Voting Sucks

Laura: I didn't vote in the last election

Devin: I forgive you.

So I needed to register to vote since my address changed. While I was registering it asked me what my political party was. What kind of a question is that? I dunno the answer to that. "I'm Mormon so I'm republican" doesn't fly with me but then again I don't want to go all "crazy Devin-liberal wants to disarm our army and give them bubble blowing guns instead of real ones apparently we're going to soap them to death." But then again I'm not all "on the third day God invented the Remington bolt action rifle so men could kill the dinosaurs and the homosexuals." Therefore I did what any reasonable person would do given this predicament. I took an online quiz.
Perfect solution.

On the quiz, this was one of the questions:

You find out that the government is tapping your phone line. What do you think?

a. With the proper checks and balances the government can keep us safe and protect our liberties.

b. Hey, the world is a different place after 9/11. If these measures mean keeping me and my family safe, I'm all for it.

c. If the government starts getting this involved, what's to stop them from monitoring our bedrooms, what we eat, etc; where does it end?

d. These security measures are all about protecting our foreign investements. We need to be focused on improving our domestic social programs.


I chose C because I had just come home from watching Eagle Eye. Shia LeBeouf fought against evil government computers tapping our phones and taking over America so I will too. Who needs debate and reason when crappy movies can make my decisions for me?

Concerned Blog Reader: So why did you become a liberatarian?
Laura: Two words. Stanley Yelnats

Krispy Kreme Debacle.

Okay so if any of you read this hilarious post....it will help you understand my story better.


So today at swim practice we worked on starts in the deep end. Annie has lately been like the queen of belly flops and its been hurting her poor little legs so I decided it was time to crack down and get her to stop flopin and start diving in a little deeper. We practiced a ton in the deep end and she was having a hard time trusting me by tucking her chin and diving deep she wasn't going to crack her head open. So being the good sister that I am I bribed her with Krispy Kreme. If she could get her start down we would go get donuts.

She did a fantastic job after that (I highly recommend bribery) and so we headed off to the donut shop after swim practice. As we pulled up to the drive-thru I thought of Sara's recent post and how wouldnt that be so funny if my debit card got declined...okay not really funny, that would be sad but amusing since it just happened to her since someone stole all her money unlike mine where it would have been like your account is already -$45 you silly girl who has no money.

Anyways so I get to the window to pay only to realize that all I have with me is my swim bag meaning no purse and no wallet this no money. Crap. After feeling like an idiot I asked them to hold on to them while I drove home to get my wallet.

Lesson learned: Don't think that other people blogs will come true in your life or else they will.


Post Script- Sorry about my stories on this blog, they kind of have a well developed beginnning a shaky middle and a lack of an ending. I think devin rubbed off on me. So sorry that my stories have no end. The end.

Dear Daniel,
Ditto.
Love Laura

return to sender. no such number.

(i wish my phone looked like this)

back story: the ONLY reason we got a phone was because Emily was kind enough to give us her old tivo (which Angie had given her...thanks ang!) when she got a new one and to have tivo you need a phone line. therefore the only people that call us are telemarketers for some lady who doesn't bare the name Laura Fletcher and now people from our ward because we decided it was time to be adults and get a "home phone number" rather than just cell phones. earlier today the phone rang and given my experience with it only being telemarketers I told Devin not to answer it. The person left a message and it ended up being the stake YW pres needing to talk to me.

set scene: 3:48 PM we are watching our niece Delia and Eden and so Devin, Laura and the girls are taking a nap together on the Fletcher's bed. Laura wakes up to the sound of our phone ringing.

action: I hear the phone so I wake up. I think, "I gotta answer this because it might be the YW pres again slash if I don't its gonna wake up the girls". I groggily stumble out of bed, open our door to grab the phone in the kitchen, put my ear to the receiver and hear this...

"This is a Quest collect call from, 'Mom I'm in jail. I need help!' If you choose to accept these charges..."

I hang up.

At first I was ticked but then I thought...If this kind of entertainment continues I am very happy that I got a real phone.

28 things we LOVE about Emily

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!

