Happy Birthday Scotty!

Happy Birthday To You,

Happy Birthday To You,

Happy Birthday Dear Scotty,

Happy Birthday To You!

I think it's pretty obvious who his favorite sibling is...
I love this picture of us. We were saying good-bye the day he moved to Rexburg. . . He took it a little better than I did.

Happy Birthday Squat Dog!
I Love You!

Monday and Tuesday

The holiday was good for me, and so was today. Nothing really exciting, just good. Yesterday morning I did a little more spring cleaning, then I went to Bountiful to pick up Scott and he and I went to my Auntie and Uncle John's and had a BBQ with Dave, Neally and Uncle Randy. It was so much fun. We talked and laughed and ate good food for hours. After that I decided to stop by my Grandma and Grandpa's in Centerville to say hi and ended up staying there for 4 hours. Grandma and I had a good religious discussion. Then Grandpa joined us and we played games for a while. I have the cutest grandparents ever. I love them so much.

This morning I had a really productive meeting with my boss and then the rest of the work day went really well. Tonight Paul took me to dinner and it was great. I was out of town and then he was out of town so we had a lot to catch up on. After dinner we went to our favorite yogurt place, Spoon Me. It's the best, I hope we all get to "spoon" in heaven. On the way to Spoon Me we decided to meet my brother Scott at the airport to pick up my parents and my Aunt Barbara, so we grabbed some yogurt and headed to the airport. They were getting home from a couple weeks in Europe. It was good to see them, they were surprised that we were all 3 there. Then we all went to my Grandparents house and talked about their travels for a while. They had a great time and I'm so happy they got to go on this trip.

So...this was probably really boring to read, but my blog is turning into a journal for me and I try to post kinda like its for me and no one else is reading it. I'm glad people read it, but now and then it'll be boring to everyone but me.

Anyway, after Paul dropped me off tonight I thought about yesterday and today and I was really grateful for family and for good friends and for opportunities to just be together. I'm glad things don't always have to be big and extravagant, and that God puts people and situations in our lives when we really need them.

I know I didn't go into much (or any) detail about any of the conversations I had the past couple days, but I guess the reason I feel happy is because after everything was done I left feeling closer to everyone I've mentioned in this post. And that's good.

Spring Cleaning

My apartment is usually pretty clean. I have people over here quite a bit and I don't really worry about messes. But the people who come over here don't live here so they don't know about my secret hiding places, nor do they notice the deep cleaning that could be done. I'm a really good surface cleaner, but I'm not a fan of deep cleaning. But for some reason this weekend I decided to "spring clean" for probably the first time in my life. I love living by myself, but the downside is that I can't blame messes on roommates. I went and bought a new little shelf for my dining room to de-clutter my kitchen a bit. And I also got a couple little hanging storage things for a couple of my closets. Buying stuff for my house motivates me to clean.

Braden wanted to do something last night, so he came over and took me to dinner at this new little Thai place called Sawnedee, or Sawlawee or something like that. It was really good. Braden and I have so much fun together, it's ridiculous. We never hang out without crying from laughing so much. But we decided that sometime we wanna bring people with us when we hang out but not allow them to talk, they just have to observe us. We don't think anyone gets us, so this would be a test. I love laughing, and Braden definitely gets the most of it out of me these days.

Anyway, after dinner I tricked him into coming over to put my shelf together. He's an awesome handy man. (I use him a lot.) He did a great job and he did it like a billion times faster than I could have.

I just sat and watched...

And took pictures...

And I got kinda bored so I read a recipe book to him...he loved that.

After he finished I made us some awesome smoothies in my magic bullet and then we watched some Office. The cleaning is coming right along. Maybe I'll have that house warming party I mentioned a few months ago. I need to put pictures on here for my out of state and out of country friends who have asked for pictures of my place...sorry guys, I'll do that when it's super clean. Give me a couple days.

Pearl Harbor

This was really last minute, but Saturday afternoon we decided to go to Pearl Harbor. That was really the only thing Taylor wanted to do, but it's on Oahu and we were on Kauai so we kinda decided not to. But then I decided I'd feel bad if Taylor didn't see it. So I got online and booked flights to Honolulu, then hurried and booked flights from Honolulu to SLC for the next night. We hurried and packed and headed for the airport. On the way to the airport I booked a rental car in Honolulu. We jumped on a plane and flew to Honolulu. Got to Honolulu, and I called and booked a hotel in Waikiki. We picked up our car and headed to Waikiki. Got to the resort, planned out visit to Pearl Harbor for Sunday morning, and we were set. It was a crazy couple hours and it made me appreciate my blackberry. I usually do my trip planning and booking pretty last minute, but this little side trip was very last minute. I got all my email confirmations and everything on my phone and we somehow pulled it off.

