Summer 2013!!

This summer has been busy. School, school, school, a bit of work, and then a bunch more school. School has consisted of two nights a week attended class for four hours each night, writing (literally) hundreds of pages for assignments, conducting a dozen or so interviews, and finally receiving my field placement.

Aside from that a few other interesting things happened.

1. I moved to a new apartment! This one is on the ground floor as opposed to the third floor. Much nicer, larger, and cheaper!

2. I attended the wedding of a good friend from Philadelphia. I was able to visit with some of my favorite people in the entire world and get homesick for the East coast.

3. I finally, officially dropped to part time status at work. I am no longer guaranteed hours, but I can sign up to work as much as I want (or don't want).

4. I dog sat Coco for Lori. Tess learned what it is like to not be the only dog, and confirmed that she does not like this.

5. I went to Utah for approximately 48 hours to attend a family reunion. My grandparents, their 3 children + spouses, 16 grandchildren + most spouses, and a whole bunch of little 'uns aka great-grandchildren. There were 75 people total. It was fun seeing cousins I haven't seen in a long time and attempting to recognize all the preteens I last saw when they were toddlers.

Here are Coco and Tess trying to recover after a trip to the dog park. This was one of two times that they willingly sat near each other. It shocked me to see them on the same piece of furniture.

This is Nadia the day before she turned 7. This girl is hilarious. Lori offered to share her bed with Nad while we were all crashed at Grandma and Grandpa's. Lori forgot that Nadia likes to hog the bed. Lori ended up sleeping on the floor even though the next morning Nadia swore she "was squished on the side of the bed all night."

And finally, my greatest accomplishment of the summer-- I have completed one of my aunt duties! When I was 5, during a summer trip to Zion's my aunt and older cousin "helped" me with a loose tooth.

This trip Olivier excitedly showed me that both of his front teeth were loose. Like, really loose. (He had already lost one tooth on the bottom.) I asked him to let me pull them, but he didn't like that idea. After playing on the waterslide at the reunion, Olivier ran up to me to tell me something. I stopped him and said, "Olivier, your tooth came out!" He claimed, no, and wiggled his other front tooth. When I told him the other one was gone he looked back at the slide in confusion. Luckily (and disgustingly) one of the other little 'uns found the tooth, so Olivier would have something for the tooth fairy.

I spent the rest of the day attempting to talk Olivier into letting me pull the other tooth. I even went so far as to inform him that when you loose two teeth in one day the tooth fairy gives you a total of $5, instead of only $1/tooth. (I'm sure the tooth fairy REALLY appreciated this....) While the extra cash was tempting Olivier still wouldn't budge on letting me pull it.

That evening the remaining tooth was so loose we were a little concerned he might swallow it. Olivier's dad held him while I kept the aunt-torturing-by-pulling-a-tooth tradition alive and yanked out the tooth. Olivier was not happy with me at all, but once his mouth was no longer full of blood he finally let me sit next to him again.

After a few minutes of contemplation Olivier asked how much money you get if you lose 3 teeth in one day. I told him $20 and asked him if he wanted me to pull another one. He replied no, but did question how much you get if you lose all your teeth in one day. The answer- $100, obviously.

Olivier decided $5 was enough.