Summer Vacay

My friend Nicole told me that there's no point in blogging, if there are no pictures...oops. Sorry. I will do better.

There is only one slight problem with this...I didn't purchase my camera, until AFTER the 4th of July celebration with the grand-parents.


But let's start at the beginning of the summer. I went to SLC for a week to visit my dear BFF Ali. We went swimming, watched season 5 of Project Runway, celebrated her 25th birthday, and found out Kaitlin is having a baby girl!!! Ali did try to peer pressure ME into getting a tattoo to celebrate HER 25th birthday. I did not get one, but she did. It's a super cute hot-pink apple right behind her ear. Ali, I'm not disappointed in you! :)







This is us, 5 years ago...but it was basically like this again, only without Breea, and no camping, and we're older.




Then: after my week of complete shirking of responsibility in SLC. (that doesn't make any english sense at all) I came home and partied with my single's branch...woot woot! Holla! We played games that made no sense and just injured us. Happy b-day Jordy!







I also raft-debuted on the Snake river!!! My first time, ever! It was crazy cold.

















k. let's figure out what I did next!
Shall we? ADVENTURE ON!!!

I went to San Diego to visit the grandparents! We went to 2 padres games, the San Diego Symphony, and the beach. It was too cold for the beach, but plenty warm for the pool. As crazy as the people of So Cal are, they thought we were something pretty odd when we were waiting for the trolley trains...

I got to have all my bros in one spot, finally! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my bros! AND my only SISTER! (sorry, it's the only one I've got of us togetha!)

And my Parentals! And the grandparents!

It was a super-sweet vacation of tan-ness, pool-ness, and lazy-ness. And it was wonderful!

I met up with sister Moran (aka. Isis) and we became honorary members of the mormon batallion in San Diego TOO!

Then after the family was good and sick and tired of each other, we left. The grandparents could regain their sanity, and we continued to irritate each other on the plane ride home...My Us Weekly mag. only lasted like 20 minutes in the airport. :( bummer.

Then my summer got more mundane, but I still managed to do some FUN things!

Here is my frisbee tutu that Ali helped me make for my tournament in Park City. My tutu was the envy of every girl there...i'm sure!!! Ben thinks I'm crazy-town.




We won one of our games! That's the best thing ever for our little IF team! I love my guys sooooo much!





Now, do you know who this is? DO YOU KNOW? This is a legend! And I got to hear him live...Spence and Tim and I drove to Sun Valley to be there... Fortunately "Shelby Roberts" decided that she didn't want to hear Itzhak, so we got seats in the 4th row!! THE FOURTH ROW! It was amazing.

Not only that, but my superior stalking skills permitted us to chase him down and get our picture with him!!!!!!
If you look closely, I actually touched his shoulder...well, that's a lie. I touched the back of his little motor scooter I thought it would be a little personal bubble-attack-y to actually touch him.

My dad and brother came out to go camping, but it sucked, so we came back early and just played around IF.

Oh, and I learned how to wakeboard! It was AWESOME!!!! This is actually boat-surfing. I'm not suppossed to be holding on to the triangle thing. Promise.

That is all that I care to talk about, because uploading pictures is a pain in my err...uhm...butt :)

Pop-a-Pill

One day I will just grow up and either 1) learn how to swallow a dang pill or 2) learn that I will never be able to swallow a dang pill

The funny thing is: I can down 4 IBprofins whenEVER I want. All at the same time. Give me 4, they're gone.
Give me one gel capsule of NyQuill to help me sleep? nope. I end up chugging about 8 gallons of water, and that stupid blue pill stays stuck to the roof of my mouth. Then I have to go to the bathroom 9,000 times during the night. So much for helping me sleep.


So I came up with a plan to assist those struggling with pill swallowing:

Step 1: open pill packaging--try to take less than 18 minutes to puncture the seal

Step 2: drop pill in glass of water--the less water the better, because then your mixture is more potent

Step 3: realize that the pill will never actually dissolve in a glass of water before midnight (because it IS midnight), so come up with a new brilliant plan

Step 4: Reach into the glass of water, push on the pill with your finger to test for squishy-ness. If not squishy, put it back in the glass of water where it won't do anything. If squishy, proceed to puncture the pill with your fingernail--releasing all the goopy blue liquid into the water.
(Realize: the water won't turn blue from the nyquill)

Step 5: take the whole glass of water into the bathroom, holding the pill in your left hand with the glass below it in the right, rinse the pill over the glass to collect all the blue liquid you can. Discard squishy pill shell in the trashcan.

Step 6: Enjoy your newly mixed drink. When attempting to swallow, it is suggested that you swallow before you taste the liquid.
Warning: Drinking this mixture can lead to vomiting.

Sunday Dinner

I wish that there were more adventures to be had in this booming metropolis, but really, the sad thing is, I have to go to Rexburg to get my kicks in, but even then, I have to get them in before the RIDICULOUS curfew of midnight. So I don't even get my kicks in.

My adventures lately are of a more lame nature, rather than the loud, night-howling adventures of my college days. (oh, back in the day!)

So my Good Guy. Remember him? Well, I have committment issues, so I'm SO hesitant to even admit I'm dating somebody, but alas, I think I am...weird, huh? Anyway he invited me over to the Sunday Dinner at his Great Aunt's house, where you know that there's going to be 8,000 cousins and no super formal dinner...so my roommate wisely advised, "it's only as awkward as you make it"

Well, it turned out a little...uhm...er.....AWKWARD

I showed up to party, went to get my potatoes, and lo! and BEHOLD! My students. Not one, not two, but THREE of my dang students were at this family buffet! And they didn't just look, say hi and disappear like a good student would. Nope. That would have been too normal and un-awkward.
They were like "ms. folkner! Ms. Folkner! Are you dating my cousin?" To which I could not muster a reply. I turned to Good Guy and said, "touch me in front of anyone and you die."
Maybe I wasn't that mean...but I was pretty forceful with my words.

