SOMETHING HAD TO GIVE

Outside of work, church obligations, and having family in town I've had a very busy schedule of eating, sleeping, and throwing up. So you know... something had to give. And that ended being this blog. Sorry blog. I hope you missed me, because I missed you. I'll try to be a better blog mom.

This hiatus sadly coincided with So Can Dance. But instead of playing catch up I'll give you an Awesomeness Ranking and we'll move on from there.

1. Neo 2.0
3. Ryan (tie)
3. Doug E. Doug (tie)
4. Anti - Legacy (and Independence, for those Plano-ites out there)

1. Faceless
2. Ashleigh
3. Testimony Meeting
4. Lolita


By way of catch up here are a few orders of business from the past month:

Brad suprised me with tickets to see In The Heights. I told him in July how much I wanted to see it when it came to St. Louis in November and he actually remembered! I guess carrying ones child does have its perks. It was excellent. I had only heard a little of the music before and I didn't know the story line at all. The sound of the production was a little off so we had a hard time hearing what they were saying, especially since they sing their dialogue a mile a minute. But Brad and I were humming the tunes the rest of the week. We even liked our lead better than the one on the broadway cast soundtrack.

We also had my brother's family and my mom come to Alton for Thanksgiving this year. We had a great time eating, shopping and going to the St. Louis zoo. And Ryan and Iain could not possible be any sweeter. Especially Iain, the first moment he walked in our house he gave Brad a big hug and then told me how much he loved me. Adorable. Kids are alright.



And for those perceptive readers who weren't previously informed. We have an additional family member arriving early next June. I'm pretty sure he or she will be made entirely of hamburgers because that's all I can keep down right now. Let's just say my doctor was not pleased with the amount of weight I've gained so far, I'll probably need a triple bypass sometime next July. We'll find out the gender January 5th... let the guessing games begin.

SO CAN DANCE SEASON 6, NICKNAMES & SUCH

Lately I've been having these really vivid dreams and last Friday I dreamt I made the top 20. Don’t laugh yet, it gets better. It was the afternoon of the first show and my partner and I (it was John Meyer of course, what?) were completely stressed because we didn't know the routine very well and we hadn't had time to practice. And you know what I was most concerned about? The fact that I hadn't chosen what outfit I was going to wear yet. I wasn't alarmed that I'd make a fool of myself DANCING TV, just that I wouldn't be wearing a cute outfit while doing it. Oh goodness. My dream didn't last long enough to see what happened to John and I but I'm pretty sure we were the first couple sent home.

So that begs the question - What would a random blogger give me as my Top 20 nickname? I don’t want to think about it too much, but THIS random blogger has the nicknames for Season 6 ready to be unleashed on the world. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER – Just remember I never claimed these wouldn’t be offensive, somewhat obvious, or occasionally nonsensical.

THE NICKNAMES

BILLY

First a moment of silence for THE BELL. Did you say, Billy, I love you? Because yes, yes I did. Despite Shankman’s uncomfortably dramatic reaction to his Vegas solo I really liked this guy. I thought he was humble and a bit awkward but totally BROUGHT IT when he danced. What a stud. There was a lot of buzz starting over the summer for a few of the dancers that made this top 20. That’s right - people were campaigning before the season started. And he was my absolute favorite of those dancers I saw beforehand. I’m sure he’ll be back next season; I told Brad last week that I thought he’d be top 4. His name would have been Neo – as in The One.

[EDIT - I just found he has mono. FINE that's legit. I thought I had mono once for an entire year. Turned out I was just really bored.]

ASHLEIGH

Guys, I’m officially 1 Kevin Bacon degree away from actually dancing in the Top 20. Ashleigh Di Lello (nee Ingersoll) lived across from Kristin, Ashley and I in the dorms freshman year. Yes --- let that sink in. I am awesome by association. She was one of the seven Ashley/Ashleigh/Ashlee’s on our floor. AND she’s not even a girl I saw a few times, we actually knew each other, although lets be honest if she saw me on the street I’d probably have to tell her my name and say, “I was one of the Texans that only hung out with the other three Texans.” And she’d say, “Oooh, yeah.” But really she’d only have a faint idea of who I was. No matter, because in my mind if she gets to hang out with Tabither and Napoleon we’re totally BFFs. Ash, give me a call sometime!

