Time out with My Girls

So I may have just sat here for a solid minute trying to decide if that title could be taken inappropriately.
Conclusion: most likely. 

But I'm going to keep it, only because anything can be taken inappropriately now-a-days. Get your mind out of the gutter people, I refuse to conform.

I'm a pretty lucky lady, throughout my life I have always had amazing girl friends. 
College was no exception, my kindred spirits I tell you.
It has been years since we have been roommates; we have all grown up (sort of when we aren't together), married (despite your resistance I know you are working on it, Brianna), and doing our part to multiply and replenish the earth (12 babies so far between us).

Every year we get together, it makes me so happy!

This year we actually went back to Rexburg, Idaho. It had been five years for me, longer for some of the others.
Holy smokes has it changed! (All y'all that attend BYU-Idaho now or in the future, spoiled I tell you. You don't even have to plan your route to class, hightailing it through as many buildings as possible to thaw out your nose hairs. They have built you sky bridges, you don't even know what cold is anymore.)


We had so much fun, this year Meagan turns 30, so we planned a little scavenger hunt for her down memory lane. We visited a lot of the places with the most precious memories.
(I would like to point out here, please notice Meagan's squinty eyes in every picture. Those crystal blue eyes and sun don't mesh. Glad some things never change)

The Smith Building the location of a lot of her classes.
Meags, do you remember when we took that French choir class for extra credit and practiced in that room right there at the top? I can't sing.... or speak French so we just watched people out the window slip on the ice? Prime location for people watching.

The dorms. Ironically Meagan was the only one of us who ever lived in the dorms.
Lizzy is 26 weeks pregnant (you would never be able to tell) thus her belly has a mustache.

Meagan, to put it kindly, is a bit accident prone. She may or may not have been a frequent visitor to the health center.

 The David O. McKay Library. Can you believe that we went to school before every student had a laptop? So we had to go to the library... regularly, not just the third floor. In fact if I remember correctly Meagan was the only one who actually had a computer in our apartment. And for the first few years we didn't have cell phones, we had a land line.
(Am I doing a good job describing how old we are? Or am I just making others feel really old?)

The Hart.
Gone are the days of a free gym membership. Speaking of, their new gym is amazing.

Birchwood Apartments. Where our group fused together.

 The Ravishing Club and Spy Tech will live forever in our hearts. Thanks Porter Park for providing the setting.

  It was at Baronnessa that these ladies were first roommates, so happy that happened.

This was the apartment where we were all finally roommates.
The Ridge 104.

Oh yes, and the church where we were played an intense game of dodgeball.
At exactly the same time I dove for a ball hurling it to my opponents, Meagan ran forward tripping over my large obstacle-esque body. Down she went, catching herself with her chin. Blood everywhere her first words were, "dangit, my dad is going to kill me, I have already been to the ER too many times this semester."

I propose that we all move to Spanish Fork.
Please?

The Talented Mr. Markus

I have been working on trying to build a website for my "doulary" (that's what Trevor calls it) & HypnoBirthing business.

It's really hard when you have no website building skills.

(Luckily I have other skills like bow hunting and nun chucks.)

Hopefully I will have it launched soon. 

As I work on it I have had some pretty amazing people step up and help me out. Like Trevor's cousin, Tyler. He is an artist and fantastic graphic designer, he made my logo.

Isn't it beautiful?? 

Makes you just feel good, doesn't it? 

Makes you just want to be pregnant, doesn't it?

What do you think of my business name? 

April in Waiting? 

(It's because I assist [wait on] wonderful pregnant women and make them feel like Queens). smiley face

Tyler is a pretty talented guy, he just did the illustrations for an adult childrens book.

(I have your attention now, yeah? You are thinking, what in the world is an adult childrens book?

 

It is hilarious and so clever!

You will seriously want to buy it.

Luckily you can.

Go to http://www.whatifliberals.com/ 

It's perfect especially during this intense election time, we need a little light-hearted-ness that is totally spot-on.

