Another Wedding

Another one of my old roommates (who I have lived with off-and-on for the last 4-5 years) got married earlier today.  I am so excited for Brenda!  She definitely deserves it and Jeremy is perfect for her.  Not that it matters much but I totally approve of him!

Brenda and Jeremy got married in the Manti Temple.  It was only my second time in Manti and both times have been with Quinn.  The first time I was driving through with Quinn, and his dad, Norm on our way back from St. George.  The second time, Quinn came with me so we could spend some time together during the drive as we really have not seen each other lately.  I felt kind of bad for him as he just hung out in his car during the wedding and pictures and then only knew me at the reception/luncheon.  I felt bad for him but the time we got to spend together was worth it!  A bonus to an already good day. :)

Jeremy and Brenda Griffith

 

Brenda and I.                                             Lauren (another long-term roommate) and I.

Me, Aliesa (one of Brenda's long-time friends from WA), Brenda, Rachel (another prior long-term roommate, and Lauren.

Salmon Supper

I just discovered hours before the event that every fall, Payson, UT does a salmon supper.  The firefighters of Payson cook thousands of pounds of fresh Alaskan salmon every August for their Annual Payson Salmon Supper.  They fire-grill the flown in salmon, serve you an ENORMOUS piece and pair it with a baked potato, sweet local corn on the cob, a fresh roll, and a dessert of some kind.  The food was all delicious, especially the fish.  I think the fish was the flakiest that I have ever had and was well worth the time I took savoring it.  The pieces they serve you at at least one-third to one-half of a huge salmon.  The pieces were bigger than my hand!

I learned about the event at work and promptly decided that I needed to go and that it would be well worth the $15.  If nothing else, the size of the salmon I was served was well worth over $15, especially considering it was fresh Alaskan salmon that was flown in.  I asked one of my old roommates, Sarah, to go along with me and partake in the bounty.  The wait in line was worth it and we had a good night.

Photo credits got to: www.paysonutah.org/news_events.salmonsupper.html

In Where I Am A Bridesmaid

One of my best friends, Katie Fullmer got married this last week.   Her two sweet little daughters, Adey and Paisley, and I made up the bridal party.  It was fun helping Katie prepare for her wedding and going to a dress fitting but I am sure she is glad to have it all done so she can get back to regular life.  I was able to leave work a little early to head to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple to help Katie get ready and to act as her escort.

Katie and Nate Mihu

Katie and Nate got married on a Wednesday evening and then Thursday morning, there was a whole wedding party hike up to Timpanogos Cave.  It was my first time hiking up to the caves ever and I have been in Utah for 6 years now.  The views going up were gorgeous and it was pretty cool inside the caves.  Nate's family is mainly comprised of men with deep voices and this led to the men in the group I was in to start singing one of the dwarf songs from "The Lord of the Rings."  It sounded pretty cool deep in the caves with the acoustics.

 





Views on the way up.


 Katie and I just outside one of the tunnels.

Me, obviously.

                

 

Inside the caves.

The weather cooperated for a very nice outdoor reception on Saturday evening.  Lots of pictures were taken and even more food was eaten.  I loved the chance that I got to see Katie's parents again as well.  It has been a while since I have seen them and even better, I got to see one of my best friends get married in the temple not just for time but also for eternity.  :)

Memorial Weekend

Memorial weekend started off with a bang… well, more with a crash… literally.  I had just left work to start driving out to California to visit my brother Jeff, and one of my best friends, Jodee.  I made it maybe one-half mile away and hit someone.  There was a guy sitting in the suicide lane waiting to turn across traffic into a parking lot.  When he originally started turning, there was plenty of space for him to complete the turn but for some reason he was moving so very slow (kind of like he pressed the accelerator to start the turn but forgot to keep pressing the accelerator afterwards.)  I saw him start to turn so I slowed down a little bit.  As I continued to approach and he still was not moving very fast, I slowed down even more.  At this point, I went through the green light at the intersection and he was maybe half-way through the lanes and I was maybe 300 yards away.  I slammed on my breaks as I did not know if there was someone in the lane next to me or not in an effort not to hit him.  I even still turned my wheel in another effort to not hit him but I still got him in the back passenger bumper.

This man should not have still been driving.  He could barely write and kept repeating over and over again that he could not see me.  Ummm, my car is blue….. How could you not see me? (And no, he did not say anything about being color-blind.)  Even though I hit him, it was still his fault as he was crossing traffic.  Ultimately after exchanging information, talking to my insurance company, and determining that my car was still drivable and that nothing was leaking, I continued on to California.