Ashleigh shall remain Ashleigh because we’re tight like that.

(Seriously though, she’s a REALLY nice and genuinely good person. She’s one of those girls that everyone liked, even though all the boys thought she was hot. So don’t let the judges calling her “fake” deter you, blame it on her Utah ballroom upbringing. Now you don’t have to feel bad voting for her just because she’s LDS.)

BIANCA

So let me square with you guys, I’m not a huge fan of Lady Tapper here - and I can’t quite put my finger on it… she’s just a little too drunk on her own awesomeness; you know being the “first” girl tapper and the meat in that Tap Man Sandwich. Plus it felt like she was “close” friends with Ryan Kasperzak during the auditions because she thought he was going to make top 20. She got all weirdly emotional when she saw him at auditions… yeah, the fact that he was supposed to be a Season 6 shoo-in had NOTHING to do with it. And now she’s all clingy with her partner. She just seems emotional unstable. But in a fake way. For the cameras. Clingy Lady Tapper, you’re defiantly bottom tier (although I can admit you did reasonably well this week).

CHANNING

Blue Crush. She’s the cute version of Kate Bosworth when she was that hip surfer who dated the quarterback in Hawaii. You know? She taught him to surf and they fell in love? And Kate was 20 pounds heavier and looked 200 times better? Yeah, THAT Blue Crush.

I’m undecided with her. I liked her during auditions but now I’m not sure.

ELLENORE

I’m sorry. I can't decide if being interchangeable with Arianna is a good thing. Because either you’re the next to go or you’ve eliminated That Other Girl That Is The Same Person. Even after seeing her in two shows I have no idea who she is, I don’t remember who her partner is, what her back story is, what style she dances. Did she actually make the top 20? Mmmm. I was going to call her Streets (as in “Random girl from off the street”) but that either sounds like I’m giving her undue hip-hop cred or alluding to a prostitution reference. Then I wanted to call her Faceless Star Trek Crew Member but that’s too long so we’ll just stick with Faceless instead.

KAREN

JLo. She believes she’s as hot as JLo believes she was in everything she’s ever done. Plus she kind of bugs.

KATHRYN

If you aren’t LDS, bear with me this probably won’t make sense. You know those girls that get up to bear their testimony and their voice gets all high and squeaky when they start to get emotional? Yeah. Did you see her on the top 20 selection show? HOLY MOSES, dogs in East Asia could hear her. I don’t know how to see past the squeaky voice to tell if I like her, so I’m struggling. Either way her nickname will be Fast Sunday.

MOLLEE

Lolita. Sometimes Nigel gets a little too Humbert for my taste (that’s right I just made a Nabokov reference) because the fact that they ask 18 year olds to be on this show and then keep telling them to be sexy grosses me out (especially when they look and act 12). There’s got to be a better way. She just comes across as immature and juvenile. While I can admit that she’s a good dancer I don’t get why they thought she was mature enough for the show. Where they that desperate to keep their blonde quota this season?

[Okay, I just re-watched her back story and dance this week and I think I might be a little harsh… but I’m still sticking with the nickname.]

NOELLE

Even though she’s BFFs AE AE AE with Mollee I actually like her. I don’t think it was fair for her to sit out Monday’s show and not get sent home. Seriously, what was the logic there? Whatever. I had no ideas for her nickname so I turned to the ever creative Jenny and she delivered solid gold. She said she kind of look likes Audrina from The Hills. You know, if Audrina ever looked anyone in the eyes or said “Ya’ll.” Good work Jen, spot on. So Audrina, here's so advice: don’t date Justin Bobby it ends badly for everyone.

