Graduation

My little brother is all grown up! He graduated from high school yesterday and is now on to bigger and better things . . . like finding a job. My older brother and his family (this means nieces!!!) came up for the weekend and we all went to the graduation ceremony. The tradition (that Matthew and I both participated in as well) is that they announce your name as you walk through a big "O" for Orem and you're projected onto the big screens hanging in the Marriott Center. It was kind of fun to watch all the kids do goofy things as they walked through. Mark was among the last because he's on Student Council and when they finally announced his name, he had changed it so they said Markus Walker Brown the Second. Markus has always been a nickname, but I'm wondering if he's the Second, who the First is.

Ahhh . . . memories!

Last night I pulled my first all night cram session in a very long time. It brought back many memories, but it also made me realize that I'm not as young any more and I can't bounce right back. You would think that now that I'm a little older, I would just plan better and not wait until the night before the last day to take a test to start studying. Yeah, you would think. I really am determined to not do this again though. Of course I say that every time and it never happens. It will this time though-I have to decided to grow up, be an adult and just do it. Why now? Because in my Human Development class we've been talking a lot about how children learn through example and imitation, and I am determined that no future children of mine will be lazy like I am. I always think well, once I have kids, I'll just do things differently. That's a nice thought, but realistically there is no way I'm just going to completely change the way I do everything as soon as I have a child. So . . . I will not be lazy from now on, and I will procrastinate no more. Starting tomorrow.

Ch-check it out!

My little brother, Mark, was on the front page of the Utah section of the Deseret News today! Click here to check it out. Click on the "Gallery" link on the right. In the first picture he's the wrist with the white bracelet. In the second picture he's the one looking the other way. Possibly not the best pictures ever, but he's still a stud!

RIP

GusGus/El Guapo passed away last week. All that's left is his sad, empty cage.

Wyoming trip

Let me preface this blog entry by saying two things: 1. I'm not in a blogging mood, so don't expect much funny. I am doing this only because Traci is making me. 2. We didn't take many pictures and most of the ones we did take kinda sucked due to the fact that they were taken mostly out of the sun roof of a moving car.

Because Lorri and I like food, we always have to take the long way through Logan at least one way. Now I know you're thinking to yourself that Logan isn't exactly the culinary capital of Utah, but there are three things up that way (admittedly they are not all in Logan, but they're up in that direction) that make me happy: Gossner's Cheese Factory, Fruit Way, and the Pepperidge Farms factory. Fruit Way, unfortunately, wasn't open for the season yet, but we got squeaky cheese and possibly the best butter ever at Gossner's, and lots of cheap, fattening cookies at the P Farms.


Another reason why lots of the pictures sucked was because the weather sucked and it was dark most of the time.


The rain didn't make much of a difference except when we were driving along muddy roads in Idaho. This particular road wasn't too bad, but there was one road that was under construction and I seriously thought we would slide off. I realize we didn't have to drive on as many dirt roads as we did, but it's so much prettier when you get off the highway.

We finally made it to Star Valley and promptly went to the DMV so Lorri could get her driver's license. Why, you ask, does a 41 year-old not have a driver's license? You'll have to ask her that question. :) She passed the test and then we went to pick up her daughter. We spent the next couple of days watching movies, eating (her mom, who you will see below, is one of the best cooks I have ever met, and she left us lots of yummy food), and just relaxing. There are no pictures because I'm pretty sure you don't want to see either of us looking as nasty and grubby as we did.

Sunday morning we dropped Cortni off and headed up to Jackson Hole to see Lorri's friend, Chris, and spend the night up there. That afternoon it cleared up quite a bit and we could finally see the Tetons, although not the tippy tops.

We also saw buffalo and other animals on our drive.

Chris works at the airport and while visiting her there, saw that Dick Cheney (or as I like to call him, the Dick Meister) and Air Force Two were in town. Lorri was brave enough to go take pictures. I thought we would be arrested (and possibly tortured for being terrorists) for taking pictures 1. at an airport and 2. of the VP's plane. I don't think anyone even saw us. Good thing they're keeping a close eye on things!!!

