food and friends and more food.

This last week has been pretty swell.  It was full of old roommates and friends and food and it was fantastic.

Last Friday Rachel and Kenneth came into town for the weekend to be here for Kenneth's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.  They were only here for the weekend, but we still got to hang out twice.  On Friday, we went with them to Sonic for shakes and also, here's the thing: Sonic has a fantastic Reese's shakes like woah.  Anyway, it was fun to catch up with them and to hear about the hilarious things that happen in South Carolina, which is where they live.  Also, while we were there, these high school-aged kids came up to us and they were apparently on a scavenger hunt.  One of the things they needed to do was have a stranger kiss one of the guys on the cheek.  Rachel got out with the excuse that she was married, but I couldn't do that. They guy kept begging and begging and I tried to have him get Levi or Kenneth to do it, since apparently he would get more points if he did that.  It was very strange and confusing, but we eventually convinced them that we were not going to kiss him.  From the sound of things, he eventually got someone else to kiss him.  Good for him.

On Saturday, Levi and I went and tried out this place called Slab Pizza.  Um, it's so super great.  I got chicken cordon bleu and chicken bacon ranch and they were both quite marvelous except they were huge so I could only eat half of it and Levi had to help me out.  It's nice to have him around sometimes.  Actually, it's nice all the time.

Then on Sunday was Katie's homecoming talk up in Centerville. This meant that I got to see Kelsey, and Kennedy, and Rachel (and Kenneth), and even Danielle (and Dillon). But most importantly, baby Kenny! Oh, and I guess also Katie.  It was so fun to hang out with them and to see Katie again because let's be honest, I love that girl and I am so super one million excited that she's back!

Then on Monday, I got to hang out with roommates again!!  Rachel wasn't there, but instead we had other Rachael as well as Keisha! This time we went to dinner at this place called Paradise Bakery.  It was good except that if you go there, don't get that one sandwich that I got that had this weird horseradish spread stuff on it.  It was weird.  Man, it's good to be with those girls.  We just sat there and talk and laughed very loudly for a good two hours.  Also there was this one part where I was surprised by something funny and then I laughed so hard that I may or may not have sprayed some of my food on Rachael. Oops.  Actually, that's embarrassing.  But like I said, the sandwich tasted a little weird anyway, so it was like nbd.  We tried to have someone take a picture of us, but that didn't work out so well so I ended up taking a picture of us as we exited the building.  This resulted in my head being very close to the camera and that's unfortunate, but at least everyone else looked cute.

On Tuesday, I made Chicken Crescents for dinner which is something my mom would make.  I really like them, but every time I make them I am always reminded of how many steps it takes to make them.  Okay, it's not actually that many, but still. I'm more of a mix it all in a bowl, throw it in the oven and BAM! dinner is served kind of girl.  Still, it was quite delicious.

On Wednesday, it was weddingapalooza, as Levi called it.  We went to two wedding receptions.  The first one was for my friend Kelsey who I worked with in sociology.  She's so super great and I am so mega happy for her.  Levi loved the location because it was indoors and also air-conditioned. What more could you want?

The second wedding reception was for Reegan Lake, sister of the one and only Keisha (Lake) Hendricks. And let me tell you something--those Lake ladies know how to put together a good reception, I'll tell you what.  Well done, Keech.  Also, I just like hanging out with the Lakes.  They're neat.  Also, right now I'm thinking about the mini pies that they served at the reception and I want one, dang it.  I would have posted the picture of me and Keech, but somehow I managed to have a super creepy claw hand on Keisha's shoulder and it is a little too frightening for public view, so sorry.

Then on Thursday, I made sesame chicken!  Remember my need for fried chicken all the time always?  Yeah, well that's still happening, but I'm trying to tone it down.  So I made this; it was delicious chicken, but not so fried and crispy.  It did the trick.  Except for the part where the chicken coating burned to the bottom of the pan, essentially blocking the heat and making it take 12 years for the chicken to cook.  So we (and by we, I mostly mean Levi) had to spend 7 of those years scraping the bottom of the pan so the dang chicken would cook. So that was fun.

