Yard Sales!! UGH!!

So living near sisters has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. One of those disadvantages is yard sales. I absolutely DO NOT like yard sales. I don't know why, but something about them makes me fell a little like white trash. I mean, everyone has them and everyone knows that it's second hand stuff, but I still feel like they are getting old junky stuff!!! But yard sales are a part of purging your house/apt of junk you don't need. And my sisters decided it was time to do it to their places. And since I live here, I got help!!! First was at my sister, Alicia's, house for 3 days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) of last month. I got to be the translator for all the Spanish people that came, which wasn't very many!!! It was kind of a bust sale, so Cara decided to lug the stuff to her house to do another one a month later. Luckily, at this one, I was in charge of the kids for one day and the second day I had to do University of Phoenix online classwork. Oops. Soo sad!! That didn't keep me from getting frustrated and yelling at my sisters. Boy!! I am definitely a good yard saler!! Soo glad that's all over!! Whew!!

JOB!!!

For those of you who don't know, I GOT A JOB!!! I start Tuesday with training!! I am excited!! It's $11 an hour, so not what I was getting with EUSD, but it is from 8-4 everyday with a half hour paid lunch break. So basically, I work 40 hours a week!! It is with an institute called L.I.F.E. if you couldn't tell by the picture. It is an institute that offers all the services that disabled children need in one place instead of having the parents run to a MILLION different places for school, therapy, and whatever else their kids need. As mom said, I am never going to get away from these special education kids. They have their own school programs, so I am going to be an aid in the intermediate classroom!! It should be fun and rewarding. I get to wear jeans everyday and their L.I.F.E. t-shirt, so I'll be pretty comfortable all day!! Yay!! I am moving down to Mesa in the next couple of weeks and living with a girl named Dala in my ward!! Life is starting to work out!! Get it. Life!!:) Bad joke!! Thanks for all your love and support through all my trials, tears, melt-downs, and craziness!! I love you all!!

Family Birthdays!!

October is family birthday month!! For real!! It starts with Cara, then John, then Beth, then my mom, then Mikkelle, and finally Alicia!!! Whew!! And since I am in the state where most of these birthday people live I get to celebrate with them all. And now you get to see how we celebrate too!!Cara, the cute birthday Princess!!

The glutton free chocolate cake I spent an hour on making for Cara's birthday (she can't have wheat)!!

John's Birthday cake and singing to him.

What happens when Alicia is with sisters, finds the tape, and goes crazy!!!

Playing Disney Scene it for John's birthday.

The nephews with Cara and John at John's b-day party!!

Car Trips!!

So, since I live in Cottonwood with my sister and my ward and most of the job opportunities I have been pursuing are down in Mesa, I usually take one trip a week down there. Yes, it eats up a lot of gas, but it's worth it for me!! But as I travel I get to see a lot of interesting things. These are just few of them:The gorilla motorcycle rider!!Right after this picture he gave me a peace sign. I think he saw the flash!!!Random Hot Air Balloons!! Don't know why they were there.The upclose picture of the hot air balloons!!

TOFW

For those of you who don't know what that means, it's an acronym for Time Out For Women. It's a conference that the church holds for Women ages 18 to 100. They do it all year long in a lot of different cities, but they ALWAYS come to Phoenix. Cara had never been and Alicia goes every year so we decided to make another sister outing of it!! We drove down on Friday and stayed at Dawn's house on Friday to Saturday.

On Friday night Bro. and Sis. Wilcox spoke as well as John Bytheway. Their theme was, "If you can laugh at it, you can live with it!" They told some really funny, funny stories and jokes and had us in stitches. The musical performer of the evening was Jenny Oaks Baker (Elder Oaks daughter). She is a violin player and is AMAZING!! She played with the New York Symphony first chair. I was soo in love with her playing. I only wish I could play that well!!

