Shut Up Brain or I'll Stab You With a Q-Tip!

Snowpocalypse

2012-01-19T15:16:00.000-08:00

One great thing about living in Bellevue is that we don't have much of a winter. But when it does snow, the entire city shuts down. It's crazy. With constant news headlines including words like "snowpocalypse" or "snowmageddon" or "snowzilla," you would think that we would have a couple of feet of snow outside by now. NOPE. We have more like three inches of snow, and it has stopped our lives.

We used to think that people here were just really dumb when it comes to driving in the snow. But when the neighborhood kids built a giant snow jump in front of our driveway, managing to get quite a bit of air as they fly down the hill, we decided to sit this storm out and bunker down with our massive store of pop tarts and oatmeal.

Food storage!

It turns out that it actually is really hard to drive in the snow here. This video was the result of last year's storm:

Like most independent films, you should probably just mute it and skip to the middle

My easy life just got easier because all of my seminary and work obligations have been cancelled. It's weird being trapped in my house all day--but in a fantastic, I'm-still-wearing-my-pajamas-from-four-days-ago sort of way. Trevor stays in the computer room all day, working from home. But I'll have you know that I've been very productive too.

Here's to hoping for three more inches and zero disruptions to my sedentary lifestyle.

Christmas with the Laceys

2012-01-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

This was the first Christmas with the in-laws and we had a great time. There was a lot of eating out, movie watching and drinking Santa milkshakes. If you haven't had these yet, you're missing out. All you have to do is blend up peppermint ice cream with some eggnog. Separately, I think that peppermint ice cream and eggnog are both decent, but together they are straight up delicious.

Here is video from Christmas morning where Trevor is opening Colin's gift. Side note to understand this story, for those of you who don't know Trevor's dad is in charge of the Heber Creeper (Heber Valley Railroad) and so Trevor's life has revolved around trains. Trevor's older brother Robert gave in to the train loving indoctrination from his dad, but Trevor hates trains. Also, the Lacey family is not big on secrecy and Colin previously told us we were getting a Batman Xbox game from him. With that in mind you can now enjoy this video.

We also took some time to see the lights at both Temple Square and the ones at the Riverwoods.

The Laceys

Our photographer, Colin Lacey

As soon as we got back to Bellevue we jumped in the car and headed to Moses Lake to see my family for a few days. It was wonderful. We surprised everyone because we told them we weren't coming until the next day. We timed it perfectly, and managed to surprise everyone moments before they had to leave to various wedding receptions.
My big gift of the year was a sewing machine, so Kacey gave me a quick lesson and we helped the girls make some pillows for their apartment. It was so great to see everyone together. I miss everyone already. Here are some pictures of my nephews (Scarlet missed the photo op because she was getting ready).

Rhode and I

Look at that face and tell me I'm not the favorite Aunt

Last, here is a video of Rhode singing some Christmas songs. Prepare for adorableness.

Spanish Conquerors

2011-11-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

People always tell me and Kristy that we ought to take advantage of our kidlessness now and spend what savings we have with reckless abandon on lavish trips and wild thrills. And since nothing says "lavish" and "wild" like a bunch of conquistadors slaughtering and ravaging an indigenous population while stealing their gold, Spain was the perfect destination.

Having slept on the flight there and arriving at 7 am, our first day was a blurry hangover of timelessness: perfect for savoring the artistic talents of long-since-dead artists at the world-renowned Prado museum. It mostly consisted of us thoughtfully examining a painting, nodding our heads in approval while scratching our chin and declaring aloud: "Yup. This one looks almost as good as a picture." Almost as exciting as Call of Duty. But you can't just go to Spain and not see the Prado or else your top-hat-and-monocle-wearing friends will poke fun at your barbarism.

The next day was spent in Toledo. We hiked the streets in the drizzly weather from site to site until we finally found a dessert shop.

If you ask Kristy, we walked from dessert shop to dessert shop until we found the sites.

One of our favorite sites was the Cathedral of Toledo. If you were wondering where all that Aztec gold was spent, this was the place.

Holy Toledo, Batman!

Besides steep hills and enormous, gilded cathedrals, Toledo is also known for making swords and armor. According to Mr. Wikipedia, the economic base of Toledo is built on top of the toothpaste manufacturing and metalworking industries. Personally, I wanted to see the toothpaste factory, but of course Kristy always gets her way.

Stay back or this cool guy right here gets it!

The day after Toledo, we hung out in Madrid all day. Since we apparently just weren't taking enough candid photos of ourselves enjoying the city, we posed for a few.

Quick! I can't hold this pose forever!

We wanted to take a cable car across a giant park in the city, but after a 45-minute walk to get there, we found out it was closed.

The next day, we visited a huge, underground basilica that hated dictator Francisco Franco built in "The Valley of the Fallen," a memorial site to remember the many people he killed in his civil war. As creepy as it was, it is easily the coolest war memorial church I've ever been to.

Then, we went back to Madrid, saw some castles, got lost, found Elvis, visited the Royal Palace, and ate some chocolate.

On Wednesday, we were zooming around Madrid on Segways for a few hours, zipping in and out of crowds on the sidewalk. Kristy thought the people were admiring our cool new toys, but she clearly doesn't speak Spanish and didn't realize that they were yelling and swearing at us.

Finally, we drove up to La Granja to see a few more palaces and Segovia to check out the famous aqueduct.

Oh, and since we took about 500 pictures of tiny deer with moose antlers there, I figured I ought to include at least one of them here.

David and Peggy accompanied us the whole time, making this an awesome trip filled with many many Spanish pastries and sweets. And a huge thanks to Doug and Connie who let us stay at their place the entire time.

It was awesome!

I should leave more often

2011-10-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the famous Earl Girl Reunion. In short, it was fantastic. Lots of fun to catch up with everyone and I will forever have the image of Sam smacking Kim during charades in my mind. Gotta love that Earl competitive spirit. I also got the chance to meet my nephew Asher. He is absolutely adorable and my crowning achievement was that I got him to giggle. It's always tough going from "vacation mode" to "reality" (especially when you teach early morning seminary) but luckily I have a fantastic husband. It first started out when Trevor pulled up to the airport and I saw this...

He completely cleaned out my car (including my messy trunk) and vacuumed it for me. I noticed immediately and he was so proud of his handiwork. I thought I was happy until I then opened the door to our apartment and saw this...

Our apartment was spotless and just beautiful. I was so happy and then he told me to go look in our room and I saw this...

He bought me a shelf where I could keep all of my Seminary materials. I was so impressed that I decided to write this post. Thanks Trevor.

Exotic Summer Vacation

2011-09-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

We just got back from our free trip to the land of Provo. Sure, it's not Hawaii, but we loved it. We were in Provo as recruiters for Trevor's company at BYU's Technology Career Fair. I know next to nothing about what Trevor does all day at work, but I was invited to come along as the comic relief and bask in the perks of being a recruiter.

It started with Trevor and me arriving in Salt Lake City and getting our first rental car ever. We were excited, and it made us feel very mature as we stepped up to the Avis counter to receive the keys. We learned a very important lesson that day: Trevor is not allowed to choose our rental car from now on. He likes small cars, so he asked for a "compact car." They stuck us with this piece of torture.

Trevor acted overly-excited so I wouldn't notice that he was standing next to a Toyota Yaris. It was nice having a rental car and all, but this wussy little go-cart didn't even have power locks or windows. Plus, the speedometer was in the middle of the console rather than on the driver side. Not a fan. I actually missed driving in Trevor's car.

Imagine this puppy parked next to all the Porsches at Trevor's work

The first day, we had an information session to get the students familiar with the company. They served us Brick Oven pizza and root beer and had us each tell the students a bit about our jobs. I spoke about "life in Bellevue" and was asked by a student about how often I see my husband. I answered: "Well, my husband is a tad bit of a workaholic, but I still manage to see him more than I would like." That night, they gave away everything from t-shirts to pens to an XBox 360 Kinect package. It was fun, and we had many people come up and thank us for our presentations.

The next day was the actual career fair. My advice to any single girl (whether you want an engineer husband or just a lifetime supply of free pens, mouse pads, and other corporate swag) is to show up at the BYU Technology Career fair. The entire ballroom is filled with dressed-up BYU guys a hundred recruiting booths for various companies. It was crazy. We had a never-ending line at our booth. Trevor said he's never felt so wanted in all his life as people would wait in line for over 20 minutes sometimes just to speak with him. It was tiring being on our feet from 8-3 pm, but we did get a nice catered lunch, and we eventually hit up Tucanos for dinner.

Between all of our recruiting activities, we ate at delicious places and saw lots of friends and family. The best part is we stayed with Trevor's parents, so it was fun to reconnect with them. Trevor's dad was impressed when I downed a Train Burger and still ate all his fries at Dairy Keen.

We had a great time with this trip and hope to make a habit of it.

Cupcake Contest

2011-08-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

Nothing fuels my inner domestic goddess more than a cooking contest. I just love them. This last weekend we had a stake luau party with pulled pork, roasted pig AND a cupcake contest. I was in heaven. At first I was dead set and wanted to make these because they are adorable and look just like the Serta sheep.

Alas, I had to say no because this was a Hawaiian party but I'm thinking next St. Patrick's Day I might try these guys out. Anyways, after a few searches on the internet and some helpful ideas from Trevor's visiting family I came up with these babies...

Are these amazing or what? Those of you that know me know that I don't like to "sing my own praises" but these are pretty darn impressive and they're super easy to make! The sand is sacrificed Teddy Grahams, the towel is a fruit-by-the-foot and that's pretty much it. Trevor helped out by making the delicious cream cheese blue frosting to go on top of these moist chocolate cupcakes. I got the recipe from my friend Janie and they really are amazing. Here is the CUPCAKE LINK.

Well, I know you're all dying to know if I won right?? Of course I won, like there was any doubt! Here is a picture of my winnings.
It also came with some coconut but I would have preferred a punch to the face so I gave it to a friend.

As for the rest of our goings on: Trevor gets his tonsils out next week (he's had throat problems for years) and this weekend we head to Pullman to cheer Kendall on at State. Go Kendall!

Bellevue High School Students Be Warned

2011-07-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

......Because I am your new early morning Seminary Teacher. It's all pretty crazy. I've been studying up on my Old Testament and dreading the early morning schedule change. Trevor is stoked about the morning change because he's an old person at heart and would love to be in bed by 9 pm.

In other news we had "burrito babies" with some friends this weekend and they were delicious and disturbing all at the same time.

No babies were harmed in the making of this burrito

Yes, that is the actual size of the burrito and they have newborn babies posing with burritos all over the place. It's pretty odd but the food was tasty.

