Nice People

Have you ever noticed how some people are just ultra nice? Well the other day I was stressing about not having the book to do the reading for one of my classes. I was asking the professor if he had an extra copy I could borrow for the day, which he didn't, when a girl I had never talked to before said that I could borrow hers to make copies with. I ran to the copy machine, but it was broken. When I found her again moments later she said that she would just scan the pages for me and email them to me.

Sure enough, the next day there appeared in my email an attachment with some 25 pages scanned into a PDF. Gosh some people are nice. She even apologized for it having taken so long. This went beyond any form of ordinary niceness. (and I was beyond grateful as our grade seems to be solely based on doing the readings and discussing them in class).

Rodeo

I recently attended a rodeo at the Utah State Fair. It was pretty much awesome as we got to see many a cowboy, which is usually a good thing.

At one point they were showing off some little cowboys and girls. This entailed putting kids (starting around age 2 and ending around age 7) on top of sheep and then opening the gate and letting the sheep go. I had no idea a sheep could run so fast, or that a child could cling to one so tightly. Most of the kids just fell off pretty quickly and were semi trampled by the sheep and just laid there crying until their parent came and picked them up. There was one girl though who just clung on for dear life. She made it about half way around the arena before falling off. Just think of her bragging rights when she gets old enough to know how to brag.

The bull riding was of course my favorite, though I've been debating ever since which is more dangerous: bull riding or bull fighting. Feel free to put forth your opinions. I'm leaning towards bull fighting, though if someone was doing both at the same time, that would definitely win out. There was one injury this time, when the bull just fell keen over right on top of the guy riding it. Needless to say he didn't walk off by himself (the cowboy that is, the bull trotted off just fine).

Here's a pic of me and some of my gal pals after the show. Oh so lovely:

Spanish Tortilla: Fail

I have now made spanish tortilla 3 times. I use the term 'made' here rather loosely as it generally denotes success. In truth I have only succeeded once in truly making a delicious spanish tortilla, my first attempt, with my mother. Kami and I have tried twice in the last 2 weeks and both times something went horribly wrong.

Our first attempt we followed the recipe exactly: 5 medium potatoes, 5 eggs, 1 onion, some salt...or so we thought. Turns out that the potatoes we selected must have been extra extra large, because the tortilla turned out to be basically just potatoes with a hint of egg. Needless to say, it was a little dry, but not horrible.

Our second attempt was last night. Everything was going so smoothly; we had a good ratio of egg to potato with 4 potatoes and 7 eggs. This was going to be a giant and delicious spanish tortilla. That is, until it came time to flip it. We did not have a plate large enough to flip the tortilla onto, so we decided to use a cutting board. This proved detrimental as when we went to flip it, the whole tortilla slid right out into the sink, which was full of dirty dishes.

Seconds later, I was on the floor and Kami was bent over the sink, both of us laughing/crying. We finally pulled ourselves together and managed to salvage some of the tortilla. We put parts of it back in the pan and continued to cook it, but by then it was just a small mess of eggs, potatoes, and onions. Basically the biggest fail of my life.

My Best Friend's Wedding

This weekend I went to my friend Maggie's wedding. We've known each other since we were 8, so it was a little surreal to see her in a wedding dress for real, but she looked lovely and so happy.

Introducing the new couple:


The single ladies in attendance:

At the reception, which was beautiful.

Cutting the cake, which was also beautiful and so delicious. Each layer was a different flavor, but of course I had chocolate.

Me and the beautiful bride:

Congratulations Maggie and Alex!

Mini Golfing

As a final outing before my departure for Utah my family went mini golfing at this crazy jungle themed place.

Here's the first group putting their way through a jungle of monkeys.

Me and Megan looking pretty happy about our golfing experience. (this was probably before we came to the part where tunnels suddenly almost fall on you and poisonous frogs squirt you with water out of nowhere).

There were alligators. Pretty frightening.

All in all it was a good time.

Though I did lose hardcore.

Happy Birthday Dad!

For my Dad's birthday I decided to make him his favorite cake: carrot cake. I figured this would be a simple enough task, having baked many a cake in my lifetime. I got all the ingredients and began the process of mixing them together. When it came time to finely chop the carrots, I decided I would use the food processor because that's what I had always seen my mom do when she made carrot cake. I had never used the food processor before, but how hard could it be right? Wrong. It took both me and Megan struggling to get it put together for about half an hour before we realized that we were trying to force it on backwards. Once we figured that out, the carrots were chopped in like a second.

Then it was time to add the crushed pineapple, except it turned out that I had actually purchased sliced pineapple, so it was actually just cut into rings. So I figured I'd just pop that in the food processor and it would do the job. This led to me of course having to strain the pineapple, but eventually it all seemed to work out.


The cake turned out quite beautiful if I do say so myself.

It tasted pretty good too.

Beach

Recently we took our mostly annual dewy beach trip. The day began with the drive up to the beach, which obviously included watching mary-kate and ashley movies and Rocketman. We arrived at the beach and walked a ways away from all of the people fishing and surfing. We found a lovely little spot and the fun began.

Here's the fam (minus greg who was working):

Some intense wave jumping:

The awesome dragon kite that Emily was flying:

We found a large shovel, so I decided to dig a hole.

Now you see her...

now you don't. Well most of ther anyways.

Feeding Emily to the sharks:

An attempted jumping shot, though I look like I am climbing and invisible wall:

Me and my father, who has since mentioned several times that this day was the most fun he has ever had jumping waves.