On Saturday, the speakers were Emily Watts, Emily Freeman, Susan Ulrich, and Kris Belcher. They talked about Sweet Assurances we receive by the truths we know. The truths were: Emily Watts- Fruits of our labor (raising children), Emily Freeman- Abundance (The loaves and fishes story in the Bible), Susan Ulrich- Sins verses Weaknesses, and Kris Belcher- Grace and Healing!!! Kris was a favorite as she is completely blind and told us some extremely HILLRIOUS stories about situations she was in because she was blind!!! The musical performer of the day was Kenneth Cope. He was really good, but sang a few different songs that were interesting!! It was a very uplifting day and fun to hang out with sisters.

Cara's highlight came on Saturday. They had drawings for Deseret Book, some storage place, and a place that does online journals. Cara really wanted to enter so Alicia and I said we would put her name in on our cards too!! We didn't really, but we did enter for ourselves and Cara entered for herself. After lunch is when they did the drawings and Alicia and I were teasing Cara that she better do her hair and make up so when they called her name she would be ready to go up and get her prize. Well ...... SHE WON the journal!! Alicia, Cara, and I were laughing soo hard!! It was really funny!! I love spending time with my sisters!!

Hair Dying Party!!!

So my sister Alicia wanted to highlight her hair because her mousy brown roots were starting to show. I have wanted to put purple and blonde highlights in my hair for a little while and my sister Cara has wanted to do blonde highlights for a little while too, so since we all live close together, we decided to do it all together. Too bad Cara and I bought cheapy dye and the blonde didn't show up too well. My purple was awesome except that it was hidden under my red hair and were really thin highlights so that you couldn't see them unless I fixed my hair a certain way. And because I didn't have color treating shampoo, they are pretty much gone now!!! Alicia's dye was like pur peroxide, so hers turned out GREAT!! I did them!! Go me!! Cara was babysitting a little boy and Dacie was there too and they wanted to do it as well, so we put foil in their hair without any dye!! It was fun bonding time all around!!Alicia, sooo excited about doing Cara's hair. Can't you tell?

Waiting for the dye to set.

I could get reception with so much foil in my hair!!

Sexy foils Alicia!

Cara looks really surprised that she needed that much foil!Dacie's really excited about her "highlight'!!The little boy Cara was babysitting getting his hair "highlighted"!The crazy sisters taking fun pics while we are waiting for our hair to be done.

We seriously did not plan on all making the same face!! We're sisters!! What more can I say!!

I spent my second year at Young Women's camp the first week in July (the week before I moved to AZ). The called me again as the lifeguard, but added to my responsibilities to be the music leader. The lady who usually does it, Sis. King, has MS or something like that and can't walk very well and is in a lot of pain a lot of time, so she didn't feel like she could make it up to camp. So I met with her before camp to go over what we wanted to happen. Our camp didn't have song booksl, so we spent an afternoon putting songs together for camp. We also went over an evening of teaching me some of the songs I didn't know, and she made me a CD to listen to the songs and learn them. Can I just say that for a month before camp, all I sang was camp songs!!! I also wanted to make music a big part of camp this year, so I made awards (music note wands) to pass out to the year that sang the most during that day. This meant at meals, to and from activities, and whenever they could!!! I was surprised at how much this caught on with the girls. They loved it!! If they didn't know a song, they came to me to learn it!! I have never heard soo much singing in my life!! It made me soo happy!! To also let the girls know who I was and what my job was at camp, I made T-shirts that said FACE the music (with the notes F A C E on the treble cleff) and Every Girl Becomes Divine Forever (with the notes E G B D F on the treble cleff). I put my nickname on the back for fun. I also wore a sun hate, a music note scarf, and shoes decorated (by myself) with musical notes and phrases all week!! The girls loved it!! Then, for lifeguarding, I wore my dad's swimsuit from the 70's all week!! It was nice to not have a calling to be directly over a year because during certifcation time I could go make crafts, do family history, or make scarves for the humanitarian project!!! I loved it!! And the girls loved my crazy outfits!! I did bunk in the yurt (round platform tent like things) with the YCL 1's and stayed up late every night talking, telling stories and bonding with these cute girls!! It was a very fun, very dirty, very tiring, and very blessed week!!I got assigned to one of the buses going up as the adult supervision. I got to be with the first years!! They were a BLAST!!!

The first day of camp we had to introduce ourselves and what our job was at camp. So this is how I came out on stage. You can't see, but I had bright orange flippers too. I taugt the girls a swimming song to incorporate both callings!! They thought it was great!!