PAULINE

It’s too bad she lost two partners in the span of 3 days because I think she’s cute as a button. Jenny suggested we call her Teeth, but since I like her so much I’m calling her The Curse. Wait that doesn’t sound nicer than Teeth does it? I guess “Teeth” is mean because it’s making fun of her face, but she can’t help that she’s The Curse.

JAKOB

So he’s my second fav after Neo and thus his name will be Neo 2.0. And I’m keeping the 2.0 out of respect for 1.0. I was a little worried about him partnering with Ashleigh, for some reason I thought he was shorter than her, but I think they make a good team. Definitely my favorite couple.

KEVIN

Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking "wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career. This guy is totally Zoolander. After he started talking about his modeling career his nickname was so painfully obvious it almost didn’t seem fair. He’s got Blue Steel DOWN and I love it.

LEGACY

It will be Legend - wait for it – not so much. I’m sorry he bothers me and he doesn’t deserve to be in the top 20. He is the equivalent of the producers trying to make Fetch happen. It’s not going to happen! It’s so painfully obvious that he was just a good story and the show loved his “emotional bad boy” side. Uuugh. I’m already tired of complaining about him… can anyone say Anti-Legacy?

NATHAN

LOVE him. I love that he auditioned in basketball shorts and I love that he describes himself of more of a “musician". Kids these days. I was having a hard time coming up with a nickname then Jenny reminded me that he looks like Danny Norega, the token Asian on American Idol cast season 6. Then I thought he reminded me of the token Asian on Glee (you know, the one that’s a really good dancer but doesn’t getting any speaking or singing parts?). Then I thought of other token Asians, for example Mr. Wu on Veronica Mars. So in lieu of calling him “token”, I’m going with Mr. Wu because it’s more fun to say, plus there are a few other Asians this season so token doesn’t really apply. Say token again.

PETER

Rocky. He’s from Philli and legitimately TAP DANCES in WIFE BEATERS. It was too obvious.

PHILIP

Carlton. He’s a little cheesy and perpetually smiling. And I bet he does a great lip sync to Tom Jones. He’s my favorite of the tap dancers.

RUSSELL

Doug E Doug. Remember those amazing dreads he sported in Cool Runnings? SPOT ON. I’m just waiting for him to start complaining about being cold. Cold? I'm freezing my royal Rastafarian nay-nays off!

RYAN

These were all the nicknames that I came up with: The Muscle, Hans & Franz, Tear Away, Mr. Universe and Tony Horton… I think you get the gist… and from Tony Horton I arrived at the more obvious and easier to type P90X. So P90X it is. I like him, but I just need to make fun of him for a second about wanting to be a Action Film Star. Not an actor. He specifically said - Action Film Star. WOW. I just needed to get that out of my system.

VICTOR

Remember when they told him his outfit and hair were distracting during auditions? He was either going to be Ricky Vasquez or Rainbow Brite. I wasn’t sure anyone would get Ricky Vasquez and even though Vasquez is fun to say I think Rainbow Brite is more obvious and accurate. Are you seeing the same sleeveless hoodie I’m seeing?

TOP 20 PERFORMANCES

This post is long enough so I’m not going to bore you with a re-cap of the dances. I’ll just give you a ranking and I italicized who I thought did better in each dance:

These were my favorites:

1. Jakob and Ashleigh- Broadway

2. Victor and Bianca- Contemporary

3. Ryan and Ellenore- Jazz

I could take or leave the rest:

Legacy and Kathryn- Hip-Hop

Russell and Melanie LaPatin- Foxtrot

Peter and Ariana- Hip-Hop

Philip and Channing- Jive

Kevin and Karen- Cha Cha

Brandon and Pauline- Smooth Waltz

Nathan and Mollee- Disco

PEACE OUT – WEEK 1

BRANDON

I was disappointed when he didn’t originally make the Top 20. But the situation they ultimately put him in was kind of unfair. I hope Fox does the right thing and lets him try out again - I’m not giving him a nickname because I hope he’s back next season.

