Funny Friday

So after the five and a half hour MCAT test, a double date was in store for the evening. Mama Pam took the boys and we were off to dinner and a movie. Jana warned me to stop drinking so much water at dinner, especially because we were headed to a movie after, but I was feeling like a camel so I kept drinking. By the time we made it to the theater I was basically dragging Sam, telling him if he didn't walk faster I was going to pee my pants (and we all know when I say that I am not 'just kidding'). Jana and Chuck were a few paces behind us, and then I noticed that they had disappeared as we were heading into Edwards Cinema. I immediately looked for the bathroom, but unfortunately you have to purchase a ticket before you are allowed to pee in this theater, so we rushed to the ticket line. We looked at the movie times and unfortunately (again) we had mixed up the Star Trek time with either a different theater or different movie because the one we had planned on seeing was not available. And with Jana and Chuck no where to be found (they were in the outdoor mall bathroom which Sam had told me I should use but I was trying to be picky) I relented and speedily walked/ran to them and the bathroom.

As I was entering the bathroom I noticed an arcade to my left, where Chuck was standing and looking in. Right across was some random hallway which I quickly passed, followed by the boys bathroom which had no door, just a little curved hallway so you couldn't see directly in, and then the womens hallway with the same kind of curving entrance. I passed Jana on my way in, said hi, and then luckily, for the sake of not having to immediately go home, made it on time. I washed my hands like a good person and then exited the bathroom. As I re-entered the hallway I saw Jana and Chuck both looking into the arcade, but no Sam where I had left him. I heared some flushing toilets in the boys bathroom so my first thought is, oh man, I am going to scare Sam when he comes out (and also hurray that I beat him). I whispered over to Jana, because I didn't want Sam to hear, to check if Sam was in the bathroom. She just looked at me with a weird smile laugh, and since I am clueless and don't catch on very fast, I returned to my post and waited for him to emerge. I heard him walking out, so I got ready, and as soon as I saw him coming I screamed BOO as loud as I could.

The good news: I scared him really bad. He gasped, grabbed his heart, and said "Oh my."

The bad news: It definitely was not Sam. It was some random dude that was playing in the arcade and just wanted to use the bathroom in peace.

Sam, that little stinker, was hiding behind the corner, down that little hallway, waiting for me to walk past so he could scare me. I don't think things could have gone any better for him. As for me? I was kind of embarrassed. Everything happened so fast I almost didn't have time to apologize to the poor sucker that had to walk past me. I hollered sorry at his back as he was walking back into the arcade. Jana and Sam were basically on the floor laughing their heads off, Chuck was probably pretty embarrassed to be with two immature people that still think its funny to scare each other well into adulthood. And I wanted to be mad at Sam for making me scare a stranger...but who could be mad after seeing the look on that poor scared guy's face.

Another Boise Weekend

On Thursday we trekked north towards Boise. We arrived early, checked into our hotel, and tried to have a relaxing evening. We got to bed early, (or at least tried to sleep over the screaming drunk girl party across the hall) woke up early, ate some breakfast, and then I dropped a nervous Sam off at the Prometric testing center so he could take his mcat. Five and a half hours later I picked him up and the fun began...

Friday night Grandma Pam babysat the boys so we could go on a double date (dinner and a movie). We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs (a good portion at my expense) and you can read all about it on Friday.

Saturday started off with some yard work

Chuck, Sam, and Clyde loaded and unloaded a ton of dirt for a nice flower bed under the front window while Jana weeded the front flower patch.

I sneakily avoided all the work

by claiming I had to take pictures and tend to the children :)

Sam enjoyed climbing the tree of his youth.

A little bit scared when he realized how far up he was :)

And here he is swinging from the branches in between the few hours of yard work.

Trying to get in touch with his inner monkey, and totally unaware of how sore his arms were going to be the next day.

And of course we had to make a trip to the candy store.