And then to end this saga, I will tell you that yesterday, we went camping with Dillon and Danielle.  And by camping, I mean we just went to a nearby park up the canyon and had foil dinners and then came home and watched a movie. But the guys did a great job being manly by chopping wood and building a fire (using the teepee method--not the log cabin method--as they made sure to point out).  Danielle and I did a really great job of watching and providing moral support.  And moral support from me mostly includes me getting stressed about the possibility of Levi chopping his fingers instead of the wood and the possibility of him falling in the fire as he and Dillon ran around passing the rugby ball back and forth.  All in all, it was a fabulous evening; the food was totes delish, no one chopped their fingers off, and the rugby ball was the only thing to fall into the fire pit. I'd say it was a success.

The Random Tandem Experience.

One time back when me and Rach were baby sophomores  in college (over three years ago!) we found a tandem bike. And by found I mean that one of our neighbors found it and so it was just sitting out on the balcony for months.  One day in the spring it was finally warm enough to be outside for more than two minutes without your eyebrows freezing and having to wear six parkas.  So logically, we took that opportunity to ride the tandem bike because I mean, nbd, it would be easy, right?

Wrong.

Well, I take that back.  Maybe more coordinated individuals would not have such a difficult time with the tandem bike, but apparently we stuh-ruggled.  To the MAX.  It was just ridiculous how incapable we were of getting that thing to go.

Tandem bikes seem so magical, don't they?  I daresay they might even seem quite whimsical.  You can just imagine a lovely spring day, with the smell of fresh flowers in the air and birds singing and two lovely friends riding their tandem bike through the park.  Such a precious image, am I right?

Please erase that image from your mind because that it not how the random tandem experience went.  The random tandem experience went more like this: imagine high-pitched screaming and occassional grunt-yells (that's a thing), stressed breathing, forced deep breaths, crashing into walls, riding off the sidewalk, and never going more than five feet at a time.

That image is pretty much exactly how the first 20 minutes of the random tandem experience went.  It was ridiculous.  We could not get a hang of it to save our lives. We tried to have Rach in the front, but we then had to have me be in the front because homegirl Rach was about to have a panic attack from the stress that came with having to get the tandem bike going.

Finally after much screaming, multiple crashes, and--more than anything--laughing from our roommates Katie and Kelsey, we finally got it.

In fact, we were quite delighted!  So very pleased with ourselves!  We had conquered the tandem bike!  And just to show that tandem bike who was boss, we proceeded to ride the tandem bike around the block over and over.  It was great.  I think we might have been able to smell the flowers and maybe we heard a bird or two singing.

We loved riding that tandem bike; we probably rode it around the block like 50 times.  But then again, that was probably because we couldn't figure out how to stop it.

Neat.

P.S. Sometimes when I look at the picture above, I think that my right leg is my left leg and I'm like, woah. I am quite flexible!  But really I'm not.
P.P.S. Here is a video of clips from the Random Tandem Experience.  As crazy as it was, it's still one of my favorite memories with Rach.  Man, we were the weirdest.  But we had so much fun, and it was the best.



Also, when I was uploading this vid onto youtube, I think I did something so it's not quite as wide screen as it probs should be, so maybe we look a little stretched out?  ID even K how to fix it, so my bad. Sorry.

YOLO, baby.

So remember how I wrote this slightly embarrassing post about Rachel?  Well, I realized that I probably blog about hilariously dumb things that she does a little too much and so I thought it was only fair if I tell a somewhat embarrassing story about myself today.  I think this officially makes me a pretty good friend because I can think of so many embarrassing stories about Rach that I could be telling instead, but alas.  You're worth this.

It was my freshman year and we had Stake Conference, which is when about ten congregations meet together for a meeting together (oh my gosh, can you please read that sentence again because instead of explaining what Stake Conference is, I actually just repeated myself. I suck).  I had decided to wear a skirt that was fairly flowy and not too constricting that had about a million buttons that buttoned all the way up the front.  Anyway, as me and my roommates walked in, I was the first one to walk down the row that we were going to sit in.  But then my roommates decided they wanted to sit one row closer to the front.

But here's the thing. I had already committed myself to that row, you guys!  I had already taken at least 9 steps into that row and I wasn't about to just go 9 steps back only to have to go another 9 steps into the next row.  I shouldn't have to do all that extra work. I mean, I'm worth more than that.

So the obvious solution to this dilemma was to simply jump over that row of chairs.

(This is the part where I should say YOLO, right?)

