April 26, 2008

I’m going to go ahead and assume that these same friends of mine that RAN in front of EVERY camera and shamelessly posed like the paparazzi-hounded celebrities that we are, are also the same friends that won’t mind if I post some of the photos on my mommy-blog. The fans, OUR fans, have spoken, ladies. It’s hard, sometimes, being in the spotlight like this, but we knew this was part of the deal when we agreed to be superstars over the weekend.

So without further adieu, I give you “Why Not Post Vegas Girls Weekend Photos On My Mommy-Blog?! SURE!”

Starting things off, remember we DROVE the ten hours down. And back. Which, was pretty fun. Driving down we have the anticipation and excitement of leaving and drive back we have our deliriousness and sheer exhaustion to keep us amused. Amused, as in, every little single thing is the funniest thing to happen in the history of funny things happening.

Take for example, Erica’s GPS system that she (thankfully) brought that would either A. Tell us the WRONG DIRECTIONS WITH OUT FAIL every single time or would B. simply remind us, TAUNT us really, of exactly how much farther we had to go. “Continue another 385 miles” “Continue another 375 miles” “Continue another 365 miles” like that. The latter you actually got used to believe it or not after an hour or so into the drive, but the giving of the wrong directions? I mean…. really? You want me to turn around, DO A U-TURN, right here, in the middle of the freeway on-ramp. You can see how this situation would never lose it’s charm. Especially since we knew we couldn’t turn it off and throw it out the window what with Erica and her blatant demands that we USE HER EXPENSIVE PRESENT FROM HER HUSBAND! IT WAS EXPENSIVE! WE’RE USING IT! And so we did. Which, really, brought the van total to eight loud-mouthed opinionated females instead of seven.

After driving through the night and crashing at our friend’s house for a couple hours, we awoke and rose, like angels, to scrap our way over to the pool, to cling onto SUNLIGHT! ACTUAL RAYS OF SUN! And silly us, we thought we’d be able to sleep there, at the pool, the outdoor DISCO DANCE PARTY that it is.

We got in our groove though. Actually, we are all suckers for a good mix, since believe it or not, Boise Idaho, not on the map for world famous DJ’s. The music was fun, the sun was magnificent, the water was amazing, it was perfection. This is a picture of my sister Audrey and I. True or False: Audrey’s Father was an Eskimo. OR True or False: I was tanning like skin cancer was going out of style. You be the judge.

This picture I love because it’s of me and Erica TOTALLY STARING at this group of people that were there. Jaws dropped, not blinking, not even TRYING not to stare. Because the group of people, they were all backup dancers and dancers from the show So You Think You Can Dance! MY SHOW! MINE! MY SHOW! They were all dancing there at the pool, like it was a private show just for me and my undying love for them. I LOVED it, they were completely showing off and shoving it in everyone’s faces that no one there would ever be as cool as them. It was awesome. And then my friends had to hold my arms back and push my face under the water a few times. It was for the best, to stop my vagrant attempts to go lick all their faces. Just to taste their dancer beads of sweat.

Who loves themself?!

Next up, we started getting ready, at like 3 o’clock in the afternoon, for our first night of hitting the town. You can imagine all 7 of us girls getting ready together, picking outfits, doing hair…. it was total mayhem. And several of us were victims of “sudden involuntary hairspray attacks”. But it worked. And we looked fabulous.

And so it began.

I love this picture because it so clearly displays the total culture shock we are always in on the first night. Michelle even has her hand on her cheek as if to say “Oh my” and Nichole is coping by laughing, sometimes that’s all you can do.

But don’t be fooled. We worked it out.

Yes. We worked it out. With a little help from our friend, our little friend, we like to call THE BEAT. I think in literally every picture we have, we are screaming the words to the songs, just like our kids do in the car. I’m sure the people in the booth next to ours were like “Cool. You know the words. Guess what. WE ALL DO. It’s JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE morons.” But we didn’t care. There will always be people trying to rain on your Justin Timberlake parade.

