my book club is better than your book club

hands down, that is the truth.

you might be asking, "but rachel, how can you possibly know this when

you know nothing about my book club?"

let me tell you...

exhibit a:

our first meeting was a tea party book club.

karen, the host (and genius whose brain child the club was) made

a plethera of fancy tea party treats, and also supplied hats and

gloves for all of us to wear.

this was the first sign that i 1) would love these girls and the club i

was joining, and 2) was about to have the time of my life once a month.

exhibit b:

the book we decided on for our first official month of book club was

beauty: a retelling of the story of beauty and the beast, by robin mckinley.

(worst book i've ever read, but i'll get to that later)

as we were discussing the book, and the club in general, someone had the

idea to not just have a tea party every month, but to make the meeting a party

with the theme of whatever the book was that we just read.

this meant that our next meeting would have a princess theme...

the wheels in my head started turning, and tears came to my eyes as i

began to think of the fact that i would now have an excuse to bust out

my old prom dresses and have some real fun.

not only did we dress up for this meeting, but karen (once again) went to great

lengths to make this a top notch gathering...the walkway was lined with candles

and roses (like in the book!), there were beautiful chandeliers hanging from

the trees (from the trees!), and someone had even painted a castle for a backdrop.

also note, karen had a culinary spread worthy of royalty (which we were that night).

we started the night as perfect ladies...

dressed to the nines, and enjoying every minute of it:

and then our true colors started to shine through the tule...

richard told me i make this face a lot.

i don't even know what to say about that, other than this:  i only make that

face because of things that other people do.  it's not my fault.

i twisted jenkins' arm so hard to wear that dress (and am very thankful she did),

but she did it in true jenkins style...with jeans underneath and a sweater over the top.

she makes this face a lot, too.

the hit of the night was karen's "too much chocolate cake"

which i like to call "bruce bogtrotter's chocolate cake"

like brucey, i could've eaten that whole thing!

and then we got down to business...

i seriously did not care for this book one little bit, but i still looked

forward to book club all month just for the dressing up and hanging

out with these fabulous women!

i know the idea of a themed book club is silly, but that's what i love about it!

this is an excuse to check out of being a "grown up" and be the girls

we truly are...vivacious, fun-loving, and always down for a good time.

i'm sure you can find each of our names on a bathroom stall somewhere...

which should probably be the new requirement to get into the club.

TyMo

richard's younger brother tyson (middle name moroni, hence the nickname "tymo")

is 17 years young, and while he's been out of school this summer he came up

to hang out with us for a couple of weeks.  he did dishes just about every day, is

hilarious, and gave us an excuse to eat out almost every night, so we were more

than happy to have him crash on our couch this long.

we watched lots of movies and ate lots of yummy food, and i even got him to

start reading the harry potter books with me.  he has now left me in the dust on

#4 - he's starting #7 today!  i love this boy.

here are some of the highlights from his visit:

numerous dinners out on the town...

here we are @ javier's

and @ rovali's

el matador

mikado...biggest mouthful of sushi ever ha!

porter family 4th of july extravaganza...

5k & red velvet cupcakes for breakfast.  waiting for the west point parade

to start.  best parade ever.  except that old naked guy didn't make an

appearance this year.  very disappointing.

i left the boys for a few hours to play some volleyball w/ my peeps.

sadly, they didn't take any pictures of what they did while i was gone...

they shaved tyson's head.  bic'd it.

after richard broke his nose he needed to recuperate...so they went to the

driving range.  i guess he thought he needed some extra protection after

his accident.  to be honest, i'm surprised he's not wearing a helmet with a face mask.

a little happy gilmore action.

and then a stroll around our old stomping grounds (the mortuary) before

dale dragged tyson kicking and screaming to st. george.

tyson, we love ya, buddy!  we're so happy you came up to

add a little somethin special to our summer.

young @ heart

i tend to think that it was fate that brought rachel jenkins and i together

those 3 summers ago.  we hit it off right away - within minutes of meeting

each other we were having deep conversations about the very important things

in life, including but not limited to: the gilmore girls, one tree hill, the orthodontist

we both despised, etc.

we only worked together at the spa for a couple of months, but here we

are 3 years later with a friendship just as strong (or stronger) than those with

pals i've known my whole life.  it was fate, i tell you.

not only did we like the same trashy tv shows, but we have the same name,

and we both love birthdays.  especially our own.  being the occasional

attention-whore is yet another thing we have in common.  this is what we did

for jenkins' big 2-4:

i caught her off-guard by arriving promptly to pick her up for our birthday date.

i'm usually late, but not for important things like birthdays.

i presented her with a few options for dinner, and she chose biaggi's

at the gateway since neither of us had ever been.

the service was horrific, but the food was delightful.

big cheesy portions...just how we like it!

and heavenly cannoli's to top things off.

we then strolled around to window shop (which is never as

fun as it sounds), help our dinner to settle a bit, and to

buy miss jenkins a new book to add to her collection.

i'm proud to say that i introduced the joy of reading for

pleasure to my dear friend.  she has repayed me with an

addiction to grey's anatomy.

after our stroll, we headed to the theater to watch the latest and

greatest feature film, monte carlo starring the one and only selina

gomez.  before you judge us, you should also know that we also watched

and loved the hannah montana movie, which we rewound numerous

times to learn the hip-hop hoe-down.  we may be adults, but we won't

allow youth to be wasted on the very young who think those things

are stupid.  they're simply missing out.

we considered the cannoli's part of dinner and stopped for dessert

at rocky mountain. 

good friends are one of life's greatest blessings.

especially the ones like rachel jenkins.

right in the honker

one week ago today we were at richard's baseball game in brigham city.

he was playing left field, and by the 4th inning had already made a few great

plays - including a sliding catch that would take your breath away.

during the 5th inning tyson (richard's brother) and i were both enjoying our

fabulous spot in the shade, and my attention was more focused on the current

issue of city weekly in my lap then on the game until i heard someone on the other

team hit a solid ball and tyson say "oh my gosh..."

at this point i looked up to see richard kneeling in the middle of left field with his

face in his hands and his entire team running toward him.  my stomach jumped into

my throat, and i jumped to my feet.

before i knew it i was in left field looking at richard with a shirt being held over his

face by a teammate, and his hands full of blood.  i didn't say one word.  i just braced

myself for when they would pull the shirt away and his eyeball would be hanging out

of his face...luckily it was just his nose.  i still didn't say much because the insane amount

of blood was messing with my gag reflex.

when i finally did talk, richard said "rach, did you grab the camera?!"  ummm...no!

his stellar teammate took care of him while i got the car and drove it out onto the field

to pick him up and take him to the instacare.

here's the mvp getting in the car

soooo much blood.  dag, dag, dag.

poor guy waiting for the doc.

he broke his septum.  this can happen when you catch a ball

with your face.

he could still breathe, but was super swollen - he and tyson are

pretty much twins, so you can see how swollen.

over the next few days, the swelling went down, and the black eyes

got more colorful.

the black is turning green now, and the swelling is all gone.

but my baby is still mvp.

dirrrrrrty girls have more fun

its funny to think about how much older i am now than i used to be.  duh.

seriously though, i can literally catch myself laughing out loud at the thought

that i'm an adult...married almost 5 years, graduated from college, grown-up job

getting ready to buy a house (yikes!), etc...but these things make me laugh

because most of the time i just feel like a little kid still.

especially when i get to play in the mud with my friends.

this is the second year that we've played in the mud volleyball tournament

for south ogden days.  we didn't win, but we sure did have a good time losing.

i love these girls.  i love volleyball.  and i love playing in the mud.

growing up's not so bad.