Guess who is going bowling?

Christmas is coming early for me in the form of tickets to the Las Vegas Bowl. The lovely Fed Ex man made the delivery today. Actually I didn't see him in person, so I can't really speak to his loveliness, but still anyone who makes my dreams come true must be lovely, right?

I will be able to watch my favorite Cougars play against the Beavers. What kind of a mascot is a beaver anyway? I am sure a Cougar can take a Beaver any day.

Anywho, I was debating back and forth about whether I valued financial freedom and warmth over the adrenaline rush of attending the game in person. A little persuading from my son, Trent swayed me to take the plunge. He looked at me with his chocolate brown eyes, that I find hard to resist, and pled with me that it was his last chance to attend a bowl game before his mission. Seriously, who could resist that argument. Especially when deep deep down, I was dying to go myself.

I got my tickets off of stub hub and hopefully they are not counterfeit or anything like that. So just one week from today I will be freezing my hiney off whilst cheering my lungs out. I can hardly wait.

I thought it fitting that I post a few pictures of some of my favorite BYU things. Of course we don't want this post to turn into an epic novel, so I had to restrain myself.

Here I am bundled in my BYU fleece blanket. Oh how I love this blanket and take it proudly to church each week to help keep me warm. So cozy.

And what about my infamous blue fuzzy slippers. You gotta love something so blue and so warm. And remember how much they helped me through Jared's hip replacement hospital stay? These puppies have seen me through some rough times. They totally rock.

And last, but by no means least, my BYU pez dispenser. My sister Amie, saw this and knew that I HAD to have it. How coolio is that? Seriously. Would it not have been so much funnier in the Seinfeld pez episode if it had been a BYU football instead of a yellow duck? You have to adore a yummy candy dispenser in the form of a BYU football. Nuff said.

Talk about inflation

I seriously don't know why posting has been so difficult for me lately. I can post like no body's business in other people's comment boxes. Perhaps I get it out of my system and have nothing left to say here. I could just post links to the witty and entertaining posts I have made all over blog land, but alas I lack the energy or initiative to do that.

I could write about how I have finally been fired for coming out of the closet on my stand against gay marriage. After a briefish mourning period, I have come to realize that I must forgive this injustice and trust that it is all for the best and couldn't possibly be any better. (Thanks Fiddler on the Roof for that little lesson) There are other jobs in the sea and in fact I already do have several other people who want my help. It is just sad to leave a place that I enjoyed working for and knew all about, having been through everything three times. Que sera sera.

I could write about how the evidence that I am losing my mind is beginning to stack up. For instance a week or two ago, I drove Diana to the store after I had taken my sleeping medicine. That lesson on "Don't' be stupid" only cost me $350 for new tires when I drove into the curb going pretty fast on the way home, causing Diana to scream "We're going to die."

Another choice piece of evidence would be that my water was turned off yesterday for about 6 hours. This was due to the fact that when I paid my bills online last month I actually entered the amount from the cable bill to be paid to the water company. This amount was $59 less than the total bill, and apparently the water company takes these things personally and seriously. I have never paid a bill late in 12 years, you would have think they could have given me a little more grace period than two weeks. And it was extremely naive of them to assume that the note at the top of my bill telling me that my water would be turned off if I didn't pay up by November 30th would be read by me. Who reads the fine print on their bills? People who want to have to be bothered with the hassles of indoor plumbing such as dishes, laundry, showers, and flushing toilets. Jared lucked out and was out of the shower in time before they came and installed the padlock at 6:40am. Crazy thing was the balance and new bill amount were scheduled to be paid online that very night. I missed it by that much, so to say.

But the thing I was really going to post about was watching the Brady Bunch marathon on Thanksgiving Day. Seriously, no need for any pie after all the syrupy happy endings. Which worked out well because we didn't really celebrate until Saturday and so I didn't even make any pies.

