Coast to coast

Well I was finally back in Utah, for a whole 15 hours! Now I'm taking off for my fifth flight in a week, to Orlando, Florida. Coast to coast! I shouldn’t be complaining that I get to go to Disney World and Universal Studios and do all the other fun things coming up, so I won’t…but just saying, sometimes all you want is to be home.

I'll explain my random Florida visit. If you already know why I'm going, or don't really care, go ahead and skip the next paragraph!

Well I'm going for a national competition, which I get to compete at because I won first place in state. The competition is called STAR events, which stands for Student Taking Action and Recognition. There are thirty or so areas to compete in, I chose the Focus on Children category. This required that I planned and carried out a service project that benefited kids and the community. I worked on this project for five months, from beginning plans to the end result. I was one stressed girl. But it paid off! I had a big Valentines day party for about 80 kids, where they came to participate in developmentally appropriate games, crafts, and cookie decorating. The cookie decorating was the service project. They each decorated two cookies, one of which they kept and the other was donated to the homeless shelter. That's it in a very small nutshell, compared to how much more I could bore you with! I have a display board that presents my planning process and a lot of other junk, then I talk for 10 minutes straight to the judges.

 THERE. Done, no more talking about it.

The past 3 days in my California home have been great! I got to baby sit these cute kiddos during the day

Monday we saw Brave,

had an In-N-Out picnic at the park,

and ended with an afternoon swim.

Perfect kick-off to Tuesday, chocolate chip Mickey Mouse pancakes. Took me about 5 tries to get the perfect head shape...then his ear ripped off.

Patriotism at its finest.

 

We had a firework-less fourth of July. We spent the day at Momo and Mofa’s lake house (their names are Danish for grandma and grandpa). By the end of the day, the little ones were pretty wiped out, so we headed home.

On the way back, I was tickling Kennedy and captured here on my lap. In between shrieks and giggles, she looked me in the eye and said “Tessa, I like you,” then went back to flailing her arms and legs. Her simple statement made my night, it was the cutest thing ever. Kids are great.

A window seat + flying on top of clouds= one of my many joys. I could stare out at these beauties for hours.

Random, but I got new sunglasses that I'm obsessed with. Also, found this ridiculously easy and cute hair style off Pinterest that my hair can actually do!! Yayy. The duck face is a joke, I promise. Unlike my 14 year old sister who does this seriously. Love you Jayci (:

Here is a shout out to my father, G. Scott Bishop. He constantly wants me to put pictures of him on my blog, or stories of him and title it “Just a Dash of Dad.” He also is upset that I haven’t posted in a while, so he was the motivating factor for this blog post. I’m giving in.

Just a Dash of Dad

• Today on the way to the airport, we literally got there and his dash board said we had 0 miles of gas left. I still don’t know if he made it to a gas station or not.
• He ALWAYS says thank you. 9 times out of 10 it doesn’t even make sense. “This soup is really hot.” “Thank you!” or, “I love Disneyland.” “Thank you!” or even, “Stop telling me to mention you on my blog, it’s really annoying.” “Thank you!” At least he’s polite.
• He sings in the car, A LOT. He replaces the song lyrics with our names, or other things that are happening. It's actually a surprising talent, he does it effortlessly.
• He’s obsessed with working out. He shows off his muscles, sends me and countless others shirtless pictures of him flexing in a mirror, and uses objects to do bicep curls at any given moment, such as carrying my suitcase into the airport today. If you remember in one of my Disneyland posts, how he lifted his shirt up on Splash Mountain, that's a prime example.
• Then there’s this little gem of a video, this was yesterday at the lake house:

Despite being proud of his muscles, he also takes delite in his belly flub. Gross, I know.

Alright, enough about him. Mom, don’t get jealous, you’ll get a shout out soon and it will be much better. (;

I believe that’s a wrap for this post. I'm leaving for the airport right now, 4:15 after pulling an all nighter. Greeeat. BUT I'm not complaining. None of that, gotta keep telling myselft I'm lucky..I'm lucky I'm lucky I'm lucky.