Remember When: Florida

Hullo Liv, Jackie and Christine :) I am posting this list just for your enjoyment. Thanks for a wonderful semester!

Remember when.....

-We met Olivia and Jackie went to work out immediately and then ate prenatal vitamins, and I called my family to tell them all the groceries I bought....

-We went through lines our whole first day and no one even fed us :(

-Olivia and Jackie jumped in the pool and Liv had Relief Society arms

-***** was in love with Liv and **** was in love with Christine and ***** was in love with me

-.....and then we left Florida and.....nothing

-Liv bought red high heels

-Liv made up a love song about ****

-I went to work out because of the beautiful boy and I never saw him again, but still worked out occasionally

-Christine's coordinator called her out for calling in when she wasn't sick, just joking, and she said, "I'm on my period, so BACK OFF!"

-Jackie needed to not be so guarded and stop caring about what Bruce thinks

-**** wasn't into the whole "makey-outty think"

-But **** was

-"Leeeett'sss, getitonnn"

-We got lost looking for Twisty Treats and went to McDonalds instead and Liv got us free lemonade because she was barefoot and pantsless

-Liv and I watched Last Song and I cried

-We went to Expedition Everest and I looked like a retard in the picture!?

-"I'm sorry??"

-Liv greeted the morning with no pants on and the girl looked at her weird, like that wasn't normal

-We danced in the tornado rain in our swimsuits

-We made that delicious cinnamon streusel cake with ****'s pan and he hated us. Specifically Liv

-Liv straddled James the British man on the bus ride home

-We went for an ice cream run and everyone ate their ice cream in 3.672 seconds.....I mean, a week....

-Except the nasty berry granola kind.

-Jesse though Liv and I hated Jackie??

-***** said Liv was loud

-We went to the hoedown and witnessed a proposal, complete with blue flowers, a defective microphone, and mackin with cowboy hats on

-We laid out and listened to conference

-We didn't have a tv :(

-We wore biks and nobody judged

-the only time Sean saw me was when I was immodest....

-Dallin took Olivia and I on a motorcycle ride after church and we looked hottt in our dresses and heels

-I turned into a lobster at the beach and hurt soooo, frickin, ba-ad

-Olivia and Christine didn't have nearly enough cocoa butter / lotion (for jokesies)

-the lady at McDonalds recognized Jax and Liv

-We went to Chick-Fil-A three days in a row and did not feel regret

-Olivia stole the tabletoppers from all the restaurants and Jackie called Jimmy John's to apologize

-We all called in to lay out by the pool and go out to eat and see Elder Bednar (does that last one redeem us?)

-Brad got an awesome island condo and everyone was going to call in and go and party and get tons of action......but it never happened?

-Brad made plans and followed through with no hassle! - wait, don't remember that.

-We listened to Avril Lavigne's song 42,836 times a day.

-Olivia had never heard of a cock block

-But **** was the very definition of one

-Olivia found a crab claw on the beach, and she accepted it

-And Heather found a dead and decaying sea turtle and 381 cigarette butts

-The French boy got my number at McD's and wanted to go to Bliss with me, but I didn't know his name, so we decided to "keep in touch, kiss!"

-Jackie was in love with a black man (surprise) and a Mexican named Joaquin

-I was in love with.....everyone else

-Sarah (my sister) said to Sean, "Oh I see, you're crushin' on my sister?"

-but that was inaccurate, since he was actually crushin' on random guests

-We spent money at the outlets and we were poor! but happy :)

-Chris did not see Christine's boob! (yeah, okay)

-Chris had prickly chest hair and Olivia loved it when he hugged her goodbye

-Jackie was flirting with Brad and then saw Sy's roommate....tots awk

-Nobody held a candle to us in our red high heels

-We got hit on my Moroccans in Epcot and they gave us food and took our friend Kelsey

-We thudded. (Downstairs mixup, part 2)

-I learned how to surf!

