2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance. Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.
2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.
"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.
"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.
"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators."
2008. This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.
2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
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