Brittish Weekend

It was completely unintentional, but Heidi, Betsy and I ended up having a theme weekend a couple of weeks ago. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the last show of our Broadway season, so we headed off to Salt Lake. Heidi was already there, and Betsy met her early for some shopping and dinner. I met them at Elizabeth's Tea Shop, and had a delicious chocolate cake. Then it was over to the Capitol Theatre to enjoy the flying car. (Truly Scrumptious was truly annoying. She went all opera on fun songs like Toot Sweets. Dumb! Other than that, it was a very fun show!) Driving home in the pouring rain, through Lake Road Construction was super exciting. I was grateful and amazed to arrive home unscathed.

Notice the sign for Chitty. That's the only picture I got.

Saturday, Heidi and I met Betsy at the Scottish Festival and Highland Games at Thanksgiving Point. We watched the games for awhile. It was entertaining to see the girls try to toss the caber, and we were sad that none of them were able to get it over. We also watched weight over the bar competition and the sheaf toss.

Best female attempt at caber toss.

Sheaf Toss

After watching the games, we had worked up quite an appetite. We were surprised to see booths for Navajo Tacos, Smoothies, Hot Dogs, etc. We wanted to go authentic, but I couldn't "stomach" the idea of Haggis (ha ha...get it? Stomach. I crack myself up!), so I went for a meat pie. Steak and mushroom. It was delish! Way better than it looks in the picture.

My meat pie. Mmm Mmm.

After lunch we walked around and checked out the booths. I was delighted to find out that I have a clan. Thanks to my Grandma Olsen, I am part of the Drummond Clan. I even got a picture of my tartan. Yay!!!

All about the Drummond Clan

We watched some cute little dancers, but quickly grew tired of listening to the piper play the same song for every dance. We stood in a really long line to get some root beer in fancy bottles (the root beer was not good), and just after we got our drinks, the sky opened up and the rain fell in buckets. We made a quick dash for the car, and by the time we got in, there were rivulets of water running off my arms and legs. Thanks to the heated seats in my car, I was all warm and toasty by the time I got home. It was a WAY fun weekend. Thanks for helping me get in touch with my roots girls!!!

I've Come To A Conclusion.

I live a very boring life. You see, it's been forever since I've posted. Partly because 80% of my focus has been on work (craziness happening there!!!), 15% has been focused on my primary class (I have a very difficult one this year, and I just lost my team teacher!), and 5% has been focused on my family (cuz I don't want to cut them out, but unfortunately they only get what's left). The few things that were worth posting about, I haven't had time to post.

So for any loyal followers (if I have any left after my long absence) here is what's new with me over the last couple of months.

My new niece, Hadlee

Hadlee and her proud big sisters!

Three little nieces sitting on Aunt Misty's legs

My new baby...loving the Hybrid!!! Doesn't have a name yet, any suggestions?

My nephew's H.S. graduation (and my birthday!)

I got to have my birthday party/picnic watching the Thunderbirds!!!

I think that sums up the exciting parts. Now you're caught up...at least until I go to Montana next week!!! Stay tuned for daily rundowns of the trip. (Don't feel obligated to read them, it's just the only way I actually ever record my trips, so I put them up here.)

Life...

Most of the time I'm pretty content with my life. In fact, most of the time I like my life. But every once in a while I have this feeling of complete discontent. You could call today "every once in a while". I don't really know why, I just don't like my life at the moment. I just came home from being with my family for several days. My sister just had a sweet new baby girl. I got to spend lots of time with my nieces. It was a good time. But driving home this evening, that feeling of discontent fell over me. I feel like I'm not doing anything important with my life, and I need to change something, but I don't know what. Usually when I feel like I need a change, I cut my hair (it's probably the easiest thing to change), but I'm growing my hair out and can't even do that. Ugh! I hate these days. I am glad they don't happen very often. And they don't usually last very long, so hopefully things will look brighter tomorrow. Fingers crossed!!!

For The First Time I Feel...WICKED!!!

That's right friends. After almost two years of waiting, I finally saw Wicked on Friday night. I bought season tickets (along with Heidi and some friends) this year so I would for sure get to go. Then my mom and sisters decided we should all go together, so we bought tickets for another show. That was about nine months ago. Little did we know that Mandy would be pregnant, and her due date would be the day before our show. Dilemma!