These photos were from LAX, but we moved the dance fest over to a place called Tryst, where our pal Floyd Mayweather stopped by. Hey Floyd!

We’re BFF’s.

That concluded our first night. SO MUCH FUN. Fast forward through a few more hours of sleep, another day at the pool, another schmorgasborg of curling irons and hairspray and VOILA! Second night!

Whoa Nelly. Welcome to The Bank. That was the name of this place and it was madness. But, a few elbows throws here and there and before you knew it, we had created our own dance floor domain. Upon which we danced with each other for, oh, I don’t know, SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT.

Dance dance dance dance dance

Sleep sleep, pool pool, hairspray hairspray in the eyes… well look at that it’s already the third and last night. Time flies when you can’t feel your toes anymore!

We amped up the glam and headed out to Jet, a really really really fun place. The music at this one was the best, throw in a little Prince, a little Madonna and you’ve got 7 happy girls.

You’ll notice the camera angle is slightly below us. This is because we were up on the ledge above our table. Just like our kids want to do at every restaurant we go to. We’re such hypocrites.

And there’s me, at one with the music. At one with Vegas.

And that’s a wrap. As usual, we are all still recuperating, our feet are still recuperating, even still, one week later. And we probably won’t be ready again for another 11 months. But dang we had a good time!

April 16, 2008

In T minus 2 hours, I am leaving. Leaving this life behind me. Never to be heard from again.

At least for the weekend.

I’m off on my annual girls trip to Vegas.

4 days of sleeping by the pool, talking with my girls and dancing our HEARTS OUT on the dance floor. Dancing for our LIIIIIIVES. Only those of you who obsess over shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Step It Up And Dance” will understand the need to, once a year, dance till your guts can’t dance anymore. It’s a once a year dance binge that former dancers, like myself, use to satisfy our un-quenchable desire to be SUPERSTARS! again, just for the weekend.

A weekend free of brown-streaked Ariel panties, stepping on toy cars and listening to Disney soundtracks on repeat until the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It’s awe-inspiring. Not that I won’t miss the little monster, I will, but I sure as heckfire won’t miss the responsibility. It’s funny and may not be true in all cases, but for me, going on these weekends, it makes me a better Mom and Wife. I come back and appreciate what a nice little life I’ve created for myself, how RADICAL my husband and kid are and how relieved I am to not be single. Because the MEAT MARKET that it is down there? Gag me with a spoon.

This trip will be especially amazing because there are SEVEN of us going this time, all of us having known each other since 6th grade, all of us happily married with kids and all of ready to party it up with our dance party posse. And all of us piling into the Blue Steel for the 10 hour trek down there. One that will, no doubt, have not ONE MILLISECOND of quiet. And those conversations, their what I remember most, what I love the most and what makes me feel like the SUPERSTAR! that I am. When not cleaning poo streaks off Ariel panties.

Peace out! See you next week! Get lots of referrals while I’m gone!

January 18, 2008

Well, Disgusting couple had their baby. A beautiful, perfect baby boy. I couldn’t be more happy for them.

As my girlfriends and I sat in the waiting room waiting for Abby to push her kid out, (which, insanely, only took 25 minutes to do) we made each other laugh, reminisced on how long we’ve all been friends, how life changes so fast and how Abby was TOTALLY PUSHING A BABY OUT HER VAJAYJAY RIGHT THEN.

It was a memorable moment, sitting there with best friends in a hospital waiting room while our sweet Abby became a Mom. And in that moment I realized that if I was a semi-finalist in the Miss America pageant and Mario Lopez asked me the on-stage question of “what is my wish for the world”, my answer would be not that every person have a puppy, it would be that every person have friends like mine, to have the experience of having super amazing friends like mine. And I would TOTALLY take the crown with that answer.

