"Be careful because he won't" is pretty much the best advice I've ever received. It's saved me from a lot of pain this past month or whenever it was given to me. That and my friends, of course. :) I need to talk to the friend who gave this advice to me more often.

Annoyance:
So I went to the Zoo today with Jen and had a blast. I took a lot of pictures that maybe I'll get around to posting some of them someday. The annoyance, my camera pretty much has a 3 hour battery life. I had to buy batteries at the Zoo, and by the time we were ending our trek, they were dead. We were there for about 4 to 5 hours... the camera going on and off the whole time. I was unable to get the last few animals that I wanted to get. That, and my feet were badly hurting.

Birthday Week

My birthday started last monday. Danielle had asked me to do pottery painting. She gave me a gift certificate for Paint the Town in the U-village last year for my birthday. Well it expired on my birthday this year, so she thought we should use it. Good idea. :)

Wednesday was my birthday. I got up and had a doctors appointment. What fun. I then headed to the mall for a pedicure. :) It was lovely... getting pampered for 45 mins. I then dinked around the mall for a couple hours until I had to pick up Matty at his school he was working at. From there we headed to Kenmore lanes and met up with Danielle and Jen P in hopes to play a couple games of bowling. We ended up only playing one game because we got there at 5pm and league started at 6:30pm. I was happy that Jen and Cam Patrick stopped by for a couple mins, so I could see them before they headed out for Austrilla the next day. After bowling, we all headed to Northgate mall and met up with others to have dinner at Red Robin. It was very yummy. :) Lastly, a couple of us headed back to my apt to play a game of Disney Scene It. So yes Denise, I used 2 of your birthday presents on my birthday. :)

Thursday, I headed home and did a small birthday celebration with my parents. Friday I went out to lunch with them, and then went out to dinner with my friends. Saturday, I hung out with my friend Nicole. We went out to lunch/dinner and hung out at her house.

Sunday, haha... I had my first princess party ever, at least that I could remember. It was awesome. I was sharing a birthday party with a 4 year old also named Becky, who is Jen P neice. I got a Cinderella balloon and an awesome princess, barbie cake... it's hard to explain... but it was awesome, and yummy.

There ends my birthday celebration. It was a good week. :)

YAY!

Work just keeps getting better. Yesterday, all the important people had a meeting: Keith, the center supervisors, and Beka. I guess it was announced yesterday that I was the lead tutor at Highlands Renton, because when I walked in Downtown Renton today Jeneane (the supervisor there) said, "So I heard you were the Lead tutor at Highlands." Haha, so I guess it's official now.

I'm also going to be working at Downtown Renton on Saturdays now. That's about 5 hours. 9:30 to about 2:30, give or take. I'll get off early enough and still have time to play. :)

I had one girl today who didn't like me. I was helping her with subtraction with borrowing. She didn't like me helping her because after a while she started covering up her work with her hand. I was just trying to help... especially since she's having problems with it. I guess she'll have to keep doing subtraction (because we don't move them on until they master whatever skill they are working on, in this case subtraction) until she humbles herself enough to accept help or she figures out technique that works for her with subtraction... which, may I point out, is part of our job to help her figure out?

I had another girl that brought in a math quiz that she bombed. She's 9th or 10th grade taking an algebra class. I found out that I did not forget the math I learned in HS or Jr College, about 7 to 10 years ago. I was happy about that and happy to help her. :) Math is one of the best subjects ever.

I'm going to try to go the the singles group tomorrow at church, then it's off to Jen's for a day of fun.

One of my students in 10th grade that I'm helping with math...

Me: "How are you doing in your math class?"
Him: "Good. I'm probably the smartest kid in my class."

Another student, 3rd grade...

Me: "How was your day at school?"
Him: "I don't want to talk about it."

News

First a quote by my mom, "My eyes are bigger when I'm skinnier."

My news... At work, I guess we could say, I was promoted. I'm now considered the "Lead tutor" at the center I work at. This means I'll get to do more stuff... write prescriptions (the student's track for our program), be able to answer questions rather than deferring them to Carol (my supervisor) or Beka (an important person... does a lot of PR), writing and tweaking the schedule... and the main thing, at the beginning of Oct, the center will be mine for a week because Carol will be out of town. I'm excited. :) We'll see if this power stick, because Keith (the owner of Knowledge Points, my boss, my friend... Andrew Ritzmann's daddy) wants me to work on site at First Place (a school in south Seattle). Though, Carol wants me to stay at the center. They are fighting over me. :) If I have a say in it, I want to stay at the center because I have a couple students that I'm working with that I don't want to give up.

