Chaos.

That would be one word to describe this last week.

It was a week that completely was not following my long tradition of routine.

It involved two days where I worked 12+ hour days.

It contained a drama-filled work experience.

aka tomorrow, I'll now be training my 6th (?) person at this job in two years. AND I didn't even work there last year. Let's just say, it's good they hired me two years ago.

Anyway, the week was filled with lots of babysitting, lots of rain, hanging out with old friends, working a ton, etc.

And next week is going to be even crazier, I'm sure.

Especially since I need to pack for 2.5 trips. Woot.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, when I went to the store the other day, I walked in and saw rows and rows of this:

That's right, it's Passover goodies. And I literally started laughing out loud when I saw all the 'grape juice'. I miss the good ol' days of celebrating Passover in October with these two:

I miss you, Jerusalem.

Footwear.

You know that awkward moment when you're driving home from work, and you're going to fill up the car with gas at the station on the way home that is usually a couple cents cheaper than everywhere else? And you're excited when you see that the gas is only $4.17/gal?

Yep, that happened yesterday.

In other news, I've realized in the past couple of days that I'm super jealous that instagram isn't in the android store. (So yes, that might explain all my recent phone pictures. Don't judge). But tonight, I decided to make an end of it.

And I googled "is there an instagram evquivalent on android?" because I needed something.

And one of the first suggestions was Snaptastic. Which I promptly downloaded and tried it out. Below are the pictures (before/after) of my recent app shenanegians.

{original}

{edited}

As you can see, there are some differences between the two. In the edited one, the color pops more, which is nice. But I don't like the watermark on the bottom.

So yeah, we'll see what happens. I also downloaded PhotoFunia and we'll see if I like that one more. Or maybs you'll just get to see unedited photos from my broken little phone (which is still working like a charm. Love.)

Also, the above pictures show what my life looked like today. Rainboots and puddles. And I'm sure that's what the rest of the week is going to entail as well. Which I love.

Love the rain, love my rainboots, love springtime. :)

(I just hope that when make my grand return to Rexburg in less that two weeks that it'll be spring... and not winter.)

Speaking of spring, I bought these lovelies today.

And as I was buying them, I texted my sister saying

"Currently buying my wedding shoes."

They'll literally be perfect for my wedding.

And they're already so comfortable.

In love.

[source.]

Over and out.

Lovelies + Special Brithday.

Sometimes, I like to see who facebook thinks my favorite/best friends are.

Especially since this is obviously a very good use of time, don't be jeal.

And I do this by checking out my little page and seeing who they display in the little 'friends' box.

And then, if I approve of who they've chosen, I'll take a nice little screen shot. Like so.

{This day it included the two seesters, my faves from JRu, the husband and brother-in-law. }

{A few days later, the some of the HHS crew, my fave Canadian roommate ever, my BYU-Idaho/Jerusalem buddy, Kaylie (the sweetest girl in the world) & the other 2/3 of JED.}

{And a couple of days later, lots of the sames; 2/3 of JED, the other half of Chanel, the Oregon clubbers, etc. Love.}

[This is technically Nicole's. hahaha but sometimes I like to pretend that it's mine because I la-love these people too. :) ]

And! This one is from literally two seconds ago:

{I've also included the Hebrew ad on the side of the page. Love.}

I don't really understand how facebook decides who to put there, but I love seeing some of my favorites everytime I decide I need to stalk myself on the fb.

ANYWAY, it's also this girl's brithday:

{And when I say this girl, I mean the girl on the right, with the mane.}

{This would be little Shmackely in front of a camel... in my favorite place in the world.}

{Yep, we're supes romantic.}

{And sometimes we ride our camels through the Egyptian desert together.}

Happy 17th birthday little Shmackely! :)

You're so old. Uhlll.

Love you! :)

Nappy Time.

My work schedule is crazy.

And by that, I mean that it's super inconsistent and impromptu.

But despite this fact, I've gotten in a pretty bad habit when it comes to my job:

I've started taking naps.

At work.

But before you judge, let me explain.

I only take naps when little Michael is sleeping.

(I mean, c'mon, it's naptime.)

But it's like, become a routine.

I wake up (far too early),

get to their house at 9 (after witnessing too many almost accidents),

sit there for approximately an hour until both the parents leave,

put little Michael to bed,

sit outside his room and take a nap,

wake up approximately an hour or so later,

do other things until he wakes up,

etc.

So, it's not like I'm taking a nap on a supes comfortable bed or something.

I sleep on the floor.

Right outside his room so I can hear if he wakes up.

And they're just little power naps.

However,

on Wednesday,

I had another task that I needed to accomplish.

And it had to be done while he was sleeping.

Here is a little picture of what I did.

(Originally, I was just going to use twistable crayons that I brought from home but! I found these awesome colored pencils and had to use them instead.)

Who's this birthday card for, you might ask? Well, let's just say I was recruited by someone to help out with a birthday extravaganza. Someone who happens to live in Israel. It's great. :) (Just call me Marsha).

I love secret surprises and birthdays and I love even more being recruited to help this lovely family. :)

Boston in the Fall.

