Christmas Breaking.

Just now, laying on my couch stressing about a thousand tiny wedding things that really don't matter at all, staying up well past midnight for the billionth time in a row looking at vintage straws and yarn banners, leaving my fiance on the floor to watch Bewitched alone...

...he leans up, taps me on the shoulder and whispers "I want to be with you," smiles like a schoolboy, and lays back down.

Who am I kidding? 

I could have no straws and really ugly yarn banners and I'd be the happiest girl in the world if I get to marry that boy. (Though I won't compromise on the gold cake. A girl's got priorities.)

Today was fun and spiritual. 

This may, in part, derive from the fact that Cj and I have set a goal to do one fun thing and one spiritual thing a day. 

We don't necessarily define spiritual as a "read-your-scriptures" or "pray-for-an-hour-together" kind of thing, though both those things are nice (and long.) 

Today our spiritual activity was to drive around and look at the lights and talk about how we love Christmas. 

Try and tell me Christmas lights aren't good for the spirit and I will spiritually hit you in the face with one of those christmas-light-reindeer things (which I guess would be more like literally hitting you in the face.) 

It's pathetic really how quickly I can go from discussing nice things to violent things in a matter of lines. But seriously, I really like Christmas lights.

Our "fun" activity for the day was going to The Egg and I for breakfast and holding hands while we ate ranch potatoes and then telling each other how much we love each other over orange juice, after which we had one minute of uninterrupted eye contact. 

Have you thrown up in your mouth yet? 

We really didn't do those things. I just never blog about very personal things and thought I would give it a try. It seems to me that a lot of bloggers like it.

I tend to think love, when displayed publicly, is a little embarrassing which is why I chose to beat Cj at "Just Dance" tonight by over 4,000 points per song in front of all of our friends.

I sure showed him.

As a final note, my sister Rachel is hilarious. 

Two conversations she had today:

Rachel: Mom, I need to mail these letters to my roommates but I don't know how many stamps to put on them. 

Mom: Just take them to the post office. 

Rachel: No, Mom, you can't do that anymore. You can only put them in the mailbox. 

Mom: No sweetheart, they don't close until five. 

Rachel: No, Mom, the Post Office went bankrupt. You can't mail letters through them anymore. They shut down. 

I'm fairly certain up until this point she thought the mail fairy took letters out of the mailbox. 

(Later today while watching The Biggest Loser finale we had recorded...) 

Rachel: I bet they have to go to the bathroom a ton since they are losing so much weight. 

Me: Uh...why? Since they drink a lot of water?

Rachel: Oh no, Katie, that's how the fat gets out of you. You kill the fat cells and then your body just takes them right out with everything else. 

Haha We'll keep her around. 

In the mean time, the hunt for my dress is going miserably. Suggestions are welcome. 

Merry almost Christmas. 

Love, 

Katie

Where to start...

Tuesday morning I was fully prepared to drive home to St. George, snuggle up in my bed, and write a nice lengthy blog post about my trip to Belize. 

Oh. Did I mention I went to Belize last week? 

You think that would be my most exciting news right now.
Annoyingly for you, it is not, and updates on that will have to wait.

Readers: But wait. Katttiiieeeee. What could be more important to our life right now than hearing about your trips and caring about your well-being as a traveler?

Katie: Well readers, I'm going to be straight with you...I got engaged.
Readers: Engaged??!? But Katie. You have posted nothing on your blog about this. Was this one of those whirlwind, Mormon romances that happened so fast you didn't even have time to call your mother and tell her you're in love with a real man with a capital "M" like any decent and proper Christian girl should do?
Katie: No sillies. I just try very hard to not tell you anything personal about myself in hopes of remaining extremely mysterious and single.

Boy did I fool you all. And me.
Because I did not remain mysterious. Or single.

I remain engaged.
To this guy: 

Funny, self-deprecating joke: He's the one on the right. 

Also, I'm not sure if there is a direct correlation between getting engaged and this but I seem to have forgotten everyone's names recently.
No really. Everyone.
Like...people I have known for years will walk up to me and I somehow draw a blank.  This has been incredibly problematic since getting engaged because somehow everyone who I have ever met in my whole life wants to hug me and hear the whole entire story and tell me that my ring looks like a "Katie ring" which is always a compliment I am unsure on how to take.
Do they mean it is my style? Do they mean it is not their style? Do they mean they can see a teeny, tiny carving of my face in the center diamond?
The answer is yet to be determined.

All I know is that getting engaged is a lot like the time I got hit in the face with a melon ball:
My head wouldn't stop spinning once it happened and I have to tell the story so many times I want to just write it in a book and sell it at Barnes and Noble for all interested parties.
(*Luckily getting engaged did not have the same impact on my face as a melonball.)

I figured the next best thing was a blog post.So here goes: 
Cj's plan for months has been to go home for Thanksgiving Break (or so he told me.) Seeing as how we hadn't seen each other for the 8 days I was in Belize I was not excited for him to leave again after only two days.
We drove down to St. George together where he dropped me off and headed on his way to California.
In the mean time, I went to dinner at Durangos (a delicious Mexican restaurant) with the sisters and cousins because it is delicious food and I should not have to explain myself.