Why You Should Google Yourself More Often

2011-05-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

Before I get into my bizarre story I have to explain why I have two Facebook profiles. I made my first one at BYU when we still had the "@email.byu.edu" email addresses. I had that Facebook account forever but one day it said that my password no longer worked. Unfortunately by that point in time BYU had done away with that format of email so I was out of luck. I tried emailing Facebook to even just shut it down but eventually I just gave up. Now I have two accounts, "Kristy Earl" is still single and in Provo while "Kristy Earl Lacey" is married and in Seattle. It's annoying.

Anyways, the other day after performing some Dry Ice tricks at a science fair I was featured in the local Snohomish paper. The best part was that one the kids asked me if I was Bill Nye's sister. It made my day. The next day I decided I was going to Google myself to see if I had any other press with Mad Science. You might remember my first post about Googling myself and finding out I was a character in a horror movie (CLICK HERE).
So I typed in "Kristy Earl Lacey" and the first result was my blog but the second result was much more interesting.

Apparently there is some blog called Mormon Bachelor Pad and the writers of the blog are anonymous. Someone else created a blog that seems to be built solely for the purpose of discovering the "Mormon Bachelor Pad" writer's true identities. The blog was called "exposembp.blogspot.com." All right stay with me, it's about to get interesting.

So I scroll down this blog and I'm wondering what my name has to do with this randomness. I found my answer in the comment section. (My thoughts will be in red)

February 9, 2010 11:18 AM
Anonymous said...: lisa sanders = kristy earl. facebook her

So I'm thinking, "I'm sure it's another Kristy Earl, because I've never heard of any of this before." Then I see this comment...

February 9, 2010 5:09 PM
Anonymous said...: What makes you think she is Kristy Earl?

and this one...

February 10, 2010 8:12 AM
Anonymous said...: ...cause it is kristy earl

The Lady Girl said...: Kristy Earl's facebook is private. And says she graduated BYU in 04. Is she really that old? Sanders must be clueless if she didn't get that he was talking about her in those blog posts. He is pretty descriptive about their activities. I bet she doesn't want him to know that she knows and I'm sure she is very good at playing Jake's game.

Okay so now I'm kind of thinking that it's possible they are talking about me. My Facebook profile is private but I graduated High School in '04 not BYU so I'm still unsure. Then I see this..

February 11, 2010 12:29 PM
Anonymous said...: did anyone else notice that it said ireland on her shirt?

My old Facebook profile was a picture of me from Aspen Grove in my "Ireland" quidditch uniform. Yes, we invented a way to play quidditch and yes it was awesome.

February 10, 2010 8:40 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm pretty sure Jake said she was a bit older but I think he meant around 28 or 29. So I guess she could have graduated in 2004. She does look sporty...and I think he said she was sporty once.

Nothing screams "sporty" like a make-shift Ireland quidditch costume.

February 11, 2010 6:37 PM

Anonymous said...; She really does have an Ireland shirt! And that is the mission she supossedly went on!
At this point I'm thinking, "Woh, they really are talking about me!" And it just keeps getting better...

February 11, 2010 10:01 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't think this Kristy Earl girl is Sanders...because if you look up Kristy Earl Lacey I'm pretty sure it's the exact same girl but she is married she probable just made a new fb page. Sorry!

Okay yep, they're definitely talking about me...

February 13, 2010 4:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Okay so, I looked at Kristy Earl's facebook and searched for the names from this comment on MBP: "it will be impossible to stay anonymous. You've already shared way too much info.
I'm sure you are one of these guys or they would know
David Bruce, Brian Early, Jared Kinnard, Joseph Rowley, Michael Rushworth.
If I cared who you were I could look these guys up on facebook and figure it out."

She is friends with "Brian James Earley"
"Jared Kinnard" and "Michael Rushworth"

What does this mean, who are these people?

Yes, I know all of those guys and we know each other from the mission.

February 16, 2010 1:32 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm friends with 2 guys that Kristy is friends with on FB...Brian Early, and another guy. That would be too weird if it was Brian Early...i totally know him--and he did serve his mission in Ireland, these facts are freaking me out. It would just be too weird!

So funny.

Drake said...: @Anonymous 4:05
Those are all names from the Dublin Mission of people who served in Dublin during the time frame that Jake says he served. Kristy Earl served in Dublin, so it makes sense she'd be friends with those guys.

That's assuming they MBP actually did serve in Dublin.

February 16, 2010 2:35 PM

Anonymous said...; Kristy Earl has a facebook friend named "Sandra Landers"; February 17, 2010 11:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Love it! Good luck!!
FYI Kristy Earl has the same mutual friends as I do as the Kristy Earl Lacey, totally same girl; March 4, 2010 11:53 PM

So yes, apparently about a year ago I was the prime suspect for the secret identity of the person they call "Lisa Sanders." Weird huh? It isn't over yet though. This next find isn't just the comments on the blog it's the actual post. (I'll put her post in blue)

Leads

Wow. My last post stimulated a lot of discussion. I like it. I think if we keep pounding away at these guys, eventually we'll figure this out.

I wish people would post using their real id's or something so I could ask follow up questions privately. An anonymous commenter said that Kristy Earl is Lisa Sanders. I looked Kristy up on Facebook and sent her a message last week asking if she was familiar with MBP, but I didn't get a message back.

Then I got an email from someone who didn't sign the email and they sent two images that appear legit, but could be doctored.
The first photo is a screen shot of the regular Facebook search for Kristi Earl. I'm pretty sure the second photo is of Kristi's photos. One of the photo's is the same one on the other photo. So, that means even though they have different names, they must be the same Kristy. So that means Kristy Earl is now married.

I got a follow up comment after receiving this email from the an anonymous commentor (maybe the same one) who said that they are the same Kristy and that she's married. So I guess it isn't Lisa Sanders. However, that doesn't change the fact that Kristy Earl served in the same mission as Calvin and Jake the same time they were there, right? So even if Kristy isn't Lisa, she still knows the authors of MBP, doesn't she?

Plus I think Kristy is way too pretty to be dating either Calvin or Jake. Unless, Drake is right (another commenter) and that Jake and Calvin are really good looking guys. But still, Kristy is married and is probably was not recently dating Jake.

In closing, I hope Kristy is ok with me posting these photos. I never heard back from her. Kristy, if you read this and object to me posting these photos, please tell me and I'll take them down. I felt safe putting them up, though, since it's all accessible on Facebook already. And I didn't say anything hurtful about you or anything.

Can you even believe it? I was the center of a Mormon Blog conspiracy and I didn't even know it. Funny how I get sent a Facebook message that I will never be able to open. My favorite part was this "Then I got an email from someone who didn't sign the email and they sent two images that appear legit, but could be doctored." Okay, a little creepy with the whole random photo sending and whatnot but I thought it was mostly just bizarre and funny. I love how they were trying to figure out if "Kristy Earl" and "Kristy Earl Lacey" were two different people. Hilarious. I advise you all to Google yourselves and see what internet gems you find.

Family Cruise 2011

2011-05-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

We finally were able to go on our family cruise to Mexico, and it was awesome. Today, you get a special treat: you don't have to listen to me ramble on about my trip. Instead, you get to hear the day-by-day run down by my siblings and me. For mother's day, we decided to write my mom's blog for her. It was a 7 day cruise and there are 7 of us. Could that be any more perfect? So click >>HERE<< for more information about our cruise than you could ever want to hear. I'll leave you with a little sample to sate your curiosity.

Yes, my friends, that is a baby tiger on my lap. Yes, both animals were probably higher than a kite, and yes I'm guessing the "Mexico Zoo" the money was donated to is probably some one's backyard, but it was still pretty cool. So click on the link to my mom's blog and read all of the different entries. I was Day One.

St. Paddy's Day

2011-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ever since my mission in Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has become "my holiday." It's funny, every year I get random texts from people I haven't heard from in ages because when they hear "St. Patrick's Day," they think of me. I'm touched... I think. One of my favorite Simpsons quotes about Ireland is from Kent Brockman when we says: "All this drinking, violence, destruction of property...are these the things that we think of when we think of the Irish?" Celebrating St. Paddy's Day in Ireland can be pretty scary, but it can also be pretty awesome. I'm going to list my 3 favorite ways to celebrate.

3. Parades. I was lucky enough to be in Dublin for my last St. Patrick's Day, and it was pretty crazy. It was kind of funny because most of the people lining the streets, dressed up in leprechaun garb weren't even Irish. Most of the Irish people were too busy in the pub to attend. Here are some pictures.

2. Hurling Matches- All right, before you say "that's disgusting I'm not reading any further" I'm talking about an Irish sport. Now you're thinking, "eww, they made it into a sport?" Well read on because I'm about to drop some knowledge on you in the form of a youtube video.

This sport is crazy awesome to watch. This sport makes UFC look like a sissy girl tea party.

3. Parties. Who doesn't love getting decked out in green and listening to horrible fake Irish accents? No, I'm kidding, I love it. It's the one time a year when I realize how legit I sound compared to everyone around me. This year I decided to forgo the Mormon drinking games (still lemon juice champion) and calm things down with a little potluck St. Patrick's Day dinner. It was fun to see friends, eat delicious food and show off this piece of culinary genius.

I'll end this with this hilarious Simpsons clip about Ireland. It's worth the 5 sec. hulu wait.
(-->An Irish Lullaby<-- click here)

1 Year Down....

2011-02-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

Trevor and I have been married for 1 year, 1 month, and 21 days., but who's counting? No, I'm kidding; it really has flown by. Life with Trevor is great, and I love it how all of our friends tell us that we're perfect for each other. Of course they usually say that to mock us, but it's pretty dang true. To celebrate, we went to the Melting Pot, and I loved it. So many sauces, and I can cook my steak just the way I like it. Trevor loved the dessert the best.
A few weeks later, we drove down to Moses Lake to eat our frozen wedding cake. Everyone kept telling us it would be super gross but they were wrong. It was delicious. Of course the gold designs on the cake had turned green, and we had to scrape all the fondant off, but it was still good.
Also, this is what happens with you decide to have a "Pajama Exchange" with your family for Christmas.

A picture says it all

All I can say is that there will be revenge for this. Of course, I gave Jon adult penguin footie pajamas so maybe I deserved it.

I would like to reward my loyal blog readers for reading this not-so-interesting-post with my famous video known as "the trampoline video." Many of you might have seen this video on Kacey's blog, but for those of you who haven't, get excited.

To see what really happened you have to watch very carefully. I went to jump off the trampoline and I jumped right as the wind blew up the blue covering on the trampoline which caught my foot in mid-air and I tripped. The funny thing about this video is that for some reason it is so much funnier when you see it the 3rd or 4th time. I can't explain it.

