Date Night at the Thorns

Wow! Brother and Sister Thorn are the coolest people ever! They also have a SUPER fun house complete with great views, great artwork, great architecture AND a great indoor racquetball court.
Brooke and Liz bought this fun night-with-the-Thorns at our Ward service auction a few weeks ago, and Brook asked me to come with her.

Don't worry we leg wrestled and I definitely won. Hahaha!

Despite Brook trying to intimidate me.

Liz Brought Sam.

Nice Sam. Nice!

And Kaitlyn (sp??) brought Jonathon.

I wish I would've taken more pictures. Sister Thorn made a yummy dinner for us, then we headed over to the racquetball court and played 5 or 6 games of Volleyball. Then it was back inside for a game of pool.

Poor Brother Thorn.

He tried so hard to set Sister Thorn up perfectly for this behind the back shot...but something went wrong and the cue ball only went a few inches.
We all had a good laugh over that one.

We ended the night with homemade pie and card games. So fun! Even though I lost horribly. Oh well. I think I'm definitely going to invite myself over again sometime. Everyone had a great time!

New Calling

So what's your record of how many callings you've held in one month??? In the last 30 days of my life I've had THREE!! I went from being a member of the Spiritual and Temporal Welfare Committee (Try saying that three times fast!) to being the Ward Financial Clerk to being THE Ward Clerk (who is over the financial and membership..... and one more clerk that I can't remember right now....) Yikes! Not sure why they felt like they had to make all these crazy changes right when tons of reports and whatnot are due. I'm totally lost with all of it. All I can do is my best and when something slips through the cracks I just shrug my shoulders and say, "It's not my fault! I have no idea what I'm doing!" Hahaha. Here's to the next few months of me learning how the church functions. Wish me luck!

Mountain biking in St. George

Gotta love that red rock!

So I went Mountain Biking in St. George last Saturday. We must be crazy! We got up and left by 6:30 AM drove down, rode two trails and then headed for home. Hahaha! I was a little worried on the drive down because my little temperature gauge wasn't going a blip over 19 degrees. That's COLD! It remained that cold right up until we started biking. Which was probably around 10:30 or 11. But then the sun broke through the clouds and it turned into a gorgeous day! We couldn't have asked for a better day! We had a much smaller group this year compared to last year. Sometimes I feel like smaller groups are better when mountain biking. The more people you have the wider they vary in skill level and the more likely you are to have problems with bikes. There were just 5 of us this time. The guy who rode in my car pretty much slept the whole way there and the whole way back. We did Gooseberry Mesa again. There are actually a lot of trails all over it, we did the South Rim. Super pretty!

This is the group. Left to Right: Koda, me, Kate, Liz and Ian

By the time we finished that we barely had enough time to do the other trail. In hindsight we probably shouldn't have done it. However I'm glad we did! It's called the JEM trail - after the initials of the three guys who have blazed and maintained most of the biking trails in the area. Props to them! It was SUPER FUN! Ian and I shuttled the cars down to the bottom while Koda, Kate and Liz started down the trail. By the time Ian and I got back to the top the sun was down, it was getting dark and it was COLD! So, naturally, off we went! The first 1/2 mile of the trail was pretty much going down the face of a cliff, but after that it was relatively flat with small rises and dips here and there. We were FLYING! It was a super fun trail! And once we got going it wasn't all that cold. Lucky for us the dirt on the trail was a little lighter than the surrounding dirt so we were able to see where we were going fairly well. We caught up to the other three just 100 feet before the end of the trail. By then it was pretty much pitch black and they were walking thier bikes. I'd like to go back and do that one a few more times in the daylight. We had to slow down quite a bit once it really got dark.
The drive home was uneventful. We drove through 3 separate snow storms though! I thought they were SO beautiful but Koda was sure we were going to die. Hahaha! He was kind of a weirdy. ;-) One of the storms we drove through was incredible. The snow was so fine it literally looked like we were driving through glitter. Everything was sparkling! Too bad my camera was in the trunk. I totally would've taken a few pictures of it.
It was a fun trip - and probably the last mountain biking I'll do until spring. Bummer. But at least it's finally starting to look like winter around here! BRING ON THE SKI SEASON!