 So there we were, eating away. If you know me, you know that I am a chatty person.
(Clarification: If you don't know me, I am still a chatty person.)
The point is, we stayed there and talked for nearly 2 1/2 hours. When Cj left a few hours earlier I had been somewhat annoyed with him for driving down to California when it was dark, late and he was tired, all by himself.
I just worry, that's all.
So, I made him promise to call me every hour (controlling? no. why?) which he did not do.
I called him when we left the restaurant but he sounded really muffled and distracted and I thought he was in a spot with bad service so I eventually just hung up. (little did I know he was trying to cover for the dogs barking next to him.)
We drove home and walked in my front door.
The next part went something like this: 
Weird people in my house. Moving around. Confusion. Cj's little brother Cooper hiding behind the counter. My little brother running in and screaming "where's Katie?!?! I saw her pull up!!!" while he was standing right next to me. Me yelling at Cooper. Everyone telling me to go a different direction. 
Quite honestly I think I lost consciousness right around "weird people in my house" because I don't remember any of that, but people say it happened.
With my mind going a million miles an hour Erin took my arm, turned me around, and walked me back out the front door.
At one of the most important and pivotal moments of my life, I turned to Erin, opened my mouth and said: 
"Uh...can I take my jacket off?"
She said yes.
We walked around the house, there were lights, there was candles, there was a lit path leading to the most handsome boy I have ever seen wearing the skinny black tie that his favorite girlfriend bought him.

He took my hand.
I had tears comin' outta mah face. 
We walked through my gorgeously decorated backyard down the beautifully lit path to a porch swing in the center of it all with a TV set up.
He tried to tell me to sit down. I hesitated.
Shaking, the first thing I remember saying to him was, "I...took my jacket off. For pictures."
He looked at me. "Oh. Okay sweetheart. Thank you." Then he somehow forced my knees to bend and I sat down on the swing and he pushed play.
We watched a movie Cj had made of all my family and some of my best friends saying all the things they loved about me. Every single one brought me to tears.
I would think it was over and then the next person would pop up on the screen and they would come pouring down again which is awful because I pride myself in being a tough girl with a dry faucet when it comes to tears.
I guess if I wasn't coherent enough to move past sentences about my jacket then it was the best I could do.
The movie ended.
"Now its my turn..." it said on the screen.
Cj got down on one knee.
He told me all the things he loved about me and asked me to marry him.
I froze for a second (7 to be exact, we counted on the video.) Luckily this was all on film because my brain had clearly shutdown twenty minutes earlier when we walked into the house.
"Of course!" was all I could come up with.
I think the correct answer was "yes" but I was probably making him nervous at that point so I think he was going to take what he could get.
And then, we kissed. Which is always the best part.  

 And as if this wasn't all enough, his whole family and some of my best friends had driven down from far, far distances to be there and they, along with all my St. George family and friends came running out to congratulate us.
Then there was toasting, and crying, and cheering, and phone calls, and texts, and giggling like mad, and so much happiness.

Later that night we all sat down to watch the movie that Cj had made for me with everyone.
When the movie was over I looked around me at all the people I love in the room and thought about all the people who I had just talked to on the phone and texted who I love and I accidentally said out loud,
"This is the happiest room I have ever been in!" 

They may have thought that was extreme, or cheesy, or really loud (I may have yelled it) but sometimes life is that real. There has to be a time in your life when you are in the happiest room ever and...well...there I was.


The best part?
This guy sitting next to me.

He is a man with a capital M.
Love, 
Katie 

As Always, it is Late.

It is 10:48 p.m. and I have been on campus since noon with a few quick trips home for more food and a change of clothes. 

This would all be fine and dandy if I wasn't so exhausted from spending all last night dreaming an entire Zombie Apocalypse from start to finish. 

This is real. 

I really did that.

I even dreamed the part where the last zombie died and we went and got shakes. (Naturally.) 

I also dreamed the part where Cj got bit by a zombie right before we got into our escape SUV.

(Escape SUV. Naturally.)

We were sitting inside and he kept saying "oh no. oh no. oh no." 

Similar to how I sound when someone starts playing country music/tries to feed me bananas

except this was much worse because all the other people in the car were getting worried that my boyfriend was going to start eating them. 

"You have to do something about it Katie," they said. 

So, I stopped the car.

Got out. 

Told Cj to get out. 

Then...kicked him in the face, jumped back in the car and drove away. 

Survival of the fittest I guess. 

Just ask Shane. 

(If you haven't watched the most recent episode of The Walking Dead...do it. And then you will get the reference duh.) 

Anyways, I'm fairly sure this whole dream spawned from two things. 

1. All The Walking Dead I have been watching. 

2. The fact that this was my Halloween costume last night...

Also, I just remembered that I got on here to write one little story and get off. 

No surprise that everything I try to do and say lately turns to zombie conversation. I'm a little obsessed right now. (When am I not a little obsessed with something?) 

Anyways, story...

A few minutes ago I walked up to the periodicals section of the library to find some journals I need to get articles from. After a thorough search I couldn't find the books I wanted so I walked up to the reference desk. 

Only one person was sitting there so I walked up to him and had this conversation: 

Me: "Hi. I'm here doing this huge project and it's due in the morning and I need to find these journals and I have been looking everywhere and I can't find them and I'm really nervous about this project and I played really bad in my volleyball game tonight which is no surprise because I am actually not good at Volleyball ever but I was really hoping tonight would be the night and I'm really tired because I dreamed about Zombies last night and I kicked my boyfriend in the face but not in real life just in my dream I would never kick him in the face in real life or anyone for that matter and I just really wish that someone understood me and would listen you know because I've got big things to say man, you know? Big things." 

Boy: "Uh....I don't actually work here. I'm just using the scanner. The desk is over there." (Points to the empty desk next to him that is clearly labeled Reference Desk.

Moral of the story: I should go home. 