This little guy was in heaven with me. We also found out he doesn't really like to chew candy, he just swallows it. How we found out? We gave him a giant gummy shark then started strapping him into his car seat. Ten seconds later he was asking for more. Sure that he must have dropped the other one Sam searched for the shark while I handed him a penguin and I watched him swallow it after one chew. His poor tummy...it probably took a week to digest all that gummy candy.

That evening we headed to the park for a picnic dinner and fun with Papa Braden

there was volleyball, frisbee, football, tennis, and the playground to burn off all that delicious pizza we ate.

Sam playing some tennis with his Pops.

Who is a tennis pro and can take Sam any day :)

We also played doubles against Chuck and Jana who kicked our butts

It was mostly my fault we lost, but I want to blame it on these socks for distracting me.

Here is Sam getting in some good practice pushing the little guys on the swings.

So sad, yet hilarious to watch this little guy run around with his little purple cast.

We read lots of books

And watched a few movies

in an effort to distract the boys from wanting to get tossed around because my arms were so sore.

And then Monday morning, Memorial Day, we decided to go out shooting.

Here is Sam trying to teach me what to do. And apparently it worked because I shot two of the clay discs out of the air. Wahoo!!!

And here are the boys having a shooting contest.

I think Chuck won. It was a bad weekend for us and winning against team Izatt.

We had lots of fun visiting family and getting the mcat out of the way.
Another successful trip to Boise.

Funny Friday

Not because I think this is a really funny story, but because I am proud of myself for pulling off one of the better pranks of my day...

It was Robby and Zenna's wedding day. The little kids got left inside the waiting room of the Salt Lake Temple as the rest of us headed back. We attended the sealing, (which was lovely by the way) and then headed back to the front to join the little kids. Sam and I were the first ones back, and therefore the first ones to talk with the little kids. They immediately asked me how it went, and before I knew what I was doing, the words "Zenna didn't go through with it. She said no." were coming out of my mouth (the chronic liar in me I guess???). They didn't really believe me. It was at this point that Sam walked away from me (because he was mad I was lying in the temple, or trying to not show them he was laughing, I am still not sure). Not willing to give up, I continued to press the idea on them, and I started to get through. However, they didn't fully believe me until my favorite person in the world, Tammy Berg, came out and they pounced on her to ask about it, and she definitely went along with my ploy without any coaching. Best moment ever. At this point they were all in a panic. A lot of "oh my gosh what happened?" and "what are we supposed to do now?" started to get thrown my way as I tried to keep my face straight and answer their questions with shrugged shoulders and "I don't knows." It was a solid twenty minutes before my parents finally walked out, gave me up, and told me I was a bad person.

Now this may be true, but in my defense, when your little brother votes you most likely out of the entire family to go inactive, I think you should be able to do a few things once in awhile to justify that claim.

The four that I tricked. My eyes aren't closed because of the camera this time, Rachel is trying to hit me. Probably because she was still a little bitter at this point.

Next to those four months that I had Sam convinced that I weighed 180 pounds in High School, this is definitely one of my prouder moments.

Funny Friday

The date and some of the details are a little fuzzy on this one (meaning Sam and I disagree on them), but since the track record says I have a way better memory, and I am writing it, we will just go with my side of the story. It was the end of summer three years ago (August ish). It was later in the day and finally beginning to cool off. We were driving from Provo up to Orem, headed to the Thornes (a Braden family friend who Sam lived with for a month or so before Ghana) to possibly drop something off???. We were two streets away when Sam rolled down his window and I got a whiff of an awful smell.