Cooking with Aunt Julie

2011-01-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

One of the best parts of living in Bellevue is living so close to my aunt Julie. Julie has always been there to help me. She not only helped me find my apartment but helped me to decorate it as well. Plus, she's a champ when it comes to clothes. We always say that if Julie thinks you look good then you definitely do.

Julie's latest interest is nutrition. She even has a blog about it. -->CLICK HERE <-- What this really means is that it involves a lot of Julie coming over and telling me that my 16 boxes of gushers and my non-stick pans are bad for me. She also tries to get me to buy all organic things and one time made me shop at Trader Joe's with her. It's not a bad store if you're looking for just an item or two (like their delicious strawberry shortcakes), but going there for general grocery shopping is torture. After sorting through aisles of organic-this and pesticide-free-that and let's-see-what-ridiculous-thing-we-can-make-out-of-hemp-whatever, we went through the checkout line where I asked the cashier (who my mom would definitely describe as a "granola") if a particular marinara sauce was any good. He said, "It's a great base and if you add some fresh herbs and spices to it. What do you usually add?" I truthfully responded that "I just add sugar until it tastes good." I have never seen a more offended beatnik in all my life. It was as if I had said that Northern Spotted Owl tastes like chicken or that I love the feel of my polar bear rug between my toes.

Part of Julie's new interest is that she knows how to make a lot of things from scratch. My Mondays have become my intense cooking days. Last Monday, Julie and I made homemade chicken and curry with naan bread. Our latest creation was my favorite: May I present to you a homemade 4-cheese spinach ravioli on a bed of spinach with a pesto-cream sauce.

Did I mention they are flower shaped!

It tasted even better than it looked.

I now really look forward to Mondays--not only for the food, but because we watch "The Bachelor" afterward and there is some fantastic drama going on. Plus, one of the girls has legit fangs. Fangs! Now, I just need to plan what we're going to make next week. Thank you Julie!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Before Trevor's parents even met me, I was already engaged to their son, and right after the wedding I stole him away to live in Bellevue, so they have kind of gotten the raw deal. Fortunately, they came to visit us a few months ago and got to know me a bit better. Unfortunately, all those pictures are on an SD card that decided to cache in its chips and end its earthly career too early. So, because my own in-laws don't know me very well, the Lacey cousins really have no idea who I am. Although we did had a small get-together with them soon after Trevor and I were engaged, my mom also threw in my driving history, so now they know enough not to get in a car with me. After our story-telling, Trevor's Grandma came up to him and asked, "Are you sure about this girl?" (i.e. "How many more times can she cheat death?") It was pretty funny, although I think she was half serious.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and it was fun to meet everyone. The only problem is that a lot of the conversation was on politics and computers. Not my forte. I felt a lot like Christine in this video clip.

Trevor had been growing out his facial hair to freak out his parents at Thanksgiving. It worked pretty well, even if it was invisible in most photographs. But we found that if you zoom in really close, there's at least something to be proud of. Here he is in all of his bearded glory.

He shaved it off right after he showed his Uncle Ken. Trevor really does look like he's 16. He went shooting with the boy scouts a few months ago, but was stopped by a camp director because all of the youth had to go through a 5 min gun class. Trevor kept saying, "But I'm a leader." The people in charge just said, "yeah right" and made him take the class. It's so funny; Trevor hates it.

While in Utah, we got to see friends and eat delicious food. I introduced Trevor's family to Texas Roadhouse (there's a new one in Orem) and it's deliciousness. Their ribs are even better than Tony's. No joke.

Although Utah was fun, the dry air sucked all the happiness and life from our face, so it's great to be back at home in rainy, complexion-friendly Bellevue.

Halloween

2010-10-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

There are three things I love about Halloween: Candy, recognition, and reading Jared's Halloween post (click HERE). This year, Kristy convinced me to be awesome and dress up for Halloween. My original plan was to dress up as a pimp--purple suit, wide-brimmed hat, pimpin' cane, and a big ol' clock necklace--but since we were dressing up to attend a ward Halloween party (and Kristy didn't want to go as my *ahem* "employee") she put the kibosh on that plan. Hater.

As Plan B, we dressed up as Fred and Velma from Scooby Doo.

Daphne wasn't woman enough for me.

Zoinks! A ghost!

"My glasses! I can't see without my glasses!"

Although nobody could remember my name (Fred), everybody not only recognized us but loved us. A little kid even asked for Velma's autograph. This all made for a fun night, so long as this color spray washes out of my hair....

My Husband is Pickier Than Yours

2010-10-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, before I start this post, I should say beforehand that I have an amazing husband who is smart, attractive, and just overall pretty incredible. I mean, most wives complain about how messy their husbands are, but mine wakes up every Saturday morning and cleans the house. Yep, it's pretty sweet. But this post is not to tell you about the greatness that is my husband. It is here to tell you about the weirdness that is my husband.

Yesterday, Trevor had macaroni and cheese for the first time in his life. That may be strange, but in order to understand the true weirdness, you would have to know about Trevor's past eating habits. To call the childhood version of Trevor a "picky eater" would be like calling my niece Scarlet "a little big for her age" or calling my mom "occasionally sarcastic" or calling myself "slightly accident-prone." This was picky eating on a whole new level.

This is all I will ever make for dinner now.

We label most kids as "picky" for not eating their vegetables or preferring to eat cold cereal instead of spaghetti. Most picky eaters can list the things they won't eat. For Trevor, it was easier to list the things he did eat. As a kid, he survived on cereal, fruit, ice cream, and PB&J sandwiches. You might think, "Well that's because his parents didn't try hard enough to get him to eat different things." WRONG! Trevor's parents had what they called "tasting time" with him where they put a small amount of food on a plate (like 6 peas or a minuscule piece of turkey) and the choice was either to try the food or go to bed hungry. What did the crazy child do? Yep, he defied those peas and stared them down until they were cold and mushy. And then he went to bed hungry. This process continued until Trevor's parents finally caved in because they were afraid of starving their child. In the end, Trevor's will overpowered theirs and he continued to enjoy his spoils and look anorexic.

His spoils.

Trevor basked in his bland victory all through high school and partway through college. Just so you all understand, we're talking about an 18 year old who had never had pizza, hot dogs, spaghetti, Chinese food, pop tarts, tacos, and the list goes on and on. Luckily for Trevor, there was a miracle coming his way, and that miracle was his mission call to Veracruz, Mexico.

Cow face tacos... Mmm mmm....

Trevor's mission miraculously taught Trevor how to eat. I suppose everyone gets to the point that they're hungry enough to eat anything. And he did. Not only did Trevor learn to eat pizza and tacos, but he also had to eat some crazy stuff like chicken feet, raccoon, iguana, cow stomach (with slimy bits of undigested grass), and diced intestines. It's funny because since he never really ate American food, he considers Mexican to be his native food. He eats his corn on the cob with salt and lemon juice (which apparently they do in Mexico) and eats crepes like tacos.

Since coming back from his mission, Trevor is much better about food. Thank goodness. Although it never ceases to amaze me how many things Trevor has still never had before. I can't tell you how many times I ask Trevor if he likes certain dinner choices (the latest ones having been corn dogs and macaroni and cheese) and his answer is "I don't know; I've never tried it." He is a good sport about it, though, and will literally eat anything I make... Well, except for mashed potatoes, and beans of all kinds, and if it has a lot of melted cheese on it, or if it has a creamy sauce to it, or if it is "chinesey-looking." I'm kidding. He really does eat everything I cook him, and he is entering a whole new world of deliciousness. If he keeps this up one day he will be able to join the normal picky eaters of the world.

Urban Death Maze (aka NYC)

2010-09-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

Kristy and I share a love for free stuff. Whether it's a free tiny sample of ice cream or a free 16 oz drink with a purchase of $10.99 or more, nothing makes our day like getting something for nothing. In this case, it was a free vacation to New York City.

When we got bumped off our honeymoon flight in January earlier this year, we arrived at Cancun three hours later than planned but $800 (in airline vouchers) richer. Because Kristy has friends who live in the Bronx and I had never been to New York before, we decided to finally spend the vouchers and burn some of my vacation days and head to the Big Apple.

While waiting to board our flight from Seattle to New York, we got bumped... again. So once again, we arrived at our destination (New York) three hours late but with another $800 of vouchers in our pockets. Oh, how we suffer so....

Who's cool? That's right. I am.

Since we were staying in the Bronx with Kristy's friends, Nicki and Nathan, we rode the subway several hours each day back and forth to Manhattan. We only survived by heeding Homer's advice: "Now remember, criminals prey on small town folk like us. So if anybody asks, we're sophisticated millionaires from the Ozarks."

Sophisticated Millionaires from the Ozarks

Actually, on the quarter mile walk to the subway station on our first day, we managed to get lost within the first five minutes. This was unsurprising and completely normal for us (I will feel sorry for our poor, disoriented, GPS-dependent children), but being lost in the Bronx is a little scarier than being lost in Provo or Bellevue.

We had to ask these guys for directions.

After finally making it to Manhattan, we hit up Canal Street and checked out Times Square. Since Seattle is the biggest city I had ever seen before, at every skyscraper in New York, I was always like, "Whoa Kristy! Take my picture in front of this building!" She rolled her eyes every time at her hillbilly husband because we weren't even in Times Square at this point, and those huge buildings were probably only apartment complexes anyways.

Hoooooly cooooooooooow, that's tall!

Ohhh... I see your point now.

We then made our way to a recording of the Colbert Report. (Click here if you've never seen Colbert.) We had been trying for months beforehand to get tickets to the show and were finally able to a day or so before we left Seattle. We thought that Ben Affleck was going to be the guest, but it ended up being the author of some lame book about prep culture. (Click here to watch the episode we saw. We're sitting about halfway up on the right.) Even so, it was a lot of fun to be there in person.

Best friends

And of course no trip to New York would be complete without buying a huge, greasy slice of pizza from a wife-beater-wearing Handsome-Rob-look-alike. He stiffed me on change, but his muscles were as big as my face, so I let it slide.

The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History. I asked Kristy to take my picture in front an Olmec head, and I believe here exact words were, "OK, but only if you don't pick its nose."

Oh, you mean this nose?

We saw the dioramas and dinosaurs and diamonds and stuffed animals, but never did find a Teddy Roosevelt/Robin Williams statue, so we were a little bummed.

What do you mean you couldn't afford a 14,000 carat engagement ring!?

We also had to check out some famous sweet potato fries at a restaurant across the street called Isabella's. The fries came with a brown-sugar dipping sauce which could probably even make Arby's food taste delicious. I'm not a guy that normally likes sweet potato fries (or food, in general for that matter), but this stuff is seriously the nectar of the gods.

10,000 calories of pure deliciousness.