Shoot!

It's been a month and I haven't posted anything! I shouldn't let that happen.
It's been a fun month though....

Thanksgiving was.....nice. Hahaha.
The drive up was an adventure. Poor Jason threw up - what? Seven times? Maybe even more??? The poor guy! I'm sure he just thought he was dying. His little whimper was just so pitiful. My heart hurt a little bit for him. Brit, Brent and I had a pretty good system going by the end of the drive though. We got pretty good at catching him before he managed to vomit all over the world. Hahaha! I'm chuckling now just thinking about it. Brittany thinks it was food poisoning or something. Who knows. At least he didn't pass it on to the rest of us! He was great for the rest of the week AND for the drive home. Except for the part when he fell down the last few steps while going down the stairs. Don't worry, it was only like 3 or 4 steps. It scared him more than hurt him. He actually picked up on how to navigate the stairs pretty quick! Smart little guy!
As for the rest of the week....I wish I could say I enjoyed it more but I spent THE ENTIRE TIME down in the basement buried in my Organic Chemistry book and notes. That class is going to be the death of me. Despite studying ALL break long I still did horrible on my test. :-( So stinking frustrating. I feel like I just managed to study all the wrong things. However, the final is coming up and I think (hope) that is going to be my redemption. I feel like I've really internalized everything. We'll see how it goes. It's not until Thursday.
Thanksgiving dinner was great! I really love how Deb organizes and plans everything. There was just enough food - which I've decided is perfect. That way, you eat and are satisfied and then the food is gone instead of being there all afternoon long just waiting for you to eat more and more and more and more.... Enough said.
I was pretty sad we didn't get to go up and cut down a Christmas Tree together this year. That is one of my very favorite traditions and I don't want to let it go! I guess they went up and got one after Brittany, Brent and I left for Provo. Oh well.... sort of.


BYU won the game vs. Utah! Hooray! That totally made the drive home a day early worth it. I had never been to the BYU vs. Utah game - and this is most likely my last chance because next year it'll be in Salt Lake and then I graduate! I'm glad I went to it and I'm even more glad I we won! On the way in to Provo we stopped in West Point to pick up my friend Liz. I ended up going to the game with her because no one from my group was going to be there. It was fun! She has non-rotating seats. Meaning they've been at the same spot all season long. They've become acquainted with the people that sit around them and it really made for a fun time.
When Liz and I headed off on our bikes to the game it was a pleasant 50 degrees outside so we were just wearing pullover hoodies. BIG MISTAKE! That sun went down and it got COLD! And then we had to ride our bikes home! My hands were red and swollen and aching by the time we got home. Hahaha. Oh well. It was a fun game anyway!

Iron Chef Date Night

This is seriously the best date idea I have ever had!
I've done it twice before; previous secret ingredients were cranberries and walnuts... or was it pecans??? One of the two anyway. Saturday nights ingredient was...
...as chosen by my former roommate Jared Brady! After we found out what we all had to include in our dish we hopped on our computers to find a recipe to use. Then we gathered what we could from our respective apartments and went to the grocery store for the rest. Once we got back all of us went crazy getting everything ready. It's a good thing my kitchen is a pretty big room, however, there is basically NO counter space. We were all on top of each other. Hahaha! It was fun!

I was with Liese Rodger from my ward
We were in charge of the main dish so both of us were slightly terrified when we heard what the secret ingredient was. We found this super yummy recipe from Rachel Ray: Coconut-Crusted Shrimp with Peanut Butter / Curry Sauce. OH MY HEAVENS it was so good! And it was pretty easy to make too. We made did one pot of shrimp and one pot of chicken bits. They were totally different from each other but both were super good! We served it over rice.