I know this is uncharacteristically cheesy of me, but I really cannot imagine a life without friends. Good friends, that is, because it seems everyone has known a few bad ones at one time in their lives. Or maybe you’re the baddy and in that case, you need to watch yourself some Steel Magnolias a few times. I can say with pride that I have no baddy friends, only supportive, uplifting, honest and stubborn friends. I really appreciate that I have them and even more so now because I am learning that this whole having good friends thing? Not so common actually.

I admit that I’m just now noticing this trend. Most people do not actually make friends in the 6th grade and then keep those same friends for 15 years as we have done in our little group of friends. And I suppose I have always taken that a bit for granted.

I don’t remember all that much from middle school, truthfully. I remember I was new, a little nerdy and desperately eager for people to like me. I don’t know when it officially started happening but before I knew it, I was making people laugh. All different kinds of people not just the usual Mormon kid crowd that I was accustomed to. I was amazed. I wasn’t intimidated by the cool kids. I could make the cool kids laugh.

Before I knew it, I was hanging out with the VERY kids that were cool that I have just spoken of. First at school, then magically and gradually, places outside of school. And eventually I was at their houses and eating their food. While still making them laugh. I was like a National Geographic Field-Study Journalist. I watched, I listened, I took notes, I assimilated myself among their species. And the cool kids? They TOTALLY pick bugs off each other’s backs and eat them like Gorillas do.

I remember one day, Erica called me. She was basically Grand Master of the Cool Kids so I was pretty stoked. I’m not sure if all the other girls were busy or if their pagers were off or what, but she asked ME (of all people) if I’d come over and talk. She was going through a God-awful, middle school break up and was wrought with agony as the end of her life was nigh. She, amazingly and courageously pulled through that devastating night. And I left feeling like I had just made a friend. She let me see her real side, her raw side. Her guts.

Soon after, the other girls spilled their guts too. There were guts all over the place. I saw Soandso’s NEAR MURDER at the hands of her twin sister. Soandso had a seven member family living in a 2 bedroom home. Soandso had Dad issues. Soandso had body image issues. The guts were bloated and stinky and twisted and we shared them with each other. At some point during the gut-spilling, I stopped seeing them as the cool kids. They were my friends, real live real friends.

Those friends and I stayed friends throughout high school. Throughout the boyfriend drama, the gossiping, the parties, the bridge-jumping and the Western Idaho Fair fights (lest you forgot I grew up in Boise Idaho). I know that talking about high school for some people is like inflicting a mass trauma head wound because for some people, it was THAT BAD, but (and I know this may make some of you hurl) for me high school was a breeze. And I know it was because I had these friends.

After high school, I did something I still regret. I wrote off the friends. I left for a long time and it looked as though they would never hear from me again. Truthfully, that was my intention. Not that they did anything to deserve this treatment. What happened was, I was yo-yo-ing. First, I tried my hand at the big bad city of Los Angeles and got my butt kicked. Then I got scared and ran the OPPOSITE direction back into a Mormon church. And feeling safe again, I decided I would stay there. So I wrote off anyone who wasn’t Mormon and that included pretty much my whole entire group of friends. This embarrassing chapter lasted 2 years. I missed out on a LOT during those crucial college years, let me tell you.

After about a year of marriage I casually mentioned to Mike that I wanted my friends back. The whole marriage thing was fun, but it didn’t replace my need for my girlfriends in my life.

Obviously, they took me back. This would be some bummer of a story if they didn’t, I would guess. And ever since we have lived happily ever after. But the After now includes Husbands, kids, jobs and mortgages instead of matching necklaces and tape mixes. Although I still think I have those somewhere.

So, Mario Lopez, my wish for the world is that everyone have those kinds of friends. The ones that share guts with you, give you second chances, make you laugh and most of all, tell you when you are acting like a complete schmo. (applause here)

THEN:

NOW:

August 27, 2007

We had a great time in Laguna Beach. This first pic is from our meeting with my blog buddy Julie. This is me about to take a bite out of Julie’s Ethiopian daughter, Marlie. Can you blame me? Marlie is delicious, as you can see.

