my family was in town! yippity pip. also a baby that doesn't like like a turtle. gasp.

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i've been playing a real life gave of ping pong with my family. they visit me, i visit them, they visit me (to see the baby of course!), i visit them. and so on and so forth. but i ain't mad. family time is my favorite time, especially when it involves my mom's homemade enchiladas + cake boss blaring in the background.

 (side note: i don't actually like cake boss. paige + chad are obsessed and constantly have it playing at my house. it's their tlc drug of choice. have you noticed how much a exaggerator buddy is? like, buddy! we watched the footage! no one cried happy tears over your cake! but it kind of sucks you in. are they going to drop the cake?! is that really how you say fondant?! what is he going to do next?!)

oh, and a baby.

a baby. exclamation point! normally i think newborns kind of look like aliens. or turtles. or an alien turtle! i know, i'm heartless. and they're so boring. i need some interaction here! are you liking the way i'm singing? do you want me to burp you? why are you crying? what is the matter with you?!

(side note: don't think i am heartless. like, i want twelve thousand kids. my sister is living with us on + off for the summer and the other day i made her dinner + pretended she was my daughter + even called her my super secret favorite name for a girl. it was creepy. as. hail.)

but my sweet new niece (nephew? niece? i never know. i'm fairly sure i was absent for that lesson in elementary school. along with the lesson about telling time + how to sneeze and not project snot all over classmate. oops, my bad) kaliyani rose. dear heavens! she is perfect! and she has little baby snorts + pouty lips + not the teensiest bit of stranger danger. holding her amplified the joy i feel while watching the bachelorette and chugging diet coke by like, twelve happy points.

(side note: what do you measure happiness on? a scale? one time a boy...who i dated...wrote me a love note that had a picture attached where he said that i filled up his love-o-meter. the love-o-meter was measured in milliliters and only went to seventy. we broke up shortly after.)

and a phone dump, because what else am i good for?

babies holding babies. 

mckenzie has stupidly hot legs.

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jeff + i are headed up to spokane this weekend with my family. because it's our turn to go to them. ping to their pong. ha! see what i did there? i'm playing in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament which means lots of things but mostly thank heavens jeff is sealed to me for time + all eternity now, 'cause this girl gets mighty butch mighty fast in a pair of basketball shorts. holler!

lately round here. or heeeeey-ere rather.

but first! to the commenter who told me, amongst many things, that i needed an english degree and a filter (to speak about having a period on the internet?! gasp!? : i kind of agree +, more importantly, i am on my period right now. and it's crazy. ;)

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now! on to the good stuff! do you actually enjoy posts like these? i don't really either. but i have a slew of cell phone pictures littering my phone (i am almost out of storage! what. is. this!) and i am fairly certain this utah heat is melting my brain. in a few more weeks, i will have brain slime dripping out my eye sockets and nostrils.

...and this is me apologizing for that visual. 

+ my sister is living with me now. exclamation point! she is here on and off for the summer and has made camp in our spare bedroom. because we have one of those now(!!!!!). it's been so fun. but also sobering? she steals my clothes and looks better in them, what is that?! in other news, i keep pimping her out at seven peaks and have taken over her tinder. so...any one have a brother? that's single? and doesn't wear a tee shirt while swimming? (sorry paige, my taste in sixteen year olds is a bit off...). 

+ seven peaks. seven peaks! and my future baby daddy wearing a bro tank and snap back, like baby daddies do.

+ ...eh, okay. so i tried to make 'healthy pancakes' because isn't that fun? i blended up carrots and spinach and protein powder and fairy dust and why didn't i use a recipe(?!?!) and the end result looked like fried chicken and tasted like, well, carrots, spinach, and protein powder. doused in peanut butter, of course.

+ like i said, i've got that period blues. and no english degree. ha! (but really, why don't you liiiiiike me?!) my body honestly and truly dragged me to winco this morning at nine a.m. and told me to get dark chocolate covered almonds. or else. 

+ this is quite possibly the ugliest picture of me to ever hit the internet, but crossfit man. crossfit sucks but also i love it but also i'm perpetually sore. ugh, the struggle. a few days ago i was sweating so hard; my shirt was drenched a big, fatty beads of sweat were getting into my mouth and eyes. aaaaand now i'm back to hating crossfit.

+ jeff is funny. everyone tells me so. 

+ come to utah and let me give you the grand tour...of gas stations. i'm kind of a pro at them and know all the best in and around utah county. i even yelp about them amongst other things! 

side note: why is it that my best social media times are on twitter replies and yelp...which no one ever sees? ugh. i'm such an unsung hero... ;)

+ remember how i made a new year's resolution that i am actually keeping! clap for me. this session last week was my maj. and alyssa pitt is one of my favorite humans.

+ paige, my paige. much like jeff, she takes nine hours to wake up and then bam! personality! let's go get ice cream! it's three a.m.! shimmy shimmy! i feel like such an old fart.

