What Happens in Vegas . . .

SisterFest '08 was held in Las Vegas this last weekend (can you hear me weeping over leaving the 80 degree weather?), and although Nic couldn't join us this year, we still managed to find hilarity in, well, pretty much every situation.

I now give you SisterFest: Las Vegas -- the Highlights



Joey waits to pounce on an unsuspecting Marilyn. (Either that, or the dressing room was actually meant to hold only one person.)




We stayed in the most beautiful hotel. We're talking granite countertops, travertine floors, flat screen TV, beautiful pools, the works. Here Joey and I model our new matching skirts (no, we don't really aspire to look like twins, even though everyone asked us if we were. We just happen to have the same taste in clothes. If she wears her skirt on the same day I do, I will beat her.)

Also, the seductive pose over the stove shows who wants to be America's Next Top Model. (Hint: it's not me.)





Who needs dressing rooms? This sports bra fits great! (And yes, Joey was thrilled I opted to take my camera everywhere we went. I think you can see how invaluable it was.)



Visual proof of Mom filling up the car. She can do it! It took some step-by-step instruction, but as you can see, she was successful.



At one point, Joey tried to take off in one of the hotel golf carts that a maintenance guy so foolishly left in the parking garage while he went up in the elevator. Unfortunately for us, he also took the keys with him. And he started coming back down before we could push it anywhere. You will be happy to know that we made a successful getaway (just not in the golf cart).




Joey shows off Marilyn's parallel parking skills while the homeless guy harrassed us outside the Don Carlos Restaurant.



My personal favorite -- the picture of "Grandma" inside the bathroom at the Don Carlos Restaurant. While you can probably appreciate the monobrow, facial hair, and pet parrots, what you can't see is the the cigarette she also has dangling from one hand.

FFA (about 12 days late . . . )

Okay, okay, I know. This is clearly not Friday, yet here I am posting my FFA (for last week). Cut me some slack, people! Have you, or have you not read the title of my blog? I named it that for a reason. So you're just going to have to accept the fact that I can't always be there for you. At least, not every Friday.

Last Week's FFA topic --
Dreams: Are you crazy or can you tell the future?

All I can say is, I better be crazy because most of my dreams are not exactly how I anticipated my life turning out. I occasionally have vivid dreams that I remember forever, but mostly I forget them soon after I wake up.

A couple that I remember VERY clearly happened soon after Ellis and I got married. The first dream involved me finding out that Ellis was engaged to marry another girl in our ward (and we were still married!) Everyone in the ward kept telling me I just needed to support my husband in this decision. Uh, no. So I ran away, and for some reason found a roller coaster my best mode of transportation.

The second dream also involved Ellis being married to someone else, but in this case, he was stealthy about it. He'd already been married to her for several years, and they had a baby. But he kept them both hidden away on a houseboat at Lake Powell which I managed to discover to my shock and horror one day while I was hiking around Lake Powell (you know, it's one of my usual Sunday afternoon hiking trails . . .)

When I woke up from both of those dreams, I was so mad at Ellis that I just wanted to throttle him. I was very accusatory with him for days.

According to a dream website I just looked at, my dreams can be interpreted as this: (keep in mind, this was right after we were first married, and apparently I had some issues I wasn't aware of. I haven't dreamed it since.)

"To dream that your mate, spouse, or significant other is cheating on you, indicates your fears of being abandoned. You may feel some lack of attention in the relationship. Alternatively, you may feel that you are not measuring up to the expectations of others. "

Huh. Really doesn't look too good for me either way.

Friday Free for All

Okay, how pathetic is it that I haven’t blogged since the last FFA post? Seriously, my week has been so crazy, that I’ve had to completely neglect my blogging commitments altogether. I’m hoping to be back on the wagon this next week.

So here it is – FFA topic of the week: What is the worst thing you ever did to your siblings? What is the worst thing one of your siblings ever did to you?

My sisters are 5 and 8 years older than me, and believe me, when I was younger, that felt like a big difference. And while I’m sure there was continual torment of the younger siblings, one particular episode stands out in my mind. The details are a bit vague, but it involved Nicole and Joey sitting on Cody and me and giving us melvins (Bliss lingo for “wedgies”). Every time Cody and I tried to crawl out of the living room with a shred of our underwear still tucked in our pants, they kept dragging us back in for more. I remember it felt like it went on for hours while they laughed hysterically at our efforts to escape their demonic torture.

As for my own brand of torment, I don’t think I did any one thing that was so terrible, but rather an accumulation of the small and annoying.

Joey was always wanting to beat me for sneaking into her closet and borrowing her clothes without asking. Hey, it’s not my fault she had much better style than I did. I figure, she was just asking for a groupie (who liked to borrow her clothes).