Love, 

Katie

We like sportz and we don't care who knows.

I tried to look up a video clip to post here that would help me apologize for the long blogging-hiatus I have taken. 

Instead, I ended up watching a 10 minute clip from Plato's Apology at 12:49 in the morning. 

This proves 3 things:  

1. I am still an English nerd

2. I still stay up way too late doing stupid things

3. This is a great excuse for not blogging as clearly nothing in my life has changed.

This last things is fairly close to reality. I have done nothing but school and work for so long. 

Until recently, when something awful happened. 

Something I swore I would never do. 

Something that is painful for me to admit to the blogging world, particularly to those who remember this post.

I'm not going to actually say what I'm talking about, but I will say that once a week someone who lives in my apartment puts on cleats and goes to play a sport that nobody on the field can actually play...and she loves it. SO much.
Said person says every night to her boyfriend "Is today my football game??"
And he says "No, it's next Tuesday."
Said person lays in bed every night and says to her roommates "I just...love football...I just....love it."
Said person also retains the right to still make fun of women's flag football as it is still as ridiculous as ever.

Example from a recent game: 
Ref: "Illegal blocking on the offense." 
Girl: "Wait...us?" 
Ref: "Yes...you are on offense right now." 
Girl: "Oh....Wait, no, no, no. We didn't do that." 
Ref: "Yes you did."
Girl: "Oh, uh....no we didn't." 
Ref: "Uh...yes you did."
Girl: "No. This isn't fair! I was just standing here trying to stop her!" 
Ref: "Yeah...and you did it illegally. While you were on offense. An illegal block on the offense." 
Girl: "That doesn't make any sense."

Said person also recently received a tip that there was going to be one extra game offered to whoever called it first after receiving the e-mail. And said person may or may not have spent upwards of three hours hitting refresh on her browser just to make sure she didn't miss the e-mail that was going out to 40 other teams as well. 

Guess who got the extra game? 

And speaking of sports (all I ever want to do these days,) my MFA program put together a Women's volleyball team this semester.

Yes. Creative Writers. Playing Volleyball. 

(I capitalized every word in those last three phrases because as a creative writer I can make these kinds of decisions and nobody can argue with me.) 

Anyways, long story short we ended up in the championship game of D3. 

It was a lot like the Mighty Ducks D3 where they no longer have Gordon Bombay* as their coach and they feel lost and alone without him.

Except for us it wasn't a lack of a coach.

More that we remembered at the last minute that we were a bunch of nerdy English master's students and the whole "sports" thing became too much for us.

We lost by 3 in the fifth game. 

Thanks for bringing it up. 

Sportz4Life.

Love, 

Katie

* One time I was Emilio Estevez's waitress. It was all I could do to resist saying "quack...quack...quack.quack.quack.quack!!"

This is just to say...

This isn't my standard blog post. 

It won't be long, 

or profound,

and it won't contain a funny story. 

I just want to say that I am really happy. 

And life is really good. 

Boring? 

Maybe. 

The best? 

Yes. 

It has been a long time since life has been this good. 

I accept. 

Love, 

Katie

BLAHHHH!!! IKNOWITHASBEENFOREVER!!! GRADSCHOOLRUNSMYLIFE!!!

According to Picasa, I have taken 1,088 pictures this summer.

That is a decent amount of photographable moments. 

If there is one thing I hate it is long blog posts that give details and photographs of a huge chunk of a persons life. 

Not only are they annoying but I get sucked into reading a 25 photo account of that girl who is dating the kid from the house across the street.....and enjoying it.

What I am trying to say is, I don't plan on posting very many pictures about the end of my summer,
but I DO want to tell you about the time I accidentally signed into MSN a few days ago for the first time since graduating from the 8th grade.

LIST OF INCREDIBLE OBSERVATIONS AND DISCOVERIES:

1. After being signed in for around 4 seconds I suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to tell my crush that I "liked" him using subtle hints and sly questions.  I reveled in the fact that I could tell the world anything from the safety of my computer screen and there was virtually no consequences unless you and that person had the same lunch period or lockers next to each other.
Those conversations usually went like this:
Me: "So...are you uh...likin' anyone these days?"
Crush: "Uh...............kinda"
Me: "Me too........But I'm not telling you who.....Don't ask.........Okay it's you...."
Crush: *your crush is now offline*

2. My sign in name was still "Katie" except it was spelled in rotating capital and lower-case letters.
Ex: kAtIe
I think all those times in the last 8 years I have felt incredible awkward or lacking in self confidence it was because I was being subconsciously haunted by the fact that somewhere floating around the internet was my name written in a font that modern scholars can only now label as "Myspace Bold."

3. My birthday was listed as May 9th. This wouldn't seem weird to you unless you knew that May 9th isn't my real birthday. This still might not seem weird as you might have thought I was taking an extra safety precaution against internet predators. I would agree with you if I wasn't busy slapping my middle-school self upside the head for only being creative enough to put my fake birthday as four days after my actual birthday (May 5th) and leaving the year on there so it didn't matter anyways.
I don't think I quite grasped the whole "internet safety" concept.

4. This was my "about me" section:
"I wish i could say I'm a chill person but i'm not really, i'm stressed a lot but i love to laugh and do crazy, random things aton! I have a hard time being mad at people and i hate it when people are mad at me!"

 

Welp. 

There it is. 

8th grade Katie in a nutshell = I was super hyperactive and I thought "aton" was a word.

Starting grad school has, at times, made me long for the days when my English classes involved me pretending how much I hated "Great Expectations" just like the rest of my class even though I secretly went home every night and read it for hours. 