-We got donuts and hair products and bread from our church

-Correction: Liv got donuts

-Liv ripped her pants cheerleading

-Smelling feet was normal

-Olivia and Jackie were wrestling when Sean came over

-Heather dumped Prince Eric, married Flynn Ryder, and dated Hercules.

-I had an entire drawer full of nail polish

-Everything we said was amazing and earth-shattering, according to ****

-Olivia and I played soda pong and Liv had to drink my soda, too

-Jackie probably caused a heart attack with a single txt

-Heather just wanted a "K"

-Eric Mullen was our (IDIOT) busdriver

-We rode in a taxi home from Walmart

-that BOY! told us that BYU and UNLV were rivals. Who knew??

-Heather was making a mistake because he was "worth it"

-We all hated Goodings. Stupid Goodings.

-Jackie and Heather paid $2.50 to make a circle and go to Walmart.

-Twice.

-Christine had more fun dancing than the drunk people did

-I was fluent in French

-Christine got a hottie-bo-bottie boy to pay for her to go to Universal Studios

-More Moroccans hit on Jackie and Heather in the parking lot and Heather gave them the wrong number on accident.....on purpose

-We went to House of Blues and Jackie and Heather were the only blondes and one of 4 white people in the whole place

-We decorated our apartment with a hair flower and a green dish towel in a water glass

-the apartment uniform was no pants, a purple silky work shirt, and TAN

-Heather didn't give her number to a Yankee's fan driving next to her

-Everyone loved my driving

-I had really embarrassing fairy godmothers

-Aladdin was dating Prince Charming :(

-Everyone was a gourmet chef except Heather

-We watched the fireworks whenever the heck we wanted

-Liv was the luckiest girl because she got to watch the parade every day

-Jackie had a sexy costume and needed to leave something to the imagination

-We had the absolute best time ever!

My Daddy's Little Girl

So last night, my friend was showing me her wedding plans. She had gone online and found a cake, dress, ring, flowers, and decorations that she liked and put the pictures all together in a word document. It inspired me to plan my wedding too! (I'm not going to put it up here because I am afraid my wedding colors will be stolen.....)

Anyway, one of the things I looked at was father-daughter songs. When Kelly got married, she and my dad danced to "I loved her first" by Heartland, and I love this song, but I kind of want my own father-daughter song. So I started exploring other options.

You guys, I started bawwwling. I can't believe how lucky I am to have the best dad ever! I just love him and loving being his girl and I love how nice and smart he is and how he dances with my mom and how he works so hard for our family and how he always wants to talk to me, no matter what else he's doing, he will always take the time to talk to me and I love him a whole lot.

Also, just a side note, my husband must dance. With me, and with our little girls.

What? Vitamins?

Summer is the best thing ever invented. I love so much about this summer!


Working in the Writing Center is great because no one comes in (I've done like 8 tutorials total in the past 3 weeks) and because every day there is delicious food.


Working at ColdStone is great because I love ice cream. And I love when people come in and visit me. Especially my favorite customers aka Kelly and Dahl and Julie the P.


Taking French is great because now I can parler francais a little bit. Un petit.


Living with Rachel is great because she brings happiness to our apartment in the form of pet dogs and chocolate-covered strawberries sent to her by faraway suitors. Approval ratings for said suitor have reached a record high.


Living with Caitlin is great because she tells me what to wear and lays out at the pool with me practically every day. And we are going to get tan no matter what.


Laying out at the pool is great because they feed me there.


Laying out at the pool is not great because they sometimes enforce rules that make me get weird tanlines. Oh well....


Lagoon is great because you can go on the Rattlesnake River Rapids and there are no seatbelts, so you can jump all over the raft and even if you almost fall out it's not a big deal, because at least you avoided the waterfall that fell instead on Stan, because you pushed him under it and he is too good-natured to push anyone back.


YogurtLand is great because it is delicious and you can try a billion samples and no one will even look at you funny. Which I would ignore if they did, but it's still nice to not have to deal with that kind of snarkiness.


