Wow!  It's been a long time since I've made an entry.  I think that's a record for me. 

Anyway, I spent the month of June at home.  I graduated, celebrated my birthday, and my anniversary with Tyler.  (We saw Lion King Live, which was awesome.)  I got my braces off on the 9th of July and then on the 10th Tyler and I drove out to Arizona.  It was a long, boring drive.  But Tyler's house is pretty cool.  The ceilings are really high and the doors are abnormally tall.  When I go home I'm going to feel like a giant when I walk through doors.  The windows are rather large, too.  There's an intercome system and a courtyard in the front and granite (or not granite...something that looks like granite) counter-tops in the kitchen and bathrooms, of which there are three.  The rooms are sizable for a new house, and the neighborhood seems pretty nice, although they aren't finished building it yet and Tyler and I get confused which one is his when we drive home from places because all the houses here are clay colored.  Also, I never adjusted to the time differences so it's like I'm a normal person who wakes up at 9 in the morning! 

Arizona is hot and dry and makes my skin look lizardy.  Consequently, we swim a lot.  Tyler's pool is a salt-water pool, so it's not as harsh as chlorine on my skin, but it still doesn't help with the drying out.  The sun hasn't really helped me tan, either.  I've got a little bit of one, but it's not really noticable.  The good thing about the sun and the heat is that everybody wheres tank-tops and I've been able to overcome my awkwardness about wearing tank tops in public (I always feel like a slut when I go in public in them).  It's rained a few time since we've been here because it's monsoon season, but when it rains it's more like the sky is sweating, as Tyler says.  When it rains in Missouri it smells like grass, but here it smells like dirt and poo (there is a fertilizer plant by the interstate and when the wind blows the right way sometimes we smell the manure...although it's not really a plant.  They just lay the poo out to dry or something...I'm not really sure.)  I miss grass, even though it makes me sneezy.  Also, sometimes you'll see clouds off in the distance over the mountains (the mountains surround the town, which is actually really pretty--especially around sunset.  But I'd still rather have grass) and lit looks like it's raining there, but by the time the wind blows the clouds over it's just a bunch of dust blowing around furiously in the wind.  I have pics and vids of a dust storm we had while I was here.  I might post them later.

Tyler and I do a lot of shopping here.  The suburb Tyler's parents moved to just developed over the past 2 years or so, so basically everything is brand new and there are lots of fun places to shop and eat.  I discovered Old Navy for the first time so we've been there way too much and I will be going home with way too many flip flops (everything is so cheap there!  Especially sweaters.  But you can get sweaters anywhere here for almost nothing, especially since it's August).  We also went to this gianormous mall in Tempe, which had a lot of name-brand outlet stores.  That was fun.  We've been going to AZ Juice company for a few days and I got a "berry bliss" smoothie and discovered my true love for soy.

The first week we were in Arizona we actually...weren't in Arizona.  We drove over to California and stayed in LA with Tyler's dad for a few days.  We mostly hung out there, although we ate at an Italian restaurant I really liked.  They had the best cannelloni (spelling?) I'd ever tasted and everything was served family style.  We drove through Hollywood, but didn't stop, which was fine with me because I had migranes most of the four days we were in California.  On one of the days we were there we drove to San Diego and went to Sea World.  I saw penguins! :D  I also got to see Shamu and the Sea Otter show, among other things.  The process and psychology that the trainers must have gone through to train the animals really interested me for some reason.  Besides the animal part of Sea World, we also rode a roller-coaster water ride thingy and got really wet.  Unfortunately, we did this right before it got dark, so I was freezing until we got back to LA.  Overall, though, it was okay.  Part of my childhood was re-lived!

On the 8th we're driving back to Missouri.  We should be back on the evening of the 9th.  I leave on the 17th for college, and classes will start the 20th.  I'm getting both excited and a little nervous.  I know I can handle the classes and everything because I made sure to schedule myself a light load for the first semester.  And I'm not worried about being homesick because for about a month I've been away from home and not felt homesick yet.  It's mostly the change, I think.  I always got a little nervous before I switched schools in the past (from grade school to junior high, junior high to college, and etc.).  I'm always fine once I get there, so I'm sure it'll be the same way.  I got my roommate assignments while I was here, and so far I've only talked to one of them.  I can't seem to get ahold of the other via phone.  They're both down at MSU taking classes over the summer.

Anyway...I guess that catches us up with the present.  I used a lot of parenthesis in this entry.  I got a facebook and so I'll probably be using a lot of that from now on.