Here are the Pictures

Ok here are the pictures I promised from my trip on Monday Enjoy!


For those of you who have been following my blog you know that with each trip I have had to Mt. Vernon I have had something with the Necessity, the bathroom, and with each trip I have had to take a picture and each picture I have gotten closer to it. So alas I finally have a picture of me with George Washington's potty.

One thing we were able to see on our little tour was a 1900's dairy. So for all of you out in the central valley of California where dairies are an everyday sight this made me think of you so I hope you enjoy.


This is a picture from the river up to the bottom door of the Ice house. When the Slaves went out to get Ice in the winter they had to haul it up this nice steep little hill to the Ice house... that just wears me out thinking about that.


This is a picture of the inside of the top of the Ice house which is up close to the Mansion house for a bit easier access to the Ice but it was still a lot of work to get just a little Ice bucket for dinner... It makes me love freezers and the automatic ice makers.

And last but not least this is a view of the Mansion house from the river, you can only get this view if you are special and on a private tour like what we were. If you look closely that wall up close to the house is called the Haha wall. George Washington didn't want fences and walls to ruin the beautiful view he had so he designed the Haha wall where they dug a ditch then built the wall so it kept the animals from coming up to the house and kept the view free from man made objects.

National Treasure Tour

Alrighty so on Monday I had the day off so the Losee family and I headed off to Mt. Vernon to take the National Treasure Tour. Now let me start off by saying that to those of you who have not taken it, it really isn't that worth it. We were able to go to the basement of the house but we weren't able to take any pictures and to top it off there wasn't even a real tunnel, the movie of course made it up. Aside from going in to the basement we were also able to see a few other things that I don't exactly understand why those aren't open to the public, but they are, they are all locked or blocked off so I did not think it was worth the 5 dollars to go see it. We didn't learn anything new and exciting. I took pictures but due to the time that I decided to update my blog the picture uploads are disabled for now so pictures and more to follow.

The Many Countdowns of Life

Basically since I got home from visiting California I have been counting down days till I could go back, I never thought I would see that day that I actually wanted to move back to California, but it has come. My count downs have changed many times over the past 2 and a half months due to figuring out when to leave, how I am leaving, making sure I really want to leave, and after all that has been decided I have enjoyed watching the numbers to all my countdowns get smaller and smaller as the days go by. So here are my countdowns as of October 15.
11 days left of work. It still really hasn't hit me yet that I only have 2 weeks left of work, it feels like I am still new and that there is still a lot to learn, yes I just clean for a living but you would be amazed at how much thought and work goes into making things clean and suited for living. I am going to miss some of my residents and co-workers but I am excited to no longer be a housekeeper.
15 days until I leave Virginia, this is probably going to be the hardest day, I have enjoyed Virginia a lot, especially the Losee family, but I guess that is the wonderful thing about technology and that it is easy to keep in contact these days.
16 days to DisneyWorld!!!!!!!!! My dad and I are going to be spending 5 days at the magic kingdom to celebrate my 20th birthday, I am so excited to be able to go and to share it with my dad. It is going to be great!
25 days until I turn 20. I wasn't going to count to my birthday this year but it just fit in so perfectly with my other countdowns I couldn't help myself.
30 days give or take till I get home to California, I am not sure the date that I will be getting home because we are going to be spending time in Arizona with family but that is a ruff number on around when I will be getting back.
41 days to Thanksgiving and Disneyland. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday thanks to all the yummy food and the fun times my family has with making it, and especially since my family has started a great tradition on going to Disneyland on Thanksgiving then celebrating it the next day! so while everyone else is eating their dinner I will be at the happiest place on earth with all of my family except Kaitlin and still have dinner to look forward to the next day.
So I love my countdowns, and I am loving the time in between each one that passes by.

