bitter sweet.

Well, my house is clean, my homework has been finished (in advance, mind you), my bag is packed and I've baked two loaves of banana bread (thank you friends for your recipes!) plus some chocolate chippers for the trip.

We're off to Lake Powell tomorrow.
But before we leave, we'll be waiting anxiously at the mailbox tomorrow afternoon for Scotty's mission call to arrive. He is the last of my 4 brothers to go & it seriously doesn't get any easier to say goodbye, even after 6 years of ALWAYS having a brother on a mission.
I really don't know who will come over to my house to cheer me up and color random pictures on my cabinets with me. Or who will make funny faces with me the entire car ride home from Lake Powell. I have no idea who will hang out with me during lunch, listen to me complain, jump with me for the camera, be my constant partner-in-crime or make me laugh until I pee my pants...
I'm excited for him to go, but a huge part of me will be missing while he is gone.

See you next week, friends.
I'll be sure to tell you where he's going when I return.

{pictures of me & k bored on the car ride home from lake powell last year...so happy g can make it this year!)

happy birthday mhm.

in order to celebrate your birth, a few us put together this magical display just for you.

if that's not a birthday present...i don't know what is.

i love you, dad!

for christy.

this is kate.

this is kate in a swimming suit.

this is kate in a princess swimming suit at the pool yesterday.

i love this little lady.

{sorry for the bad quality. pic taken with my phone}

this is what happens.

when i have papers to write,
books to read,
literally hours of homework ahead of me...

i come home from work and spend the entire night re-arranging
every piece of furniture i own

i would like to blame this compulsion entirely on my mother.
i used to come home from school and find that she'd re-painted the entire house while we were gone.
and then, the next month, she'd do it again.
(i love you, mom!)

feel free to chime in with your criticisms.
and if your curious about what it used to look like,
go here.

just go easy on me, please.
the layout of this room is beyond impossible.

lazy 4th.

I'm not usually a fan of detailed recaps of my days, but since Friday July 3rd was literally one of the best days of my life, I think I'll give you the play-by-play.

G had to work until about noon that day, so I slept in, made myself some herbal tea for breakfast (thanks Grandma!) and read this amazing book for hours in our sunny living room with the pups on my lap. G came home at lunch time so we packed a little picnic and headed to the park to eat, nap and play with the pups all afternoon. Afterwards, we headed to the nearest snowie to pick up a snow-cone with cream to share. We spent a little time cooking together for a BBQ that night and then spent the rest of the afternoon/early evening sitting on our front patio reading, chatting and eating our snow cone. Later, we headed off to a BBQ with some friends and didn't make our way home until almost 3 in the morning, due to the fact that I literally couldn't stop laughing.

Seriously, one of the best days I've had in a long time and I just don't want to forget it. I love lazy days with just G & I and as much as I am looking forward to adding a 3rd amigo to the duo someday, I know I will miss our alone time when the little comes. And no, that is not my backwards way of telling everyone that I'm pregnant. Dear Mom, I am not pregnant.

Our 4th was nice, too. We spent it BBQ'ing with my family, watching fireworks at the park and hanging out on our flat roof above the city. I love our flat roof, by the way. It's totally genius.

love.

Late last night, I sat at our computer and prepared to take an online midterm I had for one of my classes. The test was due in a few hours and we had just returned from a family dinner. Since we'd been out of town and on-the-go all week, I wasn't prepared even the slightest for the test...hadn't read the chapters, didn't know the material and didn't have time to do any of it before I had to start the test. Well, the deadline was fast approaching and I had one hour from the time I started the test to finish it before the clock ran out.

Just as I cracked open the book and began to somewhat freak out, G breezed into the room, took the textbook from my hands and settled in next to the computer to literally take the entire test with me. He stayed next to me for that hour and looked up every question I didn't know (yes, it was open book) which, considering my study habits, was pretty much every single question.

We finished just as the clock ran out and call it pathetic, but as I hit "submit" I felt completely overwhelmed with gratitude and love for him. Sometimes I get caught up in what the world says "being in love" is. We see it in every movie; they tell us it's flowers, over-the-top romantic gestures, expensive gifts, non-stop excitement and butterflies that never go away. Well, G isn't the most romantic man in the world and he thinks flowers are a waste of money and although I am still head-over-heels in love with him, I can't say I still feel the initial excitement I did when I met him almost 4 years ago.

But last night, as we finished that test, it suddenly occurred to me that I had just seen an act of selfless love. The fact that G cared enough about my feelings, my stresses, my obstacles to literally sit next to me and help me with every single question...that was love.

And next time he forgets to get a gift, or open a door, or plan something romantic I am going to remind myself that he shows me he loves me every day in the little things he does to make my life better and easier. He cares enough to be there for me when it REALLY counts.

And that's love.

that's what you get for waking up in vegas.

We came, we gambled, we conquered. Or maybe not conquered, because we didn't walk away with much*, but it was still a fabulous trip. And I hardly took any pictures, because we all know the Olsen men hate photos & my camera always gets shy around them. The ones I did take consist mostly of weird, random shots of my sweet G looking totally buzzed/stoned/drunk, which he was not...(just tired). My cute sister-in-law wrote an awesome post about the details of our trip, so visit her if your interested in those.

Thanks fam for a great time and thanks Vegas for being 107 degrees every day & somehow convincing me that Utah weather is perfect. And also thank you to the "Let it Ride" dealer who took my $40 that otherwise would have been spent on new clothes...how thoughtful of you, really.

G and some of his chippies.

 Us right before "LOVE" started. There were no cameras allowed in the theater, but we all know that I don't enjoy following rules very much. Yes, someone saw me & yes, I got in trouble, but I still don't regret it. And just for the record, I think I would have liked "Love" A LOT BETTER if I could have felt my toes/feet/fingers during the performance. Because I am not kidding you, I COULD NOT FEEL THEM...it was beyond freezing.

This picture is super weird, the picture taker obviously didn't have great picture-taking skills, but it's all about the memories, right? I wanted at least ONE picture of all of us together, so I forced all Olsens into formation for this one. And I don't regret that, either.

I like the way this picture sort of makes you dizzy, because that's kind of what Vegas does to you, too.

Contrary to what this photo might suggest about him, G did not consume any drugs or alcohol that night. Shocking, I know. I still think he's cute, blood-shot eyes and all.

And here we are by the fountains, and those are little drops of water all around us.

Pretty sweet.

The only thing that could have made the trip better would have been the presence of our own little Beatle-lovers. We missed you guys! And finally a shout out to Heidi and Erik who made us laugh non-stop and taught me how to gamble...we loved hanging out with you guys!

* anything

happy birthday to one of my best friends.

love you, meg!

thursday adventures.

gary is a little old man who lives near my office.
gary comes into the office almost every day with ice cream for the receptionist.

gary has a little red-headed wife.
we hear about her, but we never see her.
gary makes us promise that if we ever see his little red-headed wife
we won't tell her that he out-runs the cops on a daily basis

you see, gary has out-run the st. george police 9 times.
and the salt lake police 10 times.
but watch out, because he has out-run the cops on his way to wendover
a whopping 14 times.

his little audi a-4 can reach speeds of up to 180 miles per hour
he once made it to 190
which is why the cops never catch him.

gary beat up every bully in his high school
even the biggest ones
gary is 5 feet nothing
but he's broken 10 guys noses
and knocked out 12 teeth.

gary likes to hang out in our lobby and demonstrate just how he did it.

don't mess with gary.

 this post is accompanied by a whole bunch of pictures of me & my co-workers working.