WikiHow

Well, I was on the internet the other day as I am for much of my life and my eyes ran across a side bar that caught my attention…”How to Hug.” Although I think that I have a fairly good knowledge of hugging (partially due to a conversation with Rhett and his roommates!!) I couldn’t resist clicking on it. What I found was none other than a jackpot of endless crack ups. It really was a step by step on how to hug. My personal favorite part was…”Lean your torso forward and extend your arms. The girl should pick up on this: if she doesn't, pull back momentarily, just for a split second, to make sure she wants the hug. If you don't get the impression that she wants the hug, change your extended arms to a quick pat on the shoulder or back.” Classic. I have had a few experiences when you go in for a hug and it isn’t expected and it’s a little awkward, I’ve even pulled off the back pat instead one time (It was weird, I wouldn’t recommend it!). But in addition to this gem of a find, at the bottom of the page are “Related Links” Which contain well… related links. I must confess right now I must have spend at least a half and hour to an hour lost in reading these wonderful articles. I think they are geared toward socially awkward high schoolers. First and formost on any “how to” ranging from how to cuddle to how to be irresitable and how to kiss, there was the hygeine issue. Make sure that you consistantly wash your clothes and yourself. So, lesson one…if you want a significant other or even friends, don’t be gross. Shower sometimes and brush your teeth! What a great idea! They sum it up best…

“Smell good (You wouldn't want to cuddle up with a piece of dung and neither does he)”

They have pretty much whatever you want from advice on "How to Celebrate Grandparents Day" to “How to Hug a girl taller than you,” Which my roommates and I got a kick out of because Maranda is significantly taller than Anna and I and it has made for some funny times. Love You Mar!

In addition to the “How To” it has sections entitled things like, Tips, Warnings, and my personal favorite- Things you’ll need. For example if you want to cuddle you will need

1. A partner

2. Affection

3. A blanket (optional)

Well, it goes without saying I can’t bring up all of the awesome tips on the website but let me just say it’s so awesome, what a gem! I’ll leave you with a little something for the guys…

“Nuzzle her neck, head, shoulders. Don't get creepy or act like an animal, just be loving and warm.”


Not being creepy is usually always good advice! I love it, ha ha ha!

Wizards in Winter

Well, Christmas is over and New Year too! I hope you all had a fabulous holiday! Mine was so much fun, I got to spend a week at home and it was a blast. Bryan, my youngest brother who is 15 now, and I decided to make up a dance, mainly just because it would be fun. It is to "Wizards in Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. We worked on it for a week and then performed it at our family party. It's not perfect by far but we are pretty proud of it and it’s pretty funny and he posted it on youtube so here is the link so you can watch it! My mom is convinced that we’re going to be famous. Ha ha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mdly8jI9l4

Pile of Leaves

Okay so this post was supposed to go up a while ago, but it's still a good one...so enjoy!

For anyone that has ever been to my house you know that we have a lot of big trees and what that means in the fall is... a lot of big leaves!! The leaves had been covering our side yard for a few weeks and were about a foot deep all over the entire lawn. I came home from a football game one Saturday and Anna and her family had raked all the leaves into a large pile. The pile was about as tall as we are (which I guess isn’t too tall, but it was pretty sweet)

It was playtime!!! We ran and jumped in the leaves and it was a blast! Anna’s whole family even jumped in for a family picture. That resulted in a needle in a leaf stack search for her dad’s cell phone a little later! But against all odds, we found it. It was so awesome because when you jump into the leaves you just disappear. Anna took this sweet picture of me jumping into the leaves. The only bad part is, you get leaves EVERYWHERE. Anna and I have been washing them out of our hair for days! But it was totally worth it.

I love this picture, Anna Took it and it's perfect

Leaves in My Hair!

Here's a video of Anna jumping in the leaves. You would just disappear it was so crazy!

Sadie Hawkins Dance…oh oh oh!

For those of you Relient K lovers you’ll appreciate the title, for everyone else- Sadies was Nov. 9th and it was a blast! It happened to be the night of our first performance so most of the folk dance girls decided to ask the boys on the team and we all went in a big group. I went with David. The theme of the dance was Country Western. So Nikki decided it would be fun to have the boys dress up as cowboys and the girls as cows, and fun it was! A couple of us stayed up until 3 working on our costumes, but it was well worth it. The costumes were fabulous! We had shirts, ears, bells and tails! To complete the effect they boys made up a “brand” with their initials and drew them on our arms. So we started out by eating BBQ chicken on my living room floor- picnic style, because we didn’t have enough chairs. I am also proud to announce that I did help in the cooking of the chicken; it was frozen so it wasn’t full-fledged raw meat horror. I will admit I didn’t do most of the work, Brook did- thanks Brook!

Our Cowboys

Bronson won the contest for best belt buckle.

(It's a license plate- the bright light in the picture)

A Herd of Cows!

We planned an elaborate entrance ot the dance. One of the boys brought a lasso so all the girls climbed in and ran into the dance ringing our bells with our hansome cowboys around us hooting and hollering. We made quite a spectacle. I’m not sure if people thought we were clever or if they just felt embarrassed for us (I’ll pretend the former). Well, David and I danced the night away and had so much fun. One time we were swing dancing and my ears flew off (my cow ears, not my real ears). The bells were great too, especially during the lines dances- you could tell where our group was! The girls even ended up winning “Best Cowgirl!” What a night to remember…

Our First Performance

Well last Friday was our first performance for the folk dance team. We performed at a Weber State Women’s basketball game. I am happy to announce that it went well. I only made a couple of small mistakes, but I smiled the whole time :) . So here is a sneak peek at one of our costumes. Aren’t they so fun?