When I stumbled upon the Brady clan, they came out of the gas station with sodas after filling up the car with gas. I immediately pegged it as the ghost town episode. I am very proud of my Brady Bunch trivia knowledge, I spent lots of years rotting my brain on that stuff. (I can name that episode in 7 seconds.)

The thing that made me do a double take was when Mike Brady said "How much do I owe you for the drinks and gas?" And the guy said "That'll be $6.40." Are you kidding me? $6.40 for a tank of gas and 9 sodas? What the What? The same thing today for that many kids would be about $80. And of course they couldn't all pile into the station wagon today, because there weren't seat belts for every one. Those were the days my friends, I thought they'd never end.

Once they left and returned to get Alice from the bathroom, they were off to the ghost town doing their best Pirates of the Caribbean impression trying to get the dog to give them the key. Oh yes, that episode is a classic.

But better yet is the Hawaii episode. That came on later in the day. Another classic. Nothing like a curse to spread some exciting events into a three part episode. I think I can even remember watching that live and having to wait for each Friday night to find out what would happen. I hate cliff hangers to this day and the Brady Bunch may be to blame.

So until I post again, hope you are all coping with the holiday stress. I am hoping to stay in denial about there even being such a thing as Christmas for at least another month. Wish me luck.

Train up a child in the way she should stalk

Last night the dancers from So You Think You Can Dance came to Vegas to perform. Sadly, thanks to Dave Ramsey, I am trying to live within my means. This did not allow me to purchase any tickets for the show. Dang, financial limitations.

Happily, thanks to Facebook, I saw that my cousin went to the show in Utah last week. She was kind enough to let me know that you don't have to go to the show to go to the meet and greet. All you have to do is just show up and wait outside for the dancers.

I anticipated that with the show starting at 7:30 the dancers would be out by about 10:00. Diana and I headed over to the Orleans Arena about 9:30. The security people told us that it would be closer to 11 when the dancers came out.

It was ridiculously cold and we were not prepared for that kind of weather, so we went home and bundled up. We got back about 10:45 and joined the others waiting in line.

I know that it wasn't snowing or anything, but it was really windy. The Las Vegas kind of wind that cuts right through you like a knife. We ended up waiting for about 45 minutes with all the other crazies. I kept asking Diana if she was too cold and if she wanted to give up, but she was determined.

After what seemed like forever, they decided to move the free meet and greet inside out of the cold. We were right at the front of the line and we were ushered into a room with all of these people we had watched week after week. It was so amazing.

Here is Jeanine, the winner, with Diana and I. She was so pretty.

Here we are with one of our favorites, Evan. I am afraid I am suffering from an extreme case of hat hair as I value warmth over beauty. Also I wish I was wearing something other than my thermal shirt, but it did help me stay warm.

How cute are these two? We told Jeanette how sad we were when she got voted out.

Diana took this shot. Jeanette looked great in her turquoise shirt.

Kayla was next and no one was available to take our picture, so we have this one I took by holding my camera out.

We did find someone to snap our shot with Phillip. When we first came in, there was a group who had a very tiny baby with them, like two months old. This mother asked Philip to sign her baby. How odd is that? Well, I might do that if I had a baby, so perhaps it is not that strange.

Here Jason is signing Diana's book. Before it was our turn, that same group with the baby let Jason hold her and he was so cute with that baby. Jason was truly one of the nicest people.

Group shot with Jason. People were nice to snap shots for us, but next time it would be nice to have your own photographer.

Diana and Randi, she was so nice to talk to Diana and even help her get to the front of the line when people kept crowding in front of us.
One group in front of us took the classic "Butt" picture. So funny.

Here we are with Kapono. Another self shot, good thing my arm is so long.

The line to see Melissa was so long, we kept coming back but it never got shorter. Finally at the very end we got our turn. I am sure that Melissa hears all the time about how her breast cancer dance impacted people. I added my story to the others. As my mom was in the middle of her treatments, I remember sitting on the couch with tears streaming down my face, as I watched Melissa and Ade portrait so much of what we were feeling.

