the sun in the trees made the skyline look like crooked teeth

being on vacation in middle of nowhere, west virginia has its ups and downs. it's unbelievably pristine here, every time i look out the window it's like someone stuck an oversized postcard on the frame and expected me to believe it was real. which is ironic, considering the postcards they do sell around here are incredibly tacky and ill-photographed.

there really is not much to do here, cayla and i (lauren) have been practicing pool, with me kicking her butt multiple times. today we took an adventure to the mountain with the ski lift. instead of just enjoying a nice trip up the mountain on the ski lift, my family somehow convinced me to slide down the hill in an innertube. doesn't that sound dangerous? because, contrary to popular belief, it really is. fortunately, i only ended up with a few cuts and scratches on my legs from dragging my tube up the hill to this little mechanism they conjured up to jerk you around and drag you up the mountain to the slide. cayla was not so lucky. not only did she slip like forty times while trying to drag the tube to the death pulley system, she continuously tripped at the top of the hill and while trying to drag her tube away from the slide at the bottom. she kept slipping at the top of the slide and just almost flying down before she was securely in the tube and the person that went down before her was safely out of the way. they guy hooking us up the up-the-mountain mechanism told her she "couldn't win for losing". conveniently, there was a very attractive boy working at the top of the slide who had pretty eyes and a jake gyllenhaal from october sky accent. inconveniently, he was not amused by my and cayla's clumsiness and jokes about "breaking the tubes". it was just an accident. anyways, we finally decided it was time to leave before cayla broke her neck, and as we were leaving she fell into a hole. there was nothing we could do.

england is out of the world cup which means cayla owes me money,  but fortunately brazil and also my boyfriend cristianio are still dominating. cayla and i are working on an insanely epic project that is sure to be insanely epic. here is a little hint:

cheers,
lauren

somedays all i do

You live the life you're given with the storms outside,

Somedays all I do is watch the sky.

I think I, I could use a little break.

i think i, i could use a little break.

cheers,

lauren.

la la la

summerrrr the moment has arrived when I have done nothing for a sufficient amount of time to truly say that it is summer time! yes. after being entertained in boston for a lovely week, I can now sit back and do nothing, until I leave for virginia, during which I will do nothing in a different state! my birthday is soon and everyone is asking me what I want. I don't know...good things? I always have this problem, I think of like 15 million things I want then go through the list and decide that I actually don't want any of them.
for my birthday this year I want to trade weather with boston, master squirmle tricks and drink different colored milkshakes with adam and andrew on a ferris wheel with tbl waiting at the bottom to teach me how to surf in hawaii, then we would all make smores around a fire pit in the mountains while camping. that is exactly what I want for my birthday. unfortunately I don't know if I will ever master the squirmle, that is some intense stuff, you should look it up this one guy is soo good, it's crazy.
you should be excited, because while we are in virginia, we (lauren and I) are going to take awesome pictures and everyone is going to be insanely jealous.
just wait
cheers,
Cayla
p.s. aren't you loving the new background, it's andrew!
p.p.s. you are probably wonderng what our obsession with different colored milkshakes is and honestly, I don't know, once I figure it out I will let you know

yum

oh hi,

i make a really good grilled cheese sandwich. trader joe's has this super amazing deliciously creamy mozzarella cheese that God must have knocked off of his countertop and onto their shelves because it is the best thing i have ever tasted. and melted between two pieces of grilled bread it is like nothing you have ever tasted before. and it's even better when i get to eat it while sitting on the couch while watching say yes to the dress without having to worry about pebble nagging me because she's still upstairs sleeping. or at least she was while i ate the first half of my sandwich, but she can hear cheese melting from miles away, so she's now sitting centimeters away from me giving me the eyes and hoping i'll share with her. i'll give her the last bite but only so she'll go back upstairs. she got some of the cheese stuck on her nose, and now she's rolling around the couch trying to get it off. typical.

cheers,
lauren

pool bugs

one of the things that i do to take up time while i'm being a nanny this summer is watch the girls in the pool. i despise swimming myself, the water is never warm enough and i would rather just stay dry. but anyways, i sit in a chair on the side of the pool and watch the girls swim around pretending to be mermaids and have dance contests. the first day that i watched them in the pool, between all of the "miss lauren, watch this!" pleas, julia goes "hey, look!" i turn to see a HUGE spider sitting on the edge of the pool decking. the girls were fascinated by the monstrous beast, and of course wanted me to get it away from the pool. i HATE spiders. i can't even look at pictures of them. especially when the spider looked like this: 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

nevertheless, i got the pool net, closed my eyes, held my breath, and poked the spider from across the pool. it lifted one leg and then scurried away from the pool into the bushes. disgusting. their entire pool is brimming with bugs: bees, flies, brightly colored beetles. there's bugs in there that i've never even seen before. of course as nanny it's my job to clean them up. love itt. 

the girls look exactly like me, tall and thin with the stringy blonde hair. their mom jokes that i'm their real biological mom, and the looks i get from people when i take them out make me laugh. i took them to barnes and noble today and the people that i used to work with there all gave me the look like "ohh, so that's why she really quit". yes, because at 19 i have two children ages 7 & 5. cayla & i think that i should start wearing a ring when i take them out to just confirm people's suspicions. 

today in the pool, the girls had a dance contest. they were splashing around and singing a random song, and then they both turn to me and scream "TEQUILA!" maybe they really are my kids.

cheers, 

lauren

apolosaurus

listening to my puppy snore and andrew mcmahon courtesy of lauren's chill out playlist. Sitting on the ground between the couch and ottoman because that is the perfect place to play with my baby rat apolo who is a noodle. Not like a big lasagna noodle but like a thin noodle you would find in one of those chinese noodle bowls my sister eats that apolo tried to get into the other day. I love apolopants because she is cute, entertaining, and likes to play on fedoras and my mom. She also has a little pink tip on her tail which I think is the cutest thing in the world. She is darting all over the couch with amazing speed and agility. I leave for Boston in 2 days and I will miss my tiny apolosaurus very much. My mom was not very keen on my plan to sneak her in my carry on so I think she might have to stay home. But I am super excited for my first ever vacation without my family but very nervous about flying all by myself, I'm hoping that I will sit next to someone cool on the plane! I am also a little nervous about not having the correct clothes for boston, nothing is worse than dressing wrong in a new place unless there are a lot of people around you also dressing out of place, which I will not have, for the first time. I might have to do some research. But I guess this plane ride will just be me and some good old owl city tunes, which will probably be awesome! Oh and I am flying through newark so I get to see the lovely city of new york, awesome.
cheers,
Cayla

so, summer has officially begun. i've taken my annual beginning of summer trip: boston this year, new orleans last year, and hopefully new york next summer. i started my nannying job and it's extremely exhausting. the little girls that i'm watching are adorable and quite entertaining, but i run out of energy super quick since i'm used to sleeping late and watching television all day. cayla is leaving for boston (!) next week to visit our family, just copying me with everything she does. hopefully she has a good time and ends up loving the city as much as i do! i'm trying to hide my jealousy that she gets to go there, i would give (almost) anything to go back. but hopefully she'll adore the city like i do and we can move there as soon as she graduates. from high school or college? it depends on how many scholarships she gets and how rich i am by then. cayla is struggling to make a list of things to pack for boston. i just think she needs to pack a few pairs of jeans and then leave room in her suitcase to bring back gifts for me.
there is not much else to write about... i am trying to fix my schedule for next fall so i can take an italian class so i can study abroad in italy spring semester. yes, this is for real.

cheers,
lauren

p.s. we have lots of new things on our list because cayla finally gave me access to her own list. we're almost to 100!