Arrive'd!

I flew into Salt Lake City, Utah, last Wednesday to visit friends. Here are my very first glimpses of the gorgeous city.

From the plane:

Driving to Rachel's house from the airport:

So beautiful!

The crew!

My fave blog friends! Here are RC and Towr, two ladies both named Rachel who are hilarious, smart, and fabulous tour guides!

And what Utah vacay would be complete without meeting Carina, aka Jet_Set, who is ever in the know about fashion, politics, food, and generally everything else.

I also met Carrie, aka Kiki, who was funny and who takes Rock Band very seriously! Why didn't I get a pic of her as well? Grr!

Exploring the city!

Here we are at the LDS convention center. Rich history, blah blah blah, OOH! A mirror! Let's take a picture!

Some pretty glass thing hanging above a water fountain.

On the roof of the convention center, in front of yet another water fountain.

Across the way, the LDS temple. I think.

At the Daughters of the Pioneers museum, I literally gasped "LIZ LEMON?" when I saw this portrait of a pioneer.

The view from the top of the Salt Lake City Public Library.

Why didn't I take a picture of the library itself? No idea.

RC and I pose with the mountains behind us. Such beautiful weather there.

Towr and I. This is also on top of the library roof.

We then drove through the canyon and pulled over at this reservoir.

I suggested we start climbing up this mountain/giant hill.

You can see what I shortly thought of my hiking suggestion.

But the view was worth it!

Worth the heart palpitations, ragged breathing, and cough that lingered for next two days.

The eats!

A very small selection of all the goodies I tried whilst on vacay. The first night we ate at a restaurant called Cafe Rio, which I truly enjoyed! Delish Mexican food. And the second day RC and Towr talked me into trying my very first sushi restaurant. At Shogun, I had some tempura (?) veggies: carrots, potatoes, zucchini, and, I think, shrimp. Or was it crab?

Then, on to the sushi rolls. We tried four rolls: spicy tuna (which I confess I never did try), the Vegas, the Shogun, and the California roll. Official verdict? Meh. I'm really glad I tried it, though, and especially with the Rachels.

After attending a farmers market where we got rained out, Towr and I headed to Bruges, a place specializing in Belgian waffles and fries. I ordered the vanilla waffle with dark Belgian chocolate and fresh sliced strawberries. Delish! But I also pigged out on Rachel's order of fries, which, I kid you not, were the. best. fries. I've EVER eaten. Nothing will ever compare. *sigh*


And at a fast food place called Iceberg, you could get a regular soda or a mini shake with your meal. I ordered the house special triple berry mini shake, and Rachel got the butterscotch. I expected a drink smaller than the small size. Yeah. These were bigger than a large size. Maybe they don't know what "mini" means? Also? Not really a shake since you had to eat it with a spoon. Yummy, nonetheless.

Scenery, etc.

Some excellent views as Towr and I drove to Park City.


The awesome outlet mall where I spent $200 *alone* at the Fossil store.
Since I work at a newspaper, I had to take a picture of the building where two of Salt Lake City's newspapers are printed. This building tries to emulate the skyline and "fails, in my opinion," says Towr.

The copper mine, which you can see from space.

At Rachel's parents' house for Father's Day, they all suggested places for her to take me. Her brother, John, suggested the copper mine.

Towr: You can see it from my house!

John: YOU CAN SEE IT FROM SPACE!

Towr: You can see your FACE from space!

John: You can see your BUTT from space!

Towr: You can see your MOM'S BUTT from space!

I'm pretty sure it kept going after that.

Dino Day!

My last full day in Utah was dubbed Dino Day. TOWR and I started out the morning at a dinosaur museum in Thanksgiving Point. Here's the outside of the building.

Standing beside a ginormous leg bone, just to give an idea of how large some of those dinos were.

I don't remember the names of any of the skeletons we saw. But these creepy things remind me of crocs, and me no likey.

Another creepy predator.

I just thought this was a cool picture. I couldn't even fit the whole dinosaur in the camera frame.

I think this is a velociraptor. I'm doing sort of a part "I'm scared!" pose partnered with Will Ferrell's "He's right behind me, isn't he? I knew it."

Yeah. He looks much more frightening without me mucking it up.

Two T-Rexes. Way too enormous to get in the frame.

The museum showed other eras besides the Jurassic age. I don't know quite what this was from, but this was one monster shark! My head was like the size of one of its eyes!

After the museum, we continued Dino Day with a trip back to the Fossil store and then a viewing of "Land of the Lost." I enjoyed the movie, but Rach found it stupid. Not that it wasn't stupid; I just happened to find that particular brand of stupid amusing.