Cute shot of Brandon signing Diana's book. Look at all her autographs. She managed to get one from everyone who was there. Ade wasn't there, I am not sure why.

At one point they announced the five minute warning, we hurried to get the last shot with Brandon. He is shorter in person than he looks on TV, but he was really nice. Diana is so dang cute and photogenic.

It was midnight when we finally were encouraged to leave and go home. Diana loved all of it. I was so proud. I wonder how many other such opportunities we have missed out on? I will need to be more diligent in scouting out such fun. And the best part was that it was absolutely free. If stalking is wrong, I don't want to be right. Just sayin.

Can't Touch This!!!

Just in case you missed the Halloween edition of the Bonnie Hunt show, I thought I would share this highlight. All of her crew dressed up in different 80's characters. You know you are old when a time you lived through is now considered an era worthy of a costume. Bonnie was Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. The whole show was hee hee larious, but the best, for Diana and I, was this clip of one of her employees doing his MC Hammer impression. Check it out unless you are too young to remember this.

Candy Corn Witch

This year's costume drama, involved a long long wait in a line at Party City to try on this costume. It was actually her second choice because she had chosen a Pirate costume on line. I of course procrastinated purchasing it, not realizing that it needed to be ordered online in advance. Hence we were left with this second choice, which I think is adorable. I attended my last Halloween parade but my camera was out of batteries, so pictures.
We went to Utah for the weekend to attend a baptism and a baby blessing and it just happened to be Halloween. For the first time ever, we got to go trick or treating with our cousins. Here is the group shot. Diana was especially thrilled that she ended up holding the newest cousin, little Tiger. Check out Little Bo Peep in the front row, I made that costume for Diana 8 years ago.

Here is a picture of me and Lizzie up close. Too bad you can't see the bloomers on the costume. They have 10 yards of lace and ribbon on them. It seems like a different life when I used to actually sew.

Here are the three little witches. So cute. The witch with the blue pumpkin got baptized earlier that day. Kind of cool to get baptized on Halloween.

And here is the completely satisfied Candy Corn Witch with her loot laid out for the choosing. Love the orange stripey socks. Maybe they can be recycled into a Pipi Longstocking costume.

But wait there's more

Yes much like one of the infomercials on TV when the guys extols the virtues of a set of knives and then says "But Wait, There's More", there are more funtabulous pictures of me with BYU football players for your viewing pleasure and potential mockery.

You see last weekend, my football friends came to Vegas. And we all know what that means: another football fireside. The fireside was wonderful as usual, but I have to admit to being a bit distracted by strategizing over how to corner potential players/victims to pose with.

Here I am with my defensive guys, Scottie Johnson and Andrew Rich. These guys both wreak havoc in the secondary on a regular basis. Scottie also was a very good sport and feigned sincere interest in my stalker book. Such a good actor.

And next me and McKay Jacobson. He has been a star on the offense this year and is out for a few weeks with a hamstring injury. I managed to get my stalker book in the picture this time.

In the background most of the team are helping to put away the chairs. In case you were wondering, a football team can put away all the chairs that filled the gym in about 4 minutes flat.

One of the biggest helpers, my good buddy Harvey Unga. I showed him how cute we looked in our picture that was taken the week before.

I also had a fun conversation with Coleby Clawson and his wife. He liked my pictures as well. I was tempted to get another picture with him, to see if I wouldn't be overly smiling, but oh well.

Surprisingly, I am running out of players to get my picture taken with. Almost everyone I saw, I had already tortured. Inconceivable.

As hard as it was to pry myself away, I knew that I needed to go home, pack, and get to bed so I could get up at 5 an to get to the airport the next morning. As I was driving, look who was driving in the lane next to me, two buses full of football players. I had to snap a shot, although I am pretty sure driving while holding your camera out of the window and trying to look at the view screen, is not the safest thing to do.

Here they are trying to make their get away. I contemplated tailing them to the hotel, but thought discretion was the better part of valor.

