Little Lessons

A couple of weeks ago my littlest sister was playing with chalk in the front yard. After a while we heard her  yelling. We watched out the window to see if she was just having fun or if there was a problem. It was a problem. As we watched we discovered that there were three little boys across the street teasing her. She doesn't take tease very well because she is Autistic. We quickly brought her inside to calm her down.

It didn't take us very long to get her to calm down, but she still wanted to play outside. We tried to convince her to play in the back yard, but she insisted on playing in the front because she wanted to finish her drawing. We finally agreed to allow her to play in the front yard again on the condition that she ignore the boys across the street. My other sister and I decided that we would go out and play with her to make sure that there wasn't anymore trouble.

As we played the boys shouted things across the street obviously looking for a reaction. Every once in a while I would have to remind my littlest sister to ignore them. She would take a deep breath and then go back to her playing (which is very impressive for an autistic child). The more we ignored the the ruder their comments became. Finally I could hear them talking about coming into our yard. At that point I stopped coloring and started watching. Soon after one of the boys was making his way across the street. At that point I knew that ignoring them was not longer an option, so a yelled "If you come into this yard I will call the police." I knew that I actually wouldn't but I also knew that it would stop him from actually coming into our yard.

At that point he  stood in the street yelling at me. He told me that his dad could beat me up. After about a minute of this a asked Aly if she was  ready to come inside. She said yes and we started cleaning up. At this point my dad was on the porch watching. Once we were inside my dad told the boys that they needed to learned some manners. My dad can be very intimidating when he want to be and I'm sure that right then he was, but it didn't phase the boys. The one in the street told my dad that he wasn't afraid of him. At this point our dog Sparky escaped from the house and ran toward the little boy in the street (anyone who knows Sparky knows that he is harmless). The little boy screamed proving that he wasn't as tough as he looked. Sparky was then brought inside. We all hoped that we would never see those boys again, but we did.

About a week later I took Aly and My brother out to dinner. We got McDonalds and brought it home. As I pulled into the drive way I realized that the boys were back. I thought we will just go inside and not even deal with them. As I we were going inside Aly turned to the little boys smiled, waved, and said "Hi!" I motioned her inside. Once inside I said "Aly, those were the boys that were mean to you last week, why did you say hi?" Her answer amazed me. She told me "I want them to know that I am nice."

I learned an amazing lesson that day in forgiveness, humility, and Chirst like love. I have a greater understanding of what is meant when we  are asked to become like children. I hope that one day my little sister will be able to look up to me like I look up to her.

Tutus

My littlest sister is nine years old and has asking what I was going to be for Halloween since the beginning of August. I told i didn't know yet but to wait until the end of September and I would let her know then. Well the end of September came and I had no idea, which is weird because I usually come up with something. When she once again asked me what I was going to be for Halloween I avoided the question by asking her what she was going to be. A fairy princess she told me. Well the wheels started to turn in my head and I decided that it was a pretty great idea. So I told her that I would be a fairy princess too.

My mom got very excited about this because she had seen some really cute tutus that she wanted to try to make herself. We bought 40 yards of tulle later we started making the tutus. I cut the tulle into five inch sections and then tied them around an elastic. When I started I thought that there was no way that I would use all that tulle. Turns out I did. Yep, all forty yards of tulle where used to make two tutus.

I'm quite proud of my tutus. They are huge and poofy. It's wonderful. I'm not going to post pictures yet. I think that I will wait until after my family's Halloween party.

Make Good Choices

My first three years of college I lived at my Grandparent's house in Salt Lake, but I would usually go home to Layton on the weekends. Whenever I did that I would always leave Sunday night after dinner, as I would leave my dad you yell "Drive safe. Make good choices!" Well one week I was running out to my car to put my bag in it before I said good bye to everyone as I was running out the door my little sister yelled "Make good choises!" Everyone immediately burst out lauging.

Today I was leaving my pyschology class and as everyone was leaving my psychology professor yelled "Have a nice weekend! Make good choices!"

I get the feeling that someone is trying to tell me something. Hmmm...but what could it be?

Dancing

I'm taking a ballroom dance class, and I must say that it is pretty awesome. We will be learning 4 dances, the foxtrot, the waltz, the cha-cha, and swing dance. Right now we are learning the foxtrot. I really like the foxtrot and my teacher. She teaches us at a good pace  and in a good order. Even if I don't feel completely comfortable with the last step that we just learned, the next step that she teaches us compliments the last step and helps me learn the last one even better. She is also really good a making sure everyone has a partner. In my class we have more girls then guys (of course). To make sure that every girl has a chance to dance with a partner we switch partners about 5 times a class. She also watches to make sure that the girls that didn't have partners before have a partner the next time. I really like this because you get to experience different styles of leading, which is especially nice if you had someone who was a bad leader before.