Ben was with Kaitlin Westergauard - also from the ward.
They were in charge of the appetizer so they did the timeless classics of Muddy Buddies as well as Celery Sticks & Apple Slices with Peanut Butter.

And I set my little sister Kristin up with Nathan Bunch who is also in our ward. He just happens to be BYU's starting pitcher! He seriously is going Pro someday! Fun guy though!
The were in charge of the dessert. They made Layered Peanut Butter Dessert. It was SO good! Here's a link to the recipe.

I gotta say, it was some GOOD FOOD.

We're So funny! Hahaha!

After eating we just sat and talked on the couch telling stories and stuff for a while. It was fun and nice to relax after frantically trying to get everything ready!

Peace out ya little piecer!

Ok, maybe I shouldn't call that bike a little piecer. It did last for a really long time and was pretty faithful until the end. However, after two major breakages in the frame I decided it was time to go. So on Saturday during the BYU game I stripped off all the useful components and tried to make it as flat as possible so no one would really notice it in the dumpster. Hahaha!
If you look closely you can see the two break points. 1) The little white area right by the yellow rear shock is where I had the first one welded back together. And 2) you can see a little bit of silver right by that red reflector on the seat post. It's between those two blue parts. Yeah, those two blue parts are supposed to be one part. Rats.
See ya!

PS - I LOVE SNOW! I can't WAIT to go skiing again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(times infinity!)

I'm a phelbotomist!

So a friend found this add on Craigslist about a phlebotomy training program. It was $500-700 cheaper than any other program I looked at over the summer. I was a bit skeptical at first but it turns out it was legit. SWEET!
I really liked it! The instructor was great. He'll even let us come to any of his future classes to practice doing blood draws. Now if I can only get a job! Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday To ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a very relaxing and low key birthday this year. Never done that before but I kinda liked it! I slept in, skipped my one class and didn't do any homework at all! It was great!

On the day before my birthday Kimberlee and I went out to breakfast at:
We did this last year too! Our birthdays are only 4 days apart so we've always been pretty close. Too bad she's graduating in April - next year who knows where she'll be! Thanks Kimberlee!

Ok, back to my real birthday. That evening Lisa & Max, Brittany, Brent & Jason and I all went out to eat at this new restaurant in town
It was SOOOO good! And great prices too! I will definitely be going back! My favorite was the raspberry dessert pizza! Heaven! Kristin was MIA because she had lacrosse AND a flag football game AND.... you get the idea. She's crazy!

After dinner with the fam I headed home where my good friend Liz was hosting a waffle party. She's the chair of our ward's friendship council so there were lots of people there. Liz even made a Cake for Tae and I - her birthday was on the 9th. we had to improvise a bit because we didn't have any candles. So we used the pumpkin candles Brad bought a few weeks ago. Perf!
I love how Lee looks like a serious creeper in the background there. Hahaha!

It was a great day!

Apparently I talk in my sleep!

The other night I must have been really chattering it up because I managed to wake my roommate up! He somehow had the presence of mind to grab his cell phone and type down what I said;
"Why do you THINK I ate that sparrow in my living room!? I ate the rest of it!"
Said in kind of an impatient / why-are-you-asking-me-this-you-should-already-know-the-answer tone.
I guess it made him laugh out loud. What in the heck do I dream about anyway? Sheesh.

Bon Fire Date

After Jason's b-day party my roommates and I took dates out to The Clifton's house in Mapleton to have a bon fire. It was great! The zip line was a hit, but I forgot to get a few pictures of everyone on it!

I was with Liz

Brad was with Tiffany - our FHE mom from last year

Ben was with Kellie Pursee

and Spencer was with Erica

I love watching fire! It's so mezmerizing!

And so are the coals!

After the fire died down we went inside where Aunt Joice had hot water all ready for us to make hot chocolate. She is SUCH a great host! It was a super fun night!

The Little Monster is ONE!!!!!