The back of my shirt.

A regular days musicware

This is my dad's AWESOME suit from the 70's!! He actually wore it too!!I found an orange ball at one of the activities and stole for the day and pretended to be pregnant. The husbands name was Harry and was 6'2", dark, and handsome. He couldn't come to camp!!:)

I got in trouble for pretending to be pregnant, so here is me after I gave birth to George, the little orange ball, and before I had to give him back!!

One of the many crazy get ups the YCL 2's wore every night.

More crazyware.

One of my girls from seminary, Carey. She took about 12 pictures of herself (I made the mistake of giving her my camera), but I only put this one on!!

2 of my girls from the year before, AJ and Katherine. I was the 4th year counselor the year before. They are GREAT girls!!

Every night the YCL 2's put on crazy skits and did crazy games in crazy outfits!! Here is just one of them. The camp theme haning above them was Shoes You This Day. And we got pink camp shirts!!!

Graduation?! Almost not!!

So anyone who knows my sister really well, knows the trauma of her graduation. But for those of you who don't, I'll fill you in!!! Anyway, my sister was involved in a lot of sports and dance programs and stuff. The school spends a fortune on these things and asks the parents of the students or the students themselves to pay for camps, uniforms, and other expenses. Breanna and my parent talked to the Athletic director and Nana's dance teacher about the expenses that she owed. They worked out a deal that erased her past debt and she just needed to turn in current stuff. So Nana got busy and did fund raisers and helped out her dance teacher cleaning the studio and all sorts of things. Nana went to go check what she owed at the beginning of March because if it wasn't all paid off by the end of May, they wouldn't let her walk. When she went to check, they told her she didn't owe anything. She was ecstatic because she still thought she owed a lot. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. At the beginning of May the Vice Principal came back and said that Breanna owed the school $1000 and she needed it by the end of the month to be able to walk. Nana was devastated. She did not want to be the only Hutchings to walk. Well, she didn't have the money and mom and dad didn't have the money, so Mom and Dad went to talk to the school. They weren't trying to get out of paying, just trying to work out options that would allow Nana to walk and the payment to be postponed!! They also wanted to find out what had changed since March when they told Nana she didn't owe anything. Nana had received a scholarship that could pay it off, but she couldn't get her scholarship until she had her transcripts submitted to BYU and BYU sending a report to the agency that gave her the scholarship saying she was enrolled in school. But BYU wouldn't send that until she paid her first month's rent in July (even though she wasn't going to school until September). So that was another almost $700 she had to come up with. It was crazy. When mom and dad asked if they could make as many payments as they could until the end of May and then pay the rest during the summer when Nana had a job, the Principal said No!! The Athletic director even came back and said that he never excused her from past debts. Nana had also earned over $300 in a fundraiser and the cheerleading coach said she never received it. So the principal pretty much accused Nana of stealing that money!! They were soo rude and mom said she almost hit the principal. Luckily, dad works in business and kept a level head on his shoulder. They sucked it up and thus began the month of pulling resources. Nana called everyone she could think of to ask for loans, offer babysitting services or any other service for pay, putting the word out at schools and through the places of businesses that we worked at, garage sales, and car washes. Most people were outraged, but there were the few that were mad at us. Mom got in trouble at her school for putting a flyer in all the teachers boxes for a donation car wash we had to raise the money. The worst part was yet to come though. Nana put up flyers on bulletin boards around her school to advertise for the car wash. Well, Nana got pulled out of class to go to the Principal's office. The principal said she had to take all the flyers down because "it made the school look bad" (mind you she didn't say anything mean about the school on these flyers). Then to top it off, a security guard escorted her around campus like a criminal to make sure she took down all the flyers, even when classes let out and kids were walking past her. Poor Nana was mortified and just bawled. We really think that the school was doing this because they had recently had a registrar who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the school. It was HORRIBLE!! The garage sale was fruitful though, as well as the car wash. There were the occasional cars that passed by and screamed "Pay your f%@*!&# bills" and one hostile person call the place where we were holding the car wash telling him how wrong it was that we were allowed to hold the car wash for the purpose of helping my little sister graduate at his business. To the business owners credit he defended us and told us we were welcome to have a car wash at his business whenever we wanted. We were truly blessed to have so many people pull through for us. And WE MADE IT!! She was able to pay off her debts and got to walk with her class. It made it that much more special for her because of all the struggle and sacrifice it took. It was also neat because my 2 sisters from AZ and my sisters 4 kids came to the graduation!!! We were all soo happy to go!! And Nana looked soo cute and was soo happy!! It was all worth it!!Nana is the blonde with the yellow sash turned toward the camera in the front left corner. Sorry my camera went fuzzy.

