everybody loves a stereotype or my love/hate relationship with utah

warning!!! there are 35 pictures in this post. and since i hate photo collages and slideshows, cancel your afternoon plans and read!
reasons i hate photo collages and slideshows:
1. you really can't see the pictures that well.
2. it's an ordeal to click on a picture to view it bigger.
3. if you choose to print your blog into a book via blurb.com you might was well go ahead and post all your desired pictures.
4. slideshows always take freaking forever when there are usually only a few pictures i want to see and the rest are really for family, right???

anywhooo, daventine got married last weekend in utah and our little fam damily took a vacation out to utah for the special occasion. i am one of those people who loves to visit utah, but i couldn't live there. except in the summer when the weather is wonderful and sunny and dry and not humid and wonderful. so, without further delay:


a pictorial retrospective of the good, the bad and the ugly pf our family vacation. and if you are wondering, i tried to play up as many stereotypes as possible! just for fun!



good: reagan watching the airplanes at the denver airport.

good: daventine's sealing in the salt lake temple.

bad: baby snot all over my hand

bad: our teeny, tiny rental car that our family could barely fit our stroller, luggage and bodies into. thank goodness none of those crazy I-15 drivers hit us, or we would have been goners.

bad: changing scarlett's whole outfit in the denver airport...
...because her diaper leaked all over me.

fun: being with big T and hiking the Y...

...for the first time in my life.
good, bad or ugly(you choose): being with my cousins, austin, nate, brandon and my brother marky mark.


good: visiting with grandma bonnie and enjoying her chigger-free grass and her mountain views.

good: watching the happy couple get their pictures taken by the lovely mary

fantastic: seeing the wonderful and amazing jan, my boss from my college years who was sooo good to me. she certainly put up with a lot of grief and accidentally bared midriffs.

AWESOME: the cougareat, also known as the koo-ghar-eee-uht in heidi-speak. many hours were spent here people watching with the posse. the easiest way to skip a class??? find a friend and get a milkshake, or some cheesy fries, or a wrap from L&T.

awesomer: eating at the famed brick oven pizzeria, the one-time employment of the fabulous jessica creer

good and weird: the view from Y mountain of a couple of LDS chapels sharing the same gigantic parking lot. only in utah...

awesomely bad: big T's and little h's first apartment together, the villa rose #17. we were the one with the bike. what a dump. hell threw up and this is what was left. but we were happy. and it was in this little apartment with the rotten carpet and no dish washer where i gained 15 pounds of pure velveeta fat. we have certainly come a long way baby!

SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY AWESOME: the daily universe's reader's forum. today's topic, the hypocrisy of having caffeine-free products on campus. LOVE IT!!! it never changes and it never gets old. i do have a hankering for a nice tall dr. pepper. next week's letter, why can't male students have beards on campus without having to obtain a beard card? brigham young had a beard! i'm sure jesus christ wouldn't have to obtain a beard card.

CRAZY AWESOME: earnestly chocolate ice cream. heaven on earth.

CRAZIER AWESOME: the creamery on ninth. high prices, low wages, bags of cheese curds and tons of available freshman within walking distance. especially freshmen with dining plus. i was on the lookout for one who would want to help out a family of four with healthy appetites.

chocolate covered gross bad: displays of chocolate covered cinnamon bears that some people claim to love. chocolate covered barf in a bag if you ask me. bleah.

not that good, but not terrible like chocolate covered cinnamon bears: minty brownies from sugar and spice. available at EVERY byu catering catered function, with a side of cream puffs and a cup of byu sparkle. high class folks.

good and bad: thomas' apartment in the colony. he LOVED the colony. too bad no one in his apartment loved it enough to clean the bathroom on the main floor. gross, like a chocolate covered cinnamon bear.

WAY bad: that dump of a house that was across from my dump of a house on 470 east. who can remember the nickname we gave the couple who lived there and would always come out on their front lawn to fight???

so bad it was good and probably a health hazard too: the little house on 470 east 620 north. absentee landlord(slumlord), no heat for about 2 months in winter, no A/C in the summer so that we had to lay on the floor in our underwear. about 600 square feet of total luxury. our own slice of pioneer ancestry.

TERRIBLE- the wash hut. or the unwashed hut as i recall. that's all i can say about that. it was next to the infamous crown 5. sorry no pics of that "crown" jewel of byu approved housing. just thumb through your memories girls.

the one place on campus you absolutely dressed to impress:- the harold b. lee library. or as heather my dear sister would say, "what the HBLL are you doing?" or as i would say, "the meat market". gotta give mad props to all the studying that didn't happen in periodicals.

most surprising change to campus- the gordon b. hinckley alumni house. took my breath away. beautiful and amazing building. i proudly signed the guestbook with heidi-2002 and thomas-2003

best thing at BYU that i forgot about- those random people who always felt the need to be playing the piano at every building on campus. did anyone else notice that, or was it just me? some people must wake up and say, "get me to a piano on campus, i must grace everyone's ears with MY perfect piano melodies!" wherever we went, it never failed. the true sign of the apocalypse would be a un-played piano at BYU.

horribly awesome- the most played out stereotype EVER: long, hideous jumper dress with huge ill-fitting t-shirt underneath, longlonglong straight unconditioned hair, birkenstock sandals, and some sort of multicolored woven bag from a third world country, most likely picked up on a mission. sorry if that is a picture of your sister.

love/hate it, the marriage factory: love all the bridal guides and whatnot produced by people looking to capitalize on utah's marriage craze. hate all the pressure for people to get married after 3 long weeks of courtship.

so great is borders on wonderful: all the missionaries at the salt lake airport embarking on their 18 months or 2 years of missionary service. i saw this huge bus from the MTC with about 50 departing missionaries on it. i stood there taking pictures like a sobbing fool as i watched them get ready to go and share the gospel all over the world.

nostalgia overload good: checking out the message board in the wilk. plenty of never been worn engagement rings for sale, numerous only-been-worn-once-wedding dresses for sale, that random motorcyle for sale and last but not least....men's and women's apartment contracts for fall semester!!! i felt like i needed to put a little sign up there that said, "don't fall for it! avoid the crown apartments, or any place i lived for that matter!!!"

the quickest way to pick up a ax murderer good: the RIDE board! who doesn't want to take a road trip with perfect strangers??? we read one that said, "we don't care where you are going, we just love road trips!!!" sounds safe to me kids. run that one past your mom, she will love it!

high-calorie wonderful: the candy counter in the book store. along with that 15 pounds of velveeta fat was about 5 extra pounds of reese's pieces and otis spunkmeyer fat. i exhibited no self control. thomas took a leap of faith when he married me.


the end. our little family had the best time visiting utah. can't wait to do it again. perhaps i should check the ride board and see who wants to drive out with me?