Can you tell I'm from Utah?

Since I only have two more weeks to go, I thought I'd share with you one of my Arizona adventures. I don't have any pictures to make this post fun because my camera is not waterproof, so you'll have to use your imaginations.

Last Saturday everyone at the Project decided to introduce the interns to an Arizonan activity: tubing down the Salt River. And I know what all you Utah people are immediately thinking. No, the Salt River does not have any salt in it. I also think it's a silly name if it doesn't have any salt in it.

We arrived at the river at 1:00pm on a day where the high in Phoenix was 113 degrees. Smart, huh? I put on massive amounts of sunscreen, hung a small cooler filled with four water bottles and a gatorade around my neck, and hopped on my tube. I drank lots of water that morning, and I drank all four bottles of water and the gatorade over the three hours we spent on the river. Nevertheless, when we got out of the river, I started feeling really, really sick. I'll spare you all the yucky details of the bus ride back to the parking lot, the grouchy paramedics, and the long, bumpy drive to the hospital.

When I got to the hospital, I was still really sick. I had thrown up everything I drank that afternoon, and I was so shaky that I couldn't fill out the admissions forms. The nurse and the doctor kept asking me if I had anything to drink that day, and I kept telling them, "Yes! I've been drinking all day!" Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? Why then, did this emphatic response send my friend from work into paroxyms of laughter?

Back to the river. Tubing down the river is NOT a family friendly trip. This particular river is filled not with salt, but with drunk, DRUNK college students. So drunk. We're talking topless coeds and frat boys armed with bags of marshmallows drunk. Marshmallows are the ammo of choice on the river because when they get wet, they stick to you, so as I was floating down the river amidst a mine field of soggy marshmallows, I wondered what effect this sugar must have on the river ecosystem and whether they should rename it the Sugar River. No one else was wondering this. They were all too busy throwing marshmallows at each other.

So, when the doctor and nurse asked me if I'd been drinking, they were not asking if I'd been drinking water during this hot day to keep my body hydrated.* And after my friend got over her laughing fit, she added that I'd been drinking WATER all day. I don't know if they believed us, but they have my blood samples to prove it, and I felt much better after they treated me for dehydration and extreme heat exhaustion.

Now I know the funny Sarah phrase is going to be "I've been drinking all day!"

*By the way, when did the verb "to drink" get taken over by alcoholic beverages? Why don't people ask if you drank any alcohol that day? That would be much clearer, especially to people like me who drink all the time, just not anything alcoholic. I'm drinking right now. A nice cold Jones black cherry soda.

Crafty Tutorial

Here's a little tutorial for the blocks, if anyone else wants to make them. I think they turned out really cute. I especially like that you can stack them however you want. They would look really cute on a mantlepiece, or in a nursery, or (feel free to laugh) as a really cute Relief Society centerpiece.

Supplies:

Vinyl Lettering-I'm not sure who mine was ordered from, but look here, here and here.

Acrylic paint

Some cute scrapbook paper-It doesn't take much, I used two half sheets.

Ink or chalk pad

Sand paper

3 1/2 inch blocks-I used six.

A bottle of matte Mod Podge

First, I sanded all the blocks to smooth off the rough parts. Then I painted all of them with a coat of acrylic paint. Then I sanded the edges again and went around them with an ink pad to make them look more distressed. Some people used a chalk pad, and it looked pretty neat too. Next, I applied the vinyl letters to the blocks. Three of my blocks only have lettering on two sides, and three have lettering on three sides because I wanted to use every Be. Then I cut my scrapbook paper into 3" squares, covered the back of the paper squares with a coat of Mod Podge and stuck them on. Then I went over all sides of the blocks with a couple of coats of Mod Podge.

It's really easy, but takes a little time to get everything sanded and painted. I really love mine. So much, that when I get home, I'm going to try making some alphabet blocks like these, only with letters instead of scary skulls.