"you just deal with it..."

Yesterday I went to the Optometrist to get my eyes checked, and he decided to dilate them, too. Afterward I couldn't see anything up close for about 3 hours. Of course, I got texts and calls and I held my phone as far away as my arm could reach to try and read the screen, but, nothin'. I'm so sure that would happen then...I hardly ever get texts anymore. Anyway, he gave me a new brand of contact, and it's stuck in my eye. I've tried everything and poked my eyes for hours. It just wont come out...it's giving me a weird sense of claustrophobia. Oh, and my vision got worse again. So I've got that going for me. Another year to wait in hopes of finally getting an all-clear on lasik....*sigh*

"They say it's your birthday...We're gonna have a good time"

My Mom and Sister have their birthdays right after New Years. I left California at 4am Sunday morning and drove through to Utah just in time for my Mom's party. Melinda had decided we were going to have a "Welcome to the Middle Ages" party for my mom, which was pretty sweet because we got crowns and had a lemonade fountain with goblets and everything. Carly was definitely the prettiest princess there. When you say "Yay!!!" She puts up her hands and cheers with you. Adorable.

So,we had the party and sometime or other we were talking about my sweet new cotton candy maker and I told Melinda I'd throw her a carnival party for her birthday just so we could make some. Or something like that. I can't really remember exactly how it came about. We couldn't do it on her birthday, because not everyone could come, so we waited til the weekend. (That way Curtis and Savannah could bring their balloon-animal making skills.) Jason and Colie and I did go to dinner with her on her birthday, though, and we experienced the hot new lounge in Provo-"Spark." It was a pretty hip-happenin place, and it was there that I discovered the cotton candy Shirley Temple. MMmmm 










 



So that was that. Saturday was the party, which was lots of fun setting up for in my living room. Rebecca spent the night Friday and hung out and helped with the decorations and made delicious monkey bread. We brought in a Mickey projector screen, which fit on one side where the ceiling vaults, but not so much on the other. He ended up with a crooked ear. :( The party was pretty stocked, though... We had the cotton candy maker, a popcorn maker, a snow cone maker, an arcade claw machine, monkey bread, and WAY more people than I ever expected in my apartment :)

I was pretty surprised at the turnout. I expected there to be around fifteen people, and I think we ended up with around...30 people. I'll have to see if I can round up more pictures. Happy Birthday, Melinda. It was a blasty-blast

"This must be it. Welcome to the New Year..."

Gosh, I haven't updated in forever. Maybe because I've been depressed. Why? Here is my car when I absolutely have to come out of hibernation for something:

Aggghhhh, I can't live without Sunshine. What is it with people loving the snow?! I can't stand it. It's everything I hate. Freezing, hard to walk normally in, people can't seem to drive in it, it's ugly brown on the side of the road everywhere you go...what is the deal? I freeze my hand off every time I have to uncover my beautiful car. What a hassle. It's not worth writing any more about. Moving on.

Christmas has come and gone and I got an amazing cotton candy maker from Justin. I use it all the time, it's the coolest thing you can have in your kitchen. I think it should be a standard household item. I really don't know why more people don't have them and offer you cotton candy for dessert. OH! Speaking of which...there is a place in Provo that has cotton candy Shirley Temples! But I'm getting ahead of myself...I have some more random pictures from Christmas. Here are Melinda and I getting our stockings ready and expressing our hopes that Santa wont forget to put an Orange in there with all the candy. It's tradition. Yes, my stocking is a pair of lacy pantaloons. It's awesome.

