camera one closes in.. the soundtrack starts.. the scene begins

there's something about having school and work from nine to five that results in a permanent state of not enough hours in the day.

but, i guess that is life.

anyhow.

life's been good.

i love this place.

here is my life ahora:

we like picnics.

especially with picnic baskets, picnic dishes, and dinosaur sandwiches.

(okay, that's just me, actually)

we like picnics even if we're not the greatest at taking pictures of ourselves.

next.

this is the face zack gives me a lot.

i think it means "what in the heck are you thinking, amy?"

but it might not.

i mean, maybe it just means that he likes me.

but i don't really think so.

last weekend zackery and i went to provo.

we went to a safteysuit concert.

it was fantastic, i tell ya.

zack's a little selfish though..

he says i'm not allowed to be in love with them.

not even a little bit.

not even just as backup.

rude, huh?

also we saw cristina and dan.

which was just wonderful.

especially her new picture frames.

they're rather attractive.

and one more thing.

we got dinner at this place in chubbuck.

it was hands-down the best ham grilled cheese i've ever had.

and the fries were to die for.

so i just wanted to say that.

so tonight i'm just pretty darn happy.

tomorrow i get to see taylor, which is rather exciting.

and ann's getting married in less than one month.

and next weekend is general conference. :)

and then the weekend after that i'm going to palm springs for a sweet 48 hours with my family.

i cannot wait.

i'm loving my classes, especially early field experience.

today my cooperating teacher told me i have the best first grade teacher handwriting she's ever seen.

thank you.

also i love children's lit.

the teacher's all about a "zion class."

so we spend a lot of time doing unity-building activities.

and it's actually pretty cool.

as always i love my job.

enough said there.

well.

that's my life in a nutshell.

i'm pretty lucky :)

i'm only laughing because i can't hold my smiles in

well i'm back.

and i like it even more than before. :)

my sisters and i drove out last week. it was such fantastic fun. as usual, we took almost no pictures. maybe someday we'll learn.

we honestly thought this was the funniest sign in the world when we were little..

actually, we still do.

okay, fine. only i still do. whatever.

when i got to idaho, i had it all planned out what it would be like to see zack again. but as always, he had something else in mind.

i like scavenger hunts.

and then on monday zack and i went to bear world, thanks to my wonderful grandma, since i didn't get to see any at our cabin. it was such an adventure. especially the bear cubs. they were adorable!!

i finally got my room all set up just how i wanted it. today i'm going to make a bulletin board with my brand new hot glue gun from cristina. and i'm going to go buy a pet frog with kylie! and i am just sosososo happy to be back. and i adore ann and kylie. i missed them so much but i didn't even realize exactly how much until i saw them again.

classes start tomorrow, and so does work. which i was excited about, but the truth is that i'd rather just not go to school or work and hang out with zack all day. ohhh wellll. i have to get my educaaaationn. plus one of my classes is elementary early field experience which means i get to go to the schools and wear a nametag that says miss cragun. cool, huh? i think yes.

i am just on top of the freaking world.

i could be brown i could be blue i could be violet skyy

it is a well-known fact that i hate sewing.

i wish it wasn't so.

in fact, i wish i loved sewing.

i don't.

but four or five times a year, i undertake a sewing project.

i always regret it.

but they usually turn out okay, with the help of my mother.

(except, of course, the horsey pants, but that's another story)

so the other day i remembered about a super cute black dress i own.

because i haven't been able to wear it for like two years.

on account of that it's too short.

so my mom helped me fix it last night.

and the thing is, it wasn't even that hard!

turns out surgers are a great thing, even better than sewing machines.

i like them.

so now it's long enough.

and it looks quite wonderful.

and now i'm going to wear it to church.

even though it's black, and it's august.

a flower named millie

eleven days until i can start organizing my room

ten days until idaho

six days until red robin

five days until cristina, bee and i leave for our roadtrip

four days until cristina comes

three days until my last sunday here

one day until mall of america

:)

i can't believe summer is already over. but it's not so bad because a) i looove idaho, and b) the next week is full of only fantastic things. most notably, cristina is flying out here so she can drive the corolla back west with brianna and me since i'm buying it from my parents. it's going to be the most wonderful roadtrip probably ever.

cabin last week.. super fun, as always. and i am crazy about my grandma.

i got on a wave runner for the second time since i was fifteen, when i smashed my head into my best friend's and got knocked out. for some reason those things still terrify me! but i didn't hyperventilate and i drove it for a good four minutes so i'm pretty solid now, right?

we played a ton of games.. that's an understatement, even.

the water was incredible a few of the days.

also i saw a mouse. and it was like one foot away from me. i almost had a heart attack. but we didn't see any bears, which was my dream :( except a wooden one at famous daves :(

since we got home i've been in an arts and crafts mood. namely i've painted the basement and made some notebooks. i'm a pretty big fan of them and would really like a hot glue gun all of my own.

also i miss my fish miracle who is in idaho without me.

that is all.

sometimes it's hard to stop smiling

i like summer.

even though it always ends up busier than i think it will. it's weird how i can literally have nothing that i need to get done, but somehow it's usually ten at night and i realize i haven't even gotten halfway through my to-do list.

this week i have:

stained the deck for my father..

..cooked like crazy..

..and had adventures with mom and bri.

i have also spent an inordinate amount of time reading this, which i am ahhhh-ddicted to.

so that's my week.

"say you want the same thing too"

i have a problem with a workout that includes the words "who knew working out our abs could be so much fun?!" chances are good that if you have to tell me how much fun it is, it's not very fun at all. which is often the case while in the middle of a workout.

i like babysitting. mucho.

i had quite the devastating experience today. i've been painting (excuse me. i meant staining) my deck for my father. and i was under the deck putting a tarp down (a tarp which, tragically, was in the wrong spot when i kicked the paint can over fifteen minutes later...) when i realized something. when i was little, my sisters and i loved to try to decipher the red indian hieroglyphics on the rocks underneath the deck. we spent hours pretending we were explorers. but i found out today that they aren't indian hieroglyphics at all. it's just paint that fell from the deck and landed on the rocks. so that was a buzzkill. kind of like finding out santa clause isn't real. only not quiiite as traumatic.

zackery sent me a package today. and it made me miss him even more but that's okay. only three more weeks :)

"how did YOU end up on bottom?"

i just read a quote.

"life isn't short. it's the longest thing you're ever going to do."

true.

i seriously like that quote. a lot. because life isn't short, but the experiences in it are short. that's why one of my biggest goals this summer is to just live in the moment. too often i've spent my life wishing time wouldn't pass so quickly, or wishing that the days on the calendar would fly past faster. but when it all comes down to it, a minute is sixty seconds, every time. and time will pass whether i want it to or not, so living in the moment is my only logical option.

it's been a pretty good week, all things considered.

i slept with brianna when my cousins were here, and it made me realize that sleepovers never, ever, ever get old. we laughed so hard we fell out of bed, which made dad come running up the stairs to check on my little cousins in the next room..but oops, that was just us falling out of bed :-/ no big deal. we still can't figure out how she ended up underneath me, since by all logic she should have crashed on top of me. so that's the puzzle of the week...

i lost my waterskiing mojo but i'm hoping it'll come back asap.

dad crushed his foot under the boat so that was scary but luckily it's not broken..

we went biking in minneapolis yesterday. what an incredibly beautiful city. there are lakes everywhere you look, even in the middle of the city. looking at sailboats on a pristine lake in front of green, green trees in front of the skyline is like nothing else. i like this state. except it's hot. and humid. so that's a buzzkill.