memorial day weekend!

oooook.
to start, my niece Sydney will be 3 in July.
Friday after work, I came home and ate dinner as fast as I could so I could shower before Mike came over. I had volunteered us to babysit Sydney and Holly while everyone else when to the Desert Chorale Memorial Day Concert. Sydney had been looking forward to Mike's "coming to play" since Monday night, and that's a long time for a little kid. She is absolutely in love with him... and I'm not kidding. When I asked her why she liked him so much she said, "because he's so handsome!" What the heck! where did she get that?! Anyways, Friday after I got out of the shower, and before I got myself ready, I asked her if she wanted me to do her hair in pretty braids for mike, and she said, "no! in curls!" (imagine a little blond head full of ringlets... I'll get a picture if I can) which is how I did her hair for mothers day... good heavens. So Syd was all cute when Mike got there... me? not so much. oh well. While I got ready, Syd fed Mike every piece of plastic food we own, (which is a lot...) and I think Mike was ready to be done babysitting in the 15 min. it took me to finish getting ready. So... Sydney and I had to have some "chill time." After that, we made "fruit shakes" and then got Syd ready for bed. Mike fell asleep while we read scripture stories and missed Syd saying, "I'm going to hold on to the iron rod with my mommy and daddy." It was pretty cute. Then we sang some songs and headed up the stairs to bed. Once we were in bed, Syd had me sing a couple more songs and tell her a secret (family tradition, don't know why) and her "secret" to me was a tenderly whispered, "jojo, thank you for the delicious shake," which was at least half an hour before hand and totally random. Let me tell you, when your not-even-3-yr-old niece thanks you like that, you feel about ready to do anything for that kid. After that, the family got home from the concert, and we had devotional which lasted something close to 45 minutes... ridiculous. Then Mike and I met Cj and his brother for some bowling. Good times... good times...
Saturday, I went swimming at my cousins house and sunburned my shoulders pretty bad while playing volleyball. I think my right shoulder is bruised from carrying my purse on top of my sunburn... don't' quite know... feels like it though. When we got home, we all slept for something like 2 hours. I mean, you get wasted after being in the sun from 11-2. (As wasted as a nice little mormon girl like me can get, right?) Mike and I had planned to go see Pirates that night, but Hayley and Bo, (who are our right hands when it comes to hanging out) were out of town for the weekend, and no one else wanted to go. So we didn't. Mike was gonna go skateboarding, but I saved him by inviting him over to watch a Hitchcock movie with the Fam. He didn't last long, but there you have it.
Sunday: Don't you love it when two young married women in the ward stop you after sacrament meeting to ask how your freshman year was at BYU and you end up talking for ten minutes and you are therefore late to gospel doctrine (GD) and your family couldn't save you a seat because, well, it's just too hard. You therefore end up sitting between a)a woman who produces a ton of extra heat in an already hot room and b)the one women who has been in the ward since before you were born and knows your entire life history and really is the sweetest woman in the world, but you just don't have a very high tolerance level for her and she makes all of G.D. 100% awkward by whispering her opinion on everything to me and wonders if I agree with her which of course, I don't. But can I say that? no, so I end up nodding and smiling at whatever she's talking about while trying to keep my own body temperature down and pick up something spiritually enlightening from the lesson. When that is finally over, my brother leaves for priesthood, mom leaves for YW (she's the beehive advisor), the awkward lady leaves for YW's because she is the camp director, Liz leaves to feed Holly, and the heated woman leaves to go to the bathroom being sure to let me know she'll be right back. Needless to say, I move forward a row to where Liz had been sitting so I can sit by her when she gets back and another girl just older than me comes to sit by me and we start talking about where I am going to live next fall. A 100% innocent topic except for that my already bugged attitude brings up who else is living in the same building as I am next fall and we both begin discussing annoyances with those people and then we turn on the awkward one I was sitting next to in GD when the heated one comes back and exclaims "oh, you left me." UGH! How do you respond to that? "It's not that I didn't want to feel your radiating body heat anymore, honestly, I just wanted to sit by this empty seat that is really for my sister-in-law once she comes back from nursing my niece." And then the lesson starts... And can you imagine what the topic is? Watching what you say to and about others... blah blah blah... Thanks a ton, I've screwed my day, well done Julina. (hence why I didn't return your text mike.) I honestly think Heavenly Father wanted to give me a little slap upside the head to remind me how hurtful some of the things I say can sometimes be. Well, I got it and choked down my slice of humble pie. And Liz ended up sitting somewhere totally different, so my excuse would have been lame anyways. Sunday dinner was delicious. Thanks mom.
Monday I woke up at 8:30-ish to watch Holly while Liz went to the gym and everyone else was gone. (except for Kare, she was in bed til 10:45. go her) I started to make caramel brownies which are quite possibly the most fantastic things ever created while holly chilled in her bouncy chair. I had to stop and coo at her every once in a while to make sure she stayed happy, but all in all it went well. When everyone got home, we had to company clean the house so we could leave for a picnic. (Why is that? that mom's feel the need to make sure the house is clean when no one is going to be there? I mean, I guess theoretically if we all died, it would look better to have a clean house for people to clean out... but what are the chances of that?) The picnic at Spring Valley Ranch was great and wonderful though more for Sydney than anyone else. When we got home, we watched Great Expectations, (which, if the movie is anything like the book is crap. I guess I'll have to read it to find out.) while Syd took her nap. After that, we went to my grandma's for swimming and a bbq which was great and tasty.
This is already too long and it's past 10... how I go for this long is beyond me, but I hope that those of you who got this far were not bored out of their minds... congratulations you made it to the end. The End.