Well, my sweet roommate, Heidi, offered to trade Mandy tickets, so that Mandy could go with me Friday night, and Heidi will go with my mom, Dayna, and I in a couple of weeks.

We started with dinner at the Lion House Pantry, then we headed over to the Capitol Theatre.



Three words to describe the show. A. MA. ZING!!!! Seriously. It was incredible. Definitely my favorite musical, and that's saying something since I love muscials. The actors were fabulous, the singing was great (except Fiyero got a little nasally on the high notes...but that was my only disappointment), and the scenery was fantastic.

I can't wait until I get to go again. And I've decided that I need to see it in other cities as well. I don't know when or how, but I am going to see it in New York, and I'd love to see it in L.A. and Chicago as well.

So, my final review is not two thumbs up, but a very enthusiastic two fists raised high in the air and shouting WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

The Link That Made My Day

It has been a cold, snowy, cloudy, ugly day.

Then I saw this video and I'm feeling much better!

Oh, how I wish life were more like a musical. Singing and dancing at the drop of a hat. It would definitely make life more fun!!!

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k and make sure you turn up the sound.

Heroes

No, no. Not the T.V. show, although I did watch the first season.

I have a lot of heroes. Some of them have done big, huge things, and some of them have done really minor things. Today, my hero is my brother-in-law, Erik. I knew that today was going to be a crazy stressful day. So I made sure that my iPod was all charged up and ready to help me through a long day of prepping for audits, trying to pull together a staff meeting/training for tonight, plus attempting to keep up with my regular job duties. I think the iPod had been on for about ten minutes when it froze. That happened once before on Christmas Eve, and Erik was able to reset it for me. When it happened today, I couldn't remember how to do it. Luckily Erik was able to walk me through it over the phone, and I had my iPod back in short order.

As expected, my day was totally insane, but I had the very calming Pride and Prejudice soundtrack playing all day, and I was able to make it through. So tonight I raise my iPod in honor of you, Erik! Thank you , thank you, thank you for helping me maintain my sanity (for the most part) today. You're the best!!!

Happy Monday!

I do not like Mondays. I usually can't sleep on Sunday nights, because I am stressed out about work. Which causes me to start my Monday grumpy and stressed out. And things don't usually go very well for me on Mondays. But occasionally I have a happy Monday. Today was one of those. Here is why.

Happy #1: I slept really well last night. I didn't sleep long enough, but that's okay because usually my Sunday night sleep is riddled with dreams/subconscious obsessing over work, and last night, I didn't have any work dreams. Just sleep. So nice!

Happy #2: Had a pretty decent work day for a Monday. Nothing horrible.

Happy #3: Even though the weather was cold and windy all day long, this evening my good friend Mr. Sun peeked out from behind the clouds for a quick hello.

If you look closely, you can see Mr. Sun shining on the building at the right.

Happy #4: Card Night. I love card night. To borrow the slogan from the Training Table, it's "good food, good friends, and fun"! We went to Pennyroyal Cafe. It's this cute little cafe in downtown Provo. They have really ugly couches, but really tasty food. Unfortunately, Heidi's salad came with spinach leaves which her stomach does not like, and I only got a sandwich (the "My Grill"...highly recommend it), so when we were done, we were still kind of hungry. Which leads to...

Happy #5: Maestro's. Heidi and I decided to venture around the corner to Maestro's for a treat. We both ordered the Sour Cream, Brown Sugar, and Fresh Strawberry Crepe, and a Chocolate Latte. I had raspberry flavor added to mine. One word. DELECTABLE. I always leave Maestro's feeling a little pampered and a lot full!

Our pretty Chocolate Lattes (Don't worry. No coffee. Just chocolate.)

Mmm. Doesn't that make you hungry?

Happy #6: Happy Birthday, Mandy!!! My baby sister turned not-so-very-young-anymore today, and for the next two and a half months, we will only be two years apart, instead of three! Hope you had as good a Monday as I did, Mooks. LOVE YOU!!!!

Oooh. I hope Tuesday is as good as Monday!