This year is my first year not going home for Christmas.
.....I KNOW. Hash tag, big girl.
Instead of Baltimore lights twinkling up into my airplane window on Friday, I experienced the lights of Indianapolis for the fist time.
Then I experienced:
-some delicious cheesy bread, sugar cookies, peanut butter fudge, and cold medicine
-getting tackled by little boys who quickly stopped when they realized I was not their sister
-using all of Natalie's makeup since I apparently left all of mine in Utah
-going out Christmas shopping in the middle of Indianapolis flooding
{I'm serious. I got an emergency weather alert txt telling me to stay away from potential flooding areas}
-sleeping with Stephen in the bed his parents assigned to us. Oh, with his brother in the same bed.
-the Christmas program in the Indy 1st ward, which included a fabulous special musical number and donuts after the meeting
-a Christmas dinner at an interior designer grandma's BEAUTIFUL home
-a conversation that went like this:
me: Brandon, are you taller than me now?
We stand up to measure ourselves and find that he is a good 3 inches taller.
Diane: Oh yeah, I can't keep him in the same pair of pants for more than a month! He just grows out of them so fast!
-followed by a riveting game of boys vs. girls Catchphrase
-in which I got "growing pains," and the timer was speeding up, and it was up to me to help my team guess it, and I blurted out: "Okay, this is what....Brandon keeps doing this out of his pants."
-and my team didn't guess it and instead just got really confused.
-so I said, "Diane was just telling me about it!"
-and then people just laughed instead of guessing and I had to try something else.
There's no place like home for the holidays, but there's an H on one of the stockings here, and Natalie drew me in the family picture she put in Eric's room, and I'm surrounded by people I love. Besides which, there's a huge ball of mistletoe that I can stand under whenever I want. So for my first Christmas away from home, it's going to be a pretty nice one :)
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Carshopping
Is something I do not miss. I imagine this is how people feel when they hate dating and then they get married....anyway. Ever since finding Cassidy Jane Carbaby, my life has been significantly better.
Recently, I was reminded of this when Nicool posted on my wall to say that our facebook conversations are really funny, and I should look at them again. I did, and found this little gem:
Recently, I was reminded of this when Nicool posted on my wall to say that our facebook conversations are really funny, and I should look at them again. I did, and found this little gem:
Friday, May 11, 2012
Beach Bums
Disney Land is a pretty magical place, but the next stop on our vacation was every bit as magical, in my opinion. It was a bit of a hassle in the assle to get to, but when we got there, it was so worth it!
"The pimp-friend-turned-tour guide, formerly known as Steve"
"Can you hold this please? In your face...." -Steve
S: Can you imagine life without GPS?
W: Can you imagine life without....cell phones, or cars, or World of Colors....
W: I really hope this is the beach house. Otherwise I'm just going to break in and pretend it is.
S: Oh hey, are you my dad's client? No? Well, now you are!
"I don't even want to drive after this. Like at all. I will let my body eat itself." -Steve
"Thanks for the love honk, dude." -Steve
"This GPS is stupid. I want to punch it." -Steve
H: You guys are such novices at being lost. See, I get lost all the time, so this is like, no big deal. Oooh, look at that pretty rose!
S: Maybe that's why you get lost all the time....
H: Huh?
S: Oooh! A flower! That's what you do when you get lost??
And then, we arrived. It was almost midnight, and we all just kind of stumbled into the beach house and dropped our stuff.
You guys. It was the cutest beach house I have ever been in. It was so adorable! There was a little kitchen, a little living room, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The best part? The beach was right outside the back door.
"The pimp-friend-turned-tour guide, formerly known as Steve"
"Can you hold this please? In your face...." -Steve
S: Can you imagine life without GPS?
W: Can you imagine life without....cell phones, or cars, or World of Colors....
W: I really hope this is the beach house. Otherwise I'm just going to break in and pretend it is.
S: Oh hey, are you my dad's client? No? Well, now you are!
"I don't even want to drive after this. Like at all. I will let my body eat itself." -Steve
"Thanks for the love honk, dude." -Steve
"This GPS is stupid. I want to punch it." -Steve
H: You guys are such novices at being lost. See, I get lost all the time, so this is like, no big deal. Oooh, look at that pretty rose!
S: Maybe that's why you get lost all the time....
H: Huh?
S: Oooh! A flower! That's what you do when you get lost??
And then, we arrived. It was almost midnight, and we all just kind of stumbled into the beach house and dropped our stuff.
You guys. It was the cutest beach house I have ever been in. It was so adorable! There was a little kitchen, a little living room, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The best part? The beach was right outside the back door.
Despite Steve's earlier declaration that he never wanted to drive again, we did end up driving to the grocery store, where we got food like real people. Like groceries that real people eat.
The next morning, I was woken up by Winnie saying: "Heather! Go look outside! It's a beautiful day!" I was so excited that I rolled out of bed and ran straight to the ocean to dip my toes in. If I could wake up every day to such a declaration, I would not even mind that.
The rest of our time in Newport Beach is a blur of frozen bananas, sand castles, honkin huge starfish, beachside barbecues, healthy people, frisbee lessons, souvenir shopping, Jersey Shore, $300 palm trees, and absolutely no hanky panky.
H: I have a coupon for a free package of hot dogs if we want to use that?