More scenery. Ooohhh!!

Wisconsin

Beautiful Wisconsin sunset on the drive home.

Jersey kept us entertained with songs she made up. "My cloud-shaped heart, whoooaaa, I've got love in my heart! If the love is gone, then my heart stops. But I'm still alive. Whooooaaaaa. I'm still alive!" Okay, that last part sounds a bit like Pearl Jam, but she didn't sing it that way.

Looks kind of like purple mountains!

Good old Wisconsin farmland. Almost home.

Oohh! Pretty!

A few pictures I took outside my house today. I love the colors!

Imagine two people making love on a unicorn ... My life is the opposite of that.

Funny stuff, yo:

As I was purchasing some delish chocolates for Mother's Day (okay, and some for myself, too) at a local shop, Kristen perused the greeting cards. She shoved one in my face.
Kristen: Ugh! How come they always have my birth flower on sympathy cards?
Me: Because they're sorry you were born?
The clerk snickered.

K-Lo and I wrote another hit song. And by "wrote," I mean we just sang things that made us laugh, and by "song," I mean it's only a few lines. It's a hip-hop song about robots wanting some lovin'. It goes something like this:

"I was all like, 'Bleep Bleep.' And she was like, 'Bloop Bloop.' Then I said, 'Baaabeeeee, we got to get to get togethaaaa...'"

That's all we've got. I picture Andy Samberg singing it.

The other day as I was leaving for work, my uncle Don tried to get my attention.
Don: Hey, Dad? Uh, I mean April.
Me: *deep voice* Yes, son?
He smirked, then said whatever he'd planned on saying.
Me: *deep voice* Well, just try your hardest, son. I'll be proud of you.
As I was walking out the door, I began singing "Cat's in the cradle with the silver spoon ..."
Don: Great song! Who sang it? (he always knows who sang every freaking song and always quizzes me)
Me: I don't know.
Don: I'll give you a hint. The initials are H.C.*
Gramps: Hillary Clinton?

As Kristen and I drove through Eau Claire this weekend, some creep face swerved in and out of lanes in a jackass manner. I blurted out, "You douche puppet!" Then Kristen and I laughed a lot, and she sang the McDonald's theme song as "Bah da buh buh buh, I'm coinin' it!" She later decided she gets credit for the insult since she yelled "Coin'd!" before me.

We went to the Book It meeting in Rice Lake Saturday. I had warned Kristen that several of the group members were ten thousand times smarter than us, but she still didn't feel properly warned. After they discussed their reading material and gave us history lessons ...
(Sarah: ... four thirteenth-century sisters born into the minor nobility of medieval Provence. Although their origins were not as lofty as many others, Marguerite married Louis IX of France, Eleanor was wed to England's Henry III, Sanchia was married to Richard of Cornwall, who eventually was crowned king of Germany, and Beatrice assisted her husband, Charles of Anjou, in seizing the Sicilian throne.
Jonathan, Sarah's husband: So ... it's about royalty?
Sarah: I will beat you bloody.)
... Kristen whispered to me, "I feel like a moron." That about sums it up. :D

*The correct answer is Harry Chapin. If you were thinking it was Cat Stevens, you'd be in the majority but wrong. According to Stevens' Web site, he never performed the song, "not live, not in the studio, not even privately." Now you're a little less dumb for reading my blog. You're welcome.

"In the end I'm just the mean girl, or somebody's in-between girl"

My Musical Weekend countdown has begun!

Friday night I'll be heading up to Sup-Town, armed with the $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble (sorry, Llew) I received for my birthday. And you can bet I'm gonna wear that sucker out!

Then Saturday Kristen and I are off to Minneapolis/St. Paul to begin our rocking. After many hours of shopping at the Mall of America, where we'll have lunch with dearest Jolene, her husband Mike, and daughter Kate, it'll be time for ... M. Ward! Woot!

Sunday will be spent (literally, I will return home broke, I'm sure) at Ikea, where I have no reason to actually shop there and nothing I really need to buy, but I'm sure I'll find something. And we may go to a movie at MOA, too. I'm hoping for Adventureland. And in the evening ... Neko Case! Woot Woot! (that's double the Woot!)

Did you know I found JV (from Bon Iver) on Twitter? I'm a good little Internet huntress.

And I'm pretty much in love with this print: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15042332

The picture at the top, titled Gingerbread Forest, and this one, Lonely Moon Girl, were recent purchases from the Etsy shop TheBrilliantMagpie. Love everything on her site! I'm hoping one day she paints an authoress with curly brown hair and blue eyes.