I can tell you're concerned that I was in church and I was jumping over a pew.  But here's the thing: since it was a bigger meeting than normal, we were meeting in the Smith Fieldhouse (a huge gym), and they have slightly stadium seating, so it wasn't like I was going to jump up and over a pew or anything. This makes it so much better, right?

And so I hopped, as ladylike as ever, just like any normal person would do. Pop-pop-pop-pop! I heard that sound and at first I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  But then I looked down and to my horror I saw that the buttons from my skirt had popped off and were just now bouncing and  landing on the ground. Oh crap, was all I could think as I realized that my skirt that had once buttoned ALL the way up the front now had only TWO buttons remaining. TWO, you guys.  TWO BUTTONS LEFT.  Every other button was now taunting me from the ground, immediately reminding me that I had made a horrible choice by jumping over the chairs. An incredibly, unbelievably terrible choice because now I stood there, essentially flashing hundreds of other people.  Truly one of the more proud moments of my life.

As my roommates (Rachel included) laughed hysterically at my predicament (because let's be honest, it was pretty funny and I mean, at least those two buttons were still attached so I was at least mildly decent), I immediately sat down and tried to figure out what I should do.  I eventually figured that I should turn the skirt so that my newly-created, ever-so-scandalous slit would go up the side of my leg instead of straight up the front.  Then I collected bobby pins from all my roommates and attempted to use them to keep my skirt together, but mostly I just had a death grip on my skirt for the rest of the night.

Needless to say, I haven't done a whole lot of row-hopping since then.

super jazzed.

(danielle, me, allisoooooon)

I feel like since Kelsey wrote this post, I should really be better about blogging.

The worst part is, I was just thinking of a really good idea (relatively speaking) for a blog post, but then Danielle was wanting me to help her pick out fabric for some pillows she's going to make, and since i'm basically an interior designer, I was extremely helpful. By the way, have I ever told you about the interior designer that helped my mom buy new furniture for our house?  I just remember her wearing leopard print all the time and I'm pretty sure her name was Ginger.

Anyway, since I can't remember that cool thing I was going to blog about, I think I would like to dedicate this post to my main gurrrrl D to the Anielle (that looks weird).

1. Homegirl is allllllways making me dinner because she is one MILLION awesome.  Last night we had lasagna roll-ups.  You're like, I don't even know what that means and I am here to tell you that lasagna roll-ups means delicious.

2. She is totes always giving me rides to places. That might have something to do with her lifetime chauffeur contract that she has with me in which I require her to have a slicked back ponytail and a tuxedo on every time she chauffeurs me to important events.  I just made all that crap up and I don't even know why...except for the part about giving me rides.  I mean, my razor scooter is super effective and all, but...

3. She's funny.  I copy all her mannerisms because they kill me.  Have you ever seen the thumbs up lean?  The double peace sign "whatever"? The double peace sign cross over?  Totes all came from that girl.

4. Girl makes a meeeeeean batch of cookies.  Seriously, in the past week she has made some of the most delicious chocolate chip cookies and some faaaaabulous snickerdoodles.  I feel like she's trying to make me fat and that would normally make me pretty angry, but then I remember how good the cookies taste and I don't actually mind.

5. Every other Sunday she lets me use her phone to look up how much tithing I need to pay because apparently I have become increasingly irresponsible and can't look that up before I go to church and I still have a dumb phone so I can't do it for myself.  My life is so hard.

6. There are things that scare me.  For example, milk that is more than ten days old, sour cream, yogurt, cream cheese, and a variety of other dairy products.  Danielle is super one million cool because she will open the lids on these things and tell me if they've gone bad because if I were to look at it and it was bad, I would gag like nobody's business.  The truth is, I would gag even if it hadn't gone bad.  I don't sniff dairy products.  She also takes care of other food items that have gone bad in the fridge which is double one million nice because seriously, who likes doing that?  She's so cool.

7. She knows I love donuts.  So she buys me donuts sometimes, including ones that are the size of my head.  I don't know how you could be any cooler.

8. She buys creepy weird chairs from creepy weird D.I. salesmen.  That's probably going to always be one of my favorite stories ever.  Not a joke.  That and the lockout couple story.  Oh my gossssssh.

9. She breaks mirrors by throwing futons at them. Girl is wild.

10. She helping me destroy the english language by using the words totes, litz, perf, fer rill rill, nbd, JSin, ID even K, YD even KM, and like a million other abbrevs.