Tyler has sent us a few of the nursery rhymes in the book and we have just busted up laughing. unfortunately?

I am getting my copy in a few days and I can't wait!!!

You will also want to bookmark their page because from what I understand they will be publishing more books.

The 4th Annual Love Trip

Let me explain.

Trevor has some of the best friends. They are his "college buddies." All were roommates of his in college, some from Freshman year, but a few originated in high school, middle school, and even elementary. One has been his best friend since birth (that happens sometimes when you are cousins).  

They were such a good group of guys. I knew the majority of them in college, I would see them around campus or at parties and they would be having so much fun. 

I wanted to be best friends with them. They were the guys that planned the best dates, participated in any activity and made it so fun. 

They were all really cute and funny. 

And they were good guys, they followed the honor code and curfew, they did their home teaching and attended devotional, they were the Elders quorum president kind of good guys. 

One by one they found their soulmate and got married. When I finally got an in with the group the majority of them were gone. I didn't mind, I always had my eye on Trevor. I remember telling one of the "buddies," Paul, that I thought Trevor should want to date me. I was fairly certain Trevor didn't even know who I was at the time. Lucky for me Paul agreed and planted a little bug in Trevor's ear. 

When Trevor and I got serious we started to hang out more with his buddies who were married. There are seven buddies, the last one just got married last month. Now of course we know the guys are buddies and like each other but the real miracle in it all is that the wives really like each other. In fact whenever we are together we separate like a 6th grade dance, girls on one side laughing and giggling, boys on the other flexing their muscles for each other. 

The term "Love Trip" started when one of the buddies, Rob, who is from England was hired over a Christmas break years ago to transfer all of Troy's (another buddy) family videos to DVD. (Rob couldn't go home for Christmas seeing as it was to England and a bit too expensive). For hours he watched Troy's families events. There was one tape that had footage from a trip taken by Troy's parents  and their friends when they were young couples. They were sitting on their husbands laps, or slapping their wives booty as she walked by, they were young couples who couldn't keep their hands off each other. Rob thought it was hilarious and coined it "The Love Trip." He showed Troy and they decided that when they were all married they would go on "Love Trips" together. 

So we have. 

This year was the 4th annual and the best one yet. We went to Heber, Utah. 

We rented a house for the weekend and played, ate, and talked non stop.

Here I'll introduce you to the group:

Troy & Jemaica

Tyler & Callie

Rob & Erin

Zach & Katie

Paul & Brenda

Trevor & April

Bryce & Bobbilee

Doug & Ashley

(We missed you guys)

Is there a stronger word for Miracle?

My wonderful best friend Jennie had her baby yesterday. 

She chose the all-natural, un-medicated, birth center route and let me tell you, she was a rockstar! 

Seriously superwoman. 

By the time I got there at about 10:00am she had been in labor for 13 hours, you can imagine both she and Jordan were exhausted. 

I need to put a little plug in here about Jordan, a true hero I tell you. He did an awesome job helping Jen through it all.

She had the most incredible determined focus, but I mean literally. 

What worked best for her was to have someone in front of her and when she would have a contraction she would lock her eyes with their eyes and breath it through. 

But it wasn't just locking eye contact, it was the insight into her soul... I could see everything she was feeling both physically and emotionally pouring out of her eyes. Sometimes I would catch a hint of a plea in her direct gaze, please let this cup pass from me. And yet she never said a word, somehow she still managed to keep her shoulders limp, her jaw relaxed, and her brow soft... and with her determined focus she would get ready for the next one.

Another amazing thing about Jen, for as intense as her labor was it was that much fun too. 

I hear you... Fun? During labor? Whilst un-medicated?

I know, I was surprised too. 

But it's true. 

She had a Bob Marley dance party at around 16 hours, complete with an informal conga line.

I mean come on, here she is smiling! 14 hours in and she is smiling!

She said some pretty funny things during her labor. 