So this leads me to a humorous story (or at least humorous to me). One of the guys in my class is really tall, his name is Regan. I barely come up to shoulder. Well he asked me to dance. This makes for a very awkward dance position because your arms are suppose to be parallel to the floor. Needless to say that unless he wanted to hold on to my head his arms couldn't be parallel to the floor. Well we tried our best and made didn't do have bad. The other awkward part is that while we were in dance position, if I ever wanted to talk to him I had to look straight up.

Now for a really humorous story. Our teacher was talking to us about how the foxtrot is a traveling dance and how we had to REALLY big steps so that we could travel really far. Well since my partner Regan is really tall he was really excited because he can take REALLY big steps. The couple next to us looked at Regan and then looked at me and said "Yeah, but I think that your partner counter acts that."

Stuck

One of my favorite Christmas movies is called A Christmas Story. It is seriously amazing. One of the best parts is when one of the kids sticks his tongue to a telephone pole and it gets stuck. Now you may be wondering why I bring up a Christmas moving in the middle of July. The reason is simple, I can now say that is no fun to be the one with your tongue stuck.

No, I did not get my tongue stuck to a telephone pole. I got my tongue stuck to a Popsicle. Yes, it hurt. What was worst is that it got really confusing when I couldn't decided whether to laugh or cry. I ended up doing both

Firtst Week

School started for me this week and now my first week back to school is over. I survived. I thought I might share with you some of my adventure from the first week of school.

Zeta had RUSH this week, which meant Tuesday night and Thursday night where devoted to that. Tuesday night we met all the girls that wanted to RUSH. There were so many and I'm sure that it was completely overwhelming to them. We have a very cute them this year, its capture the moment. I love it! I think that it fits the college mentality. Our display was really cute. Katie did an amazing job! Unfortunately I don't have pictures. On Thursday we got out new girls. It seems like we have some really cute, outgoing girls. I can't wait to get to know them better. We also went to the Sigma Gamma Chi carnival which is always a blast.

On Monday while I was getting ready for school I tripped twice. My mom found it pretty funny. I told her that it was a great way to start out the first day of school on an uphill campus. Believe it or not I've never actually tripped on Campus. So what do I do? Not only do I trip, but I completely fall down. By the time I'm done falling I'm facing in the opposite direction of the way I was walking. Luckily I was followed by a polite person, who helped me up and made sure that I was ok instead of just walking by. I did a quick inventory of myself and made sure that I was ok. However that night I discovered that one of my toes was scrapped up and swollen and the next day discovered that my knee was bruised. Not bad for one fall.

I really liked all but one of my classes, but that is okay because I found a class to replace it and now I like all of my classes. :)

I didn't really want to go back to go as of Sunday night, but realized that I really missed school as soon as I got back on campus. I love my campus and think that it is beautiful (of course it will be even prettier when they are done with construction). I love learning and going to school. I guess I just forgot that because of my last year. My last year was really hard on me and made me forget how much I love school. Now I am refreshed and ready to learn some more.

Random Thoughts

So I have a bunch of thought running through my head, and I'm hoping that if I write them down that I will be able to think straight again. None of them are  really connected and none of them are long enough to put into a post by themselves, so I am going to post them all together.

I miss my dad. He is in Korea for 3 weeks. Normally when he leaves town he is able to call us at night. But since it is international its a little bit harder. We can email him, but it just isn't the same.

I'm kind of mad at myself because I forgot about two different appointments in the same week.

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow. I'm really excited. It probably won't look to different, but it will be nice to get rid of all my split ends.

I hate that Disney movies can make me cry, even after I've seen them a million times.

I loved being able to see Heather, Sarah, Alex, Natalie, Drew, James, Megan, Andrew, Emily, and baby Sarah. I have so my fun being with them. It is crazy to see how big my cousins get. Both families need to visit more often. Especially since James thought I was 14.

Swings are the best part about going to a park.

I can't believe how much my little brother can eat! I bet he is going to be really tall.

School starts in less than two weeks. Crazy? Yes! Where did my summer go. At the same time I'm kind of excited.With school starting so does ZETA! Totally excited to jump into the new semester. It is going to be amazing.

My best friends Annie came home from Ukraine. I'm so excited to have her back home. Hopefully we will be able to do lots of stuff before school starts.

I was called as a Nursery worker. I'm really excited. I think that little kids are so much fun and I can't think of a better calling then to get to play with little kids all day.

So that is basically all the random thoughts in my head right now. I kind of liked doing that, and I am pretty sure that I will do it again. Stay tune for more random thought with Justine.