Brittany and Brent threw a B-day part for Jason yesterday. It was super fun! We had baked potatoes and then watched him open his presents:
He enjoyed them once Brittany pulled the wrapping paper off for him. I don't think he understood at all. Mostly he just liked throwing the cards and stuff on the floor.

So in my family we have this tradition.... On all of our 1st Birthdays mom took all our clothes off and let us have at the cake. WE LOVED IT!! We all made a huge mess of the cake, entertained all the older people and all that good stuff. Well, poor Jason... he did NOT so much love it. In fact I think he hated it! I guess the poor guy just doesn't like to have stuff on his hands. Here he is freaking out, trying to run away from the cake and in the process get frosting all over Brittany:
Hahaha! So they put him into his high-chair - more familiar environment and all that - and gave him a small piece. Once he tasted the cake he REALLY liked it and got all happy. Then he'd realize he had frosting on his hands and he'd have a little bit of a melt down. Then he'd manage to put more cake in his mouth - followed by another mini melt down. We were all laughing SO hard!
What a cutie! He sure is fun!

MOAB - Oct 17th 2009

So there's this crazy awesome guy (Ian Beaty) in my previous ward who is probably the best networker I have ever met. He knows just about everyone at BYU and LOVES to organize mountain biking trips. We had 17 people all together - most of us didn't even know each other! There was randomly a guy from Eagle there! Josh Gilman - who just graduated and knows my little sister Danielle.
ANYWAY.... We all met at like 6:00 AM to load up. Ian of course was up all night getting bikes ready for everyone else and then BUILDING his own bike! He got the frame the day before! He's crazy!
Amazingly enough we managed to get on the road by 7, but we had to meat Andy Kerlin in Spanish Fork Canyon. He joined us after camping up there with friends. So really we were REALLY on the road by like 8:00. I had Tyler Newton, Andy and Majid Abbasi (from Iraq!!!!) in my car with me. Majid immediately conked out pretty good on the way there. Come to think of it... everyone did for a while! But we got a really good picture of Majid:

We rolled into Moab sometime around 11:00 and stopped at a bike shop to get a few last parts for Ian's new bike. (I can't believe he put a whole bike together in one night!)
The first trail of the day was Slick Rock. Somehow I managed to get put into the advanced group of riders! It was nice of them to let me come with them. :-) I hope I didn't slow them down too much. About 1/2 mile into the ride Tyler's deruailler snapped off. Total bummer, but at least we weren't super far away from the car. He took my keys and headed back to town to get it fixed while the rest of us rode the trail. About a mile late Josh's chain broke, but one of the bikers passing by had a tool and we got it fixed. After that it was pretty much smooth sailing. For those of you who don't know much about Moab; its in the middle of red rock country. Absolutely beautiful. Slick Rock trail is just rolling hills of solid sandstone. It's a pretty unique ride because you get the steep descents and hills of mountain biking combined with the kind of traction you can get on sold concrete! That means you can have a pretty controlled ride which = SUPER fun!
Breaking for lunch. Me on the left, Josh in the back and Majid in the white. I should've taken a picture but from where we were sitting we could see people going up and over this crazy steep / tall ridge in their jeeps and hummers etc. It was pretty cool. I wouldn't be caught dead taking my own car over stuff like that. We were pretty sure they were all rental cars though because they all looked brand new!

Me on the left, Josh in the middle and Majid on the right.

Me on the left, Andy in the middle and Josh on the right. That's Moab down in the valley behind us. Check the great yellow fall leaves!

PS - I bought a new bike! A few months ago my mountain bike frame snapped in half. Booo! So I got it welded back together. Yay!!! Then, 2 days before this trip I took it out for a test drive and it broke in a different spot - where it really can't be welded so it was totalled! BOOOO / PANIC! I was supposed to go to Moab in less than 2 days. So what did I do? I jumped on KSL.com and found this steal of a deal. A 2 year old K2 that runs for $900 new. I think the guy only used it like 3 times EVER! It looks like it's right out of the box. AND I talked the guy down to $400! YAY! I was shocked at how much better the ride feels on a higher end bike. It is great! And to make the story better, I got clipless pedals and shoes for 60% off! WOW those make a huge difference. I love 'em!