Nikki, Brook and me

Jon, me and DJ

A little update about the Foot Chomper dance (aka Tinikling) … Practice did not go so smoothly last week. We got out the bamboo rods (I have switched from calling them poles to bamboo rods because some people were getting offended) and started practicing with our partners. It started out with my partner hitting me so hard with his arm that I fell completely over and out of the rods. Then I stepped wrong and my ankle gave out and fell down again. Later my partner thought we were supposed to trade spots when we weren’t so I turned around to see his charging me and plowing me over! In defense of my partner, he is a really good dancer; this type of dancing is just a little foreign to all of us. But I think the most injury was cause by me towards the end of practice. My partner was standing by the side of the rods and I was just going to town dancing, and then I stepped on a pole and tripped. I was falling fast and in a moment of desperation I reached out to my partner for help. He wasn’t paying attention or wasn’t quite quick enough and I ended up hitting him with my arm. Not too bad you say… well no it wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been right in the crotch. We both toppled to the ground in pain. I was pretty much mortified. One of our fellow dancers was banging the rods together and was laughing so hard I thought he might trip everyone else dancing. So my partner who was feeling a little guilty towards the first of practice stated at the end that I had, “got him back plenty” and that we were even.

Be sure to mark your calendars for Dec. 7 & 8 if you are interested in coming to our Christmas show and seeing all of our dances. The show starts at 7:30. Prices for tickets are: Adults: $5 Children: $3 Seniors: $4 and Family $15, (if you want to come to the matinee on Sat @ 2:30, tickets are a bit cheaper). I can start getting them this week. Let me know if you want to come!

Our Halloween Party

Maranda, Anna and I threw a big Halloween bash at our house Halloween night and it was a blast. Maranda dressed up as an old lady (she even killed a spider with her cane at the party.) Anna was an oompa loompa, she made the costume (isn’t it fabulous?)

There were some pretty fabulous costumes there too so I had to post my favorites.

Aunt Jemima - Who would have ever thought of that, it's awesome. Look up pictures of the Aunt Jemima salt shakers, he looks just like them!

Old woman- she never broke character all night and made her date dress to match her as an old man! She didn't let her costume stop her from shaking it on the dance floor either.

Halloween Highlight

Halloween this year was so fun. I dressed up as a Hawaiian tourist, with some crazy pants that my Mothey found me. I put as many things with flowers on as possible; It was also complete with a camera around my neck (which isn’t in any of the pictures because they had to be taken with my camera). I probably shouldn’t have done that either because I realized I loved having it right around my neck all the time, just ready to take any photo I desired. So I might be trying to start a new fashion of the tourist “camera dangling” look. So I had lots of opportunities to dress up this year, so many in fact I felt like by the end my costume had worn out its coolness and I felt a little on the lame side showing up to parties with people that had already seen my costume because they had a different costume for each party! What is up with that? I have enough Halloween anxiety over one costume a year. But here is one Halloween highlight.

This year my friend Brody decided to dress up as…Aaron Carter! (For those of you not so into pop culture, he is Nick Carter’s little brother (from the backstreet boys). He started rapping when he was about 12 and I have the cd- it’s great). Brody and I are currently planning a music video for one of his songs with Brody staring as Aaron. So he decided that he would dress up as him for Halloween. More importantly though, I got to help him costume shop.

I did some research on Aaron Carter’s styles and talking to Brody about what he thought he would most like to wear from my many ideas. Then we were off…we had quite the time going to Ross and TJMax and trying to find clothes with just the right look. I made him try on bunches of clothes- each time making him come out of the dressing room to model them for me. We were cracking up at Brody in these clothes. I guess it’s time now to describe Brody for those of you who don’t know him. He’s probably the most clean-cut and most gentlemanlike boy I know. His hair is always parted and he consistently wears a polo shirt everyday. So when he bought these baggy pants with large writing on the back pockets, he was so embarrassed and I about fell over laughing. After we bought the clothes we went to the mall to find some fake bling. (Grams, that’s a slang word for the really big and expensive jewelry, rappers usually wear big necklaces or rings with dollar signs on them.) While shopping through the mall we saw some people wear some large bling themselves and about 5 boys dressed up in what we had just bought Brody for Halloween, what is this woldk coming to, we dressed Brody up as “normal” for Halloween! Ha ha. But we did find some bling.

The final touch was spiking his ever-parted hair, and I was stoked. We went back to my house and used lots of hair products I had stashed away for just such an occasion. We gelled, sprayed, pulled and spiked his hair, only to notice it was spiking, but with a part still in it. I laughed and teased him about it and he said, “I’ve been training it for three years to do that!” I am happy to report we finally did get the part out of his hair.

So we went to the institute Halloween dance… We had just gotten out of the car in the parking lot and ran into our friend Wade who started laughing so hard at Brody’s outfit he was crying and didn’t stop for 5 min. (I not exaggerating this time either). To top it off Brody proceeded to end his sentences with “yo” and calling the boys “players” and the girls “his ladies” all night. It was a riot. I know you all want to see pictures so here they are... And be looking forward hearing about our music video.

A Picture in the usual Brody Attire

Brody as Aaron Carter

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One last story about Aaron before we close it up. After dropping me off at home he stopped to help a girl that had ran out of gas on his way home. Being the gentleman that he is he rushed to her rescue and bought her some gas and made sure she was all set to get on her way. While filling the gas tank, she complimented him on his pants. This girl proceeded to hit on Brody probably thinking he was the nicest gangster she had ever met! The night ended with them exchanging phone numbers and only time will tell if this might develop into a budding romance. I hope I get to be there when she gets to meet the real Brody and not Aaron Carter. Brody doesn’t seem too worried though, in his own words, “I may be preppy, but I can roll with the big dogs!” Sure you can Brody…two peace.