It was as completely awesome as I could hope for.

It’s funny to see these campouts grow up—when we were younger, my grandpa would drag us up to some far-off area 50 miles away from the nearest flushing toilet. Now, however, my grandpa stays in a trailer and my grandma stays in a near-by hotel. When I was younger, I spent most of the campout playing with my cousins—now I spend it playing with their kids. It’s awesome(ly weird).

My cousin, Amanda, who is a year younger than me, has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter (my first cousin once removed?) who is pure entertainment. She’d come up to me and say, “Jenn, what’s your name?” I’d tell her and she’d say, “Jenn, would you like to take me on a hike?”

Absolutely I would.

We went on several “hikes” over the two days I was there—looking in the windows of every tent in our camp and visiting the older kids’ “clubhouse.”

After one of our hikes, she jumped up on my lap and we had the following conversation, which was probably my favorite moment of the campout:

Liesel: “Jenn, where is your little boy and little girl?”

Me: “Um…I don’t have any kids right now. Maybe someday.”

Liesel: “What is your little girl’s name?”

Me: “I don’t have any little girls right now. But I like the name Lily.”

Liesel (after a long pause, taking in this information): “Will Lily take all my toys? Tell her to not take my toys.”

Apparently our unborn children are totally awesome bullies. Watch out world!

I’ve had pretty vivid dreams for about as long as I can remember—I usually have several dreams a night and can remember most of them the next morning. (Believe me, this is Ryan’s *favorite* thing ever. I quickly learned that a tired husband does. not. care. what happened in my dreams. He just wants me to get out of bed and shower so he can go back to sleep as quickly as possible.)

But even though I can remember so many of them, they’re not usually that great. If I had to guess, I’d bet this is how they’d divide up:

• 10% wake-up-several-times-a-night nightmares,
• 50% ominous, unsettling dreams,
• 30% random dreams,
• 9% interesting dreams, and
• less than 1% are awesome (fighting evil along side Wolverine and Harry Potter was a particular favorite of mine).

Do you even realize how hard that math was?

Anyway, that’s what’s normal. When things aren’t normal—i.e. major life changes or emotional upheavals—that’s when the heavy-duty nightmares kick in. For instance, graduating college and a disappointing breakup led to several months of nightly nightmares where someone died and it was my fault… Or, when things at work would go bad, it’s dreams of people screaming awful things at me all night long.

I’d wake up in tears several times a night and would delay sleep for hours, just to avoid the dreams.

So why I’m having bad dreams now is pretty bewildering to me. Things are pretty good right now (knock on wood, right?). So WHY AM I BEING EATEN BY LIONS EVERY NIGHT??? Seriously, it doesn’t matter if the dream starts out in a swimming pool or my own home, eventually a lion enters the picture and it’s game over.

Since no online dream interpreters can give me a reasonable answer, I thought I’d turn the question over to you: Can someone please tell me what these dreams are supposed to mean so I can start sleeping in peace again? Also, any tips for taking on a lion with your bare hands would also be appreciated.

Thanks, everyone, for being more awesome than Google.

But since I’m on the subject, while I’m not quite ready for kids yet, I am 100% ready to talk about baby names. While Ryan thinks it’s pointless to talk about baby names before we actually need one, I think it’s pretty normal since I’ve been picking out favorite names since my first Barbie. I have a number of girl names I love, but boy names…really haven’t considered those so much. (This means that I’ll end up with all boys, right? Um…)

Anyway, lately I find myself playing name games with Ryan, when I can get him to play. (For instance, we’ll go through the alphabet—Ryan’s favorites are always Bertha and Hilda—or try out names from books, movies, or people watching, etc.) This Sunday, as sacrament meeting entertainment, we went through the hymn book to see if there were any worthwhile names in there. After pages and pages of Parleys and Orsons and Ebenezers, we came across a name which led to the most brilliant idea of my life. Picture:

• Clark Kent McDaniel,
• Bruce Wayne McDaniel,
• Peter Parker McDaniel, or
• Charles Xavier McDaniel

I’m always looking for boy names that are strong and smart and reliable and have been around forever. These names totally fit those qualifications! This totally counts as personal revelation, right?

