Lame excuse for a blog entry

Not originally my idea, but it seems like it could be fun. It's always nice to take a trip down memory lane and remember some of the good ol times! So, here's the game:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It could be really fun, so post away... And see if we can't have some good laughs

JULY 4TH

I love JULY 4th and all of the traditions that go along with it! This is my second year in Boston for the holiday and last year we toughed out the rain and the crowds to watch the Boston fireworks as they were lit off on the Charles River with the city skyline as the backdrop. This year, I went with Trisha and her roommates to a more secluded place to enjoy the holiday. Marblehead Neck is a little penninsula that jets off from Marblehead which is about 1/2 hour north of Boston, near Salem (where the witch trials occured). I was a little bit skeptic at first because I love big crowds and big parties on this holiday, but I was proven wrong. It was such a great experience. We got there around three and drove out to the tip of the penninsula and found a nice patch of grass between the rocks and just underneath the lighthouse. We had a picnic, played games, some of us (not me, its too blasted cold here and I already had a sweater on because it was only sixty degrees outside) went swimming in the ocean and just enjoyed each others company. We were in a bay, so across the water from us was the city of marble head, to our left was the bay with lots of sail boats and private houses that ligned the shore and to our right were some smaller islands and the wide open ocean. When the sun started setting it was phenomenal, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Then, about fifteen minutes before the fireworks started, they coast around us started lighting up with red flares that had been placed along the harbor. It was so cool! Trish and I found a nice, cozy spot with naturally made chairs in the rocks with our feet dangling above the ocean and waited for the fireworks to start. I was not disappointed at all, it was a great show! The barge was maybe one hundred yards in front of us in the harbor as it lit off the fireworks! Not only that, we were able to see Salem's fireworks, and Manchester-by-the-sea's (I love that name) fireworks and 3 or 4 other cities do their show while we watched the one right in front of us go off. It was incredible! As we drove off of the penninsula, we blasted Neil Diamond, "We're coming to America" and Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" it was the best way to end July 4th! Here are some pics...

Mike, Trisha, Katie, Tristan and EstherPanoramic view looking out into the ocean
We sat right under the lighthouse

Me and Trisha and the harbor

The sunset

The sunset a little later, it was amazing

Panoramic view of the sunset in the harbor

The flares lit up along the harbor

Fireworks

Fireworks

Ask Esther about this one, hahaha

Trisha and I perched on the rocks watching the fireworks

The lighthouse all lit up

PS- I cannot claim these pictures as being my own, cause I didn't take any. These are courtesy of Trisha. I must say they are great pictures and if you want to see some additional pics of our adventure, check out her blog

Lessons learned the hard way

We've all learned lessons the hard way, right? In fact, just this week I was on a date with Trisha at a beautiful botanical garden and she locked her keys in the car. Well, a locksmith at nine oclock at night in the sticks is not cheap. $150 dollars later and we drove out of that parking lot, thank goodness. As if that wasn't enough, we also found out that she has a AAA membership that would have done it for free. Ooops. But an even bigger lesson learned the hard way thankfully had nothing to do with myself. Apparently you can watch tv shows on your phone... I never knew that, and I'm not sure I would ever have that desire. But beware, if you decide to do this, it may end up on your bill the next month as nearly $500 dollars! Not very cheap. My poor cousin "R" (I will call her this to protect her identity) has been begging for a cell phone for quite some time. She finally got all her payments lined up for like 6 months and had enough savings to purchase the phone itself when she approached her parents to get one. They saw her dedication and realized that she was ready to have a cell phone. She has been so excited to have it and very careful not to exceed the 750 texts that are allotted to her each month. Well, yesterday my aunt and uncle got the bill and on top of their usual amount, was a charge of almost $500 dollars. Oops. Not really sure how that one is gonna turn out, but it will be a funny story in about two years when the situation cools down.

Average days

Day: friday night

Time: somewhere around 5pm

Place: CVS pharmacy 481 Lincoln st, Worcester, MA.

