catch up, ketchup, catsup

this shouldn't surprise you but i have a lot to catch up on! this will be a long post so if you are bored, just scroll to the bottom. there is some interesting stuff there. first things first:

heather's good bye parties (and troy)
my darling heather left NRECA to move to sunny san diego with her bf troy since he is in the coast guard and apparently he wants to guard a different coast. so they are gone and we are so sad. i miss her everyday at work but am so glad that we got to be friends. one of our co-workers don, threw a big going away barbecue for her. best food ever.

mark loves to be dragged along to work functions. what a sport.

for our last party together, we went to kit and josh's house and had bruschetta past and played games. this is the obscene amount of tomatoes kari brought. there was one more bag. yum!!

they all got chopped into these tiny pieces. we used teamwork.

then we played games and ate and were sad about heather leaving :( booo.

living with the nelsons

so i moved in with the nelsons for a few weeks until my new place was available and it was the greatest!! here is a spontaneous dance party. i just loved darci's fierce face in this one.
and cubbie was like, "yawn", these dance parties happen all the time

jimmy's birthday

this nelson boy had a birthday. so there was a party with good friends and we played in the park.
eating pizza

ben has decided to close his eyes when i take pictures. doesn't stop me.
cub making treats. rice krispie treats in a frying pan....awesome

busboys and poets

so, we went to this poetry reading thing and it was so awesome! i was hesitant at first but i loved it.
this was love the poet. she was the featured poet but then there was open mic as well.

u.s national women's soccer game vs. canada

with dave and annie

they are freaking rad and so entertaining to watch
except sometimes i get a little bored and choose to annoy people.

big news

in a haiku (for em)

he asked me to wed

"what a great idea", i said

hope to see you there

sorry about the sausage fingers(not part of the haiku)

no details on the proposal. won't be as special if i share it all with you.
we are getting married on august 2 in the manti temple. then leaving this land of virginia for greener pastures.

decade of not rad

i
know
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worst
blogger
ever
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be
clever
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sorry!!!

decade of rad

this shouldn't surprise you but i went to a rocking surprise party the other night. it was for this lovely lady, patti. happy birthday patilda.

guess what? it wasn't just any party, it was an EIGHTIES PARTY!!! and some of us got totally decked out! here is tim, cubbie (doesn't she look like an 80's teacher?), jim, me, darci and sara.

after patti got surprised, she took a little time to get in her 80's get up. she looked fab-totally rad.

jimmy looked awesome in his 80's outfit without even trying.

then.....the dancing started. here are the nelson siblings. cubbie, jim and darci (doing the running man)
darci has the sweetest 80's dance moves of anyone i have ever met in all my days.
there was even some slow dancing. total eclipse of the heart and forever young. tres romantic.

i like the hand placement in this picture and the slight pelvic thrust. go get em, mark. looks like he has a thing for 80's teachers.

besides, hot clothes, sweet makeup, banana clips, pegged pants and totally tubular dance moves, there was also a real live working ATARI!!!and a rubiks cube cake. i heart the 80's.

happy birthday patti!

i can't believe i am sharing this

oh man. i have this friend matt and he is hilarious and he has made us do something awful but every time i look at this blog, i laugh aloud so i am sharing it with you even though it is the WORST picture of me ever taken in my life and there have been some doozies! click on the pictures to get the full effect. try this out when you take your next pictures and send the results to me. so funny!!
http://themandersonreport.blogspot.com/2008/03/idea.html

conferencing

this shouldn't surprise you but i have not done much blogworthy lately unless you call sleeping and staying in my pajamas for weeks blogworthy. so i will try to make up things to blog about even though they seem lame because i was lame for like a month. well i am happy to report that i am feeling MUCH better and don't think i will be dying anytime soon so things are looking up. so since i was bedridden for weeks, i would beg mark to take me to his house so i could see other scenery besides my bedroom and he obliged because he is kind like that. so my house and marks were about all i would see but on saturday and sunday the 5th and 6th, i went to darci's for general conference and breakfast lunch and dinner. it was nice to see people and especially nice to see general conference.

mitch, mei li, cubbie (in sweet muu muu), dave and darci eating (which it seems is almost all we did on sunday)
mei li and jim hemming pants
mary and courtney-totally watching conference
courtney and mary should have taken lessons from ben and maryann dutifully taking notes and not dozing. good kids. i love general conference time, even when i feel lousy, there is always something that makes me feel so great.