Cody’s personal hell were all the over-turned cups he’d find all over downstairs where I’d imprisoned a variety of spiders and crickets for him to kill. I just couldn’t bring myself to ever do it, and if he wasn’t home, I’d just save them for him to kill when he did get home.

TJ, poor TJ. Being the youngest of the brood, he really got the brunt of it. I think I considered him my personal servant for most of his youth. If I’d given him a dime for every glass of water, snack, Kleenex, pillow, or blanket I made him run fetch for me, well, . . . . let’s just say the indentured servant situation was a much better financial deal for me.

Friday Free for All

FFA Topic of the Week: What is your least favorite thing about being a grownup?

Well, for one thing, I hate having to clean up other people’s messes. You know, it's bad enough when you're a kid and you have to clean up your own toys, but when you're an adult (especially a parent), suddenly you're responsible for cleaning up all sorts of varied (but invariably unpleasant) things. Kid gets sick -- you're the one scrubbing throw-up out of the carpet. Baby gets into the vaseline and smears it all over herself, the couch, and the carpet -- yep, you guessed it. You're the one trying desperately to find something (anything) that will get Vaseline out of carpet and a baby's hair (Marley looked like a greaseball for a week.)

Case in point: Marley and Lucy wanted to help me bring in the groceries earlier this week. I'm not one to argue free labor, so I let them. Naturally, Marley first grabs a gallon of milk and starts lugging it into the house. "Hey!" I say. "Isn't that a little heavy for you?"

"Nope. I'm really strong. I can carry it, see?" So, I figure, "I guess she is really strong." Marley carries the milk in and comes back outside for another one. This gallon, however, only manages to make it just inside the door when I hear a crash and an "Oops!"

I rush inside to see the aforementioned gallon of milk broken on the floor and seeping milk everywhere, cleverly spraying shoes, the walls, and part of a chair. What's better is that Marley and Lucy both grab rags and rush to start cleaning it up, only to spread milk even more by stepping in it and tracking it all over. Thanks, kids.

The evidence I submit below only shows about half of what was spilled. I didn't think to take the pictures until I had already sopped up the biggest puddle.

But another thing I resent about being an adult is being tired all the time. I want to say this all started with the onset of motherhood but I can distinctly remember being tired through most of my college career. I even had my favorite places all over campus to take a quick nap between classes . . . under a stairwell, on a couch in a lobby full of other students, the library, or sometimes just on the floor somewhere where I meant to be studying. Before you start thinking this is strange (and, I’ll admit it, slightly pathetic) behavior to just sack out on the floor somewhere in public, go take a tour of BYU campus. I can guarantee that I was not the only one.

But maybe I'm only saying this because I'm so tired right now.

Jump Crazy

Lucy's new favorite activity is jumping on the trampoline . . . whether someone is around to supervise or not. Ellis and I both think it looks so hilarious to see her body basically stay in the same place while her knees move up and down with the trampoline.

On this particular occasion, Lucy's friend Jack was trying to convince her to get off the trampoline to play with him (IE: push him on the swing). It usually takes quite a bit to get her off, but apparently Jack's request was very compelling. (By the way, I enjoyed many such conversations between Jack, age 3, and Lucy, age 2, during the few hours he was at our house.)

Addendum:

Ellis just told me that I need to add a transcript of the conversation because he wasn't sure what they were saying. So for the hearing impaired, here you go.

Jack: Lucy!

Lucy: What?

Jack: Come here!

Lucy: Um, what?

Jack: I want you to play with me.

Lucy: I can't play with you. I'm jumping!

Jack: Can you swing me? (I think this is what he said)

Lucy: Uh, yeah. I get down.

Friday Free for All

This week's FFA topic: Write a 20 word poem. Must include the word "sombrero."





Eyes closed, fingers trembling,
Anticipation mounting,
A thunk, an upward glance.
What the . . .?
Is that a . . .?
Yes. Yes, it is.
It’s a sombrero.


Dedicated to Ellis: Thanks for always finding new and exciting ways to humiliate me in public on my birthday.


To Peggy: I don’t want to hear anything about being forced to wear fairy wings and a pimp hat. It's clearly not the same thing.






I just had to add one more poem under this topic that I dedicate to my brother, TJ – a true William Carlos Williams fan.

“the red sombrero”

so much depends upon
a red sombrero
glazed with taco sauce
beside the white Bajios franchise.

I demand Poetry!

In honor of National Poetry month, I thought I'd post a few of my favorite poems. If I can find them, I'll also post a few from my high school days written by some friends of mine. Jenni Walton-Cragun (as I like to think of her) came up with a few gems when we were learning masculine and feminine rhyme scheme during AP English. I'll see what I can find, but until then, you'll have to be satisfied with these poems by a somewhat more well-known crowd.

"Credo" by Jack London

I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out

in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom

of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

"Cow Poetry" by Gary Larsen

"Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.

Money's new-minted in this fat purse.

I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I've eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there's no getting off.