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.

homeward bound

i am coming to utah today. i will only be in town on saturday so i am not sure how many people i will actually see. but call me if you are interested. i get in tonight around 8 utah time. love your guts.

my funny valentine

this shouldn't surprise you but my beau totally surprised me on valentine's day. he told me to get off work early and that is all i got. i had no idea where we were going or what was on the agenda. so he picked me up from work and we drove into the city. we went to an indian restaurant called rasika. it was a four course meal and it was yummy! we had chocolate shrimp (seriously good) and this cripsy salad stuff and some lamb and paneer and curry. the dining experience took a long time and so we were afraid we were going to be late for our next surprise activity. we had one bite of our desserts and hopped on the metro and headed to the george washington university lisner auditorium to the flamenco festival. it was so cool. there was some loud singing and some sweet dancing and and some AMAZING guitar playing. serious talent. i wish you could have seen and heard how fast those fingers were moving on the guitar and how fast those feet were flying on the stage.
mark is a good date and a good planner. he was the best valentine i have had. after the concert, we came home and had a valentine cuddle and then he went home and i went to bed. i was tuckered out from the romantic festivities. also my valentine flowers are still alive and blooming and gorgeous. what a guy.

family

this man and woman are the beginnings of my family. they have been married 39 freaking years. that is a long time. they look like babies. i stole this picture from marnae because that is how i roll but i love it and love that they have been together for so long. also i love the lilac dress and the beautiful backdrop. happy anniversary elv and dave. (feb. 10)

be mine

look what my valentine gave me! aren't they pretty!!! what a sweet guy. i hope you are all having a happy valentine's day!!

help

should i go here this weekend: (the outer banks) ps i know the house is pink.

or should i stay home?? dilemma!!! i need help. please comment.

pre-occupied

this shouldn't surprise you but i have not led a super exciting life as of late. i am having fun but the cold keeps me home (or at mark's) more often than not. so we have been making lots of home cooked meals and playing guitar hero 3 -which ben totally bought because i passed guitar hero 2 on medium. i rock! not really, my friend will plays on expert! but here are a few other things that have occupied my time in the past weeks.

the banff film festival. about 20 of us had tickets for the 5- day festival at the national geographic society. there were some films that totally rocked and some films that totally sucked. anyway, it was a good time and i am glad i got to go. here is the other thing that occupied some of my time:

this is the book that we read for my book club this month. i read another book of his called the reader that i really liked but this one was not as good. however, the more we talked about it at book club last night, the more i understood it and liked it a little more. i still am not sure i would recommend it to read. i am still processing so the jury is still out on that one.

other than that, here is the main occupier of my time. makes me happy.

explaining

this shouldn't surprise you but i have some splaining to do. apparently my last post is making people confused so i will give you the back story. 1 and 2 are true so ignore those but 3 is not so true. a few weeks ago when i asked mark what we were going to do for valentine's day, he said we were going to break up on the 13th and get back together on the 15th. it has been a joke of ours ever since ( i hope). so the other day he told me that since i would be crying all day on valentine's day, maybe i should do it somewhere fun in the district so he told me to get off work early and go downtown. so that is where all the planning and breaking up came in. it was a joke people, a joke but apparently not funny. linnea called me today all worried about my state of well being ( thanks linnea) and maur was confused as well as darin. so there is the back story. sorry people, sorry.