We were still dating so we weren't as comfortable with that sort of thing as we are now, but we had been dating long enough were it wasn't completely foreign territory. I looked at Sam and asked him what that smell was (I was much more naive and didn't blame him as quickly as I do now). He got this scrunched up, intrigued look on his face as he sniffed the air to get a better idea on my inquiries. Then he got this total look of disgust on his face, and I knew he smelled it too. I remember a whole lot of "Oh man, that is disgusting", and "what the heck is that", and even an "oh man, there must be a dirty diaper outside of the car because that smells fresh, and I think I ran it over!" All of these sayings sounded innocent and guilt free, and made me laugh a lot, possibly too much. Because after drinking my huge slurpee there was too much liquid in my bladder and despite my pleas for him to stop making me laugh, he didn't, and I inevitably lost control and peed my pants.

Now this wasn't a little wet spot pee; this was a full on peed my whole bladder out, you could easily see it everywhere, I need to go home and change RIGHT NOW. By this time we are about one street away and I plead for him to just take me home as he hands me a towel from the back seat to sit on so I don't ruin the upholstery in brown. He tells me he is just going to run in really fast and get the errand finished as he parks the car and runs up to the house. I grumpily sit there in my waste for a few minutes kind of embarrased, but mostly just mad at this point that I am so uncomfortable. A few minutes later Sam walks out of the house with brother and sister Thorne, paper towels in his hand, and looks of smiling pity from the nicest couple ever. At this point I am mortified that he told them I actually peed my pants, and I am praying they don't come over to talk to me; just them knowing was all the embarassment that I could take. I contemplate Sam's murder a few times over in my head as he and I wave goodbye and he runs back to the car.

As he gets back in he tells me he has two confessions to make, and asks me to promise not to get mad at him. I tell him what he wants to hear to get him to talk, knowing full well I am still going to get mad if he deserves it. He told me he lied to the Thornes and had told them I had just spilled my slurpee all over my lap and that is why I did not come in with him (good cover Sam, I am proud of you). His next confession, not that good of news. He tells me that smell we had smelled earlier, it was definitely him. He did not think it would smell that bad and he thought he would be able to get away with it because one of the windows in the car was rolled down. I start yelling laughing, trying to figure out how he honestly thought he would be able to get away with it when we were in a CAR. He tells me he is sorry, as I am dying laughing from teasing him so much (and I wasn't going to admit this because scientifically speaking im not sure how its possible, but I may have peed my wet pants more). I tell him don't ever try to get away with it in the car ever again unless we are driving 80mph on the freeway with all the windows down through a stinky cow town so he can blame it on them. Then I beg him to take me home, as he begs me to never tell this story to anyone; a promise that, whether or not I made, I never planned on keeping.

Engagement Anniversary???

After a long anticipated weekend in Boise (two years ago) I finally got my ring (well my fake ring. My real ring was not done, and stayed that way till 6 months? after our wedding). The wedding date may or may not have already been set, the temple called, and the arrangements already on the go, but I did not have my official proposal until this day (two years ago).

We had gone up to Boise for the weekend. I had my ideas that this trip was going to be special (Sam told me during an argument a few weeks before because I was frustrated he had not proposed yet and we had everything else in place.) I kept trying to guess different circumstances where he would pop the question, but as the weekend continued to fly by, none of them panned out the way I had planned out in my head. Sunday night we were getting ready to drive back to Utah, and to say the least I was really disappointed in him. I just decided to go to bed early (possibly scratch the whole wedding) and get ready for our morning drive.

Monday morning I was awakened by a text message from a secret source telling me to check my bag. There was a video recording of a mission I was supposed to complete (being a secret agent is my life long dream). I had to get showered and ready (because he knows I would not go anywhere unless I was), then check the mailbox. The mailbox told me to pack up my bags (all liquids inside) and then start walking up the street. As I started walking, I rounded the corner and a strange man (Quinner Binner) took me to breakfast, then dropped me off at the airport. Super confused, I roamed around the airport until I ran into a Jana Banana, who gave me my plane ticket. I checked in, she walked me to the gate, then we gave our hugs and said our goodbyes. I found Sam at the gate who told me we were headed to Seattle for the next four days!!!