Then I saw that my favorite quote in 8th grade was "Live. Laugh. Love." and I threw up in my mouth and felt better about where I am.

Growing up has it's perks. 

Love, 

Katie

True Life: shaving your legs is the worst.

Moms are always right. 

It's frustrating.

About ten years ago my mom said something to me that I thought I would never listen to or agree with.

She said,

"You have to learn to make decisions because they are the responsible thing to do, not because they are the fun thing to do."

Sounds like a normal mom thing to say, but the context is actually hilarious. 

It was sixth grade and I had been begging my mom for weeks to let me start shaving my legs. 

I don't think I really had any hair on them to speak of, but I had already blown my chances at hanging out with the cool girls by telling Cassidy Jorgensen about the time I got stuck in my cousin's plastic stroller and had to use butter to get my legs out of the holes, and I was really looking for a good topic of conversation to help move past that.

My mom was (and still is) a very logical woman, and her reason for saying no was simply this: 

shaving your legs is annoying, and the longer you can wait to start the better.

We obviously didn't see eye to eye on the subject as my plastic stroller nightmares were getting worse and the fact that I was still wearing overalls to school when everyone else had graduated to capris wasn't really helping,

but eventually I let the subject go and resigned myself to hairy-butter-legs.

In the mean time, my best friend, Sara Ferguson, came to school one day with a surprise. 

She had reversed her shoelaces so they tied at the bottom instead of at the top. 

This was a real hit amongst the 6th grade, 

and me, being the attention-monger that I was, decided to jump on board and spent all of lunch re-lacing my shoes so they looked the same. 

It was a disaster.

I tripped three times over the long loops hanging off of the bottom of my shoes during cone-dodgeball alone.

But the way those bunny ears flapped around my toes was so eye-catching that a few scraped knees were worth all the stares and questions I was getting. 

I arrived home that evening walking tall and feeling good, 

until my mother found me in the entryway where I had just spent the last twenty minutes trying to untie shoes that were laced the wrong way. 

She saw the scrapes on my knees.

She saw the hole in my overalls. (Not actually from this. I think I just tore that hole so she'd finally let me stop wearing them.) 

She disappeared into her room and came back a few minutes later with a shiny new razor and a lecture about how dangerous it is to run around with shoelaces under your feet to trip on. 

"But it's fun!" I said. "It's fun to run around with shoelaces under my feet!" 

Then came the line: 

"You have to learn to make decisions because they are the responsible thing to do, not because they are the fun thing to do."

And so, so I would stop doing silly things like tie my shoes backwards, I...got to start shaving my legs. 

I'll never understand the correlation. 

All I know is that today in the shower as I was shaving my legs I thought: 

"Shaving my legs is annoying. I never should have started."

And then I said "Noooooooooo!!!" 

Because sooner or later everything your mom says comes true.

Which makes me really nervous about the time she said,

"You'll be the death of me." 

Love, 

Katie

Obsessions.

I've found it. 

Inspiration to blog I mean. 

I have had the hardest time in the world having the motivation to blog ever since I found myself with no job, no school, and all the time in the world. 

Backwards right? 

Today I am attempting to get some work done that my Dad is paying me to do for him so that I can pay the bills and buy things like ten packs of pasta for five dollars (I dream big) and triple chunk brownie mix to replace the one I accidentally ate of Bj's when he left his at my house. (his fault) 

Anyways, nothing makes me want to blog more than actually having something better to do, so here I am, writing away for an audience that will not pay me rather than for a father who will. 

(Unless everyone wants to chip in. Am I right? I mean...right?) 

This has been a summer of obsessions. 

If you know me, you know that this has also been a lifetime problem, me obsessing over things, but we are just going to focus on the past three months and leave out the time I was obsessed with the footlong meatball from Subway or that whole "Improv Club" phase.

Obsession #1: Bees. 

This is real. 

Me: "Oh hey my friend Mindy from work. Thanks for having me over for lunch. I'm expecting a normal day here at your house." 

Mindy: "Only if a normal day is putting on my professional bee-keeping equipment and standing between two beehives, calling the little creatures into your arms like a bee-goddess from the wild."

Yeah, I wanted to do that.

So we did.

It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. Bees are such incredible animals. 

Ever since then, every time I see a bee, I feel like cuddling it into my little hands and promising it chocolate and flowers every Valentine's Day and that I will do the dishes every other night and most Sundays if we can just spend some time together and be in love.

It's really serious.

Obsession #2: Fireworks
I have always loved fireworks. Everyone does right?
But this summer I have had the chance to see 6 or 7 really good firework shows and I have become addicted.
The trick is to live in Northern Utah.
Here's how it goes: 
Sometime in March every year all the churro companies around here get together and sneak caffeine into all the small-town mayors drinks and then convince them to rotate holding festivals every weekend for the whole summer.
Seeing as how this is their yearly dose of anything stronger than pink grapefruit flavored Airborne, they all get really tipsy and somehow see this conglomeration of festivals as necessary.
The exception is the Spanish Fork mayor who is obviously given something a little stronger than caffeine and takes things well over the line from fruit-themed carnivals (Strawberry Days, Peach Days, Etc.) and holds Llama Fest at a Krishna Temple.