Julie is also delicious. I was resisting the urge to make a bouquet out of her purty purty hair. And make her put lotion on her skin so I could make an outfit later with it.

I’m trying to convince Julie and Marshall to leave their beautiful and comfortable life in sunny California and come live by me in Boise Idaho. So far, I think I have them about 3% convinced.

Laguna Beach. What can I say? It’s heaven. The people watching was superb. There were these two super cute girls there, college softball players, throwing a football back and forth to each other….. okay, even I wanted to make out with them. They were running up and down the beach in bikinis, throwing these amazingly arched spiral passes. EVERY male within a 5 mile radius was AWE STRUCK. And even though I wanted to be disgusted and pretend that their little game of girly-catchball didn’t interest me, I had to give them their glory. I could not divert my eyes. Neither could Erica, in fact, she took her camera out to take a picture of the unbelievable display of EVERY MAN’S FANTASY BEING PLAYED OUT BEFORE OUR EYES but we quickly decided that MIGHT not come across right. That’s creepy to take pictures of strangers at the beach, don’t do that. Plus, they could have crushed us like a little bug. Like a little bug, with their football.

The iconic image from Splash Mountain. Don’t think for one second that we spent $107 on this picture either, my quick thinking and magical friend Erica WHIPPED out her camera and snapped this sucker while it was still on the TV screen at the end of the ride. HA! Take THAT Disney! You think you know us, but we’re still rebels! We show no consideration for the law. None.

May 15, 2007

First and foremost, Congratulations are in order for the Disgustingest Couple of the Year. Disgusting Couple is having a BABY!!

All of us here at the Battle Station would like to congratulate Disgusting Couple. May your disgustingly attractive union produce a disgustingly beautiful and healthy child. Here’s hoping that you guys can stop being so disgustingly in love at all of our social occasions. With your new disgustingly beautiful baby in the mix, the disgustingness permeating from your general direction might just double the need for anti-bacterial soap throughout the world, to help rid us of the disgustingness that YOU TWO created.

Congratulations to James and Abby. Even though you guys becoming parents runs us all the risk of being around EVEN MORE disgusting love displays between the two of you, I think we are all willing to take that risk. You guys are going to be amazing parents.

And yet, another congratulations are in order! Congratulations to Lisa!

Lisa is the proud owner of two new lovely mammaries. Hello ladies! And welcome to this big beautiful world. I know Lisa is happy to have you here, and so is her husband Phil on that note. I know both of you are getting a lot of attention right now, but remember, she is MY friend. Don’t think you two can just implant yourselves here and take over. You can never love her like her friends love her.

 Be careful Lisa, those two are up to something.

 And I would like to publicly express my thoughts on boob jobs. I used to be against them. I personally don’t desire one. But what I AM for, is a woman’s perogative. A woman’s choice, to make her own decisions without other women attacking her, that’s what I’m for. So, whether you are pro-b**b job or not, know that womens’ rights INCLUDE a woman’s right to get new bre*stesis. So, Go Lisa! I know this was something you had saved for and wanted for a long time. Try not to let your kid dangle from these ones as much, it may or may not help with the longevity. just a passing thought.

And last but not least, as promised, a picture of my insanely beautiful Mom:

 I recieved a couple emails wanting to know if the Mother’s Day brunch turned out okay and if anyone ended up bleeding out from the eyes or general head area. The answer is that yes, the brunch turned out fabulous (happy now Audrey?). Audrey surprised us all by showing up coherent AND with all the correct ingredients to the fruit salad. And Burke, he brought pillsbury cinnamon rolls and he EVEN applied the frosting by HIMSELF (this is HUGE for a 16 year old).

 For a couple minutes while we were all eating at my breakfast table, I looked around and thought, what a nice family get together on Mother’s Day. Jeez. I just love you guys. I have the best sister and brother and Mom that a girl could ask for.