This is why we love you...
1/2. You were Meredith from The Office for Halloween last year. See picture above.
1. You are an amazing piano player.
2. You are the favorite aunt of Eden and Delia
3. You have single handedly cleaned every room in the house and organized them. Two more miracles and you'll become a saint.
4. You are hilarious and came up with that last joke when Devin woke me up at 5:00 am when we were dating.
5. You hate candles and think they are the biggest waste of money.
6. You LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween and you always say that you LOVE LOVE LOVE things in general.
7. You grammar check other people's blogs.
8. You make amazing crafts for holidays.
9. You think everything smells like carrots see this post.
10. You can't be late for anything or else you REFUSE to go. Except for church. You are consistently late every time.
11. You enjoy handling raw meat.
12. You wish that the 90s never ended and maybe you are kind of stuck in them.
13. A complete meal for you must include krispy kreme or dip-n-dots.
14. You are an amazing mom to Annie and Julia and you make tasty dinner for them every night.
15. Your favorite thing is to go to the 10 o'clock $5 movies at AMC where you must have popcorn (which you can only butter because you make it to perfection) and you CANNOT miss the previews or else you'll be ticked.
16. You are up to date on all TV shows and always know the best ones to watch.
17. The one time you hit me in the face with a baseball bat...it was awesome.
18. You love art can tell anyone the backstory on all of the classics of who painted them, when and what was going on in their life when it happened.
19. Your secret shame is that you love all books about serial killers and murder mysteries...maybe we should be nervous. (see #11 & #17)
20. You love to travel and go backpacking through Europe like every other week.
21. The age you wish you could forever be. Slash forever 21 your favorite store.
22. If I ever get you angry I have to walk around the house covering my ears or else you will spoil the book I am reading or the TV show I am currently watching.
23. Maybe you tivo Hannah Montana and say that its for Annie but you secretly love it and watch it.
24. If you could make a living out of laying out and reading Entertainment Weekly slash any celebrity gossip magazine you would.
25. You wish that you could go into a family as the nanny and make the widowed husband fall madly in love with you like in Sound of Music or The Nanny.
26. You have the most amazing laugh and our whole family tries our hardest to make you laugh. It always results in Julia and I being the DEVILS to each other.
27. Everyone thinks that you are my younger sister and that Amanda is the oldest sister, not you.
28. You try to revisit childhood experiences thinking that they will be just as entertaining as adult but they never are. Like this summer when we went to sun splash or when I was 18 and you were 24 and you made me go with you to the Renaissance fair and felt like nerds and heard a weird couple talking about which lady they wanted to invite to their three-some. This is when we realized you have to go on your sixth grade field trip to enjoy either of these places and that every one else there is crazy.


WE LOVE YOU EMILY! YOU ARE THE BEST SISTER EVER!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAP DANCE! WOOOOOH!!!!
(doo da dooh... doo da doooh)

stop the madness

I go to swim practice with Annie and Julia every day where EVERYONE thinks that Michael Phelps is a god. Quite frankly I'm bored with it and have started responding with this:

If you have five dollars and Michael Phelps has five dollars, Michael Phelps has more money than you.

Michael Phelps recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.

Michael Phelps' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Michael Phelps does not sleep. He swims.

If you spell Michael Phelps in Scrabble, you win. Forever.

Michael Phelps is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with his heritage. He ate an f*ing Indian.

Michael Phelps has the best poker face ever. He once won a game with a 2 of spades, a three of clubs, the old maid and a green four from uno.

Apple pays Michael Phelps 99 cents every time he listens to a song.

Ultimate face off:
Michael Phelps and Chuck Norris

Return of the Phone

Sorry for those of you who have been annoyed with me for the past two weeks when I didn't answer my phone. Maybe its because I accidentally left it in California when we went...

Laura's hidden talent:
I'm REALLY REALLY good at loosing my phone.

Example 1. Leaving my phone in California at the hotel. The very nice man who stayed in room after us found it and called everyone in my contact list to find someone who could tell me that he was going to leave it at the front desk. Finally got a hold of my Young Women's president while we were on Mt. Graham (random) for girls camp and she told me where I could pick it up. I called the hotel when I got home and they said they never got a phone turned in.

So Question. Why would a man go to HUGE effort to call everyone on my phone list only to forget to turn it in?
Answer options.
a. he is a jerk and wanted to get my hopes up
b. a worker at the hotel stole my phone

I'm thinking b.

In conclusion...RIP Samsung replacement phone



Example 2. The reason I was using this samsung phone was as a replacement for my razor that I had been using for the past two years. I had a sidekick two and thought I was sick of it so I got a razor. I hated that phone with a passion. T9 texting is stupid. I wanted the QWERTY keypad again but had to wait two years for my contract to expire. See also I was too cheap to buy another phone at full price.

