Labor Day Weekend--So Far

Hi people!  Labor Day weekend is only halfway through (ish) and already a lot has happened.  I will attempt to fill you in.

Friday night, most of our family went out to First Friday to visit the Arizona Science Center.  (I love that place!)  We had issues finding a place to eat, so we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time there, but it was an adventure all the same.  I will now show you pictorial evidence of our night.

The Coke machine at Five Guys.  Is this not the coolest drink dispenser ever?

Now I understand why everyone sits at this exhibit and laughs hysterically.

I think we look like pandas.

This is one of my favorite things at the Science Center.  It looses something in picture (versus video) form, but it is still awesome.

I almost had more pictures to take, which brings me to my next story.  As we were walking in downtown Phoenix (is it really downtown?  I have no idea.  It is to me), we saw some statues coming up.  They looked like dancers.  I was just saying to Sarah, "Hey, maybe we should take some pictures with them!" when we got close enough to see that they were all naked.  Yep, a bunch of naked women statues on the sidewalk.  Creepy!  Thanks, Phoenix!  (You can bet we walked down the other side of the street on the way back.  *shudder*)

On the way home from the Science Center, we somehow got on the topic of drinks at Sonic.  My brother-in-law and sister were telling us about some flavors of cream slushes that they really like, so then we were all in the mood to try them (even though we were still really full from dinner--Five Guys gives you a lot of food!).  Behold:

Oceanwater cream slush with cherry add-in

Lime cream slush with blue coconut add-in

Yeah, they look like the same thing (I think the guy taking our order got a little confused...), but they tasted different, I promise.  And they came in shiny silver cups.  Woo!

Yesterday morning, we came to Big Event #2 for the weekend: I got a car!

Isn't it pretty?  I have decided to call it Lucy.  Don't ask me where that came from, because I have no idea.  It's pretty much the same car I've been driving (my mom's is 2 years newer), but blue.  I have broken free of our family's silver Honda tradition!  Ha ha!  It's still a little weird that it's mine (or will be officially once I've paid it off).  I'm super excited, though!

Who knows what the rest of the weekend might bring.  (I have work off tomorrow--huzzah!)  I plan on cleaning out my closet tomorrow--should I be hoping that that is a big adventure or not?  Hmm...

Welcome to the Space Jam...

In honor of my lovely friend Rhonda's birthday, I will finally post about mine.  Haha.  

So, this year I turned 23.  How did that happen?!?!  I don't feel 23!  When I woke up, I found this outside my bedroom:

 Gotta love those siblings!  There were more hearts and a poster outside on the garage door (and on the steering wheel of the car I drove), but I didn't get a picture before the rain washed them away.  Whoops!

Sadly, I had to go to work.  I guess that made me feel like an actual adult--working on my birthday.  As far as work goes, it actually was a pretty nice day.  I had gone out to lunch the day before, so I didn't do anything fancy for that.  Around 3:00, my mother and sister-in-law showed up at work with a big box of brownies (the Pillsbury ones you get at Sam's Club--my weakness).  It was like the day at school I never got--you know how you always got awesome treats on other people's birthdays in elementary school?  Since mine was in the summer, I had never experienced that first hand.  (Not that I'm complaining--a summer birthday is awesome!)  Let's just say that my cubicle was suddenly very popular...Thanks Mom and Jaimee!

After work, we did the traditional Joe's BBQ/Krispy Kremes run, but family-style this time.  (This is possibly the first year my parents have come along for this--usually it's just me and a sibling or two.)  Want to know something horrible?  Krispy Kremes was out of hats!  I know, scandalous, right?  So, we didn't get to take our traditional eating-a-doughnut-with-the-beautiful-hat-on picture, like this one:

*sniff*

Next year, my friends.

