Brandon's Baptism!

My friend Brandon got baptized on July 11th! I'm so happy for him. I know with all my heart that this choice was the right one and I know that his decision will change his life forever in all the right ways. The Church is TRUE!
Michael got to baptize and confirm him.
Krista and I worked with Brandon at a Physical Therapy office and Michael and Brandon met through me.
Eating at Chili's with my family and the missionaries afterwards.
It was a really, really good day.

Sis Trip

Over 4th of July weekend, my sisters and I took a "Sis Trip". The four of us sisters flew out to Sunny Isles, Florida, to surprise my brother, Derek (His wife, Lindsey, was the brains behind the whole thing). It was fun to see where he'd been going to law school and I'm glad we got to do it when we did because they are now moving to New York for an internship before they make the permanent move to Las Vegas. I LOVE Florida. Of course my favorite thing was seeing my family. I miss my nephews. They are gorgeous and chunky and clever and hilarious and cuddly and they make being an aunt my favorite part of my life. But aside from that, I love the beaches there and I love the ward in Miami. I agree that the church is true wherever you go, but there are some places where it's more unpredictable. (Example: In the middle of the Relief Society lesson, a lady on the front row answered her phone and spoke loudly in Spanish to the person on the other end for about two minutes. No one in the room was phased besides me and my sisters.) All in all, this trip was one of my favorites. SFL!

Every 4th of July needs a parade.
Nina showing true Nelson-Patriotism.

Playing "grumpy faces". Miles won.


Bath time.

He may look like a Douglass facially, but his body's all Nelson.
Crying because we had to put a sock on his hand so he'd keep the band-aid on his finger. I LOVE this picture.
Kisses make it all better.
We all got to ride on the back of Derek's bike. (That's Hayley.)Rocking back after riding a fan boat to see some alligators and then eating gator nuggets.
This shot took them 20 tries.
Stealing Aunt Paige's drink. Notice the sandy hands.
I taught him how to play pirates.
Miles at his happiest: with chocolate all over his face.
SFL.

Then a Hero Comes Along.

There's this wonderful application on my iTouch called Cool Facts. And basically what it is is just a bunch of Cool Facts, hence the name. And most of the facts are pretty cool. (Wow, I'm becoming redundant.) Anyways, my favorite fact that I've ever read goes like this: A baboon called Jackie became a private in the South African army in World War I.

Some of you might need to read that again: A baboon called Jackie became a private in the South African army in World War I.

When I read this I was in a car for six hours on a road-trip with my friends and since we didn't have internet access on the road, we had to wait to look Jackie up. All of our many questions about how this came about, how much responsibility Jackie was given, if Jackie lived or not, etc. had to wait to be answered. But we had faith that Jackie was basically a modern super-hero, like Optimus Prime or Wolverine or Betty White.
And our faith proved true. Not only did Jackie become a private, he was promoted to corporal. He also was given a paycheck, uniform and rations. He was in the front for three years and at one point his "friend" (owner) was injured and Jackie stayed by his side licking the wounds for hours until help arrived. Jackie himself was injured and had to have his right leg amputated, but made a full recovery and was given a medal of bravery right before being honorably discharged from the army. He also had an English accent. Ok, he might not have had an English accent, but if he could speak, he would have. And when my friends and I speak for him, he definitely does. But everything before the accent part is true. If you don't believe me you can look it up.

Needless to say, I think we all have a new hero in our lives. His name is Jackie; and he's a baboon.

Heal the World (RIP Michael Jackson)

I know that I am by no means the only person affected by the death of Michael Jackson. But I definitely am affected by it. Of the many, many memories I have of him in my life, I think that this is one of the most vivid and one that had the biggest impact on me personally. I know he had his issues, but the messages he gave to the world through his music were beautiful. (The last half of this video is what I'm referring to, though the whole thing is great.)

Michael Jackson - Full Superbowl Halftime Show 1993
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I Had It Comin'...

