Squash, Corn and Size 20 Tennis Shoes

So we have this little inside family joke. Nobody I've ever told it to outside of my family sees the hilarity in it. But humor me anyway. A few years ago while shopping at Macey's, my mom and siblings found a gigantic squash and decided to buy it for Jen. Just for kicks. And I mean--gigantic. Like, twenty or thirty pounds. It was hysterical. She was making things with squash for a looong time. The next year, we got her another giant squash. Don't worry, it was just as funny. Then...my mom found a gigantic plastic ear of corn, couldn't contain herself, and mailed it to Jen. So that's the history behind this blog post.

My mom works at Marshall's (which for you Utah people is a lot like TJ Maxx or Ross) and one day found a pair of size 20 tennis shoes. Twenty!! What a perfect addition to the large and useless things to give to Jen list. She bought them for five dollars, shipped them to Utah and told my brother and I to find some creative way to give them to Jen. We racked our brains and finally decided that we would just make them part of her Halloween costume and then drop it at her door. Are you ready for the final product?

Priceless. You probably have to know my sister to really appreciate this picture. But it was so fantastic. If you don't think it's funny, just focus on the shoes. They are amazingly huge. Apparently Shaq's are two sizes bigger than that. Fun fact for the day.

Another amazing news flash--I went to haunted house this weekend and enjoyed myself! I know, right? As a general rule, I despise haunted houses. But for some reason or another this weekend, whether it was the company, an increase in maturity level, the smart comments I attempted to make back at the scarers, or some other unknown factor, I actually had a good time. And I feel great about it.

And that is all. Have a great week!

Ramming Speed!

Happy October! Isn't that nuts? It's October. It's officially fall now and I love it. Fall has also brought some pretty stellar photo opportunities so that's good news for my readership. Haha, readership. I just got a kick out of using that word. Anyway, last weekend was conference and thanks to my parents I got to go! Megan and I went to the Saturday afternoon session. It was kind of fun to be in the conference center for the sustaining of all the church officers. There's definitely some power in raising your hand with 20,000 other people. So that was awesome.

Megan and I at the conference center.

This weekend was pretty great too. Brian got this idea a couple weeks ago to put together this gigantic group date. Apparently he had some coupon for a 20-passenger canoe rental. Twenty!! So he got a group of 10 guys together and they all asked a girl and...tada! A huge group date. Our whole apartment got asked so it was really fun to all go together. When we saw the canoe, my initial thought was that 2o people was probably a high estimate...It was definitely a tight squeeze. But it was probably one of the funnest dates I've ever been on. And it was hysterical. Just imagine a 30 foot canoe with 20 college students in it, all screaming, floating down the Provo river while trying not to (but failing miserably...) hit every tree branch and log in the river. Every time we passed another, smaller canoe, somebody in our canoe would yell, "ramming speed!" and we'd attempt to become organized enough to ram them. As I'm sure you can imagine--that never actually worked. It was so great. Hopefully this picture adequately expresses how ridiculous this whole experience was. But I definitely owe Brian a thank you for organizing it. Oh, and my date too for taking me I suppose... Thanks Mike! :) It seriously was a blast.

Marie, me and Jenny with our mandatory life jackets on. There is another one where all three of us are smiling but for some reason I thought this one with me looking confused/angry and Jenny with her goofy little smile was way better.

And here's the canoe. Isn't that hysterical? And that's only 18 people. There are two more in the front of the canoe.

And...that's about it for exciting times in Provo. Oh, and what would any semester be without some good old time wasting. We did all four of these DI purchased puzzles in about three days. A waste of time? Maybe. But hey, at least I was kind of using my brain. There are bigger wastes of tuition dollars, right?