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.

our trip to st. george

Two weekends ago we went to st. george to see our Aunt Sue and Uncle Dave and to go to a wedding for Devin's mission companion, Andy Buys. We had so much fun!

Before Annie and I got our hair cut by my friend Courtney who did a marvelous job.


Annie cut off about 7 inches


and I died mine one color. gasp. First time its been a solid color since I was 17.

We left two days later fully equipped with a new 96 pack of crayons for Annie.

Annie was ecstatic until we turned on NPR news radio as we were driving out of phoenix and she almost killed us.



While driving we stopped at pivotal landmarks to take pictures. Such as the Arizona Strip District.



Also so Annie could do a Top Model pose off,


and so devin could pee every 30 miles.



Annie also love to listen to Hannah Montana in the back on headphones and still sing at the top of her lungs so we got to hear her rendition of the songs instead of Hannah. It was my favorite.

Well we got to St. George and had a great time with my aunt Sue and uncle Dave. They have so many fun animals to play with, were so fun to talk to and had a great pool to swim in. Annie and I had a blast the first night when Devin went to a bachelor party and the next day when we got to swim with all of our cousins.

The next day we missed the sealing becuase we are awesome. Devin forgot about daylight savings and I can't wake up for the life of me. Hence us showing up for the sealing around 8:15 when it started at 8:00. Thats what you get for getting sealed too early in the morning.

We tried to go to the luncheon after the sealing but the groom's brother gave us directions. They went a little something like this.

" Umm first you take 200 east out to 700...uh well wait do you have something for me to draw it on? I'm a much better drawer. "

He then proceeded to draw us a map on the back of a tithing envelope that was absolutely unreadable. He couldn't write in all of the streets because he didn't know their names and he told us we needed to turn at a McDonald's and a maverick. That's like saying a McDonald's and a CircleK. in other words pretty much every other corner. After giving us the directions he proceeds to say, " ya its a good thing you asked me for directions because I'm pretty much the only one in the family who can give decent directions." Devin replied, " ya that's not saying much for your family"

Needless to say we didn't find the luncheon either.

But we did get to witness a really bad motorcycle accident. The guy wasn't paying attention and hit the back of the SUV that was stopped at a red light. The car that was behind us. The car that would have been us if we hadn't have just gotten into the turning lane to flip a U-turn since we were lost. The car that had a guy and girl on their way to their sealing at the temple. They got in an accident on their wedding day. We got out to help and it was like the hugest drama ever.

Later we were kinda glad we got bad directions becuase if we hadn't then that man's head would have hit our back windshield right next to annie. Trauma.


Anyway, we did make it to the reception and civil ceremony. It was really well done. The guy who performed the ceremony went on this five minute shpeal on what love was.


Stuff like
Love was...giving your last cookie to your wife.
...giving your husband a back rub when he's tired
...doing the dishes when your wife cooks dinner
....giving your last five dollar bill to the other just becuase they ask

After he said that, devin handed me a crisp five dollar bill. Maybe it was really adorable and I put it in my dress pocket to always stay there. Maybe I really like him.



The reception was at this really cute golf club that had the most amazing view. The girl was French and so she repeated half of her vows in French for her grandparents who barely spoke English. They did the civil ceremony for her family too since she is the only convert. It was really well done, until I found out that the minister guy used to play Merlin at the Excalibur in Vegas. That kind of ruined it for me.


Well after spending Sunday with Sue and Dave we got ready to go. On the way home we stopped in Fredonia to look at the cop car that was still sitting in the same spot because I swore it was a mannequin. It was.


So we took a picture.

So no worries next time you are in fredonia, speed all you want. When you are approachin Tuba City on the other hand don't speed. I mocked the Law and the Law won. I maybe got a speeding ticket. Call me Reida.

Our last stop was at montezuma's castle to leave a treat for Devin's dad at the casino where he works. We heart-attacked his car. Sorta.


This concludes our vacation.