Nanny Time, the California Chapter

A day nannying consists of -

1. A beautiful La Jolla jog around the cove to see the sea lions at 7 am followed by a quick bath in this beauty:

My favorite feature of this tub is the fact that it has little balls for the feet. I always wanted to take a bath in a tub like that because its such a classic style and here I get to do it every stinking day. Love love love La Jolla.

2 - Next I get the kiddos dressed and we play games, all sorts (name that movie and I'll give you a dollar). Here is an example of My style of games - bed forts :)

Inside this jumbled mess are 3 kids pretending to be kitties. I love those little kiddos.

3 - after playing around, we eat lunch and sometimes i give them a little taste of Hogan Doss triple chocolate chunk ice cream if they are good. After lunch, the baby takes a nap and the older kids go off with their other nanny. This is some time for me to sit around and soak up some vitamin D while reading my favorite author, Charles Dickens.

4 - After that, I look out the window and see a whole pod of dolphins swimming. Here is the view.

5 - When the baby wakes up, its time for a Disney movie. Today it was Cinderella. You know what? Cinderella might be my second favorite after The Little Mermaid. But Tangled was really good too so who knows.

6 - The kiddos come home and we all do some bike riding while the chef makes dinner. On the menu is chicken casadias and the most amazing lentil soup I have ever tasted.

7 - Once dinner is over, it is bed time. And blog time. Today was a GREAT day and I can't wait for tomorrow :)

That Time I Hung Out With Mitt Romney (and thanks Lauren)

Sometimes I get to shmooze with cool people like Mitt and Anne Romney because of the nanny job.

This month, my nanny family and I sat by Brother Romney at church and I was pleasantly pleased to hear him bear his testimony about Christ. He got up and told a story about how he and Anne were in the kitchen the saturday before when somebody sent him a link called "Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus." This same link here:

Mitt said as he sat and watched this on his iPad in his kitchen, he started to get teary eyed. Anne wondered what he was blubbering about and he told her to come watch. When she did, she started to cry as well. Mitt explained how touching it was to see normal day to day people being exposed to and stopping and thinking about Christ. He said that Christ is the reason for all good that happens on the earth and how important it is that we remember him.

I was very touched and pleased to see this testimony of Christ come through brother Romney, a man who is very often in the public eye. After this, I say three cheers for Mitt Romney, hip hip horray, hip hip horray, hip hip - ok you know what i mean.

Popcorn Popping

On the Apricot Tree!!!

I heart Jello Popcorn Balls at Christmas :)

Crafting???

Ok really Jaimie + crafty = oxymoron.

BUT

Because I never finished last years relief society craft, I still had everything laying around and was able to pull together these little beauties

Sorry Tiff, no surprise here as you will be getting one of these creations at Wednesday nights Mimi festivity.

(and yes, they're Christmas cards in case you couldn't tell)

Also, I really really dig this group and this song. Check them out -

I am Jaimie

I am Jaimie. I am not particularly beautiful nor am I despairingly ugly. Just average. If somebody were to ask me how to resolve the debate between a turkey or PB&J sandwich, I would always pick turkey. That is as long as it was made with wheat bread. Traveling the world is my forte and sometimes I get tripped up on internal debates like, would I rather go to Ireland or Australia? Ireland is beautiful and green, but Australia has surfing, surfer boys, and great white sharks. I stay up late at night and wake up early in the morning but wish that I went to bed early. When wondering which is better between ninjas and pirates, pirates win hands down. I collect books. Good books, books that I feel proud to put on my shelf after I read them. The thing that I miss most about being a kid is the sheer excitement about simple things like Christmas and coloring. If somebody said they would either give me a million dollars or true love, I would choose true love. If I could change my name, it would be Rogue. You know, like the girl off of X-men. I love snowboarding and being on the mountain, but I despise the snow in the valley and having to scrape my car windows! I plan to go to India someday

This Just In

You know my below blog about the key drama? You might find yourself asking, "now what did you do Jaimie?"