Just a little way further along the loop was this great view up the canyon. Left to Right: me, Josh, Majid, Andi. You can see the road way down there on the right of the river. The resort Dad and Deb and the other adult Viehwegs were staying at was up this canyon.

One more for good measure.

At the end of this 12-ish mile loop I was totally beat! But the other guys - and Tyler with his fixed bike wanted to ride Porcupine Rim (the trail we did last year - see that post here). I would've loved to do it again, but I knew I would get about 1/2 way down and just die of fatigue. So I played shuttle / taxi and even managed to meet up with the parents etc. up at their resort to chat for a bit b/c their resort was just up the road from where Porcupine Rim ends. PERF! Anyway, that place is BEAUTIFUL! See Deb's pics here.
I couldn't stay for long, and once I was headed back to the end of the trail I got real nervous that they'd be waiting for me for a real long time. It was DARK by the time I got to the parking lot. I pulled up and sure enough they were all there - and they were all giving me this weird look! I thought it meant, "where the heck have you been - we've been here forever already!" But once I got out and appologized they just started laughing. I guess they had JUST pulled up, hopped off their bikes, saw a car coming and said, "that would be cool if that's Macsen." The timing couldn't have been better.
Needless to say they were all beat! I'm glad I didn't go. I would've died. We were all starving so off we went to Wendy's and then we headed for home. Majid immediately fell asleep across the back bench. He didn't flinch until we got to Spanish Fork. I thought I'd be super tired for the drive home but it really wasn't that bad. Tyler was great company and kept me talking the whole way.
What a fun trip! Next time I go I want to actually stay for a few days and get a few more trails in. I think 1 trail a day is enough. I guess their's a HUGE trail called "The Whole Enchilada" where you pay a shuttle to take you to the peak of the mountain - which is like 9000 feet and you ride the WHOLE way down. Apparently it takes ALL DAY LONG. Sounds super fun! Maybe next year....

The other night....

OK, so this really happened like a week and a half ago, but I gotta get it down before I forget any more details.
As a preface:
My roommates hosted a birthday party for someone in the ward which involved a wild tourney of Dance Dance Revolution. Unfortunately I was directly underneath them in my basement room trying to study. I seriously feared for my life as I watched the ceiling bounce up and down - fluctuating about 6 inches! I swear this old house I'm living in is going to come tumbling down around us someday.
On to the story...
At 3 AM I bolt out of bed convinced that the house actually IS caving in around us. I think some random noise outside triggered it or something. Anyway, you know how you're usually paralyzed for your dreams?? Well in this case my "paralyzer" was definitely broken so I acted everything out in full.
Of course the first thought to rush into my mind is, "oh shoot I have to save my roommate Brad!" So what did I do? I jumped out of bed and in one motion bounded across the room, grabbed Brad's legs and flung them around like rag dolls so they ended up somewhere up by his head. I also vaguely remember was asking Brad where our third roommate was, but I was super frustrated because I couldn't remember his name! **We don't even have a third roommate!** I'm sure I was just repeating, "Where's?....Where's??..... Have you seen.....???" And Brad was like, "Have I seen WHO?!?"
By then I was 1/2 way awake and 100% confused as to why in the heck I was standing over Brad holding him in such an odd position. *I guess Brad could see in my eyes when I went from dreaming to awake* Then I remembered the dream I was having. Brad just looked at me and was like, "what in the heck is going on??"
For the life of me I couldn't formulate a coherent thought - let alone voice it! It was SUPER weird! Finally I managed to say, "hang on..... I can't even think....." Or something like that.
At this point we both start to chuckle a little bit. I mean, come on. What a ridiculous position to be in!
I finally manage to explain the dream I was having which only made us laugh harder. After a few minutes I stumbled back over to my bed and fell right back to sleep. Poor brad was WIDE awake for the next 1/2 hour because of the adrenaline rush that came with me practically throwing him across the room. Hahahaha!
Poor Brad. What's the deal with all these crazy dreams I'm having? I NEVER remember my dreams!