Being a BYU student is great because I love this campus sofreakingmuch.


Being Nicole's sister is great because she introduced me to the Party Rock Anthem which I now listen to at least 8 times a day. This is not an exaggeration. And I'm a little embarrassed by it. But just a little. Un petit.


Listening to the Party Rock Anthem so often is great because it inspires me to learn how to shuffle. And then it turns out it's kinda easy if you don't get too crazy and just stick to the basic steps, and then I feel really accomplished and want to go dancing real bad.

Also, while we're on the subject of the Party Rock Anthem, that would be great if 5 to 100 guys want to participate in a Halloween costume with me where I am Lauren Bennett and I wear a silver leotard and put a pink heart on my throat and then all the boys dress up like all the guys in the music video.

If you are interested I will be very thrilled.

Creepers in Idaho

do exist. I met several of them in Idaho Falls after the fireworks.

Here was my situation:

-armed with about 1/8 of a phone. (It randomly broke on Monday morning. Still do not understand why. I could still call some of my speed dials and answer some calls, but couldn't see anything on the screen.)

-I had made it made it to Idaho Falls by finding my friend Sean's number on facebook, calling him from Nicole's phone, having him call his roommate, who then called me, and then gave me a ride to Idaho Falls.

-I was planning on getting back to Utah by way of Ride Boy, who was also going to be at Idaho Falls for the fireworks.

-Nicole didn't go with me to the IF fireworks.

-I did, however, find Olivia and hung out with her ward. We played Uno, walked around looking at the food, and then went back to Sean's car to get my stuff, since Olivia's spot was closer to the Phillips 66 gas station we were going to be meeting up at.

So to summarize, after the fireworks when I split from Olivia and her group, I found myself walking all alone through the business district of downtown IF, carrying my backpack, purse, and a lunchbox, unable to contact anyone on my phone. You can accuse me of being addicted to my phone, and I won't even argue. I kind of am. So I was a little nervous.

Especially when I reached the end of the business district (the road dead-ended at a museum) and I still had seen no sign of the Phillips 66 gas station or the Olive Garden it was supposedly next to. I stood on the street corner, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, trying not to look too lost or vulnerable.

The police officer directing traffic looked at me inquisitively, ready to stop traffic in whichever direction I wanted to go, but I shook my head and shrank away from the curb. I called Nicole, who called Ride Boy, who called me. We figured out that he had told me the wrong way to go, and I started walking back along the same street.

Here are some of the unsavory characters I encountered during my trek:

1. the longboarders with colorful mohawks who were smoking behind the portapotties and called out to me as I passed. Did they think I was somehow similar to them in any way?? Because I do not.

2. the policeman who leered at me as I crossed the street and said, "Be careful, it's dangerous," with a wink. .....Ew. That's not in your job description. I just said "yeah, thanks" because I think he's the kind of officer who would let you off with a warning if he pulled you over and you were cute enough.

3. the (intoxicated?) hicks who honked at me for a solid 30 seconds and then practically fell out of their ridiculously jacked-up pickup truck laughing.

4. the car full of boys who rolled down their windows when their car got close to me and called out, "hey, pretty!" "Dude, she's a lady." "Hey lady, do you need someone to carry your backpack?" "I'll carry your backpack..." "Is that a euphemism?" "Dude, you sound like a creeper right now." I actually think I would have thought they were funny under any other circumstances, but I just shook my head and said, "no thanks," and kept walking.

Here are some of the savory ones I met:

1. The cute family who told me which way I-15 was from the museum.

2. Yep.

By the time I got to the Phillips 66 gas station, I thought I was going to cry with relief when I saw Ride Boy's (kind of) familiar face. He smiled at me as I approached his car and said, "Garhett. That was like, a freaking creeper-fest!"

"Oh man," he said mildly, taking my backpack. "I'm sorry about that, getting you lost and everything."

