Playin' In My Pod

Freelance Whales.



I am addicted to listening to this song: Broken Horses.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

You should take a listen. The style and sounds remind me of a cross between Sufjan Stevens and Adam Young of Owl City and even Ben Gibbard (Death Cab). Plus, besides all of them singing, they each average a musical talent of no less than four instruments - and they play things like the mandolin and harmoniums and glockenspiels. How funny that they can all play something I have never heard of before. Hmm.



You'll also like Hannah...and possibly The Great Estates and We Could Be Friends.

Finally - Mockingjay!!!

O. M. G.

The day has arrived!!!! Well, technically the day arrived on August 24th...but since I ordered my book through my book club and teacher friend three or so months ago...I had to wait for it to be shipped to my home- which is retarded since I could have just gone out and bought it!!! Ugh!! But...I have waited this long, so a few more days didn't hurt me. It did give me the time to re-read the first two books which I wanted to do but hadn't had the time until I came back from vacation...on the very day Mockingjay released. But it's here now and I can't wait to dive into it tonight!

Nobody bug me!!!

TEAM GALE!!!!!!!!!

The Reception

I have to say that the nicest thing about this wedding was the fact that we didn't have to do anything!! It's a buttload of work to do your own weddings...it's downright exhausting! I was more tired after my sister's wedding last year than I was after my own! My parents married off three girls...at least once ;)...and their oldest son eloped. So it was quite a relief to not have to do anything for this wedding! Of course, we all arrived early to help before the pictures arrived, but it was so stress free - it was great!!! I hope I have more sons than daughters, ha ha! Either that or I hope we can hire a wedding planner!

Amanda and I:

Amber and I:

Aiden enjoying strawberries and whipped cream:

Me and Benny...who is like another brother...he calls my mom his mom and I'm his sister:

Cody and I, another friend of Gaven's close friends that we think of as family:

My mom and her mom:

Me and my super hot cousins on my dad's side...sorry about the grainy picture...my camera was being moody all night:

Nicole and I trying to get a line dance going to Shania Twain! We are awesome, I know:

They have a trampoline in which we all had fun jumping on. I was doing front flips, Xanni and Gav got on and the photographer got a sweet pic of three groomies flipping at the same time.

This is Aiden jumping around and while the d.j. had some music going before the reception started, I caught Aiden dancing to it. It made me laugh:

I didn't get my camera in time for the bouquet toss but a sweet girl named Kylie caught it. Gaven was getting ready to dig for the garter when the brides father came over to 'make sure' Gaven behaved himself! In the professional photo shots, while Gaven is getting the garter, Xanni's face is priceless! I love how embarassed she gets!

Gaven and all his friends before the toss. I think he is the first of all his friends to get married:

More dancing afterward:

Me and my hot sis:

Decorating the car was quite a story. I realized the night before at the wedding bbq that none of Gav's friends were going to decorate the car. After the temple, I forgot to go and get supplies. So after our family pictures were taken at the reception, Amanda, Bronsynn, Katie (Bronsynn's best friend), Paul and I hopped in my car and made a Wal-Mart run. We loaded up with streamers, balloons, confetti, window paint, oreos and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew (Gav's favorite) for the car. The Mountain Dew, of course, was to hang off the back of the car. But could we just dump out all the nasty tasting, unhealthy pop?? Noooooooooo. Bronsynn and Katie wouldn't hear of it. So a 12-pack gets downed by five people in five minutes. Katie took on almost four herself, Bronsynn did a few, Amanda and Paul did a couple. I couldn't even finish one. I don't drink pop. Just thinking about all that gives me the shudders! Someone made Katie laugh mid-slurp and she, being in the back seat in the middle, spit it all out...on me! I was driving so it went down my arm and all over my car! It was very hilarious though.

We got back to the reception and went to party for awhile. When it was time to decorate we went out front only to find that their car was gone. Like, no where to be found. It had been there before and now....poof!!...vanished. We looked everywhere. Morgan, Amber, and Amanda went to find answers. We knew Xanni's brother had something to do with it, but he wasn't talking. Neither was his wife. Neither was Xanni's dad. SO. RETARDED. We were all getting super pissed. After twenty minutes, some were saying it was no use. But I didn't just buy all that crap for nothing! Finally, blessedly, Xanni made her brother give up the location. In an attempt to save Xanni's brand new car from the awful things his own friends did to his car at his wedding, he had driven it several blocks away and parked it behind a church. He knew we went to go get decorations and they moved it and hid it from us. We were sooooo mad. Amanda was PISSED. Unfortunately, it caused a teeny weency bit of drama and discussion but was quickly put to rest.