On Wednesday afternoon, we tried the Wicked lottery to see if we could get some cheap seats. It works like this: you each put your name on a piece of paper and if it's drawn, you get up to two tickets to see Wicked for $25 each. We teamed up with an Australian couple so that if both mine and Kristy's name were drawn, we would give them two of the tickets if they would do the same for us. Well, both our names were drawn, so we made the Australian couple's day by hooking them up with sweet tickets. Oh yeah, did I mention that these were center front row tickets? Front and center is totally the way to go on Broadway.

We also dropped by the 30 Rock building because we worship that show.

Nicki and Nathan were so nice to let us stay with them in their apartment. We enjoyed spending time with them, and since Kristy hadn't seen them since before her mission, it was all the more fun.

It was great to visit New York and see the sights, but it is sure good to be back home.

Why My Parents No Longer Love Me

2010-08-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

I have amazing parents who love me--or at least love to mock me. Recently though, I have caused such heartache to my parents that the love is all but gone. I have done something that no daughter should ever do. I did the worst thing imaginable.... I cut off their hotel benefits. I know, I know, what a horrendous thing to do! My parents were finally getting used to their $45 rate for Marriott hotels. They had grand plans for next year around Christmastime when the hotel rates for employees and their families magically drop to $20. All of these wonderful dreams were dashed to pieces the day I quit Marriott.

I stopped working for Marriott hotels last February. The perks were great, but they came with a steep price. I worked every weekend until 11 pm, and because hotels never close, holidays ceased to exist for me. I can't tell you how nice it is to have weekends back. Since then, I have been working for "Science Adventures." Random, I know, but I am pretty much the queen of random jobs. We just finished up our Science Summer Camps, and I only received one death-threat all summer, so I think we'll call that a success. Of course I am so much more than a mere Science Site Director: I am also the Area Assembly Presenter. I get to put on a science show for grade-schoolers and feel like a rock star. It's a sweet gig, and so far, the kids all love me. I'm expecting to get some autograph requests soon; I'll keep you posted. My costume is a lab coat, and it's funny how kids assume you're a legit scientist when you've got one of these babies.

Here I am in my snazzy lab coat.

Luckily, my parents are forgiving people, and they recently came to celebrate Trevor's birthday/buy Kylie a car. Yes, Trevor turned 25 on August 9th. (He is 21 days older than I am.) He was pretty spoiled because my parents took us to BJ's where we ate our weight in pizza and pazookies and still had a Dairy Queen cake I bought for him to eat for the rest of the week.

Here is the gang at BJ's (We had to force Kylie to get in the picture with us)

We also convinced Brad to come and visit us before he left for BYU. I dragged poor Brad and Trevor to an Irish pub for lunch, and boy was that a terrible mistake! In my head, I get so excited to eat Irish food again and prepare my taste buds for delicious memories, but it never tuns out right. This place was terrible. The food was just gross, and I've finally decided that I'm not going to try and go to any more "Irish places." It was so bad that we had to go to Dairy Queen on the way home to get the taste out of our mouths. Later, we got Brad some chocolate milk and gushers and he was good to go for the rest of the weekend. Oh and just as a side note, we got rid of our crappy twin bed in our guest room, and replaced it with a not-so-crappy pull-out couch that turns into a double. So far, both Randi and Brad have given it positive reviews. So if you're not visiting us because you don't want to sleep on our awful twin, you no longer have an excuse.You have been warned.

Proof that Brad came.

Wow, I'm A Weakling

2010-07-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

I've always known that I am not the strongest girl in the world, but today I realized how truly weak I am. We played water balloon volleyball for our combined Young Women's activity tonight. In my experience, water fights only get crazy when boys and flirting are involved. (My zone leaders once tried to get me to come to a water balloon fight on my mission in Ireland, but I was clever enough to know that when you take "flirting" away from a water fight, it just turns into boys being mean and nailing you in the face with balloons.) Because there were no boys at tonight's activity and I am now married and boring, I wasn't expecting the onslaught.

It started out normal enough: the girls were playing their game and the leaders (including me) were chilling on the grass eating Otter Pops. But when the girls put out a hit on me, it all changed. All of a sudden, all of the younger girls charged me with a ginormous bucket of water. I panicked and found sanctuary at a nearby 7-11. Thinking I was safe from my attackers, I tried to relax until I realized that they had followed me.Using their Jedi mind tricks, they easily convinced the creepy 7-11 guy that they needed to carry me out and soak me. The creeper offered to hold me for them, so I decided to take my chances with the girls. They literally picked me up by my arms and legs and full-on carried me like a captured animal back to the church. They dropped me on the grass and completely drenched me with water. So yes: I am so weak that apparently even a group of 12-year-old girls can take me down. I might need to start exercising.

World's Worst Parent

2010-06-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

To all of you parents who have lost kids in the mall, at church, or have simply left them at Dairy Queen, this post is for you.

Now don't you feel better about yourselves?

Meeting an Apostle

2010-05-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to meet an Apostle and shake his hand. I served as a missionary in Ireland for a few years mostly because 1: I wanted my "Get Into Heaven" free card, and 2: I wanted to meet an Apostle. Unfortunately neither of these things happened. I was able to meet Elder L. Whitney Clayton (Seventy) and Sister Julie Beck. Both people were amazing, but still not Apostles. Is is too much to ask just to shake an Apostle's hand? To add insult to injury, while I was on my mission, my whole family got to meet President Henry B. Eyring when he came to release our stake president. So not fair. You can imagine how excited I was to hear in church last Sunday that Elder Packer was coming to release our stake president.

So nice to meet you at last!

At first I thought that I had heard my Bishop wrong, but nope, it was true: Elder Packer was coming to my stake. That night, Trevor and I negotiated how early we were going to get to the church so we could get good seats and get to meet an Apostle. Of course Trevor wasn't as excited because he's from the magical land of Utah where General Authorities are as common as fake orange tans. He wanted to get to church at 9:15 (the meeting started at 10) but I wanted to get there around 8:30, we finally agreed on 8:45. So today, as agreed, we got up early and were ready to go by 8:25. We got a great front parking spot at the church and sat ourselves four benches from the pulpit on the right side. It was then that Trevor started saying "It would be so funny if it were a different Packer because you've been so excited." I rolled my eyes at him and then my heart dropped as I read the program. "Presiding: Elder Allen F. Packer" I couldn't believe it.

Not Boyd K. Packer

In spite of being tricked into going to stake conference, I was grateful we got there so early. It's pretty impossible for me to pay attention to a meeting when I have to sit on those awful, freezing, folding metal chairs. Also, the speakers did an incredible job. Elder Packer and the other Seventy (Craig. G. Fisher) both had amazing talks. So no, I didn't get to fulfill my dream of meeting an Apostle, but I did stay awake and enjoy Stake Conference, and that should count for something.

Our Place

2010-04-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we took some house pictures because our place was spotless in preparation for the arrival of my mom, Kylie, and Kendall. I figured it's now time for a "check out our sweet apartment" post. Funny story is that I texted my mom telling her that Trevor and I were planning on coming over to Moses Lake for Easter, and she texted back saying, "No, you're not. Kylie, Kendall and I are staying at your place because we're going to see Michael Buble." Of course this wasn't a, "Surprise, Kristy and Trevor! We got you tickets to come with us!" This was more of a, "We're going to stay at your place while you stay home and we go to our sweet concert." Gotta love family, but I can't complain too much because I did get new clothes out of the deal.

Back to the apartment... So a few months ago, I found a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment on Craigslist and thought it had a lot of potential. I convinced my Aunt Julie to come and scout it out with me, and we both fell in love with it. It's a basement mother-in-law apartment, but it's not the dingy, rotting pit of despair that most basement apartments are. It stays cool in the summer but it also gets plenty of sunlight. Doug and Suzanne own the house and live on the top floor. They are great: Doug can fix anything, and plus they have offered to take us out on this:

Oh yes, we live a hard life.

Like most Earls, TV has always been--and will always be--an important part of my life. To quote Homer Simpson, "Let's just plop them in front of the TV. I was raised in front of the TV and I turned out TV. " Or "Kids, while we're out, the TV is in charge. Go to bed when it tells you to." Yes, television has brought so much joy into my life. Luckily Trevor now loves TV almost as much as I do, so it wasn't hard to convince him to buy our 47" LCD screen that we found at Fry's for $700. One of the greatest days of my life...

Trevor worked his nerd magic on the TV, and now we get free DVR goodness through Windows Media Center. It's sweet; it works; it's free. Did I ever mention how much I like free stuff? You can ask Trevor about how it all works. My answer is "magic." Just like the TV and Internet: it all works by magic. The best part is that you can view a list of all the upcoming movies on television and Netflix (in the form of DVD covers) and choose to record them with reckless abandon.

Now imagine this 46" bigger

And now to the picture walk-through of our apartment:

View from the doorstep

Entrance

Living room

Dining area

Kitchen

Family portrait

Guest bedroom

More guest bedroom (and bathroom door)

Hallway

Master bedroom

Enormous sink in master bathroom

We have a guest bedroom, a comfortable couch, and we're a block from the Seattle Temple, so feel free to come visit us!

Award Winning Pie

2010-03-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

I have come a long way in my culinary skills. When I first started cooking there were many mishaps, including salt cookies (2 Tbs instead of 2 tsp), macaroni soup (forgot the draining noodles step), and many others. But now I'm not only an advanced cook, but an award-winning cook. Okay sure it was only a stake competition and sure my award is a home made red ribbon, and sure I got 2nd place, but the real prize in winning isn't the trophy: it's the bragging rights. Like my "I'm the best cook in the world" face?

Last night I participated in a Stake Culinary Competition and lost only to an upside-down apple cake. Hard to beat an American dessert like that, though I'm sure there was some under the table bribes going on....no other way my pie could have been beat. No, I'm kidding actually there were tons and tons of desserts and honestly I didn't think I stood a chance of winning. But my Irish Banoffee Pie took 2nd place. It's easy to remember it because it's a combination of "banana" and "toffee" get it? It's not only delicious but it is SIMPLE to make. So I thought I'd share my award winning pie recipe with you all. I got this recipe from my old Mission President's Wife, Nadine Chapman, she's an incredible cook. Anyways, here it is.

Banoffee Pie

- 1 can sweetened condensed milk (1 can makes 2 pies)
- 2 graham cracker pie crust
- whipped cream
- bananas

I always just use the pre-made pie crusts b/c I'm lazy but you can always make your own. First, to make the toffee you need to put the UNOPENED can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water. Make sure that there is at least an inch or so of water above the can. Bring the water to a boil, when it starts to boil turn the heat down to simmer and cook the unopened can for 1 1/2 hours. Turn the can over after half the cooking time.

