it only happens once...or does it?

i'm 26 years old.

that is the very age that both of my parents were when i was born.  i got

to thinking that its kind of cool to be exactly half of their age, and i mentioned

it to them at some point during my birthday week.  they thought it was kind

of interesting, too, but then my mom pointed out that its not the only time i'll be

half their age.  for instance, when they're 64 i'll be 32.  that's not actually true at

all, but it took us all a minute to figure it out.  sad, but true.  and it gave everyone

a hearty laugh, so i'm glad that the math was wrong.

i began planning for my birthday about 2 months in advance when i booked a

flight to seattle to visit my friend katie stewart.  "friend" is a pretty weak description

of what she actually is to me, but i'll explain all of that in another post that will be

strictly dedicated to our recent adventures.  the trip was the weekend before my

birthday, and it was a big, big hit.  the best start to a birthweek i could've asked for.

or given myself.

the night before my birthday, jenkins took me on a rachel-rachel date to

see the new footloose.  it literally took every fiber of my being and ounce of

willpower that i had to keep from dancing in the aisles.  especially during this

scene.  thanks to a loving heavenly father we got to enjoy kevin bacon in the original,

but i seriously loved this movie and can't wait to own it so i can

learn all of the dance moves in my living room.  not all remakes are garbage.

point in case.

i had to work on the actual day.  comes with being a grown-up, i guess.

but i did treat myself to a pumpkin pie blizzard from dq on my way to

watching this athletic specimen play some flag football in a work league.

hate to see him go.  love to watch him run away.

we went out to the johnson's lovely new abode for a birthday feast after

the game.  thanks to pinterest, michaela was inspired to enlist jeremy in helping

her whip up a culinary masterpiece.  it was fancy and delicious and i loved it.

we all did.  and jenkins even made a pumpkin-flavored dessert that knocked all

of our socks off. 

that night richard surprised me with a present, which was a fun surprise

seeing as how seattle was kind of a huge one.  he must love me or something.

the day after was a friday, and i got to spend it having a sweet reunion with

some of the best friends i've ever had.  i met 3 of them in 6th grade, we picked

up a 5th member in 9th grade, and the rest is history.  there will also be a post

dedicated to this hilarious night.

when richard asked what i wanted to do to celebrate my birthday, only one

thing felt right: the drive-in.  we got take-out from my favorite ogden eatery

(sitara india) and cuddled the night away in the back of the kia while watching

some cheap flicks, with our buddies only a car away.  the johnsons joined us

again, and i'm so glad they did.  good food, good friends, good cuddling - that's

all a girl really needs on her birthday.

and family.  a girl needs her family, too.

i forgot to mention that my mom and sister chelsa were out of town on my

actual birthday.  i knew they would be gone, and that they probably wouldn't

have cell phone service since they were roughin' it, and i was ok with that.  or

so i thought.  if i hadn't talked to my dad that day i probably wouldn't have lasted

as long as i did, but as i was driving to richard's football game i started thinking

that this would be the first year of my entire life that i didn't talk to my mom on my

birthday, so i tried to call her.  it went straight to her voicemail, and i began to leave

her a message.  before i knew it i was bawling into the phone, having my first totally

pathetic moment as a 26-year old woman.

a few hours later, after we'd stuffed our gourds with michaela's fabulous dinner, my

phone rang and it was my mom.  i ran to the other room so everyone wouldn't have to

witness the tears of relief and happiness when i talked to the woman who lovingly pushed

me out of the birth canal and into the charmed life i now lead those 26 years ago.

just goes to show you that no matter how old, a girl needs her mom.

a week and a half later we wrapped up the birthday festivities by celebrating

with my extended family.  the presents were great, and totally appreciated, but

my favorite part of the night was watching this:

birthdays tend to be a time of reflection. about your life up to that point, and

maybe where you go from there. 25 was a good year for me - i resolved my

greatest regret in life (see the upcoming seattle post for details), i crossed some

things off of my bucket list (was part of a flash mob, joined a book club, took a

ballroom dance class with richard, went to hawaii with richard), started a career

that i love in my field of study, and got to visit my favorite place in the world

multiple times (nyc, duh), among other things.

i'm still convinced that age is relative and i can't possibly be this old. i don't feel old.

at least not until i actually think about how many years ago i graduated from high

school, or see how many kids my friends have already. being old is for the birds.

making 26 the best year yet is for m.e.

running amuck amuck amuck amuck on halloween

i had great plans for richard and i to dress up in a fabulous couple's costume

for halloween this year, but like many of my plans often do it went up in flames

and this is what we ended up with:

a mexican hermaphrodite...

and a bearded pregnant nun

the holiday wasn't a complete bust, though (thank goodness!)

because we got to spend it with some of our favorite buddies from

our old married student ward:

tmnt a.k.a. todd, lacey and max geddes

the jex beekeeper and his lovely honey-bees

the stevensons were peter, wendy and tink

and dave was just full of happy thoughts!

isn't jovi the cutest little cruela you've ever seen?!

and we'd have had no excuse to dress up had it not been for these

swashbuckling hosts:

bro and sis smith

sis and bishop hansen

its hard to believe we've been out of our heavenly fake ward for a year

and a half!  i still love all of our friends just as much, and the bishopric and

their wives still feel like family.  as torked as i still am that the ward was ever

abolished, i have to say that i feel so lucky that we were ever in it in the first place.

it was a real life-changing blessing for us and will always be one of those special

times in our life and marriage that we will never forget.

there were some key players missing this year (boyers, nielsens, bates

colemans, etc.), but we have plans for a christmas party and new year's

rendezvous, so this was just the beginning of an incredibly enjoyable

holiday season.

