Summer Adventures

In order to catch up on the fun things we have done this summer, I'm gonna attempt to do it in one post with pictures even! So this year was pretty exciting fireworks wise, since aerials were legal in Utah. For the weekend of July 24th, my parents and little sister came to visit. That morning Brad and I saw HP 7.2. We were both a little disappointed with some of things that were changed. Then my family got here and we went to the Real game!

There was a fireworks show afterwards and it was awesome!

My dad was excited about the aerials, so we went to a stand and he bought quite a few. Sunday we set some off for our own show. Then on Monday, July 25th, it was supposed to be nice and warm, so we went to float the Weber River. Too bad the sun never came out and it started to rain. So we got a little cold (Robyn and I especially). It was still fun, just not what we were hoping for.

The first weekend in August, we went up with our friends Ashley and Sean, to Snowville UT, where Ashley's family owns a lot of property. We road 4 wheelers, horses, and Brad and Sean had fun with a potatoe gun.

This last weekend, Ashley, Sean, Brad, and I all went up to Island Park. It was nice and cool. Ashley and Sean had never been to Yellowstone, so we went and saw all sorts of geyers, hot spots, and stood on top of a volcanoe (Grand Prismatic). Ashley and I were very happy that Yellowstone did not decide to explode right then. We also went to Mesa Falls and Big Springs. Both gorgeous areas in Idaho.

Young Love

I teach the 5 (turning 6) year old class in church. There are usually 9 kids and they are cute, but can be quite a handful. While being extremely loud and rambunctious, they can say the funniest things though. This last Sunday, when we were leaving Primary to go to our class, on of the girls asked me if she could go tell Landon something (Landon is 8 and in a different class). I told her that she could after class.

When we were getting towards the end of class, this same girl (Quincy) was talking to one of her friends and I heard her say that she liked Landon. Then all the girls (there are 7 in the class), started talking about this boy Landon. Quincy and another girl, Gracie, talked about how they both really liked him. By this time, they were practically shouting. I told them that they should be more quite, or Landon would know that they like him. Quincy then looked at me and in all seriousness told me, "I don't like Landon, I LOVE Landon. I'm going to marry Landon. I want him to know that I love him too." Then Gracie told me that she also loved Landon and wanted to marry him.

Now, Quincy is a kid who believes that what she says is fact, and all the other kids act that way as well. So, she looked at Gracie after this and told her, "You can only marry one person and I'm going to marry Landon." Well, this devastated Gracie. She came crying to me. I hugged her and told her that it was okay. I then told her that I liked a boy when I was 5 too and that guess what, I did not marry that boy. Gracie looked at me and said "Really?" I told her that it was true and that I did not meet my husband until college. I told her that she had a long time to meet lots of boys and pick one to marry. Gracie seems consoled by this and then looked at me and said, "I hope Quincy forgets about Landon."

I had to try so hard not to laugh. A few days later, I heard that Gracie made a present for Landon. These girls are so cute, and their little resolves to get this boy crack me up. I want to warn Landon's parents that he has a few admirers in my class who are pretty serious about their son. It will be funny to see what happens when they all get older.

Leonard

I love music! Between the ages of 16-20 I was pretty obsessed with music and found out about a lot of good stuff. Probably helped that I had some boring summers with not enough work so I did was listen to AOL radio.

Well, when I got an ipod for christmas in 2008, I put all this fantastic music into itunes and continued to collect more music (thank you friends, roommates, and siblings). All was fantastic and my 30gb ipod was filling up really fast, until my computer decided to have some hard drive breakdown. So when my computer could only be on for maybe 5 minutes before the blue screen of death came on, I stopped syncing my ipod and adding music. My last sync was January 1, 2010. Yes, I do remember it well, and that I turned on my computer to add Lifehouse and then turned it off.

Brad continued to add music to his computer, music I liked too, but to sync to his computer meant losing all the music he did not have. So I have not synced it for almost 4 years. Brad has tried countless times to fix my laptop, but it would not fix. So when we bought our fantastic desktop, and after much of Brad's coaxing, I finally decided it was time to sync my ipod. So over the past 2 months, I have found all my cds, put them on the new computer, and had Brad help me to get some of the music that was vital to my ipod that we did not have on cd. It still took another 2 weeks, but I finally updated, erased, and synced my ipod (who is named Leonard), today.

Brad thinks I'm ridiculous. I was worried that the process would kill my poor ipod, but Leonard is hanging on. And I am getting more music, while still losing some (like Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, etc). But I can finally buy more music and actually put it on my ipod. Now I just have to get some missing music/cds from my older sis and all will be well.