After cooking, let the can cool a little before opening it. It's best to wait a bit because the pressure sometimes makes the toffee-like substance to spray out. After cooking, the condensed milk will turn a more caramel color and will taste slightly different. Open the can and pour half of the toffee mixture on each pie crust. Then refrigerate the pies for about 1-2 hours. Sometimes I cook the toffee the day before and just leave the pies in the fridge all night. Just make sure the toffee substance is cooled and not as runny.

When ready to serve slice bananas onto the toffee of each pie crust. I like to completely cover the toffee with bananas. Then top the bananas with a layer of whipped cream. To finish I like to either slice more bananas on top, or grate some chocolate. Your choice. After that, enjoy. I know the preparation sounds kind of weird but trust me it is delicious. And you should trust me because I'm an award winning cook.

Doughnut Experiement Results

2010-03-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a lover of food. My siblings all think that I'm such a food critic because I'm never just "satisfied" with my meal. I always compare my meal with others I have had in the past. I'm sorry, if some random restaurant serves me a half-decent sweet potato and ribs, I am going to be forced to compare it to Texas Roadhouse's delicious ribs with a sweet potato. I don't know if you have ever tried this, but when you order the sweet potato as a side dish to your ribs they ask you if you would like caramel sauce and marshmallows with it. Seriously, like is that even a real question? I believe my very response to that was "most definitely I do. " Picture of the loaded sweet potato below.

So yes, I consider myself a "foodie" and I'm proud of it. Anyways, a while ago I signed up with Krispy Kreme's mailing list (b/c I heard you get a free doughnut on your birthday, and I am all about that) and I got an interesting doughnut update. I'm sure most of you have heard about the new banana doughnut line. If not here are some pictures and descriptions.
Doughnut #1= Banana Pudding doughnut — the old-fashioned goodness of banana pudding is infused into this doughnut's banana Kreme™ filling, and then topped with vanilla icing and crunchy vanilla wafer crumbles.

Doughnut # 2= Banana Caramel Cake doughnut — which is covered in Original Glaze® and then generously drizzled with a scrumptious caramel icing.

We went out and tried these new doughnuts within days of receiving this email. I have to say that I was surprised with my results.

Doughnut #1 Result- Okay, so I was super psyched to try this doughnut. Everything about it sounded delicious but it was WAY too much. I LOVE sweet things, and add sugar to just about everything I make, but this sweetness was too overwhelming for me. Not only did the frosting and banana pudding creme not mix well, but the crushed wafers just made it even more sweet. I thought it was a great idea, but poorly executed.

Doughnut #2 Result- This was funny because I wasn't expecting much with this doughnut. It was more like the sidekick to the banana pudding doughnut, but I soon learned how wrong I was. This doughnut was delicious. It's like fresh banana bread with caramel sauce. It has that perfect cake-doughnut texture with a hint of banana, it was the winner in both mine and Trevor's minds.

So my advice is to go out and try this doughnut for yourself. I thought it was divine. In other news, Trevor and I both have callings in our new ward. I am the new Beehive Teacher and Trevor is the 2nd Counselor in the Young Men's Presidency. It's crazy, to think that I am the teacher, it doesn't seem that long ago that I was a Beehive myself. Kind of scary but I'm loving my girls already and it's fun that Trevor and I are both at mutual on Wednesdays. Another update is that Trevor and I got to give our "welcome" talks in the ward and now everyone loves us. We both really like to speak in church, and I use every church speaking opportunity to through in a little fake Irish-accent to seal the deal. 60% of the time, it works every time. So yeah now the ward loves us. It's good to be loved. We also are finishing up our apt decorations so we'll post about that soon. Go out and try those doughnuts and let me know what you think.

The Real Reason People Get Married

2010-03-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

Before Kristy and I got married, I often had great ideas for blog posts, but I always thought to myself: "If you want to be popular and famous, just wait to post it on Kristy's blog after you get married." So with that promise of stardom and renown, I got married and we made the big step of adding me to this blog. (My old, short-lived blog is here.)

One of the best reasons to get married is because people take a lot of pictures of you, and they are all required to tell you how good you look. But I suppose the other reason we got married was so we could spend ten days at the JW Marriott in CANCUN!

Five stars, baby!

Kristy hooked us up with a sweet employee discount, so instead of paying $400/night, it was more like $45. Some people might think 10 days is a long time for a honeymoon, but when you're getting something like this, why the heck not!?

Cancun has its perks. Number One would be the 75 degree weather. So while everyone else was freezing their hienies off in two feet of snow and below-zero temperature, Kristy and I were in shorts and t-shirts on the beach sipping virgin margaritas. In fact, this was the view from our hotel room balcony:

Even with the great weather, our hotel room had a big screen television, so many of you might be wondering if we ever actually did any cool Mexican things besides watch episodes of The Simpsons in español together. Well, when people think of Mexico, a few things might come to mind--at least they do if you've ever seen "The Three Amigos": old guys wearing sombreros, people riding burros, and drunk guys drinking caguamas. And cheap stuff. And since neither of us are big into smoking cheap cuban cigars or drinking cheap tequila, cheap knock-off clothing had to do:

After buying some cool clothes, we went downtown to the market. Because I speak Spanish, it usually went a little more like this: "For you, six hondred pesos, man. Oh, you speak espanish? Oh, that was gringo price. Espanish price is two hondred pesos." It's a lot easier to negotiate when you speak the same language.

One of the days while we were in downtown Cancun (the not-so-American part), some strange guy approached us on the street. And if I've ever learned anything from TV, it's that strange guys always have cool stuff to sell, so of course we talked to him. From that guy, we got tickets to go zip-lining:

The highlight of our week was definitely our day at Xel-Ha (pronounced Shel-Ha). Xel-Ha is an all-inclusive resort attraction with a natural inlet, natural aquarium, natural lazy river, 5 restaurants, 3 bars, and a ton of hammocks. (Whoever thought of "Hammock Island" is my hero.)

This made for a great day of all-you-can-eat food, all-you-can-drink virgin daiquiris (I think Kristy had 5), swimming, snorkeling, and hanging out with domesticated toucans and lizards.

As for our week in Cancun, the food was great, the sun was better, and the company couldn't be beat.

From Royalty to a Call Girl

2010-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

All right, all of my blog friends: buckle in, because this post is going to be a long one. It's been a while since I've updated this, but now that I've got some pictures, here is a little look at how I became Kristy Lacey. The call girl reference is because I've been told by many people that Kristy Lacey is a call girl/stripper/you-name-it kind of name, which is great if I ever decide to go down that route because then I won't even have to think of a clever name for myself. Anyways, here are some pictures of our gorgeous and freezing wedding day. Let me remind you it was only 24 degrees that day, so it's amazing that anyone is smiling in any picture. For more wedding details keep checking my mom's blog because she's got video and many more pictures than I do.

I have to agree with my sister Kacey that my sealer was incredible. It was so awesome to see all of my family, relatives. Even some of my mission friends and other old friends were there. It really meant a lot to see everyone. Even one of my best friends ever, Kari Sunderland, was there waiting for me as I exited the temple. Here she is hugging Trevor with me in the background:

The group shot:

The Earl clan:

The Fam-Damily:

My new family:

Here is my new favorite picture of my Dad! He just looks so giddy:

And here's a big THANK YOU to my amazing mom. She is one incredible woman:

Luckily, I think all of my siblings will eventually forgive me for destroying Christmas this year. Here are my bridesmaids (Courtney, Kylie, Kendall) and me. I love their outfits:

My mom hired an intense videographer, so as soon as we walked out of the temple, this guy controlled our every action. I'm not even kidding. Every second was "look lovingly at each other. No, not like that; like this. Now kiss him. Kiss him more gently. Touch foreheads. Lean on his shoulder. No, more like this." Trevor and I joke that on our wedding day we had a lot of "manufactured memories." The video will be great, but at the time, it seemed a little controlling.

Here are some shots that were taken under his control:

Luckily most pictures turned out like this:

...even though a lot of the videographer's commands made us feel like this:

Luckily, Cortney is a great photographer so we got a lot of great shots despite the craziness. Don't you love my fake nails in this picture?

"The real reason we got married"...AKA my nephew Rhode:

Our modeling shot:

Now on to the reception. The Lacey's were in charge of it and they did a great job. Unfortunately because of bad weather that day, many people couldn't come. Now, the Lacey's have 48 gallons of leftover Dreyer's Peppermint Icecream in their freezer. The reception was great, and I got to see a lot of my friends there like Liberty Baker Woodland. She's the greatest.
Of course, no Earl reception would be complete without some type of dancing. So when the least-coordinated girl in the David Earl clan gets married, what do you do? You rock the reception, that's what! My sister Courtney (who is a star ballroom dancer at BYU) taught Trevor and I how to waltz. The production started out with us, but then went on to the wedding party boys, the bridesmaids, the wedding party, the Earls, and finally to everyone. It was pretty fun.

Who doesn't love a party where everyone breaks out in choreographed dance?

After the production, we kept the music on and rocked out for awhile.

I love this picture of Ashley. Classic.
Even my niece, Scarlet, got in on the action. Usually, she's not a huge fan of mine, but with my magical wedding dress powers, she loved me.

And we can't forget the cake cutting and the bouquet toss. Okay, so just a little bit about this cake. It was supposed to look like this:

And ended up looking like this:
Luckily, it tasted all right. Let's just say I've learned my lesson not to order cakes from a blog.

You'll need to see the cake we had at the Moses Lake reception. Becky O'Neill made it, and it was absolutely divine. Just a tad bit better than the one above....

Throwing the bouquet was really fun. I had no idea how high or hard to throw it, but it turned out well. Trevor made a little flipchart that shows the bouquet toss in all of it's glory. My favorite part is how determined Kari is to catch it:

Too bad. In the end, the boquet was always meant for Courtney. Will she get married before Brad?

Courtney's reaction to catching the bouquet:

My boots that I wore under my dress. Pretty sweet huh?

After it was all over Trevor and I gleefully walked back to his car...

...until we saw what they did to it:

It was completely covered in snow. They even put a little heart outline on it. Clever.

It was a great day. Thank you to everyone that was able to make it.

Princess Consuela Banana Hammock

2009-12-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

If you watch "Friends" you'll understand my title after you read this. You meet the craziest people when you work at a hotel. Most people blend in with all the rest and you resort to pretending you have an idea of who they are, but the super weird ones are unforgettable. I remembered this particular weirdo because he had a distinct voice, dressed like a drugged-up hippie and was constantly asking for things. So yesterday he wanted to get dropped off at the mall and I KNEW it was the same guy, but he was under a different name. So I did some detective work (AKA I asked him point blank about it in the car) and he decided that it would be cool to legally change his name from "Zvi Turbiner" to "James Bond." Yes, this man who looks like a cross between a Rastafarian druglord and Santa Claus (b/c he has a white beard) is now legally known as James Bond. Strange.