T: For where?
W: Any grocery store. Anywhere that sells balls.....
"You're gorgeous, don't stop!" -Skater boy
"And tell Steve he's the luckiest man in California. He's driving around with the three most powerful women currently in California....he could run for governor right now if he wanted to. I never would have been able to get 3 girls to go to the beach with me. I want to know what kind of aftershave he's wearing!" -my dad
Beach Bum #1: Hey, where did I park my Mercedes?
Beach Bum #2: I think it was next to my BMW...
Beach Bum #3: Oh yeah, didn't we double-park?
"Hey Steve. If you really want, you can kiss me on the cheek, since the sun is setting on the beach." -Christine
S: Kimmy used to kick me there all the time.
K: Yeah, and every time I did, my dad would like pull aside and tell me why I couldn't do that. And I still. Did it.
S: I'd love to just....sit on the beach in a beach chair and have a talk with Jesus.
H: You're so California....
H: I feel like we aren't being as funny today.
Ch: That's because we actually got some sleep....
"I was in the bathroom, getting fresh to death, like I do....." -Mike (Jersey Shore)
T: And then she kinda just left me hangin'....
H: "Left me hangin'?" Is that really a phrase you want to be using in this story?
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Vegas Virgin No Longer
Last week, I was a Vegas Virgin. Now, I can no longer say that.
Sunday morning was a bit of a stress-fest with keys getting lost and plans being delayed a few hours, but we eventually got ourselves on the road and set off!
Our fearless driver!
I made mix CD's for the trip. Not gonna lie, it kind of gave me anxiety as I was making them and every single song was chosen with the utmost care. I tried to imagine all of my friends laughing and singing along enthusiastically as if we were in some 50's convertible car commercial, and if I couldn't picture it, the song didn't make the cut. The result is some pretty rock-awesome mixes, you guys.
We made it to Vegas just in time for dinner at Steve's sister's house. She has literally 2 of the cutest kids I have ever seen, ever, so we hung out there for a little bit, and then got ready to hit the strip, just to look around at night.
Tony Stark stood in front of this very statue. The beginning of our fame?
Vegas is an interesting place on a Sunday night. The crowds are thinner and more hungover than on a Friday or Saturday, but the signs are just as vibrant and demanding. Everywhere, something is flashing in your face. There's always a bigger, brighter, or flashier sign. There's always a bigger jackpot. (There's always a bigger crackpot.) Smoke trails around you, unintentionally symbolizing the way money and dreams and clothes disappear so quickly around here.
Despite all the smoke and glazed expressions, I did enjoy the following about Vegas at night:
*the lights
*the awesome spray-painter guy
*the statues
*the Bellagio fountains
Vegas is also an interesting place on a Monday morning! Winnie, Christine and I took our sweet time getting ready, which was too bad for Steve, whose nephew woke him up at 7 with a freezer pack to the face.
We had Earl of Sandwich for breakfast / lunch, and that was one of the best decisions ever made in Vegas!
Then we went to the penny slots. You have to put in $1 but then you can play a ton! At least I think you can....I didn't really understand the game, but I got $1.57. I took that little voucher and went to the next penny slot machine.
And thatttt machine paid for my Earl of Sandwich! And gave me an extra $9 besides! Which I did not even mind. Thank you, Las Vegas. I knew I liked you.
Vegas has a lot more to offer, too. We got an exclusive demonstration of how different sodas are made upstairs in the Coca Cola store, and also tasted sodas from all around the world. Some were delicus. Some were egregious. I guess you could say the same about a lot of things.
We also found a free 10-minute 3D movie at the M&M store!
Palm trees are basically my favorite plant in the world, and there was an abundance of them in Vegas. Did you know that each palm tree costs $300? Sometimes I like to count them and figure out how much a specific street corner cost somebody. Maybe it was paid for by the people who played the penny slots and lost?
We bid farewell to the sparkling city and continued on our way to the Golden State: California!
Peggy-Sue was the first person to welcome us. We saw about a million signs advertising this cute little 50's diner and HAD to go!
The second person to welcome us to Cali was a Finnish movie star. Actually, there were three of them! And they picked the booth right behind us to shoot their oh-so-famous gonna-be-a-big-fat-hit documentary of Peggy-Sue's Diner. Steve talked to them as if they were normal people. I stared at them as if they were movie stars. And I might have spent my meal leaning really far back, trying to get in as many shots as possible.
We rolled into Steve's neighborhood in La Canada (pronounced The Canada, if you're a real local of the area) late at night, under a thick cover of some weird fog conjured up by Winnie's wish for a world full of clouds.
You may not understand the following list of quotes, but try to enjoy them anyway:
"I feel like I'm in Seattle right now, where it rains 367 days out of the year.
.....because there are 367 days in the year. Because it rains so much, that they get an extra 2 days in the year. 4 days? 3?"
"I just want some cream to rub on my....areas."
"You have to shower. What if someone sees you on TV, in hi-def, and they're like, daaaaang!"
S: You would pick that magazine.
H: I picked it because it's political! And I'm intelligent.
S: You picked it because of the boobs. You have been all about boobs this weekend!
W: I guess you just always notice what you don't have?
"We need to just, stop having each other's backs."
"I'm gonna staple your face."
Obviously, it was a wonderful time :)
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