The BYU Project: June 2011

I am currently dog sitting (and house sitting) for the weekend. All in all, it's been great. The dogs, Tonga, Mina, and Brutus, have been good...no problems whatsoever. The only thing that has kept everything from being 100% perfect are the walks. Mina and Brutus are fine...it's Tonga. Love that dog, but boy, that dog sure makes the walks interesting. Something I've learned while walking him: Tonga likes pretty much any moving animal. Because of this, I've had multiple 100 meter dashes, a rolled ankle, leash-burn on the back of my legs and a swollen wrist. Once when my brother, Tanner, was walking him and Tonga saw a squirrel and booked it straight through a bush, bringing Tanner with him. It was probably the most hilarious scene I've seen in my whole life. Still, I love him and the other dogs. Such sweeties. :]

So now that it's been a couple of days since the incident, I think it's about time I write about it. After all, with the pace I'm going at on putting pen and paper together (sorry journal and missionaries), I might as well write it down now. As some of you may have heard, my sister, Hailey, and I got a little crazy last Friday. Here's how it went down.

Last week was probably the longest week I've had in ages. Work was slow, I was exhausted from late nights of doing more work...basically Friday couldn't have come any sooner. And Fridays are usually my come-home-early days. On this particular Friday I got home around 4 and just as I was turning onto our street, I saw Hailey walking home from the bus stop.

"Hop in!" I told her.
"Okay!"
"Actually, just hop on the back. This will be faster."

So Dumb and Dumber (aka myself and Hailey) drove down the street. I was going 5 mph down the street, Hailey was holding on fine...she even did a fist pump in the air. Yup, everything was going smoothly until I had to turn in the cul-de-sac.

Now you might be surprised by this, but I actually got an A in Physics back in high school (I love how I say like that's a long time ago). So really, I should have remembered about centripetal forces and angles and all that jazz. But I didn't and as I turned, the centripetal force was so strong (and Hailey's boots were so slick) that she flew right off the jeep and landed flat on her back.

When I saw Hailey out of the rear-view mirror, I can honestly say I was terrified. So I turned off the car and ran to her and tried to help her up. Yes, she was crying and yes, I felt a huge amount of guilt and worry. I've watched enough Grey's Anatomy episodes to know that brains are not indestructible. A person could get a brain bleed, hemorrhage and die. And my brain tends to go to worse case scenarios and that's honest to goodness what I was thinking.

I can honestly say, that my internet searching didn't comfort me much. Hailey and I looked up Traumatic Brain Injuries symptoms and Whiplash symptoms. Basically the same as far as dizziness and headaches are concerned (obviously) but Hailey and I did laugh when it said that TBI victims can experience faulty judgement...maybe we already had one due to a stressful week haha.

But luckily, the doctors confirmed it was just whiplash and there would be no permanent damage. And thank goodness everything turned out the way it did...it definitely could have been worse. Now Hailey and I just laugh about it. We're calling ourselves stuntwomen, or we blame Rebecca Black for getting us so excited about Friday, or joke about how we're going to tell our kids the dangers of driving a jeep when you're too excited.

Now for the extra:

I went to King's Dominion for the first time. I went CRAZY! I love amusement parks.
I had another terrifying jeep experience. Thanks to the unexpected rain, I drove back home from work and had wind and rain shoot through the "windows" (top was on, windows were off) and then I hydroplaned. Didn't crash. I'm the luckiest unlucky person in the world. Seriously, I could write a book about my crazy jeep experiences. I would call it "Jeep Wranglers: Vehicles Not Meant For the Faint at Heart".
I got a letter from my friend who's on a mission in Uruguay.

All in all, a good week...but I'm glad it's over.