This is the view from our room at the Waikiki Beach Resort. I was beautiful, but SO BUSY. I'd recommend Kauai if you want a nice relaxing vacation. Way too many people on Oahu.

I was trying to decide how to explain how I felt at Pearl Harbor. It's too hard to explain I guess. It's hard for me to go see things like this, but I also enjoy it. It's no secret to those who know me well that I'm not a fan of Bush. Mainly because of my strong opinions about war, as well as some of my own conspiracy theories about 9/11. I might be right and I might be wrong, but there's been a time or 2 in the past few years where I didn't freely say "I'm proud to be an American." I guess I still don't freely say this. But I appreciate our US Military. Seeing war memorials and reading names on a wall make these events very real to me. Hearing stories and reading letters of love and loss and heartache and hope, breaks my heart and humbles me. I don't know how to wrap this post up, so...the end.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

I don't have any...or very many pictures of my mom. But here are a couple.

This is my mom helping me at a big Halloween party I was in charge of for a group of Ukrainian orphans.

I've been trying to think of somehow to use this AWESOME picture. Mom's birthday works, I guess. Love. It.

Just a couple weeks ago at Taylor's graduation.

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!
I hope you're having an awesome time in Europe.

Na Pali coast cruise...and stuff.

We went on a sunset cruise along the Na Pali coast a couple nights ago. It was beautiful. I did the same cruise last time I was here, but I think it's a must for all Kaua'i visitors. It's totally relaxing and beautiful. It lasts about 5 hours and its alot of fun and food and drinks. Leaded or Unleaded...Mai tais, Diet Pepsi, Special Pepsi...which tastes shockingly similar to Mai tais. Anything you want. And the boat crews are really entertaining. We saw a mommy and a baby whale. Unfortunately no good pictures of it, but it was cool because whale watching is from Dec. to April, so it was kinda surprising to see them. We saw cute dolphins and sea turtles too.

Maybe I'll put some links on here someday of fun things to do and see in Kaua'i, but until I have enough ambition to do that...if you go, just call me first.

Some other Hawaii stuff...

I love love love the ocean and the sun. I just got back from sitting on the beach and watching the waves crash in. I can do it for hours. It's natural therapy for me. I need to retire by the ocean.

I also love shopping...almost more than the beach. But I'm becoming a smarter shopper. I (usually try to) think about things before I buy, because I already have everything I need. However, I will be spending $22.00 on a candle holder before I leave Hawaii. I don't need it and my brothers will tell you that my apartment looks like I'm always ready for a seance, but it's so cool! I'm thinking about it over night so it's not an impulse purchase...but I'm buying it.

Rumor has it that Hawaii is the most romantic place on earth. I've decided that some day soon I'm coming back with someone other than a co-worker, brother or cousin. Then I'll be able to tell you if that's true.


That's the Wiamea canyon behind me. It was windy that day.


My office in Hawaii.

dear, bad guys.

I was reading a magazine a couple days ago about the awesome internet. About blogs and facebook and other ways to stay connected with friends and family, etc. The writer of this article had some good things to say about these convenient tools, but also a few warnings. Things like, don't list your address on your profile. Don't put your personal phone number in a comment or wall writing to someone. Stuff like that. I don't do any of those. But one thing that never occurred to me was maybe not posting stuff like, "I'm in Hawaii for 2 weeks!" or "Mom and Dad, have fun in Europe for the next 3 weeks!" To the bad guys that's saying, "My apartment is full of cool stuff and no people for 2 weeks!" Or, "My Mom and Dad are in Europe, have at it!" Fortunately I have a house/plant/fish sitter, and he will take you down! And my mom and dad have sons at the house, so it's not really empty. But I guess it's good to think about. I remember a few years ago hearing about these robbers who got all of their 'business' by reading the obituaries. They would hit homes when they knew an entire family was at the funeral of their grandmother or something. Sad.