fighting the foo

earlier this month, richard's cousin john invited us to go to the foo fighters

concert with him and his wife jen.  we don't only own one foo fighters

album between the two of us, but we love john and jen (and a free concert),

so of course we said yes.

we met at their house, with just enough time to rile up their kids

before the babysitter came over, and then headed to the show.

the husbands aren't allowed to be the only planners anymore because

apparently we were supposed to all have dinner together, but i never got

that memo and ended up making dinner before we left.  jen and i will

be checking in with the masterminds for any future plans.

the tickets we had were for one of the luxury suites, but we started the

night down on the floor.  the opening act was ok - nothing to write home

about.  although, dave grohl did play drums for them!

we eventually made our way up to the box seats.

jen is really this tall.

we ended up knowing a lot more songs than we thought we would, just

like with U2 and kenny loggins.  we had a rockin' good time.

dave grohl is amazing.  they played about a million songs,

just like he promised they would, and he did a lot of screaming,

but you really couldn't hear it in his voice until the last song.

also note, he dances like a muppet.

they fought the foo until almost midnight, which means they played for

nearly 3 hours!  it was a great show, but i think its safe to say that we

were all about ready when it ended.

the ericksons know how to have a good time, and we are so glad they

took us along for the ride!

bienvenido, hermana smith. adios, harry potter.

richard's youngest sister, heidi, has been serving an lds mission in uruguay

for the last 18 months, but she is safely home in st. george once again.

we went down to see her arrive at the new st. george airport with the rest of

the family.  we were so busy getting the house, welcome home banner, her

requested dinner, etc. ready that we missed her landing!  her flight landed a

little early, and we got there right on time so she had to sit and watch the elder

she flew home with be greeted by his family while she waited for us.  luckily it

was just a few minutes.  we all felt so bad!  but it was still a very sweet reunion.

here is heidi reintroducing herself to little araya.

heidi and megan's reunion was fun to watch - they are so close!

all of the siblings, minus austin who is still on his mission.

so, not all of the siblings, but a large majority.

the family.  blood family, that is.  scott and i married in, so we stayed

behind the cameras to catch all the action.

we had so much fun with the family (even though the little ones were

puking up their guts every five minutes).  we loved hearing heidi talk

about her experiences, and having her pray in spanish.  i'm sure there

is going to be plenty more to come that i don't understand between her

and richard.  and austin when he gets home, too!

we went back down south the following weekend to hear heidi's

homecoming talk in church.  it was wonderful!  but you won't be seeing

anymore family pictures, because even though everyone believed that

was the main event taking place, tyson and i knew better.  we both read

the harry potter book series (and i watched the movies) for the first time

this summer.  tyson patiently waited for me to finish the last book, and then

he took me on a little date to see the final movie.  i have to admit that there

were a great deal of tears shed during the last 2 books, and the last

movie...even though i was extremely disappointed in most of the movies.

all i have to say is that i've been a little lost since i finished the books.  i'm

sure i'll recover. what a fun summer adventure i had, courtesy of ms. jk rowling!

god bless the u.s.a....and roosevelt, ut

i was at phillip vaughn's house, waiting for him to give my friend

marissa and i a ride to school when i saw the plane hit the second

tower.  and then we heard bits and peices of updates that day at school.

but the thing i remember most about those weeks and months after the

attacks is watching the news in tears with my parents as families posted

signs with pictures of their missing loved ones, or waited

 for them to be found in the rubble.  heartbreaking.

this year, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks,

my family took a trip down to sandy to visit the "healing fields."

it was a touching experience, and i was glad that we could pay our respects

and honor those who lost their lives, loved ones, livelihood, or sense of safety

on that day, which will also live in infamy.

hard to believe today that we also found and/or gained some things on 9/11...

a renewed sense of american pride

patriotism (regardless of your political party)

god

a love for our public defenders/employees

hard to believe because in only ten years we've forgotten that although we

got into a war that we didn't all agree on, we were able to get over

ourselves for half a second to work toward the greater good of our country.

i digress...

this was a good day.  even though we were remembering something

horrible.  hopefully we'll be able to learn more than violence from

our past.  because i tend to think that if we continue to live in a world

where the villains with money face no consequences and our politicians continue

to win with campaigns promising that they'll vote "no" no matter the issue just

because the guy who proposed it is represented by dumbo rather than an ass

that history will probably be repeating itself somewhere down the road.

i have hope that things will change, because for awhile there they did.

 

a few weeks after our trip to the healing fields, i took a little trip

to roosevelt, ut.  not because its the number one tourist attraction

in the beehive state, but because i needed to spend a little quality time

with this lovely lady:

mrs. kaycee blake anderson, my dear best girlfriend from the good old

days of high school and club volleyball, where we wreaked for days and

sang our conversations to the point where we nearly lost all of our other

friends.

its funny (and sad, sometimes) how things can change between friends

after high school.  but i have to say that this is one friendship that has only

gotten stronger.  not because its been easy...we haven't lived within 3 hours

of each other in over five years, but that's what the phone is for!

we're still in pretty different life phases of life, too, but that's how you know

its true love!

i went out to roosevelt to spend the weekend with her, her husband and little

boy, and the other little guy who is due to arrive the day after my birthday.

it was great - watched a bunch of youtube videos that made us laugh until

we cried, we spent money our husbands will never know is missing on antiques,

 she made some delicious food for us to devour, and we watched

the U wipe their behinds with the byu football team.  what more could a girl ask for?

well, i thought nothing until i saw that the leaves were starting to change color

on my drive home (yep, i risked my life to take this picture out of my car window

rather than pull over.  smart.).

the real start to my favorite season reared its beautiful head,

and then my perfect weekend was complete.