Patch Adams

Today at work we had Patch Adams come for a visit, before last week I had no idea who he was or what he did, but later found out he is a famous clown doctor. Anyways my boss Andrew pulled a big favor and got him to come and spend the day at the Caton Merchant house. It must have been a very big favor because he usually chargers $26,000 for a day and he came to us at no charge. We were highly encouraged to dress funny for this special day of clowning, and when I was told that I had nothing to wear so I went and got mismatching socks, and Rebekah loaned me a shirt and a bandanna but I misplaced the bandanna so I wasn't able to wear that. I wore my hair up in high pig tails and my biggest mistake was wearing the one pair of scrub pants that are too big on the day that I was putting everything in my pants pockets instead of my shirt! So I had a fun day of making sure my pants stayed on. I hurried up to get all of my rooms done this morning so I could be free to go to the lecture and I actually had very good luck in getting into all my rooms, it usually takes me all morning on Tuesdays to get into all of them that it takes me till lunch time but I was actually done a little before 11 today and I headed up to the lecture.
Patch Adams is really tall, extremely tall actually, with long hair, half gray, half bright blue. He gave a pretty good lecture but I am still not to sure about all that he said, there was one part that I had a hard time with but the rest was very good. To sum up what I remember it was about Loving and Caring and being a Hero, when he talked about being a hero he wanted all of us to yell out at once that we were heros, well when he counted to three no one said anything, in all the years that he has been doing this he has had some that are really quiet and not sure what to do but he had never had one that was silent until today, I guess we just had to give him something to remember us by aside from the fact that everything was running late today.
Speaking of everything being late because of that we weren't able to do the pictures and autographs with him because he was doing the same lecture again for those who didn't make it the first time, they were going to do it after that class but then I would have had to stay an extra hour and I was tired and had had a long and busy afternoon with having a huge code brown and needing to mop, shampoo chairs and the carpet and make sure everything was taken care of... because of this mess I missed the clowning rounds where everyone went around and visited with the residents in a fun uplifting manner... I was stuck cleaning poo, but I wasn't planning on going to do that anyways.
I really expected to see him more then what he was around but I guess I just don't know how this type of thing works. But in the end the Residents were all having a ball with the staff all dressed up so it put smiles on all the faces and of course led to many pictures... Not with Patch Adams, but many pictures of the staff dressed up for our fun filled day with him.

9 Months

The past couple days I have been reflecting on the last 9 months and what all has happened in my life and how hopefully I have changed for the better. When I decided to move out to Virginia I having a lot of emotional problems and was hoping that distance from life would change that, I was sad to leave my friends, my family and most of all my kitten to be honest. But I was ready and needed a new start. Now 9 months later I am still probably pretty emotional... That really bugs me, but I have gained so many new experiences, and I am moving back home to finish school. I hope that as I move back I can continue to grow and become a better person, I am hoping that I am a better person then what I was 9 months ago but I will let you be the judge of that one.
1. The most important thing that I have learned is that the Lord comes first in my life. Before I moved out here I was having lots of problems reading my scriptures and saying my prayers so my testimony was suffering, but I have really taken the time to work on those things and becoming closer to my Father in Heaven and I have become a much happier person in my everyday life. President Henry B. Eyring gave a wonderful talk last weekend that really touched me about putting my trust in the Lord which I really needed to hear. I also feel that there are sometimes when I am really pleading to the Lord for something and its like he is just laughing and smiling at me saying no I don't think so, just be patient, and for those of you who know me, I am about as patient as my three year old nephew.
2. My parents are my two favorite people, and not just because my dad is taking me to DisneyWorld for my birthday, but because they are always there for me when I need them, yes sometimes it takes a few phone calls to get to talk to them but they are always there when I need help and guidance in my life. That is something I really took for granted while I was living back home.
3. My sisters are my best friends, yes I don't see them often, and yes I don't talk to them as much as what I probably should but the fact that they are my sisters and the fact that they are there for me when I need them is pretty amazing, I love being able to rely on them for sisterly advice.
4. School is extremely important, without an education you get to do what I have been doing for the past 6 months at work.... which isn't always that pleasant, so even though I have no clue what I want to do when I grow up I know that I need an education so I don't have to be a house keeper for forever.
5. My kitten has turned into a teenager.
6. I still Hate boys, it has come and gone over the past few months but I have decided that I hate them, they are horrible. They really have no consideration for feelings and always want to you be someone different from who you are.... My father, brother in laws and nephews are not in that category just to say before people start getting on my tail for that, but the rest of the male population are.
7. I have learned that I need to do what makes me as a person happy.
8. I have realized that I trust way to easily and a lot of the times I trust the wrong people way to easily. And because of that I end up with low self esteem and a broken heart.
Ok so I don't really know where all of this is headed, or even how it compares through the last 9 months if I have changed or not, I really hope that I have changed for the better,for myself and for the Lord because that is all that matters. I only have 16 days left of work and 23 days until I leave and today I am not sure about how I feel about it, I think I might be more nervous about going back then what I was when I came out here.