river trippin'

last weekend cassie and i got invited to go with my cousin aaron {and his singles ward} on a river rafting trip. we went to the green river. it was fun. and weird at the same time.

fun because..

• cass and i were together, which always equals a good time. we spent like 2 hours laughing our faces off and taking pictures of ourselves in our tent. {using the timer of course}
• my cousin aaron is totally funny. even though he doesn't try to be...he's such a skeptic, not believing a word cassie was telling him during our field trip/drive to through price canyon. he kept saying "i wanna see that in a book" ... which of course was secretly driving cassie nuts. and that combo was secretly making me giggle inside.
• AND we made a new friend. audrey. we bonded over our mutual love for "so you think you can dance" and our desire to talk. which brings us to the next topic...

weird because..

• no one talked. that singles ward has got to be the most boring singles ward ever. our raft was completely silent aside from our guide-lady barking orders at everyone. so pretty much everyone just listened to audrey, cassie and i chat away.
• while cassie and i were just winding down for the night, trying to fall asleep all of the sudden we hear something right outside our tent. cassie says "it sounds like someone is peeing.." and then i look up out of our little window screen {which was wide open by the way} and there is this guy. standing behind our tent right in front of the open window. taking a pee. and looking directly back at me through the window screen. not even cracking a smile of embarassment or anything. of course, i immediately started laughing uncontrollably and told cassie what the heck was going on. we were dying. WHO does that? who thinks "oh, i'll just go pee behind that tent. right above someone's head." seriously. he needs to be punished.

besides all that, we totally had a great time.

j. sparks

last night was totally awesome computers. first, i played in two soccer games. won both! okay technically we didn't "win" the last one {the championship game}..but we were in the lead 4-2 when this latino from the other team tried to start a fight and so the ref ended the game.

after the games i rushed home, took a quick shower and ran over to the scera park to meet cass at the JORDIN SPARKS concert. that's right, Jordin Sparks performed at the ghetto fabulous scera outdoor ampitheater. i don't think she knew quite how weird that was. anyway..

although her 18-year-old ridiculousness came through at times, i have to say she was quite delightful. very laid back and clean. and i love anyone who implements literal dancing and finger pointing into their performance. haha.
with all the people there, the scera theater didn't seem so lame. which is nice, since that's basically our backyard. fun night, but i have to say it felt good to crawl into bed and give these little feets a rest.
especially after all that ranning around.

summerfest parade

here we are on our bit of earth watching the parade.
this was our favorite float. so colorful and bright. way to go lindon!

and here's a pic of some highschool marching band. i don't remember which school, but the kid in the video below was saying this about them...

kid in red: oh, i've seen these before. once you are in one of those you can never get out. they don't let you out. ever.

then we saw this...

and the kid in red said this...

in case you can't understand what he's saying...
kid in red: i bet you can see them, because they're tall! they take care of plant friends. that's why they're here. they take care of plants.

And that is why i look forward and backward to the summerfest every year.

thanks for coming girls!

summerfest 2008

we love summer. therefore we love the orem summerfest. and what makes the summerfest even 10 x better is rollerblading there. mainly to ride this...
the gravitron. yessss. best ride ever. i was first introduced to the gravitron back in my pre-teen years at the 49th street galleria. it's the kind of ride that makes you laugh til you cry. until it stops. and then you kinda wanna puke. but you don't. and all is well.
here's emily and me inside the gravitron. ready for take off!
then we rode the star trooper. now riding that after the gravitron...not such a good idea. we all felt a little queasy but kept it together. unfortunately the big tatooed guy sitting a few carts back could not. sick. after that, we decided it was time to go home.
and on the way home...that's when cassie biffed it. i pretty much watched the whole thing happen in slo-mo, since she had just sped up to take the lead because crystelle and i were going too slow for her. once again she lived to tell the tale. she's a tough kid, that one.

well that was the day part of the fest. i'll have to do another post for the parade and fireworks. the two little boys standing in front of us were the real entertainment of the night though. i took some video of their conversation so...stay tuned.

talk to me

dear liz {25},

happy birthday girl! i just wanna say how totally impressed i am. you have come so far since liz {23}. life is good. real good. better than you thought. you are very blessed. take advantage of that and learn to enjoy the ride. more. i hope this next year brings excitement, happiness and growth. but not too much growth.

love yourself,

liz {24}

ps. you are the bomb.com.

the mo

last weekend we {and the singles ward} ventured south. moab, utah to be exact. while there, i was trying really hard to reconnect with my gangsta past. the lovely ladies in the backseat moab's next top modelspondering ways to bring world peace and combat hunger and a toyota jump. just because.

{this was my first try p.s. i'm getting so good.}


other hi-lights of from the trip included:

-picking up chelsey and cassie on the side of US highway 6 at mile marker 210. there they were after a week at 5th grade camp just waiting for me, with their sleeping bags and backpacks, ready for more camping.