Questions:

First of all, this took me FOREVER to figure out how in the heck to upload a document onto my blog. And now that it is uploaded it doesn't fit. Bummer. Does anyone out there know how to make the body of my posts wider??? I know it has something to do with editing the HTML in the Layout tab, but I have no idea how any of that works. There's just so much wasted space on the outsides and I think that's silly. I think I remember Nicole posting about stuff like that a long time ago but I couldn't find that post on her blog. :-(

Anyway, for now you can just click on the blue "fullscreen" link to be able to read my proposal.

So this is what has been eating my life lately:

For the last few months a former roommate and I have been trying to get a research project going with one of our professors. Both of us are going into medical professions so research is really going to make us look good as we apply to different schools. We decided to apply for an ORCA grant because, hey! Ya might as well make some money off the deal right?
Here's our proposal:
Proposal FINAL

I should be studying for O-Chem....

Three quick things:

1) By the time I get to coming in to the library to study at night people are already LEAVING for the night. They look at me like I am insane. They are probably right. :)

2) Sometimes I go a little crazy with all the stuff I have to do. I was UBER stressed yesterday because I feel like at the end of every day I look at my list of stuff I wanted to do and feel like I haven't accomplished anything. It is SOOOO frustrating! I need to work on my time management skills.

3) A few months ago I cracked my mountain bike frame in half. About 3 weeks ago I got it welded back together (yay!) And today I had a few cables replaced that were damaged in the original mishap. The point is, while I was at Outdoors Unlimited waiting for them to finish up with my bike I noticed that they had a 40% off table! I, of course, mozied (how do you spell that anyway!?) on over and found crank brother pedals and 661 shoes (both are really great and really expensive)! Naturally I bought them both. :-) I think I saved over 120$ on the deal..... and really I saved a ton more than that by welding my bike (50$) instead of buying a new bike ($500-$800). And now my mountain bike is good and ready to go for this weekends trip to Moab. I am SUPER excited!

4) Point #3 really wasn't the original point #3 I wanted to write about but I can't remember what it was anymore. Oh man - am I loosing it?!?!

One more for today

Ok, I realize this is my THIRD post for the day, but I just wanted to get caught up on a few things...
So last night I apparently was having a dream about cooking. In my dream I was cooking some sort of white sauce that had little chunks of chicken in it. Of course I had to taste a little bit of it to make sure it tasted good - so I grabbed a little piece of chicken and popped it in my mouth. You can imagine my surprise (and disgust!) when I immediately woke up to the taste of ear wax instead of yummy chicken. Behold my little piece of chicken:
Ew!!!!!!!!!!!!! Somehow in my sleep I had pulled out my ear plug, mistaken it for a piece of chicken, and put it in my mouth! I was fully awake by the end of all this so I kind of chuckled to / at myself as I rolled over and put my ear plugs on my night stand. Good grief!

Warranties

For the life of me - I can't figure out why I have never taken advantage of product warranties before! They are SO great! And I'm just now beginning to realize that I can use them! What's up with that?!?

Behold exhibit A) My trusty camelbak - or rather, Jessica's camelbak that I stole from her a while ago. (Sorry Jess! I owe ya!)

Recently my camelbak has decided it's a good idea to leak from the lid. I wear it a lot when I go on my roady rides and it gets my back SOAKING wet! When it was warm outside this was actually a good thing. But now it's cold and by the end of my rides I am freezing and wet.

