Lady's Night Out!

Last week some of my girlfriends and I got together to celebrate my birthday a little early cause I would be going out of town on the actual day. We called it Fabulous Shoe Night where we wore our most fabulous shoes out to the Macaroni Grill and ate just about every desert on the menu. haha. It was sooooo much fun!

So much fun that I decided to do it again while I'm in Utah! So, for those of you who will be joining us for conference weekend in the promise land, you MUST come! Even though my birthday is April 3rd, Matt and I will just be getting there that night and we already have plans to go straight to Matt and Shari's house to spend the night, play games and just unwind from being stuck in the car all day.

So the plan is that on Friday, April 4th, we are all going to meet at the dollar theater (AKA: movies 8) in Provo, Ut to see the movie 27 Dresses at 7:05pm. I have been wanting to see this movie for a long time and I hope not a whole lot of you have already seen it! Also, please wear a pair of your most favorite fabulous shoes! It's going to be tons of fun and I couldn't think of any other way I'd rather celebrate than to hang with some of my most favorite ladies!

ps- If you don't know how to get there, just hop on the 15 and exit University Parkway and head east. The theater is past the mall, down the hill on the the left. You can see a map at this website:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/movies+8:%5B1-99%5D+W+University+Pkwy+Provo+UT+84604/#a/search/l::[1-99]+W+University+Pkwy:Provo:UT:84604:US:40.2561:-111.6595:street:Utah+County/m::15:40.261985:-111.665916:0::/so:Movies+8:::d::25:::::/e

You have to zoom out a little to see a better map. Also, no presents please! Just come! Please RSVP in the comments if you are planning on it!

I Want My Life To Be Like Disneyland.

Sometimes I feel a little funny exposing myself while relating experiences I have during therapy sessions but this one was just too good to pass up! My step mom calls them "Ah Ha! moments" when you realize something you never realized before.
My mind keeps turning it over and over in my head and I'm having so much fun with it I thought I'd share it. So here is my Ah Ha! moment from my last therapy session. Today Dr. Bean told me that I want my life to be more like Disneyland when in reality... life is more like a National Park. I just started laughing cause the first images I got in my head were this....



(which is a picture of some people I don't know at an ugly national park... who I would not like to vacation with.)


Versus this....




....Which would you rather choose?!





But after stopping to think for a moment what he really meant by a national park, which would look more like this...




all at once the horrific truth of it all sunk into me! I couldn't get over it! It was the perfect analogy!

Sometimes I DO want my life to be like Disneyland. Who wouldn't? It's easy to be attracted to the bight lights and loud music! And I think it's okay for it to be that way sometimes but for the most part life is more....mature, for a lack of a better word. Filled with deeper beauties that may not be as exciting but are filled more with a peace and serenity that you can't find... even at the top of Space Mountain. I'll admit that sometimes I feel young and reckless and I do stupid things that make me feel good for an hour or two but they are never lasting. In the back of my mind I know they won't last. The rides can never go on forever and even if it did, what started out as an exhilarating rush of adrenaline slowly would turn to nausea and the employment of a barf bag.

Long lasting peace and happiness comes from a different kind of atmosphere. It may not be as exhilarating all the time, but I certainly wouldn't define National Parks as boring. Maybe for a 3 year old it would be, but that's what I mean about maturity. Growing and learning to appreciate beauty in simpler forms like watching your son ride a bike for the first time or eating a delicious Marsala Chicken Ravioli (which is my favorite dish at The Macaroni Grill). It's about taking time not only to see the beauty and wonder in things around you, but to appreciate them as well.

Today I would like to share some of the things we all notice and appreciate in our own "National Parks." Mine is going to be playing catch with Matt in the front yard yesterday while the kids took at nap. I was surprisingly warm which made for perfect weather and basking in the sun while tossing the ball around was the perfect way to enjoy it.

Your turn.

What Were We Thinking???

I was feeling a little nastalgic this evening and decided to take a look at some of our very first blogs. See, this is why I love blogs. It's like an online photo album! But what started out as feelings of warmth and remembrance soon turned to horror that at one point and time we posted these pictures on the World Wide Web. Oh man, these are so much worse than those old kindergarten pictures you find where you hair is in a high side pony with your bangs in a wave, an oversized t-shirt thats knoted to one side and sandles with socks! ....much worse!


I'm so surprised that some child protection agency didn't come track us down for this. Granted they are IBC Rootbeer bottles, but still!


This one I am totally busting out the night Jake brings home his frist Prom date. Quote from She's The Man: "Remember ladies....chew like you have a secret!"


What I want to know is on what day did I get up in the morning and decide that my hair would look best this color? It's bright freaking yellow! I had some better ones to display the horror of it all but I couldn't find them.


Heres the next fashion disaster. Oh yes ladies and gentlemen, those are Pajamas. Pajamas with FEET!


....I have no words for this picture.


I'm hoping that this was taken at like 3am.... and that for Matt's sake that he was drunk.


Welcome back KID ROCK!

The Immature Side of Me

Ok, so today I was walking around Sportsman's Warehouse to load up on fishing supplies (since it is now that time of year where we waste good money to participate in a sport we always fail at. Seriously! I have never caught a fish in my life, yet every year we invest money onto it. It makes no sense!) and at the check out stand there is a big bucket of assorted Old Fashioned Candies. Among them was this flavor. Now you look at that word in red and tell me how YOU might pronounce that. I am obviously still in the third grade because I started busting out laughing! Even if it is pronounced as a word that is not at all associated with the dairyare, why would you even want to come close like that with a name for candy? I thought it was too funny to pass up so I bought it just for the sake of blogging it. I must admit though, I'm still a little afraid to eat it.

Oh and by the way, our day of fishing ended just like all others in the past. Matt getting frustrated that nothing was biting and no fish. Jake also accidentally dropped his pole off the side of the dock, thus losing it forever. I might as well have just taken $14 and tossed it into the lake! Somewhere down there is a fish swimming around with a Rolex because of all the money that gets dropped into that place. .....and a collection of Spriderman Fishing poles mounted in his trophy room which he shows off to is buddies whenever they come over.