stoned

this shouldn't surprise you but i am sick again and not with mono. I am one lucky girl. so you all get to hear about it. on friday night i woke up with horrible pains in the middle of the night. i as up for a long time and then i finally got them under control and went back to sleep. all weekend i felt a little sicky but not too bad and then monday morning the pain was back something fierce. i knew something was not right so i called into work and made an appointment with my doctor. she thought i might have a ruptured cyst so i went on my way to get a sonogram with some heavy pain pills. after the sonogram, i took the pain pills and then the pain came back with a vengeance right when mark got home from work and i said, we need to go to the hospital. so off we went to the er and i was ushered in and out on some heavier pain pills that did the trick while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me. turns out, i have kidney stones!! what the? they are awful!!! so i stayed in the er for a good 6 hour and had various tests and then was sent home around 11. well around 2 am, i was in the worst pain of my life so i called mark and he came over and off we went to the er again. i was barely coherent but i got some morphine and fell right to sleep and then around 6, they wanted to admit me but i asked if i could go home with some stronger pain pills and just take it easy at home and they let me. so i am recovering. mark is taking care of me and the pain pills are working (mostly). so if this makes no sense, it is because i am in a drug induced haze. so i will not be at work this week.. again. i swear i have never had this many things wrong with me and all in one month!!!! sucky. here are some super pretty pictures from the er.

my sweetie with his hot new haircut. my view of him in the er. he is a good nurse!

busy

well friends,this shouldn't surprise but i am going to be busy this week. here is the list of things i am doing:

1. moving.
2. selling my car
3. working full time
4. helping with a bridal shower
5. book club
6. having mono.

try not to be overrun with jealousy.

hey jealousy

don't be jealous ladies but this is the man that i get to kiss on the mouth. almost whenever i want. and yes that is a thermal henley and yes that is a pro bull rider's association hat and why yes, that is a mullet. eat your heart out ladies. i like this cute little guy. ps. the mullet is history but i hope the henley and hat make another appearance soon.

road trip

this shouldn't surprise you but i went on a little road trip a while back and when i say a while, i mean a month. yes, sorry loyal reader(s), i am a slacker but i have been ILL. for nigh on 2 weeks now!!!! i am so over being sick but alas it lingers on. enough about that, let's talk about a road trip. mark and i decided that we were going to go to Utah and pick up his truck to bring to dc. there were several reasons behind this logic and so it seemed like a good idea and we decided february would be a good month for a cross country road trip. (we are brilliant). so we bought plane tickets and flew home on friday night. we spent the night in payson and then mark headed to price and so we could each spend approximately 12 hours each with our families before beginning the trip of a lifetime. ha. so on sunday, i met mark and we were on our way. let the good times roll. it was a pretty good driving day. we were fresh and alert and mark had the brilliant idea to drive straight through. sounded good to me. heck i wasn't even tired. well then we drove through the rockies and there was a lot of snow. and this was the only part that i said i didn't want to drive and guess who was driving? moi! so we switched drivers and right after that the car in front of us started spinning and spinning and spinning and we started sliding and slipping and trying to stop. well we all came to a stop with the car in front of us facing us. so we got out in the cold and checked out his car. he went on his merry way with all sorts of things dragging. oh well. then we hit a massive traffic jam and were stopped for well over an hour. fun. but we finally made it out of the rockies and into denver and on our way and the weather was smiling again.

the weather changes quick in the rockies!

some cities and a giant cross. i-70 isn't huge on scenery. b to the o to the r to the ing!

so we pressed onward and eastward and finally at 2 in the morning, i was too tired to go anymore so i convinced sleepy head mark to pull over for the night in kansas city. slept like a rock. seriously all we did was drive so i will just tell you that we stopped in ohio at my sweet cousins. i got a haircut and we played with her cute girlie. the weather was not good there. but we continued onward through rain and snow and sleet and hail and here we are back in dc and we had a good time together even if it was not the most fun activity. now, i wish i could go on a more fun road trip with a more exotic location. anyone?

about time

this shouldn't surprise you but i suck at blogging lately. i am plain lazy and plain boring. so remember when i had a dilemma and couldn't decide whether or not to go to the beach for president's day weekend. well i went and it was fabulous. the weather was not really beach weather but i think i am starting a new trend of going to the beach in the off season and swimming in the ridiculously cold waters or as iggy bloggit put it "colder than satan's heart." ha. well mary ann decided we needed a get away and so she rented a lovely peach house in the outer banks. i wish you could have seen the place. it was gaudy with a capitol g. so, so rad. there were pirates everywhere and nekkid mermaids, shark heads in closets and all things nautical. here is the pirate that greeted us on our way into the kitchen. ahoy and good eats. the house was large and comfy and there was a theater there and a pool table and arcade games so we were not lacking in entertainment.
also, we were mere feet from the beach which led to this: the polar bear plunge!
ps. click on this one and make it big and check out mei li's freaking leg muscles. man alive.


aaron, dave, mei li, leslie and i braved the frigidity of the atlantic and i am not sure why. we ran in and ran out to the hot tub but we cooled the hot tub right down with our frigid bodies. it was cold. aside from the ocean, we ate a lot and hung out and enjoyed one another's company. went to church, played guitar hero, had a sing a long, dance parties, hot tub parties, walks on the beach, random desserts, sunsets, cool people and all around good times.

michelle, dave and mei li making curry


mary, seductively dishing up her salad.

this is pretty of mary on the beach reading and watching mark skim board.
the foggy beach. so pretty
and look at the sun set!!! i love the outer banks. love.