I waved his apology aside. I really couldn't have asked for a better Ride Boy. We left the gas station ten minutes later and arrived in Salt Lake in under 3 hours.

The day my Red High Heel went out

My Idaho vacation only got better with the coming of Sunday. Well, first of all I have to admit that I was super-antsy in church. I've come up with the following reasons for this.

1. Church started at 9 am.

2. Church started with RelSoc.

3. RelSoc started with the announcement that "modesty candy" would not be passed out today because everyone looked pretty modest. I turned to Nicole in shock. She smiled reassuringly at me and explained that they usually hand out "modesty candy" to a few girls who particularly exemplify modesty. I was not reassured. I became antsy. (Antsier.)

4. RelSoc and Sunday School were both held in a dance room, so I kept peeking compulsively around Nicole at my reflection.

5. Was my antsiness a subconscious rebellion to the "modesty candy" and the signs all over BYU-I's campus about not wearing shorts? I don't consider myself particularly rebellious but maybe I am.

6. I only saw one cute boy. He didn't see me. ANTSY.

All antsiness aside, it was a lovely meeting. Nicole and I went home, took a nap, and then one of Nicole's friends invited us over for lasagna and breadsticks. It was delicious! I love being fed so much.

After our midday meal, we had an important task: Nicole's photo project. I don't really know what it was, but she needed me to be a model. I needed no further information. Photo shoots are among my favorite activities! I fixed my hair a little and we headed down to the BYU-I gardens, arms overflowing with stuffed animals and kitchenware.

Nicole's idea was to portray the classic little-girl-having-a-tea-party-with-her-stuffed-animals. I tried really hard to channel my inner child, but it wasn't long before we heard the sound of real children's voices.

"There are children in this garden," Nicole observed seriously. "I'm about to kidnap them for myproject."

We laughed about it, but not even five minutes later, two beautiful blonde kids, a 6-yr-old boy and his 3-yr-old sister, came over to the table, their eyes widening at the tea party setup.

Nicole and I smiled at them, trying not to look creepy or overly excited. "Hi," we said. Their mom came over and said "Oh wow, look at this!" Their grandpa followed and smiled as the two kids sat down at our table, conspicuously eyeing the Ritz crackers and mini Oreos.

Encouraged, Nicole asked if they would like to participate in her photo project. Their mom agreed and we all stepped back as they modeled. They were really the most perfect thing that could have happened to the photo shoot. They hugged the stuffed animals, ate the crackers, drank the lemonade, and tried on our "big girl" shoes (just the girl did that last one). Their mom got into it too, encouraging them to not look at the camera and just act normal.

After a few minutes, Nicole had about 30 pictures. We thanked the cute little family, packed up our tea party, and went off to find more photo opportunities.

A bench swing, a fountain, and some gardens later, we found a beautiful manmade waterfall and began photographing in earnest. I had slowly made my way to the top of the waterfall and was about to come back down, having enough pictures, when Nicole got the brilliant idea of handing up my red Steve Madden heels so I could hold them artistically as I came down the rocks.

Of course I agreed that that would be super-artistic. Anyway, what could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, it was a terrible idea. But it made for a great memory when I threw one of the shoes down, watched as it bounced twice, moving farther away from the waterfall both times, and then rocketed backwards, flung into the pond water by some inexplicable force. (Super-funny, God. I know that wasn't physically probable.)

My expression went from shocked to horrified to panicked as I watched it drift towards the center of the pond, and when it tipped backwards and started to sink, I couldn't think of anything to do but laugh. Nicole ran off to find a stick to pull it out and came back with a stout little log. Not helpful.

I may have deconstructed the manmade dam a little bit when I took a longer stick that I had to hold with both hands off the top of it, but I needed my shoe, so don't judge.

At first it tried to float every time I got close to the shoe, which by this time had settled comfortably on the duck-poopy, algae-y bottom of the pond, and we had to force it under the water with both hands to even touch the shoe. I think it eventually got waterlogged, making it easier to pull the shoe closer to us.