We had to wait a little while for Chris to get off work, so we went to get a snack (more food!) and spotted this guy sitting at the bar and I kid you not, he was talking to his beer. When the waiter set the glass down, he said "Helllooooo!" Then he kept saying random sentences, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I think perhaps he had already had several drinks before this one. You know you're a true blogger when you take a picture of the crazy at the bar just so everyone else can see!


After eating our munchies, we drove around some more and saw everyone pulled over to the side of the road, which can mean only one thing: more animals!!! We pulled over and there was a family of foxes that lived down in this little area. You can't actually see them in this picture though because they kept darting in and out of the trees. I'm posting this semi-worthless picture mainly just because I can and because I got to see stinkin' cute baby foxes and you didn't.

We then went and picked up Chris and her daughter, Whytlie, who is also stinkin' cute, and we went to dinner (another round of eating!). Chris refused to take a nice picture.

But the rest of us smiled pretty. Or at least we tried to smile pretty. Notice how I am twice the size of Lorri and Whytlie. Grrrrr!


We stayed with Chris that night and then headed back to Star Valley to see Lorri's parents, who had been away for the weekend. Aunt June was also in town, and Lorri, being a fabulous photographer, snapped this picture of her.

She also snapped this one of her Mom, Tudy, aka Ce. Or is it Ce aka Tudy? Anyway, in this picture she is making us all delicious Italian beef sammiches.

Tudy and June are hilarious when they get together. They are funny to the point of peeing in your pants. (Don't worry, I'm not naming any names here, girls!) After eating I had to show them my blog and force T to bookmark it in order to help me feel better about myself. (If you're still reading this long post, please, please, please, tell/force your friends and family to read my blog.) Here is Lorri checking it out.

We stayed for a few hours, and then headed back to Utah and real life. :(

Here is a list of animals that we saw on our trip:

• buffalo/bison (or if you're Kevin Costner, tetanka)
• a whole herd of elk
• a coyote (dead on the side of the road, but whatever)
• several hawks and/or eagles (I didn't get a very good look)
• a fox family
• a moose
• antelope
  
• a ceaver (Some kind of rodent that had the body of a beaver and the tail of a cat. I have no idea what it actually was.)
• Does some dude peeing on the side of the road count as an animal? I slowed down because I thought he was looking at an animal, but he wasn't. I saw the stream of pee.
  

See ya!

I'm heading out on a little road trip this morning. Lorri and I are going to Star Valley and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's supposed to rain every single day we're there.

See ya next week!

Idle Idol Thoughts

VICTORY! Here are my thoughts on the show:

-George Michael has waaaay aged. I think all the man lovin' is wearing on him.

-I love that Simon apologized.

-Poor Carrie Underwood-isn't someone supposed to make sure she doesn't forget to put her pants on before she goes on stage? The shortness of her skirt wouldn't have been so distracting if it didn't also have the slit. I'm betting the people in the front row got a glimpse of the goods.

-I loved that they did a medley of Brian Adams songs. I love Brian Adams. Everything he does, he does it for me, don't ya know!

-I want a little motorized carpet/cushion thing. I think it would be fun to sit on and drive around the grocery store.

I feel a strong urge to go call my aunt and gloat, but I won't. At least for now.

I am pleased to announce

that Zac Efron is 20 years old. I was thinking he was 17 and between him and Harry Potter (yes, I do know that he has a real name) I was feeling a little creepy. Harry Potter is also over 18 so that's a relief.

I have noticed that in the last little while there have been a plethora of posts about hot guys. Please don't think that this is a true representation of what I spend my day thinking about. It's just that the only guys I see in real life are in my classes and they're all 21/22 and got engaged last week. Since there are no real possibilities in my life, I have to live vicariously through movies and television.