The one I really remember chuckling pretty good at was just after she had gotten in the bath tub right before she started pushing she became convinced that there wasn't a baby in there. 

Her midwife had to keep assuring her "I promise a baby will come out, not a flowerpot, not a watermelon, a baby...your baby." 

At the time, I don't think Jennie really believed her.

Then at 4:17pm their sweet little boy was born. 7lbs 5 oz.

With a mop of hair identical to his daddy, and a direct gaze like his momma. 

He is beautiful.

Congratulations Jennie and Jordan, I sure do love your little family!

Next Best Thing

We had planned to go camping with some of our friends this last weekend.

However there were some scheduling conflicts.

Not to mention the overnight low was predicted to be 34 degrees, we thought we should probably not knowingly inflict hypothermia on our child. 

So we did the next best thing and moved the party to our driveway. 

I lived with these girls in France. 

However we were missing the rest of our "France Friends" (you ladies know who you are, hope you are jealous and seriously consider moving back to Utah.)

You can't have a camp out without a piñata! 

And everybody knows the best piñatas are scary fairies.

Thanks Rem for being the rope holder.

And the best part? When it came time to go to sleep, we all slept in our own beds.

Where My Girlz At??

I was a little MIA last week but for good reason. 
On Thursday I drove to Las Vegas to meet up with my best college girlfriends. 
We went to surprise and celebrate my friend Nycole's 30th birthday. Since we all live in different places it has been 4 years since we have all been together. 


It was long overdue.


I love these girls! Meagan said it best: "If we have made it this far as friends it means we will be friends forever." 
She wasn't even talking about the cliche "forever" like the bff jewelry you get when 10-years-old from Claire's. 


It is the kind of "forever" where we will take vacations with our families. Our kids will think they are cousins. We will sit around when we are 45 talking about the woes of teenagers the way we sat around this weekend talking about pregnancy and breast feeding. (Sorry Liz and Bri, that subject did come up a little too often.)


I was going to break up the pictures so it wasn't a ridiculous amount, but I decided to just go for it.


Nycole didn't know we were all coming for her birthday and dog blasted I didn't even get a picture of her shocked face when she saw us! 


Our picture taking didn't even start until the next morning when we were on our way to the pool...

Jesus photo-bombed our picture.

 Somehow Bri is always making that face.

Proof: above...below

Yes, we did end up eating at IHOP while on vacation. 

It just turned out to be too much with 7 varying opinions, a pregnant lady, and someone* with sever blood sugar issues. Not to mention everywhere else we went had a 40+ minute wait. 

Here is a picture of our friends from IHOP. 
He & He, She & She, Father & Son, Mother & Daughter, Boyfriends, Girlfriends?????
Transvestites make it all so confusing; but they were complete with boobs, wigs, sun dresses, spanks, and compression socks.
 (Yes they are looking at me while I was pretending to take a picture of Bridget... And yes, (her)his sun dress is falling off (her)his shoulder but thank goodness (s)he brought a bib so there wasn't any indecent exposure.)

 Eating again.

While we were eating lunch I was holding Bridget when she pooped, no big deal. 

Until I realized the poop had come out of her diaper down my leg and pooled in the diaper bag. Even though I cleaned it up I still had poop pants for the rest of the day.** 

Meagan has a not so secret obsession with Celine. She may or may not have made us call her Celine in college.***

 Jennie had never been on the strip so we needed to do all the touristy things.****

 I said "think like Shania" 

 The prize for the best / cutest baby. She was a trooper!!

The next few pictures were taken when I gave Meagan the camera and told her she was the official photographer: 

 thanks meags, I'm so glad we have this documented.

Thanks for the best Girls Weekend ever!

*It was Meagan. 
While practicing the art of projection she was telling everyone else she thought they had low blood sugar and needed to eat.


**Thanks for the appetizer, Bridget.


***She wouldn't answer unless we called her Celine.


****All of the Mormon touristy things include Bellagio fountains and gardens, shopping, and a picture pretending you are gambling.