Great Times with the Greatest Women

Living in Lansing has been a wonderful experience, due largely to the great friends I've been able to meet over the past three years. I am so impressed by their willingness to share everything they have and to help out in any way possible. I feel very blessed to know each of them and to be able to count them among my closest friends. I will definitely miss seeing them weekly and shooting the breeze at church, playgroup, or Target!

A few of us got together on Tuesday at DeLuca's (for the best pizza on the planet if you ask me) to enjoy one last hoorah before we all depart. Thanks, Elaine, for setting it up and thanks Julie, Diana, Sadie, Leslie, and Becky for being there. It was great fun. I sure will miss you!

Strange Obsessions

Amber and Karli are obsessed with all things romantic, from deciding which of the Disney princes they will marry to watching the seemingly innocent kissing scenes in the princess movies over and over and over again. Several times each day, out of the blue, Karli reminds me (since we've reminded her several times) that only "mommies and daddies kiss on lips. We only kiss on cheeks, huh?" Then she says, "Ariel and Eric kiss on lips, huh?! That's crazy!" I feel kind of disturbed by their obsession with kissing at the tender ages of two and three. Adam and I must be in for some rough teenage years!

Liz Tagged Me

What was I doing 10 years ago:
I had just graduated from high school and started classes at Ricks College. I was a lifeguard at Heise Hot Springs and loved being able to finally hang out with the college crowd and not be considered a lame high school student! :)

What is on my to-do list for today?
Grocery shopping, packing, chillin' with Adam

Three of my bad habits:
1. Negative self talk
2. Eating when bored
3. Judging people

Three things you might not know about me:
1. I want to be a guest on Jay Leno's show
2. I love to dance and sneakily do so when people aren't watching
3. I got accepted to law school (but I'm glad I didn't go!)

Movies/TV shows I love:
1. The Sopranos (A&E Version)
2. So You Think You Can Dance
3. Crash
4. Gladiator
5. Project Runway

Four Books I Love:
1. The Book of Mormon
2. The Language Instinct
3. The Hundred Dresses
4. Baking With Julia

Four Jobs I've Had:
1. Tumbling Teacher
2. Lifeguard
3. Public Relations Manager
4. Writer

Five Places that I've Lived:
1. Rexburg, Idaho
2. Alpine, Utah
3. St. George, Utah
4. Provo, Utah
5. Lansing, Michigan

Five of My Favorite Foods:
1. Deep dish pizza with ham from DeLuca's
2. Bread (right out of the oven)with homemade strawberry freezer jam
3. Vegetables
4. Black licorice
5. Ice cream

Ghetto Drama: Two for One Special

As you well know, we've had lots of trouble with our upstairs neighbor, Nancy, and her boyfriend, Richard, who fought incessantly for about six months. Finally, they stopped fighting, procured employment (as shady as it seems, at least they're out of the house), bought a nice car (drugs, anyone?), and have been model tenants except for the cigarette butts that continue to fall from their balcony onto our porch. It's actually been bearable to live beneath them for about a month.
We noticed that Nancy and Richard had a girl and guy hanging around this weekend, and last night the guests were alone in the apartment. They started fighting, rolling around, calling each other every foul name in the book, and he slapped her a few times, eliciting a few "Please stop!" screams. We called the police once, they came to the apartment, and of course, like every battered woman in the neighborhood, she told them she was fine and that nothing was happening. Ten minutes passed before they were at it again, so Adam ran outside to knock on the door while calling 911. He noticed a police car further down the lot, so he thought the officer may be able to stop at apartment #5 on his way out.
Moments before Adam went out to check out the domestic violence in #5, we heard a series of six loud, rhythmic cracks that could have been fireworks, but sounded like gunshots (we still don't know what they were). While Adam stood outside trying to get someone to stop the insanity above our apartment, at least ten police cars screeched into the parking lot with sirens and lights blaring, zooming past Adam toward our clubhouse. In the land of perpetual porchsitting, events of this nature are always a spectacle and everyone in the complex seemed to swarm the area to see what happened. Police cars lined the parking lot, blocking off the clubhouse, and lined the two streets that lead into our complex. We only know that there was "a big fight" in the clubhouse.
The guy upstairs must have called Nancy, because about 20 minutes later she stood at our door, yelling in an annoyed/panicky voice that she heard we called the cops regarding her guests. She continued to spew information that they were only 15 and 16 years old, had dropped out of school and were trying to get pregnant (the Apocalypse should begin any moment) and that they promised to behave themselves while Nancy and Richard went to a birthday party. Ahhh....Heaven help the future of this nation!
Adam explained the situation which made Nancy even more irate because her guests were sabotaging her recently polished reputation. Adam calmly told her we called the police twice because the girl was yelling for help. Nancy marched up to her apartment, dragged the girl down to our door, and asked Adam to verify that she was the girl in the apartment. After verification, Nancy marched the girl back upstairs, demanded that she and the boyfriend leave immediately, and Richard's wrath was let loose upon the pair of them until they made the walk of shame from our building to the bus stop. Talk about entertainment; we are so excited to get out of here!