And here they are getting even further away. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Finally we reached the freeway entrance, they went east and I went west. How sad. They did play fabulously on Saturday as they dismantled UNLV. Trent was there with a friend sitting in my seat. That's OK, he was kind enough to text me during the game. Surely that is the next best thing to being there?

Jared and I had a nice visit in Seattle and he received his patriarchal blessing. It is too bad that I came down with a horrible head cold Saturday morning. That is why it has taken me this long to get this posted.

Sadly, I think this maybe the end of my close encouters with the football team this season. But never fear, I will try to go on living anyway.

Random post about the details of my life.

This will be a rather random post to catch up on a few things that have been happening around here.


Some of the biggest news is that Diana got the part in the school play that she really wanted to get. Her elementary school is doing a play about some school kids who want it to snow so they can get out of school. All of the teachers in the play have been renamed to match the names of the teachers at her school.





This is Miss Friend. Yes I know she looks like she could be one of the kids, but she is actually the music teacher. She is awesome and clearly Diana resembles her.

Check out this current picture of Diana. From their long hair, glasses, and short stature, well they are kind of twins. So Diana had her heart set on being Miss Friend. There was drama about trying out. Lots of late night practicing and nerves. But in the end, she is beyond ecstatic to have gotten the part she wants. I think it will be pretty funny.


In other news, I celebrated a birthday last week. It was a very nice day. I went to IHOP for breakfast with friends. My husband got me beautiful roses. And we got Qdoba for dinner.

The only bad thing about my birthday was that it happened to be picture day for Diana. Picture days seem to be fraught with stress and drama over how her hair should be and what to wear. Somehow we navigated the rocky road and got her to school. Sheesh.

Another thing I have been meaning to post about is my new phone. To say that I adore this phone, would be an understatement. It totally rocks. And I have given in and paid for the internet so I can check my email and update my facebook status. It has an awesome camera on it as well. In fact you might say that it is a camera with a phone.

My kids like my phone as well, and take turns with it whenever they can. This is pretty funny because I had a picture of Diana as my wallpaper. Whenever Jared gets a hold of the phone, he changes the wallpaper to a picture of him. Then Diana gets it and changes it back to her picture. It is just like Sleeping Beauty when the fairies are arguing over whether Auroa's gown will be pink or blue.

Besides getting to go to the BYU football game, last weekend when I was in Utah, I got to meet my new nephew. Isn't he precious.

He is such a sweet baby. It was lots of fun to hold him and get to know him better.

I am still working on organizing and cleaning up from the flood. It is a bit overwhelming. But as my dear sister in law pointed out, it is a good chance to sort through things and de-junk. A mandatory clean sweep, if you will. And we will paint the family room, before we replace the floor.

Jared and I are off to Seattle in the morning. My dad will be giving him his patriarchal blessing on Sunday. I am so happy that he wants to get this special blessing. It is a bit sad that it happens to be on the same weekend as the BYU/UNLV game, but at least I got to attend last weekend. I will go to the fireside tonight before we leaving in the morning. I am excited about that.

Jared is slowly adjusting to being back in school. He has missed about 12 days, but seems to be keeping his head above water. He slipped and fell last week and that kept him home for a few days. Actually this week is the first week that he has attended every day. Wahoo! I suppose that it is progress and I was overly optimistic that he could just go back 100% of the time. I think that his immune system is weak because he keeps catching a cold or flu. I wonder if there is an immunity idol for that? Hmmmm. I think eventually he will be back in the full swing of things. I went to open house this week and it seems that he has very good teachers. I am pleased with that.

Oh and in other missed it by that much news, I received a letter in the mail telling me that my fridge I purchased 9 years ago is being recalled due to the fact that several of them have caught fire and burned people's houses down. Gee, isn't that special. So this morning a repairman came and fixed the faulty part. Whew, that cisis is averted. Thank you very much, but I think the experience of having my house burn down is one I can live with out quite nicely. Knocking on wood and throwing salt over my shoulder as I write this.

Well I suppose that is all the news that is fit to tell. I hope to be back to working more in the next few weeks.