A Review of the ACM's

The ACM's were on last night and I watched despite the fact that I don't like watching awards shows. The reasons for this are threefold: 1. I don't like to listen to celebrities speak in real life because they tend to not be so bright when they don't have a script. 2. If they really wanted to thank God, they could do it by putting more clothes on and not having their chesticles and vajayjays flying around all over. 3. I don't know your agent, record producer, song writer, make-up artist, plastic surgeon or drug dealer, so I don't care if you never could have done this without them. Please just say a simple thank you and sit back down.

Back to the ACM awards. I really enjoyed Carrie Underwood, Sugarland, Keith Urban and Rodney Atkins. I had no idea who Rodney Atkins was. Please don't think I'm completely superficial when I say holy cow, he's mighty good lookin'! I did enjoy his music as well. I just enjoyed looking at him more. Miranda Lambert, whom I absolutely love, also performed. My third blog entry, back in October 2007, was about the song she performed last night. But enough of the enjoyableness; let's talk about Taylor Swift.

If you didn't see her performance that's just too bad because I just went to YouTube to try to find it for you and due to a copyright claim by Dick Clark Productions, the video is no longer available. (Note to Dick Clark: because you have impeded upon my ability to make fun of this performance, I think you are lame and you suck.) Taylor started off in a hoodie that made her look a little bit like a dementor. I of course made fun of it, but then her clothes were ripped off and she had a little black dress on underneath. This was much less distracting and I thought the performance was going pretty well, but then they made it rain on stage and she danced and sang in the water. It was very weird and seemed very out of place. Part of me was hoping she would get a little shock. Not full on electrocution, but maybe just a little spark or something. That didn't happen; she was fine and finished the song in a curtain of water. Again, let me reiterate that I thought it was very odd. Unless you are Gene Kelly, you just shouldn't be singing in the rain.

I think I'm starting to really get into country music. It doesn't seem so trashy and it isn't full of nasty language. (Please note that the song "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" is excluded from the previous statement.) I'm excited to download music from a bunch of artists I discovered last night. I always love it when I find new music to enjoy.

I should've been studying

But instead I watched most of the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 today. The CBS website has the first three seasons online. You can check them out here. Did you hear The CW is bringing 90210 back? I think they're calling it 90210 2.0 or something. I absolutely loved the show up until around their second year of college when it started getting all trashy. Well, more trashy than before. I think once Brenda left it went downhill. Some of my favorite 90210 memories:

-The dance where Brenda and Kelly bought the same dress, but it was o.k. because Brenda and Dylan were um . . . elsewhere, so they weren't really seen together until the end of the dance.

-When the cowboy kid who was David's best friend at the beginning of the series, accidentally shot and killed himself.

-When Andrea and Steve try to "exchange an egg." I think that may have been the same episode where Emily Valentine slipped Brandon some drugs.

-The graduation episode. If memory serves me correctly, I think I cried when it originally aired. It was very touching.

-When Dylan was looking mighty hot, which was pretty much every episode he was in. But then his wife was killed by the dude her father sent to kill Dylan, and that kinda sucked.

When the series first aired I was totally a Brandon girl, but now watching them again, I must say that I am now on Team Dylan. I guess I just like sensitive bad boy surfer alcoholics with anger management issues. Plus he had better hair than Brandon. Much cooler.

Dwight for VP!

Did anyone see Rainn Wilson on Leno the other night? He read a letter in response to John McCain naming Dwight Schrute as his vice-presidential nominee. The OfficeTally website has the original letter. Read it here. It's hilarious.

Speaking of Hairspray . . .

Know who else I think is kinda hot? James Marsden.

Remember when he was John Wilkes Booth in Zoolander?

Zac Efron

I have two papers I should be writing and two tests next week I should be studying for, but I decided to blog instead. Don't you feel special!?!