Well after a fun filled day of nannying (and it really was! The gateway, McDonalds, and gingerbread houses:), I came home, got out of my car, and realized I had my nanny families car keys in my pocket. If you find yourself asking, "how?" I would gladly respond that,

I don't even know.

I just laugh at this point. Good thing they had an extra pair of keys because I was not looking forward to the 40 min drive back to Holiday Utah. And good thing they just laugh too :) Oops!

Some major car keys drama

So far during the week of finals I:

1 - Thought that I had locked my keys in my car at my nanny families house. This resulted in me having to call my Dad to make the 45 min drive to SLC with me spare key. Of course this happens the night when I had oh so much homework to do. When I got home, I discovered that:

2 - I had locked them in their car and not mine.

3 - Lost my spare key about 4 different times throughout the week. One day, I had to take my parents car to school because of lost keys.

4 - Finally today after my final, I realized I had locked my spare key in my car at my parents house 35 minus before I was supposed to leave to go to the nanny people's house again.

Oh the key drama!

Blog readers, my question now is what have you done under major stress which resulted in even more stress???

I patiently await your answers

I Work at a Pool

I teach swimming lessons at the Lehi Legacy Center. I teach a parent child class, little kids, and one week every month I teach adults. Sometimes my 3 year old kids say something to me like this:

Me - Ok guys, show me how you can blow your bubbles (look at kids in class and see Alice just standing there). Alice, why aren't you blowing your bubbles?

Alice answering in an innocent voice - oops sorry, I was going potty.

I laughed. I heart my job :)

Sleeping to the Sound of Breaking Ocean Waves

My first experience with my nanny family was in California. The start of my employment with them began with a dinner eating steak outside and watching the sunset on the ocean. This is that same view:

I have this picture because over the weekend, I revisited California for the first time since I quit my nanny job. It was so nice to sit and reflect on all of the things that I have done over the last year and think about how I have grown. As a few of you might now, going back to California with them presented me with a lot of anxiety. It was a big relief to face some of the fears that I had previously had. In the end, I found myself having a delightful time. Nothing makes me happier than being by the sea. On a walk to the beach, I commented, "I can smell the ocean." My little girls grandpa made the rebuttal "yeah, it stinks. Smells like seaweed." I smiled and said "I'll take it." And then heard the response, "It's good to have you back Jaimie." It's fun to have worked so closely with a family and develop a love for them similar to that of my own. They are good, good people.

On this trip, I stayed in this room:

I show you this picture because my nanny kid came in and said to me:

"This is the room that uncle A uses. He sleeps naked you know"

Awkward.

Despite knowing that I was sleeping in uncle A's bed that he sleeps naked in, I had a wonderful time in California. Nothing does the soul good like getting some vitamin D in the midst of all of the winter drudge. I'm glad I had the courage to go on this trip; it was well worth it.

What did YOU do this semester?

This morning I woke up, looked at my big stack of books for school, then got excited about how I get to sell a big bunch of them back so that some new students can figure out that they hate them too. The books at the top of this picture are the ones that I am going to SELL. Woo hoo! I hated some of those. I mean really, I can only take so much early puritan writing. Boring! But, if you know me, you also know that I am not a book hater. The bottom row shows the books that I will keep and lovingly place on my wooden bookshelf that my Dad made me when I was in Junior High.

The books that enter into that honored location called juniper wood bookshelf are:

The Remains of the Day (one of my favs. Good read)

New British Poetry

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Brick Lane

The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano

Hawthorne's Short Stories (I realized how much i LOVE Nate Hawthorne this year)

The Blithdale Romance (another good read)

Frederick Douglas

Leaves of Grass (Ok so I already owned 2 copies of this, but I did revisit it as was required for class so I included it anyway)

Wow, this semester flew by and then dragged by and then flew by again. I'm happy its almost over and I can reap the rewards of another one down and then just one more to go. Gosh, can you believe that after this semester, I will become a teacher??? I can't wait to start my big kid adult life soon :)