The Year I Sucked at Halloween

Ahhh Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays, yet this year I have failed it miserably. I don’t really have a costume (seriously, my fleece viking hat paired with a cute outfit SO does not count) and we aren’t doing anything tonight. I DO have candy for the one or two kids who live in our new neighborhood but that’s about as Halloween as we get this year. I’m ashamed.

To make it up to myself and you guys, I’m posting a picture from when Matt and I were dating. We flew to Utah for the Jolley Annual Halloween Party and Matt was SUCH a good sport about his bear costume. He looked awesome. And I? Well I was Goldilocks in a short skirt and to be honest, I was a wee bit uncomfortable. But we looked good, no? Grrrr.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween and I’ll post lots more pictures in the coming days! I have so much to catch up on . . . you have no idea.

I know a really nice person who’s birthday is TODAY-O!

Today (or tomorrow, depending on whether you’re reading this late Sunday night or on Monday) is my best friend Julia’s (aka Jewels) birthday and, as is my custom, this is my “Ode to Jewels.” Oh, and for the record, I probably have more pictures of Jewels than anyone else in the world. So prepare yourself. (And Julia, please still be my friend after I post some of these.)

I seriously don’t even know where to begin. I’ve known Julia for fifteen years, which means I’ve known her longer than I’ve not known her, and she’s been my best friend for twelve, going on thirteen of those years. She’s pretty much been there for every important occasion in my life and if she wasn’t actually there, you bet your butt I was on the phone with her that night telling her about it.

We met in Junior High Orchestra and pretty much were just acquaintances until eighth grade, when we were both in Advanced Drama together. At that point we were . . . better acquaintances but not really friends. It wasn’t until we ended up in Freshman Drama together and incidentally with the same assigned lunch period that we became close. Freshman and the beginning of Sophomore year weren’t easy for me. I was still figuring out who I was and overcoming some of my weirdness. We went in and out of each other’s good graces for that first year and a half or so, and then Sophomore year, we reconnected over a blast from the past, and we’ve pretty much been inseparable since.

Jewels is probably the most fiercely loyal person I know. She has stood up for me on more occasions than I can even remember. If a guy was mean to me, she was the first person in his face telling him to back off. If we had been in a tiff (trust me, there were plenty! We’re girls, right?) she was the first one to apologize and make it better. My family life was a little crazy and she made sure I knew that there was always a place for me to go if I needed peace, a hug or a piece of her kick-ace apple pie. She has told me when I’m being stupid and given me much needed wake-up calls to let me know when I need to make a change. She was also always there for a kickin‘ good time.

Julia is HILARIOUS. I have numerous memories of having to pull over the car I was driving because she had me laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe or see anymore. She has a myriad of funny faces, expressions and sayings, and if I’m with her for more than an hour, I’ve picked up on all of them and am imitating her like a freaking mockingbird. I aspire to be as witty and clever as Jewels is. She’s always got the best snide remark or comeback for any situation, and they’re always so funny you end up laughing so hard your sides hurt.

She can pretty much talk me into doing ANYTHING. If I resist at first she comes up with some awesome/hilarious reason and then says “pleeeeaaaasseee?” in a voice I can’t resist and I give in every time. And I’m always glad I did. There is never a dull or boring moment with Jewels around. Even while waiting for her to get ready, she entertains you with her rendition of a Golden Era song, and before long you’re singing along with her and she’s making up amazing harmonies. Riding in a car with her is probably the most fun you’ll ever have in a vehicle.

She is the party planner to end all party planners. Every year she takes on the daunting task of planning our Annual Ladies Soiree and EVERY YEAR she outdoes herself. She throws a mean Christmas AND Halloween party every year (Halloween is her specialty) and she is one of the most creative, original people I’ve ever met. And she can cook too! Did I mention she makes a mean apple pie? Well she does. Martha Stewart, watch out. Julia’s coming along to kick your butt.

Seriously, I don’t think there’s anything she can’t do!