Truth be told, they can hold a festival in honor of Kim Jong Il and I'm still going to attend, as long as there is fireworks.
 Here is a picture from the St. George 4th of July fireworks. That bright ball of flames at the bottom is the waterfall of fireworks they have shot off the red hill every year since I can remember.
Every year everything catches on fire.
Every year there are plenty of firetrucks nearby and the burn is incredibly controlled.
And every year there is a woman on the sidewalk next to me on the phone with some city official who is calmly explaining to her that the city is, in fact, aware that fire burns things.

Obsession #3: Baby Carlos
I know I've talked a lot about my best friend Jenna who was pregnant and then who gave birth and then, as a direct result of the previous two conditions, now has a child.
But that doesn't mean I don't push "publish post" and then proceed to drool for the next hour over pictures of him and his soft head of gorgeous hair and his little hands and feet and how darling he is when he yawns.
I have a serious baby crush.
When I was at home a few weeks ago I would try my hardest to go do things with other friends.
I would be on my way to Durangos or Iceberg to meet up with people and somehow I would be suddenly pulling into Jenna's driveway and holding her baby before I knew what hit me.
That kid is a magnet and I am...an opposing magnet.
I almost said refrigerator but I didn't feel good about comparing myself to a large, food-filled item on my own blog. 

Because there isn't much to say after those darling pictures of the most perfect baby I will have to leave it at that and get back to "work" or as I like to call it "Pinterest."

I'll be in California for the next week but when I'm back I should have more work so expect more posts. 

Naturally. 

Love, 

Katie

For: Denise/Ron (for whining about not being in my blog)

GOD BLESS AMERICA. 

My 4th of July was the best ever. (there I go again with superlatives, and now I'm going to make some sort of claim about how I mean it this time.) 

I do! It's true! It was! 

We kicked things off at Grandma Wade's. For those of you who are new to my blog, new to my life, new to Grandma Wade, or all of the above, let me fill you in. 

In the world of Grandma Wade every day is a holiday and every holiday is the most important day in the existence of this whole world. 

Costumes. 

Themed name cards. 

Programs  on every table with hour by hour schedules. 

Actual programs. (I'm talking sit in a circle, share your talents particular to the holiday, hold hands, stop giving wet-willie's to your little brother...)

The works. 

It's the best. (See picture below) 

 Seeing as how I love America more than I love giving wet-willie's to my little brother (so gross, but so funny, I'm 22 years old), I really enjoyed the program.

 I even recited "The New Colossus," which is the poem found on the statue of liberty that I memorized in 9th grade. (okay, so our family forgot to plan our part of the program.) 

However, seeing as how all good things must come to an end, it was eventually time to leave the family festivities and head to the friend festivities. 

After convincing a few people to be my friend, and then paying them an extra $5 to hold festivities, I had my parents thoroughly convinced that they could head on home and skip tucking me in that night. 

Of the bunch, Chad and I were the most obviously patriotic. 

(I am obviously wearing a heart-shaped American flag ring. Ten dollars to anyone who can spot the flag Chad is wearing.*) 

 (*I gave my last ten dollars to Chad to be in this picture with me.) 

Pictured below is my friends watching the fireworks and being really patriotic. 

 This is the truck that was parked next to us, also watching the fireworks. 

Despite our best efforts, there is no way we could have beat this man, his truck, or the handcuffs hanging from his mirror, in displaying small-town American pride. 

You win. You always do. 

 Day 1 of 4th of July just wasn't enough for us, so we pulled a Groundhog Day, woke up the next morning, and started the festivities all over again. 

I'm being serious

We really did that. 

Day 2 started off with a giant Slip n' Slide at the park. 

Though it may look like I am "tumbling" down, instead of sliding, the picture is deceiving, I am actually just sliding down on my toes, and...I'm blurry. 

 After a few rounds of human bowling and Devin throwing out his back, we called it a day and went over to Tyler Carlson's for a barbecue and fireworks. 

I spent a while sitting in his living room until someone asked me why I was "shimmying" in the recliner. (It was a massage chair, but not everyone knew that. Jokes on me.)  

Then, we went out front to practice our spells. 

I killed Voldemort, or whatever. 

They actually made a movie about it. 

It's coming out July 15th if you want to go see it. 

Oh and roman candle wars are really fun. 

This country really knows how to celebrate. 

Dare I say it again? 

God Bless America. 

Love, 

Katie 

Broc: "I just heard someone use the word "shindig" in an actual sentence"

Last night Erin, Broc and I went to the Gunlock Rodeo.

Gunlock is a really small town about fifteen minutes away from Santa Clara. 

 Small town rodeos always bring back memories for me of being fourteen and going with my friends to the rodeo to meet hot fourteen-year-old cowboys by using sweet pick-up-lines like "oh. uh. is this the line for snow cones?" 

 As we were parking and walking in we heard the announcer say, 

"This rodeo funds our entire town for the next year." 

That is real. 

On Gunlock's wikipedia page, under "Events" it says: 

"Gunlock, Utah is the site of the Annual Gunlock Rodeo."

And that is it. 

The only real point for this next picture is to show you what the children of Gunlock look like and to say that children in boots and belt  buckles are incredibly darling. 

Erin. Me. Rodeo. 

Pictured next is the Chicken Chase, the second funniest event of the Gunlock Rodeo. 

My camera died before I could get pictures of the first funniest even, which was the donkey-watermelon race. 

It's hard to describe how hilarious it is to watch fifteen donkeys, each with two riders, run into each other and throw off their riders who are trying to pick up a watermelon and ride them back across the finish line. Only one donkey actually made it back and it was with a boy wrapped around the front of his neck and one laying stomach down over his rear end, watermelon held above his head. 

I guess I described it anyways. 

But trust me, seeing that event in person is bucket-list worthy. 