Anyway, we got the car back and decorated it really cute and tasteful. We don't like to destroy the car when we decorate like they thought we were going to do.

We left them a few fun items in the car....chocolate syrup, whipped cream, tic tacs and some wisps. :) hee hee hee.

One of Gaven's groomsmen works at a place where they do vinyl and he had this made up for the back:

Super cute!!! After they got ready to leave we lined up and they walked under the bridge and were off! Thankfully, unlike the day before, the rain stayed away, the wind was minimal and it was just a great night for a wedding :)


If any family wants to view their wedding photos, which are very well done and gorgeous I might add, visit Faces Photography, click on 'Proofing' and scroll down to the bottom to find the Gaven and Xanni Madsen Wedding. There are so many great photos from the whole day.

The Temple

August 5th, 2010....A great day to be married!!!

The ceremony was great. I cried. And cried a little more. I just noticed that 'cried' is a very weirrrrd spelling.

Moving on....afterward, as everyone knows, we had a while to wait for the new husband and wife to emerge. My parents and grandma and Paul and I went out to meet the rest of my family and dink around. My nephews are glued to Gaven's friends...they give them so much fun attention so you never had to wonder where they were the entire day. Just find a groomsmen. But here is Aiden in a rare moment away from the guys, hanging out with Grandma:

My dad and my husband. They had no idea what a great picture they set up for me :)

Paul and I:

And finally!!! They come out all smiles! I have to say...I think my brother is a super handsome guy! I'd admit to being biassed, but I have eyes and I know he is ;) Xanni is such a pretty girl and they compliment each so great!:

Gaven with his two nephews, all of them with the matching haircuts:

There was construction on the northwest side of the temple...a huge tractor/crane thing was there and it was blocked off so you had to wait and wait for the stairs to open up for pictures.

But the photographer was super awesome and organize and when we finally made it there, he had us in and out in ten minutes! Then I followed him around taking pictures of the cute couple:

Yay!!!!

Wedding Dinner

The night before the wedding, August 4th, my parents hosted the Wedding Dinner at their house. It was a very casual barbeque, as the kids wanted, and it was all going so well....until the weather wouldn't cooperate. Stupid rain. Why couldn't it have stopped for two hours???? There was a window when we thought it would be done for the night, so we were all outside with squeegees and towels, drying off all the tables and getting ready to decorate....only to have it come down again as soon as we were done. At seven, guests started arriving...and with no where else to put them, the chairs were re-dried and brought inside and all seventy to eighty guests were crammed into the house. It's good thing my parents have a huge kitchen/living room area.

Because my mom put in the work to make the dinner as nice as possible, I couldn't just let it be. I wanted to outdoor dinner, dangit!! I sat out front and watched the sky and waited and waited for it to stop drizzling. As soon as it did, I grabbed the squeegee's and towels and my sister and an uncle and a cousin or two and out we went to do it again. We got the table cloths and centerpieces set up, unfortunately it was a little too windy for the candles to stay lit. But for a very short time...all was as it should be, except for the fact that everyone had already eaten.

The bride and groom sat at the head table, flanked by their parents:

And anyone who wanted to, came up and told whatever cute and funny stories they could think of about the bride and groom:

A group of Gaven's friends...many of which were his groomsmen:

My brother Morgan and his wife, Sam...:

My oldest sister with our grandma:

The rainbow that signaled the end of the storm....for a while anyway:

Gaven and his bride, Xanni:

It started to get dark outside and people were bundles up in blankets so we cleaned the tables off again, and most people were on their way home. The parents chatted for a long time and Gaven's friends all stayed and hung out.

A few of them still had to get their required hair cut for the wedding. Gaven has a faux-hawk with steps on the sides and a pyramid in the back. He made all of his groomsmen where the same hair cut :) It is so 80's with a modern twist and they all looked fantastic! I loved it. Amanda did all seven of the grooms hair, along with the brides hair and make-up:

Even my nephews had it done to them! They look super cute with them!:

Two of Gaven's best friends: Benny and Cody...see the steps???:

It was a very long clean up process....and Gaven discovered that, contrary to what he thought, he needed his living ordinance recommend...something he didn't have and very much needed in order to get married the following morning. How Gaven never made it in to see the Bishop is beyond me. There was a very stressful fifteen minutes and then Gaven was able to arrange a meeting first thing in the morning with the B and the S.P., which was cutting it close since the Bishop was on his way to Girls Camp! Agh! Talk about a disaster barely avoided!