We have been through so much together. She was there for all of my many, many heartbreaks, and I shared hers. We cried together over ice cream, sappy movies and sometimes even bad Brazilian Rodizio. We have danced until our legs felt like they were going to fall off. We have sang until our voices were hoarse. We have laughed until we had tears streaming down our faces and had no idea what had started us laughing in the first place.

I think of Julia and I can’t help but smile. She has brought so much joy into my life. I have loved being with her as we both grew up and became the women we are today. She is an amazing mother to two beautiful little boys. She has taught me so much about what being a good wife really is. Most of all, she has shown me how to be a true friend.

So today I wish Jewels the happiest of birthdays and you should all go and do the same.

By the way Jewels, I’m asking you on a date for September 10^th, 2008. How does Rocky Point sound?!

Flashback Friday: Man of the Hour

This picture was taken on his 28th birthday, four years ago today, about a month before we met for the first time. In’t he cute in a huge hat? I mean, he’s cute all the time, but the hat really works for him, no?!

Matt is, without a doubt, the most selfless, amazing individual I have ever met in my entire life. He always makes sure that I know that with him, I always come first and I am so grateful for him and can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have married him. I only hope I can prove to him that he comes first with me too!

This year, for the man who won’t even ask for birthday presents, I think I’ve planned something he’ll TOTALLY love. I promise to post pictures because it’s sort of a weekend extravaganza (or Katestravaganza as he calls them) and I think it’s going to be a total blast! Since I’m sure he wont’ check the blog tomorrow, here’s a hint. I’m so excited you’d think it was MY birthday! hahaha.

So that’s my shout out to my hilarious, amazing husband who is currently doing a little dance behind me (and he’s really goofy looking when he dances!). I hope this year is the BEST.YEAR.EVER. I love him more than I could ever express with words.

Flashback Friday

Well, I’m about to board a plane to DC, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to post what is quite possibly my favorite picture of Matt and I to date for my Flashback Friday. My sister took this picture of us at Laguna Beach about a year and a half ago on a gorgeous, slightly rainy/misty day.

What I love most it Matt’s face peeking out from under his hat. Also, anyone who knows Matt knows he pretty much only wears blue plaid button up shirts. This one is his favorite. He calls it the “Go-to” and gets very upset when he can’t find it! His goal is to have a picture taken in the “Go-to” every place we go. Haha. He’s so cute I just want to squeeze him. I’ve been traveling a ton lately and I’ve been missing him terribly. Now I’m off again for ten days and I want to smuggle him into my luggage. But alas, I cannot. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?!?

OH! I must tell you that I’m very excited for my first Soap Opera Sunday. I’m starting on a long saga of drama, betrayal and love! So you MUST come check on Sunday. It’s going to be so fun!

Oldest, wonderfulest

Yes folks, it’s another dear friend’s birthday! Happy 27th Birthday Sheila!!

I don’t remember meeting Sheila. Our mother’s lived two doors down from each other growing up, joined the LDS church together, and remain the best of friends to this day. Sheila and I were born four months apart and probably met when I was just a couple of months old. We have never not been friends. We have always been in each other’s lives.

We were vacation friends for the first 15 years or so . . . then we started taking longer visits to each other’s homes. We started sharing the same friends, keeping in touch better, and slowly but surely, we became practically joined at the hip.

Our freshman year in college we took all the same GE classes, and then continued to do so for the rest of our time there. We were there for some of each other’s funniest college moments. My favorite examples include:

The inability to read the word debris (it’s derbis, I swear!)

Sheila’s near death experience with a rock on a field trip

A teacher’s with upside down slides who didn’t know it and was explaining the “blue layer” as a strange rock formation from days gone by when, in fact, it was the sky

And my personal favorite, my being hit on the head with a remote control

. . . and those are just a few.

Sophomore year we moved in to the same apartment, and we lived together until the summer Sheila met and married her wonderful husband.

Together, throughout our 26ish years of life, we have laughed harder than I ever thought possible. I cant’ even count the number of times I remember us lying in bed laughing so hard we thought we might pee ourselves.

Chicky Chicky and Lady Buggie Pants!!