Sooooo, she's pretty neat. nbd, whatever.

i burned the roof of my mouth this morning.

(that title is real, but has nothing to do with the rest of this post. you are welcome.)

Today was a good day.  I woke up in the morning feelin' like P. Diddy. and went to our team's softball game (The Moose is Loose!)  It was cray cray rainy style the whole time and the bases were suuuuper slippery, but we still managed to win!  And I even scored a few times!  And I made one or two good plays!  It was pretty neat.

Then after the game, since it was nice and cool and we were mostly all wet, some of my lady friends and I decided to go hiking!  We headed down to Hobble Creek Canyon (though I was pretty sure we were going to stop at my professor's house since we got preeeetty dang close to it) and lucky for us, Kelsey knows where things are, so she guided us to a very nice trail, super easy style.  It was a pretty neat hike: not too hot, not too cold, not too muddy, not too uphilly. There was an appropriate amount of shade and two people brought cameras so that worked out real nice.

I must now alert you to the fact that many pictures are to follow.  Seriously, many.  I think there are like thirty.  But my friends are so neat and we do fun things so I vote that you just stick with it to the end and I guarantee you won't regret it.

 We had to do a balancing act on those logs whenever we had to cross the creek, which was probably about 8 million times.

Also, group pictures are SO in right now.

 Just giving the girls some posing tips.

Also, Alyssa captured some pretty neat pics of butterflies and stuff.  That girl is HIP.

 Throwin' that hat around backwards because we're classy.  And cool. But mostly classy.

 I swear Danielle is trying to do Dillon faces, but what do I know?  Also, is that me moonwalking on the log backwards as I cross the creek?  No.  It's just me pretending to moonwalk on the log backwards as I cross the creek.  Sorry to mislead you like that.

 Buddy pic with Kelsey. 

Alyssa and her new friend Butter the butterfly.  

More buddy pics. 

Danielle takes a pic through her legs.  Girl has got talent.

 Artsy poses all around.  Creepy faces by Danielle and Kelsey in that last one.

 Special.

Special.

Special.

Artsy by Alyssa.

Danielle workin' her gansta mooooves.

Candid, bay bay.

HIKING IS FUN.

See?  I told you that you wouldn't regret it.  You are welcome.

as of late.

1. Danielle was packing and I was wondering...did she just pack everything in her closet or had it been a while since she hung up her clothes??

2.  I was telling Rach about how sometimes when people say "Stay seated" I think that they're talking to me. She told me she has the same problem when people say "Racial".  So I told her she needn't worry because we don't "Rachel"ly discriminate around here.

3.  Homegirl is super neat and took me to get groceries last week because if she didn't I was going to have to ride my razor scooter to the grocery store (I mean, she didn't really need to...I could have scootered over and then carried all of those groceries back--5 bags to an arm at least--it would have been super easy style.  Anyway, after we got the groceries and she used her Smith's card on my purchase so she could get her gas points or something, we went to the gas station.  Apparently she's not very good at picking lucky pumps (didn't you know there are luck pumps?) and she ended up picking up the one that wouldn'y let her put in more than 7 cents of gas at a time.  It kept stopping and she would have to try again.  I could  barely convince her to get seven gallons.  "But my forearm is hurting!"  Love that girl.

4.  Ah...is this why the power went out?

5. Me and my homegirls Rach and Keech headed up to Bountiful for Kenn's baby shower last week.  We ended up picking Keech in Draper since she had just come back from St. Louis earlier that afternoon.  The plan was that we would drive up to Draper in Rach's car and then we would take Keech's parents' car the rest of the way.  Why is it that we needed to switch cars, you ask?  Was it a) Rachel's car shouldn't really travel that far all at once, b) she only had enough patience to put in seven gallons of gas, c) one of her headlights was out, d) not only was one of her headlights out, but she had also been pulled over the night before for having a headlight out and she didn't really want to get pulled over again, or e) all of the above.  That would be all of the above (although we prolls could have made it on that much gas, right?).  So we drove to Keisha's while it was still light and didn't need the headlights and then Keish drove the rest of the way.  

Also, favorite thing about Keisha driving?  You see, Keisha is used to driving her and Landon's car, which is a stick.  The car her parents own, on the other hand, is not a stick...and sometimes Keish forgets that and accidentally slams on the brakes.  Seriously the funniest thing.  She only did it twice though and only when she was just starting.  I promise she's a good driver, but it was seriously hilarious.