The Best Things in Life are FREE

2009-11-22T21:02:00.001-08:00

Some of you would think with a title like this that I would post about all of the wonderful free things in life I'm thankful for like flowers, sunshine and rainbows. But those of you that know me know that this will not be the case. Plus I live in Seattle, and we don't see sunshine or rainbows. No, this entry is all about how much I love to get FREE stuff. Of course I know I'm not alone in my love of all things FREE but lately I've been getting all kinds of FREE things at work, and I thought I would share my joys with all of you.

1. A few weeks ago Jimmy Johns sandwiches stopped by to give us 6 FREE mini sample subs and some coupons. It was awesome.

2. This last week I was 2/2 for having guests bring me dinner. One of my meals was from a guest who went to the Cheesecake Factory and ordered too many avocado egg rolls and potstickers...Yeah, I know. Can you say, delicious FREE food??

3. I have had guests bring me dessert from restaurants, which include a pazookie from "BJ's" and apple pie with ice cream from "The Keg."

4. Every time a guest orders a pizza from this new place called "The Pizza Palace" they send the front desk a small pizza. Once again, awesome. Though unfortunately their ads look real ghetto and they call themselves "The Pizza Palace" so they don't get a whole lot of business.

5. I refer a lot of people to "The Keg" and yesterday I learned that they actually know who I am. I dropped a guest off to pick up her food, but it wasn't ready yet so we went inside. The manager recognized I was from "Springhill Suites" and even more that my name was "Kristy" so he hooked me up with a free drink and thanked me for all of the guests that I send him. It was fantastic, nothing like praise and free drinks to make you feel great.

So really I've decided that it's mainly free FOOD that I love getting. Of course getting anything free is usually a great thing, but I especially love free food. I'll end with a favorite clip of mine that shows that Homer Simpson feels the same way I do about FREE things. Thanks to Trevor for getting me this clip, who knew that computer engineers would be so useful??

The One Ring

2009-10-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

I've had a few people ask about my ring so I thought I would tell you the story. Honestly, I was nervous thinking of picking out a ring. It seems so final and I wanted to find the perfect ring for me. Of course this isn't the easiest task b/c I'm pretty picky and going into the whole ring shopping ordeal, I knew what I didn't want but had NO idea what I actually wanted.

So our first stop was at Losee Jewelers, what a joke that was. They probably only had about 20 rings total and all of them were on my large "don't like" list. The sales guy there just kept asking me if I liked these rings he would show me and the answer was always "no." He made me feel really picky, and after that store Trevor thought "this is going to be a long day."

I suggested we go into Wilson's Jewelers b/c it was the next nearest jewelery store. We walk in and the nicest guy talks to us and I try my best to explain kind of what I was looking for. I told him that I was picky and he said, "Of course you're picky, it's your engagement ring, you're supposed to be picky." Then he directs us over to our own private area, grabs a bunch of different rings and while I'm trying them on he goes in the back to get us some White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies. .....Amazing Right??? Of course at this point I'm ready to buy anything he puts in front of me, but we actually find something we like.

We were pretty set with what we found at Wilson's but he decided to stop by Sierra-West to compare prices. The sales guy helping us was pretty sleazy, I could easily picture him selling used cars with a gold chain around his neck. We told him we had been to Wilson's Jewelers and he immediately starts bad-mouthing them and saying how they use bright lighting to hide their inferior diamond quality. Plus like every ring I tried on he would try and flatter me by complimenting me on my long and slender fingers...it was a joke. AND everything was more expensive there. We were not impressed.

We went back to Wilson's Diamonds, found Trevor his ring and called it good. So what we did was we found a normal anniversary-type band with princess cut diamonds on it. We then took 2 rounded plain white-gold bands and soldered the whole thing together.It was fun because we basically created this ring and this was both Trevor and my favorite combination of bands. The result was perfection. I love my ring, it's perfectly rounded so it never catches on anything and it's sparkly...which is really what my goal was. Here are a couple of pictures of my ring.

Oh and on a completely separate note, if you enjoy fiction novels and haven't read "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, go to the library and pick it up. It is fantastic, don't read about it beforehand just go and check it out. Kacey recommended it to me and I loved it.

Someone actually pays me to drive...

2009-09-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

As frightening as that sounds to you all, it's true. I work at a smaller hotel and therefore am in charge of everything from checking people in to getting people towels. I'm a one-woman show and it keeps me pretty busy. Recently, my boss decided that our guest's lives were not at risk enough and has since added "Van Driver" on my already large job list. Here's me with my new van.

So surprisingly enough it's not the driving portion that gives me trouble. I just have to go to the airport and back and a few restaurants. I've done it enough that I don't even need Lee (my GPS, named Lee b/c I changed it to Australian male that they call "Lee") to guide me around anymore.

No, the hardest part is putting people's luggage into the van. So imagine that you arrive at the airport with all of your super heavy luggage and your van driver is a skinny wimp of a girl. It poses a problem. Usually I try to go with the "batting the eyelashes/smiling" way out of lugging people's stuff around, but that doesn't work all of the time. So I have to say "Oh, no let me get that for you sir" as I proceed to try (keyword here is try) to hoist the luggage into the back without dying.

Luckily, a lot of guys see my uselessness when it comes to lifting and either help me with the luggage or they put their luggage in themselves. Though I have seriously had some grown men sit there with their arms folded while I struggle through getting their luggage in and out of the car. Yeah, I sure love it when that happens...especially when they don't even tip after wards.

I have to say that after a few weeks of driving, I am loving getting tips. Sure I now pay at restaurants using $1's and have to convince friends that I'm not a stripper, but it's worth it. An average day of driving I get anywhere from $20-60, my max so far was $74. It's pretty great. So not only is Marriott paying me to drive, but the guests are as well. If only they knew what they were getting into...

The Story Behind the Engagement..

2009-08-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true I am officially engaged. I thought I would tell you a little bit about how Trevor went from "The Nerd" to my fiance. It was all due to little thing I like to call the Microsoft Prime card (amazing discounts for everything from restaurants to theme parks). They give them to all of the Microsoft employees. Okay, maybe it was 40% card and 60% love..... For his version of things you can go to (trevorlacey.blogspot.com).

It all started from a D&C class that we both had together. I sat by Trevor one day and shared my scriptures with him. I know, how cliche right? We talked a little that day, but he was too shy to ask me out. In fact he didn't ask me out until the very end of the semester. I had only talked to him a few times in class so I was pretty impressed when he got my number after class one day. Our first date was short, but fun. We went out to get ice cream at Yoasis. After that we basically started dating except we never really had an "us talk" to see where we were. Because of that we only lasted 3 months. I'm sure it didn't help that during that time I allowed various boys to buy me dinner and though Trevor didn't go on dates he sure "hung out" with other girls quite a bit. We both kind of viewed our relationship as an "open relationship" but don't worry we've learned the error of our ways.

So the funny thing about Trevor and I is that we were both planning on living in Seattle this summer. This had nothing to do with each other. I was wanting to check out the hotel scene and he had an internship with Microsoft. After the breakup Trevor and I stayed friends and we talked about meeting up for dinner when we were both in Seattle. Oh, and I have to explain why he was called "the nerd." I have a close family friend named Trevor McKinnon (who is getting married close to the same time I am) and he has always been the "Trevor" in my life. So when I started dating this Computer Engineer the title of "Trevor" was already taken so Kacey just started calling him "the Nerd."

At the same time I was dating Trevor I was also getting into contact with an old friend who was across the world studying. I might or might not have originally wanted to move to Seattle because of this other boy. Regardless, it didn't work out. Let's just call it fate. So here I am in Seattle, meeting new people and living on my friend's futon. I get a call from Trevor and we hangout that night, it was fun to catch up and hear about each other's lives. After that night we decided we could be friends and I ended up spending a lot of time with him. I would come to parties with him (as a friend only) would talk with other guys/fend off the super weird guys from the ward, and then I'd leave with him. At this point we were strictly friends, though I let him continue to buy me dinner and chauffeur me around. Yeah, he deserves points for just sticking up with me. After a week or so of this treatment Trevor called me out and asked why we weren't dating. I think at this point he was getting sick of paying for me without any action in return. Though seriously I had also been thinking of getting back together with him, so it worked out. That night he kissed me and were dating ever since.

For some reason now things were completely different. Our relationship was SO much better than it was in Utah. I think it was because we were already comfortable with each other and we were completely ourselves. Add that to the fact that he would watch countless hours of Simpsons with me and it's easy to see how I fell in love with him. It all came pretty suddenly. One day I was contemplating breaking up with him and a few days later I found myself completely falling for him. It was a new thing for me. In the past I had dated guys with the thought of "you'll do for the time being, until I find someone new." My mindset completely changed when I started dating Trevor. I started seeing all of his good qualities and realized that he fit a lot of qualities on my mental "husband check list."

Fast forward to how he proposed. It was our first entire day we had spent with each other (b/c one of us was always working). Earlier we went to Wild Waves Theme Park (with a $26 discount) and went on some roller coasters, bumper cars, etc. After the Theme Park we went back to by house and decided to walk around the park at Coulon Beach right down the road. It was a beautiful day. It was still warm, but with a nice breeze and the sun was just starting to set. We were walking around talking, and I didn't have a clue that he was thinking about proposing. We came around the walking path to a nice piece of grass and I noticed that Trevor wasn't answering my questions anymore. I didn't think much of it and turned to keep walking, and then turned around to see Trevor on the grass on one knee. He asked me to marry him and I said "yes" and then said, "Oh crap, you haven't even asked my dad yet!" Romantic huh? Yeah, I thought that these things had to go in order. One thing that Trevor did is that he didn't have a ring but instead he turned around the ring on my finger. You see I have a claddagh ring from Ireland that I always wear. It's an old Irish wedding ring, and if the heart points outward that means your heart is free and if the heart points inward that means that your heart belongs to someone. So he turned my ring to face inward.

So that's my story. This last weekend he met my family, and I mean my entire family! He survived an Earl Reunion. Thanks again to everyone for helping him feel welcome. He had a great time and has decided that I have the coolest family ever. Of course that's nothing new, but it's nice to hear nevertheless.

For those of you who weren't there. Trevor and I announced our engagement through our lip sync number "I heard it through the Grapevine." It was my brilliant sister Kacey's idea and it went great. It was pretty funny to watch my brothers and sisters react because the only people who knew about it before were (Kacey, Jon, and my parents). So enjoy this video.

Here is a short clip of the Engagement Announcement aftermath.

