diet coke

I've decided to give up Diet Coke. Call it a crazy "I'm 27 now and need a goal" type of move. I drink way too much of it, anyway. I don't need all that caffeine in my body. And I know I don't drink enough water.

Diet Coke and I have a long history. The story goes that "Coke" was one of my first words (that, along with "fries" and "shub-up, Bossy" were all early vocabulary staples as a young child). Blame my mother. I swear, we would go to the drive through every day to get a Diet Coke.

Sadly the rest of my family has moved onto Diet Pepsi. I have yet to understand this phenomenon. It doesn't taste better. It just makes me burp more. Betsy gave up the drink last year, and is off and on, so props to her. My goal is to not drink a drop of Diet cola of any kind all year. Rough, I know.

So farewell, Diet Coke. You truly are the nectar of the Gods.

birthday girl

I am now recovering from the best birthday week ever. My 27th birthday will be hard to top.

It started Thursday night, two days before my birthday. My awesome friends/roommates threw a great party for me at our house. So many people came, and I was amazing at the kindness of my amazing friends.

Shout out to Kelly for the most creative birthday cake ever given to me.

In case you can't read it, it says "WRITE HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEIGH (IN ALL CAPS)." I recently mentioned to Kelly that she should check out one of my favorite blogs, Cake Wrecks. This blog makes fun of professional bakeries/grocery stores for bad cakes, grammar mistakes, etc. I love it. So to see this on my cake was awesome. I love when people get creative.



We ended the night rockin' out to Rock Band. Clint brought up his Wii, and several folks stayed over til midnight. I was SO tired at work the next day.



I spent my actual birthday in Lake Havasu with my friend, Arron. I'd post pics, but we didn't take any. Sad, I know. But really, when all you do is lay by the pool or chill on the boat, there really isn't an opportunity to take pics (and who wants to see a swimsuit shot, anyway).

UPDATE: The party and the Havasu trip was in addition to my awesome weekend in Vegas with Betsy and Louise last weekend. Oh and Betsy wrote a sweet to me on her blog for my birthday. Thanks, Boss.

Thanks to everyone for making my 27th birthday AMAZING!

sin city

I'm still recovering from my weekend in Vegas with Betsy and Weez. All that driving knocked me out.

We spent a lot of time in the lazy river, floating around on a tube getting a tan. The rest was spent eating, showing Betsy the strip (she's never been there) and seeing Mamma Mia. So much fun!

I'm thinking this should become a new cousin tradition. Anyone else in?

I have an eventful few days coming up. Tonight my friends are throwing me a birthday party, and tomorrow night I'm headed to Lake Havasu to spend my birthday/Labor Day Weekend with Arron.

temple trip

Isn't the Portland LDS temple beautiful? I remember going through the open house when it first opened in 1989. I was 7 years old and just a month or two away from my baptism. I remember putting on the little white booties, so we didn't get the pretty new carpets dirty. I remember how amazing the celestial room was, so white. So light. The image of the grand staircase seemed like a stairway to heaven.

My memories were accurate. The temple is just as beautiful as it was in my 7-year-old eyes.

I went through the temple Aug. 9 to receive my endowment. My family was there to support me, including my grandma, aunt, uncle and a few cousins from Washington. It was fitting to have them all there, since the whole point of this life is to live worthy enough to be with our families in heaven forever.

The temple trip was the highlight of an amazing, busy weekend with my family.

sisters

Forgive my lack of blog postings lately. I have a lot to blog about, but unfortunately all the pictures are on other peoples' cameras and I'm waiting for them to send them (so send them already folks!)

So I'll make due with what I have -- an old picture of the Dethman sisters. I flew home last weekend to see Amy, who lives in Denmark and makes rare appearances here in the states.

It was a jam-packed weekend, with rehearsals, my first trip through the LDS temple to receive my endowment, and culminating with an amazing fireside on the Prophet Joseph Smith. I'll blog more about my temple trip later.

Amy and her husband, Andreas, put together a whole fireside honoring Joseph Smith. They wrote the narration, put together a multimedia presentation of pictures, and then selected songs to tie everything together. It was amazing. I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check as my brother, Mike, sang out the first line to one song: "The spirit of God like a fire is burning. The latter-day glory begins to come forth."

Amy conducted the choir, and the whole family (minus Andrew) participated. It was really neat. Then, I sang a trio of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" with Betsy and Amy. It was fun to sing with all of them. Our voices seem to blend so well together. Must be that family gene. I remember the days when I would be annoyed that mom always made us sing together at church, but now I love it. It's so fun being all together up there.

fried

Nope, not Kentucky. But fried. As in my battery.

My car decided to up and die on me Monday night. Thank heaven it happened after I left the creepy downtown Wal-Mart at night, and waited until I was parked safely next to a street light outside my friend, Elissa's house. My two heroes, Dan and Phatty, came to the rescue and gave me a jump. I drove around for a while and then went home to bed.

I was nervous to try again Tuesday morning, and for good reason. The thing wouldn't start. Everything was dead. Even my automatic door locks wouldn't move at the command of my little clicker. At this point, nobody was around to give me a jump. Luckily my friend Meg came over to help. We both had never jumped a car before, and she was pretty nervous. Good thing I didn't remember the whole "battery exploding while Betsy jumped a car once" story until after we successfully jumped the car. That likely would have freaked Meg out. She looked scared even without the story.

Long story short, I spent a few hours at Pep Boys reading Breaking Dawn while they tinkered with my car. Now, $100 bucks later, everything is back to normal.

Oh and I have no idea how the battery died. I didn't leave any lights on or anything. I guess the battery was just tuckered out.

the lovefest continues

Yes, my devotion to all things High School Musical continues. On Wednesday I went a few of my girls to see "High School Musical: Live on Stage." I was a little hesitant, thinking nothing could match the amazingness of the Disney Channel movie, but I was proven wrong.

Yes, it was the same plot, and most of the same songs. But it was a different experience. The staging was amazing. It proved that you can have a nice set on a touring show. I was amazed that the boys in the "Getcha Head in the Game" number were able to dribble in rhythm with the band the whole time. The girl playing Gabriella had a great voice, and Troy was OK. He was a bit nasally and sometimes went into rock star voice mode. He's no Zac Efron, but really, who is?

After the show, we totally stage doored. Let me explain. Elissa's 13-year-old sister and 9-year-old cousin were at the show, and they are big HSM fans too. So I got to use their enthusiasm as my excuse to stand in the alley waiting for the actors to come out. The girls all got autographs, and the 9-year-old even got an autographed drum stick from the guy in the pit. Pretty sweet.


Please forgive the blurry cell phone pics. That red neon light says "STAGE DOOR." That crowd behind me and Elissa is surrounding the girl playing Gabriella Montez.

This guy is a new character in the stage show, Jack Scott. He's the voice of East High School, and ushered in every scene with a sweet radio voice announcer drawl. Elissa had a secret crush on him, so we made sure to get a picture.

Finally, here are pics of the girls with the actors playing Gabriella Montez and Troy Bolton.



Most of my friends went to East High, and I've always been insanely jealous. I'll have you know that my friend Jane said I am now an honorary graduate of East High School. You know you're jealous.