While using the magenta razor I left it multiple places including by the pool rafts at Wal-Mart. After driving away I decided not to go back and get it because I was lazy and sick of the phone anyway but Devin was with me and said I was ridiculous or something like that and that I couldn't give up on life. Eventually the phone broke and the screen wouldn't light up anymore so I would have to guess if the phone was on, press a speed dial number to call someone, and hold it up to my ear in hopes that it was going to ring. It was awesome.

RIP Magenta Razor

Example 3. The worst of my examples is with my old sidekick 2. I got it and was so so so excited for the phone. It pretty much didn't leave my hand. (Yes I'm a nerd.) But I could use it to email which meant that on my friend's p-days on his mission when he would send emails we would send email back and forth like text messages so we could kinda talk to each other (Ya, ya I shouldn't have, but that's not the point). Anyway exactly a week after getting the phone I got gas on the way to work. Got to work and realized I had no phone. Went out to my car and called my phone with a friends cell and couldn't hear it. Then realized that I had left the phone on top of my car and driven away. This wouldn't have been as bad if I hadn't done it exactly a week before with my old phone which is why I had to get my new phone in the first place. Luckily I had insurance but I still had to pay another 100 dollars to get a replacement.

RIP Sidekick 2


Enter new phone.


My family has bets on how long it will be until I lose it. Hopefully I won't ever lose it, but given my track record... well I wouldn't give myself very high odds.

Holy California Batman!

Two weekends ago we went on a last hurrah trip to San Diego before Devin starts his new job.

We went with our bestest friends in the world Courtney and Davey.

Highlights from the trip:

1. The tasty pizza we had at asaggio's over in seaport village.

So good it made us look like we were in a drunken coma, or at least the girls did.

Before Pizza...

After pizza...

2. The delectable fudge from The Fudgeworks shop at seaport village.

3. The Homeless person Vertriliquist show on the way to the movies to see The Dark Knight

(You might need to make that one full size to see that no that isn't a small child on her lap but a ventriliquist dummy. The stupid man got in the way of the girl dummy on the other ladies lap. He looks very smug about ruining our picture. richard cranium.)

4. The treacherous climb down to the tide pools. Lets just say we were precariously perched.

We had to get from up here...

to down there...

all on this teeny little rope.

I was nervous for my life and very proud when I climbed back up without casualty.

Devin makes it look ridiculously easy but let me assure you. It wasn't.

The only problem was maybe I ripped my pants and maybe it made me really sad especially when I spend the rest of the day walking around with a 12 inch rip in my pants.

(sorry about the crotch shot.)

5. The tide pools that were really fun, even if Devin and I were the only ones brave enough to climb up to them. Courtney and Davey were babies and stayed up at the top of the hill.

'k so its kinda hard to see but there are sea anemones in there that we poked with sticks and were very entertained by.

This is Devin's I start a new job on Monday face and I am so excited.

6. The drunk man who we bought food for at taco bell and hearing about how his brother offered him a job and he didn't want to be bossed around by the mother f-ing goodie two shoes brown noser blah blah more swearing blah.


7. The seemingly useless warning signs on the diaper changer...but then again all rules are there becuase someone was dumb enough to do it once, right?


8. Never finding a fire pit at the beach to sit by to burn our wood so watching it sit as we pretended it was burning


9. Finding a frozen banana stand but never seeing Gob.


10. Seeing the most amazing sea shell house ever.


11. Going to more tide pools that were easier to get to so everyone could go and having fun.



12. Feeding seagulls whether intentionally...


or unintentionally.


13. Seeing amazing Sunsets.



14. Playing games on the beach.



15. Having an amazing time with our favorite friends.

Sorry...

We just got home from California and I don't have time to post before I leave to girls camp at 7:00 in the morning. ( Apparently I can't break tradition of staying up to a ridiculous hour before girls camp). But I promise I will post about both trips when I get home. Lets hope I have as much fun as I did last year....




Cross my fingers!

oh pickles

While Eden, Amanda and Lee were at the 1856 play I got to watch Delia a couple of nights.

It was pretty much the highlight of my week because she is the most hilarious kid.

First we went to trader joe's to buy flowers to make Eden a bouquet to give to her that night.

Delia insisted on carrying them inside and was very serious about it.



She whistled as she walked.



Then we laid on the bed and watched The Little Mermaid. It was fun.

And she made funny faces.


and cute faces


Then we went and gave Eden her flowers at the play. She was adorable too.


The end.