| | Dear Spencer (and Carrie), I am sorry that I have not provided you with any reading material as you sit at your desk pretending to work, but secretly checking xanga for an update. What a miserable summer this must have been. I, on the otherhand, have had a splendid one, beginning with... the cruise that mom and dad took Andrew and me on. It pays to be single and continue to mooch off of the parentals while spending quality time with them of course.
Climatic moment: sharing our dinner table with Larry. Larry is an expert cruise attendee that was currently on his fifth one with his son (age 5) celebrating his graduation from preschool. As Larry shared all the secrets of the best places to eat and times to do so, excused himself from the table to dance with the servers and cooks after the finale dinner, and doted on his intelligent son that has successfully passed preschool, I decided that Christopher Guest should make a new mockumentary on avid cruise goers. Unfortunately, no pictures of the infamous Larry were taken...only half the Orr family. We missed you. 
Next was my favorite trip of the summer: Yosemite. The fun began when we set sail in the mom-o-van that dad somehow entrusted us all with, that we soon named Patricia. She kept chugging along through Vegas, Death Valley and eventually got us lost in the outskirts of Yosemite where she was stuck in sand...and then dug out. This trip consisted of many hikes: moonlit night hikes, sunrise hikes, "all-day along a river hikes," rafting (which became a joke since there was no current), swimming in ice cold lakes, ending with a drive to see the biggest trees on the planet in the Sierra National Forest and then a trip to a ghetto casino in the Mojave Desert where we went swimming to rid our bodies of 6 days of dirt with chlorine, danced it up in the lounge, and played a 5 cent slot machine- also the day you called to tell me that I'm going to be an aunt!!! (as I wore our childhood pink 80's dress since the color theme of the drive home was pink and brown and everyone was instructed to change in a gas station early that morning). I wish I could post all 459 pictures from this trip...  
 
 
 
Then Melissa and I roadtripped out to Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico to visit Molly/Molls Balls, Clay, and Alex, where we were forced to learn to wakeboard. I fall somewhere between amateur and professional, slightly closer to the amateur end of the spectrum. Post wakeboarding = an extreme whiplash feeling to the entire body, so we visited some natural hot springs along the Rio Grande. More memories were experienced 2 hours west of the lake in Capitan...no great stories here except one night when we feasted at a random family's house with 7 children. Their motto is "Book or Broom." They must be reading or cleaning at all times; no other media besides books. They also took turns standing up at the dinner table and quoting famous people. The dad wanted Mel and I to quote something and questioned our educational background when we said we had nothing to offer (other than the lyrics to songs like Sir Mixalot's "I like big butts" which would probably be slightly inappropriate). With that to say, I was very enlightened by their traditional values.  
Last but not least, I made an expedition out to see BeccaJane & Friends, Inc. in Saint Diego where we relished in old times...getting sick off candy from the Sweet Factory, rummaging through thrift stores to prevent global warming, (F.Y.I. The production of clothing uses an unnecessary amount of the earth's natural resources when more than enough clothes exist to just keep passing around and sharing.), starting a running team called "Team Panda Robot Suicide Force" to train for an actual half marathon- dad already registered us so there is no backing out this time, and cooking the L parents some gourmet food...all accounting for me wanting to live there again.  
 
So while I wasn't off playing, I actually did do some work at Papa Bear's office...changing lives by shredding paper, rearranging furniture, cleaning out refrigerators, addressing envelopes and instilling the concept of RECYCLE into the office, except Pops still ignores the recycling bin I brought in so I have to filter things out of his trash can. But working there was surprisingly fun and educational at times. And then I completed my last and final days of nannying Tori and Nikki. Hopefully next summer when I have a college degree I won't fall back into that employment. Nik's best quote of the summer occurred yesterday when a friend of mine came over to their house to drop something off...Nik told my friend that her mom was actually at a movie by herself at the time and not at work because "She needed some alone time. She has been really stressed lately. She's been divorced twice." 
Love,
Amy P.S. I will try to keep you more regularly posted while I'm in Meh-hee-co.
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