Monsoon Season 08

Arizona, while being a desert, flat and cactusy and brown- does have rain contrary to popular belief. Its what they call "Monsoon season" and from about July to October we get smashed with Monsoons. What this means is that the humidity jumps up from desert dry to floridian humid. The heat cools down to about 1o5-110... and a couple times a week we have severe thunderstorm warnings. Usually there is activity happening near by, but since it is a desert with no mountains to trap the clouds, places get hit intermitantly, and the storms fly through quickly.
The other night- was a good one. It lasted over 4 hours, and blanketed the entire county. The news reports had a lightning counter that exceeded 10,000 strikes in under an hour. So much lightning... and then the rain... then the wind... then the flooding.

to give you an example: here are a few pictures i took: Lets all take time to appreciate how normally difficult it would be to take photographs of lightning. Imagine how much there was then, for me to go out onto my porch, look up to the sky, and shoot these photos. I do have more, these are my favorite though. (I only had 3 without lightning in them)



This bottom one is my apartment grounds completely flooded. There was 2 inches of water on top of the speed bumps!

Here is some live action, now remember, this is just the view of the sky from above my porch-


In the chaos, me and Katy thought it would be a good idea to drive around in the storm and watch it. So we found a nice flat empty field to park her car in. Watch the wind, the rain, and the lightning that almost hits us...
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and one more little clip: the roads on the drier part of the ride home...




and we live to see another day of monsoons...

Happy Birthday to me- a big thanks!

It is no secret to anyone that loves me, how traumatic my birthday is for me. I would like to report that this birthday was quite lovely. It was sort of a birthday marathon that lasted for 3 days.
It began on Friday with my students remembering! I have never been so celebrated at school. One brought me flowers, another a bag full of my favorite snacks like peanut butter and apples, one got me a stuffed animal, another a cake--and the list went on from there. I will also note while talking about students, the ones who forgot on friday, made sure to ask how my birthday was on monday, and wished me a late birthday.
Later Friday night I went out to dinner and a movie with Room8 Katy and friend Brooke. Unfortunately we have no photos to show here, but we went to the most lovely resteraunt that had a very attentive waiter, and a pianist that kept the evening fun. We went and saw the movie "house bunny" a very funny movie for girls and girls alone. Boys- don't bother.
Saturday me and katy started the day off with a bike ride! We rode out to places where there were hills (a phenomenom i didn't know exisisted here. And about 10 miles out down the biggest hill i've rode down in a while (33+mph) katy's bike tire blew out. Her gaurdian angels got her to the bottom safetly. We changed her tire, only to find that her spare was also popped. From the time we stopped to the time we were rescued by Tbud, Erica and Jessica- we had only been posted up for about an hour and a half- Which wasn't too bad because AZ in august isn't that hot :) We went for juice slushies.
Then me and Katy went to pick up my gift to myself: My piano. I love it!
Friend Jason helped me carry it up our stairs- woohoo! And later we all went out to a fancy little hole-in-the-wall mexican restaraunt.
No worries, just because my actual birthday came and went, we were not yet done. The next morning Katy threw a happy birthday-the-next-day party for me and she made breakfast for our friends from the ward. Then after church we went over to Kristens where we ate Indian/Tai dinner and had more birthday cake and singing. It was a fabulous weekend.
I would like to thank everyone for every gift, card, and phone call I recieved. I laughed that every card I got everyone was wishing me well for a different birthday (haha thank you) and i got multiple comments about how it was too bad we didn't get to go float in the Great Salt Lake! I KNEW YOU GUYS LOVED IT AS MUCH AS ME!!!! :) and I also would like to thank all my friends for congregating in Utah and having a party for me- even though i couldn't attend. :) I'm just happy you were all in the same place at the same time, with all the adorable babies! Pretty much it rocked, and i have decided to be: 13, 161 this year, just to see what its like to get older...

when life gets funny...

This is CLEARLY an Issue. Folks can we do something about this?

Buddy the elf is running for student council.

He is running under a pseudonym though, no need to bias the public.

Katy decided that i needed an intervention, and taught me about geruns, participles, and infinitives (which I remember because she tatooed the word on my arm)
A Gerun, if you were wondering, is a verb that acts as a noun using ING.
A Participle, is a verb that acts as an adjective using ING.
and an Infinitive, is a verb that (awe crap- one second, let me go look at my mirror) An infinitive is a verb that uses "to" to turn it into a noun. Any questions? Ask my crazy roomate. Or consult my mirror. Yes, this is what we did instead of getting ready for a dinner. We always look good enough anyway right?