Paul and I went home and looked forward to sleeping in a little on our day off, before it was time to get ready for the temple :)

Temple Night

Tuesday August 3rd, my parents and my husband and I went to the temple for Gaven and Xanni. There were a lot of young people there for the first time so it was packed with family members.

We barely barely made it, by seconds, before the door was closed on us. It took me fifteen minutes before I stopped being mad at my husband for almost making me miss the whole thing. Good thing we were in the temple and that it's pretty hard to stay mad in a place like that. Annnnnnd...I can hardly ever stay mad at him when he gives me his goofy grin. It was nice to be there and see Gav and Xanni 'doing their thing'.

Dad, Xanni, Gaven & Mom:

Paul, Dad, Xanni, Gaven, Mom & Me:

Afterward, we the six of us went to Chili's along with her family and Gav's close friend, who happened to be working at the temple that night as was able to work things out to be the temple worker who helped those two :)

Aiden's Birthday!!

With all the hulabaloo surrounding the wedding, Aiden's birthday was celebrated early. We all got together on Friday July 30th and spent FOUR friggin' hours at Boondocks. There was spoolunking done :) We soaked each other on the motor boats, did tonz of go-carts, spent an hour or so at the batting cage, stopped for pizza and then did a round of mini-golf. My favorite was my making my niece freak out when I broke the rules and bumped her cart when ever we weren't being watched - ha ha ha - and when my dad got in the batting cage with both my nephews, held their oversized helmets out of their eyes and helped them bat the softballs. Hubband had my camera or else I would have pictures to document.

Sunday the 31st, we gathered for some cake and ice cream. Or rather it was supposed to be just ice cream and not a whole dinner schpeal...but...we all happened to arrive early and dinner wasn't done yet so we all ate anyway! Sloppy joes and Oreo Cake and Ice cream...yummm :)

It's hard to believe this kid is already six. Life seems to just flash forward sometimes. Totally unfair.

My dad and I also tuckered my dog out in efforts to teach Ruger how to swim. I have some funny videos of Ruger trying to get to Bacardi, but he's still too chicken to get out in the deep. In this one, Ruger doesn't realize how deep it was and he goes to pounce on Bacardi and goes straight under. My dad and I had a good laugh at how many times he did that:

And I think it's hilarious how Ruger gets smacked around all the time:

The Help

The latest book of the BBCE:

My book club read The Help by Kathryn Stockett this last month. It's entirely different than anything else I have ever read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The author is a white woman who used to have a black maid...she writes this book from the perspective of three different women, one white and two black. It's set in 1963-4 and tells a story of these three women embarking on something brave and dangerous. You will root for certain characters and wish the slow and painful demise of others while being humbled by the situation these black women were in everyday.

Pioneer Weekend

I am very late in reporting...my bad.

Our pioneer weekend was very fun and very busy. Paul and I had Friday off so we spent the day hauling rock and mulch to the backyard. It was an exhausting day but it felt so good to be nearing the end of the yard remodel.

Later that night, we went to go see Eclipse. In keeping with tradition, Lou and I went and dragged our poor husbands along - ha ha!! Sucks for them! We decided to change things up a bit though and we went to the drive in. It was a trip back in time and super fun. We were naughty though and we jumped ship. Becky and Judd parked in Depiscable Me and Paul and I parked in Eclipse. You aren't supposed to switch theaters but we figured we would watch what we would want to watch...and we actually got caught!! Couldn't believe it but luckily, I can be an incredible liar when I want to be and I made up a fabulous fib and got us out of hot water :) We then enjoyed mushy smushy, corny, kissy, and somewhat decent film.

Saturday, more yard!! Booooo!! But after that, we were invited along with Lou and Judd and we went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. It was great!! We sat outside, right under the misters, it was perfect weather and the food was awesome!! Then we battled the entire Salt Lake City population for parking spots at Liberty Park for some crap fireworks. At least we have a memory from it :)

Along came Sunday and Paul and I headed to my parents to celebrate the holiday as well as my dad's birthday. Xanni's birthday was the week before so we threw a couple extra candles on the ice cream for her as well. No cake for my dad - just the good stuff :)

Again, we're for hire if any one wants. I know you have never heard anythings so fantastic in your entire life!