home sweet home

After missing my family for the Fourth of July weekend (and various events leading up to that...), I decided to fly home and was on a plane within a few hours. Gosh, I love being able to do that. Red-eye to Atlanta, almost missing the 8:30 to Fort Lauderdale...

I don't really see the need for sleep, so it's not like the red-eye was the first night getting less than I should. I'd only gotten a couple hours the night before, my nap was about 45 minutes, and I was so tired when I got on the plane that I fell asleep before I was allowed to recline my seat. I never got comfortable, by the time I remembered I could put my seat back the captain was announcing that we were about to land, so with two hours to spare between one flight and the next, I crashed at the gate. I woke up at the final boarding call and jumped up to run onto the plane. Only I had fallen asleep in a weird position on my leg, so my leg didn't exactly cooperate. I jumped up and my knee jerked backwards and I sat back down. I couldn't understand what was going on, I did not want to miss this flight, so I jumped up again. This time I made it a few more seats down and, were I a swearing girl, I would've yelled some expletive. I'm pretty sure it was still an expletive for me, just not the real world. The flight attendant looked at me like I was a freak. Not an uncommon look to be thrown my direction. I smacked my leg for a few seconds, tried to jump up again and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to walk. The travel guy took my ticket and tried not to make eye contact, hoping I would get away from him as fast as I could. Maybe he thought I was drunk?

Church started 15 minutes after I landed, so my dad called to tell me that they would be there in a few minutes and that I needed to be ready. I didn't realize I loved my apartment bathroom so much. I mean, the airport offers nice stalls for privacy. They have sinks, mirrors too. And women who are trying to mop the floor because there was no on in the restroom before you walked in. Wonderful. A wonderful experience all the way around. I walked into sacrament meeting with my mom and her friend that came to pick me up (the rest of my fam was already there) and sat down as people were starting to bear their testimonies. It was Fast Sunday. Because of my last minute decision, I don't know that most of my siblings knew I was coming. I was mobbed. Luis, my best friend from when I was three, was just called to be in the bishopric. I'm pretty sure it was his first fast and testimony meeting, and he'd only been enjoying the view from the pulpit for the duration of the sacrament for a week or so. He was laughing so hard watching my siblings jump on me, trying to stay reverent while we expressed, as only the Mortensens do, how much we missed each other. Unfortunately, we hadn't caught up enough by the end of sacrament meeting. My dad and mom and I went to Sunday school, and we didn't have a teacher immediately, so my dad and I were talking about flights, life, all the ridiculous things that happened in the last 12 hours, and we missed the Sunday school president walking in and explaining that he doesn't have a teacher, so he doesn't have a lesson, so he's just going to wing it. My mom, trying to get me to pay attention, says to the teacher, "Alyssa will say the opening prayer!" She got me. I stood up to say the prayer, having no idea what the president had just been explaining, so I proceeded to bless him for preparing a lesson, praying that he'd be able to give us the message he prepared. I didn't learn what he said til after I sat down. And then I felt like an idiot.

I was only home for a couple of days after that weekend before I flew back to Salt Lake to figure out if I had a job. Turns out I don't. So I flew back home to babysit while my parents visit Prague and Berlin. Oh my family...

It's been an eventful week, to say the least. Last night at about 2 Bridian starts yelling that she needs help. I was reluctant to come running because, well, the hour. That, and she and Jace had just been arguing about something, which should've clued me in, but I felt like if they had the energy to argue, they had the energy to figure it out. Then I decided that was probably a bad assumption, and walked into the kitchen where she was yelling from. I made it out of the hallway and everything was covered in smoke. Somehow, the toaster oven had been put on bake rather than toast? Or something? I couldn't even see Bridian. I saw a towel waving in front of where the toaster oven should be, and I'm just waiting for the fire alarms to go off and wake up the little girls, grandma, and the entire neighborhood. We start running around trying to open windows and fan out the smoke, Brid's refusing to open the toaster oven because she doesn't want all that smoke coming out!, we pull it open and start running toast out the back door, we're pulling fans from other rooms to get it blowing out, the stove fan is running on high, Jace has got a wet towel on his face and is instructing everyone to do the same so they don't die, Jada's hiding under a blanket on the couch...

I don't know why they were all still up. As soon as it seemed like we weren't going to have to call the fire department (and Jace would take the towel off his face), I went to bed. I was grateful the house was still standing, and in one piece, when I got up this morning. None of them are up yet.
Last night I was exhausted- between CalvinBall and line tag and volleyball practice with Brid and then getting everybody fed and ready to sleep, I wasn't up for fighting little kids to go to sleep, so I laid down by Aria. Yeah, I was out in about 5 minutes. Brid still wanted to play, but she knew if she came in and woke me up I would probably growl at her. So she let me sleep for an hour. At about ten, I woke up and realized I should probably get out of Aria's bed, but I wasn't ready to move really quickly just yet. Then, from under the girls' bedroom door, I see the piano room light come on, hear the bench scrape across the tile as someone sits down, and suddenly themes from Phantom of the Opera start being pounded into the keys. I tried so hard not to laugh. That was amazing. Bridian wanted me to get up, so Phantom of the Opera. I tried to stay in the room, I couldn't let her win, but after Aria and Kenyan got up to ask Brid why she was playing so loud, I couldn't stay in the room either. So I ran into the other room and sat down at the computer, refusing to let anyone acknowledge that I was awake. I was so bent on this fact that I locked the door. Jace knew I was up, and he didn't see the locked door as a problem. He went outside, popped the screen out of the window, and climbed in through the bathroom in my parents' bedroom. I was so much in my own little world that I didn't hear the things falling off the window, his landing in the bathroom, or even notice when he walked across the room. He unlocked the door, walked through it, then walked back in and started talking to me. I assumed he'd used a screwdriver to unlock the door, and I started to be upset with him for messing with their doorknob, but he started laughing at my total cluelessness to anything that had been going on. I congratulated he and Bridian. They're pretty good at what they do.

Anyway... I've loved being home. I'm not entirely sure how we're all still alive, but hey. I'm counting my blessings. It's been a great week. And now, at 9 in the morning, I'm going to go take a nap.