So, to all of the bad guys, you know who you are. Please leave me alone.

...maybe i really should be more careful...

hawaii church

Well, it's no secret to most of you that read my blog that I'm on a "spiritual journey." I've been meeting with Mormon leaders, Evangelical leaders, I've been reading mormon, evangelical, and atheist books, talking with people from all different back grounds, mormon, evangelical, evangelical turned mormon, mormon turned evangelical, atheist, agnostic, agnostics that say they are atheists (that's my opinion), hindus, buddists, and a catholic. It's been an emotional journey and I think it's still far from over. Sometimes I'm happier than I've ever been and sometimes I want to give up. By "give up" I mean, become agnostic. Sorry if I offend any agnostic readers. But let's be honest, religiously it's the safest place to be. For those of you that are unfamiliar with what an agnostic believes, umm, in a nutshell they basically are happy with just not being sure about anything. Kind of a "I don't know, and you don't either" attitude. And after spending a little time on the religion roller coaster it's kind of inviting at times. But alas, I'm way too determined and stubborn for that to last.

I went to Mormon church today in Hawaii. This was the first time in probably 8 or 9 months that I went to all 3 hours of church. And it's been several months since I was in an LDS church. I'd seen at least 5 other churches on the island that I'd like to visit. And if I was here alone I probably would, but I'm with my brother Taylor. He's very active in the LDS church and I could tell that even me mentioning another church made him uncomfortable. So, I went with him.

It wasn't bad. It's mothers day so all the moms got a fresh flower lei at the start of sacrament meeting. Well, I guess moms and women old enough to me moms. Because I'm not a mom but I still got lei'd! (borderline offensive, i know)

Sacrament meeting was just kind of, meh. Alot of fun little 'mom' talks. Sunday school, not a big fan of the teacher, so mostly funny comments only heard in my head, and Relief Society was really good. Shocking because it's always been my least favorite. The lesson was about Joseph Smith and the priesthood and the power of authority in the church. I really struggle with, everything Joseph Smith...I guess that's the best way to put it. And this lesson didn't change that, but I've also been going back and forth on the authority issue in other christian churches...there really is none. Does 'Christ's Church' need it? A wise mormon I meet with says, "in the evangelical world it's 'freedom', but in the mormon world it would be considered 'chaos'." Hmm... The women who taught the lesson was adorable. I rarely like listening to women speak but she was good. And the stake patriarch taught for half of the time as well. They both had very deep and solid testimonies of Joseph Smith and the power of the priesthood. I like listening to people who know what they believe, are not afraid to share it, and have a relationship with the Savior. There were a couple things said that I don't agree with, and a couple things made me uncomfortable, but it was an ok day.

This post was really just going to be about all the pretty flowers.

But oh well, you got the church recap too.


And --HAPPY BIRTHDAY NeNe!!

My future sis-in-law, Neally. What a babe.

for my mommy

I love you Mom. Hope you have a happy day.
And have a safe trip to Europe!
See you in a few weeks.

Love, Ange

here comes the pretend bride.

I was never one, even as a little girl, to plan my "dream wedding." I never put a white pillow case on my head, or practiced throwing a bouquet made out of tissue paper, and I never bought BRIDE magazine just to get dress ideas. And as a bride-to-be 5 years ago, I had fun planning my wedding, but it was never crazy over the top explosively exciting for me. Wrong guy, might have been the reason, I dunno.

However, I've been in Hawaii for 3 days now, and I've had about a bajillion wedding ideas! (Three...close to a bajillion.) On day one I had to do a walk through of some condos with my boss and a male co-worker. This place is amazing! It's almost done being built and it would blow your mind. We were all standing on a balcony of one of the units that overlooks the amazing ocean and my boss was explaining the landscape. He was pointing at the pool explaining the look it will have, he was saying where the bar would be situated by the pool, (picture that blurry wavy thing the tv screen does when an actor is starting to day dream)...that grassy area there will be for dancing, there will also be an indoor ballroom below us, there will be a gazebo right over there, surrounded by exotic flowers and a speaker system, the outdoor sound system will be set up right there, and there will be a pathway leading from these stairs to that gathering area...Glen, my co-worker was of course seeing dollar signs. I, on the other hand was seeing myself as the most beautiful bride ever, at my own little intimate destination wedding with just my and my pretend husbands family and maybe a couple really close friends. When my boss finally stopped explaining and looked at Glen and I for a response. I said, "I'm getting married here!" They both just looked at me, rolled their eyes, and walked back into the condo. I quickly followed them in and said, "I'm serious!"

