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!

road trip

My friend, Meg, and I ventured south to land of the Cougars, and made what otherwise would have been a drab drive to Happy Valley a fun road trip.

And let me tell you, the gods welcomed our return:



We took pictures, and acted like tourists at different Provo hot spots. Here's the MTC (I made sure to wave at Jay and Stephanie Riding) and the Provo Temple.



The BYU smoke stack:



And perhaps the saddest picture of all, Deseret Towers:



The towers are gone! SAD. An icon of BYU is forever gone.

In a short two hours, we did most everything a Cougar could do. We even went to FHE, and joined Meg's sister, Katie, and her fiance, Tagg, for a mean game of four-square.



And can you believe it, we took a visit to our home states (Oregon and Texas).



Sadly, the night came to an end after Meg picked up her sister's wedding invitation envelopes.



We sure know how to make even the smallest trip fun.

on the road again

I seem to have a goal of going out of town every weekend.

I kept the vacation train rolling along by going up to my friend's cabin in Wyoming for the weekend with some folks for the ward. It was gorgeous weather, clear skies but a little chilly. Perfect for a nice weekend.



I did a little reading (I'm now on the 6th book of the Chronicles of Narnia) ...



played a lot of cards (hearts, 31, speed, etc.) ...



sat around the campfire telling stories and avoiding craziness "would you rather" questions ...



and handled a chainsaw for the first time. Pretty cool. Raw power, in my hands. Amazingly enough, nobody got hurt.

So far I have no plans to leave the state for the weekend, but I'm open to offers to achieve my goal.

to my Friday night girls:

"I choose constipation."

"Satan, get thee hence."

"That's bull$#*%."

Let's get together and have another hilarious night of girl talk soon.

the old roomies

Tuesday night I hung out with two of my favorite old roommates in the world, Car and Amy. Here's a pic from the good ol' days.



Car now lives in the same complex I did a few years ago in Midvale. She's married now, and we all love her hubby. They dated while we lived with her, so we all got to be good friends. They had an adorable baby named Finn. He's hilarious, and would totally cheese it up when the camera was around.



We're all getting together with some more old friends on Saturday. Good times. I love how everyone lives close to each other again.

p-h-y-l-a-c-t-e-r-y

Definition: a Jewish ritual box
In a sentence: "Billy, put down that phylactery, we're Episcopalian."



I went to the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee tonight with some of my friends. It was a laugh a minute, with the biggest laughs coming when the "vice principle" said the word in a sentence.

Cystitis
Definition: an inflammation of the urinary bladder
In a sentence: "Sally's mother told her that it was her cystitis that made her special."

Now if only I had a magic foot like William Barfee, then I wouldn't have any spelling errors in my articles.

destiny

I've found my true calling in life. Yes, I'm moving to Vegas to be a lounge singer. Move over Barry Manilow!



We had a birthday party for my friend Meg at Julianne's house last night. They have a sweet karaoke setup, complete with a stage with wireless mics and a flat screen with the lyrics looking back at you.

We kept on singing for more than five hours. My voice was completely shot by the end of the night (but luckily I was able to sing at choir today). Usually I'm a bit more reserved, but I broke loose and even started head banging while singing. OH YEAH!



The boys didn't get up much. I wonder why! But us girls had a blast.



We even had great fans:



Meg rocked it out with the new version of waving your lighter -- the illuminated cell phone.

My personal favorites of the night: first, Phatty singing "I Touch Myself," and then finding Sean Bunker alone in the karaoke room singing Sisqo's "Thong Song." CLASSIC!



Now I understand why the Japanese love karaoke so much.

ashes to ashes

It's been yet another busy weekend on my social calendar. On Friday, Cap hosted a great party for just the girls. We had a great group together, and we did pretty much every girly thing you could do.



First, we ate, because really, that's what we do best. Then we burned the ashes of our old lovers and told stories. It was very cleansing for a lot of the girls. Definitely something I've never done before, but it was fun.



(And no I will not tell you the names I burned in that little ashes of old lovers jar)

Then, we all watched our favorite love/romantic scenes from movies. I put together a DVD of my favorites. Here's a pic of the menu:



I was a little skeptical about the party at first, but ended up a believer. All girls should do this!

Stay tuned tomorrow for news on my adventures Saturday night. Think Leigh in CABARET!

reunited

... and it feels so good.



I went out to lunch today with my girls from the UVSC days. We're talking 1999-2001. I haven't seen Paula and Lisa in years. It was so fun to catch up, and it was like no time had passed at all. They both have little girls now, and Lisa has a boy on the way.

So in honor of our reunion, I bring you pictures and memories from our days in Happy Valley.

This was our spot, right outside the computer lab. You could always find one of our friends camped out there. That's Lisa to my left in the first picture. I also have fond memories of people watching in the hall of flags with Paula.



It seemed like most every weekend you would find us at a dance at the LDS Institute. Most were just casual, but on occasion we gussied up. Other dances required costumes, and we were always up for that. One dance we all got different colored T-shirts and decorated with tape. Yes, tape. We were the cutest ones at the dance I tell ya.



Lisa and I spent a lot of time at the Institute together as well, with leadership meeting once a week at the crack of dawn as well as our regular religion class.



I met Paula in a computer technology in education course. It was the craziest class I've ever taken. Let's just say we didn't learn much, but we had a lot of fun. We hit it off, and I remember going to a lot of BYU soccer games with her after that.

We had a lot of good times. (The following is the only picture with just the three of us posing together. Problem is, that guy ran in and ruined the adorable pic. Check out my shoe in the bottom left corner, that's all you'll get of me).



I'm glad we're all back in touch! Love ya girls!

the weekend

I had quite the weekend. Despite working BOTH days, I still managed to escape to Logan and Saratoga Springs and have a ton of fun with my amazing friends.

Friday night I went up to Logan with my friend, Meg, to the Utah State athletic hall of fame banquet. I know what you're thinking. No, I'm not an Aggie fan now. Meg's grandpa used to be the athletic director there, so we drove her grandma up so she could visit with old friends.



I had to get up early the next day to work. Luckily, the newsroom is pretty empty on Saturdays. I even laid down on my cubicle floor to do my stretches (notice the pink stick -- I killed our fake pink flamingo to have a stick to stretch with).



After work I booked it down south to Saratoga Springs. Caprene's family always throws a big party for Chinese New Year. We enjoyed yummy Chinese food (salad, wontons, lo mein ... seriously, a LOT of food) and competed in an all night mah jong tournament.

I didn't do so well at mah jong. I always thought it was just a matching game on the computer. Apparently I was wrong. It's a complicated game, but it was really fun.





Oh and we were rebellious and put on tattoos to celebrate the holiday.