Since my birthday was conveniently on a Friday, I just extended the celebrations over to Saturday.  I had to make up for the 8 or so hours at work, right?  Right.  We had some family time (a.k.a. seeing "Cowboys and Aliens"--not really my first choice...) and that night I had some people over to partake in another time-honored birthday tradition: the watching of a really stupid movie.  Don't ask me why, but this is one of my favorite birthday traditions.  I'm weird.  This year's winner was:

Picture courtesy of Amazon

 Oh yes.  It's stupid, and it has Michael Jordan in it.  (It was my Michael Jordan birthday--#23 and all.)  Perfect!  Again, I forgot to take pictures, so...just take my word on it.  People came.  

Like these ones!

And this one!

And we watched the movie.  And mocked it heartily.  Yep, that about sums it up.

Ooh, ooh, want to see one of the cool presents I got?  (And then I'll be done, I promise.  I forgot to take pictures of all of my other presents--I love them too, though, family and nearly family!)  

It's a holder for my crochet hooks!  And fancy new bamboo hooks!  And it's cute!  I am so excited!  (And such a nerd, I know.)

And so, that was my birthday.  Now I can post about new crochet projects!  Yay! 

Frankenbear

At the end of March/beginning of April, I decided I was going to make my nephew's birthday present.  After all, he was turning 1, so if it turned out completely hideous he wouldn't care.  I forgot to get a picture of the finished product before (and I'm a horribly lazy blogger anyways...), so now I'm making up for it.  

Behold: 

He looked kind-of creepy with just eyes, so I decided to call him Frankenbear.

See?  The resemblance is uncanny.

Ah, much better.

Almost done...

So, yeah, his legs look a little wonky, but...

...sitting down, he looks pretty good!

I couldn't really come up with name for him earlier, but I think I like Theodore.  Yes, a bit cliche, but he's got a fat belly like Theodore the chipmunk, so I think it works.  I'm not too attached to it, though--I know as soon as Nephew T can really talk he'll probably make up his own name for it.  I just hope the poor thing can survive the next few years with all his limbs intact....(finishing off is not my strong point)

In case anyone is interested, you can find the pattern here.  Thank you Lion Brand!

Wedding Week

Hey all!


I realize that I haven't updated in a while (despite promising to do otherwise...).  Sorry about that!  It's been a little crazy at my house lately.  Here's what went down last week:


Monday

• Work
• Helped Mom with piano group lessons
• Eva (sister-in-law) and nephews came in from Ohio

Tuesday

• Work
• Hospital
• Helped Mom with more group lessons
• Turned pages and played a duet at Mesa High's choir concert
• Breathed a little {just a little, mind you}

Wednesday-Saturday

• Worked extensively on making wedding food/watching children while Eva made wedding food {except for Wednesday, I think we stayed up until about 1:30 or 2:00 each night}
• Clayton (brother) got in from Ohio Friday afternoon {instead of Thursday--gotta love those flight delays!}

Saturday

• Seth (my brother) and Jaimee got married!!!

This, my friends, is the real reason for all of the craziness.  Not only was our family in charge of the luncheon (you know, groom's duties and all), but Awesome Chef Eva made all of the food for the reception.  And I do mean all--wedding cake, sheet cakes, pasta, appetizers, etc.  (OK, so she didn't make the cheese and/or crackers from scratch, but you get the idea.)  Notice how she got in on Monday night?  Yeah, we're only slightly crazy.  But, everything turned out in the end, with the help of an army of family members and friends.  Lots of people really like us, it turns out.  

Of course, summing everything up like this means that you're missing out on some of the best stories.  (You all know how much I like my stories!)  But, there's simply not enough time to write them all out.  So, if anyone is curious, the next time you see me ask me about blow-drying strawberries and warm potato salad.  And possibly flavored popcorn (although that will require video and may not be as fun for you as it was for me--just sayin').  

Up next: Adventures in Algae!

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow...

Last weekend, we trekked up to Thatcher to party with the cousins.  (My cousin Bryan and his cousin John John* were speaking in church before heading off to the MTC.)  We ate, played games, ate, talked, and ate some more.  As you might have guessed, it is not an Official Smith Family Function unless ridiculous amounts of food are involved.  What can I say, we like to eat.  We had lots of fun together.  