Work is pretty much wonderful.

I get to house sit for the Ritzmann's (yes, my boss and his wife) on Sept 22nd through 24th. I get to spend a couple of days with the biggest, adorable-est black lab ever. Apparently, he's still adjusting to Denise and Andrew being gone... so am I. We can adjust together. :) Being at the Ritzmann's house will make my commute to work easier. Take off about a half an hour. The commute gets old after a while. Though with that said... I will not be moving to Renton, for another 10 months anyway.

My next update will be about my birthday week.

Kid and more Kids

This weekend was very fun. I went to the parents again. My intention was to help a friend pack and clean her house. That plan was changed when my sister decided that her and her family were going to spend the night at our parents house. I was sad that I didn't get to see my friends off, but it was fun seeing Gavyn. He's very busy, being 18months old. He's also very loud... haha. My mom said that we were just as busy, but we weren't as loud. IMO, my sister lets him get away with more than he should... but I'm not a parent, nor have I ever been a parent.

To above is a picture of my nephew. He's pretty much the cutest baby I've ever met. Though there are a few who fall close to second. He is sticking out his tough. :P And his shirt says, "I get my good looks from my dad".

After they left, I went over to my friend Amy's house. Her house was very fun and busy. Firstly, about my friend Amy. She has cerebral palsy. It's severe to the point where she is confined to a wheel chair and is unable to use her arms and legs. However, she's mentally alert (she's on her way to writing her own novel) and is able to communicate to people who know her well. I can ask her yes or no questions, and she can say "eye" for yes, and "o" for no. There's things she can do with her mouth to indicate whether she's hungry or thirsty. She also uses her head to point where she wants to... there are various other things she does to help her communicate. I've known Amy since her and I were 6 or 7, and IMO, I've always been a loyal friend to her. As you might imagine, she was made fun of a lot. She also struggled with people thinking and calling stupid, retarded, etc. I have never thought such things, and I've even stood up for her in many instances. Here's a picture of her. I think she is very beautiful.

Anyway, her house was fun. Amy's sister was visiting from Wenatchee with her husband and 5 children. Yes, 5. They are named Jen and Scott, and their children: Nolan 9, Emma 7, Mia 5, Titus 3, and Nadia, turning 1 in 9 days. Jen and Scott are awesome. They want me to come visit them. Nolan is... well 9. Doing 9 year old boy things. Computers, etc. Good kid. Emma's a good kid too. Didn't get to spend much time with her though. Mia was hilarious. She would quiz me on stuff. "What were her parent's names? What were all the kid's names? How old where they?... How did I know all of it!? Did I hold so-in-so when they were a baby? Did I hold Nadia... when not 5 mins before she asked, I was holding her..." Yes, she was fun. :) Titus was also fun. He had a race car that if you shook it up then put it on the floor, it was race across the floor. We played that game for probably a half an hour. He would repeat himself a lot. He's cute. :) And Nadia. She's so cute. (Not as cute as Gavyn :P) She's crawling, but not very fast. Barely standing. Pretty verbal. Yeah, very cute. :)

Monday, I was invited to go with the whole family to Port Townsand. There we ate lunch, walked around the small town, browsing in and out of shops. Then, Nolan, Emma and Mia went to the beach with Scott, while Amy, Mrs T, Mr T, Jen, Nadia, Titus and I stayed back at one of the play areas and watched Titus play around while us girl chatted it up. Mr T was being a good citizen and picked up trash. We headed back to their house... Played around, ate dinner, and assist Amy on the computer, until I decided I should leave to go back to Seattle... I had an appointment at 11am on Tuesday.

To make this post even longer, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Mr T, Amy's dad. He's pretty awesome. Pretty much every time I come over, I get a car wash. This time... see I've been missing a hub cap (front passenger side) for about 2 years now. He's been telling me to tell my dad to get one for me. I've told my dad many times, but he's always forgotten. I love my dad. :) Anyway, Mr. T, apparently getting more frustrated about it than I, just ups and buys one for me. Didn't tell me about it. Just puts it on for me to find... whenever... which was when I got back to Seattle. He also checked my oil and made sure all my lights were working. A personal mechanic? I think he does all these random acts of kindness in appreciation to me for being such a good friend to Amy.

I have other news, but it'll have to wait until another post. :)