Burn Baby Burn

2009-07-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard, we are experiencing some crazy weather here in Seattle. We've gone from the Irish-like misty rain to this crazy inferno of heat. The other day it was 103 degrees, which is the hottest that Seattle has ever been....EVER. Here's a news article to prove my point.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009558896_webhot29m.html

It's been so funny to watch how the locals react with this crazy heat and no air conditioning. People are finding solace in hotels, movie theaters, malls and grocery stores. My hotel has been far past booked during this heat wave. A whole lot of locals are coming to stay simply because of the air conditioning. Oh and all of the fans are completely sold out of just about every store. It's crazy.

- On a separate note, just a heads up to all of the cousins out there... I'm bringing a guy to the reunion, and he's far past nervous so be nice. And if you feel so inclined you are more than free to tell him how great you think I am.

The Suite Life of Kristy

2009-07-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

The big news in my life is that I've officially moved from my friend Sara's futon in Kirkland to a house near Coulon Beach in Renton. I was pretty shocked when I first heard that my bedroom that I was moving into would be empty. Gone were the magical days in Provo where crappy mattresses and cinder blocks were available in abundance. Luckily I have some great co-workers and managers and they hooked me up with some stuff, but that blog entry will come later. After work I was on my way to drive off when my manager stopped me and offered me our hotel to stay in while I get situated. So for the past few days this has been my life....for FREE!!

Yeah, the bed in my King Suite is even more comfy than it looks.
Whoever said "the best things in life are free" was very right.

Also my boss said that staying in the hotel would help me to better understand the experience that our guests have when they stay with us. I think I'll tell him that I'll need another week of free hotel life to really get the concept. I'm just a slow learner.

Seattle Update and a Great Video

2009-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

So I realize I have been lame and haven't updated this in a while, but I finally have something worth writing about! So here is an update of my life in Seattle.

1. I GOT A JOB!! I'm really excited I will be working the Front Desk at the small Marriott (Springhill Suites) in Renton. Also, they see "management material" in me and so they're going to train me in the Marriott Management program. Sweet huh? I'm pretty excited, especially with all of the benefits. Mmm, benefits....
So this is where I'll be found from about 3-11 pm (crappy hours to start off). Now I just need to find a place to live.

2. The agent is home.

3. My friend showed me this video and I thought it was hilarious. Enjoy.

Two Face

2009-04-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day for me, or at least the majority of the day was great...why was it great you ask? Because I am DONE WITH SCHOOL!! That's right, as far as I know I am done and look forward to receiving my degree in Geography: Travel and Tourism. My plan is sometime early June to head over to Seattle, now I just need a job and a place to stay...but I figure those things aren't too important. jk, I'm constantly job searching. If anyone has any hotel connections in Seattle, that would be sweet.

Anyways, so to celebrate my achievement my friend Drew invited me to go long boarding with him. By this point you're probably all shaking your heads and thinking, "Kristy, how did you think this was a good idea? Or, Kristy will you ever learn?" Most of you will just read "long boarding" and then will just skip down to check out my injury pictures, because you know it's impossible for me to do any type of activity involving wheels without seriously hurting myself. Sadly, you're right.

Okay so back to my story, so Drew proceeds to teach me for a few minutes the basics of long boarding. I actually caught on quick b/c it's just like snowboarding, and I can do that. So we decide to try out the hill, and everything was going well. I was told that I was a "natural", right up until I tried stopping myself. Drew warned me of a sharp turn ahead and that scared me so I tried to jump off not knowing how fast I was really going. Most other people at this point would then write about how they scraped up their hands and knees b/c they lost their balance, but that's a bit too cliche for my taste. I decided instead to dive face-first into the pavement, and made sure to land on the top of my arms as well, as well as scraping up my chest. I still really don't know how it happened, I'm guessing I tripped as I tried jumping/running off, but somehow I managed it.
In approximately 10 minutes of long boarding I went from this....

To this....................
My friend kept telling me not to laugh b/c I look much less hardcore.

Starting to see how I could be the new Harvey Dent? Oh, it gets better.
And here is a picture I took this morning, yes my friends you can just call me Two Face.

Here's hoping we take a lot of family pictures this weekend!

Creepy or Awesome? You decide.

2009-03-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I just got back from a fake St. Paddy's day party, which consisted of us playing drinking games with disgusting drinks. The worst one was Sangria, and straight lemon juice was a very close second. It was sick. We watched the "Hellllooo" episode of Seinfeld and every time someone did the hello voice we had to take a shot of lemon juice/Sangria. Pretty sick. I might die tonight from too much acid because I was the winner of the lemon juice shot game. I think it's one of those times where I was a winner and a loser all at the same time.

Anyways, I saw this insane video on YouTube the other day and had to share it with the masses. I'm still deciding whether I think this video is more creepy or more awesome.....

(Oh, and if you're wondering about the random quiz my friend asked me to put it up to help him win a contest. )

I'm Bringing "Kristy" Back...

2009-03-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

I got one of the best voicemail the other day. First of all it was great, because I was coming home from the BYU-Utah game and we WON! Jimmer Fredette was incredible, and watching Cummard stuff Neville, oh it was a thing of beauty. Anyways, the voicemail was from my sister Kacey because she was listening to a song called....drumroll...."Kristy, Are You Doing Okay." Can you believe it? A song with my name in it, and not only that but it's spelled the same! It was awesome. Of course the song is about this poor Kristy girl whose life kind of sucks, but still I feel special. Here's the depressing music video.

Anyways, more on how great my name is. So one day, my friends and I were having a google-off, you know when you search your name in Google and see who has the coolest things about them pop up. So I type in "Kristy Earl" and all of this stuff about some horror film called "Wolf Creek" starts popping up. So I investigate further and you'll never believe this, in fact I'll show you through IMDB.

Wolf Creek

Cast

(Cast overview, first billed only)

John Jarratt	...	Mick Taylor
Cassandra Magrath	...	Liz Hunter
Kestie Morassi	...	Kristy Earl
Nathan Phillips	...	Ben Mitchell

Can you believe it? I'm a movie character name.

Here's my creepy character at her finest. I was pretty surprised, I didn't think that "Kristy Earl" was a very common name. Hmm, maybe I have more enemies than I thought.

Saoirse

2009-02-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

So a little unknown fact about me is Saoirse, Saoirse is my Irish alter-ego, if that makes any sense. I like to pretend I'm Irish and I met a lot of Saoirses (pronounced sair-shas) in Ireland, so I decided to use that name. Anyways, I first created my alter-ego when I was asked to talk about Christmas in Ireland for my friend's 3rd grade class. So instead of simply telling them about Ireland through a missionary's eyes I decided to pretend I was Irish. It was awesome, these kids loved me. My favorite part was as I was leaving I asked them (all in my fake Irish accent of course) if they wanted to hear my American accent because I had been practicing it. So of course all of the kids say, "yeah" so I drop my fake accent and say, "hey kids what's up?" Oh man it was hilarious, the kids freaked out and kept saying, "wow, that's creepy you sound just like us!" Hilarious.

Of course 3rd graders are pretty easy to fool so I figured I had to try out Saoirse on a more mature crowd. So that opportunity presented itself in the form of my roommates convincing me to go speed dating. Yes, speed dating. They had it at the WILK and it was from 7-8. It was really fun. At first I was afraid I couldn't keep my accent up all night, but oh I did. I seriously had guys look at me and say, "Your accent is incredible" and "It's so cool that you're Irish" and "What's the biggest difference between here and Ireland?" I'm telling you, Saoirse was one popular girl.
So the best part came the next day. I was leaving my apt with my friend Brian on our way to the BYU b-ball game, and I see my friend Abe, his brother and some blonde kid that looked familiar. So I start talking to Abe and this blonde kid is like staring at me like I'm an alien. He looked from Abe and me and said in disbelief, "You know her??" Then it clicked where I knew him from.......He was totally one of the guys from speed dating! Well, I guess I've been found out, but this is definitely not the end of Saoirse.

Probably the Greatest Website Ever....

2009-01-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

I'm always amazed by the hidden gems you can find on the Internet, and this one is pretty cool. I don't even know how I found it...must have been fate. jk. So in this website you take a picture of yourself and they turn you into a generic Simpsons character. Oh yes, a real life Simpsons character. So I created mine and I think it turned out all right. So whenever you're bored at work/home/while reading this very blog....go to http://simpsonizeme/

My Simpsons character in a more natural environment. Man, I love marketing gimmicks.

My Gaurdian Angel Was Late Again...

2008-12-31T09:14:00.000-08:00

We all have our guardian angels looking out for us, and mine seem to have a problem with punctuality. Don't get me wrong, they still help me out, but instead of having the "I almost got in an accident" I get, "I got in this accident and lived". The girl who lived. Sounds good, too bad Harry Potter stole that line first.

Anyways, our story begins on Monday morning. I was invited by some friends in Quincy to go snowmobiling. We drove up to Wenatchee and drove around for a while in the mountains, but soon there was a blizzard/freezing rain/we couldn't see at all, so we headed back down. We decided to continue our snowmobiling fun at my friend's house. We had our own snowmobiles and we drove through the orchards and chased deer. It was awesome. The awesomeness decreased when we decided to drive around this huge bowl with steep sides. I had actually been there before and was fine, but this time didn't end with the same happiness. I drove up one of the sides and onto the top of a lip. So what I didn't know what that on the other side of that lip was a 15 ft. drop off. I didn't turn quick enough and my snowmobile went over the edge. What I also didn't know was that it was a straight drop, so I fell and my snowmobile turned upside down and I landed on the ground with the machine on top of me. Luckily during the drop my guardian angel finally decided to show up and I managed to only get hit really hard in the stomach, and knee. My friends learned something was wrong and I can only imagine what they thought when they saw me pinned down under the snowmobile and not moving. The scary part was that they kept yelling "are you okay" but I couldn't breathe because the wind was knocked out of me. I tried rapidly moving my limbs so show they I was all right. Luckily after they helped get me out from under the machine I was fine. I was able to walk, and I was wearing a helmet so there was no further head damage. When it was all over I walked away with a couple of bruises and massive soreness, and the snowmobile had a bent ski (which they told me is easily fixable) so that was good. I can officially set my "No Accidents for 3 years" back to "No Accidents for 2 days". Nice to know I still have some purpose in this life.

My thoughts on Christmas time..

2008-12-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

So recently I have once again fallen in love with Christmas music. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Pandora is amazing! For some reason it is a lot easier to get up and get ready when you can listen to "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". Walking home from school is also much more entertaining. I was laughing to myself because I was listening to Wham-"Last Christmas" and I pictured all of the students around me suddenly break into dancing....but sadly it didn't happen. Maybe one day. Anyways, I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying all the Christmas lights, decorations and festive parties. Also, people are saying, "Merry Christmas" and not "Happy Christmas". Plus, finals are over soon...does life get any better?