Another thing about that whole drive (wait, are you bored of this story yet?)  When we got back to Keisha's after the shower, we were talking to her dad and asking him if he could look at Rach's car to see if he could fix the light or something.  I told him that one time Danielle's light had been out so we went to the fix-it place (I'm sure it has a better name than that...) and the guy just twisted the light or some wires or something and the light went back on and she didn't need to replace her light!  How neat is that?!  So I was telling Papa Lake about this and being as vague as possible in describing how it was fixed and then I suggested he should just try that--twisting lights and wires and fixing in like magic!  He nodded and smiled at me, but we all know he was thinking, "Awesome. Who let the crazy lady into my house again?"

But, it turns out he's a pretty neat guy, so he went out and looked at it and twisted things and who would have thought?  The light went back on!  Now, it wasn't a permanent fix, but it lasted long enough to get us home, thank you very much.  I'm not as crazy as you all thought I was after all.

6. Back to Kenn's baby shower (I keep typing 'bridal shower'--I guess we're starting to get past that stage now--yikes!).  Seriously so fun and I love that girl to death.  I'm so excited for her little boy to come in a few months!  It was so fun to catch up with her--I love talking with that girl.  She is seriously sooo funny and sooo sweet and sooo adorable.  Also, I like how because of the angle you can't even tell she's preggo in this pic.  But she's seriously the cutest pregnant lady and I love it.  Oh, and also.  Ricky had her baby last week and I'm just dying to meet little Hali Ray.  Such the adorable small child!

7.  I'd say going to this place is better than getting a sno cone.

8.  I got to hang out with a bunch of my cousins and some of my aunts and uncles and my grandma yesterday and it was so fun.  My family is so cool and it is so fun to hang out with them.  Everyone reminded us of how my family was made up of the pickiest eaters in the world and we made sure to take pictures and post them on instagram so the cousins who weren't there would get super jealous (except then Nic posted a picture of him at the beach and told me he was just fine being away, but we all know he wanted to be there.  Then Robbie (and now I feel like a loser because I don't know if Robbie is spelled like that or with a "y" at the end...wow, I'm a lame cousin.)  Anyway, he said he wished he could be there, but he was at a music festival, so I'm not so sure he was that upset...haha) 

Also, my cousin's son is seriously the cutest kid.  Mo was telling us all about how much he loves Michael Jordan and how he was wearing Michael Jordan's North Carolina Jersey because "Don't you know? That's his college."  He told us how much he loves Space Jam and he would run around acting like Michael Jordan in the movie and he kept giving us pep talks like Michael did in the movie and he suggested that we come over to his house after dinner and watch Space Jam while he read us his Michael Jordan book.  "And maybe after that, we can watch 'His Airness'!".  He was even demonstrating how MJ dunks and how a very important part of the dunk is that you have your tongue out. "That's how he always does it."  Mo even told me how he's going to be Michael Jordan for Halloween and "maybe I'll paint my skin black." (Apparently someone at dad's work suggested that...haha)  Like I said, cutest kid.  Can't wait to hang out with him again.

So, this turned out to be a much longer post than I expected but dang it, I'm having a good time around here, aight?  In other news, Seven Peaks opens up this week so I think I'm going to put that Pass of all Passes that cost me $5.50 to good use.  Also, I'm getting a sno cone on Tuesday (and maybe even one tomorrow!) and there's nothing you can do to stop me.  It's been two and a half weeks since Hokulia has had any business from me and I can tell they're hurting because of it.

That's all.

girl, they show you no love!

Remember this? Or this?

Well, guess what?  A few weeks ago, it was time to do it again.  That's right folks, it was time for the third annual run to Sizzler for the 99 cent unlimited dessert bar.  Oh, yeah.

We gathered up as many of the Foxy Foxhood roommates that we could and headed off to Sizzler to partake in the gloriousness that is large amounts of dessert for a very small price.  As we waited in line, we reminisced on the previous times we had done this very same thing and how there was that one time when we seated ourselves (five people in a two person booth--no problem!) and the time we got unlimited toast and water ("Do you guys want some toast? I mean, it's free."  Oh yeah!) or the time we got in there about five minutes before the place closed (I actually felt pretty bad about that one) or the time they gave us free rolls with that cinnamon butter stuff! or the time none of us had any cash except for a few cents and so we had to leave a horrible tip (but don't hate us because we tried not to let anyone serve us or help us because we didn't want to have to tip but they kept trying to give us free stuff, dang it!)