When it was close enough, I found a nice skinny branch that kind of curved at the end, snapped it off it's tree, and enlisted it's help as a fishing hook. While Nicole held the shoe in place with the fatter stick from the dam, I carefully hooked the new stick through the peep toe of the shoe and pulled it to the surface, where we all (the shoe included) were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

We attracted quite an audience throughout this whole ordeal.

Unhelpful Audience Members:

1. the duck. Who knows where he went.

2. the family that leaned against the rocks and watched us with a faint trace of amusement ontheir faces and then hurried away when we asked if any of them could swim.

3. the couple that was happily making out behind some trees until we disturbed them with our cries of dismay and they walked out of the trees, looked at us in puzzlement for a minute, and then walked out, hands intertwined and unavailable to help us.

4. the awkward couple whose romantic pictures we interrupted when we arrived at the waterfall. They made their way back over, saw our plight, and walked away, smirking at the karma.

5. Vince Eisinger, an old family friend from our childhood who I didn't recognize, but Nicole did. He randomly walked up at the end with his wife and some of his in-laws. He tried to be helpful but by then we had it under control.

Moral of the story? Throwing your shoes around water is never a good idea. Especially if you forgot to thank God for the children he sent your way to use in a photo project for your humanities class.

Oh Hey, Harrison....

You know how sometimes, you wake up and have no idea what you're going to do with your day, and then it turns into the greatest day ever? That's kind of how Saturday was for me.

I woke up at about 11:30 (Connors are chronic sleeper-inners) and got ready for the day. Nicole and I went out to eat at Craigos, but for some reason, we couldn't find the famous pizza buffet, so we settled for Teriyaki Stix.

My friend Sean (who I met in Florida) and his girlfriend came and picked me up, but just as we were on our way over the water park, Olivia told me that it had reached capacity and they weren't able to get in. Plan B was longboarding at Porter Park. I learned how to longboard on Thursday night but I am not great at it, so I basically had to relearn everything. Luckily Sean is super-outgoing so he recruited four guys to be my friends and they taught me longboarding and then we ran in the water fountains at the park and then went to Jamba Juice.

The reason I wasn't hanging out with Nicole during this time is because she had a band concert. She wasn't really sure about all the details, but they were going to go to some fancy place on a bus (so not in Rexburg), practice a little, eat some dinner, perform, and watch some fireworks and then go home. It was from 3-11 and she said a lot of time would be spent practicing so I might be bored if I went with them.

To continue, we ended up going to Driggs, Idaho for a Freedom Festival kinda thing thrown by Mr. Jon Huntsman himself. There were carts selling carnival food, families on blankets tossing footballs back and forth, college students sunbathing, and a line of fancy old cars parked side by side behind a tether. We meandered around and then found a spot on the grass to watch the concert and the fireworks.

As it turns out, the first performers in the concert were the members of the BYU-Idaho band. Hmmm! I started putting two and two together and realized that Nicole was going to be playing here! It's great how I can be an awesome-sauce sister without even trying sometimes.

The concert was lovely and the weather was perfect. We started out sitting up close to the stage, but an older gentlemen (who was actually pretty cranky) sitting next to us kept complaining and glaring because we were apparently in the aisle, so we picked up and started moving to a hill on the other side of the VIP section.

Justin, one of Sean's friends who knows about 80% of the people in Rexburg, walked right into the VIP section and said, "Hey, so, how do you get in here, by the way, it looks like there's a lot of extra space here?" The guy in charge said, "Yeah, come on in, is that your party? Call them over."

He called us over. We waltzed into the VIP section, pointed arbitrarily at the clipboard, and he waved us in. We skipped up to the front of the section where there was a cooler with free bottled water and Sprite waiting for us. We flopped comfortably down on our blanket.

Elder Ballard walked past us. He smiled at Sean. I tugged at my skirt and wondered why I didn't think to wear long pants and a turtleneck since I might possibly see a General Authority here.

