Small Bites, No Brainfreeze

We were big into Slurpees in those days. Here we are one night after institute, grabbing a slurpee. I’m sure I was behind the camera for this one. This is Patty and Staci. (Notice the overalls!)

YSA Dances

I wish so much that I had taken more pictures! Because I was the YSA rep for the Turlock Stake, I was heavily involved in planning dances. Every three months, I was in charge. I ended up utilizing a lot of my resources and know how as an elementary school teacher, and we just had an absolute blast.

One of my favorite dances was the Kindergarten Dance. We had the basics—a DJ (Sam did a great job DJing for us sometimes) and refreshments, and then all kinds of supplemental fun. I don’t remember if we themed the refreshments too, but the activities were awesome. All around the outside of the dance floor there were tables with kindergarten type entertainment. I remember that we had a corner with some hula hoops, and maybe jump ropes, and we had a station where people could come make froot loop necklaces. Those are the only ones I can remember, but we usually had at least four activity stations people could use when they needed a break from dancing. Although the dancing was amazingly fun, too!

Here are some pictures from a Valentine’s Day dance, but I don’t think this is one I planned.

Crazy Brooks Taylor

A whole bunch of super awesome friends!

Front: Michelle, Me, Tyler Harrington, Jana Holman

Middle: Victoria LeBaron, Becky Clawson, Staci Hollingsworth, Dusty Twiss, Erin Hollingsworth

Back: Tommy Torres, ?, Brooks Taylor, Cana (peeking out from behind Staci)

Front: Staci, Me, Brooks Taylor

Middle: Erin, ?, Cana, Tommy, Dusty, ?

Back: Billy, ?

Front: Erin, Me

Middle: Staci, ?, Cana, Tommy, Dusty

Back: ?, Brooks, Billy, ?

Here are some pictures we took before a Halloween dance, and Cheri’s house. No pictures from the dance, though! Look at all that awesome overall action going on.

We also had Super Activites a couple of times a year. I was in charge of planning one in May, which was a Fiesta (Cinco de Mayo and all). Where are all my great pictures of that?? Dang it!

These pictures are from a luau Super Activity that we had outside. I also didn’t plan this one. (Maybe I was too busy working during the ones I planned to take any pictures—although I really don’t remember the work, I just remember the huge amounts of fun).

Jeannette and Me

Celeste, Jancy, Jeannette, Me

YSA Dating

Although I was well known and well liked all throughout the Modesty Young Single Adults, and people loved hanging out with me, and life was a laugh and a half a minute, I was still not the girl that was asked out by guys. I don’t really remember ever being just asked out on a date by any guy. What was wrong with me? I don’t know, that’s just how it was. There were guys who would go out of their way to come hang out with me, but none of them ever asked for a real date. But I had learned in college how to have a lot of fun, and it carried over into my YSA years. I got my friends together and we organized group dates a lot. None of the guys I asked ever said no, and we always laughed hard and had amazing fun, so I guess that’s something.

One time we got up a group date where the girls had to make a picnic dinner in a basket, and then the baskets were auctioned off to the guys. The basket a guy bought determined who his date would be, so nobody knew beforehand who their date would be. (The guys did not know who made which basket). After the basket auction, the next activity was to head to a thrift store and buy each other an outfit to wear. And of course, the more embarrassing the better! I ended up with Brooks. Who I had a major crush on, as did everyone else. After dressing up in the outfits provided by our dates, we headed to the baseball field to watch a minor league game. We had our picnic dinners on a big grassy field outside the stadium before the game. It was the single most fun baseball game I have ever been to. (Not that I’ve really been to many. Maybe three, my whole life). Again, huge regrets for having zero pictures of this group date. I think it was the biggest deal group date we ever concocted.

These pictures are from an Italian date night that was themed after the book Strega Nona, also inspired by my 2^nd grade classroom curriculum. This date was in the Institute Building by the MJC campus. We decorated it all up, and had a big pasta dinner. Then we went downstairs and played crazy games like Bus Stop and the vegetable game, and just hung out and had a lot of fun. I think my date for this one was Michael Garriety.

In the middle of playing a game--probably Bus Stop.

As usual, we always asked the guys in creative ways. Here is one of the ways I asked a guy one time. I have no idea what we did on this date! Ha ha!

Tuesday Night Institute

Most of the YSA kids went to Modesto Junior College, and they had an Institute building right there close to the campus. It was a popular hang out for the MJC kids, and they had daytime institute classes taught by Brother Grimsman. I’ll admit, it kind of burned that I had to be an hour south of there all day long, teaching school. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job, and I appreciated it. But I missed my friends!

Everyone went to Tuesday night Institute, though, whether they went to daytime Institute or not. We would go to the lesson, and then afterward we’d play volleyball for a couple of hours. There were a couple of times when we showed up for institute on a Tuesday night, and the teacher wasn’t there. So I got up and taught the lesson. It felt awesome to be able to do that! A lot of times during volleyball my friends and I would sit on the stage and talk and play and laugh. It was just good times all around.

Moving Day

Yeah, I know, I've had more moving days in my lifetime than a lot of people can even imagine. The particular day I'm remembering today was July 30, 1999. I was sharing a one bedroom apartment with my sister, Celeste, at Oak Park in Turlock, CA, and we had decided to upgrade to a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom place. We were so excited! But then, I am ALWAYS excited when I move--another subject for another day. We had spent the evening at a party, and when we got home we decided we were too excited to wait until morning when our friends were coming to help. So we stayed up the entire night going back and forth from apartment to apartment, and were just about done by daybreak. I remember this because it was a great time with my little sister. Ya know, the later you stay up with people, the more you "bond," because you just get so crazy tired. (I have lots of those kinds of stories, too.) We just had a really good time doing something so insane, and we were SO happy to be in a bigger place. Later, my sister said that she liked the song "I love coming home to you" (country song, don't remember who sang it or if that's even the official title) because she liked knowing that at the end of the day, she was coming home to our place where we got to share a great time together. I really appreciated that, becuase that's how I felt too.