I asked Ryan what he thought…and he said I’m completely ridiculous.

AND THEN.

His very next statement, the very next words to come out of his mouth were as follows: “Oh, I’ve got it! Let’s say we have twins—a boy and a girl. We’ll name them Cain and Mabel!”

Who’s really ridiculous here, huh?!

“When are you two going to have kids?”

“Two years, you guys.”

Before Ryan and I were married, we discussed having kids, and it felt right to wait at least two years before adding another person to the mix. Well, at this point there’s just June, July, and August looming between me and that two-year deadline. And we all know how fast the summers pass by. It’s unreal. The closer it gets, the more I find myself thinking about it—names we like, the clothes we’ll buy, how we’ll rearrange the house, etc. But what looms largest in my mind is how completely our lives will change.

It’s both exciting and terrifying.

Don’t get me wrong—I love kids. I adore my calling in Primary, and I have so much fun with my nieces. My friends’ kids are some of my favorite people on the planet. I can see how having kids has enriched the lives of both family and friends.

And yet…

Having a baby encompasses so many huge lifestyle changes. The current plan is for me to be a stay-at-home mom, a goal Ryan and I believe in strongly and are willing to sacrifice to attain. However, this change will represent a seismic shift in how we have to budget, in what we can do for entertainment, and in the pace at which we live our lives. For me, going from a 9-to-5 life to a 24/7 life seems particularly daunting. Especially when it requires me to do something I’ve never really done (mom-stuff) with someone I hardly know (the baby).

And then there’s what the kids do when they stop being babies—recently family and family friends have been dealing with kids who are sneaking friends over and doing significant drunken damage to the house or stealing from grandma to pay for drug habits. What?! I mean, even with all the good teaching and good examples, these kids still get to choose who they want to be and what they want to do. Am I ready to sign up for this? I know, I know… I realize that there’s a literal lifetime between now and when I’ll have to worry about those things. Does that mean I don’t worry about it? Of course not—you all know me and my distinguished worrying capabilities. Thinking about everything that could go wrong means I’ll be ready when something does. Right? Of course right. I have to be prepared in my worrying and the future ahead of us holds some real “meat and potatoes” living.

But I think that’s exactly what’s compelling me forward. Despite all the future frustrations, craziness, and disappointments (which I know are inevitable), the future seems to hold the promise of so many tiny joys—first laughs, funny sayings, and quiet moments. Somehow, when I hold on to that promise, the excitement of the future helps to calm my many, many nerves. These changes are what we want and they will be a good thing. And so somehow we’ll be able to both adapt and thrive.

But still, for the moment I’m glad that everything is still at least few months away. My time with Ryan has been the happiest part of my life, and I relish in the fact that I get to keep this status quo for a little longer.

They also happen to melt in your pocket. All over your cell phone.

You’d think that’d be a bad thing. However, the phone still works and—BONUS—smells like Cadbury chocolate! WIN!

What was I thinking when I put that Cadbury Mini Egg into my pocket?

That, my friends, is the million dollar question.

IT’S FINISHED!!! All the stress, bad dreams, daily frustrations, unsolicited comments, and tears over this project—all done (for now). And, I’ll admit, even though it didn’t turn out anything like I’d hoped, I think it’s rather nice.

So the big-wigs have (finally) chosen their logo. We presented them with three versions—a conservative version that changed up the typography, a moderate version that added a new logo mark, and a radical version that significantly changed up the look. Guess which one they chose.*

I know I’ve been a bit of a basketcase these past few weeks, and I definitely owe some people a major thank you—my friends who supported me throughout this adventure. You guys are my real friends.