- cassie frantically shaving her legs before the hike only to look down seconds after and find blood trickling down her legs. i told her, you can't trust a brand that produces both razors AND mechanical pencils. you just can't.

-five of us girls smashed into a 3-man tent. mummy style. it was quite the bonding experience.

-when cassie found a piece of cauliflower {on the ground}, carved it into the shape of a tooth and then went around to every single person in the ward convincing them she had a toothache. she would then ask her victims to "take a look" as she proceeded to spit out her "tooth" into her hand.
she's a weirdo. but she's our weirdo.

so you think

while watching mary murphy on last night's episode of so you think you can dance

i felt there was something familiar about her face...not only that, i think the laugh is the same too. poor thing.

even if mary is the most annoying reality show judge. like ever. i'm way excited for the top 20 to start performing next week!!

visiting hours

the other day i had to go to SLC to retrieve all my soccer ish. so i called my dad at work to tell him when i was going to be there so that i could...a) give him a squeeze and b) he could save me from all the questioning {from the grams} that happens everytime i go home.

well i made it there before the dad. i walked in, gave gramma a hug and here's the dialogue that ensued...

L: hi gramma, it's lizzie, how are you? {i like to remind her of who i am first thing. it saves time in the end}
G: oh hi dear, so when are you moving back in?
L: gramma...i'm not moving back in. remember i work in provo {she doesn't know what orem is}.
G: is it because you don't like me very much?
L: no...gramma...
{as my dad walks in i mouth "help me" and get up to give him a hug}
G: you know your dad misses you too, maybe he can convince you to move back in.
D: mom, liz is happy where she lives now. let her be.
{she drops it and moves on to the next topic...which i already know...she has brought this up every time i have visited since i moved out a year ago. mind you, i go home and visit a least every other week. so that's alot.}
G: have you found anyone special?
L: not yet, gramma. {sighing, bracing myself for the next question}
G: what about that one boy? do you still talk to him?
L: nope. it's been over a year now.
G: i thought he was a nice boy.
L: yeah, i know.
G: i guess it turns out i was wrong.
L: no, he was nice. just dumb.
G: i really liked him.
{me giving my dad a pleading look...}
D: mom, she doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
{luckily she changed the subject to school..which i've been done with for 3.5 years...then we moved onto work...which after trying to explain "gifting" to her, i end up just saying "i sit at a computer"}

about an hour later i'm verbally exhausted and ready to get back to my tivo.
L: alright, well i have to drive back to provo. love you.
I get up to give gramma a g'bye hug...then she looks me in the face and says "well, he's a dope for letting you go."

ah, yes. it's the same converstion every time. but that little phrase at the end. that makes it all worth it. especially the fact that she literally uses the word "dope."

no matter what repetitive conversation i have to endure, it's good to know that at the end of the day...the g-ma, she's got my back.

eyebrows

our house got eyebrows! chelsey taught me that term. i guess when you paint the trim of a house, including the awnings that frame the windows, those are the eyebrows of a house. i never even knew!

look how nice and pretty...
the door got painted red and all the black is new too...underneath that use to be this faded pinkish red color. i think the black really makes the house look classy. and just plain adore-able.

also last saturday us girls {mainly chelsey} worked in the front yard. our neighbors are so pleased with how far this little house has come...one even told cassie "ah, it's looking so much better! ya know, you begin to think you live in the ghetto."

haha. our neighbors really like to be involved in...well everything. one of them even called me new years day to tell me that she noticed i had come home very late the night before {new years eve}.

well at least we know that if anyone ever tries break in to our house there will be at least 10 eye witnesses watching through their kitchen windows...

tent frustration

so we are going on this ward camp-out to moab this weekend. very excited. the only problem is we (the roomies and i) don't own a tent. therefore we had to borrow a tent from our dear friend stacey. well we decided to set it up in our front yard to see if it fulfilled the desires of our hearts. at first everything seemed all fine and great. the tent was all nicely packed into this flat disc shape carrier, equip with a strap for carrying like a purse, if so desired. now here's how things turned for the worse...

step one. take tent out of tent bag - easy peasy.

step two. set up tent. since this is a "self-errecting" tent (that's what it says on the bag). you just toss it out like a frisbee and it basically sets itself up. quite easy. and quite fascinating actually.

now comes the fun part...

step three. take tent down - very very hard. in order to fit it back in the bag the tent must be folded and twisted and smashed into a very smallish circlular type shape. this is near impossible and might i say incredibly frustrating. in fact after a good two hours and a few almost curse words, Cassie and i decided to take a short break. 3 hours later we went back out (with Chelsey) and after a few tries we magically fit it back in the dumb bag.

note to self: never buy a "self-errecting" tent. ever.