Our Busy Weekends!

It feels like ages since I last blogged, so here we go on the catching up!  Last weekend, John and I both had our work cut out for us.  After John finished up his regular appointments and I got home from work, we drove up to Peoa to volunteer for the Ragnar, a race that John’s sister, brother-in-law, and little brother were all running in.  

Because of my work schedule we ended up having to volunteer for a late night shift from 10:30 p.m.-2:30 a.m.…. So yeah it was a little extreme.  We prepared by bringing some snacks, our camp chairs, and light jackets thinking it wouldn’t be too cold.  When we got up there we were instructed to start setting up some cones next to these marshy grass lands so that the vans wouldn’t park out there and get stuck.  It was a simple enough task and we joked around with other volunteers about cars getting stuck in the marsh.  After a while our Team Captain showed up and instructed us on what we were going to be doing the rest of the evening.  John and I were in charge of a water/powerade station up in a different area.  

After driving up there and setting up with our other group members, we realized that we were on top of a hill, next to a body of water, where the wind graced us with its presence.  

This geographical situation equaled guaranteed Air Conditioning all night long….  So much for thinking light jackets would do the trick.  Our little fingers were so cold from passing out the drinks.  I kept thinking, “If only we had packed gloves…”  Then around Midnight I realized that I had a pair of gloves in the glove compartment of my car!!  Victory.  However, because there was only one pair, John and I had to take turns wearing them, but it was better than nothing. 

Throughout the night we were entertained by glow sticks the other volunteers had brought and the crazy decorated vans and trucks that passed us by.  My favorite was a Christmas Van that was adorned with tons of holiday lights and a lit up Christmas Caroler Statue-the kind that people put out in their front yards in December.  It was really amusing with just one, lone, Christmas Caroler instead of the usual 3-4 you usually see.  The runners that passed us were also awesome!!  They had to run up that hill to get to our station and still had about 2 more miles before they were able to swap out.  Talk about endurance!  Around 2 a.m. the next shift volunteers started showing up and we were so excited to give our station up to someone new.    On the way home John was pretty exhausted from so much work so he slept all the way and we didn’t end up getting home and going to be till about 3:30….  It was the latest I’ve gone to bed in a long, long, time.  After sleeping 2 hours, we both had to wake up at 5:30 to go to work on Saturday.  John had his usual appointments, and I was off to a Youth Trek up at This is the Place. 

The trek went well for me. The youth group was from Bountiful and although there were about 200 people on the trek (which is bigger than usual) they were well behaved and things went smoothly.  John was thinking about coming up for the trek after his morning appointments, but our boss decided not to let him because of all the work and lack of sleep going on.  This was the first Trek I had been on for the summer (last summer I did about 4 or 5) so with that in mind and the fact that I had only received about 2 hours of sleep you might understand the fact that I forgot to bring a water bottle, sunscreen, my inhaler, and spf chap stick.  But the lord blessed me.  I didn’t haven any asthma issues, I borrowed some sunscreen from one of the other workers, and I grabbed a plastic cup from the break room before we headed out…  My lips definitely suffered the most.  This whole week they’ve been pretty gross with being burnt and peeling…  They’re doing better now, but I learned my lesson pretty quick.  When I got home John was already gone to his night shifts, and I felt like a walking zombie.  My brain had stopped functioning with only 2 hours of sleep and all of that work.  I tried to communicate with my mom about a couple things, but it was really hard coming up with the words, haha.  However, I didn’t want to go to bed without seeing John, so I took a shower and tried to do some things around the house to keep me awake.  Finally he got home around 10 or so and we were both exhausted. 

On Sunday, John was able to come to Sacrament meeting, which was fabulous.  I miss him so much when he has to work through church.  For fathers day we were in charge of making dinner for the Southwick family.  However, since neither John nor I know how to BBQ his dad ended up helping cook a lot of the meal.  After we ate with them John had to slip away for work, and I headed home to spend some time with my family.   I just love Sundays. 

This weekend was almost as busy as the last one, and John and my schedules were really conflicting.  He went to a bachelor party on Friday night, and I think my parents pitied my lonely night enough to take me out to Five Guys for dinner, so that was nice of them.  On Saturday he woke up early for work, and then I went and worked a catering event for Culinary Crafts with two of my sisters and brother-in-law.  The event was at the equestrian park in South Jordan for a fancy polo-tournament.  It was definitely a new experience and now I can say I’ve seen people play polo, and also observed the people who watch Polo (which could be considered even more entertaining)!  I’ll just say there were lots of women who own fabulous hats.  We served all sorts of food from macaroni-lobster, to chicken with scalloped potatoes, smoked salmon egg salad panini’s and of course Gelato!  After the event was over, we were going to be able to leave early because we lived so close, however they needed more help, so we ended up being almost the last people there.  By the time I got home of course John was gone again, but luckily he was back home around 9, so we had a couple of hours together in which we ate gelato I brought home. (Someday I'll write a blog called the Gelato Experience that describes how I managed to get it home with me.)  

Today I taught primary as usual and I think the kids are finally starting to respect me.  John worked all morning.  His most interesting (as he described to my parents) was a guy he has to give two enemas to.  After the enemas went in, the scooping of the poop began.  And I’ll let your imaginations fill in the rest of that story!  I don’t know how he does it everyday, he’s amazing.  This afternoon we went and visited John’s cousin who had her welcome home today.  It was really fun seeing her again and some of the rest of the family and that’s about it for now!!  Have a good one everybody.