Nate, in particular, deserves a HUGE thank you for periodically checking in on me at work to make sure I wasn’t hyperventilating. I do that a lot, lately. I also owe him for helping me craft my meeting strategy (being unyieldingly upbeat, generously dispensing praise, and only focusing on the positive—basically the opposite of everything the other girl did at our first meeting).

Also, believe it or not, I should probably thank the girl I worked with on this project for being surprisingly nice. Even though we still don’t see eye-to-eye on our design preferences, it was nice to finally be able to talk without me crying for weeks afterwards. She put in a lot of effort, came up with something that was quite nice, and figured out how to put together a classy presentation. (Also, she ended up having to stay home on the day of the big meeting, which really relieved an awful amount of stress I had going in. I did feel bad she wasn’t there, since she worked hard on the project, but it really made everything much easier for me. Is that bad to say? Probably, huh?)

Of course, the biggest thank you goes to my husband. Throughout this adventure, he has done far more than his fair share of listening, empathizing, and comforting. He knows and provides—even sometimes without me telling him—the kind of feedback I need (which varies from “his honest opinion” to “tell me what I want to hear”). Also, he has a superhuman amount of patience, which has come in really handy with the amount of obsessing I do. He is a huge source of strength and support, and I appreciate him to pieces.

Really, I am so lucky to have such wonderful support from friends and family. It’s nice to know I have people I can rely on for the little things like this. It makes a difference.

Now that we have that out of the way, I would like to write about a serious epidemic that is about to plague this country. If you couldn’t guess by the title, the epidemic I am referring to is officially known as “Post Post Season Depression.”  You might be thinking to yourself, “Why would anyone have post post season depression? It’s the middle of the NBA season, it just doesn’t make sense.” If you thought that, you would be wrong—dead wrong.

Post post season depression isn’t just about having sports on TV that are deemed watchable (and, no, baseball, golf, and NASCAR do not count—I’d rather scratch my eyes out), it’s about the end to a way of life. Football season is a life unto itself. There aren’t 340,000 regular season games like in baseball, or even 82 like in the NBA; there are only 12 regular season games in college and 16 in the pros. That means that every game matters. The hype around every game creates a lot of excitement. Also, having only one game a week, gives you 7 days to think about the next game, study out all the things you think your team needs to do to win, and, most importantly, have adequate time to trash talk.

All of this adds up to make football season the best season of the year. It is a time of year when you spend time outside with family and 45,016 of your best friends in the whole wide world.

But now it is all over. There are still 204 days until kick-off. So I’ve included my list of things to hold any football fan over.

• Watch games that you have recorded and saved over the years (may I recommend the 2009 Sugar Bowl?)
• Watch highlights from past years’ games.
• Go to espn.com/collegefootball at least once daily and read all updates about college football. (Hint: the best stuff is in the blog section.)
• Talk to family or friends about your favorite memories from last season.
• Review pictures that you took of all the games you attended.
• Work on perfecting new tailgate BBQing techniques.
• Watch all the scouting videos posted online of the new recruits coming in.
• Make a paper chain counting down to next football season.

These are just a few of my best ideas, many of which I rely on to get me through the worst part of the year—the part often referred to as “non-football season.” So if you have any friends or family that are showing signs of depression, please step in before it’s too late.

It was the first time that either of us had ever been to the aquarium, and I have to say that we totally judged it by its “used to be a craft store” exterior. However, when we stepped inside, we were really impressed—it was actually pretty cool! They pretty much had me with the Finding Nemo shark on the ceiling. And the octopus. And the fact that I didn’t have to go fishing to see a Rainbow Trout up close.

Anyway, we got there, signed in, and were directed to the theater room. People had spread out on all of the chairs, busily folding brochures, cutting papers, and stuffing envelopes. They turned on this educational film about Utah Lake, which, even though it sounds really nerdy, was pretty interesting. (Did you know there used to be a party boat and boat races on the lake?) So we just watched and folded for about an hour and a half, which passed relatively quickly.