Remember Junior?

He is now the first in a long list of missionaries I know going to Boston.

It's actually becoming a little freaky.

First we had little Ludlow.

Then the Packards (Good #3).

And now, I just found out that little Bushnell is going there too. He just got his call last week.

I work for his dad at one of the little CPA offices.

They've been trying to talk to someone who knows (almost) Pres. Packard and everyone they've talked to, doesn't know him... until me.

So first Ronald had a nice little chat with me about it.

And then Lisa called (all the way from Utah) to talk to me about him.

For five minutes.

Presh. They just want to make sure that he'll be in good hands.

So for anyone else who is expecting a mission call: I'm predicting that you're going to Boston.

(And that's also where my family thinks it would be so funny for me to go. I should just join the club.)

Shark Bait.

[ooh haha.]

Last week, at one of my swim practices that I coached at, my favorite coach ever, gave me two tickets to the Sharks game on Monday. Clearly I readily accepted them because sometimes I like to pretend to be groupie. And yes, maybe I don't understand all the rules of hockey but I know enough.

So on Monday, little Shmackely and I headed to the Shark Tank (aka HP Pavillion) to watch our little Sharkies play the Ducks.

I anticipated a win but apparently the Sharks had a different agenda.

[They lost 3-5.]

But it was still super great, nonetheless.

Here's the thing I've noticed recently and that I very quickly was reminded of at the game:

There are quite a few words in the vocabulary of most people that are four letters long and I haven't heard in a looooong time.

Within 5 minutes of the game, the wonderful lady sitting next to me said a 'S' word approximately 8 times, in a row. And pretty loudly. And her husband followed that with a couple other choice words.

Let's just say I haven't heard those certain words in months, so I was a little shocked upon hearing them again.

And it was funny because the girl in front of us was/is literally addicted to social networking. We figured out more about what was going on in the game from watching her tweet/status update (yes, we're snoopers like that) than we did from actually watching the game.

During one of the breaks between periods, twitter/facebook addict + boyfriend decided to take some pictures on her phone. Which was beyond presh.

And then of course Jack and I decided to do the same, in a semi-mocking tone. (Oh, and not to leave you with a cliff-hanger, but her phone then died after their photoshoot so she had to use his phone to text her friend/tweet/facebook.... really?!)

Fishes.

Chipmunks.

Game highlights:

When the goalie decided to start swimming across the ice- priceless.

Everyone being on their smartypants phones. And playing 'Draw Something' along with the guy in front of us.

Getting really good at the The-Sharks-just-scored-a-goal cheer.

Binocular Boy next to Shmack (who then moved over a chair).

The fight that broke out. (it's not hockey without a fight, right?)

Finding a mysterious cell phone in my dad's car on the way home.

(And then getting to play detective.)

Game lowlights:

Not being able to cheer when the Ducks score.

Not winning a new phone.

Not winning two free tacos.

Not seeing Sharkie.

Not eating delicious looking nachos.

Not being able to do the fun cheer after we got so good at it.

Losing.

So I would say, it was a rather successful outing.

I love getting to watch the Sharks for free.

[Thank you, Nan!]

Giant Teddy Bears, Swimming & Chick-Fil-A.

This week was mightyyy busy. Which I've said a lot.

But seriously, this week was insane.

Monday I worked, and then was an assistant swim coach.

Tuesday I nannyed all day (with the grandma being there) and this pretty much sums up my feelings towards the day:

Wednesday I nannyed and then babysat.

Thursday I went to swim practice and then made a super special dinner (more on that later) and then went to a performance by the stake youth.

Friday I went to work, then almost immediately went to a swim meet (in the POURING rain) which was basically sitting there under a huge Stanford umbrella chatting with Nan, and then almost immediately after that, I babysat an adorbs baby. I picked him up at church (because the rest of his fam was going to the same performance) and then I drove him home, in the pouring rain and then I had to get him to go to sleep. Which was hard but not in the way that most babies are.

He would pull his pacifier out of his mouth but then he couldn't figure out how to get it back in so he would fuss but then when he saw me walk in the room to help him, he would just have a huge smile on his face. SO cute. :)

Once he did fall asleep though, I started reading National Geographic which is one of my faves. And I started reading a special edition on water. Which is seriously my favorite. AND on top of all that, I stumbled across an articled titled: Parting the Waters. Which is all about the Israeli/Palestinian/Jordanian conflict over the Jordan river. AND they mention an Israeli ecologist. So yeah, I guess you could kind of say that I loved it, more than a lot. :)

And then today involved cleaning the church this morning, going to the performance in the afternoon, hanging out/running errands in the afternoon and then going to another performance in the evening. And I got to be in the alumni number, which was exciting. :)

Anyway, back to my super exciting dinner that I made the other night.

It was this:

Homemade Chick-fil-A nuggets & fries.

It was pretty good. There were some bits that tasted JUST like Chick-a-fil and others.... not so much. But it was a good test.

[Recipe here.]

Also, watch this video. It'll truly make your heart smile. :)

Two Years from Hailey Haugen on Vimeo.