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what are you doing this weekend? i will probably just be lying on my bed catching up on the real housewives of absolutely anywhere (orange county is my favorite!) and stuffing my face with the rest of my chocolate covered almonds. because my monthly bill is here (peeeeriod!). yeeks. 

vickie and her pyrex plate.

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vickie vick is a lady on my meals on wheels route who just might probably be one of the most delightfully manipulative people i have ever met. with a few compliments and subtle hints, she will have you taking out her garbage, fetching her mail, and rubbing her feet. actually no, i haven't rubbed her feet...yet.

yesterday when i visited vickie (but also myrna? isn't that confusing?), she began to tell me all about her son jeffrey and showed me a few pictures. and then she told me how she wanted to meet my jeffrey (and even said "well hot damn!" when i told her he truly was tall, dark, and handsome). and then she told me how she liked my dress and how i was just the sweetest and also could you set up that garden set over there? 

oh, vickie. the things you do to me. pretty soon i had promised i would be back at eight, with my jeffrey in tow, and do you really like my dress? oh staaaaahp.

that's vickie and that's her easy glider bench that we (read : jeff) set up. and also that's her muumuu, cause like...duh.

while we were there, vickie told me a handful of stories about her life and her family and her bizarre history with health. obviously, these aren't my stories to share but she did tell me something that stuck with me. 

the reader's digest version of the story (da da da daaaa!) : 

after she had gotten out of a strange and sticky marriage, she packed her bags and hopped on a bus to anywhere. she wound up in st. louis, missiouri with five dollars to her name. after buying a few essentials at the grocery store, she went into the secondhand shop to get a plate and fork to eat with. the cheapest plate she could find was actually a lid to a pyrex pie dish so she bought it and soldiered on! she went on to say that quite obviously, her life has changed and she's no longer in that same dark place where she was at that st. louis bus stop but she won't ever, ever forget it. it was a defining moment, y'know? and how do we know what real joy is if we have never had some major trials? 

vickie said that, to this day, a few decades later, she still eats one meal a day off that pyrex lid because she likes to remember where she came from and how far she has made it.

da da da daaaaa!

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dude! vickie is the coolest! 

elk river with da family.

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i went to idaho this past week. didn't i tell you? 

of course i didn't. because i'm the queen of irish exits. no but really i am! our home teacher in our last ward even told me so after we kind of just quietly and secretly moved into another apartment building one weekend. goodbyes are hard, you know? 

anyways! yes! twelve hours up to good ol' idaho. twelve hours by my lonesome. in a car. listening to a book on tape and having far too much time to think about things like the state of my cuticles and who is desiree going to pick this week?! (do we like brooks or do we not like brooks? these are the things i can't decide...)

but you know what? it was so worth it. what a vacation. i would say much-needed vacation but...i really didn't need it all that much. summer time living is pretty easy in these parts. hashtag humble brag. i didn't even set an alarm the whole five days i was there! and really just filled my days with long walks and diet dr. pepper runs to the new swanky gas station. because those are the type of things that makes moscow so...moscow-y. 

but elk river. oh, elk river. i halfway hope that i am a bystander to an awful crime and have to be in the witness protection program and relocate to that cute little town with almost 150 people. almost. 

phew! lots of photos. 

miss my family and miss my idaho already.

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happy father's day!

happy father's day to the man who, when i teared up as one does during our daddy-daughter dance at my reception, stared at me in confusion and asked if i was okay? who do i need to beat up? why are you crying?!?!

always the protector.

but thanks dad! for everything. for teaching me that there is beauty in the simple things and in routines (wheaties for breakfast every. single. morning), for threatening every and any boy that has caused me any sort of pain (basketball coaches included!), and for loving mom so very much and setting the bar crazy high for how i should be treated. 

you da bestest. 

june! june! june!

it's juuuuuuune. (ha. announcing dates always reminds me of how my dear and wonderful and perfect dad would walk in to a room and announce the time with raised eyebrows and then just walk out, as if we were supposed to understand what he meant by, "it's five thirty two.") when did this happen?!

i'm notorious for loving the month of may, so much so that i've written a few love notes addressed to it. may makes me want to slooooow down and ease into the summer because once it's here, it's gone just as fast. may is season finales + the final weeks of high school + wasn't i just starting to enjoy spring? man, i miss that rain (i don't miss the rain).

meh, now i'm babbling. onwards! to better things!

like june! it's june, dudes. let me say it one more time for good measure : june, it is. and what the heck does june means?! june means bike rides to work that make me want to gauge my eyes out because heavens, a twelve mile round trip + a backpack can make for the sweatiest of backs. june means two (count 'em : TWO) trips up to my beloved northern idaho to pick up my sister + win a three-on-three basketball tournament (are you reading this team?! we are going to win. i'm not driving twelve hours for nuttin'). june means a bug bite riiiiiiight by my nostril that most probably could be mistaken for a nasty pimple...but it's a bug bite...i swear it is (...it's a zit. it's totally a zit). june means my sisters here + weddings + monsters inc. III + driving around with the windows down (and a.c. on...utah heat is dry + deadly).

cheers june, cheers.