At that point, the lady in charge of the volunteers took us on a tour of the aquarium. For free. She took us from exhibit to exhibit and told us about the different animals and how the aquarium acquired them. (For instance, they had an anaconda that was donated because it had become too big for someone’s bathtub. It has since doubled in size. Seriously, who is even crazy enough to want that thing in their bathtub?)

Am I sounding like a commercial? I don’t mean to be. I really was impressed. We got a free aquarium tour AND a free ticket to Disneyland. For two hours’ worth of work.

So awesome.

We finally had the big meeting at work, the one to determine—once and for all—what we planned to do with our logo, branding, and company image going forward. Realize this comes after nearly two months of deliberations in less-effective meetings, so this is kind of a big deal. Now when these meetings first started in November, I had big dreams about working with a really respectable design firm. Then, the big boss mentioned that he was going to give our business to his buddy who runs a two-bit design firm that actually outsources all of their work to the Philippines. Wait, what?

Needless to say, my big, lovely dreams were quickly diminished to hoping that something decent would come out of this mess.

Lucky for me, the Filipino designers struck out big time, so no green umbrellas or power buttons in our logo. (Not joking.) Unlucky for me, the owner of this two-bit design firm  thoroughly convinced the big boss that the respectable design firm was comprised of people my age and experience level who have advanced degrees in design because they couldn’t get a real job and who overcharge their clients for fluff and don’t have any real value.

A full rebuttal of this idea will have to wait for a later post because GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT…

He put me in charge* of the logo design, the branding, all of it. And he wants me to have it to him in T-minus one week. ONE week. The professional design firm wanted four weeks. I get four-and-a-half working days. What??

The rest of the committee applauded me, saying what a great compliment it was that the big boss would trust me with the identity of the firm. And, certainly, they’re right. It is a big compliment—the big boss trusts very few people and he said he was impressed enough with my previous work that he trusted me with this. I really feel like I should be excited. However, there’s this very cynical part of me—formed through previous work experience—that worries that I’m  getting set up to fail. That I’ll invest all this time and energy into making the logo as aesthetically pleasing as I can, while simultaneously pleasing the different personalities on the committee, only to have it scrapped because of some off-hand comment by a random employee. (It’s happened before.)

And are you wondering what the * was for? Well, remember this? Remember the replacement who, on her very first day of work, deliberately insulted my designs in front of the big bosses, complimented my work in private, made me cry for weeks, and got me removed from the project I’d been working on for six months. Yeah, her? Well I’ve been told to work with her again on this project. Seriously, what??

Wish me luck on this one, folks. I’m gonna need it.

Well…the Invisalign didn’t do what my dentist said it would and there were a number of problems in working with him. (Problems like when I asked him about a chip on my front tooth, he said “We can fix that,” and leaned me back in the chair. I thought he’d fill the chip, but instead he FILED DOWN THE TOOTH. With his drill. Without asking. And he did it crooked. That doesn’t count as fixed.)

However, even though I’d have these bad experiences with my dentist, I was reluctant to see someone else. I’ve been going to this same dentist since I was little and even though there were all these problems, I just felt guilty leaving his practice. I’m like that, I guess.

Anyway, last week, I had a problem with my retainer. I asked the dentist to fix it, but he told me it was fine. And then, two days later, the retainer split in half. And that did it. Last straw.

I set up an appointment with Ryan’s orthodontist. And he was great. He wasn’t in a hurry. And he listened. It was so refreshing. I called Ryan and we made a plan for this new orthodontist to fix my teeth. I couldn’t have been more excited.

Then, about 20 minutes after I’d finished that appointment, I got a call…from my dentist.

My first thought? Oh. Crap. He knows. How did he find out? Did my new orthodontist call him? Is there a code of dentists that requires that? Crap.

This is how my brain works.

Turns out, it was just a routine call regarding the billing from my previous visit. But apparently I need to break up with my dentist before I can start seeing my new orthodontist.