Turns out...they told all their teachers the next day that ms. folkner is dating their cousin, and now all the teachers wanna know who I went to sunday dinner with. Are you kidding me?
They're probably all cousins TOO! So I kept my mouth shut.
Dang IF.

I have learned my lesson. No more big sunday dinners. EVER. I think I'd rather die.

But now, because they know how embarrassed I was, they milk it. Kids are So good at that! Some students didn't know what was going on and why I was being sooooo weird when they brought up my weekend. So, they started thinking that my students saw me making out with Brian. So that's another rumor going around about me. (because Brian came on my Lagoon trip with them, so they automatically think we're married or something.)ha ha ha! At least that would be funny, but only probably just because it's sooo super not true.

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

because the BIBLE tells me so! ha ha!

Actually really, The REAL reason I know He LOVES is that I finally had my first big field trip with my students on Saturday. I took 65 students, myself, my friend, Brian, and one parent (oh don't forget the 3 billion choir and band kids, blugh) down to Lagoon. I was a wreck the whole month of April pretty much...I'm still getting over it.

I'd been praying pretty much non-stop that my students wouldn't do anything too dumb, and that it would NOT be snowing/raining when we got to the park. We loaded the busses at the middle school, it rained. We rode these busses down to Centerville to do our performance, it rained. We got on the bus to go to Lagoon, it rained. We got off the bus at Lagoon and guess what? it rained. I got in the line for the first roller coaster, it stopped raining! And since it had been such miserable weather, the lines were non-existent. So for 6 hours God held off the rain while my students and I ran around like CRAZIES. I took roll at the busses to get back on the highway, and it rained on my clip board at exactly 6:30--our scheduled departure time.

Man, I LOVE GOD!

Now if you want something more entertaining than a sermon about God's greatness--which is a pretty good topic, I think. You should hear the dumb stuff my students did.
reminder: I teach orchestra, and pretty much have angels for students. Dumb angels, but angels nonetheless.

• The choir kids were throwing Mike and Ikes into Sarah's jacket hood during the trip down
• Jessica and Amanda lost their cell phones out of their pockets into the greasy motor room of the mouse trap ride only to run off after losing them, telling me to worry about it, to catch their friends on the Cliffhanger (I didn't worry about it)
• Leo "pantsed" Ben on the bus in front of all the girls
• Katie and Nate "HELD HANDS!!!!!!" on the bus (oh the drama)
• Oh! and Cassie is SOOOO confused about Jared
• Staci brought 6 pounds of gummy bears in a spiderman backpack and carted that thing throughout the park ALL DAY. She shared, so I thought it was less dumb once I got to eat them.

Just a little taste for the things that 7th and 8th graders are into. I haven't heard from the high school yet. I'll update you if it's anything as good as having to think about Ben in his boxers in front of all those orchestra girls. But I'm having to control my gag reflex so I'm gonna stop STOP thinking about that.

Don't worry--I changed their names...just in case it's illegal or anything

Score 1 for the Good Guys

Slaughter-town happened last night, and you know it's bad when all the performers on stage are scowling with disappointment during the obligatory Idaho standing ovation... were they even listening?

Sorry, Mr. Antonin.

But really, I bring you here today to talk about Good Guys.
My dating life has been a mess lately. Fortunately, a mess means some form of dating is taking place. Unfortunately, a mess is not the preferred method of dating. Except, maybe it is for me subconsciously because I seem to be a pro at screwing things up.

BUT! get this! I think the Good Guys are winning this one! I have a tendency to go for the really... well, how should I say this? Confident guys. Sometimes (like everytime) they turn out to be excellent kissers but kinda crappy jerks. But I LOVE them anyways! And then I have to tell myself that in the end, they're not really the best for me...
So I'm currently in the dating pool, trying to find my fishy-poo, and there's one contender for the Good Guys. He's totally not my type...TOTALLY! He doesn't play frisbee, he doesn't do the music thing, and he is totally shorter than me. And you know what? I don't mind!
(stream of consciousness: this reminds me of the time when me and my brother Nate argued over that song that says "shawty is a melody in my head..." and I kept thinking the girl's name was charlie, but it turns out that calling someone shawty is like an endearing club-type-deal nick-name for Shorty. Who knew?)
--at least for now I feel like one of those angsty teenage books where finally the good guy gets his dues.

Dvorak

OMG! I canNOT believe I am going to participate in this! I'm about to slaughter a Dvorak symphony. The worst part is, there's not much I can do about it!

I think this calls for a little explanation of my situation...looky here:

• I live in a town called Idaho Falls--population: 50,730 (50,731 if you count me having moved here after the 2000 census)
• My stand partner's name is Lynette--I think she's 100 years old

That's about all the Xplanation I feel like giving.

One of my old violin teachers used to have a note on her door as I entered her studio. It said, "Practice makes Perfect" Maybe you've even read that saying before. I'm here to testify to you, that it is NOT true--especially in the case of Dvorak's 7th symphony. Simply NOT true.
And this one untruth, coupled with my lack of desire to be perfect, will lead me and my fellow musicians to slaughter Dvorak.

But DAMN, we're gonna have fun doing it!