Eventually, we reached the front of the line and Rachel asked who we thought was a kind waiter man if she could get the dessert bar to which he said, "No. You're not allowed to get that unless you buy dinner, too."

At this point, our brains exploded.  I mean, wait a minute.  We've been doing this for years.  We just get the unlimited dessert bar and nothing else.  It has never been a problem before! Why is it all of a sudden such an issue?!  Why can't we just have our dessert, dang it!  We're paying customers and we just want to pay for dessert!  Who do you think you are?!  Because I will tell you what you are!  You are a man that IS NOT NICE!

We panicked. We didn't know what to do.  This was not what we had been expecting.  The impatient manager dude moved on to the next customers in line.  As we glared at that man for ruining the evening, we decided that we would just have to go somewhere else.  To Applebee's?  Yes, we will be going to Applebee's, we said, and loud enough for him to hear, too!  In fact, as we walked away, Rachel put her finger (and nose) up in the air and said in her most snobby voice, "We will be taking our business elsewhere!"  (I was so proud of my little girl right there.)

So off to Applebee's we went.  And you know what?  Applebee's is a fine establishment and no one there judges us because our simple desire for non-nutritious foods and the large portions that we request.  Do you hear that, Sizzler?!  If you won't give us what we want, we'll find somewhere else that will.  We don't need you, that's for sure.

When we were at Applebee's, we captured the following picture.  There was some serious red eye that I couldn't figure out how to fix without giving everyone huge, gray eyes, so i just decided to go with the tender black and white look (sorry I didn't soften the edges or anything).  We asked the manager of the store if he would take the picture for us, and with the way we were sitting at the table, I was awkwardly off to the side and not near the group.  So I was like, "Uh, where do I go?" The other girls were joking and saying that I didn't need to be in the picture and the manager was like, "Girl, they show you no love!"  It was so funny, and it reminded me of how dang Sizzler was also not showing any love that night.

Oh, and by the way, I love these girls.  Even though Sizzler did not please me, that was all forgotten as soon as we were all together again.  Oh my gosh, it's just so fun when I'm with these cool cats.  So ridiculous and so perfect.  Seriously, love these girls.

"I think I'm goin' to the show!"

Last weekend,  Danielle and I went up to Park City with a couple of friends.  We had hoped to see famous people because the film festival was going on, but it turns out the only famous people we saw were ourselves (I mean, we were in a feature length film).


After we spent a quality amount of time looking for parking, we headed out to wander the streets.  We met up with Dillon's cousin for a couple of minutes as we awkwardly stood around his family's table in a crowded restaurant (I could tell the people who worked there loved us) and then we saw that directly across the street was the Family History Center!  How cool!  And what was even cooler was the fact that they showed free movies if we came and took a ride "in the past lane" (fairly confident that pun was intended).  

There was an adorable old lady who helped us start up the movie about families and Nauvoo.  As the first movie ended, me and Sean had the splendid opportunity to watch that adorable lady come RUNNING down the hall to bring us popcorn!  I mean, seriously, how cool is that?  She was running and she brought us popcorn! (which was actually pretty neat since we hadn't had lunch and Danielle and I had both conveniently forgotten our wallets...that's a true story.  I'm moderately embarrassed by that).

After the movie was over, we walked out of the room to find that there was a tree in the middle of the building that had some faces carved into it.  I think they wanted us to think that the faces were supposed to represent members of our family tree, but we knew it was really Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas.

We can't be fooled.

After that, we continued to wander the streets and my favorite place was this art exhibit that gave everyone free cider (I just remembered that I love free things) and we also met this random guy.  That guy came up to Sean and I and told us that "the lady told me to meet him here at 7" over and over and later told us that he was "thinkin' of going to the show!"  It was so weird.

Anyway, 'twas a successful outing completed with pizza (that Danielle and I didn't have to pay for because we forgot our wallets...seriously, I can't get over how classy we are) and a movie about a sunflower and a snow bunny...or something like that.  I wouldn't know, I fell asleep.

But who's surprised?

tip top thrift shop---the CLUB.

