Provo Peeps

P-town is not my favorite place by any means, but some of my favorite people live there. Stephanie and I have been friends since bonding cleaning bathrooms in the MTC. After our missions, we traveled through Europe together and stayed with friends we'd met while in the MTC. She's currently going to school in India. She's studying film, so it's cheaper to study in Bollywood than in Hollywood. She's home visiting her family in Provo for a month this summer, so I was happy to get the chance to catch up with her.

I was extremely excited to see Lena and Olya today. They are sisters from Dnepropetrovsk, my favorite area from my mission. Lena was 14 and Olya was only 10. They were already members when I served there and were really involved in activities. Their mom was baptized when they were, but hadn't been active for a long time by the time I got there. The other members of their family were heavily involved in drugs and alcohol and these young girls struggled. One of their older brothers sold a sweater I gave Olya to buy drugs and their mom sold the Christmas tree the ward donated to their family to buy alcohol. Olya shared a pair of boots with her best friend, Marina, who lived in an apartment in the same building. The rest of the time, she used worn out shoes that had cardboard in the soles and tried her best not to get her feet wet.

We were really close while I served in Topol and stayed in touch pretty well over the years. When Olya was 17 or 18, she married a former Elder shortly after he finished his mission and they moved to Provo. Within a year, Lena married a former Elder and they moved to Oregon, where he's from. About a year ago, Lena and her husband moved to Provo. Lena wanted to be closer to Olya and near more Russians.

Liliya, of course, is Liliya. She's smart, beautiful, talented, UKRAINIAN, and simply amazing. I love hanging out with her, though I don't get to do it nearly enough. I love Liliya enough that I was willing to post this pic even though my eyes are closed, simply because she looked cute in this pic.

Utah trip-- June 2011

As usual, I took a quick trip to Utah shortly after school got out to spend some time with my family. Matt came home from Iraq in May and this was the first time I got to see him.

Jacquie, as usual, loves to ask me about clothes and make-up. She wants to carry my purse everywhere she goes and still tells me that she's sure her mom will let her wear make-up, as long as I help her. Her mom, of course, disagrees. One morning when I was putting on make-up, she asked, "Aunt Jeanne, why are you putting that black stuff on your eyes? Are you trying to look tired or something?" I explained that it was eye-liner and it was supposed to make me look pretty. She replied, "Or do you think maybe it's supposed to make you didn't get as much sleep as you wanted?"
Joie's fun, if you can catch her in a good mood, but she's extremely moody. Sometimes she just refuses to leave her mom's side and, apparently, screaming is one of her favorite hobbies. It's a bit rough.
We went to Davey's t-ball game. They hit the ball off the tee and run the bases, then take turns fielding the balls instead of playing positions. It's more interactive than soccer, so he loves it. Watching five year olds play baseball for an entire hour, as one can imagine, is not entirely exciting. Matt and I (okay, fine... it was mostly my idea) kept ourselves occupied by taking photos of ourselves. Joie, although only three, isn't a bad photographer. Even when the camera wasn't on and she wasn't taking any pictures, she had fun pretending.

Charlie is hilarious. He has a BIG personality for such a little kid. He understands that he's funny and purposely does things to make people laugh. The other night when we were sitting on the deck, he took a toy that Joie had been playing with and Joie, very quickly, started to complain that she had the toy first. Charlie ran inside, shut the screen door, then looked through and said, "Ha, ha!"

I drove my dad to the airport on Tuesday and we stopped to visit Grandma and Grandpa Milligan in Ogden. I definitely don't see them as much as I should, so it was fun to catch up. My grandpa is still mean and grumpy all of the time, but my grandma just deals with it and somehow stays entirely sweet and generous. It's pretty incredible. I took this photo of my grandma and my dad in front of her house.

My cousin, Briana, got married last night. The reception was in the Bowen's backyard. It was beautiful and the weather, surprisingly, was great. I took this adorable pic of Grandma and Grandpa Harris. They ALWAYS look adorable.

I saw some family members I hadn't seen for a VERY long time, including Misty and Ashley, who I spent tons of time with when we were younger. Babysitting Ashley was one of the best paying jobs I've ever had!

It's pretty much tradition for Grandpa Harris to drive the newlyweds from the wedding ceremony to the dinner and reception. The kids and I took the chance to post in front of one of his many Model T's. Our photo, obviously, is not nearly as cute as Bri's professional photo with the very same Model T, but... We still thought it turned out pretty cute. :)

Overall, it's been a pretty entertaining week!

Summer vacation!!

It's finally summer vacation again! :) The school year always seems to go by so slowly, then suddenly, the next thing you know, it's time for final exams and cleaning out classrooms.
This summer, I may have got just a bit carried away with my summer vacation plans. Just maybe... We're going to all of the places marked on the map on the left. :)

I'd originally planned to spend some time visiting my friend Tanya in Italy this summer, then invited my friend Heather to come along. She has a friend who lives in Istanbul and... the next thing you know, we planned a trip all over the place. We invited another friend from work, Elaina, and her roommate, Jenn, to join us. They are meeting us in Rome, going on the cruise and through Italy with us, then going home through Switzerland when Heather and I head toward the Balkan countries. We've met quite a few times to figure out our travel plans and are getting more and more excited as things are getting closer. We've got our plans for Italy all figured out. Now Heather and I just need to figure out if we'd rather go the more adventurous route through the Balkans or stick with the scenic route and go mostly through the beaches in Croatia. Either way, this summer is going to be amazing! July 7th simply can't come soon enough. :)

I bought a house!

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but... I bought a house!

You know how sometimes you're shopping and you find a shirt or a skirt you kind of like. You look at it and you think, "Ah, that's kind of cute." Then you look at the price tag. If it's cheap, you think, "Oh, yeah. That's totally worth $15!" or "I'd pay $20 for that skirt, but it's not worth $30." Well, the same thing basically happened with this house. I found it. I kind of liked it. The price was right. (Oh, and it has a pool. With a diving board. And a BBQ grill and a two car garage and granite countertops and big back yard and actual grass in the front yard.)

Ninjas never cease to amaze!

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again