We've all wondered what Matthew would look like if he were obese. Now we know.

After a day at the beach we always eat crab at this same restaurant, which is really much more of a shack than anything else.


It was a lovely day.

Hit by the Lovebug Again

July 13, 2009, one of the greatest nights of my life to date. Obviously this means that the Jonas Brothers were back in town. This year they were at the Verizon Center because it fit their awesome spinning stage perfectly for an arena style show. Though our tickets were once again not the best, they were much better than last years as we could actually see them the whole show. And whose complaining about a birds eye view when we're talking about the Jonas Brothers? I'm certainly not.

Well the evening began with a mad dash of me getting back from work about 5 and needing to be at the concert at 7. We (Megan and I) made it there about 7:30, just in time to get our t-shirts and catch Jordin Sparks singing "No Air." Here she is:

After she finished, we sat anxiously waiting as the stage was set up for the Jonas Brothers. Finally at 8:45 the lights went dark and Megan and I jumped to the feet as the Jo Bros made their dramatic entrance. It was so exciting.

Here we are in out matching t-shirts from last year:

The Jonas Brothers obviously have the best lighting designers ever because the lighting was phenomenal! Naturally everything turned to green during Poison Ivy.

The stage also spun, which was cool. The inner circle went one way with the outer circle the other. Here are my boys singing Fly With Me from their new CD.

When they played my favorite new song, Much Better, it could not have been more exciting. I'm pretty sure that song is written about me, but I haven't gotten confirmation yet.




So amazing. I was near tears from excitement at this point. Then they go and whip out a trampoline. Awesome? Yes.



Then Kevin surprised us all by playing the piano in Turn Right. Which was also amazing.

Then things got even better as Joe decided to show off his muscular arms in a tank top. I was pretty sure we had reached the high point.

Oh wait, Joe jumped on the piano.

So hot.

They did a cover of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, which was most enjoyable and had the crowd screaming along. Not that Me and Megan hadn't been screaming the entire time.



While Nick was off singing the next song in the center stage, Kevster and Joe snuck off to the side and then all of a sudden were flying over the audience shooting foam at everyone. It was crazy awesome.




Basically, me and Megan were feeling the lovebug. Then of course, Lovebug started playing, but the boys were nowhere to be seen.

And then out of nowhere Kevin came up through this trap door wearing a white rain coat. Then it started raining, and Kevin danced around in it.

Joe and Nick met up with Kevin in the middle and started singing Lovebug. When the guitar solo started, so did the rain. This time with all three of them dancing and singing in it. Not to mention the water somehow formed hearts and the Jonas Brothers sign. It was beyond awesome.



I guess what I am trying to say is that somehow the Jonas Brothers managed to come through even bigger and better than they did before. The concert could not have been better, unless I had been on stage dancing in the rain WITH Joe. But I gues they had to leave something for next year.

After the concert Megan and I headed down to the synagogue on 6th and I, where there was an aftershow hosted by Honor Society, the band that was touring with the Jo Bros. It was a crazy cool show in a much more intimate setting. Of course Megan and I were hoping the Jonas Brothers would show up so we could get a closer look.


We heard girls randomly screaming on the balcony, so I went up to see what it was about. Who should be hanging out across the balcony, but KEVIN, NICK, and JOE JONAS! I almost died right there on the spot. Instead I just sat there and stared at them. Nick glanced up and made eye contact with me briefly, no joke. I ran down and told Megan to go up and see them and bask in their hotness, so she did.

In the end, we didn't get to meet them. But the important thing is now, not only have we seen them, but they've seen us. They probably wrote about it in their journal or something. It was probably the best night of their lives too.

Say Cheese!

So on Thursday I was driving and happened to hear on the radio that there would be a statue of Abe Lincoln carved from cheddar cheese on display for three hours the next day on Constitution avenue in D.C. Obviously I took a mental note to go see it.

On Friday my mom, Emily, me, and my friend Colleen headed out to D.C. for the sole purpose of seeing the cheese statue of Abraham Lincoln. As we exited 66 onto Constitution there was the bright orange life size rendition of Abe himself. We parked and walked over to see it and were greeted by enthusiastic employees of Cheez-it who gave us each several bags of cheez-its to take with us. I happen to love cheez-its, so this was wonderful.

We each took a turn getting our picture taken with Abe. As I stood next to him, I definitely noticed a distinct cheesy smell. We were glad it wasn't super hot that day.


Emily and Abe:

Mom and Abe:

Colleen and Abe:

Afterward we of course hit up Tangy Sweet for some delicious frozen yogurt.


Not everyday do you get to see a life size cheese statue AND eat pomegranate frozen yogurt. It was a very good day.

A Merry Time

Last week we had the wonderful privilege of having my Aunt Merry come to visit us. This of course led to many exciting events, such as a late night jaunt into D.C. and a sing along and dance along viewing of Mamma Mia (in costumes). I will of course not be posting any pictures of that event as they would obviously be used as blackmail.

The trip into D.C. was a highlight. It started with dinner at Crepes A Go Go, a delightful restaurant that serves...CREPES! We all had the avocado, tomato, and cheese crepe and they were delicious.


Then we stopped by my favorite frozen yogurt place, Tangy Sweet, where I had the pomegranate yogurt with mangoes.


So good.

Then we went and saw the monuments, which was fantastic as always. We ate delicious chocolate on the steps of the Lincoln.

And took awesome jumping shots at Jefferson.


As you can see, my mom really committed to that picture.