girls camp in short

it was so good to be back from camp. it's hard to blog about it because there is so much to say. but in short, it was: crazy, exhausting, beautiful, hard, rewarding, and spiritual. here are a few snapshots:

me, judith, jane and leah--some of my beehives.

me and deborah scarfing down our spaghetti dinner. deborah was one of my YCLs. she rocked! we had so much fun together.

our favorite late night activity (besides campfires) was doing crazy aerobics.

i had to laugh when many of the girls and other leaders, including the stake president thought i was one of the girls. do i really look that young? i guess i will take it as a compliment.

Brandon is quite contrary. This is how his garden grows!

Here's my garden!!!

My tomatoes are doing awesome

My onions are growing. I just don't know how much.

I don't know what's up with my peppers.

My cilantro is sprouting like crazy!

A quick update on my fake tooth:

Can you tell?

Oh, how I miss you!!

Well some of you may not know this about me or even care but I love lyrics. Melissa knows this from two things. First, I sing all the words to all the songs in our car and second, there are a lot of songs that remind me of her. So as I was sitting here thinking about Melissa, listening to music, I decided to do two things. One, ask for her forgiveness for her having to put up with my singing and second let you in on a few of the songs that remind me of her.

1. The Luckiest by Ben Fold's Five
2. Better Together by Jack Johnson
3. That's the girl I've been telling you about by Blessed Union of Souls
4. Out of my league by Stephen Speaks
5. Angel by Jack Johnson
6. The Rest of my Life by Blessed Union of Souls
7. Over my head(Cable Car) by The Fray
8. Oh how I miss you by Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband
9. Everything by Michael Buble
10. I love being in love by The Format

I was also looking at all our pictures and here are a few of my personal favorites of her. She's at camp. She can't stop me from posting these greats. In order from favorite to most favoritist picture in the whole wide world.

This is why I fell in love with her

She looks amazing even on Road Trips

One of my personal favs of Melissa not wanting to eat her vitamins

Our first home together before anything was in it.
We were just figuring out the timer on our camera.

Smart, Sexy, Sassy
Need I say more?

And my all time favorite!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, man.
Those eyes would make any man stop dead in his tracks

I can't wait to see those eyes again. I'm counting down the days til I can.

Home Alone

Melissa isn't even gone a whole day and look what happened!!!
I lost my tooth playing basketball. She's going to come home and not want me anymore as a husband. Actually Melissa knows. I fractured my tooth on thursday when someone nailed me with an elbow playing basketball. It cracked the thing in half and the dentist had to take it out. They are going to give me a fake tooth tomorrow. But I am all alone while Melissa is away at camp. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I'll be working most of the time but I figured I might as well blog a little. I hope you enjoy my posts!

midnight thoughts

it is midnight.
i should be in bed.
i have to get up at 5 am to leave for girls camp.
why do i always want to pull late-nighters the night before camp?

i am going as a stake leader.
am i really old enough and capable to be a leader?
i'm worried i won't know the balance between being fun and doing my job.

it doesn't seem like camp unless i go to the store to get last minute things.
as i was driving around tonight, i realized that this is the first time i will be going to camp without any of my sisters. what am i going to do? i won't have brandon either. this is the first time since germany that i will be doing something alone. i usually don't get scared for things, but i admit, i'm a little nervous.

tonight brandon and i had an fhe lesson about "lower lights" inspired by a tribute written after my childhood best friend's father passed away recently...

"A few years after the Civil War, enacting a tragedy that had occurred hundreds of mournful times throughout the nineteenth century, a steamboat on Lake Erie sank on its approach to the Port of Cleveland. Though the main lighthouse was operating normally, for uncertain reasons the lower lights—flames kept by houses along the banks to illuminate the location of channels and treacherous parts of the shoreline—were not visible to the ship’s crew. Unable to see the dark shore, the steamboat struck ground and sank, with significant loss of life.

In the aftermath of the Cleveland steamboat tragedy, the mega-evangelist Dwight Moody reflected to his bard Philip Bliss that these lower lights were the lights individual Christians were to keep. These would be small, weak, pale compared to the Light of the Savior, but without them our sisters and brothers might perish even as they approached the brighter light of the lighthouse."

jetta's dad was a lower light to many.

i have been thinking about this concept so much lately and am SO thankful for the 'lower lights' who have inspired and lifted me lately...