I ordered a new bladder online, but it ended up being the wrong size. So then I decided to go to Camelbak's website to see if I could find what I needed there. I saw a link for "warranty information" and boy am I glad I clicked on it! They'll replace any defective bladder for free! Awesome!

Exhibit B) My trusty Tevas:

Hands down the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn in my life. One slight problem though - the black part of the sole is coming off. I've already super glued it 3 times! And it's coming off again! After my neat Camelbak discovery I decided to visit Teva's website. A few other customers have complained about this problem on this specific shoe so Teva has posted a note saying they've updated the shoe and you can mail back defective ones for a brand new pair for free. Woohoo! I can't find these guys in any stores these days and I really want a new pair. Now it looks like I'll get one for free!

Exhibit C) My not very old Levi Strauss 501 Jeans:

Super comfortable! Love the button fly. They're only like 4 months old! That really big hole started out as a super small one. I don't know what caused it. It grew a lot last night as I was playing volleyball. And yes - it happened during an amazing save by yours truly. Anyway, you better believe I'll be on the phone with their customer service reps tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a new pair of jeans out of them... don't know if it'll work but I'm sure going to try.

The moral of the story is: When something breaks don't rush out and buy a new one immediately - do some research and see if it has a warranty. Most companies want your return business so they're going to try to make you has happy as possible. I'd be willing to bet that if you push hard enough you'll end up with a new item every time - even if they don't have a great warranty. They'll do it because they want you to come back and buy from them again.

The biggest nightmare of my adult life:

This actually happened a few weeks ago.... and really, reading it is probably going to feel like watching a train wreck in slow motion - especially because its so long! But this one needs to be remembered - after all, I'm sure we'll all be laughing about it someday....maybe.

Once upon a time Brittany, Brent and Jason flew to Florida for a few days and they asked me to pick them up from the airport on their return trip. "We'll get in at 11PM" is what I heard, so what I understood was "Our flight gets in at 11, but then we'll have to get our checked baggage and everything - Oh and PS - flights are always a bit late so basically, we'll be on the curb ready to go around 11:30." I don't know why my brain interpreted that simple 5 or 6 word sentence as all of that, but it sure did.

SO..... I was sitting around doing homework and starting to think about leaving for the airport in about an hour-ish (so I could be there right at 11 like a good brother) when a good friend called me having a quarter life crisis. They really needed someone to talk to and wanted a blessing. "No problem," I thought to myself - "after all, Brit and Brent probably won't be out on the curb until 11:30 ish anyway." So, off I go to my friends house at almost 10:00.

For the next 1/2 hour this person cried - nope - sobbed - on my shoulder about why they were so frustrated / confused with life. I just put my arm around them - what else could I have done?! I felt really bad! I wanted to be a good listener, but at the back of my mind I knew that I really needed to get going. Eventually we made it back to my house where a few of my roommates helped me give a blessing. My friend really didn't want to be alone at that point so they decided to come with me to the airport.

By now it was almost 10:40 and I figured if Brittany and Brent's flight didn't get in until 11, and they weren't out on the curb 'till 11:30, then they'd really only be waiting for me on the curb for 15 maybe 20 minutes. So I give Brent a call to leave a message explaining all of this when, to my dismay, he answered! "Hey! We just landed....blah, blah". I PANICKED! I gave them the brief version of what I just went through and said, "I'm going to be late.... sorry."

I'm pretty sure I was sick to my stomach the ENTIRE drive to the airport. I just knew I was going to get it, but at the same time I was trying to reassure my friend that, really, it was going to be ok, and they'd understand and all that.

