A French Elder

So... I have many brothers, we all know this. And it looks like I'm making this a mission tradition, so look forward to more posts about my brothers in future years. And here is a shout out to my dear brother Adam.

He is currently on his 2 year mission for our church (click here  or here for more info) in the West Indies. What an adventure! I am so excited for Adam but I did not want him to leave back in July. He is the sweetest dear boy in the world and I love him with my whole heart. He always takes my side in arguments (much to Ryan's frustration) and we are equally crazy and loud together. He is always up for an adventure and he is super creative. He has got to be one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life, though I may say that about every one of my brothers. I'm just all around a big fan of him. And I know he is being an incredible missionary and touching so many lives!
Here's some photographic proof of the amazingness that is Adam (also the model that Adam thinks he is). I tried to cut down the number of pictures, but they were all too good:

He tried to tell us that there was a mustache there... False.

This is for his cardboard cutout at my wedding (because he's convinced I will wed while he's gone)

You can see where he gets his good looks and model tendencies.

The dos of them or missionarying now. I'm so proud.

Awkward family photo?

This was when we dropped him off. This is the adorable face of an incredibly nervous missionary who is about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime and has no idea what to expect.

And he's off. There he goes ladies and gents, there he goes. Love him.

Musical Reminiscent

So we do this thing in my family where at least one of my brothers start playing his ukulele - usually Ryan, but sometimes Kade and Adam too - and then we all just end up singing along with as many songs as we know for hours on end. And then after that we just start making up songs, and they are always hilarious. Some of my favorite songs topics have been the pizza and hot dogs song or the dancing asian bears.
Sound fun? Yeah it is.

I miss that. Ryan is off serving the Lord and the Scottish. And I don't see Adam and Kade or any of my other brothers as often as I would like. I think it is high time for a jam sesh with the broskis. I miss them! Seriously, the funniest people I know. Honestly, even when the ukes aren't present, we find music everywhere and just sing our hearts out all times. I love that about them. Though sometimes Cob has zero rhythm and it is ridiculous.

And here's a vid of us instigating the singing of Bohemian Rhapsody at a family Christmas party a couple of years ago. Grandpa did not appreciate the impromptu and loud nature of it :)



This is my family. And I love them. The crazies.

Oh and Adam is going to the freaking West Indies on his mission! So rad. I can't even handle how excited I am for him.


PS.. Happy Birthday shout out to the BFF! Charity is unbeatable.


And to the other BFF who's birth celebration is tomorrow. Love you, Lyse!

Midnight.

I love midnight premiers of movies.
I always have. And I don't see that changing at any point in time.
The atmosphere in the theater is spectacular for midnight movies. Every person in that theater is passionate enough about the film to have stayed up so late and possibly stayed in line for hours just to be watching it right then. So they care. They are excited. They are slightly sleep deprived. All of these factors make them way more exciting than the average movie audience.
In midnight premiers, people cheer for everything. People are more apt to scream, laugh, and cry. When the good guy prevails, mass hysteria and joy ensues.
Also, the costumes. I know I've expressed my love for dressing up more than once before, but I LOVE dressing up in costumes more than anything! (okay, that was a bit of a exaggeration, but I tend to do that.) The extra passionate people dress up as characters in the movie especially if it's based on a book, tv series, comic, or is a sequel. I am typically, if not always, one of those passionate people.
The current midnight premiers that I'm most looking forward to are The Hobbit and Les Miserables!!! Both in December, and I can not wait! Don't worry, I will definitely be dressing as one of the dwarves. Unless, of course, I can convince someone to let me borrow their Gandalf costume (coughNatecough).
SO EXCITED!
My roommate may or may not have purchased 30 tickets to the midnight premier of The Hobbit... yeah, you heard right:
30
Even more impressive, all 30 have already been claimed. This is going to be rockin! An entire two rows of friends watching an incredible movie with us!

Parade people.

I know I say my family is the best a lot, but I only speak the truth.
We are a type of people that you might not have encountered in your life, at least not at our level.
We are parade people. Weird, I know. But that's what we do.

I've grown up always going to parades and I didn't realize that this wasn't normal until I was in high school. I also didn't realize that it wasn't normal to lose your voice every time you go to a parade. You see, we cheer for EVERYONE that passes by, whether or not they are interesting or even in the parade. I mean, we cheer our lungs out for the little kids pulling the wagons and selling popsicles just as much as we cheer for the scottish pipe band or the sweet floats.

And when I say my family, I mean my WHOLE family. This is a lot of people. It's not surprising when we have a solid 40 people there on the street with us at any given parade. Uncle Frank is always shouting in the back with his wooden noise-maker that makes us all deaf. There's some specific cousins that I can always rely on for witty, hilarious comments shouted at the floats, particularly those with the pretty girls on them. The youngest brother pulls some ridiculous dance moves in the middle of the street  in the long spaces between floats. It's just plain fun.

July is prime time for parades. The Pioneer Day/24th of July/Days of 47 Parade is the ultimate of all parades. For 35 years my family has been going to downtown Salt Lake on the night of the 23rd and setting up camp on the street to save our spot for the parade in the morning. Sleeping out for the parade is my favorite extended family tradition. Like, we legitimately sleep on the streets.

Lay the blankets out in the gutter, and then party all night. We play all sorts of games, we talk, we laugh our heads off, we walk about down town. And we don't sleep. Some people try to sleep, but aren't particularly successful.
This year was a strange one at the parade for me. For one, I was missing some brothers. Ryan is on a mission. And Kade was at scout camp. Also, just lot's of other relatives weren't there. On the positive side: I brought friends. This was a new experience for them and I was thrilled. Sadly, they thought it was a good idea to go to sleep at 2 or 3 in the morning. Luckily, my cousin, Jason and I remained stalwart and stayed up the entire night, talking about absolutely nothing and it was hilarious. We were unashamedly the only one's that did not sleep a wink, though Jason did sleep through the entire parade, but that was to be expected.
So this years' parade can be marked off as another supreme success. I got zero sleep, cheered my lungs out for all 120+ parade entries (particularly the BYU float which contained my good friend and future roommate, Jessica), and just had the time of my life.
I love being parade people.

All-nighter? Why not!

Freshman year Kaylee and I decided to have an epic all-nighter. Here is a list of things we did that night:

Homework was the main reason we stayed up, and it was obviously the one thing we didn't get done. And here is the picture of the end of the night. Note: the clock says 6:15. Nice.

So this year we decided to keep with tradition and have our annual all-nighter. Annual in this instance meaning we did it 2 years ago, completely forgot about it last year, and then doing it again this year. So when I got home from SYTYCD the night of my birthday, the decision was made that that was the night for all-nighting.

We began our evening with a lovely 2am trip to Walmart to get supplies. While there, we ran into a BEAUTIFUL friend of ours. Love me some Captain America.

And then we stood in the check out line for an excessively long amount of time.

We then made some cookies.

And did some homework while we watched Swan Princess.

I know what you're thinking, "How in the world could you do homework during your all-nighter? You didn't do homework last time." And my answer to this inquiry is that we are much more mature nowadays, so naturally we were responsible and studious while depriving our selves of sleep.

We then delivered cookies at 4 in the morning.

You may not be able to tell what this is.. ok, let's get real, obviously no one except Kaylee and I know what is going on in this picture. Just know that I was falling out of the car and it was freezing and late and hilarious.

We stayed up all night. Not one wink of sleep. And the next morning, we both went to work at 8 and then a full day of classes. It was worth every ounce of being tired.

It was a lovely night. And I love Kaylee. We have fun and bond. Shweeeet.