Singing With Spatulas

Oh the fun we used to have hanging out at my apartment! Today I'm thinking of my California friends that I had so much fun with before I settled down and got married. We could be a wild bunch, you might say. Not wild in the normal way, I guess. I mean, we didn't smoke or drink or break laws (although we accidentally broke the apartment's quiet hour rules once) or do any of that kind of stuff. We had good, clean fun, and when I say fun, I mean F-U-N. Sometimes it was all of us, whoever happened to show up, and we would play weird games like silent football, or the vegetable game (and by the way, kumquat STILL isn't a vegetable.) Or we would bust out the book of questions and really get some good, deep conversations going. Once, when Jason was the only guy to show up (poor sap) he got a mary kay facial. Sometimes we played truth or dare, but not all that often because nobody really wanted to know the truth. One night we stayed up so late that nobody went home until I had to leave for work--it was the last day of school, and it probably wasn't the best idea to get no sleep the night before! (Thanks for going with me that day, Patty, and helping me get everything done.) Once my couch got broken by one of our more overzealous friends. (can't say who, because he still lives in denial of that experience). We laughed and did all kinds of weird things. Sometimes when it was just us girls, we did things that were just plain weird--but we'd do them again in a heartbeat! We would turn on Abba or the Dixie Chicks, and bust out the wooden spoons and spatulas and sing our hearts out along with the CD. One day we highlighted hair, another time we painted big cardboard decorations for a YSA activity, and sometimes we just sat around trying to figure out the mystery that was men. (We never did quite figure that one out, did we?) But whatever we did, we had a lot of fun and made memories and friends that will last forever. We were such a funny bunch, always making eachother laugh beyond control. We went to dances and planned big group dates and went to movies, one summer we went to a weekly thing we called Water Wars, another time we went on a trip to Angel Island and then over to Pier 39 to try and make sense of the conversations the sea lions were having with eachother, there were those times we went to a retreat called Moonlight in the Mountains, always a lot of fun, and Thursday nights at the Baker's barn, and round the world ping pong, and going to Denny's in the middle of the night to hang out (I always liked it when our friend, Bob, a Denny's waiter, made roses out of napkins for us) and then the time we participated in a musical that our friend wrote for pioneer day--and we also shared our love for the Savior, our testimonies of the gospel, and our committment to serving the Lord and eachother in any way we could. I always appreciated the good friends, relationships and experiences during those couple of years. So if any of you ever venture over to this blog, thanks for the good ol' days. Love you guys!

Death By MSAT

When I moved to California, with only a Bachelor’s Degree that I earned in Idaho, I had to do a few things in order to get a California credential. I had to take a few tests, and then they gave me an “emergency” credential that was good for…2 years? I don’t remember the exact amount of time I had, but before that credential expired I had to do some things. When I talked to the advisor at Stanislaus State, in Turlock, she told me I could either a) take these 9 classes, or b) pass the MSAT.

Well. The obvious choice was to take the test. So that ‘s what I decided to do, and then I proceeded to forget all about it because I had loads of time. I let it go until I finally registered for the very last MSAT offered before my credential either had to be renewed, or it would expire.

Let me back up a little bit. For some reason, I have always been super good at standardized tests. NO BIG DEAL, ever. I never worried about them, and I always went in and blew them out of the water. In college, I had to take the National Teacher’s Exam just to get admitted to the ElEd program at LCSC. The night before the NTE, we had a group date, and I didn’t get home until 2 a.m. At 7 in the morning I was sitting at a desk, with my two super sharp number 2 pencils, ready to take the test. I remember thinking how tired I was, and thinking it might have been a bad idea to stay up that late partying (Mormon style) the night before. And then I scored in the 96^th percentile in the nation. One of the tests I had to take in California to get credentialed was the CBEST, and when I got there to take it, I chatted with some of the other test takers before the test, and several of them mentioned how this was the 5^th or 6^th time they had taken the test, just trying to pass. And in I went and had no trouble knocking it out of the park. So tests were never anything I took very seriously.

Enter MSAT. I decided that just for kicks I’d go over to the Stan State bookstore and pick up a study guide book for the MSAT. I had never studied for one of these tests before, but it was a good thing I got this book! I started looking through it about 3 days before the test, and panic set in. This test was no joke! It was over $200 to take, and it took all. day. Word on the street was that most people took the test a minimum of three times. The things I saw in that study guide had me convinced I would fail the test and lose my job. I mean, this test was supposed to allow me to test out of nine college classes! What was I thinking??

I went up to Brother Grimsman’s house, and he and Brooks gave me a blessing. Aside from that, I studied night and day and tried not to completely lose my mind.

On the day of the test I headed down to wherever the test was. Merced? Fresno? I forget. I checked in to the testing site, and was told that the first part of the test was 4 hours, and it was a multiple choice, true false type test. The second part of the test would be after an hour or so lunch break, and it would last three hours. The second half of the test consisted of eighteen essays that had to be completed within the three-hour block of time. I tell you, I went in to that second part of the test with no idea what the future held. All I know is that I put my head down and charged right in, and forgot about the entire world for three hours.

And…I passed, with a percentile place somewhere in the 90s. But ever since then, I have tried to make sure that I don’t leave things like that until the last minute! I really should have taken the test a year or so earlier, so I could have had time to retake it if I needed.