In a post last year I wrote that Zac Efron makes me feel uncomfortable. I think I may be reevaluating that opinion a little bit. I just watched Hairspray (again, avoiding schoolwork) and while I don't like or dislike him in the movie, I watched some of the special features and they got me to ponder. Why is it I'm not so much a fan? Is it because Perez Hilton calls him Zacquisha and mocks his sexuality and make-up issues? Possibly. Is it because he makes lame movies? Well I haven't seen the High School Musical movies, so I can't say for sure. So what is it? I think it must be that I have been biased by Perez. I think I might just have to step outside the box and form my own opinion. I know, I know, that's crazy talk, right? Maybe it's just the spinahhhch talking. Either way, I think I might have to start liking little Zackie. 'Cause really, he looks like this:

and this:

but then sometimes like this:

and then when he's done with the bronzer, he sometimes looks like this:

healthiness

Did you know that spinach only has like 40 calories in a cup and a half? I totally just ate three cups of spinach for lunch today. Of course I had to use several hundred calories of other stuff to mask the taste, but I'm still pretty proud of myself. If you top it with grape tomatoes, strawberries, and a little cottage cheese it's quite tasty.

I feel I should review the proper pronunciation of cheese. Remember, people, it's chez. See previous blog post if you can't figure out how to say it right. Also, you can't just say spinach, you have to say the "a" like when they stick the popsicle stick in your mouth at the doctors office and make you say ahhh. So it's spinahhch.

little baby llamas

My dad is in Peru right now and sent this picture of baby llamas. I love the hat on the one on the left. I want one for each of my dogs. My dad is actually going back down there in August and my mom, my aunt and I are going with him, so I may actually get a chance to get the hats. I'm sure the pups would love wearing them.

Big day tomorrow!

Make sure you set your DVR to record The Today Show. Tomorrow is the big NKOTB concert!

The Office Season Finale

was completely unacceptable.

weird dream

I had a weird dream last night and now I want to eat cake.

For starters, I think two different dreams blended together because I remember being in a parking garage and getting into a car with a hot guy. Then all of a sudden I was out in the world looking for the hot guy, but all I could remember was that he worked at some restaurant that had delicious lite buttercream cake. I don't know whether this was referring to lo-cal buttercream frosting or the actual cake. Anyway, I go over to Lorri's house, which by the way, was not the same apartment she's in now, it was some semi-ghetto place downtown, and we googled lite buttercream cake and find out that there's a place in Centerville called Virgie's that sells this cake. So we decide to head down there, because dude, there's cake and a hot guy. Somehow though Centerville has ended up being two blocks away from her place. So maybe her place downtown was not downtown Salt Lake, but downtown Centerville. I don't know. I digress. We go to Virgie's and discover that the cakes are made into fun and fancy shapes like hamburgers and dragons. That seemed cool so we sat down at a table to order some cake. While doing so a girl comes over to us and it turns out that I know her from my old ward, and the hot guy is her brother whom she had tried to set me up with a while ago but it never worked out. Unfortunately, he's not at work yet so we have to wait to see him. While we were talking another guy walked in. At first he reminded me of the Aviator, but with long hair. Because of this I decided to ignore him and scorn him in my mind. It turned out, though, that it was actually some guy who I apparently knew, but didn't remember. His name was George and he was a sex addict. When I asked him how he was he kind of rubbed his face and said he was alright, and that he had ten days clean and that the first ten days are the hardest. The weird thing was (as if all of this were not weird) that I kept wanting to touch him. Not in a perverted way, but just put my hand on his arm or pat him on the back as though me touching him could somehow make him feel better. Then I woke up.

So what does this dream mean? Is the cake symbolic of something else or do I just like cake? Why was George a sex addict? Why did I want to constantly touch a sex addict? Why was the hot guy who I was searching for not there, but George, whom I knew but didn't remember, was? Hmmmmm . . . what does all this say about me? I think someone should go look it up in a dream book or something and let me know.

Oh, and since I know some of you will wonder, this morning I did check 411 and there is no such place as Virgie's in the state of Utah.

Overheard in . . .

I frequent a website called Overheard in New York, where people submit things that they (yes, you guessed it!) overheard in New York. This website is the inspiration for my new blog feature, Overheard at BYU, although there has only been one entry so far. Anyway, there were some good ones today and since most of you probably won't want to go read the website because of the language, here are some good entries:

Teenager to Mexican friend: Don't make me call immigration on you.

