mouse time

[this is one of my favorite stories of my life]

i believe this story took place in 2005. which is when this picture was.
don't we look like babies?

ONE night when i was in california for the summer i was getting home late (from a date fyi. like one of the first ones of my life. haha and the funny part is it was with the guy who my cousin is currently DATING. anyways) and so the girls (as in elle and joslin) were waiting up for me. i got home around 1:30 in the morning and i remember the girls had tried hard to stay awake, but they were a little delirious. we talked briefly and just basically said goodnight and then we were laying there.

the sleeping arrangements for summer at the nielsons has always been that i sleep on a luv sac that is on the ground right next to the bed, and elle and joslin share elle's bed. so we had just barely said goodnight and were lying there falling asleep when i heard a little scractching noise like coming from the bathroom area. now i should preface this by saying that previously that week they had thought that there might be mice in the house. okay so i was a little freaked out but i also was thinking i had just heard something else, and neither of the girls moved so i figured it was just me. then i heard it again and i heard elle sit up and so i knew something was going on. i freaked out and jumped up on there bed, because i was a little worried about being on the floor with some creature running around! so i jump up there, and by this time joslin is sitting up to and we are all screaming, well not like screaming loudly because everyone else is sleeping, but like quietly screaming (you know what i mean)! we were freaking out, we didn't know what to do because we certainly didn't want to get off the bed, our safe space, but we needed some assistance!

haha this is where the story gets exciting. elle had the great idea of calling her dad on the house phone, from her cell phone that was right by her bed. she grabs the phone and calls her home phone and i hear her whisper "dad, there is something in my room." next thing we know, people are running down the hall, we hear pounding footsteps getting louder and louder. well of course it was my uncle lonnie running down the hall to save us, and i was a little worried because we all knew it wasn't a real emergency, which he apparently thought it was. so what did i do? i layed back down and pretended to be asleep. well, he ripped open the door and was like "WHAT?!" we all felt a little bit silly at this point and began to regret our decision of calling him at 1:30 in the morning. maybe not the best choice. so elle is like "um...we think we heard a mouse?"

(oh my gosh i am laughing right now typing this. haha like i mean what were we thinking? we woke him up and he thought there was like a human in our room and came to save us. gosh we are so silly)

kristen, my aunt, had been shortly behind lonnie, so she arrived at the room also and was wondering what was wrong. anyways after we explained what happened, they were a little upset that we had woken them up to tell them that, mostly because lonnie thought that we said "there is someONE in our room" instead of someTHING which is what we claim to have said. we still debate that one today. anyways he was like "don't ever do that again" and then helped us all move into the living room to sleep there for the night like a good uncle would.

we never did find the mouse.

the national anthem.

okay so this story was actually fairly recent, it happened this past summer when i was working for the sacramento capitals. now normally for the matches i go to work around 9 or 10 to work in the office and then i would head over to the stadium around 3 or 4 to get things ready over there. the matches usually end around 10:30 ish, and then we would probably leave around 11:00 or 11:30. then it takes an hour to get home. point of the story is that it was pretty much an all day event and the hours were a bit crazy. so last season i don't think we had any matches back to back, we usually had a day inbetween which was nice so we got some sleep. this season, however, there was a stretch of 6 matches all in a row! this meant that we would get home around midnight and then head off to work again around 8 the next morning! plus we had to figure out a way to wash our staff shirts somewhere in between those hours when were home! okay so that doesn't necessarily pertain to the story, but it just adds to the story and now you know how crazy it was that week.

so near the end of the season we held the finals in sacramento, the last few games in that 6 match stretch were the finals. for the finals the people who work for the league come down and oversee things and make sure it is going as it should. there are alot of silly rules that we aren't as strict on during the season, so when the league people get there we have to get a bit more strict! its always a bit nerve racking, they are like standing over your shoulder making sure rules are being followed. they are really strict on what time the matches start, so this was one thing that we were really particular on when the league was there.

