Sometimes I go to New Mexico

I went to New Mexico this last week to visit my sister Sarah and her kids. Sarah's oldest daughter Kaitlyn just turned 8 years old. In the LDS church 8 is a pretty important birthday because it means you can be baptized into the church, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was really neat to be there for Kaitlyn's baptism.

Let me tell you a little about Sarah's life. I got there Tuesday night and then woke up Wednesday to tag along as they went about their normal routine. The girls have swim team at 8:00 AM, then they come home for a short break before they all go to swim lessons at 11:45 AM. Straight from swim lessons the girls go to Children's Music Theater practice for 3 hours while the two youngest go home to play and take a nap. After CMT they have about an hour to rest until dinner and then their dad comes home, they get ready for bed, have family scriptures, read Harry Potter or other stories for the little ones, and then finally lights out and they go to bed (theoretically). The next morning they start the whole thing all over again. I was EXHAUSTED after one day.

My parents and little brother drove down and got there Friday evening. We played kickball Saturday morning and then just sat around until the baptism. Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting and then drove home. I fell asleep to the melodious sound of dad cracking his sunflower seeds, eating the actual seed and then placing the shell in a cup. Over and over and over and over for 10 hours. When we got home we found my car and our Mazda parked on our front lawn instead of in their respective places at the side of the house and in the garage. We knew it could only be two people: Betsy and Russ. So I pretended like my ipod got stolen out of the car because it was parked on the front lawn and the automatic lock button doesn't always lock all 4 doors. I only kept up the lie for like a minute but it was still fun--I think I scared Betsy and Russ for at least 30 seconds.

Pictures of me and Kaitlyn--she has my curly hair and my huge gap in between her two front teeth. Many of you who haven't known me all my life don't know that I suffered a severe case of gapped teeth until I finally got braces in high school. I looked pretty much just like Kaitlyn.