ARIANNA

I don’t have a nickname for you because lets be honest no one is going to remember you and I must point out that you had it coming . You are interchangeable with Faceless and one of you was bound to get the boot first. Sorry, have fun with your tractor in North Carolina, you seemed nice.

TELL MOM AND DAD IT'S THE SAFE WAY TO BREAK AND POP

Did you think I forgot about So Can Dance? SUPRISE! I didn't. It's just going to be so awesome it won't be posted for a day or two (or maybe I had some technically DVR difficulties so I need to wait until it's online somewhere to do my final analysis). While I hold you in suspense of my reviews and NICKNAMES guess who is this season's Carlton and enjoy the following message.

KINDRED SPIRITS

I talk about K and Ash on this blog quite a bit, in fact I gave a brief synopsis of our current lives a few months ago. BUT I don't think I've ever told the story of how we met. In fact I was looking through my journals and I haven't written it down either. I just start talking about them all of a sudden. So with the guilt of doing my own family history at the forefront of my mind here is the story.

Eight months after I moved from Okinawa, Japan to Plano, Texas I had a few friends but none that Anne Shirley would call kindred spirits. Kristin and I knew each other through a mutual friend but we had never spent much time together. Our church meetings met at different times and we went to different high schools. Through this mutual friend the three of us agreed to be girls camp counselor partners together. After the first few girls camp planning meetings our mutual friend ended up ditching us to be partners with another girl. So Kristin and I were stuck together by default - planning and preparing to counsel a group of 12 year old girls. Of course we ended up having a hoot and we were quickly enlightened that it was met to be us two all along.

A month or so later we went off to girls camp. All the youth camp counselors got to stay in the coveted three sided cabin. When I say coveted, I mean COVETED. Subsequent years at that camp proved near fatal in the bloodshed fought over who got to stay in that cabin. See it was huge and it didn't have any beds so you got to sleep wherever, even the bug infested pool table was up for grabs. And the un-walled side? It was actually a deck overlooking the lake. It was different, it was party central, and of course everyone wanted to stay there. So there we are, a dozen 16 year-old-girls that all looked a hot mess. And since we didn't have many responsibilities (we were too old to do any of the camp activities and too young to be directors) we basically sat around, snuck cereal out of the cafeteria cabin (sorry Sister Davis), and made each other laugh. I don't believe more fun was ever had by a group of sun burned, badly bug bitten girls. So I went from a few acquaintances to a entire group of friends. Ashley was in that group. I had seen her sing at a stake youth fireside when I first moved to Texas, and Kristin and Ashley had met before had never hung out. See Ashley's church meetings were at a different time then mine or Kristin's and she went to the third high school in Plano. So the three of us became close at girls camp but afterwards we ended up calling each other for every weekend activity. From there we were just best friends.

A little over a year later we had to decide our freshman year roommates while applying for BYU (one of the cruelties of the system - you apply for housing before you're accepted, isn't that depressing when one of you doesn't get in?). We applied to live in David John Hall in a shared four person suite with a bathroom. Ashley was going to live with a girl from her ward (our other close friend Sage) and Kristin and I lived in the adjoining room. I remember millions of people saying off handed comments like, "That friendship won't last," or "You guys are going to HATE each other by the end of freshman year." Well we didn't always love each other but we did mostly get along. From there I lived with either Kristin or Ashley and mostly both until I got married nearly 6 years later. TAKE THAT HATERS!

We've been through awful relationship decisions. Even worse hair decisions. And living all over the US (and K in London for four months). And guess what? We are still friends. I think if we've made it through these past 10 years the next 50 won't be a problem. The only problem now is that our husbands probably won't let us live next to each other like we always planned. Which is okay because it gives us an excuse for girls week once a summer.

Now if you are ever around us and you need to understand our Isms, here is a guide:

Come back for anything, ANYTHING: Your mom.

If something is too expensive: What, did Brad Pitt pee on it?

If someone does something typical: She wooooould (in a deep voice).

And you need to know that our default movie for any occasion or quote is Center Stage.