Eight-year-old to uncle: Please don't move to Connecticut... It's too hard to spell!

Aging queen to record store clerk: Oivia Newton-John's fine and all, but she's like 55 and living in Connecticut, so she lost her edge.

Bleach-blonde: I would totally vote for McCain if Miley Cyrus were his running mate.

Teen cashier: I'll need to see some ID.
Female shopper: Ok, here you go.
Teen cashier: [Looks at woman's driver's license.] Oh wow, so you're an organ donor?
Female shopper: Yes.
Teen cashier: Oh my god! Which organ did you donate?


Little girl: Dad. Dad. Dad.
Dad: Stop pulling on me. What?
Little girl, pointing up at an enormous black man: He looks like a big chocolate bar!
Dad, with a forced grin: She's five.

Guy to hungover girl: Everyday you look more and more like you do heroin.

Boy to mom: Mom -my dradle commands me.
Mom: Ummmm... Okay honey... I'm not sure its supposed to do that.

And my personal favorite:

Suit on cell: Do they make you sterile? Can you have sex? When you're on the pills, can you have sex? You should go to Utah. They have great sex in Utah. The Mormons are famous for it. I think we should have easter dinner at 4.30 at Fekkai's.

Vegas pics

Ashley will be turning three next month, and she is already starting to look older. She doesn't have that toddler look so much anymore.

But then she gets silly and takes Kimmie's hat and looks like a little kid again.

Sariah was playing coy when I first got there. We were in the car and she was dancing and having fun listening to the music, but as soon as I would turn around, she would stop and look at me like she was shy.


After a few minutes though, I caught her dancing and when she realized I caught on, she laughed. Silly girl!


This is Ashley waking up from a nap. She likes to pull her hairbands out while she's going to sleep, so her hair looks a bit "special" when she gets up.

Obsessions

To quote the great Animotion: "I will have you, yes I will have you. I will find a way, and I will have you . . . You are an obsession, you're my obsession." Here are my new obsessions:


Three Musketeers Mint Mini's. They're a perfect blend of chocolate and mintiness, and because it's dark chocolate it's technically a health food, so you can eat a whole bag if you want, and they don't count against your diet!


Benefit Silky-Finish Lipstick in Swoonderful and Bouquet Dive. I am on a mission to make sure everyone I know owns Swoonderful. It looks amazing on everyone, no matter your skin coloring. I just made my sister in-law buy it and she loves it too. My mom is next on my list.


Baby-doll tops. They do a fabulous job of hiding fat rolls. My mom took me clothes shopping the other day because I was looking exceedingly grubby and homeless. Grubby is her word, homeless is mind. Anyhoo, I picked out like five baby-doll tops. I am completely obsessed. (Note: I did not purchase the following top as it is from the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen clothing line, and well, that just seems wrong to me. It's not wrong that they have a clothing line, but purchasing something designed by anyone who was on Full House would just be sad and wrong to me, whether it's cute or not.)


Cottage Cheese, but you can't say cheese, you have to say chez, but you can't say it the way they say it in France, you have to say it like fez with a ch. Got it? Good. It's tasty. I like to eat it with pepper and grape tomatoes. Mmmmmm.


Oil of Olay Regenerist Thermal Skin Polisher. It warms up when you rub it on your face. It's not very scrubby though, so I use apricot scrub when I want to exfoliate my face. You also can't use it on your eyes, so I don't use it to actually wash my face, 'cause then I'd just have to wash my eye make-up off separately. So why do I like it? Because it MAGICALLY WARMS UP BY ITSELF!!!


My new purse from H&M. Sorry the picture sucks-my camera is having issues and there are lines through all my pics. The purse is also totally cuter in person. The color is better in real life, and it has a great shape when it's not all slouched down. This gives you a general idea though. I would have just copied a picture from the H&M website, but they're lame and only have online shopping if you live in Sweden, and even then, once I navigated through the Swedish language (just for you, my dear blog readers) to find the purses, they didn't have mine. I really do hesitate to put this picture on here. Please, please, please keep in mind that this is way cuter in person.

