ANDRE REIU... BETTER THAN DISNEY LAND

This guy put on the greatest show I've ever seen! I could NOT stop laughing the entire night. Between his backup dancers in full-on ball gowns reenacting a ridiculously smiley version of "Pick-a-little-talk-a-little-cheep-cheep-cheep" in the background... Andre's charming facial expressions magnified on the the screen 99.999999999 percent of the time... the elderly couples waltzing in the aisles... the random man-in-bull-head charging the audience... the one AMAZING soprano who was forced to perform the one credible thing of the entire night in a doll costume with bright red circles on her cheeks... the looks on the faces of our friends who drove in traffic from Provo to hear one of "the world's most famous violinists" (in suits and jazzy attire).... and the free coke zero in the parking lot.... we had a night that rivals the pure joy I feel at Disney Land. I can't even explain to you what an extraordinary evening. Definitely worth sitting in the rain for.... ha ha ha... it makes me laugh even now to think about it! It's too bad I don't have a picture of his face to preserve the memory till the end of time. It was one of those moments where you just thought, "This is just too good. I can't believe I am here!" You know, he really was a fantastic violinist, and we were lucky to be there... I just did not anticipate the show we got to see! No one really ever could! My sincere thanks to our buddy Andre!




This was us trying to mimic his face(s):

CIAO JOHNNY!

I was in the grouchiest mood... stomping around... feeling gross... thinking only about myself...and the phone rang. I looked at the phone, and I didn't recognize the number. I said, in my grizzliest voice, "I don't know that number, and I don't want to talk to ANYONE I don't know!!!" Scott said, "Linds, it might be Johnny, answer it."

AND IT WAS!!!!!

(thank you Scott)

Johnny's in ITALY!!! Or at least I think he is by now... We got to talk to him on the phone when he was at the airport on Tuesday morning. It was SO GREAT to talk to him! He told me all about what is first day was supposed to be like. He told me about swine flu in the MTC and the fun they had playing pranks with their quarantined masks. We had so much fun laughing and just catching up. I feel like we hadn't missed a beat... although I've missed him! Johnny is the greatest kid, and I have been missing him like crazy. I cannot even explain how happy it made me to talk to him, even for just twenty short minutes! (Except, I did end the phone call crying of course. Lame goodbye. It wasn't a good bye. It was a bad bye... a very bad bye!)

This kid just makes me smile.

27 E. WARD YOUTH CONFERENCE 2009

From there I'm going to Youth Conference. Scott and I are both in callings in our ward where we are with the Young Men/Young Women. Scott is the Scout Master for three wards, and I'm the second counselor in the Young Women's presidency. We love our callings.

We ended up going to Youth Conference with them down at Snow College. The kids were able to do a ropes course, water fights, all the standard stuff, and then go to the Manti Pageant at night. Scott and I took some of my girls hiking up Marble Canyon on the way home as well.

TWENTY-FIVE

I am WAY too behind on this blogging business, so I'm going to do a quick recap of the last few weeks... or months. This will probably mean I will be catching up bit by bit for the next few days!

To start off, Scotty turned 25 in June! Happy Birthday to Scotty! We had such a fun birthday! I feel like it was my birthday too... I get way too into holidays! Scotty and I spend the weekend eating delicious food, hiking new trails, reading new books, and taking pictures with our new camera! We even went to the mountains above our house and flew a kite all of Sunday afternoon.





Sunday evening, we went to my parents house for a birthday/father's day shindig. Scott is a perfect fit in our wild family. He's quickly caught on that his jobs are putting ice in the glasses for Sunday dinner and entertaining/pacifying his two hyperactive nephews. He is a great uncle! I made Scott's favorite, carrot cake. It tasted better than it looked! I swear! I know every girl has made that cake before.. the one that has a pool of frosting on the top to fill in the giant hole that was created when the non-stick pans decided to dig a chunk out of the top of the cake...

OH CANADA!

Happy Canada Day! What better way to celebrate than to GO to Canada! Here are some of the things we're looking forward to on our quick trip... Calgary, Banff, the Calgary Stampede!

BYE BYE BEARDO!

After our Grand Canyon adventure, Scott had achieved a level of scruffy that was edging closer and closer to a serious fuzzy beard. We felt it would have been a shame to rid our lives of all that hard work and persistent beard growing. We enjoyed it for a while, but I think Scott was getting a little ancy to shave. He started getting food caught in his beard. He started combing it at night. We found critters hiding in it on occasion. It was time to shave. Scott, the weirdo that he is, did what all guys do post-BYU when they can finally have a beard and realize all they want to do is get rid of it, he shaved it in sequence. He went from an Abe Lincoln to a Mad Dog (these are his terms). At one point I went into the bathroom and he was playing an air guitar and wearing his non-prescription glasses. I guess his beard trim was an "artistic" one, with a little bit of goatee (is that how I write it?)/ side burn action. Anyways... what fun facial hair can be!

This one is a real beauty....