It has been a few years since I have made that drive but I do not remember it taking that LONG!  Maybe it was because I left right after working all day.  I kept having to stop and take naps; better to take multiple naps and arrive safe and in one piece then in less than one piece…

I finally arrived in Walnut Creek at Jodee's about mid-morning.  I took a most heavenly shower and then Jodee and I were off to get brunch at Denica's Cafe!  I tried Eggs Benedict for the very first time and it was better than I was expecting.  I am not a fan of any eggs with runny yolks, which is why I have not tried them before.  I like my eggs hard and kind of dry without any chance of anything being runny.  I think this goes back to growing up on a farm with chickens and every now and then finding something in the eggs.  I would not go as far as saying Eggs Benedict is my new favourite dish but I would probably eat it again.  Denica's had free chips and salsa (so good!) and they even had cinnamon rolls that are bigger than your face!

Jodee and I then went to go visit the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.  The whole premise of the house is interesting in and of itself but part of why I was excited to go see it is because a couple of months prior, I had listened to a podcast about it.  Initially, I did not put two and two together when Jodee first mentioned it until she started talking more about the history of the place.  It was just kind of cool to go see something that I had learned about randomly on a podcast.  You can learn more about the house on their website (www.winchestermysteryhouse.com) or you can always wikipedia it (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House).

Until you do, enjoy some pictures in the meantime.

                



After the Winchester Mystery House, we hit up the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  I have never been before and even though it was starting to get a wee bit chilly, it was still a lot of fun.  We walked around for a bit, rode one of the aerial view rides over the boardwalk and then rode my first roller-coaster in YEARS!  I may or may not have pulled out my camera while we were on the roller-coaster in an attempt to take a few pictures of Jodee and I on the roller-coaster.  I did so well that the picture they always take of you on a ride for you to purchase shows me taking a picture of the two of us!

 

The next day, I drove into San Francisco to spend the day with Jeff.  We hiked around in Land's End, headed down to Golden Gate Park, walked up the Sunset stairs, explored the park around the Golden Gate Bridge, and then finally ended up at Mels Drive-in eating some delicious food.  Long day but SO MUCH FUN!

 

 

 

The adventure did not end though!  Jodee, Jeff and I met up in Walnut Creek do have some more fun before I had to start the LONG drive back to Utah.  We headed out to Lafayette Reservoir to walk around, explore, and rented a paddle boat.  I am so glad that it was more of a relaxing paddle boat ride than a vigorous one as my calves were so sore from all the hills and stairs Jeff and I had done the day before. 

We finally reluctantly headed in to have lunch at Fenton's Creamery in Oakland.  Fenton's has really good food and delicious ice-cream.  And if that is not enough, their servings of ice-cream are ENORMOUS!

On the way home, we made one final stop for some goodies at an old-fashioned candy shop that even carried some international candy.

The weekend was fun and lots of new memories were made that definitely made the long drive worth it.

We Like to Party...

It was my roommate Sasha's birthday recently and we decided to party.

This is the birthday party:

Sasha

 Sasha

Adam and Nate

Nate and Brenda 

 Brenda and Rachel

This is the fun after party:

 Adam, Nikki, Brenda, and Sasha

 Sasha

 Brenda

Our version of one of Justin Bieber's songs.

Qualifiers

So according to my stupid, psycho roommate, one of my roommates and I are "batsh*t insane**." I guess if the qualifiers for this are:

1. asking said roommate to fully clean up her nasty messes when she is done cooking and to not leave said food and mess on counters for the next 3-4 days.

2. telling said roommate that it is not okay for her friends to be rude to us in our own apartment. (we don't go to their apartment and be rude to them, do we?)

3. and asking said roommate and her rude friends to stop yelling and laughing super loud when we are sleeping so we can go to work, school, etc...,

then yes, I do qualify for being "batsh*t insane."


**means being a person being extremely crazy, someone who has crossed into extreme insanity, to abandon all rationality and moral thought**

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures from last month:

We were having a watermelon seed spitting contest.  The object/ desired goal to get the seeds into was the sink.  We had some pretty crazy moves going on with the contest: twirling, whirling, upside down, mass ejection of seeds, jumping, etc...

As you can tell, we didn't have a lot of success.  We got watermelon seeds all over the place!  We were still finding them over a week later in random places in the kitchen.  The Dirty sign is for our dishwasher but highly appropriate in indicating the state of our floor.  I took some video of the contest too.  Once I get it edited and down to a smaller size, I'll probably post it.

This next picture is of my roommate, Brynn Secrist and her fiance, Matt Adamson.  I have known Brynn for about 12 years or so.  We met about a year or so after my parents moved to Colorado.  And after all this time, we are still friends and we decided to live together this year because it would be fun and we already knew that we liked each other.

They were eating ice-cream and also feeding it to each other.  Matt kept giving Brynn huge bites of ice-cream and so Brynn was trying to get him back by giving him tons of ice-cream.  He was trying to stop her and was saying something about how strong she was in getting the spoon up to his mouth even though he was trying to stop her.  And Brynn said, "Of course I'm strong!  I feed old people for a living!"  It was pretty funny but it might have been one of those things you might have had to been there for.