Traditions Honored

Remember how our dad is like this great champion hero olympian man and he even ran with the Olympic torch? And how afterwards, some other families might like.. I don't know, frame it on their wall or something? But how we just took this great torch, symbolic of centuries of tradition and honor and chucked it up top on our bookcase where it really could only be glorified for the astounding amount of dust it gathered?

Well, I was just rummaging through our oh, so organized craft closet, and I stumbled upon our box of ribbons. What do you think I found tossed in with all the cheap 50 cent rolls of ribbon, tangled up with bits and pieces of fabric and safety pins? You guessed it, some sort of honorary red Olympic ribbon from Beijing, inscribed with the Olympic logo beside some (I'm sure) very meaningful and traditional Chinese characters which probably said something like "Thank you for visiting our country, great American, cherish this gift as a symbol of our love and appreciation for your friendship"


Yes. You are also correct in guessing that I just threw it back in the box, scoffed at the torch tossed behind the other odd trinkets on Mom and Dad's bookcase, and remembered that hey, at least when you guys buried Dad's national championship medal in the sandbox, it was all for the good cause of traditional imagination.

(P.S. don't miss the new post just below this one)

Finals to Finish Line

If you asked me on Monday last week what I would be doing on Friday, I would not have answered correctly. Such was the spontaneity of my week.

(This will be a long blog, if you don't feel interested. Just a warning)

Such a week also included:

Finals! Both in one day because a) I wanted them done and b) I had decided the day before the randomly leave town on the the second day of finals. They still turned out ok. And in the end, CJ, you were right- Summer term at BYU is the best!

Also, the odd roommate I thought for sure would at least have to come to get her random stuff never actually came! The boy that was randomly in my room when I came home one night was her brother, sent to gather all her oxymoronic possessions. You better believe I was excited to go through her stuff to help him pack (becuase contrary to popular belief, i never just went through her stuff to find all that oddball stuff before, Jame) and I was not disappointed. Who has an antique sewing machine, an obssession with Slipper and the Rose, goggles and matches and a mace? Only the same girl that would have no less than 40 crocheted hats stuffed away in one of her drawers. hahaha! Here's a little memoir to the girl... I... lived.. with? Not at all?

She has her mace, I have my purse. To each his own.

Also, my wonderful roommate Bryn and I then stayed up ALL NIGHT cleaning out our apartment and finding all sorts of things from past residents, including this miniature tap dance floor which we figured could also double as a cutting board.

I didn't even sleep before Sarah took me to the airport at which point I barely made it from SLC to GEG, which is the Spokane airport, to randomly run a 185 mile team relay race with one of my friends who said she needed an extra person and our faithful friend Stand-By let me be that person! So random, like I said, this was literally a last minute decision, one which I am so grateful worked out in the end.

Because the Spokane to Sandpoint relay race was AWESOME!!! Here's a few images:

Our faithful van. Oh, so many hours spent in that van. It smelt bad.

WHEAT! Who knew Washington had such beautiful fields and fields of wheat!!!? I don't know if they thought I was weird for loving it so much, but it was so beautiful!

Some of the legs of the race were themed. This leg was the Wig leg. The man with the fro was one of the 50ish year old men on our team.

If you pass someone, they call it roadkill. This is Ricole (my spontaneous friend) getting some roadkill after we'd been going about 12 hours.

Here's all the glory of the exchange. Each team has a slap bracelet and you just slap it onto the next runner between these two cones. Nothing glorious, which makes sense, seeing as every team has to do it 36 times!

So each team has 2 vans and each van runs all their legs and then they hand it off to the next van of runners. the van which isn't running has maybe three hours of rest in which you eat but don't sleep and then at midnight, halfwayish through the race, everyone loads onto a rollercoaster in Idaho and rides through the night!!!

Pure Joy. That's all I can say. What could be better than a bunch of crazy runners riding the same rollercoaster in the middle of the night!? We were so delusional haha

And then you run through the wee hours of the morning! Coolest thing ever; it's pitch black so all you can see is the white line in front of you on the road and it feels like you're running into an abyss. Not to mention if you come upon roadkill (the human kind) everyone's wearing reflective vests so it looks like you're approaching Buzz Lightyear.

But it was beautiful! Not to mention the meteor shower going on the whole time! Bliss!

And then we finished!

It was such a random adventure, I found myself saying the whole time, "What the, I'm in Washington!" haha and then at the end it changed to "I'm in Idaho!"

So booya to my life goal, for not only did I get two more states, but I got them in one race so no longer is the end product going to be a race in all 50 states, but 49 races in 50 states. That's kind of cool.

Thanks for reading, I'm putting together a Ragnar team for next summer becuase this was just joyously wonderful if you would like to join.

P.S. Now "I'm in Colorado" and Pikes Peak has never been so beautiful!

Ode to my Homemade Space Suit!

The past two days there was good, hard core, real live, coming down rain in Provo! Good thing I had my
thehemhadtobeshorterbecausethezipperwasshortwhichalsomeantihadtoaddabuttonattheneckto
keepthehoodonandsothesleeves,whicharetoobigcusididn'thaveapattern,arelongerthanthejacket
andiaccidentallycutouttwoofthesamesidesforthehoodsoit'saconeheadthere'sarandomdartonone
sidebutnottheotherandiwishihadmadepockets

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT RAIN JACKET!!

And also, on a more serious note, I found this further contradiction amongst my mace waving roommate's possessions:


Perhaps it's a good thing she never showed up this summer. Or maybe not, but I can't decide if I should call Quilt Making Society for Aspiring Grandmas, the Medieval Club, the nearest Musical Producing Thespians, or the leading Pyrotechnics Assosciation to find out if she's ok.