It's all over. The show, my birthday, everyting has come to a close. I'm now left with the task of finding a job. Al and Lana are heading out for a week to Utah to re-do Dixie's apartment. They're so excited - I am not. This will mark the SECOND vacation this summer for my wife and the ZEROTH for me! Ugh! I hate being a grown up sometimes. Responsibilities and so forth just aren't fun! I want to go play in the sandbox and ride my bike up to Bernie's and buy Bazooka Joe bubble gum with the nickel I found under the couch. I wanna go over to Jason's and play cars in his basement and tell scary stories and go to my Grammas house. I want to swim in the ditch after it rains so hard that it floods. I wanna play kick the can around my house at night and hang out with Annie and Beanie watching movies. I had so much fun as a kid and the only stresses I had were things like, "I hope Jason's mom isn't going to make me eat lima beans tonight," and worrying that I didn't have my Bible verse memorized for Sunday School. Those are the times I miss right now. I don't begrudge my wife from going to Utah. I'm just a little sad.

See, we were supposed to be going to San Diego together tomorrow for a few days and seeing the world premiere musical that Stephen's been working on but she decided to go two weeks ago instead - without me. Then, I was going to be able to go on this trip with her to Utah for some type of vacation before settling down and seriously seeking employment. BUT, now it turns out that I can't go. I have to stay home and get a job. Which is true, I very much desperately NEED to find a job and like, NOW. I just have been doing a show since April and so I was really looking forward to the down time and vegging with my wife. Hanging out doing nothing and being in Utah. I LOVE UTAH! I could move there tomorrow if she'd let me. Erica and Billy are there, Rob's there, Matt's there - so there are people I could hang out with while she and Lana were busy decorating and stuff. Then, we could all hang out together and just chill. Now, not so much. Ah well. I'm going to try not to harbor any contensions and let her have a good time.

Another issue of concern is that Al keeps playing the "we're poor" card, but she's been spending a lot of money on stuff for Dixie's house. Now I'm sure that Dixie has every intension of paying her back for that stuff, but being gone for four days to San Diego and then a week to Utah isn't free. Do you catch my drift? AND, she's driving for both trips. Gas and so forth alone are going to be outrageous! So I have a bit of a hard time swallowing that pill. But, like I said, I'm trying to ignore it and not harbor any contensions. We'll see how well I do.

Church today was AMAZING! Meliah (sp?) gave the most amazing talk ever! It was all about Seminary which has NOTHING to do with me, but her enthusiasm was great and her points were perfect and it really made me want to sign up for Institute. In fact, I think I will. I'll call Nate to see if that's something he might be interested in so I don't have to go alone and that could be a lot of fun! Woo hoo! Al's mom just got called to be a Gospel Doctrine Teacher and so I went to her class today - AMAZING! I'm gald I decided to hitch a ride with Lana so that I didn't have to go home and get Allyson (she was preparing her R.S. Lesson and was WAY behind schedule - HA!). It was so great. I'm going to look at next weeks lesson so that I can be an active participant in the class next week. Wow - what a great lesson. Then, it was off to priesthood and it was my week to share the lesson. It was all about service. For you Mormons out there it was lesson 15 in the Heber J. Grant book. I think I did okay. I'm still really nervous about teaching and I still think I suck at it, but I give it an honest try and really try hard not to make it a lecture, but more of a discussion, but NOBODY in my quorum talks so it's pointless. UGH! Keep pluggin away at it, change my tactics I guess. This week I threw a song at them to spice it up, Hymn #223 "Have I Done Any Good Today?". I think it went well, but I finished 10 minutes early. Whoops! HAHA!

Now we're at Al's parents house. They made yummy chili beans and rice pudding and salad and cheese crisps. It was just great! They're all in the other room playing Boggle - not my game, so I figured I'd come in and update. So there's the longest journal entry in a while, but there was just so much to say. I still haven't really talked about the end of the show or even my Hawaiian Tiki 2004 Birthday Party last night. Guess that'll have to come in the next entry. Hmm.

Until next time...

Oh, and thanks to Nate, Trace, and Danielle for the Birthday wishes. You guys are great! And D, I'm so excited that you were HERE on my day - how cool! Hope the vacation was great, but I'm sure I'll be reading about it soon - HA!.

Written by Jere at 6:19 p.m.