Ten Years Ago...

So about ten years ago, I lived in Springboro, Ohio and met this girl named Molly. I thought she was a little odd but I liked her accent and our families hung out all the time so I figured…we could be friends. After a lot of years of friendship, our families took us away from each other. And now, over four years after our separation, we have been brought back together as roommates. I can’t speak for Molly, but being roommates has been way more fun than I think either of us could have ever imagined. Our parents’ fears of us functioning together as roommates are completely unfounded. :)

This picture is priceless. And basically describes our relationship. :)

I think the best part of being roommates (and I guess having Brian and Kirby in the ward too…) is reliving all of our past years of craziness. Turns out, we were really something. Our blasts from the past include movies we made, golf cart rides we made up, weeks of the tooty tot in the hyperization room after church… it’s great.

This is yet another exciting thing from our past. Molly and I used to sit in Molly's pool and take pictures like this for hours, one pretending to point and the other pretending to be completely shocked at what the other was pointing at. Fun, right? We thought so.

All we are, we are

Just one of the many deep statements transmitted through the music of the one and only Matt Nathanson. I know, most of you probably have no idea who he is. He’s incredible. That’s really all you need to know. A couple weeks ago, a friend tipped me off that he was coming to Salt Lake to perform for a mere $12! So of course, I alerted the forces and we went. Megan and I had to meet the group there considering we were literally running out of a racquetball tournament to get there on time, but luckily we made it in time to even see a little bit of the opening band, The Break and Repair Method. They were actually really good. We bought the CD.

The man himself.

Molly, falling in love with Matt Nathanson.

Matt and his band were pretty incredible. He was a really funny entertaining guy. I think Molly fell in love, and the rest of us just enjoyed seeing along to songs we know only too well. What fun.

Turns out, we had a pretty big group. Who knew?

Also, this concert was at The Avalon. It took a phone call with Mom for that name to really resonate with me. The Avalon is an old movie theater in downtown Salt Lake that my mom used to go to all the time as a kid. Even more exciting, my grandparents went on their first date there! My uncle is an artist and has recently taken to re-doing vintage signs and made one of the Avalon for my grandma and it is now hanging in her kitchen. Oddly enough, we went to visit her the day after the concert , so Brian and I took a picture of ourselves standing outside with the sign. Upon future comparison, we discovered that my uncle is a genius and replicated the sign almost exactly. Just a fun fact.

And maybe if I have time I’ll try to figure out how to get some of Matt Nathanson’s music to stream on my blog…

Harold B. Lee and his library

We spend so much time in the BYU library that we've given it many nicknames. The full name is the Harold B. Lee Library. Some simply call it harold or HBLL (or "hibble"). Anyway, we love it. Kind of. Althought I haven't frequented it quite as much this year as I did last fall, it is still somewhat of a nightly ritual for a group of us to meet in the fishbowl, backpacks and laptops in tow, to head off for some studying til midnight. It's funny that in Monticello at least, going to the library is somewhat of a social event. On the 4th floor, juvenile section, the ward congregates and usually that amounts to us all being much less productive then we really should be. But what can you do. At least we're trying, right?

This is Megan pointing threateningly and vowing that if the picture taking didn't stop she would take immediate action. Scary...

And just as a random side story...we totally caught Zach, Brian and Kirby taking personality quizzes online the other night. The best part was, this is really the position we found them in--all huddled together on one bed around Brian's computer. I love that Zack is so into it that he can't even look away from the screen for a picture. :) Oh man, I love you boys.

Sundays

Happy Sunday! Sundays are good days. I have church at 8:30 am. That is early. But believe it or not, Sundays are my day to sleep in! So, church is over at 11:30 and then the rest of the day is yours!! Of course, I never really get the time to do everything I plan to do even though I have all day. But probably my favorite aspect of Sundays is the excuse to do nothing and feel guilt-free. Generally I blog, journal, read, visit teach/get visit taught, eat food with friends and just relax. These are all things that I never have time for any other day of the week. So really, I love Sundays.

After ward prayer, I guess everyone is finally just kind of antsy from taking it easy all day and we usually get together and play games or something. A few weeks ago, we were in a particularly crazy mood and had a little bit of fun taking some pictures. We also played some rousing rounds (how about that alliteration??) of made-up word speed scrabble. The only rule is that the words have to make sense phonetically. It's a great time, especially for people like us that tend to get big thrills out of little things...

No, you're not crazy. Zyn, Zihls, gloicki and biobi are not real words. But legal--because you can pronounce them!

Somehow, speed scrabble evolved into looking at pictures off of my camera while plugged into a TV. And of course, you can't have a camera plugged into a TV without taking pictures while everyone can see themselves on the big screen. It's like seeing people wave at themselves at megatrons at basketball games, you know? Funny, right?

Basically, it was a really fun night with some of my favorite people in the whole world--notice I said some of my favorite people; no one get offended please... :)

Halloween 2k8

Halloween being on a Friday night really was pretty anticlimatic for me.  Since it was Friday, pretty much everyone and their dog decided that they were going to have a Halloween party.  I myself got invited to about 12 on facebook (not to say I'm popular, that's just facebook for ya) and do you know how many I went to?  Zero.  That's right.  It was a pretty fun night regardless.  Brian, Jen, Molly, Megan and I went out to Aunt Evie's and Uncle Gary's last night.  It was so fun.  They really go crazy with their Halloween decorations and when we got there at about eight, half the neighborhood was over there for the annual event.  This year I actually remembered to take my camera and got some pictures of the best parts.

Evie and her look-alike.  Jen, Brian and I thought Evie's friend was Evie for about 15 minutes.  It finally took Brian going up to her and asking timidly, "Evie?" for us to realize that it was indeed not Evie.  You see, our confusion was justified because usually Evie wears that costume.  This year, she decided to be the white witch.  Boy, it was confusing.  But they both looked good.

Giant eyeballs hanging from the front porch.  A must at any good halloween party.

Everybody's costumes: Megan is the female form of Waldo (aka-Wanda), Jen is obviously...a package of deliciousness, Brian is none other than Kramer from Seinfeld, Molly is a kangaroo (complete with a joey...) and last but not least, I put my New Zealand souvenirs to use and was an All Blacks rugby player.

It's a monster!!  No just kidding---it's Uncle Gary!

There was also a man dressed in a gorilla suit that scared the life out of us girls.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of him.  So sad.  The rest of the night, we basically made a party of not going to parties.  :)  We got shakes and played Mario Party.  Oh man, talk about flashbacks to elementary/junior high/high school.  It was fun.  Molly has also recently become obsessed with Alias, which is just fine with me.  So we stayed up until about 2 watching the first season.  Gotta love it.