*The much more awesome way to say "John Jr."

And now for some pictures.

I learned how to play a new game:

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

 It's awesome!  I highly recommend it!

Here's the missionary boy, all excited and ready to go.

The assembled cousins.  (Most of them.)

Seth and Jaimee getting in one last hug.

Since Zach's been gone, we've joked that Bryan has been our Zach stand-in.  (It's pretty much true.)  No one's quite sure what we're going to do for the next year with no Zach OR Bryan. :'(  

Bryan and I have gotten to be total buds.  I'm going to miss that kid!  Houston will be lucky to have him!

Labor Day, Seattle Style: Part 2

Ok, let's hope Blogger likes me again.

Saturday continued
After the Japanese garden, we headed off to the Seattle Space Needle.  We didn't really spend much time there, for a number of reasons.  (Big huge paid-admission-required art/music festival at the bottom, lots of people, $20 to go to the top of the needle, you know.)  But, we saw it and went into the gift shop.  That counts, right?   

After the hubbub down there, we headed off to find some grub.  Using Sarah's phone, we found a cafe nearby that was supposedly cheap and friendly.  Being the innocent child I am, I took the description of "atmosphere: offbeat" as "atmosphere: quirky and fun."  Yeah, turns out it actually meant "dark, smoky, and lots of neon beer signs in the windows."  So, we bypassed that lovely little gem, as well as a few really expensive-looking restaurants, and ended up at Zeeks pizza.  Mmm...Zeeks.  

Waiting for our waiter to return...

Chop salad

Frog Belly Green pizza

One nearly-exploding (with goodness) stomach later, we walked all the way back to our car (which we had to pay $15 to park, by the way.  Thank you Seattle...), we found out that the glass-blowing studio we wanted to go to (which was FREE) was back by Zeeks.  I was really not feeling up to either searching for a parking spot on the street or walking back over there, so we just went back to the hotel.  Thankfully, we were moved to a different smoking room that was almost in the non-smoking section and the staff had put in non-smoking bedding.  For causing them so much grief, they really did try to take care of us.  Of course, room #3 didn't have a refrigerator or a microwave, but hey, at least it didn't make me want to puke.  I'll take what I can get.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot--once in room #3, Sarah realized that she didn't have the wall charger for her phone in our stuff and that it was most likely in room #2.  I went back to the lobby to see if they had found it: no dice.  Because of this, we were trying to save her phone battery (our link to the world wide web) and had no choice but to use the computer in the lobby.  (Really, I think the staff was sick of us.  It seemed like we complained a lot.  They definitely knew what room number we were in without us having to tell them.)  After some research, we found a $3 movie theater not too far away.  Hello Saturday night activity!

Thanks for the picture Disney!

The only problem: we weren't hungry enough for dinner before the movie but knew we would be by the middle.  Solution: popcorn, of course.  But, sadly, a small popcorn at this cheap theater cost....$6.  So, in essence, we paid $6 a piece for the movie, instead of $3.  Lame.  But at least the movie was decent.  (I'm a fan of Jay Baruchel--I think he's funny.)


Sunday
Sarah wanted to go to 9:00 church.  Ugh.  But, being the good sister I am, I got up super early and was ready to go on time.  We just happened to go to the same ward that my cousin is serving his mission in...

Don't mind the fact that 2 of the 3 people in this picture are blinking.

The look on his face when we walked in was priceless.  The ward was really friendly and people really tried to help us feel welcome.  Yay for The Church!  I even got to fulfill my calling a few states away and played in Relief Society.  (One of the sisters in the presidency asked if I could stay forever.  Haha.  She was cute.)  After church, we hopped back aboard George and went to: 

If you look really closely, you can see us at the bottom.  The temple was quite large.

It was really pretty.  They had flowers and stuff, but the sheer amount of green there (and the cloudy skies) was beautiful for a desert rat like me.  Like this:

This is what I called the backyard of the temple.  Just a nice little forest, sitting there minding its own business.  Seriously?  A forest?  And it was on all sides, not just in the back.  How cool is that?!

