September 30

With it almost being my birthday, I found it fitting to remember the various things that have happened on the day after my birthday.

2012. At church, Michael Wyatt was talking to me about something after sacrament meeting. While he was talking to me, Shayli Simmons came up to me and wished me happy birthday. So then when Michael was done talking to me, he also told me happy birthday. After church, I made a blog post.

2011. That night we went to El Matador for my birthday dinner. When we got at the restaurant, I noticed a terrible goathead patch, and Allie was standing in it. I said, "Don't stand on those plants." She said, "Sorry." She probably thought it was because she wasn't supposed to step on them, but I just didn't want her to get them stuck to her shoes. While we were waiting for food, I mentioned that I had the stupid "I Wanna Go" Britney Spears song stuck in my head. Then my mom told Susanne that they had got me Lady Antebellum and Kelly "Clarkston" for my birthday. I said to my mom, "What did you call her?" since she had inserted a t.

2010. I think this was the time my mom and I went down to the Legacy Parkway trail so I could use my new bicycle. I was wearing my Snoopy "Party like a Rockstar" shirt. I think I brought a Gatorade in the car. My mom just walked on the trail while I biked. I was annoyed when I came across some bikers stopped and having a conversation in both lanes of traffic. Another woman alerted me when she was passing me, but I stayed in my lane, although I might have slightly swerved and made it look like I was switching lanes. Then I came home and ate some Jelly Bellys and I think I turned on the TV for some reason. I think I started making pillowcases from the holiday material my mom had bought me.

2008. Elder Duncan and I waited to get the car from the other elders. We were dressed in our suits to go to district meeting, but when the other elders arrived, they asked why we were wearing our suit coats. They told us that district meeting had been moved to Wednesday, but we had missed the memo. Those elders informed us that we still had more than a hundred miles we could use and it was the last day of the month. We worried that if we didn't use our monthly allotment of miles, they would take miles away from us, so we considered going to Waterville, a small town twenty-five miles north. Elder Duncan and I went home and changed our plans for the day. We went through the area book and looked up people we could see in Waterville. Elder Duncan started having second thoughts, but I persuaded him that it was a good idea, since we had never worked in Waterville. Before we left, we fueled up at 7-11 and bought candy for the ride. I got peach rings. It was a nice drive, but I think I was driving slow. We were at a place where the road was curving, and I began singing "The Long and Winding Road." When we got to Waterville, we stopped at a Shell station to see if they had maps of the town. They didn't have any for sale, but they gave us a paper one that wasn't very good. We parked in front of the house of a part-member family. Apparently the wife was semi-active, but I didn't know her. We walked around to try to find people, but we had a hard time figuring out where we were. We wanted to see one less-active who was a mortician, but we could only find the funeral home, and we didn't know how appropriate it was to knock on a funeral home. We looked for one former investigator, but we couldn't find the house. (I later realized what we did wrong.) Later we got back in the car. We went to one house to try to see if they were the right people, but the guy either slammed his door shut when we got out of our car or else was very short when we knocked on the door. That surprised me, since I had this perception that small towns would be more receptive since they didn't have missionaries there as often. (Odessa, WA, and Winchester, ID, later proved to me that that wasn't true.) We stopped at the house of Billy Byington's father, and there were lots of little annoying dogs, but no one was home. Like all small towns, Waterville had its abandoned buildings.

Eventually we left, not having had a terribly productive time in Waterville. But I figured that it would be a good way for us to be familiar with the town for the next time we went up there (but I was transferred the next week and never went back until I drove through the town after my mission). I was driving when I realized I hadn't put on my prescription sunglasses, so Elder Duncan opened them for me so I could trade glasses while I was driving. While we were driving back, Elder Bates, the district leader, called us. He told us that district meeting the next day was cancelled because President Clark wanted to have a special meeting with us on Friday. We didn't know why he would be visiting us, since it was the week that he would be planning transfers, so it would be really busy for him, and we had already had interviews. We began speculating about what crazy things could be happening for this meeting to happen. When we got back to East Wenatchee, we had fried chicken from the elderly Schoenmakers, and we got a call from a less-active, Brian Latimer, who wanted us to help him move across the river to Wenatchee. We were glad he called us, and we were more than happy to help him move, since it would help us ratchet up miles on the car. We were only sad that he was moving out of our area. When we got to his new house, they had problems getting the couch through the door and didn't think it would work. But Elder Duncan had served in the college town of Pullman, so he was used to moving things, and he was able to get it through the door. I think we drove over to Wenatchee twice that night. When we did our miles that night, our daily miles turned out to be 77.7. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a very weird day. Firstly we thought we had district meeting so we were surprised when we didn't. So we did our mission survey. Then we mowed the Schonemakers' lawn. We had over 100 miles to use, so we went up to Waterville. We couldn't find many addresses, and the few we found weren't home. One address was a 210, but it wasn't there, so we knocked on 201, but we don't know if it was right because he just closed the door on us. On our way back we received a call that President is unexpectedly meeting with the mission.