Easter 2009

The real highlight of my Easter was making my brother attempt to do a cartwheel, but since he won't let me post the hilarious video, you'll have to make do with these other pictures.

I picked up these sweet treats for the girls in Eau Claire. Yum, yum--frogs and ladybugs!

Jersey and Gram made these delish Easter basket cupcakes for the family.

The hunt for colorful plastic eggs began.

Aaliyah needed a little more help finding hers. In fact, she was happy enough with her first find that she had to be "egged" on to find the rest. haha. Sorry. I'll stop now.

After the egg hunt, they played on the swing/slide set for a while. A very brief moment where I could capture them sitting still and not arguing.

My mom took this picture. She was quite proud of herself.

Baptithed

Jersey and Aaliyah were baptised a couple of weeks ago. Or as Aaliyah says, "baptithed." She has a lisp. It's hilarious. You should hear her say "shrimp."

Anyway, despite three people bringing cameras to the church to document the christening, we got barely any pictures. All the cameras died. Very mysterious. As I stood up to sponsor the girls, along with my brother and sister for each other's daughter, I heard a loud stage whisper behind me: "THE CAMERA DIED!" Ay yi yi.

Aaliyah was baptized first, the pastor sprinkling water across her forehead. Then after he repeated the action with Jersey, Aaliyah cried out, "Do it again!!" She also cried out a lot of other things during the entire service: "Where's Auntie April?" "Are we done yet?" "Can we have pancakes?"

During a short children's service, where any kids in attendance go up to speak with the pastor, Jersey was the lone participant. The message was supposed to be about how the words of the Bible are sweeter than honey. So the pastor asked Jerz if she liked sweet things, then held the microphone to her mouth. She just nodded. Then he said, "What is your favorite type of sweet things?" He held the mic out again. She replied, quite matter-of-factly, "Sugar!" The congregation cracked up. The pastor chuckled, saying, "Boy, you went straight for it, didn't you?" haha.

So, here's the one pic I was able to snap before my camera rebelled. Such little ladies.

When I got back home, I changed the camera batteries and was able to take a few more pictures. Then, mysteriously, the camera died another death. DUM-DUM-DUUUMMM!

I did take a pic of Jersey since she was the first one seated at the table for lunch. It made me laugh because when I was little, I also was always the first one ready to eat. (Cuz that's totally changed now... Er...) Here's my uncle Don with the Werz.

This actually is from my cousin's children's baptisms about a month ago. The theme is the same, so I included these for your enjoyment. Look at those cheeseballs.

One last pic of LiLi. She was shy around all the strangers. She barely left Gram's (my mom) side.

This and that

I've been a slacker when it comes to blogging. But there are so many other venues for informing friends what's going on in my life that I just get lazy when it comes to my blog. I try to be creative on Twitter, on MySpace, on Facebook, in my writing group. Leaves me too tired for anything else.

So, what's new?

Jersey, 4-1/2, and Aaliyah, 2-1/2, are both getting baptized tomorrow morning into our Lutheran church. Which reminds me, I need to buy some white tights. Uh, for the girls, not for me. My legs already look like white tights.

We're having a small lunch afterward at my grandparents' house. I will be making my magically delicious crab salad. It's Mmm, Mmm good. I know, I'm mixing my food slogans, but I'm really okay with that.

Went to Rachel's (work Rachel) house last night for some Guitar Hero. Her dog is psycho, btw. Then we watched The Dark Knight. It was my first time watching it since opening night in the theaters, so I was anxious to see if it was as good as I remembered. It was better. There are very few times when "villains" actually do their job in scaring me, and even though I'd seen the movie before, Heath Ledger still creeped the bejeezus out of me. The Dark Knight kicks The Watchmen's ass down the road and back again.

And I may start taking a closer look at moving on. From this town, I mean, not the world. haha. *fingers crossed* My grandmother's Alzheimer's is progressing steadily worse. If--when--she goes to a nursing home, I'll need to find somewhere else to live. I'm pretty sure I'll head north, back to Superior. I miss it up there.

I wish I knew how to post videos from my phone to the blog. Ya'll are missing out on some cute Jersey & Aaliyah moments. Especially Jerz's "old chap!" clips. HUHlarious!

Tonight I'm meeting my Facebook Book It! group for the first time in Eau Claire! I know most of the people already, but I'll make some new acquaintances. Plus, hello? There will be pizza, and it will be goooood.