galoon

My mom is in town with my youngest brother. he's going to efy next week, which means i get my mother all to myself. not really, but it means she'll be in slc for part of the week and i like the idea of my mother being 10 minutes away from  me when i get off of work. yesterday we got the crew together and went to lagoon, fondly know in our family as "galoon". trust me, galoon is more fun to say than lagoon. it's like when people call target "tar-zhay"...it makes you feel like you're on the inside, you know, part of the cool club of people that do their shopping there. sorry that the pictures aren't great quality. only phone pictures.

ryan and i are screamers. does that suprise you? we do this scream thats kind of fake scream (but yesterday i used it as real scream). screaming contests on rides yesterday left my throat raw. how cow, it hurts this morning. (but it was worth it.) and in case you're wondering, ryan just didn't leave his pregnant wife at home and come play without her. halie was out of town with her family so ryan was a bachelor for a few days. good thing i like bachelor ryan :)

its was hot, and humid. after water, the most requested thing in our group was a shower. it was just sticky. i can't complain though, at least it wasn't blaring hot and we didn't leave sunburned...even though i have a new nice little tan line across the top of my feet from my shoes.

i loved getting on rattlesnake rapids when they asked how many were in our party.

19.

"you'll have to split up into three boats"

i love having a big family.

lucky for me i was in the boat with my two newlywed brothers who were more concerned about their wives not getting wet than me. we laughed our faces off on that ride, and i'm happy to say that we all got our fair share of waterfall, dang it.

on the wheels of a dream

last friday night i headed out on the town with these ladies. we had tickets to see the

motab/brian stokes mitchell/linda eder concert down at the conference center. it was soooo good. i was fine until brian sang this song. then maybe i cried.

after the show i introduced the girls to gourmandise. it always seems to be a crowd favorite, and has yet to dissappoint. it's always fun to reunite sugar shack (phase 2) and was so fun to catch up with everyone. love you girls.

saturday afternoon before i headed up to the cabin i met up with these girls for a thai extravaganza. this was quite possibly my largest audience for ugly singing. what can i say, brit brings out the best in me. plus, how can i say no to this face??

we'll miss you linds! good luck with new job and new life. don't forget us. come back and visit soon!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

dear bethany,

• remember how you bought that gym pass? you should probably use it.
• why is it so hard for you to hang up your clothes? just a reminder that your mother is coming into town and will most likely be at your house sometime. and she knows about the trick where you hide your clothes under your comforter (which i thought i blogged about earlier, but was obviously too embarassed to do on the "public" blog). i better get to workin.
• don't send that text message. just don't.
• remember how the neighbors car was stolen on monday....right from the front of their house in the light of day? please remember to keep important things out of the car, because with my luck, my car will be next.
• never name your child jim bob.ever.
• you have an ice problem. at you don't eat rocks, or cornstarch, or toilet paper. but still.
• last summer, you had foil dinners on a regular basis. this summer you haven't had any. that needs to change. soon.
• go to bed.

ps. this post was supposed to be cool. i was going to do a cool 500th post. then i forgot, so i told myself i would do a cool 550th post. well, that came and went. what's cooler than a cool 555th post?  everything, because this is it, and it's pretty lame. hmm.

cheat-ah

when i was growing up, there was this computer game my brothers would play. like most games, there is a way you could cheat, and my brothers always seemed to find a way to find the codes to do so. but, everytime you would use cheat codes, this weird lady voice would come over the speakers in an english accent... "cheat-ah". you know, like cheater...with an accent.
we still use that accent to say that word when the need arises. i can only think that a few people will want to use it in this situation. let me apologize in advance.

but let me explain. #1, i don't have any pictures. #2, greg is a better blogger than i am. don't you fret, i'll still put in my two cents, but for your viewing pleasure, click here to read about a rip roarin' weekend. now, for my commentary. we left friday afternoon and got down to st george in time for thai food and sushi. i've been to benjas plenty o' time...in fact it's kind of a st george tradition. but i don't think i've ever laughed that hard in benjas. maybe i was just tired, but i have to imagine it was the company. from chopsticks to soy sauce, it was a "new experience".
saturday we played at the pool. i was basically lame at the pool because i was already sunburned from the weekend before in vegas, so i stuck to the shade. trust me, if you would have seen my armpit, you would have told me it was the smartest thing i'd ever done in my entire life. saturday was also the day we found out that pizza factory closed at like 6 o'clock at night. ok, not literally...but it sure seemed that way. which led us to brick oven and the worst server i've ever met.
let me also mention that the ac went out at the cottage. and being the smarty pants that i am, waited as long as humanly possible to call someone to repair it. i love learning things the hard way :) don't worry, it got fixed and the last 18 hours there was nice and cool.
the trip was full of good friends, good food, good laughs, good movies and good naps (which you need after you stay up as late as we did. it's just really hard for me to fall asleep when i'm sleeping in the same bed as one of my best friends. it's just too natural for me to talk and talk and talk. duh)

so here's to an epic trip. ready for round 2???

weekend a la cabin and the great experiment

i'm pretty sure these pictures say it all. DEMOLITION DERBY. i don't know what was better, watching the derby or watching the people at the derby. in addition to the derby, i watched a dance competition with like 30 people (none of which could actually dance), a jousting competion (that lasted about 30 minutes too long), i saw a couple get engaged, and a man lick horse poo for a free pass to 18 holes of golf. classy.
icing on the cake, they had an awesome firework show after the derby. i was sooo sad i'd missed 4th of july fireworks with my surgery, so i was thrilled when they shut the lights off in the arena and the fireworks started. the music selection for the fireworks show was a different story...but i still loved it.