Sam tried to be super sneaky by calling my work and trying to get the days off for me, but knowing my work, of course I was scheduled to work every single one of those days. I called in kind of nervous and prepared to quit, but within a half hour all my shifts were covered, so we boarded our plane, flew for a half hour or so, and then we were in our Seattle adventure.

Not the cutest picture, but the only one of the plane ride.

When we arrived in Seattle we hung out at the airport for a few minutes...

took weird pictures in front of bars, then Sam's Aunt Sage came and picked us up.

We hung out with her, ate some lunch, talked a bunch, and then she dropped us off here...

at Pikes Place, where we handed our camera to strangers so they could take our pictures, and walked around the market place.

After walking around for awhile, Sam led me toward the harbor, and onto a ferry ride across the bay...

here we are boarding

And heading across the river for dinner

Sam with his picture perfect smile

and me, just proud of myself that I kept my eyes open

even if the rest of my face is squished.

Now, it was on this boat ride back that Sam had originally planned to propose. It was perfect. I was full from dinner so least likely to be grumpy, the sun was setting, the Seattle sky line was our front view, but of course Sam left the ring in his luggage, which was in the car at his Aunt and Uncles house. He told me what he did, we had a good laugh, I only rolled my eyes a little at Sam for pulling a Sam, and then I forgave him because everything else had been perfect.

The next morning he asked if I wanted to go "on a walk"

I skeptically agreed because I knew what he was doing and I wanted to make him more nervous than he already was (I know, I am mean).

We walked along some back trails, everything was green and pretty, he took me to a park, we sat on the bench overlooking the water, he got down on his knee

and gave me this, my fake ring which did not really fit, was kind of what I wanted, but which I took with a smile because I finally was officially engaged. (Oh he may have said some other stuff about loving me a lot and wanting to marry me.)

Here was the first shot of us engaged

No strangers this time. Just the camera timer and the seemingly fake background.

The rest of the week was spent touring Seattle, having fun and enjoying the weather. It did not rain once when we were there.
Oh, we also found The New Sam...

And a little bit of The Old Sam

And a lot of The Crazy Sam

There were some bad smells that I inevitably found


We ate dinner with Sam's Uncle David and Aunt Sage in the restraunt on top of the Space Needle

It was delicious and the best spinning view. A great way to watch the sun set.

And then, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to this cute house and Sam's cute Aunt.

We were off to the airport and back to real life in Utah. Maybe one day we can go back. I'll probably add another Seattle trip to my ongoing list of presents.

So May 14th should have been the date, but the ring fiasco officially turned it to the 15th, so maybe I will just claim both days...

Happy Engagement Anniversary Sam.

Orange you glad they all aren't Grapefruit?

So when life (Mama Galeria) gives you lemons (way more oranges than you can eat yourself), before they go moldy, you should make the best orange juice ever.



And when you have two grapefruits left, and neither of you like their bitter taste, you should juice those also. So that when you decide to make your next bet, and the loser is declared (its usually sam) you can force him to drink it.

A Merry Cody Birthday

Nine is a magic number in the month of May; it is the anniversary of the day that Cody was born. Cody is my older brother, who I always looked up to when I was little.

I would dress like him...

We would go camping at Silver Creek together...

We got the same kind of presents from Grandpa...

We even went through our chubby stages together...

Apparently Cody escaped that chubby stage quicker than I did, but he was still my friend.

Here is the proof that he did in fact like to play with dolls in his younger days...

but we will choose to overlook the cabbage patch kids since he also enjoyed micro machines, legos and hot wheels.

Here is Cody wearing my favorite blue shirt. I say "my" because I always knew that whatever he was wearing would be mine before long.

I will never forget all the fun we had together playing doubles. And now, after all these years of playing, I am happy to announce that I am the best tennis player in the family (besides my Dad who is still amazingly strong and athletic for a man so experienced in years) :)


We hope you had a Happy Birthday Cody! We love you!