 And then Burke ran upstairs and threw up in our toilet. And my Mom had to go administer Burke Revival.

We were all sitting there when we heard this strange moan coming from upstairs, a moan resembling a slowly dying cow going through a really horrible death, calling “MoooooooooooooMMM”  “I just threw uuuuuuuuuupppppp”  “Please come heeeeeeeeeerrreeeee”…

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. She literally hadn’t even finished half her Quiche.

May 8, 2007

That crazy woman over at Musings of a Housewife tagged me with this meme. And whatever, at some point it had to start, that I would have join the fold of meme followers and play along. So, reluctantly, here it goes.

A meme. My first one. The rules of this meme are that you list 7 random and quirky things about yourself that others may not know and you put them on your blog in hopes that others will find them amusing or interesting. Okay fine.

1. I drink a lot of milk. really, it’s a lot. Probably a gallon every other day. It does a body good, right? Some find it revolting, many find it intriguing, I find it delicious.

2. Until recently (like within the last 2 years) I refused to wear my hair up because I thought I had big ears. This fear was validated when in 10th grade, my friend Curt told me I had big ears. Now, in my adult maturity and self-love, I wear my hair up due to a combination of not thinking my ears are big anymore and not giving a rats if my ears are big anymore.

(Man, I have been in a tattle-tell mood lately what with outing my friends Erica and Curt for their SLASHING and SPITEFUL comments. This is funny to me because I seriously hadn’t thought of these moments for YEARS and then they came spewing out of me while I was writing. I couldn’t stop it. I’m healing, you guys, I am healing here by outing you. Just kidding. I promise I remember all the nice crap you have done for me too, I just haven’t written about those things yet… and the nice things aren’t as funny)

3. I can’t have my blinds open, like, one MINUTE past nightfall. Creepy Creepenstein will be looking in my house, I can feel it. Especially now that my Blog is so incredibly famous and well known, you just can’t be too careful, you feel me?

4. I have to put lotion on my feet every night before putting them under the covers. Without fail, every night. Because scratchy feet on soft sheets is the most disgusting, horrible, loathsome, pitiful sensation in the whole wide world, that why. It gives me chills just thinking about it. So, lotion equals lifesaver. Plus every night my husband gets to creepily say “puts the lotion on the skin….” and that’s fun.

5. I’m skipping 5.

6. I use a disposable razor for about 6 months before disposing of it. I use my disposable contacts for about 4 months before disposing of them. My husband and I share the same toothbrush. None of these stem from money saving motives. I’m just not good with change and I’m somewhat lazy.

7. I’ll elaborate on the toothbrush thing. After my friend Kellie asked if it was a matter of money and that if it was, she would BUY US another toothbrush, I started exploring our toothbrush techniques in more depth. Why do we share a toothbrush? Why don’t we buy another one whenever we are at the store? Why does this not bother either of us? Why do our friends judge us with such disdain at knowing this?

And…… I have nothing. I think it stems from neither of us wanting to give up our rights to the better toothbrush. And we have TRIED getting two NEW toothbrushes at the same time so that there wouldn’t be a better toothbrush, but it didn’t work. I don’t know why we do it. I have to ask myself, would I want this for our children?

And the answer is yes. Yes, because we share our toothbrush in love. And I hope our children can have that same kind of salivate-sharing relationship that we have.

Don’t be jealous people. You too, can start sharing a toothbrush.

I know I’m supposed to now tag 7 other people to play the game, but I’m not going to, I’m rebellious like that. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged.

May 6, 2007

Because nothing says cute like a pregnant 20 year old in a Catholic school girl dress.

To make matters worse, I came equipped with a matching stroller set.

Just look at me. LOOK AT ME.

To all the people in my life that let me wear this outfit, and you know who you are, namely my husband and my girlfriends, I say shame on you.

