a total madhouse sauna. Strange enough, the worst part is found upon entering the chaotic realm. Backpacks are absolutely forbidden in the Bookstore so you have to put them in postage-sized lockers that generally have a supply clearly outmatched by heavy demand on the first day of school. We're talkin' big shortage here. So you open the door and immediately walk in to what seems to be a mosh pit at a heavy-metal rock concert. Seriously, all that's missing are a few high-amped speakers with intense bass. You then wade your way through people from all sorts of origins, cussing at several of them for standing in the way and thinking in your head...stupid idiotic freshmen. You make your way to the lockers and find that all of them are taken. So then you take a few steps back and stand there looking like a stupid idiotic freshman while wondering that maybe those people you cussed out earlier weren't freshman at all. They're just unlucky souls like yourself who procrastinated buying their books a week earlier. So I guess that still makes them stupid and idiotic.

Well anyways, after an eternity you eye someone who has made a purchase at the desk and are making their way over to get their backpack out of their locker. Of course 30 other pairs of eyes are doing the same thing. And you can feel it. So you get aggressive. You follow that person and stand right behind them/or to the side (whatever your preference may be.) and then you wait. and wait. and wait. the fact that you're breathing down their neck is probably making them nervous so they can't remember the code to the locker. you realize this and quickly take a half-step back. not too much, in fear of a locker-vulture swooping in and intercepting your claim. But just enough to give them some space. they then remember the code, open the locker, take out their bag, then you go right in for the kill. If their still standing in front of the locker space, you have right to push them off to the side. nothing violent, just a noticeable nudge. Then you place your backpack in the hole as quickly as possible. It's now yours... although, this can often be quite difficult and tedious at times because the average backpack is about twice the size of the given locker space. This is where continuous shoving comes into play. If you're on the bottom level, kicking with your strongest foot may also aide in clearing enough space to close the locker door.

Well once you finally get it in, you lock it with a 4-digit code of your choice and then go on your merry little way while laughing at the unfortunates who have to stand and wait ever so patiently. And the rest is pretty much cake...unless you forgot to get your wallet out of your backpack.
Oh and did I mention that it's like 200 degrees in there! It's disgusting, I tell ya. So your face is all sweaty and gross and you haven't even been to your first class of the day yet. So much for looking cute.

But I survived and all will be well. Now that I think about it, I've survived my whole first week.
Cuz I don't have class on friday's! Hooray!!!...ok that had A LOT of enthusiasm. And I must say that I really think I'm going to enjoy my institute class. It's on the Prophecies of Isaiah and it is sooo cool! I'm super pumped. And I volunteered for a class position. It's pretty sweet. Are you ready for this??? I, Ashley Robison, am the class's "name-tag collector/distributor". hahaha. I feel pretty special. It kinda makes me feel like I'm in kindergarten. But hey, I have no issues with that. I have rather fond memories of Mrs. Speakman's class.

Oh and big news. I may actually have a home! Well I don't think there's any question but I haven't signed the papers yet or received a key so it's not totally official yet. but i expect it will be rather shortly. It's at Turnberry and I'm so excited. That's like the perfect spot for me right now.