Blog Blahs

In case you haven't noticed, I've kind of had the blog blahs lately. I haven't had anything hugely exciting to write about, and I pretty much just haven't cared about blogging. But anyway, here are some tidbits from the last week:

-I went to Vegas on Wednesday for a couple days. The nieces were as entertaining as ever.

-In the section of the BYU Honor Code that talks about dress standards, I feel very strongly that they should include a little note that people should never, ever take their shoes off during class. Especially if their nasty feet smell like vinegar.

-Did anyone watch the two episodes of Oprah with Tom Cruise? Here are my thoughts: dude is crazy. He seemed to be trying very hard to make up for the "couch incident," but it all appeared a little too staged to me. The best part was the crazy fan. That lady was freakin' hilarious. I felt bad that all she got from Tom was a framed photo of the two of them from the last show. My guess is that she probably already had the photo and had wallpapered her bedroom with it. Whatever. Oh, I also noticed that Tom totally had sweaty pits. It was hard to tell because he was wearing a dark shirt, but for some reason I always notice things like that.

-Every time I spend time with my sister in-law, I get new t.v. shows to watch. I am now a fan of Gossip Girl, NCIS, and possibly American Idol. I normally am a huge fan of the Idol that is American, but I haven't really watched it this season. This is perfect timing though. I think there are only like two episodes left, so I don't have to invest too much time in it. I have to say that I think David Archuleta is a dork and kind of irritating. I realize that as Mormon from Utah, it's the law or something that I'm supposed to like him, but I don't. Every time I hear him speak I shudder with embarrassment. He has got to stop with the nervous giggling and having nothing to say. Where is this crazy stage dad of his? Why has he not trained the kid to not do that?

-Another t.v. tidbit-I'm so glad Jim and Pam kissed on The Office. They really need to start showing more kissey action. I'm guessing that Jim will propose on the season finale, so hopefully we'll get some more suckey face then.

Well, that's all I've got for today. I say these things in the name of . . . whoops, nevermind.

a little fun never hurt anyone

My little brother went to a dance tonight and the girl he went with had just turned 16, so it was her very first date. We both tried to convince my Dad to meet her at the front door with a shotgun and ask her what her intentions were with Mark, and what time she would have him home by. We almost had him convinced, but then the girl showed up. The thought of traumatizing people (but only in a fun way) makes me happy. Does that make me a bad person?

Overheard at BYU

I'm starting a new feature on my blog. I think everyone will appreciate some of the things I overhear when I'm at school. Enjoy.


"The first time my aunt saw a black person, she said 'Hey, look at that guy's tan!'"

I have a coke problem

Hi, my name is Kim, and I'm an addict.

Diet Coke has gotten ahold of me and won't let go. I can't stop drinking the stuff, which is odd considering I don't even like it. I don't like it because it makes me think of vomit. This is because when I was in junior high I didn't want to go to school (shocker, huh!) but I had already faked being sick too much. This led me to come up with the brilliant idea of making myself throw up by drinking ipecac. I didn't want to just chug the ipecac though, so I mixed it with Diet Coke and myself a little vomit cocktail. Needless to say, it did its job, and I haven't been able to drink Diet Coke ever since . . . or at least until a few weeks ago. I went through a whole two-liter all by myself today.

This has got to stop. Anyone who knows me knows I have never been a soda person. I always, always drink water. Not even juice or milk, only water. If it's a special day or I'm feeling a little crazy, I may add a slice of lemon, but that's as far as it ever went. About two years ago I bought several twelve-packs of different sodas, and I drank one or two of each kind, and then carted the packs with me from one apartment to the next, and then back to my parents house, where my Dad finally got rid of them all a month ago. I think I need an intervention or something. Could someone please call A&E. (Notice that I ended that sentence with a period instead of a question mark. This is because it wasn't a question, it was a command.) Thanks.