We have shared heartbreak, joy, true love, marriage, arrival of children (hers not mine ) and we continue to be the best of friends. She is an amazing example of calm, serene spirituality blended perfectly with joy and laughter. She is an amazing mother and wife, and I look up to her so much. She is my oldest, wonderfulest friend.

I am devastated because I can’t find the box that contains the best of our pictures together, but next year I’ll get her good For now, I think these ones will suffice. Specifically this one, for which she might shed my blood this week during the Girl’s Trip. Hahaha.

Love your guts Bo-Beila! I’m so excited to get to be with you on your birthday this year!! We’ll party like rock stars!

Flashback . . . what day is it again?

OK so I suck at keeping up with all the cool stuff I promised to provide my readers. I’m really sorry. And I am also sorry that this post is going to be kind of lame. I would post something cool but today has been a bit of a debacle and tomorrow promises even less joy, so I guess I’m sort of just being lazy.

So, here is my flashback picture. This was taken last November in the Orange County, California area. It was the last time all of my siblings and I were all together.

Left to right: Meagan, Sean, Patrick and Me

Are we adopted? Is what you’re asking right now, right? I mean, we don’t look much alike. As teenagers, we were all standing next to each other in the bathroom once and Sean, the tall, dark and handsome one, said “Holy crap we look nothing alike. There’s got to be an explanation!” So, we came up with one.

I am the original, biological child, despite having parents who both have dark hair. I look enough like my Dad to get away with being related and my hands and feet are exact replica’s of my mother’s. I am also what they might refer to as the “Golden Child” being that the most trouble I really ever got into was sneaking out of the house to go over to someone else’s house to watch a movie. Seriously.

Sean (the dark one) decided he must be the son of the Mexican landscaper, as in the summer he gets so tan that he is often mistaken for someone of Hispanic origin. Also, because do you see that face? It’s like a rico suave latin lover!

Meagan, our tiny, perfect sprite, is the test tube baby, biologically engineered to receive all the ideal features of our family tree. (See how tiny and skinny and gorgeous she is? Hate her! Ok not really.)

Finally, Patrick, the giant blonde oaf, is like the Danny DeVito character in Twins, and somehow sort of ended up with all the leftover, genetically mutated “garbage.” (He thinks this is a hilarious version of how he came to be, for the record. He won’t be offended.)

So there you have it . . . a flashback of sorts. I wish there were a better story behind it or something cool to show, but there are my bruddas and my sist-o. Gotta love ‘em. NEXT time, when I can get my scanner working, I am going to show you the BEST picture of my parents EVER. Seriously. Circa 1978. SO AWESOME.

Haaaapppyy BIRRRRTHHDAYYY dear BRILLIG!

Today is the birfday o’the Brillig, and you’re going to get to see some hilarious (and slightly embarrassing) pictures of the two of us. And she might kill me.But I do not care.

I met Brill under unusual, awkward circumstances. She was two years above me in school and we were both in Drama and Choir, and somehow, our groups of friends ended up hating each other during my freshman year. It was weird and I cannot ’splain it now, but we didn’t like each other.

The next year, my friends and I were in a rough patch, and I was having a hard time with them. Brillig and I had been cast as “leads” (I only say it in quotes because she was the lead and I was . . . like a half lead) in the school musical. And miraculously, we became insta-friends.

As cheesy as this is going to sound, when I became friends with Brillig, I felt as though I had found the other half of my soul. Brillig was the most amazing person I’d ever met. She was/is hilarious, brilliant, interesting, full of joy and fun . . . we were fascinated by SO many of the same things and had SO many of the same mannerisms. We shared a love for quesadillas, pasta and saltine crackers that is hard to describe. We even found out that we slept in the same position. We sang duets (I’m a soprano and she has a GORGEOUS alto voice) and would spend hours at her parent’s piano just plunking away and singing at the top of our lungs.She introduced me to new, cuter boys, we stayed up all night sharing our hopes and dreams for the future and listening to her extensive record collection . . . we had SO MUCH FUN. We even make the same face in most of our pictures. See?

