"I Sleep In a Drawer"

This weekend I spent another fantastic time at Snowflake with the fam. Good food, weather that allowed me to spend tons of time outside without thinking I would die, bike rides, reading, movies, naps, and of course a rodeo. However, events transpired that have left me to ponder my status in the family. After reflecting on years of family vacations, I have come to realize that in the past decade an elitist group of married people has infiltrated my family. Not only is my parents home becoming a shrine to these happy couples and their wedding days, but I fear that I may never have a good nights sleep again when on vacation with them. Every member of this group seems to be allergic to air mattresses, the floor, twin beds, "common areas", and children that aren't theirs. I would also like to have a medical reason to avoid these things.

My first memory of "sleep abuse" is at my grandparents house in Draper when Andrew was wisely joining the married people. Brittany and I had to sleep on the pull out bed in the main room, meaning we were awoken bright and early with the children. After the first night we got smart and resorted to our only other option, sharing a twin bed upstairs. It only took Brittany 5 months to join the married people.

The next summer we all went to Carlsbad. I slept on the floor, under a table. Nobody was comfortable that trip, but really? Under a table!?

Then we have the next summer in Newport. There happened to be just the right amount of bedrooms for the married people. After one night of sleeping on the pull out bed that was previously owned by a chain smoker, Gabe and I opted to share an air mattress in the family room. He hit me countless times in his sleep and woke up horrendously early.

When Brittany, Andrew, and their spouses graduated from college I managed to get my own room at "The Castle Inn". I'm still unsure how this happened and I will forever be grateful. But don't worry, it was the only one on the main floor, so I still got to wake up with the kids!

Park city the summer before my freshman year...pull out bed.

Now we come to Dayne's wedding in Florida. I would like to point out that Dayne had been M.I.A. at family vacations for a few years...I think he caught on to the "group" situation. Again, I will say that not everyone was very comfortable because there seemed to be no blinds or shutters on the windows(sorry Brit), but I had no room. So, this time I got creative and set up camp in my parents walk-in closet. I think everyone thought I was kidding at first. It was actually a pretty good situation because it was so dark, but of course I got an air mattress with a hole in it so it was more like sleeping on a layer of plastic.

In Williamsburg this Christmas I got lucky again. Missy and Will's family couldn't come so my parents decided to cancel our other room, but it was too late or something so I ended up with my own room! Note that this was only by default and a room would never be reserved for me, but still awesome. However, due to the aforementioned allergy of twin beds(push them together people), I had to take the room with twin beds that was directly next to the kitchen/family room. Again, waking up with the kids at seven. Oh, and lets not forget that I had the bathroom that everyone used when they were downstairs, which Brandon was quickly banned from using.

Now we get to this weekend. I took my usual bedroom, the one with the twin bed. The main issue with this room is that in order to get to it I have to walk through my parents room and in order to use their bathroom they have to walk through my room, enough said. The cherry on top this weekend is that I got to share the room with Milly and no matter how cute she is she still wakes up at 6:30 or 7, not counting the dozen other times during the night.

Thank you for listening to my rant. My family is awesome and I love our vacations, but things might be a little more pleasant if everyone else realized that 9 is a normal time to wake up. My parents are amazing for providing places for all of us to stay, but I dream of a day that I can make all of the married people sleep on the floor, under a table, with all ten of my children. Sweet dreams.

Give me the Green Light

This post starts over a month ago when I was innocently driving home from my first ballet class of the summer. There is no easy way to say this, I ran I red light, and of course it was one of the few with a camera. I was emotionally unaffected by this. In fact, I was on the phone with Brittany, and calmly allowed her to finish whatever she was talking about and then added in a "by they way, I got flashed at a red light a little bit ago." However, while I had been listening(very intently) to her, the other part of my brain had been quickly running through what my emotions should be. First, and most importantly, I was robbed! Of course there is no way that this was actually my fault. Something was wrong with the machine, that yellow light was the shortest thing of my life, etc. *Note: I really did think these things which is vital at the end of my story. Secondly, whatever, it will just cost some money, no use in crying over spilt milk. Thirdly, almost everyone in my family, except for my mom, has been flashed while driving the Envoy, and no one has ever paid because it is under my mom's name....there must be a way out of this. Like clockwork, my dad began plotting before I even finished telling him what happened. When this gem showed up in the mail for my mom:
He decided the best route was to ignore it and wait to be served. Of course he also commented on the fact that I was on the phone, classic.
Since my mom is the only one that is ever home, I used knowledge gained during my days as a latch-key-kid to show her how to maneuver carefully through the dining room without being seen, to see who was at the door. The first time she tried to elude the potential process server, the missionaries were waiting at the door.
On my way to work on Monday JohnJay announced on the radio that he had received a letter in the mail that his red light ticket had been waived due to a problem with the machine. He then announced the crossroads, they were exactly my own!!! Could it be!? As soon as I got to my computer I found this article in the newspaper http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clicktrack/email.php/8817428. VINDICATED. For a month the yellow light had been set for too short of a time(i KNEW it) and thousands are getting their money back. Meaning for those of us that just ignored it, we can stop living in fear. This kind of thing never happens...but it happened to me. And the clean record lives on!