Girls Camp Summer 1999

End of BYU freshman year April 2002

Ashley's Wedding September 2005

My wedding June 2007

Kristin's Wedding October 2009

HITCHED 10.10.09

I just spent the last week in Texas for Kristin and Adam's wedding. Brad stayed home to study and missed a truly awesome time. I thought weddings were supposed to be stressful? But I honestly had so much fun. I'm still sorting through the pictures so for now here's one of the bride and her maids (can you guess who's who? Here's a hint: Wendy, this is proof you ARE super tan. Jealous).


More to come.

THREE

ONE. I have been at my current place of employment for 1 year, a whole years worth of new knowledge about the medical world. Things I never knew I didn't want to know. Seriously, I'll keep the stories to myself. I won't scare you. It also means I have spent at least 520 hours driving to and from home or approximately 22 days. That is A LOT of NPR. I can’t believe I’m not a raving liberal yet.

TWO. Today is the first day of Fall. Having lived through all of them now, this is by far my favorite season in the midwest.

THREE. And since we can now officially say “last summer” in reference to Summer 2009 it’s about time I finished recapping our Utah trip (you think?). To expedite matters here is a pictorial summary:


We visited with Brooke and Dave's family and met one the newest members of the Carns, plus we enjoyed Brooke's famous cooking. Mmmmm.

We went to dinner with our Timp Gateway group, the "Adventure Club." Although that name is misleading because actual adventures are rare. We are far more likely to eat food and play cards when we get together.

We also made some time to go to BYU, this is Brad's "18 year-olds are old enough to go here?" look.

Of course we needed chocolate covered cinnamon bears.

I also spent time with K and J. What did we do? Eat food, watched So Can Dance, and had a Veronica Mars marathon. True friendship doesn't require fancy fun, just regular fun.

Utah, you were good to us this year. Hopefully we'll see you soon.

AM I CRAZY,

or does the soundtrack to New Moon look half decent?

1. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – Meet Me On The Equinox

2. BAND OF SKULLS – Friends

3. THOM YORKE – Hearing Damage

4. LYKKE LI – Possibility

5. THE KILLERS – A White Demon Love Song

6. ANYA MARINA – Satellite Heart

7. MUSE – I Belong To You (New Moon)

8. BON IVER & ST. VINCENT – Roslyn

9. BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB – Done All Wrong

10. HURRICANE BELLS – Monsters

11. SEA WOLF – The Violet Hour

12. OK GO – Shooting The Moon

13. GRIZZLY BEAR – Slow Life

14. EDITORS – No Sound But The Wind

15. ALEXANDRE DESPLAT – New Moon (The Meadow)

***Calm down Jenny it's been months since I mentioned anything Twilight related.

UTAH: PART TROIS

We were so sore and sunburned from hiking Timp that our original plans to drive down to Zions and hike The Narrows was nixed. We still wanted to take advantage of the mountains so we headed to Big Cottonwood Canyon and hiked a super easy trail at the Brighton Ski Resort. Seriously, it was SO easy and SO short. We definitely needed the relaxation. We had a little trouble finding the trail head so we went towards this large cabin where it appeared a Girl’s Camp was in progress. We came across an elderly gentleman who happily volunteered to drive us to our destination. He went on to tell us the history of the Girl's Camp cabin and his own home. How they have to drive snow mobiles half the year and how the housing boom and crash affected their quiet neighborhood. He pointed out several vacant multimillion dollar homes in various states of completion and shook his head at the scars they’ve left on his landscape. You could tell he was trying to feel out our religious affiliation (OHHH Utah) so we volunteered information about our WARD and our BYU DEGREES. He was such a sweet man, I just wanted to knit him some slippers and ask him to be my grandpa. Don’t you love those random people you come across in life that are just so… pleasant?

So we found the trail and made it to Lake Mary where we took more pictures (SHOCKER, I KNOW) and kicked back with some water and granola bars. There were some incredibly dark clouds that ended up looking great in the photos. All in all, unlike Timp, I would suggest this 1 mile hike for anyone and everyone, plus you get to drive up the canyon which is always worth the trip.