Babies Everywhere!

Due to all the facebook announcements of babies/pregnancies, an old youtube video came to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2gIPnUCgw&feature=player_detailpage

As Blogger won't post youtube videos, please use the link.

This commercial was big my college freshman year, at least big with my apartment (all thanks to Dave Hansen for introducing it to us).

WARNING: This commercial is weird and I sure hope it was not ever broadcasted. It is best enjoyed during late hours when anything is funny.

Old memories can lead to funny Stories

With our new computer, Brad and I have been trying to get everything from our laptops onto it. As my poor laptop is practically dead, this was quite a feat, but Brad is amazing. We managed to get all my music of it and some other files that I had completely forgotten about. I came home from work one day and Brad looked at me and said, "So, did you ever find out what happened on the doorstep with Joe?" I had no idea what he was talking about. Brad kept going on quoting a file he had found on my computer that was about some dream I had had during my freshman year of college. Oh my goodness, I had forgotten all about them. And now, Brad will make sure that I never do because he thinks they are hilarious. My dreams about my crush. Things that part of me wishes I would have deleted. But a bigger part of me has found it all hilarious too because it's funny to remember what I was like when I was 18.

Along with some of these funny dreams, I also found my electronic copy of my apartment's quote wall. Oh man, Brad finds nothing on it funny, but I can't read it without cracking up. I don't even remember what all of the quotes are in reference to, but goodness are they funny. Thank goodness for word documents that Brad salvaged for me, so I can remember my ridiculous self and the fun times my roommates and I all had!

How Fast are you? Ella Fast!

In high school, Brad and his friend Josh loved to go to speed street to race in these fast go carts. Brad loves to talk about the time when they had the whole place to themselves and did 100 laps. So, when Brad found a coupon for Fast Karts, he got really excited. Now, I am not much of a speeder. I like safe speeds, especially when we are talking about little carts with other people zooming around you. But, Brad told me that it would be fun, so we went with our friends, Sean and Ashley.

Luckily, we were able to run the track with just the four of us. You start with 5 qualifying laps, to decide what order you will do the remaining 15 laps in. I was third and Brad was of course first. It was actually pretty fun, but I ended up going the slowest out of everyone cause I would really slow down around turns. I never got lapped though! And Brad got stuck behind Ashley for a few laps and couldn't get around her, until he of course bumped her so she spun out (which is against the rules). Ha ha. But we had fun.

The place has you get a "driver's license" where you have to give a racing name. As Brad had already been to this place, they already had him as Caboose. We also had Holjiecow (Sean), Bashley (Ashley), and Ella Fast (me). Brad had to come up with my name, cause I was at a lost for anything. It was fun, even if I went 2 seconds slower than Brad (and my face was probably very similar to the girl's in the picture).

Lagoon - It's what fun Is not

Apparently in Utah and surrounding states, the only theme park is Lagoon. I have always heard about Lagoon from people in Utah and they make it sound fun. After marrying Brad, a utahn, I finally got the opportunity to go (I believe this was in Oct. 2009). Well, let's just say that it was packed (and I hate crowds) and short rides were not worth the extremely long lines. And Brad did not enjoy it much either, even with all the halloween stuff.

A week ago, Brad suggested that we buy a book at Deseret Book so we could get discount Lagoon tickets. I'm all up for any reason to buy a book, so I agreed. So we went to Lagoon on a Saturday, when it first opened. Within 1.5 hours, we had ridden 8 rides. We then walked around pioneer village, got hungry and left after being there for a total of 3 hours. 3 hours for $32 per person. Lagoon is doing this bounce-back program where you can go back within 10 days of your initial visit, for only $10. Due to lack of other activities, we decided, why not? As we did all the rides, we decided to do all the water activities. However, after waiting for friends, who flaked out on us, we got there around noon. The park was packed. The lazy river was so packed, it was not moving. (Lagoon has a water park portion called Lagoon-a-beach). It was miserable. We went on the Ferris wheel, rattlesnake rapids, and then left because every other line was ridiculously long and lockers were expensive.

I have sworn to never go to Lagoon again. Now, growing up in NC and California, I had the opportunity to go to many other theme parks (Magic Mountain, marine world, universal studios, paramount great america, and busch gardens). These parks have decent rides that last longer than 30 seconds, safer rides, and are cheaper than Lagoon. So after wasting money on a ridiculous park that has been around since my grandparents were young kids, I will never go again.

On a side note, there was a rumor going around that Six Flags was going to buy Lagoon, and when I heard that, I laughed.