Nana the Flasher!!

We are crazy siblings. But we do have fun!!

Nana with the 'rents.

The whole gang that came.

Nana with her niece and nephews.

We had to hold the graduate up in our arms!! It's the crazy thing to do!!

The graduation dinner at BJ's. Mmmm. Pizookies!!

More eating fun.

My free meal because they gave my first one to someone else so I didn't get my meal for like 20 minutes. Cara got hers for free too when they didn't tell her that they ran out of broccoli so they had to run to store. Oops!! Yay for free meals!!

School's Out for Forever!!

So my sister said that I can type a post that happenend in the past and then repost it to the month it happened in. So I am taking my first attempt at this!! Wish me Luck!!

So school/work ended for me on the 26th of June. Luckily for me, since my job was to be an aid to an autistic child, I got to participate in all the end of the year activities including a trip to the bowling alley and laser tag!!! If you know me, these are 2 of my favorite activities!!! I bowled for a little while, went to the arcade with my student and helped him win tickets and pick out prizes, played a game of lazer tag, ate, and just had a good old time. These moments are fun for me as well, because I get to play with the other students that I don't get to spend much time with in class. They are some cool cats. Here are a few pictures of our excursion!!Cory (my autistic student) and I bowling!!Hannah and Ms. AmberlynThis kid has got to be one of my favorite kids. He wasn't in our class, but we became good friends after he challenged me to a game of tetherball and beat me. These kids were pros at it!! His name is Keshaun and he has the most gorgeous light brown eyes!! He is a cutie!! I asked him once if he would marry me when he got older and he told me no becuase I would be like 50 when he was like 20. Not quite, but close enough!! :)The Lovely ladies of room 18. In order: Israel, Grecia (she is gorgeous and was Cory's obsession), Jewelian, and Nae'Lani. The baby is Nae'Lani's little sister.More lovely ladies of room 18. Jessica, Taylor, and Hannah in the front.

These next pictures are from the last day of class. We had a TON of snacks, moved all the desks so we could play games on the floor, wrote on the whiteboard, and just had fun!! I sometimes miss these kids A LOT!! I definitely was meant to work with kids!!

Cory and I once again. He loves to take pictures!!Me, Jessica, and Jewelian in the back. Jewelian's mom works for a jewelry store, so my going away present was a gold ring with a pearl in it (all real). Jewelian was my helper with Cory and loved to hang out with me!!

The gorgeous Grecia and I!! She is Mexican, but with the most BEAUTIFUL blue eyes!! She's going to be a knock out when she grows up!!

Marissa was the tomboy in the class and LOVED soccer. She also LOVED Twilight (her parents actually let her read it and watch the movie). We became fast friends.The girls wanted to do a star picture with our feet. Their idea. Try to guess which ones are my feet.

The teacher, Mrs. McCartney (yes. Like Paul McCarntey or Jesse McCartney) and one of my favorite people in the world as well. She was a HUGE Twilight and Robert Pattison fan as well, so we got along GREAT!!One of the secretaries and another one of my favorite people inthe world, Akira. She had a different man every week it seemed like, and the most AMAZING singing voice in the world!! She was a blast!! She ALWAYS had a flower (fake) in her hair!!

And of course I saved the best for last. This is Lidia, the other Secretary!! We were meant to be kindred spirits. Her daughter played soccer with Nana for a little while. She is Portugese (so is her husband), but also speaks Spanish fluently. We had fun talking about soccer (She introduced me to Renaldo. HOTTIE!) and just being girls. I love this woman!!