I don’t know if Brillig would say the same thing about me, but she brought true joy into my life and was my first real, no strings attached friend. (For the record, I have many of those true, amazing friends now, but I had an . . . awkward adolescence, so it took me a while to find my stride and discover myself and figure out how to be a friend. I think Brillig is the first friend where I did something right.)

We had more adventures than I could even begin to describe. I remember one involving a flat tire in my Mom’s van . . . another involving and officer thinking we were drunk drivers . . . and somehow (thanks much in part to our/her friend Matt) I have much evidence of rubber gloves . . .

We were away from each other for most holidays and summers because we both spent a great deal of time traveling. We were devastated to have to be apart so she ALWAYS made me fabulous 80’s mix tapes to keep me company during the long. lonely days we were forced to spend apart. We’d write each other lengthy letters and I still have BOXES of notes and letters from school and from our times apart and reading them just cracks me up. I love that I still have all of them and can reference them at will.

I guess all those times apart were preparing me to someday be far, far away from her, with no permanent reunion yet in sight. Yet, thanks to miracles of technology, I get to “talk” to her every day. (Holy goodness I am so grateful for IM!!)

Now, I want y’all to go over and with Miss Brillig a happy,happy, happy birthday. And if you figure out how, do it true Kate and Brillig style, and give her the birthday greeting Opera style.

And now my required personal note . . .

Dearest friend . . . I don’t think you will ever know how much I love you and how grateful I am that you are in my life. I will forever treasure our friendship and since I can’t be there with you, I thought this was the best way to wish you the HAPPIEST of birthdays. I just wish I could be there to share it with you. Now I want you to go out and celebrate in style for me!! LOVE YOU!!

Flashback to before I remember . . .

This is my Mom and I when I was (obviously) less than a year old. If my assumptions are correct, she was already pregnant with my little brother Sean. Isn’t she beautiful? And isn’t it funny how she and I look NOTHING alike?

I seriously have the most amazing mother ever, and I’m grateful for her every day.

The Day of the Independence and the Kissing

I love the 4th of July. I grew up in a town that brags that it has “America’s Largest Freedom Festival” and, whether or not that’s true . . . we celebrate in style. There’s a huge parade, tons of activities, gala banquets celebrating some of our nation’s finest heroes . . . and MOST awesomly . . . we have . . . STADIUM OF FIRE! I wish I had a sound clip of the Osmond’s singing the theme song. It’s hilarious. They always have some PC singing act, (read: Brooks & Dunn, The Beach Boys, Huey Lewis and the News (they year they were there people STORMED THE FIELD from the stands. No lie. I was one of them.), Martina McBride . . . ) a cool presentation such as bringing a Marine home to his family or something similar . . . then folks, we get STADIUM OF FIRE. An awesome, choreographed fireworks show that leaves half of the huge stadium full of people covered in firework bits. I get sad just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, the 4th of July ALSO reminds me of something I almost want to forget. That 4th of July thirteen years ago . . . the date of my first kiss.

I was 13 years old and I had my first boyfriend . . . my best friend’s older brother and next door neighbor, Matt (the first Matt. There were many to follow.). I was so excited to finally have myself a boyfriend as all of my friends had already had them and I was feeling left out. We had been “going out” for three days . . . which had entailed, well, holding hands.

So on that fateful 4th of July, Matt and I were downstairs in his basement listening to Celine Dion . . . The Power of Love, cuddling and holding hands. Then it happened. I got my first kiss to the cheesiest song ever, in the middle of the day, downstairs in my neighbor’s basement on their old couch. And it wasn’t good. It was sloppy and . . . weird . . . and . . . well, I guess a first kiss between a 13 and 14 year old who had no idea what they were doing. Yuck.

So now, every 4th of July, I can’t help but remember . . . and as grateful as I was not to start high school a kissing virgin . . . I sort of wish I had held out a day or something, so that the 4th of July wouldn’t always be joined with the memory of a soggy, spitty kiss.

But what do you do, right? Oh that’s right. You blog about it.

Aloha Flashback

December, 2004 . . . an all expense paid trip to Maui to stay in the world famous, five star Grand Wailea Resort and Spa with my company. They let me take my sweetheart. It was an amazing trip and we can’t wait to go back someday.