We pull up to the curb at around 11:35 - pretty good time if you ask me. But by then Brit and Brent had been waiting for an hour. YIKES. As I drove up I saw their faces just fall even further and I knew I had done yet ANOTHER thing wrong. You see, before I left I didn't go trade my car with one of theirs because I was already late so we just took mine. Well, I had assumed that they took their car seat on their trip with them for my little nephew Jason. And they had assumed that I would bring their car - with the car seat in it. Needless to say, Brittany was slightly upset with me: "What are you doing!?! You'll have to go back and get it!" I. Felt. Like. Garbage. I was so completely torn! I've never felt like I've had to be 2 people at once and be in two places at the same time - believe me, it's not fun! Anyway, I ran into the car rental places to ask if we could rent a car seat - you have to rent A CAR to rent a car seat. I called airport security to see if they could help - nope! Why did I even think they'd be able to help in the first place!? Meanwhile my friend was calling their aunt to see where the closest Walmart was - she didn't know. Lucky for us unhelpful-car-rental lady called me back over to the counter and told me there was a Walmart in West Valley - not super far away.

So off we went to Walmart leaving Brittany and Brent in a cloud of dust. Of course we ran into road construction on the 20 minute drive between the airport and Walmart - of course. But we eventually found it and I bought this lovely...for 45$!

Perfect for my little nephew, right?! OK, ok, it was the first one I saw - I looked around for a non-pink one, but everything else was more expensive so I gave up. After buying it we spent the longest 5 minutes of my entire life trying to adjust the stupid straps so Jason would actually fit in it. They were set at the smallest setting - which I'm sure even a doll wouldn't fit in! Stupid.

By the time we got back to the airport it was now around 12:20. Two and 1/2 hours! They had been waiting for 2 and 1/2 hours! I honestly wanted to die. I just kept thinking, "oh man, Brittany was upset an hour ago - what's she going to be like now!?!?!" Apparently I drove up onto the sidewalk when I pulled up. I was just trying to get as close to them as possible... AND in my defense it was on the same level as the pavement - no curb whatsoever. How am I supposed to know where the sidewalk ends and the street begins? The parking enforcer guy was all getting up in my face over everything. I was severely annoyed but I moved my car anyway. Much to my surprise I was greeted by Brittany with a smile. I was blown away! I was fully expecting her to come at me with guns blazing. While we were at Walmart Jason had fallen asleep, which relieved a lot of stress for them I'm sure, and both Brittany and Brent had calmed down a lot. After Brittany strapped Jason in I gave her a hug and told her how sorry I was - I almost started crying I felt so bad! She just kind of shrugged it off and, again, I was blown away! Brittany's capacity to forgive is apparently HUGE.

So we all got in the car and I turn and say, "This is 'so-and-so' and they're the reason I'm late!" Hahaha! My friend took it well and we had a pleasant conversation until mostly everyone fell asleep and I was left alone to my thoughts. I just kept shaking my head in disbelief. Things definitely didn't turn out how I had envisioned - and boy am I glad. We didn't get back to Provo until just before 2:00 AM. Wow.

A few days later when I was repackaging up the car seat to return it I realized that we didn't even re-fasten the straps to the back of the car seat when we adjusted them. They were just flapping free in the breeze back there. UNBELIEVABLE! I couldn't help but chuckle. Why did we even go get it in the first place!? We might as well have just not had one because, had we gotten in a wreck, it wouldn't have done anything anyway. Then I felt really grateful that we got home safely! Don't tell Brittany.... oh wait, she'll probably read this..... I guess the truth should be known... I hope she laughs....

So through this all, this is what I've learned:

• Don't ever assume anything. EVER. I thought I already knew this one...apparently not.
  
• Ask questions to clarify EVERY point of question or confusion
  
• Forgiveness is amazing and I need to work on it
• I need to learn how to use car seats properly

THE END!

(finally!)

And so it begins!

I've toyed with the idea of doing this for a really long time. On my mission I kept a vigilant daily journal, but since I've been home I don't think I've written once. BAD IDEA! This blog is meant to be a journal of sorts. I'd like to say I'll have something to write in it every day but we'll see what happens.
A good friend of mine has a tradition called "Picture of the Day". She rarely lets a day go by without taking a picture of the day just as a way to document her life. Perhaps I'll modify her idea and use a picture of the day (or week) as a prompt.
Enjoy!