So, I'm at work and I am just going about my business of typing a prescription in half a second flat and a guy walks up to the counter who is of mexican descent. He hands me two prescriptions and I start asking him all the questions that I have to ask and start typing away. He tells me he will come get the medications tomorrow, which shocked me because nobody waits a whole day to pick up the infamous percocet (everybody wants it yesterday cause they are in so much pain). About two seconds later, he tells me he needs to wait cause he is in pain right now. I say okay and proceed to finish typing. I look over and he is holding his hand to his head. Not out of the ordinary for someone who is at the pharmacy trying to get pain meds. I look over a second later and he is resting in arm, and essentially his whole body on the counter in front of me. I start to think something is weird. It happened in slow motion, I can still see it in my head. The guys slowly falls to the floor. I can see his eyes roll back in his head, the color just flushed right out of him and down he went right in front of me. Around the counter and out the door I ran as I yelled in a very stern voice for the other intern to "come here now." I'll be honest, I didn't really know what to do, except to tell the guy to remain on the floor. We took his pulse and realized that it was not normal while also realizing that his hands were sweaty and cold. Not a good sign. I ran back into the pharmacy and called 911. The firemen were the first to respond and take his blood pressure before calling the ambulance with the EMT crew. A translator (friend of the guy that passed out) was also called to assist in the fiasco because communication was rough at that point. It turns out that this guy was in the hospital for kidney stones and had just been released. He immediately came to the pharmacy to fill his prescriptions. I don't know what they do at this hospital, but that guy was in no condition to be out of the hospital. So, off to the ambulance he went to recieve fluids because he was severely dehydrated and then back to the hospital. I'm glad it turned out okay, but it got my blood flowing and I had a serious rush going on. It may be inappropriate to say that it was exciting, but it was.



Saturday afternoon: I found out that my uncle, whom I live with, was called as the new stake president. There was a lot of fear and humility and anxiety associated with the whole event. I decided to go support them at the conference when he was sustained. I don't think I have ever actually seen the depths of humility on a person's face until he was called to stand up and then take his place on the stand. Maybe its because I know he and my aunt hadn't slept for two days, they cried for many hours of those two days and I saw the process as it unfolded, but I could feel it as well. I thought it was too bad that the old stake presidency was more concerned with jokes and good times than actual spiritual thoughts or experiences. It's always a good thing to have change in the church, cause you could tell they were done. However, when my uncle got up to give his talk, the tone of the meeting immediately changed. He started off with goals for the stake which hit me pretty hard. "Practice holiness," he quoted from the scriptures and then, "Do good, be good and become better," quoted from President Hinckley. Simple things, yet important principles of the gospel. Their stake lacks foundation and to strengthen your foundation you have to go back to the basics and start from there. It was a great meeting. I found a new respect and love for my uncle and I know he is gonna do a great job.

After thought...

Here is a video from my phone to give you an idea of the utter loudness of the cars as they zoom by. Never knew you had to wear ear plugs at a nascar race... Notice that you can't even hear the announcer as the cars go by. I know it's a crappy video, sorry.

White Trash Roadtrip

So, I'm all about parties and when I found out that peeps from my ward would be going on the second annual "white trash roatrip" to see a Nascar race in North Carolina, I was all in. It was such a fun weekend. Twenty eight plus hours of driving, an all-nighter, a nascar race, buying a nascar shirt at the walmart, street race party with free concert (that unfortunately I didn't get to see) in downtown charlotte, chillin with Trisha's family and lots of other fun events. So, you can never really understand what nascar is about until you have this experience, and I thought it was so great! Actually I compare it to my love for the 24th of July parade (on pioneer day) back in SLC. The party leading up to it is the fun part. Hanging out, lots of people around, eating junk food, thats the part I really enjoy. When it came to the race, I was not so interested in watching circles for 2 hours. I must admit that there were several crashes and a brawl at the end, but other than that watching the race was not my thing. I think one of the other great things about it was when Kyle Busch (??) won the race and he was boo'd and flipped off and people threw things at his car and he continued to do circles in front of the crowd and got out of his car to take a bow for them all. That was hilarious. Here are some pics of the weekend...

The girls posing by a Nas-car

Lowe's motor speedway

Lisa, Lora, Me and Trish at "Street Race" in downtown Charlotte

Me with my awesome turkey leg, iced lemonade and my "white trash" attire

Trish and I walking away from the race

Jared (with an awesome mullet), Lora and LisaMarci, Joana, Ally and Kirsti
The whole crew posing at Trisha's parents house before going to the race
The cars as they sped by (its a little bit hard to get a picture like this, I had to try several times until I actually had a car in the frame

Keep in mind that we had to try to look white trash and we still didn't come anywhere near that of reality. But here's how we tried: tatoos galore (including tramp stamps and boob tats), mullets, nascar t-shirts, pants that said "juicy" across the butt, crazy hairdo's, jeans with holes. Can you sort of picture it?? It was a blast. The highlight of my trip was in downtown Charlotte where they blocked off the streets and had everything fried food, millions of people so we couldn't even move and personal space was non-existant, loud music and lots of interesting people to look at.
Besides all the nascar activities, I had a great opportunity to sit and chill with the Cheney clan and that was also a lot of fun. Trisha's mom was an amazing hostess to 10 young adults and we couldn't have asked for better accomadations and company. I also got to stay at her brother, TJ's, house so thanks to them as well. Probably the best part about that was McKay telling me everything I have always wanted to know about pokemon, mario, donkey kong and yoshi. Good times. It was good to meet all you Cheney's!!

1,000 miles in four days.