The picture above is the 0-6 year old children lined up for the chicken chase, and below is them taking off. 

Essentially all they have to do is catch one of the ten or so chickens with their incredibly uncoordinated hands. 

Once they have caught one, the announcer walking around the arena will bring the microphone to them and ask them their name. 

Announcer: "What is your name son?" 

4 year old: "Chicken!" 

Announcer: "But what is your NAME?"

4 year old: "Chicken!!" 

Announcer: "I see that. You've caught a chicken. Great job. But what is your name??"

4 year old: "CHICKEN!!!!" 

You never know, in a place like Gunlock, the kid's name might have actually been Chicken. 

The suckiest part about a rodeo is how as soon as you throw your rope and you miss, it's all over. 

It's sad to see the kids who you know have been practicing for months just to throw this rope at a little cow that is running away from them. 

And when you put it that way, the concept of a rodeo is actually super bizarre. 

I pointed this out to Erin who enlightened me on the subject. 

"I bet there was this guy with some rope, a cow, and a horse and he thought 'I bet I could put all of these together and do somethin' with em'." 

And I thought, if that's how this goes then I want to meet the guy who came up with the donkey-watermelon race.

The good news is, my cousin Mitch, who was roping in his first rodeo, threw his rope, from his horse, and caught that cow. 

We were so proud. 

Happy 4th everyone. 

God Bless America. 

And God Bless Gunlock. 

Love, 

Katie 

To Jo:

Here I am, blogging in Washington D.C. like I have no priorities. 

I'm not going to tell you about my trip just yet because its not over and lets calm down and not get ahead of ourselves here.

Instead I'm going to just write a nice post about how my brother got married and about how I've had anxiety all weekend over not being in the same city as him/not being able to text him when Rachel believed me that the "R" in "Toys R Us" stands for "reunion."(Is she serious? Toys Reunion Us?)

Anyways, not to be mushy or anything but whenever something funny like that happens to me, Jordan is always the first person I want to tell. He has been my best friend my entire life, we have always had the same friends, the same values and the same sense of humor. 

When you get married it is really important for your mom to go through old photos of your life and cry a lot about how you used to be really little and do cute things like spill five gallons of honey on her new carpet or shoot a bird and then hide it in the garage.
These things, though annoying memories for your mother for most of your life, suddenly become precious and nostalgic stories that evoke tears for weeks before the actual wedding and frustrate your sister (me) when she thinks that now is a good time to tell her about all those times she snuck out in high school and the same precious-I'm crying-principle doesn't carry over.
What DOES carry over, however, is the obsession over old pictures. Here are some darling ones of Jordan and me growing up. 

I mean, really. We were darling, am I right?

Fun Fact: I was nearly bald until I was two. Considering that I now have enough hair on my head to supply pillows for the entire U.S. Army, this is strange. (What is also strange is that metaphor I just used. Sorry, it just happened.)

 

As we got older we did things like get significantly less cute and/or join scouts.

Things I want back: That sweet indian-patterned shirt. 

Things I never want back: Those mushroom bangs. 

 

In this next picture a few things are going on, mostly involving Jordan and his haircut that gives him a serious fivehead (as opposed to a forehead). 

1. Jordan is wear a necklace of some kind to ensure the decade is indicated (the 90's) 

2. I have progressed from mushroom bangs to an entire mushroom head. 

3. I am selflessly diverting the attention from myself to my brother by utilizing the double-point. He is ignoring the double-point in order to draw attention to the giant checkerboard in the foreground. The occasion for having that giant checkerboard or that buzz haircut is unknown and almost certainly uncalled for.

   

Now, brace yourself. 

This final picture is the most precious thing you have ever seen.

When I was younger I used to beg my mom every night to let me sleep in Jordan's bed. She would make me wait until Rachel (who I shared a room with) was asleep and then I could go in there and Jordan and I could talk and laugh and fall asleep. 

Not only have we fallen asleep in this photograph but we have done so holding hands, and not only are we holding hands while sleeping but we are doing it in matching t-shirts. 

Pathetically cute.

And now the kid is married.

Its hard to believe that it actually happened. 

At the wedding dinner we all told our favorite stories about Jordan and it was almost an impossible feat for me. There are far too many about the giant goof he has always been, and when I think of those stories it is hard for me to imagine that he has actually settled down enough to get married. (ha)

One thing is for sure, he picked the perfect girl. I couldn't be happier to call Laura my sister-in-law. 

(Now that I think about it, I haven't officially used that term yet. Hello Laura! My sister-in-law!) 

She makes him so happy and they were glowing in every way (except literally glowing, so maybe they were only glowing in one way) on their wedding day. 

Jordan (or "Jo" as I have called you my whole life), I am so proud. 

You've come a long way from that buzz.

Except for at your wedding. 

When you also had a buzz. 

But it looked better this time. 

Love you. 

Love, 

Katie

Conversation Fillers

The Jessica's and Erin used to always make fun of me when I would tell stories. 

Apparently, I am a consistent user of a certain filler phrase, and my stories would go something like this: 

"So today, I went to the store and I was running some errands and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff...when I ran into that boy I used to date and we were talking and blah, blah, blah all this stuff..." 

"Blah, blah, blah, all this stuff..."

To me it means, "and a bunch of stuff happened that all kind of runs together now for me and also isn't really especially important or interesting." 

And that is how I have felt about this spring term. The past two months have been a blur of three extremely difficult classes at double-speed and a whole lot of work in between hours spent at the library. 