Anyway, then today I was laying at the beach and two men walked over to me. One had a laptop and one had a huge camera. Maybe they thought I was a monk seal. (That won't be funny if you didn't read the post below this.) Anyway, they asked the name of the beach, I told them, they asked if I knew where blah blah beach was, I told them. They said, great thank you, we have to shoot a wedding here tonight and we wanted to make sure we were in the right area. Wedding? Wedding? You have my attention. Anyway, we chatted a bit. They are father and son and they do weddings all over Hawaii on all the islands. They broadcast the weddings live on the internet if the bride and groom want them to so all of you back in Utah can watch my little wedding here in Hawaii! Check 'em out here. When they left, the dad, Larry, gave me his card and said, "nothing happens by coincidence." Ok. Bye Larry. Anyway, they were really cool.

Then later today, I had to drive to the other end of the island and I was in this earthy, wood, flower, Hawaiian stuff, store. They had the coolest flower arrangements. Totally unique, and I couldn't even try to think of how to explain them. Anyway, I of course thought to myself, I should have those at my wedding. And I think I will.

So there you have it. I'm 28 years old. (way beyond the age of being excited about wedding planning in my opinion) No where near even dating a guy, let alone being close to an engagement. And, I'm planning my wedding. I think I'll start taking husband applications when I get home in a couple weeks.

monks squared.

We went and saw a Hindu temple yesterday. I like Hindu Monks. Maybe I was so in to it because all kinds of religious beliefs get my attention these days. It was really cool. Hindus believe in karma, reincarnation, they believe all life is sacred and is to be loved and revered, so they practice ahimsa -noninjury in thought, word and deed. This one is cool, they believe that no religion teaches the only way to salvation above all others, but that all genuine paths are facets of God's Light, deserving tolerance and understanding. I think I believe that too. With emphasis on Genuine. This cute monk below, and in the collage above gave some good advice.

He said, "Live your life affectionately detached. Like water on a lotus leaf." Think about that. He happened to be standing by a pond with lotus leaves floating in it and he splashed some water on one. Kind of cool. I need to live more like that I decided. I think I'm a pretty passionate person, which is good I guess, but I get too attached to people and situations. I struggle with the fact that people and the world are constantly changing and that no matter how good things, or people, or relationships are, they're going to change. Amazing friendships will come and go. That makes me sad, but it's happened to me, so I know it's true. I'm kinda sad right now about some people in my life so maybe that's why this monks words affected me so much. Anyway...onto the next monk.

Look how cute this Monk Seal is. Endangered species are always cute.

Sometimes monk seals come onto the beach to take a nap. A beach worker (I don't know what they are called) puts yellow tape around the area to give a safe distance between the seal and the people. It might be fun to be a monk seal. And when I lay on the beach someone could block me off with yellow tape so I could sleep in peace, and people would gather and take pictures, and I'd be endangered. Maybe I could become Hindu and wish for that in my next life.

Hawaii.

We made it to Hawaii. For those of you who don’t know, “we” is my brother Taylor and I. I had to come to Hawaii for work and there are a few projects to do out here so Taylor came with me to earn a few bucks.

This post isn’t about Hawaii cuz we just got here a few hours ago. It’s about our travels from The SLC to Kaua’i.

First, do I look like a terrorist? I guess its ok if I do, but I get “randomly selected” for bag searches at security just about every time I travel. I don’t mind, but it takes longer and I wonder why it always happens to me. First, you have to take off jackets, shoes, belts, etc. Then you stand in a box for a few seconds and suddenly have these intense blasts of air shot at you. The air checks for bomb making chemicals or something. Then, you go through the medal detectors and sometimes get felt up. Then, you stand in a glass box for a minute while all the non-terrorist looking people walk by and look at you. (I’d hate to be a gold fish.) Then they take you and all your bags to do a thorough search. This consists of taking a magic wand and rubbing it all over my lap top, camera, cell phone and ipod. Then stirring everything in my purse with the same magic wand, taking a good look at my 2 dollar flip flops and then sending me on my way. Missing, I might add, that I have liquids, (lotion and lip gloss) NOT in a plastic bag. Oh well.