{my cute and festive cousin Cindy}

{my sister emily}

{brandon's family--especially his parents-- & cute new baby kate}

{becky and annette}


{my husband}

{p.s. this is not a new member of our family...he was just a house guest for one night last weekend. i know. its strange to believe that ME (the girl who would run inside the house if there was a dog across the street) would let a dog sleep in our house. it was actually really fun, but nice to have him leave. }

so there are my thoughts. thank you for being the lower lights i have needed lately to gain a new, fresh perspective on life --and the boost i need!

xoxo,
mel

to dad

happy father's day.

you are such a great example of service, charity, selflessness, and hope.

not to mention you are one great dutch-oven cooker, road tripper, starry-night fanatic, and wedding planner (3 in one year...wow!)--just to name a few.

thanks for teaching me how to enjoy the simple things in life. i love you.

happy father's day

Finished. Vertig.

its a rainy Saturday. I love rainy days when I can just stay in the house and listen to the rain patter while doing relaxing projects since Brandon is working. Speaking of projects, this is our most recent one:

Steps to a rewarding project:
(you may try this at home)

Step 1: Pick up an old coffee table. It's great if its free like this one we got from a random garage sale in Park City. The uglier the better (the more dramatic results)


Step 2: Buy sand paper. LOTS of sand paper. Make sure you get the right kind or it will take you hours like it took us until we realized you can get a rougher kind that will make it go faster. We also recommend using an electric sander. We came to this conclusion after sanding for 2 hours and not even making a dent.

(you'll look this happy too if you use an electric sander)

Step 3: Keep on sanding, sanding, sanding.

Step 4: After days and nights after work and days and more nights after work, you will finally have a completely sanded table like this. This was the first big payoff!

Step 5: Wait for good weather to start staining and don't do it inside or you might lose a few brain cells.

Caution: Your hands will get dirty. Don't be alarmed. It will come out eventually. And don't wash the brushes in the sink. Just think about it...

Step 6: Enjoy all of your hard work. Sit back on the couch, rest your feet up on the new table and have a party. All this work deserves it!


Actual results may vary.

Sisters...Sisters...

There were never such devoted sisters! My sisters are my best friends. Even though so much has changed with each one of us over the last few years, we still have a blast together...whether its dancing to "Larger than Life" on the deck, painting nails, being vain :), highlighting hair, or talking all night long. Since we don't get to all be together often, it makes it even better we are!

Thanks Em and Kristin for coming all the way from NYC and Idaho this past weekend.

If you are ever at Gateway, try a Ben's cookies. Mmm...delicious!

And, some exciting news...Em is engaged to Kyle Poll! We are so excited! Em and I seem to have the same life...well sort of. We were involved in many of the same things at the same time growing up...have liked the same boys, had the same major, took at least 6 classes together at BYU, graduated together, lived abroad at the same time, were roommates at BYU, finished 2 marathons together, and even our love stories are so similar. I'm so glad we relate so well to each other. It's even cooler that we both got engaged in NYC nearly exactly one year apart. Oh, fun memories!

Since we couldn't go back to Serafina on May 27th (the day we got engaged) this year, we recreated the cute little Italian restaurant it in our little Provo apartment.
(And yes, I know I'm pathetic for saving the bag, but I knew it would come in handy!)

The Big Red Button

Buttons like these are everywhere! I don't know how to explain it but I have the hardest time resisting touching them. They scream at me! "Push me, Push me!" They are in elevators, they are all over campuses, (this one happens to be at the notorious Stanford University) they are in any building that has a fire alarm, (which happens to be every building up to code these days) and I wish I had one in my car. If only my mother (and now my wife) hadn't told me to not touch one I probably would have been in trouble a long time ago. Anyway I thought I would share with you what I think of when I see a button like this.

The Big Red Button really is so beautiful and I can't help it. I bet there's someone else out there that can't help it either. They just are man enough(I emphasize the man and not the woman) to admit it.