Or, in other words "blah, blah, blah, all this stuff..." 

I haven't blogged much about it all. First because I have been so insanely busy. And second because it was just...fluff, really. 

This week was finals and I am finally (pun intended) finished with that dang bachelors degree of mine. 

Now, I am about to take a two month break that feels like the only chance I will have to gear up for the rest of my life. Because come August it will be full-speed ahead into a master's degree and hopefully a PhD. 

SO, 

in the mean time, I will have a lot more blogging time and a lot more to say. (I always have a lot to say whether I blog about it or not.) 

#1. Tracy got married on Friday! Boy oh boy she looked gorgeous. In between meeting her outside of the temple and her reception I drove to American Fork for my cousins wedding. It felt a little bit like 27 dresses except at the end of the day I didn't meet a hot journalist who eventually falls for me despite the fact that I'm really needy and call him mean names. 

#2. You know my Harry Potter obsession is bad when I see an add for a "dual core" something or other and I am surprised when I click on it and realize that it is for a computer and not wands. #muggleproblems
#3. I'm getting into twitter. I still don't really get it but I obsessively follow all of Jimmer's tweets. And his girlfriends. #thingsyoushouldn'tadmitonablog
#4. I made plans to come home Saturday afternoon and drove into St. George monday at 6 p.m.
This is the kind of life I live.
#5. Last night we were all sitting around the counter eating and talking when the subject of real Americans came up. (Our family is the Jack Donaghy's of Santa Clara)
The usual names were thrown around.
Lincoln.
 Washington.
Ronald Regan
(My mom requires us to put our hands over our hearts when we say that last one. That is real).

Then, someone asked, "Who is THE American?"
Silence.
Mmmm. Hmmmm.
Rachel's face lit up.
"God."
We all nodded and smiled with satisfaction.
Just another night in the christian-conservative Wade household.

Okay well I am sure there is more to tell but we are departing for vegas in three hours to catch our plane to D.C. for Jordan's wedding and it is currently
 11:55 p.m. You do the math. I need to get three hours of sleep.
I will leave you with a picture of Jenna's beautiful baby.
Remind me to tell you the story of his birth. It's funny.
I'll be blogging from the east coast for the next week and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.

  

(Okay, this picture also includes me but just ignore that part and focus on the perfect child. More to come.)
Love,
Katie

Whoops.

What I am supposed to be doing right now:
Writing a large paper worth 50% of my final grade.
What I have done tonight:
Ate peanut butter pie, watched the Heat/Mavs game (my heart is a little broken, but I'm happy for Dirk), went on a bike ride, stopped by The Elms, remembered Aly didn't live there anymore (miss you), talked sports on the steps with some wardies, made a ham and cheese sandwich, practiced spelling the word "sandwich" (I always spell it with an extra "h"), got on Facebook, accepted all 28 pending friend requests, facebook stalked everyone I know, facebook stalked everyone I don't know, made toast with nutella, wrote a poem, wondered what the big deal about Bachelor's degrees were anyways, bought a bus ticket from Baltimore to New York City (calm down, I know I am not currently in Baltimore), lay on my bed with my head hanging over the edge dramatically and cursed the world, watched this YouTube video, added Ellen DeGeneres on twitter, drank three glasses of orange juice, blogged about it.

Remember this guy? Well, the paper is for his class. And seeing as how he scares me out of my mind, I really should care more about it, especially since I'm fairly certain karma/his hook hand are already out to get me after that post.

But all I've been able to think about all day is how MANY papers I have written over the last four years and how I just don't think I can write one more.

Marathon runners hit their wall, and so have I.

The worst part about papers is that no matter what you do, it always somehow ends up being 2 in the morning and you realize that no matter how bad you don't want to write this paper, you are going to have to do it, and you should have just done it seven hours ago when you were sitting on your couch throwing things at your roommate just to see if she would notice. (She didn't)

Ahhhh. The agony. 

I'll never make it alive. 

But if I do, I'll blog about it tomorrow. 

Farewell readers, it's been real. 

(I wrote "goodbye" first but "farewell" seemed more appropriately melodramatic)

Love, 

Katie

To: Broc Hafen

I had this texting conversation with Erin's husband Broc tonight:

Broc: "You are losing fans with the lack of posts." 

Katie: "ha I'm sorry! I don't have the internet right now (true story). I'll try and post tomorrow!"

Broc: "Maybe you could hit some more male fans by making this next one a little more bloody/action packed." 

Katie: "Great advice. I've got a good story about a cat fight I saw last night at a concert. That should work."

Broc: "Excellent idea. All your ideas are excellent. I take back what I said last week about you getting skunked by your uncle in ping pong in front of everyone. You are cool."
(Sorry if you don't remember sending that last text Broc. I'm sure you did.) 

Anyways, remember this girl? She actually wrote this song for tonight when two things would happen: 
1. My darling friend Casey Goodman lent me his extra computer. (doesn't it make him sound rich to say "extra computer")
2. My cute friend Russell Ochoa is from Mexico.
Oh, and he fixed my internet. I just like telling people that he is from Mexico so you don't think I only have white friends from Utah. Plus he has the most darling Mexican accent you've ever heard. 

Anyways, on to the cat fight story: 

I went and saw Ratatat last night in SLC. 

At one point we were pushing out way to the front when I heard a girl behind me say to the girl next to me something to the effect of, "Kindly get out of my way. You're blocking my view."
Except with a lot more F words.
To which the girl next to me replied: "If you'd like you could rip all the hair out of my head instead."
So she did.
And I stood next to her and watched.
And then a big boy came in and picked up the hair-puller and carried her out and everyone cheered and said the F word more to commemorate the fact that both girls were really drunk and that one of them had significantly less hair than when she came. 
The End.