Second, I have no sense of direction when I have someone with me. Whether I’m at an office building, driving, or at the airport. When I’m alone I can get anywhere and find anything with no problems. But if I’m with someone they completely enable me. I sometimes can’t find my own apartment if someone is in the car with me. And when I’m walking to a destination I do it with complete confidence until finally the other person notices how far off we are and asks if I have any idea where I’m going. It’s weird. It happened today more than once. Finally Taylor said something like, “Aren’t you a seasoned traveler?? Why do you keep walking to the wrong gates?” I can make an international connection at JFK in less than an hour if I’m alone, but give me two and a half hours in phoenix with a domestic connection and someone with me, and I feel like the whole world is upside down.

Third, we flew here on Taylor’s birthday. (see the post below) And I tried to get him to be happy that he got a 28 hour birthday cuz we gained four hours. He didn’t think it was cool, he just said, “4 more hours to realize how old I am.” Getting old isn’t that bad. I’m doing way good at it.

Ok, I’ll try and keep you up to date with pictures and events over the next couple weeks. But that’s all for now. Oh, one more thing. This morning when my mom was driving us to the airport she told us that she and my dad are doing a will. They’re going to Europe in a week and I think they’re worried. Anyway, she asked if there was anything we wanted, I said the piano, and her ring. Then I realized if their plane goes down the ring will too. Taylor was trying to think of things he wanted and he said, “It’s hard to think of things I want without getting excited about you guys going down.” Mean! (he was joking) Then he suggested that maybe they should give us the stuff now so we’ll be sad when they die. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll be fine. But just a suggestion when you read this mom, maybe you should leave the ring home. That, the piano, and of course my share of the millions you’ve been keeping a secret, and I think I’ll be good.

Ok, I lied, (I typed the first part earlier) here's a bit about Hawaii. We just walked down to the beach after sunset and got some cool pictures. Pretend like I look cuter than I do. I'm goin' on almost 40 hours of no sleep and I'd just gotten out of the shower. It was so pretty. And I bought Tay cupcakes and ice cream and we had a mini birthday party.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Happy 26th Birthday Bro!! Love ya!
P.S. We're going to Hawaii today!!!

Con "GRAD" ulations!

I tried to think of something cool to say like, "Tis the Season" or "It's that time of year again" but those sound lame. So, "College Graduations" it is.




Last night my best friend Kristin graduated from The University of Utah. It was so hot and long, but totally worth it cuz we were supporting Kristin, and I got to hang out with Kellan and Michael and my 3 year old boyfriend, Kobe. (all in the pictures below) Me and the boys about killed a bunch of grandparents sitting in front of us because we screamed so loud when Kristin's name was read, but they laughed at us once their hearts started beating again. We took Kristin to dinner at Thaifoon after graduation. We had so much fun, my face hurt from laughing so much.


...and then...



Today the family went up to Logan for my brother Taylor's graduation for Utah State University. It was so fun to have the whole family there together. Paul came too, but he just gets lumped in as part of the family these days. It was a really good day. We had lunch with Taylor's department, laughed alot, then went to the graduation, laughed, took advantage of some photo ops, laughed more, stopped for dinner on the way home, laughed some more, and called it a day. All in all it was about a 10 hour day, but the graduation only lasted one hour. That's my kind of graduation!

Congrats Kristin and Taylor. Love you both so much.

For Kathy...Cruise Cheesiness.

These are the "magic poses" from our cruise that Kathy mentioned here.

Cute little Johann from South Africa asked me while I was sitting at the guitar bar if he could take some pictures of me so he could 'check his lighting' ...sure Johann. If you didn't have an adorable accent I woulda said no.

I finally felt dumb enough after 3 shots that I made Cammie and Kathy jump in with me.

Yeah, cuz these pictures are a lot less dumb.

Johann promised these were "test" pictures, and that they'd be deleted from the camera...

Instead, he printed 8x10s and displayed them proudly in the cruise ship photo gallery.

When I caught wind of this sad news I went to the gallery and told him to get rid of them...instead of destroying them he just gave em all to me. This is $175 worth of top quality cruise ship photography. Enjoy!

We actually thought this one was kinda cute, it was the next day. There were photographers and cheesy backdrops all over the boat, and somehow Johann could always find me!