sunday after church we headed up the canyon to hike these waterfalls. perfect weather. perfect company. perfect mosquitos. except for the mosquitos.

and now. what you've all been waiting for. the great experiment. let me explain. saturday afternoon before i headed up to the cabin i went out to lunch with some girlfriends (i'll post about that later). one of said girlfriends had gorgeous curls in her hair. she told me she curled her hair with a sock. she learned from a video on youtube.
seriously? her hair was gorgous. i had to try it. but wait, i have short hair.
but don't worry, i was at the cabin with three cousins with long hair.
so last night, the experiment began. we cut our socks and i sent them to bed.

and then this morning we took out the sock and found these beauties.

serious.

please oh please try it. and then tell me it works.
it makes wish i had long hair. (only for like one minute, but still)

GNO

one of my girlfriends made a group on facebook a while back and invited a group of girls. the premise of the group was that we were all cool. nothing ever really happened with the group, until i was really bored and stuck at home after my eyes got lasered. i somehow ended up on that group page and realized something. it was a random group of girls. we all knew eachother in round about ways. most of them i knew really well. some of them i only knew a little bit. but i knew that i liked all of them alot. i posted on the wall and suggested dinner, and GNO was born. not all the members of our little group were able to make it, but i was thrilled to join these girls for a night on the town, a night to catch up, gossip about the lastest, and talk about secret things, just like you do when you are hanging out with your long lost girlfriends.

sunburns, rain, and roadsigns

howdy. just back from a weekend home with my family. it was great to be at home with everyone. it was a first to all be there with the new additions, and it was great. my mother is a great hostess, and always makes coming home such an event. plenty of food, clean sheets on your bed, and enough laughs to last a lifetime.
our neighbors were kind enough to let us use their pool all day saturday, so i decided to head over for a bit. it was so nice to lounge in the water and get some sun. i think you know where i'm going with this, and i'm sure you're rolling your eyes. i obviously haven't learned my lesson, and forgot that my thighs havent seen the sun for quite some time. whoops.
saturday night was nathan and caitie's open house, which was our purpose for the whole trip. it was alot of fun to see familiar faces. i love an excuse to celebrate, and it was fun to get dressed up again. plus they had this artichoke dip that was to die for.
we headed back up to utah early afternoon. about 20 miles outside of mesquite, there was quite the storm. i swear it felt like we were in the middle of a monsoon/tornado/hail storm/hell. visibility was horrible, and i swore my car was going to be dented like crazy from all of the hail. we would pull over and wait for it to let up, but then the hail was so bad we'd try to keep moving. a huge road sign had blown over and was laying across a lane on the highway. don't worry, we ran right over it going about 25 mph. that's probably when i started really freaking out. i was worried about my car, but it's not like we could hop out in monsoon weather and check it out. we had to keep driving to mesquite.
my brother got us to a gas station and we hopped out to see the damage, which is when i about lost it. we met up with my other siblings who had been driving behind us and we all stood around the car in the rain, which is when i really lost it. like i had been trying to be brave with alot of things over the past few weeks and not show real emotion and now i couldn't hold anything back anymore. that's when i left and went inside the gas station to get out of the rain and call my dad. except the gas station was pack full, so i went in the back corner by all of the beer, pulled my cap down so no one could see my face and called my dad to cry.
my dad's really good at putting things into perspective. and now i'm ok. my car is just a thing, and it can be fixed. but everyone was ok, and we were out of the storm...thank goodness.
i finally made it home. and now i'm laying in bed wearing the only thing that won't touch my sunburn. no, not my birthday suit....my swimming suit. i probably would have gone for birthday, but i have to sleep with my door open to get some cool air from the swamp cooler into my room, and the last thing i want is for a roommmate to pop theiir head in and get a birthday surprise.

for the first time in a long time, i just really want it to be monday.

looking through new eyes

i'll apologize for typos ahead of time. it will make sense later.

Thursday morning i woke up early and went to breakfast with ry and hay. they drove up to take me in for surgery. getting my eyes lasered is soemthing i've wanted to do for a long time, but just never went through with it. last minute everything fell into place and i went for it. i had a surgery called PRK which is a little different from LASIK. i wasn't nervous about the surgery, more nervous for after surgery. i was told to not make any plans for the weekend, which turned out to be good advice.
since surgery, i've slept alot. I've learned that wearing sunglasses inside is not only cool, but necessary.I've learned that i can recognize what show is on tv just by the voices i hear (maybe that's too pathetic to admit). I've learned that putting your drops in in very important. i've learned that i would rather have no legs than be blind. i've learned the importance of sleeping with clear shields taped to my face. i've learned that this surgery is AMAZING, and i can't wait until my vision clears up.

end of story, i survived. i think. i still can't see crispy clear. i get my bandage contacts out on tuesday. yippee. and from there, onward and upward.

i've learned alot while i've been partially blind.

• dad was right.lortab might not always make the pain go away, but it will make you not care as much.
• sometimes toast is really the only thing that sounds good
• unless there are mandarin egg rolls on the table, then i will pass up toast
• i fogot how much i liked disney television movies.
• if i cry in movies, i still need to use my artificial tears
• it's not as much fun to watch makeover shows on tv when you can't actually see the makeover

ps. i have my surgery on video. i've told myself that i don't want to watch it until my eyes are feeling better...and until i can actually see it. are you brave enough to watch it???