After dinner (it felt so weird to be going to an Applebee's on a Sunday...), we headed back to the hotel because we were feeling tired.  I think the plan was to take a nap.  Did we take a nap, though?  No.  We looked up a few scriptures our mom suggested to us (gotta love that momma), did some word searches together (aww, sisterly love), and...sat there.  For FIVE hours!  We did turn the TV on, but our best choice was "Facing the Giants."  Now, don't get offended.  There's nothing wrong with that movie.  Heck, it was even Sunday appropriate, in my book.  But, it's pretty heavy on the cheese.  And when you've already been stuck in a very small hotel room for 3 hours, it doesn't quite cut it.


Why didn't we go explore a little, you ask?  Well, as I mentioned before, I think we planned on the nap thing.  But, when that didn't happen, we couldn't really think of anyplace free and Sunday-like that we wanted to go.  And, to be honest, we were a little sick of getting lost and missing turns.  Seriously, the state of Washington needs to rethink it's highway and road system.  I have never seen so many retarded forked roads in my life!  And the street signs were tiny!  Look at this:

This is what we had to deal with.  When you don't really know where you're going in the first place, this does not help.


We tried a visit to the ice machine to relieve the boredom, but sadly, we were foiled.

Don't I look sad?  The sign says the machine is broken and you have to go to the front desk to get some ice.  Yeah right!  Those people were sick enough of us as it was.  No use pushing it.

So, we resorted to taking pictures of each other.  As you can probably guess, none of them are very flattering.  I'll spare you the horror.


Monday
We decided to dedicate all of our available time on Monday to Pike's Place Market.  That place was crazy!  There were shops and stalls everywhere.  Oh yeah, and tons of people.  There were 3 levels to the marketplace, too.  We started out mostly wandering, but when I tried a sample of this I was such a sucker I had to buy it:

It probably helped that the guy giving me the sample was fun to talk to.  I should have gotten a picture with him.  Another guy that we should have gotten a picture of is our good friend David.  He was the shopkeeper in a little bookshop on the second-ish level of the market (it gets a little confusing down there).  When a new customer came in, he would say hi, ask where they were from, and then sing out "Oh, you came all the way from [location] to see me!  You're a bookstore groupie!"  Yeah, he was pretty much my favorite part of the market.  The shop was fun, too--new books next to old, tatty ones and everything kind-of stuck on the shelves haphazardly (I mean there were sections and all, but they weren't in neat little stacks).  Normally that would drive me nuts, but it worked there.  We bought something from him, too, but after we had wandered through the rest of the market trying to find cheaper playing cards to no avail.  (After Sunday's boredom, we wanted to be prepared for a long wait at the airport.)  That's ok--I'd like to think the $6 we played for a deck of (European) playing cards was like a little tip to David for being cool.


Some other highlights of Pike's: 
1) We saw our cousin and his companion again.  When we caught his attention, he said "You guys are everywhere!  What are you doing?"  Haha.  After assuring him that we were not stalking him ("No, really, we're not."), we went off to see other things. 

2) Me and Rachel, the pig of Pike's Place.

3) Our lunch.  

Rachel's All-American Sandwich.  Pretty much awesome.  Do you see the bacon on that thing?  Mmm...bacon.

We saw a ton of people eating this stuff and decided that we might as well jump on the bandwagon.  Holy cow, it was good, but I could almost hear my arteries screaming in protest.  So...much...cheese...

4) The bathrooms.  This may sound weird, but they were funny.  Here's how you know you're in the women's bathroom.

For obvious reasons, I didn't get a picture of the big XY marking the men's bathroom.


After Pike's, we headed off to return our car (goodbye George!  You served us well!) and get down to the airport.  It was probably a good thing we got there nearly 2 1/2 hours early because Sarah's ticket somehow got cancelled, a fact we learned when she couldn't check in to the flight.  Thank goodness they got it fixed pretty quickly and we were on the same flight home.  (At first, the lady said, "Now, I couldn't get you two together because the flight is pretty full..." and we interrupted with "Wait, so we're not on the same flight?!"  Turns out she just meant we weren't sitting together, but we would be on the same plane.  Phew.)