The second best story of the night was when we moved to the edges of the crowd in order to obtain the ability to lift our arms above our heads.
I was dancing with myself, minding my own business, when this guy with a huge dread-lock ponytail that kept spearing me in the face turned around and offered me something small and on fire.
It took me a second to realize he wanted me to smoke it.
Now, call me naive (maybe twice. I deserve it.) but being from Utah, this was actually the first time I have been offered any sort of drug whatsoever.
I would just like to give a shout out to the Ad Council, the U.S. Government and Dixie Downs Elementary for investing millions of dollars into commercials, posters and drug-free weeks all leading up to that one moment at a Ratatat concert in Salt Lake City where I could say "nah, thanks" to the man with the bandana wrapped around his dreads that had pictures of little signs that said "Caution Men Working."
I was so mad I didn't say "No!"
All that practice for nothing.
Love, Katie
P.s.- I will blog more. I swear. With pictures even! And now that I have the internet back, this really might not be an empty promise.

Blah. Blah. Blah. It's been forever. Okay, now to the post...

So blogger got all "new" on me or whatever so while it used to upload pictures backwards, now it does it....forward. So, being lazy, and it being Friday, and me being the tech-savvy girl I am, I am just going to leave the pictures as is and tell you my last week or so backwards (or maybe it has been longer. this 18 credit workload is making all the days blur together).

Just pretend you are Michael J. Fox and this blog is the DeLorean.

Also, if you want you can pretend we might not make it to 85 mph before the train tracks end and/or your mother is trying to kiss you at prom, just to spice up the reading.

(If you haven't seen the movies, get out of here)

Alright, alright...starting with the most recent: I found ten dollars in my pocket last night! 

I got out some summer shorts I haven't worn in a while (Provo, remember?) and realized there was something in my buttoned pocket. Opened. Realized. Jumped up and down in exaggerated excitement.

Nothing says "It's okay you have to ump women's softball for the next three hours" quite like a piece of paper with a number big enough for two whole feet of subway sandwhich.

Good thing my girl Kaitlin was there to take a quick pic for me.

 Moving backwards...Aly had lemons at her wedding, and at the end of the night we were so incredibly exhausted from such a long day and such a long, amazing weekend, that eating them seemed like a good idea.
Fun fact about Katie: I don't really like baked goods. The only sweets I usally like are sour things. (Get it? Sour sweets? Get it?)
I will do just about anything for a red sour patch kid.
The lemons were a little more than expected however.

 Pictured below is most of the group that drove out to the wedding.

     Aly has often been referred to as "Shakira." What I wouldn't give for those latin hips of hers. (or her dads. that family has it down.)

Just so we're clear, the order of things in which I would progressively do just about anything for is this:

(SERIOUS) I'd do anything: for red sour patch kids.

(MORE SERIOUS) I'd cut off a limb: for Aly's killer hips on the dance floor

(MOST SERIOUS I'VE EVER BEEN) I'd willingly watch women's basketball and/or flag football and/or any gender playing baseball for eternity: to touch Jimmer Freddette.

Priorities, priorities, priorities.

When Aly's dad walked into the living room and said to a bunch of twenty-something's

"Okay guys, we're going to take the party bus to the club,"

I don't think he realized that meant something a whole lot different to us than taking a school bus to a country club.

          Sam and Aly have been best friends their whole lives. Aly and I have been best college friends our whole college. It was about time we joined forces.

While Aly was off being married and all "happiest-day-of-my-life," I spent my time with these lovely groomsmen. Reason enough to never want to get married: when you can no longer spend an entire day pretending you have four dates to the big Prom.

I feel kind of bad because I have been acting slightly grossed out by Aly and Taylor being married (seriously, that's disgusting.)

But I guess they are kind of cute. And I guess I do kind of like them both.

Moving backwards to the best day of my life. Hannah and I both had a birthday the weekend of the wedding. We also both brought the same swimsuit to the beach. Little known fact: we are actually soul mates.

Pictured above was the best part of the trip. It went a little something like this:

Hannah: "It's on my bucket list to jump into these Bellagio fountains and after this weekend I am moving across the country and never coming back to my favorite city in the world Vegas and tomorrow is my birthday and today is your birthday..."

Katie: "Naturally, our only option is to jump in."

Police: "Get out or we will arrest you. Even if it is your birthday and this is your lifelong dream and we are crushing it."

BUT WE WERE SO CLOSE!!!?!?!?!!!!!

Prior to vegas we stopped in St. George for a quick birthday dinner on the back porch with perfect weather and delicious food and a cute family that is not pictured here. (Unless you see that small guy in the background)

Prior to driving to St. George these cute Germany friends brought me nice things and then let me convince them to put mustaches on in honor of Cinco de Mustache (a tradition I would be missing that year for the wedding. You're welcome Aly.) You can ask Tracy, nothing drives me crazier than fake mustaches and how funny everyone thinks they are, especially in wedding photos. I hate it. However, Cinco de Mayo has been deemed the only acceptable time to have a fake mustache and have it be really fun/hilarious. You can laugh now.

My two best friends in the world. One of them is pregnant. Guess which one.

And finally, the best group of people from the best place on earth.

I'm sure glad I traveled back in time and ended up at this place because I love these people more than anything.

In other news: It will never stop raining. Ever again.

Now you know.

Love,

Katie