joslin and i don't really have a certain job that we do every game, we are just running around doing errands that need to be done. example: one of the players (remember these are professional players? so i mean i am like a little scared of them) comes up to me, "are there any more tennis balls to practice with?" he asks. me looking at the empty box the dang BOYS are supposed to be in charge of filling up "um...i'll run and get some" so i runnn to the far off corner of the stadium and haul back a whole huge box of tennis balls. and remember its 105 degrees. and i have regular clothes and im supposed to look cute. this is a normal occurance. i really love the randomness of it all.

so one day when the league was there and everyone was a little more uptight than normal we were approaching the time when the match has to start. (if it doesn't start on the dot at the right time we like get fined or something ridiculous.) so we are getting ready and in the back corner before the matches just an fyi there is always a band or some kind of entertainment playing for like an hour before while people are coming into the stadium to keep things fun. i am on the court and the person starts to sing the national anthem. we are all standing with our hands over our hearts and in the background for some reason the band over in the corner didn't get the memo and was still ROCKING OUT and we could totally hear it and it was definitely disrupting the national anthem. i am debating what to do, and this lady liz who is sort of over us, motions to me to run and tell the band to stop playing so that the poor lady singing the national anthem would be heard better and we wouldn't have this ROCK MUSIC in the background.

so i take off from the court (like center court, so i feel bad because the people in the stands were probably like why in the heck isn't that girl standing there with her hand on her heart listening to the national anthem! rude. and i am thinking people get off my back i have a job to do). so i am RUNNING over to the band thinking "what exactly am i am going to do when i get over there? i mean this is a loud band, we could hear them from the other side of the stadium...i can't just shout at them. they won't be able to hear me!" haha so i finally get over there and i am like standing there shouting waving my arms looking like a CRAZY person. i mean i am RIGHT in front of the stage. and there is a crowd watching them. haha so i am right in front of this whole crown enjoying the band shouting and waving my arms. oh gosh i wish i could have seen myself. for some reason they felt like they had to finish their song or something so after i stood there for like 30 seconds waving at them they FINALLY stopped just in time to hear the last few words "...and the home of the brave"

i love my job.
lets go caps.

ultimate hide and go seek champion

one night that some of the farrars were babysitting us we decided to play hide and go seek. i think it was natalie and stephanie who were watching us and i was probably 8 or 9. so we are playing hide and go seek and i found this great spot to hide. we had a couch in our living room near the front door that was in a corner at an angle so that there was empty space behind it. i decided that was a perfect spot for me to hide so i hopped back there and was listening for the counting. okay so after about 10 minutes of natalie trying to find me she started to get worried and was saying "okay kaitlin come out now, you win" trying to get me to come out. i just thought i was so funny and that i had the best spot ever and so stayed hidden. well at the point that i heard them say something to the effect of "you check the neighbors house, if she isn't there then we will call the police," i hopped right up and showed them my super hiding spot. needless to say i got in a bit of trouble when my mom got home.
sorry farrars!

shortly after our family moved from washington we were living in nyssa, oregon at a farm house that my uncles owned. we were living in this small house that we called the "jayo house" until our house in fruitland was built. nyssa is like 25 minutes from the town of fruitland so every morning we would have to leave a bit earlier to get to school. one morning it was in winter time so i remember it was still dark when we left. it was just starting to lighten up when we were driving to school listening to peter brienholt as always. we were going around one particular corner, well i mean you just follow the road but it bends. apparently the road had some ice on it and we were TOTALLY sliding and as my sisters tell the story "our 15 passenger van was only on two wheels." no i don't know if that part is legit, but it was scary! we ended up getting a flat tire from the event that resulted in all of us kids being late to school. the saddest part of this whole story is that that very day in my 5th grade class all of the kids who achieved their reading points were going on an ice skating trip. by the time that i arrived at school all of the kids had already left! i still had my luncheable that i had gotten for the field trip, so atleast that was a treat.

i have so many stories that i never want to forget. so many things that i have been through, laughed at, and done. i never used to write in a journal (i am getting better) so i thought maybe this would be a fun way to record all of those funny stories and past memories.