dream your ABC's

my roommate andrea (who i love) doesnt like to throw anything away (which i dont love) and wanted to find a place for this poster (which i hate). she found my kitchen wall.

what i found is that the dream your ABC's poster is sort of like the color code or personality test. everyone has a letter they relate to and defines them. i personally like "xcellerate your efforts" for several reasons. i like to multi task and accomplish goals. i am bad at spelling and this is clearly misspelled. i have no idea why they choose accelerate when there are so many good words that either start with x or sound like x. and sometimes i make lots of choices that dont make sense. and thats why i choose xcellerate your efforts.

so go ahead and do some soul searching and pick a letter. . .

Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits
Believe in yourself
Consider things from every angle
Don't give up and don't give in
Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come
Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches
Give more than you planned to
Hang on to your dreams
Ignore those who try to discourage you
Just do it
Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier
Love yourself first and most
Make it happen
Never lie, cheat or steal, always strike a fair deal
Open your eyes and see things as they really are
Practice makes perfect
Quitters never win and winners never quit
Read study and learn about everything important in your life
Stop procrastinating
Take control of your own destiny
Understand yourself in order to better understand others
Visualize it
Want it more than anything
Xcellerate your efforts
You are unique of all God's creations nothing can replace you
Zero in on your target and go for it!

cowboy up

some people say there is nothing to do in st. george and these people are right. unless you are talking about the three days a year st. george has a rodeo...

i went with my friends colleen and warren. fortunately, neither of them suffer from livestock allergies, unlike my friend meat hooks. there are many great things about the st george rodeo. it provides everyone with an opportunity to remember what the american flag looks like because it is displayed around the rodeo at minimum 63 times. i have been trying to decide if the rodeo royalty princesses' shirt counts as a flag even though the red stripes were just red tassels....i am going to go ahead and say yes. 64 flags.

the rodeo started off right with a prayer. i don't know if rodeo prayers are constitutionally legal but i am going to go ahead and give it my ok. there are lots of amendments i just sort of skip over. if fact, it was only my third year of law school that i actually sat down and read the whole thing. you would not BELIEVE what is in there....

anywho, the announcer prayed that no one would get hurt in their high risk behavior and that someday when we get to the big arena in the sky that God will say admission is free. there were some other great cowboy analogies that i can't recall. i may or may not have laughed. my friend warren said that a women was trying to take pictures of the crowd during the prayer and had her camera pointed towards us before my little outburst (which bytheway was silent). which brings me to my next two points. firstly, i don't think people should take pictures of other people's attempts at communicating with God, because hey, that is private. secondly, i don't think warren should have had his eyes open during the prayer, i hope his irreverence didn't cause a trampling. we left early so i will never know.

i must say i always enjoy the political commentary while eating my delicious dollar nachos. the jokes are fairly predictable with saddam and hillary clinton being the main punch lines. evil dictators and democrats seem to be the biggest threat to america. although there is a lot of opportunity during muttin bustin to contemplate politics i recommend that any political discussions that don't end in george w bush being allowed to run for a third term should be avoided until you have exited the rodeo (and perhaps utah).

i am going to go ahead and get to my favorite part of the rodeo....monkeys on dogs hearding sheep. warren said he went last year and there were mini horses but that the monkeys were even better. he wanted to go back and rescue the monkeys but i think that once you are a trained monkey sheep hearder its hard to go back into the wild. besides where would we take them, snow canyon?

and on a semi unrelated note i heard a rumor that wranglers have changed their designs and colors. which reminds me of my summer goal for 2003 which was to bring wranglers back. i really let that one slip but i figure my jeans cant get much tighter (as illustrated below) so i half way there. . .

weena's wedding!

here we all our at timmy and weena's wedding reception sitting at the DCA table (people sat according to their airports, clever weena). here we are waiting to catch the bouquet. although heba is 6 feet tall she didnt manage to catch it....strangely enough, i was cut out of the wedding toast line up. i think it was because i was going to mention their first date makeout which was followed the next day by their first booty call where they got snowed in a church parking lot whilst making out. Occasional someone will say "let it snow" but we arent referring to the weather as much as the hope that we are in a church parking lot in our mom's car making out. well...maybe not those exact circumstances but you get the general idea.
oh and i also was going to mention how breena and tim met through "mutual friends" and how breena swore up and down she would never date a utah boy. cutting me out of that wedding toast program was the best wedding decision they made next to those artichoke cracker horderves.
712 girls. that house does have some uncanny marriage karma. we should charge extra for that... arlington isnt expensive enough.
i love heba. she is saving up money to go to Algeria to help people and stuff. and look for cute interpreters. hey it cant all be all about humanitarian aid.

our first attempt at reproduction

Hayden Beecher

that's right i have a nephew. on labor day and i wanted to capture the excitement he felt hanging out with me, his favorite aunt. i really like him. he really likes ceiling fans. so we dont have much in common, except i think we are both a little scared of grandma...oh and we are both super cute when we pull that face. i use it when i really like a boy. gets them everytime.

Swiss Days....Pretty Much My Second Favorite Festival

So i went to Swiss Days in Midway last weekend. I didn't shower after yoga or change out of the clothes I wore the day before but that didn't stop me from going. Which is why I look so fantastic standing next to this little German boy I met in the brat line.

That front pocket in liederhosen comes in very handy. Good for cell phones, spare change, shane's hands...

My FAVORITE part about Swiss days was actually not the sauerkraut, the flags displayed everywhere or all those crafts. It was the fact that there were hand washing stations EVERYWHERE. Its like my OCD heaven....

This young man was calling everyone he knew to tell them about how awesome swiss days were. He was also calling to tell everyone how I almost bought a four leaf clover for $35. Its a little embarrassing and I don't want to talk about it. Other highlights include an elderly woman from Idaho who invited me to be in her quilting guild. And now it is pretty much my plan D in life. It would be plan C if it didn't involve Idaho. I wonder if you have to try out for quilting guilds...