Yes it's another BYU football post, just suck it up and deal with it, K. You know how much you look forward to these.

Okie dokie, peeps. It's time for yet another of my famous football posts. I know you have all been waiting with baited breath. And don't worry this post full of pictures will not disappoint. Let's just say that it was a heck of day for football.

I was not going to attend the game, but a very kind person in my ward offered me her tickets. She wasn't going and it was a very happy coincidence indeed. I invited my brother, but he had to work, and so I knew that T was up from down south and wanted to go. Thanks to facebook messaging, I invited her and she was thrilled. Who says blogging doesn't pay off?

I arrived at the game a little bit late because of not getting to Provo sooner. But better late than never. I made sure that I was properly attired in all my BYU gear. Here I took a shot of myself as I was entering the stadium.

And here I made the security guard take my picture. She might have muttered something about my craziness under her breath. I'm not quite sure.
Here is the sign they put up just for me. How did they know it would be necessary? Hmmmm.

T was slightly behind me in the drive up, so I watched from the entrance until she got there. After purchasing kettle corn, we made our way up to our seats.

I had not been to these seats and so asked another kind orange coated young man. He gave directions, and we proceeded to where we thought the seats were. Of course they were in the middle of the row and so we made about twelve people stand up as we made our way to the seats. Now mind you, I had a large coat, sweat shirt, and bag overflowing in my arms. And T of course had her cozy. No offense Kristina, but the cozy is uber soft. People were kind and pretended they were not annoyed at us as we trampled on their toes.

Funny thing someone else was sitting in our seats. Not so funny, we were in the wrong section. And so we made our way back over all the people we had just annoyed. All the time saying "So sorry, pardon me, excuse me." We were not pop-u-lar at all. Not even a little.

At this point there was only 3 minutes until half time. So I suggested we sit in the aisle. And then we noticed two empty seats right on the aisle. We sat there, instead of treading all the way to the middle of another row.

It just so happens that four blog souls sisters met up at half time. It was so cool. Here are T, me, April, and Barbaloot. Are we just the cutest thing you have ever seen? Yeah, I thought so too. I totally loved Barb's cute white coat. Very stylish and color coordinated.

T took this picture of me as we made our way closer to high five the team.
And she was also kind enough to snap this shot of me in the process of the high five.
After the game, T had to go home with her husband, but I went and hung out with April. She taught me the stalker skill of hanging out by the locker room entrance so you can see the players when they leave. And who did we bump into, but Queen's mom, who also happens to be Max Hall's grandmother. Of course we needed a picture with her.
Here I am with a pile of stadium chairs. Don't ask why I got this picture, but it was covered with BYU and so I needed my picture with them.
And here I am with Brian Karia. And who is that popping into the picture aka the Sound of Music, cuckoo song. So funny April. Love ya, girl.
And guess who was next, to play the "Get your picture with the nuttiest fan ever" game. Yes that's right. Coleby Clawson. The very player who put the hit on Sam Bradford and took him out of the game when we played Oklahoma. Look at me, I am not the least bit happy and excited about that, now am I.
And here was April's turn to get her picture with Coleby. His wife was a good sport about sharing him with us.
The next contestant, Manase Tonga. Yes people, how cute is he. And he can run also.
Dennis Pitta and Max Hall showed up next. I didn't make them get their picture with me because I got my picture with them last year. I did snap this shot of Dennis chatting it up with some kids.
Now Jan Jorgensen. He is a big guy. Such a good sport also.


And last, but surely not least, ME AND HARVEY UNGA!!! I can't believe it. You just have to pick these people out of the crowd as they leave the stadium. Harvey likes to sneak out and try to avoid some of the crazies like me. But it was not to be. I had to wait behind several small boys, but finally it was my turn.

All in all, it was amazing. I loved it all, but feel like I didn't really see the game. Maybe I will have to re-watch it. And I think I am coming closer to being a topic of discussion in the locker room. Wouldn't that be cool to end up on a poster warning the players to watch out for this "uber fan".