This was not my fault, pregnancy hormones were affecting my judgement. This lies on your shoulders.

These were pretty much the only pregnancy photos I took. I didn’t take any naked, artsy, covering-my-boobs-with-my-arm shots or any growth chart shots. I kind of wish I had, but, instead, I bought I Catholic school girl dress and proceeded to wear it outside of my house.

I gained over 60 pounds during my pregnancy. Even still, I thought I looked pretty good. I felt pretty good, I enjoyed confusing people in public with my Catholic school girl dress, my pregnant stomach and my youth.

But then one night at a get-together, my friends and I were talking about my pregnancy and my body changes which included such details about the designs that my stretch marks were making and my different kinds of bowel movements, the general enlargements of my boobs and how we could play connect-the-dots with all my new moles that had emerged at the time. Then, they were telling me how great I looked and how you could hardly tell I was pregnant from the back.

Then I was all, “Really?”

And they were all, “Seriously.”

And then Erica was all, “Ya, the ONLY place I can tell you have gained weight is in your face.”

And I have never forgiven her for that.

March 7, 2007

Alright ya’ll. We got word that our Birthmom wants to talk with us tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed! Here’s hoping it will happen this time…..

In other news, we met our Refugee family the other night. Mike was mortified because I started rummaging through their bills and refrigerator within 10 minutes of meeting them (as you get to know me, you will find that this is normal behavior). Our cute refugee couple was standing there taking mental notes thinking this is probably normal when guests in America come over and Mike was all “Don’t you think you are being a little too FORWARD?” (translation: you are freaking them out, stop it) But, as usual, my craziness paid off and we discovered that their refrigerator was appalling and their bills were a mess. Let me go into some detail:

Their refrigerator contained 5 gallons of milk, a 6 month supply of eggs in bulk containers, 3 bowls of dried out sardines and 4 jars of peanut butter. That’s it. I motioned Mike over and looked at him with a face that was all “Am I still being too forward? Would you rather we deal with this later AFTER they eat 20 more meals of sardines and peanut butter?” Mike starts asking them if they have any bread. This takes 20 minutes. They don’t have any bread. We remove all the peanut butter from the fridge and make mental notes to take them grocery shopping and teach them about saran wrap.

Moving on.

Their bills.

We found a Geico advertisement mailing that you could tell had been opened and re-opened about 100 times. It had been carefully creased and set in a special spot of “we can’t read English and don’t know what to do with this” paperwork. We take the envelope, and because we know they can’t drive and don’t have a car, we explain that it is garbage and go to throw it away. They are very hesitant about us discarding the important looking papers with a gecko on them. They are nodding and nodding thinking “gecko paperwork is very bad”. We discard more ads they have been holding on to and make mental notes to go over their budget and make sure they know how to pay bills.

Overall, we really really love our Fugees. They are incredibly sweet, hard working and driven. We asked if they still had family in Africa and they made hand gestures and sounds that resembled machine guns while shaking their heads no. We were incredibly humbled.

We have a lot of work to do with them and I hope to have more interesting stories/perspectives to share as we teach them about America. Like the fact that girls where pink and boys where blue in America. I know it is such a minute and minuscule thought to be concerned about but their 2 year old son wears a pink coat. I know I should be more concerned about their food, bills and English but I can’t stop thinking about that stupid pink coat. They are thinking “our son has a warm coat” and I am thinking “your son needs a BLUE coat” - how stupid is that? But I am still going to get him a blue coat though.

One of my best friends Erica is going to help me translate. She speaks French. This is Erica:

Erica is fabulous. She drives a fabulous car, wearing fabulous clothes with her fabulous hair and nails. She has a fabulous job and encourages all of us girls to free our inner fabulousness. She is fabulously fun. But don’t be fooled. All the fabulousness flies out the door when she gets down in the trenches and mud and goes to battle to fiercely protect and support her friends. More on that some other time. Thanks to Erica for dropping everything to help me with my Fugees.