So, if any of you read Danielle's blog, then you might notice that my blog has become a sort of "delayed response" version of hers. But, guess what?!  This post is not different...sorry.

For one of Danielle's classes, the professor offered extra credit for going to Fremont Indian State Park.  Danielle is all about the extra things (especially food), so we gathered up a few friends we had laying around and went there a few weekends ago.  As it turns out, Fremont Indian State Park is over two hours away, and even longer if you take the scenic route and stop for lunch in Manti and stop at the "Tip Top Thrift Shop--The Club" and stop at DI.  But, you know what?  As Doctor Danielle would say, "It's all about the journey."

It really was a lot of fun and I think I learned a little bit about what the petroglyphs that the Fremont Indians made actually mean ("but we can't know for sure since they died hundreds of years ago"--direct quote from the information movie).  We went on this mini walk/hike where Doc and Allison and I quickly realized that we had selected the wrong type of footwear (plus, Doc scratched her booooots--"How would I scratch THOSE?" "You were climbing a rock!").  On the walk, we saw many pictographs or petroglyphs and also some more recent carvings done by some classy teenagers over the years.

Such the good times.

Since we had come all that way, we obvs had to have a photo shoot, courtesy of our ever-so-talented friend Dillean.  Take a look-see...

straight up edward and bella rot thur.

(super late for my angst class)

So much leaning!

Oh, and bonus feature...a picture from when we stopped at Mom's Cafe in Salina (population 2,394--way more than I thought).  Also, if you want something to eat when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you should know that (a) you will find literally NOTHING in Aurora, Utah (Dillean was pretty bummed about that) and (b) Mom's Cafe drowns all of its food it grease.  Anyway, this is me and Cameron at Mom's.  Mom kept giving us the stink eye, but we didn't like her food, so it worked.

pen rose eight tea juan.

Remember these cool cats?  These are my fabulous freshman roommates.

A few weeks ago, we were able to get all the freshman roommates together for a fabulous evening.  It took us so long to plan an evening when we could actually all be there, it was ridiculous.

We all gathered at Kelli and Rob's place (above the mortuary!).  All the husbands came and we just sat around and chatted for nearly 3 hours!  As we were leaving, I couldn't believe that it had been that long--time had flown by.  We literally just sat around and talked and talked and talked.  The husbands talked about all the funny things that the wives did and we talked about all the hilarious things that happened freshman year.  I'm pretty sure there was an entire half hour dedicated to all the ridiculous things Ricky had done (spill food coloring in the fridge, put a boiling pot of water on the kitchen floor, put the bathroom faucet on backwards, slept in her clothes, the list goes on and on).

Freshman year was such a fun year.  I swear, somehow we had time to hang out with each other all the time and school never really seemed to get in the way.  We were the best of friends (even if it did take me and Keech a good three months to be able to have a casual conversation with each other--what was up with that?).  I never stayed up as late and as often as I did that year.  I was having the time of my life.

It was so fun to be with them again...it was just like old times.  We could talk and talk for hours without even noticing that time had passed.  It was also a little strange to be back together again, this time most had husbands with them.  It's fun to see where we've all been over the past few years, and where we're headed. Rob and Kelli will be headed off to dental school next year, Ricky will be having a baby! in May, the rest of us will still be around for another year (what?  the five year plan?!  Who does that??)

I hope that we get together again before Rob and Kelli move, but it's still a little weird to think about how we'll all be moving our separate ways sooner than we'd like.  It won't be the same as it was or is, and even though that's alright and I know it will be fine, it's still a little sad to think about.  Sometimes I super don't want to move past this stage of my life where I can see these girls almost as often as I'd like.

As long as I can always stay in contact with them, I'll be alright (that means no moving to third world countries or taking up the Amish lifestyle, ya hear?)

Though I may never be "pregnant smashed" again or pranked with saran wrap on the toilet during a time of need! or attend another pet funeral (RIP Lucy and Maybe and Gupta and Gurkin), I'll still have those hilarious memories.  Plus, I can make my own delectables now and I still have one of the hair clips that I stole from Rick, so I can remember her every time I use it, right?

Love these girls.

"Oh, heeeey!"

please look at robert lindeman. holy cow, i'm dying.

Congratulations, we have one good picture of all of us...and even then, I'm squatting in the back. Why do photographers always make me squat?!??