Well, my semester break is over and I am back in school. I had such an awesome break. Two weeks with lots of great times. My mom and my little brother, Shayne, flew out to visit me. My mom has never been out here to visit me, so I talked her into coming during this break. I picked up Trisha in Boston and the Road trip/Crazy weekend began. Picked my mom and Shayne up in Providence, Rhode Island and we were off to "The Big Apple"! It only takes 3 hours to get there, so we had some time to go to Times Square that night and walk around. That place is my favorite. It is so bright all during the night with so many lights. It's almost overwhelming to look at all of it, but its so cool. One of my favorite parts was eating yummy food from a street vendor at like 11:30 at night. Where does that happen? This city never sleeps. Hotels are expensive and still I had to sleep on the floor, so I didn't get much sleep.
At 5:30 in the morning, Shayne and I went running in Central Park, which was one block from our hotel. That thing really is massive. I only wanted to go for a 2-3 mile run but we kept getting lost and that resulted in like a 5+ mile run. It was so nice to run around amoungst many other runners and feel pretty cool. Next we tried to go to the "Today" show and display our posters of our Utah pride and wish my sister, Lisel, a Happy Birthday. That attempt failed, but it is one of my favorite memories of NYC just cause it was funny. We saw lots of buildings, walked a lot and ate a lot it seems. I was hungry and thirsty like every second. Some guy on the subway told us about a cool place in Brooklyn called the promenade, which we went to. It's across the river and it is a great place to admire the city and yet sit in peace, away from the hectic city. We wanted to try to see "Wicked," but that didn't turn out, so we saw "Grease" instead and it was fantastic. We left NYC around midnight and I drove us home until nearly 3:00 in the morning. Don't worry, I went through 2 Mtn. Dews and 1 Coke to stay awake and I jammed to myself as everyone else eased in and out of consciousness.
Friday was a more relaxing day, we drove into Boston and had Clam Chowder in a bread bowl in Harvard Square. Nothing better than Clam Chowder in a bread bowl on a cool/rainy day in MA. The rest of the day was chill in preparation for the big race day.

Lower Manhattan from atop the Empire State Building

New York City from across the river in Brooklyn

My mom, Shayne and Trish relaxing on a bench in Brooklyn after a lot of walking

Eating a snack from a street vendor in Times Square around midnightTrying to be on the "Today" show was unsuccessful but a great memory

Grand Central Station

Time Square at nightWhat would New York be without taxis?? MetLife tower and Grand Central Station Empire State Building

Race Day- May 10, 2008. Big Lake Half Marathon in Alton, New Hampshire.

It was another early morning and it was nerve racking as well. For months, myself and many others had been preparing for this day. The thought of running 13.1 miles was really scary to me, since I had only done 10.5 in my training and I had about 10 hours of sleep in the previous 3 days. The race started out bad, with my aunt trying to jet in front of me and get ground on me before I even knew what she was doing. Then my shins started to hurt really bad and I had to make a pit stop to use the restroom. That's when things get interesting. I take care of business and I am on my way back from the woods to the road to continue the race. I trip, I fall to the ground in the dirt and my ego is severely hurt. I kept running and washed myself off at the next water stand. It was so embarassing and I lost time because of it. Luckily, as I was running up the hill at about the half way mark, I saw my aunt in front of me and I got a slight boost of energy. I was so excited to catch up with her. I don't think she was quite as excited to see me as I was to see her. The rest of the race was really good and I managed to get under my goal time of 2 hours, so I am really proud of myself. Next goal in my life, train for a full-blown marathon...

Me coming up to the finish line at 1:58:21 (9:02 minute miles) Yay for me!! I know that my sweat band and tight shirt are wicked hot

Shayne at the begining of the race--He did really well finishing at 1:49:45! Kicked my butt...

They had entertainment along the route that was pretty sweetTrisha running with tons of energy. She did so well and finished under her goal!

Aunt Jana, Shayne and I eating at the most healthy place ever, McDonald's, after running 13.1 miles

Mother's Day Sunday, I flew home to Utah to visit for a week. Looking back on it, it seems that I didn't do much. That means it was a successful vacation for me. I love to be lazy when I can. I did however, hang out with my family a lot. I went to Logan to spend time with CJ and Tania and Shayne. I spent time at Lisels, playing with the kids. I think I played every game imagineable with Caleb, he's funny. I watched Zach and Landon play in their soccer games, I watched 2 stupid Utah Jazz games, I watched 2 nearly full seasons of "Lost" so that I am completely caught up now. I went out with friends and enjoyed myself. I'm not one that tends to get home sick, but the longer I am in MA, the more I love and miss Utah. Maybe I want to move back there when I am done with school.

Zach at his soccer game blocking the goalLandon (in the front) playing soccer

Sorry this post is so long, but I did so many great things in the last two weeks that I had to post them. Thanks to everyone who spent time with me over the last two weeks. I had such a great time all over the country!! I realize how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful family and amazing friends. I love you all!