We glanced to our right and saw Harrison Ford dancing along to the music . We glanced at each other, our jaws on the ground. We glanced at Justin and whispered excitedly. He and Mad Dog got up and marched fearlessly over to Harrison Ford. After a brief conversation, I couldn't handle it anymore and followed them.

Mad Dog was in the middle of a sentence when I got there, but Harrison turned away from him and said, "And what's your name?" grabbing my hand to shake it.

"I'm Heather!" I said.

This is the face I was looking into:




The one on the left. It was a little bit older, too. But that's the face you guys.

That face said, "Oh, you're good-looking!"

I blushed. I stuttered out a thank you. I tried to think of something witty to say. Harrison saved me the trouble by turning to Mad Dog and asking, "Is she your girlfriend?"

"No, no...." he said. "We just met today," I said.

"Oh, that sucks to be you then!" said the Harrison lookalike.

The boys laughed and made all sorts of funny jokes all through this exchange. "Oh, he doesn't care what we have to say anymore." "Thanks for coming over Heather, we won't get any attention now." Then of course they made fun of how I was beaming the whole rest of the night.

It turns out he wasn't actually Harrison, just his stunt double. He gets people asking if he is Harrison a lot. Coincidentally, he sells hay to Harrison. Unfortunately, he declined to get a picture with us, but Tim did get a side shot of us talking to him. I'll put it up here as soon as it makes its facebook debut.

After our run-ins with Harrison Ford and Elder Ballard, we looked back on the stage and saw Glenn Beck. He gave a long speech. We applauded when he said something we agreed with. We reveled in the fame that surrounded us. VIP has its perks :)

The fireworks were some of the best I've ever seen. They lasted about a half-hour and were supplemented with video clips shown on huge projector screens. We watched them while listening to patriotic songs. I felt them from my toes to my chest.

I love being an American sodarnmuch.

Shut up and Drive

When I was little, I was told never to get into a car with a stranger. I used to be really obedient to this rule. But this weekend, I discovered the ride board.

I decided kind of last minute that I was going to spend my 4th of July weekend in Rexburg with Nicole and my friends at BYU-Idaho. I started looking into how I could get there and found that the Salt Lake Express could get me there for only $54 each way! .......Yeah no thanks.

I tried the ride board at BYU, but everyone I txtd was full. So Alyssa looked on the BYU-Idaho ride board and found me a ride! It was a guy who was going up to BYU-I from Salt Lake to visit his girlfriend. And he still had room in his car.

Even after (I'll admit it) facebook stalking him to make sure he wasn't a creeper, I had my doubts. Facebook doesn't tell you everything. What if he smiled nauseatingly and said everything as an exclamation and expected me to be enthusiastically engaged in conversation the whole way? Suppose he only liked screamo and I arrived in Idaho half-deaf and crying?

Then again, what if he was normal, but his car was a total piece and we barely crossed the state line before it broke down? I imagined standing outside in the rain, sniffling under an umbrella as the ride board mystery man tried and failed to fix the problem. Eventually he would give up and thrust me into the road, hoping that someone driving by would take pity on me and give us a ride the rest of the way. But then....what if that person was even worse than he?

Besides that, I had no idea who the other passengers would be, and I had no way of facebook stalking them. I'm not thattt good. Thus, I was plagued by visions of smelly co-passengers who sang along to the radio off-key, or fell asleep with their heads lolling around on my shoulder as they drooled on me.

This was, thankfully, far from the reality. All my ride buddies were refreshingly normal, charmingly witty, and low-maintenance. I spent the first two hours of the trip deliriously happy with my good fortune. I was this close to pledging my allegiance to Garhett - the pleasantly tanned, 80mph driver with a firm handshake and good taste in music - and never accepting a ride from anyone else, when one of the girls said that she'd actually never had a bad experience with the ride board.

So apparently my fears were irrational, but I was still relieved.