"We had dinner with the Schoenmakers--Bill is sadly almost gone--and helped Brian Latimer move. We went over to Wenatchee twice, and in total we went 77.7 miles.

2006. I think this was the evening that I watched The Munsters' Revenge with my dad. While we were watching, there was a knock on the door, and my dad and sister made me get it. It was an old guy telling us about something, but I don't remember what. He was there a long time.

2005. It was the night before I was singing in general conference. I believe this was the time I went to Great Clips to get a haircut, thus beginning a pattern of getting professional cuts instead of having my mom cut it. I went home and tried to catch what I could of the I Dream of Jeannie mini-marathon, and for some reason my aunt was there. The only thing that makes me unsure about this is that I don't know why I would have gotten a haircut the night before singing in conference, but I think this is what happened.

2004. I remember going to my theater class in the morning and burping up the flavor of Mexican chocolate cake. It made me remember the weird Munsters pilot I had watched the previous night while eating cake.

2003. When I showed up to gym class, Coach Hyde showed me that my binder that had gone missing the day before was in the garbage can. I was relieved to have it back, but I wondered what kind of evil person would do that.

2000. I think we went to my sister's house and she gave me a birthday present of the soundtrack to Chicken Run, which I had seen the night before for my birthday. I thought it was a strange present, but I went home and listened to the Flip, Flop, and Fly song. (I think I still have that CD, but I never listen to it.)

1998. I think David took me to Winegar's to get my birthday present of a Veggie Friend Seedie. He gave me exact change to get it, and he sent me inside to get it myself. I got "Ima Farmer Corn," the one that had overalls. I went to pay for it, but David had miscalculated the tax, and I was a few cents too short. I informed the cashier that I had to go get some more money. She seemed both amused and annoyed. I ran to the car and got some more coins from David, then went back in and bought it (the cashier had kept it at her register).

1994. It was my birthday party. I (more likely my mom) had invited a bunch of my kindergarten friends over.  We took my friend Wesley (I think that was his name) home with us. I really liked Wesley, but I think I just liked him for his mullet. While we were waiting for more kids to show up, I got on the fireplace and put one of the pumpkin lights in my hand and said, "I, Jack, the pumpkin king." Hillary Ulmer was there, and she really liked The Lion King, which came out that year. She imitated me, but said, "I, Nala, the pumpkin queen," which didn't make sense. After the kids all got there, I got my various presents. I think I got a Lion King puzzle. I got a candy bar with a gold wrapper, so I started singing, "I got a golden ticket!" We had lots of Halloween party favors. Then it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I went first, and everyone laughed when I got the tail far from the donkey. That didn't bother me--but it bothered me that they didn't laugh as much at the other kids, even when they got the tail even further than I did. Looking back, I realize that they thought mine was funny, since I was the first one, but as more kids did it, they realized it wasn't really funny. But I took it as a personal offense, and I had a fit and went and hid under my bed. The kids kept coming to my room to try to get me to come out, but I would just yell at them. Except when Wesley, came, I nicely asked him to leave. Eventually I was coaxed out, but I don't remember what happened. We had to take Wesley home, and there was a broken sprinkler shooting water everywhere on the apartment complex lawn. This might have been the night that the Thompsons stayed longer to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the "What's This?" sequence, when Jack runs into the Christmas Town sign, Wayne said to two-year-old Peter, "Did Jack fall down?"