I decided to drive over to California for New Years, which turned out to be sunny and beautiful. Thank heavens. Also, it was Sebastian's first trip- so he has officially been coast to coast with me. :) We took the Bart to San Francisco and watched fireworks over the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight...which was pretty, but I was distracted people watching. There are just so many people to stare at! They bring it on themselves for being weird. I can't help it. On the way back home, we crammed into the Bart station (The Bart, for anyone not familiar, is like a subway/train) with about a million drunk people and a huge fight broke out right next to us. I think it was the girl's fault for thinking she could hit some big dude in the face and get away with it, but he probably shouldn't have shoved her back. So that went on for awhile, and later we read in the newspaper someone was killed there right around the time we left. Oh yeah, I also got to see the lights at the Oakland Temple while I was there, which was fun. There's nothin like lights on a palm tree.  On the way there a car randomly flung into reverse two cars in front of us and jet across traffic and hit the dirt wall next to us. It totaled their car, but we stopped and asked if they were alright and they said yes...it's amazing we didn't hit the car in front of us, and then them. I'm not sure how we pulled that off. So, that was New Years. And I ate cotton candy while ringing it in. So it was a good start.
We also took some family pictures somewhere around Christmas. Aw.

"From Yesterday Comes Tomorrow..."

Three years ago at the end of 2005, I ended up in Utah for the Winter Holidays. I met up with my good friend Robyn I'd roomed with at BYU-I for a semester, and we celebrated New Years together. We did festive things like see the lights at temple square, drink Martinellis, and...well...found a place to destroy her gingerbread house. We were driving along with it in the car when we saw this sign on the side of the road:

We took it as fate, and suddenly this happened:

So, this year we got together again- tonight- and decided to make some rockin gingerbread houses. They turned out pretty amazing. Robyn should get a career in...gingerbread-house-making...or something close. She and Justin made an awesome house, and she even made a sandbox with a pail and sand in it and everything:  

We did have a little difficulty in the making of the icing-glue in the beginning, and Robyn kept adding things that I'm pretty sure don't really exist...such as "cream of sugar"...but maybe I've just never heard of it. It suddenly became very thick and doughy. Must've been the secret ingredients.

My non-gingerbread graham cracker house was a mansion with a skylight, pop-rock lava moat, and a car with Lamborghini doors...and I recruited Robyn to make a canoe for the lake. All in all it was awesome.

"I'm shivering hard now, shivering hard now..."

I went snowboarding up at Sundance today...high of 17..Brrr...

Look at my stylish new goggles. :) I love my board, but I didn't really get a good picture of it.

I'm pretty much terrified of getting off the stupid lift. Every time my chair got close to the unloading hill I panicked and wondered if I could get away with just staying on and riding it back down to the bottom. I'm always scared of falling right when I get off and getting whacked by the chair, or tripped over by the people coming off next. I psych myself out about the whole thing- it's definitely the downside of the whole experience...one of these days I'm gonna find an alternate way up the mountain.

On my first trip up there were two kids on the lift in front of me. I was sitting there minding my own business trying to breathe in the ridiculous blizzard that was going on, when suddenly the kid in front of me dropped out of the lift onto the side of the mountain! I totally thought he fell out until I saw the next kid drop, too. They both hit the snow and started cheering...what the world. Some people's children.

Anyway, the day was a success minus a few bruises. I'm still not sure about all this white stuff, but it was a fun step out of hibernation for the day.

"calling all cars, we've got another victim..."

I've actually had something to blog about but I've been waiting for the pictures to go along with it. It's looking like that's going to take some time, so I'm moving on...

I just went through the car wash, which is pretty much pointless. I swear it doesn't clean your car at all. On my way out I was slowly inching through the dryer when I realized my front windshield was still getting water drops on it. I was thinking it was just blowing them off the top when I inched out further and realized it was raining. Awesome. You can't plan that kind of timing.

Anyway, I was washing it because today I got the greatest present ever for Sebastian. I was walking through the mall after getting some scrapbooking stuff...ahem...and they have a little kiosk where they make decals. I got distracted and ended up getting one for my car, which turned out to be cooler than I imagined. They told me besides the Master Chief it's the coolest one they've ever made. Obviously. I don't know how I went so long without it, I love it. Merry Sneetchmas Sebastian :)