"Hey everyone, come see how good I look!"

2008-12-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I had to already explain to my Mom that my title is from the movie "Anchorman". She thought I sounded pretty conceited, so I had to explain myself. ..Anyways, after a few days of having my Mom and Kylie telling me how plain/flat/boring/desperately needing change.. my hair was I decided I needed to spice things up. So with Eliza's help, 2 hours, and money I now look like this...

And here's a little bit closer up with me smiling...
And my personal favorite look......the Wolverine look. (Too bad Halloween is already over..)

I think this is a solid investment. Love my hairstylist.

The Truth

2008-11-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

In honor of today's game, I have created a video that encapsulates BYU's glory.
(a shout-out to Kari for showing me this great song and letting me steal her idea)

Here's hoping BYU wins...

My 5 Weird Things

2008-11-08T16:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry again for taking forever to post, the truth is I just couldn't think of five weird things....... yeah right, more like I had trouble narrowing down all my weirdness to only five things.

1- My first weird thing is that I just never feel good enough. Even though I try so hard I just never feel like I've done my best. I try so hard, but I always feel lacking. My counselor thinks it has something to do with my mom....

Haha, just kidding. I just had to add that because of my mom's blog. Though I am pretty scarred from all my mom's Christmas letters featuring me. I don't know if you remember the "Top 10 Reasons Not to Visit the Earls this Christmas", yeah I was mentioned in about 2 of them and #3 was "Kristy Lives Here." But anyways, on to the true number one.

1. I enjoy being in a costume. Okay, so maybe that's not that weird and maybe I just wanted an excuse to put my Halloween pictures up. It's true though, I do enjoy dressing up. So I actually had two costumes this year.

So if you can't tell, we did the clue character idea and I was Mrs. White. I decided that Mrs. White was old, my hair was pretty sick that night!
(left to right: Mr. Green and Miss Scarlett, Mrs. White and Colonel Mustard, Ms. Peacock and Professor Plum.)

So that day we also had a Halloween party at my school and I didn't have time to whiten my hair, so I figured that coming as a maid was just a little bit too prostitute-ish for my kids. So I threw together this little number at DI.

Yeah I called myself "Super Kristy" and the kids seem to like it. My favorite part was my cape, I found this dress and cut it in half. Impressive eh?

2. I have the wimpiest feet ever. Honestly I am such a wuss. My friends will always try to get to wear their shoes but they just hurt. It really sucks, my friends will be fine and I'm in super soft heels and my feet are all cut up. I'm already getting ready to start sporting some Rockports, because the way I'm headed I'm going to need them.

3. I still enjoy watching cartoons. I know it's really nerdy but I just still like cartoons. Example, I was over at Kacey and Jon's watching the ever popular "Backyardigans" with Scarlet and I was much more into it than she was. I just had to fight out if they got away from the gooey monster. I know, I'm sad.

4. I fall asleep WAY too easily in a moving vehicle, whether I'm driving or not. While in Ireland we had to ride the bus a lot and honestly, we would be on there for 5 minutes and I would already be asleep. And not just like "fall asleep in class asleep" but hardcore bobbing my head along with the bumpy road kind of sleep. It was pretty embarrassing sometimes. Also, even while driving (which just adds to my reasons of why I am the greatest driver ever) I get way too tired. It gets to the point where I'm like, "I'm so tired I just want to sleep" and then I realize that sleeping would mean me dying and my insane side says, "eh, I've had a good life." So apparently I get a tad suicidal when I get tired. Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit too honest, oh well.

5. While recovering from surgery I develop a hardcore Southern accent. I don't know how to explain it. I'm awful at faking a Southern accent, but the 3 different times I had hardcore surgery I developed a Southern twang. I didn't notice it until my friends kept telling me. People would just stare and me and say, "aren't you from Washington? Why are you talking like that?" Happened every time I had surgery. Weird huh?
My famous scar, I really relate to that Harry Potter kid. jk.

Okay, I'm hoping I get to tag some people so I tag Ashley Boice, and Samantha Miller. Hopefully they haven't been tagged already.

My Kids

2008-10-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

So I realize I have been a huge slacker in keeping my blog updated. I apologize. I thought I would introduce you to some of my kids who are in my Afterschool Program. It really is the sweetest job ever. A nice example of this was Pirate Week. I decided that this week would be known as pirate week and created a treasure hunt that went all around and outside the school. It was intense, I created 3 different levels of difficulty for the different grade levels. For the treasure we had three different boxes each spray painted in gold that we buried different places on the playground. It was hard digging through those bark chips, I count that as my exercise for the next year or so.

Here's our group picture. I know what you're thinking, and yes I do look good in a mustache.

This is a picture of Timmy, and his brother Spencer. They are the cutest kids. (Their mom was the one that told me that I looked like someone who would get along well with boys.)

So I thought I would share a few stories with you..

1. Liam.
Liam believe it or not, is the name of a little Mexican kid in my class. Maybe I'm too ignorant to know Liam as a Hispanic name, but when hear it I think Irish. He's in Kindergarten and understands most things, but not all things. He proved this when we played a game with a blindfold. The object of the game was to put two kids in a circle, one with a blindfold and the other with a noisemaker. The kid with the blindfold was then spun around until dizzy and they had to try to listen to the noisemaker and tag the other kid. So the game was going well, and Liam really wanted to be the blindfolded kid.
So I put the blindfold on him and Liam starts screaming "Kristy, Kristy I can't see, I can't see!" Then he starts bawling, I take the blindfold off and he says, "Kristy, I don't like that game..." So I just start laughing.
This most likely proves that I'm a terrible person but that was the highlight of my day. I told my friends and family and got some different responses. The majority of those who weren't somehow related to me felt sorry for Liam, and thought I was mean. They were obviously wrong. On the other hand, my relatives thought it was hilarious and laughed when I told them the story. What I learn from that, is you can't trust people who aren't related to you.

Liam is to my right, and while I was posting this I just realized that Liam must have wet his pants that day. Ah, the joys of children.

2. Gracie.

Gracie is my cute little Asian girl. She says some of the greatest things and likes to draw me pictures.

One day at recess we were playing freeze tag and one of my smallest kids named David was frozen and wanted me to unfreeze him. So I have to army crawl under him, and after unfreezing him Gracie just looks at me and says, "Kristy, you need to eat more meat." This coming from the petite Asian girl. Grace, but everyone calls her Gracie.

Another time we were watching "The Bee Movie" (stupid movie), and Gracie was sitting by me. She turned to me and said, "Kristy I wish I were a bee." I asked why she wanted to be a bee and she said, "so I can sting you." Then I told her that if she stung me as a bee she would die, and she responded with, "it would be worth it." Oh my, can you feel the love?

Provo is one classy town...

2008-09-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

So my first blog entry didn't go as well as I had hoped. My mom read it and just kept on pointing out various grammatical errors. Maybe that's why my professor didn't enjoy my last paper...or maybe it was the Dumb and Dumber reference I made....So, I didn't have too much to write about until I saw this sign, and the heavens opened, my mind was enlightened, and I knew what I should write. Just kidding. I just saw the sign and laughed really hard.
That's right folks "you can has them". This Sonic is right in the center of Provo, not even in the weird outlying parts or anything. It would have been a sin NOT to take the picture. Those are the kind of things I told the Irish people.

The major sins according to Kristy Earl:

1. Not laughing while watching the Simpsons. (also goes for Arrested Development, but they don't really have that there).

2. Not taking pictures of weird or funny signs.

3. Calling me "Sister My Name is Earl" or singing " Earl Had to Die"- Dixie Chicks...that song haunted me in 8th grade.

So anyways, back to the topic of Provo being a big hick town... So after seeing that superb sign I thought of a particular Simpsons episode. It's a classic. Here's a clip.

My sister Kacey and I love to quote this episode.

OTHER NEWS

I got a new calling. Oh don't worry it's not Activities Committee, Ward Missionary or even Temple Committee it's something that made me say, "really??" to the 1st counselor of the Bishopric. I am a new member of the Music Committee, because I'm so musically talented.

Also, my new nephew Rhode is cute.

1st one

2008-09-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

I admit defeat. I have officially given in to the world of blogs. I held out for about 5 months but you just can't get away from it. So every once and a while I'll try to update this thing and let you know about the goings on in Provo.

My favorite part of this whole thing was creating my blog name and background. I really like it. My title is a quote from Homer. I also like my html address, man I am just so great. haha.
So first I want to tell you about some odd comments that I received a week or so ago because they're those comments that you really don't know how to take them. So let me know your opinion of them.

1. I work at Rock Canyon Elementary and play games with kids with part of an After School Program (yeah, the sweetest job ever). Well one day the parent's were coming to pick up their kids and one of the mom's stopped and introduced herself to me. She asked me who I was and I talked about her boys and how Spencer beat me at Battleship today. Then she looks at me and says, "Yeah, you look like someone who would get along well with boys." Haha. I just looked confused as she left. Apparently I'm not far enough from the Nerf-war, Dragonstrike-playing tomboy I once was.

2. This came from a friend who was moving out of Provo and on to bigger and better things. We all said goodbye and she said, "Oh and make sure you guys let me know whenever you get engaged...especially you Kristy." Once again, not a normal thing to say.

PROVO LIFE: So Provo probably hasn't changed much over the years but one thing that is "all the rage" these days are themed parties. Kind of like my sweet birthday parties when I was kid and everything would be Aladdin themed or something. Which Aladdin would be one thing but the recent themes are just nuts. The last one I attended, no joke, a flossing party. Oh yes there was dental floss available for all. Sloan (my dentist) would have been psyched. Here's a picture of the party. Of course, I attend all these strange things....wow I really am lame.

So I've decided that I can't end this until I tell you the Relief Society President story. Once upon a time, in a condo in Provo... so the Relief Society Presidency came by Sunday afternoon to wake up me and annoy me with questions about myself. So first they saw I owned "She's the Man" (one of my favorites) and commented about it. They didn't believe me that it was based after "12th Night" but of course I was right. When will people ever learn? Anyways, then Ireland was brought up as it usually is and here's the good part. So Nichelle (the president) asked me if I knew an Elder that served in Ireland. I didn't so then she thought for a bit and then said, "Oh, maybe he served in Argentina.." So like any normal person I sarcastically said, "yeah, they are pretty close, easy to mistake". The Relief Society Presidency didn't even crack a smile. Talk about awkward. So I think I must have completely offended them or they think I'm stupid and think that Ireland and Argentina are geographically close. Either way it's a great start to a new ward.