And so, we made it home alive!  (If any of you are still reading this absurdly long post, you deserve a candy bar.  Don't worry, I can wait while you go find one.)  Despite the problems we had and the fact that I'm not very good with spontaneous changes of plans, I'm glad I got to go.  Amazingly, except for a few minutes near the very end, we really got along well.  Who'd'a thunk: my sister and I can survive in close quarters for 4 days without killing each other!  Haha, j/k.  It was an amazing experience, though.  Thanks for the ticket parents!  And thanks for taking me Sarah!  Mom was right: this one is definitely going down in the family lore.

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1.02.28

Labor Day, Seattle Style

This post is either going to be one really long one or a few shorter ones.  I'm not sure yet.  We'll just have to see how long my concentration (and interest) lasts. :)

Last Thursday Night
Around 7:00: I am planning to go to Thatcher for the weekend with my family.  You know, see the cousins and Grandma, pick some apples, normal Labor Day weekend stuff.  My sister is planning to go to Seattle to visit a friend.  Everyone is excited for their respective vacations.

Around 9:30: my sister's plan quickly changes and visiting her friend is no longer an option.  But, she has already checked in to her flight online and has a hotel room booked for the next 3 nights.  When another friend in Portland is also unavailable, it looks like she can either be out $500+ or go to Seattle (where she's never been) all by herself...or I can go with her.  Really, there's only one feasible option.  So, my parents buy me a last-minute plane ticket (they are amazing--thanks Mom and Dad!) and I frantically start packing.  And trying not to freak out...

Friday
For the first time in probably ever, I cannot finish my cereal for breakfast--my stomach will not allow it.  Stinkin' nerves.  (This probably seems like a minor detail, but I LOVE cereal.  Just thought it needed to be known.)  We get to the airport on time and our flight leaves at 10:40-ish.  About halfway through the flight I can finally eat again.  Huzzah!  Sarah and I find each other in the corridor off the plane, find our baggage, and head off to the car rental desks.  The lines are long and we have no idea of which one to go to.  After a few phone calls for advice, we decided on Dollar Car rental.  When that takes too long (and the guy at the desk is crabby), we slide over to Enterprise.  Make the reservation, get on the shuttle, look blankly at most of the questions the rental guy asks us ("Do you have full coverage on your car insurance?  Does it cover rental cars?" How would we know?!), and finally get our rental car.

Meet George.

Even with navigation on Sarah's phone, we can't find our hotel.  After driving around the neighborhood for 20 minutes, we finally figure it out and are very excited to rest in our hotel room.  Get checked in, walk in, take a deep breath...gag.  We have been assigned a particularly nasty smoking room.  We talk to the manager and head off to Walmart while they air out the room.  At Walmart, we discover that we've forgotten a few things:

Thank you, Walmart.  Now I won't repulse random Seattleans on the street with my horrible breath.

When the airing-out does squat, we talk with the manager again, call the company Sarah bought her travel package with, call our parents, and eventually get a non-smoking room...for the night.  We order a pizza (realizing that we are starving) and decide that we've had enough adventure for one day.  Ignoring the fact that we don't know where we'll be sleeping tomorrow night, we look for a movie to watch.  Luckily this is premiering on TV tonight:

Good thing we watched the first one a few weeks ago...

Thanks for the picture Amazon!

Saturday
After checking out of our lovely hotel room and pleading with the manager to save us a non-smoking room if it becomes available, we head here:

a.k.a. the coolest place EVER!

See, don't I look happy?

 Here are a few more pictures, just to make you jealous.

Love.

Some of the biggest koi I've ever seen

View from the back of the park/garden.

Blogger is now being retarded, so I guess this is going to be a multi-post thing.  It was getting pretty long, anyways.

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1.02.28