I don't think it comes as a shock to people when I say that I like to play tricks on people. I'm not talking about grandiose schemes or intricate procedures or anything like that. I'm talking about small things, like hiding a mullet wig in your pillow or changing your screen-saver to a bloodied barbie doll or something like that. Mostly I do those things to amuse myself, and not for any other reason really. Sometimes the jokes are bigger than others and sometimes they never even come to fruition. I'm not going to attempt to name them all on here. I'll just list a couple that have to do with giving out my friends' information:

• A friend of mine had a kid that wouldn't stop texting her and bragging about how much of a stud he is so we texted him from my phone and pretended like I'd met him at a dance a few weeks earlier. He pretended like he remembered me and called me and said he wanted to hang out. I told him to bring friends cause I had some cute friends at my place that wanted to meet some "hotties" (barf, I know). They were all excited and jumped in the car. The main kid told me to text him my address so I texted him our unknowing friends' address: The one on the far right answered the door to a bunch of wiener guys looking for some "hot chicks". He got pissed. The wieners felt like wieners. It was awesome.
  
• Whenever you move into a new singles' ward at the beginning of a semester, they always pass a list around Relief Society asking for you write down any talents you're willing to share in sacrament meeting or at Enrichment or any other ward activity. My roommate Lauren, who isn't very musically enclined, passed the list on to me without writing anything. A couple months later, she came home and told me that the weirdest thing had happened: the guy in charge of musical numbers in sacrament meeting had called her and asked if she was still willing to give that harp solo she's signed up for...
• Most recently, Kubo, Adam and I were eating at this place called Lon's Cooking Shack and there was one of those raffle things for a free session at this local Portrait Studio. So, I signed up with my roommate, Emily,-'s information. Three weeks later I walked into the kitchen to her staring, embarassed, at a weird post-card she'd gotten "from some random studio" saying she'd won a session of free portraits. Haha. At least she takes flattering pictures, right?

Anwyways, that's just a little sample of the (milder) things I like to do to people. But that's not the point of this post. Those were just to prove that I had it coming. So, here's the real story:

Last night we celebrated Kubo's birthday up in Salt Lake at Bucca di Beppo's. It was lots of fun because he's been gone for a week and we've missed him a lot. So he met us straight from the airport and we were all excited and laughing and just having a good time. We had a really cool server who was talking with us and let us keep the cake we made Kubo in the back and stuff like that. Oh, and... I may have a tendency to flirt with waiters... because in my experience, if you do things right, they'll give you free stuff or make you stuff that isn't on the menu. Before you judge, it's not like the waiters don't flirt back so that they'll get a good tip. It's a mutualistic relationship. Anyways, the waiter and I flirted... in a completely professional way... and just like I wanted, he made me a bunch of different types of lemonades with the Italian soda flavorings and in turn my friends and I gave him a good tip. He did seem a little over-adamant about me coming back again sometime, but it was no big deal. Well, it turns out that these two had given him a little bit more than I had intended. They signed the receipt with my phone number, name and (gag me) a smiley face. So, now I have a call from Paul the Waiter to look forward too. Oh well, like I said, I probably had it comin'. Especially after some of the tricks I've pulled on the two of those girls (which I will not be sharing on here, sorry). Oh, and to top it all off, later in the night, the cake and I got really well-acquainted thanks to the Kubo.
(Oh, and Paige: you're welcome that I didn't put in the story about that time I tricked you into thinking that Ricky Martin was dead for a whole year and you came home really mad at me because you'd gotten in an argument with all your friends saying he'd died in that plane crash with Aaliyah. I know you would have been really embarassed if that had happened.)

Missing You.

I keep thinking the aching to go back will dull, the longer I'm here in America. But...

I don't know how much longer I can stand to stay away.

Out of Everyone I know, OF COURSE I...

... would get Swine Flu. And here's how I got it:
Just joking... that's how the baby I made out with got it.... JUST KIDDING, JUST KIDDING. (I know that was crossing the line, but for some reason I couldn't stop myself. Please feel free to reprimand me with comments all you want.) Here, here's a better joke with a little more taste (though if my mom knew who was mentioned in it she would have to disagree): They said pigs would fly before a black man became president. 100 days into Obama's presidency: Swine Flu.

But seriously, I do have Swine Flu. And yes, it sucks. But no, I'm not dying. If you want the story on how I got it/found out I had it, continue reading. If you don't want the whole story, just skip this next long paragraph.

So, I hadn't been feeling all myself on Wednesday, but I didn't think too much of it because I'd been staying up late for school assignments and stuff like that. Thursday I was in a rush to get all of my work done for the whole weekend because my friends and I planned on leaving Thursday night for Kiera's cabin to go on a treasure hunt after some gold her great-grandpa supposedly buried years ago. As many of you might know, being a pirate is only one of my dreams. So, needless to say, I was very excited to get to wear one of these and look for some of this.
But, that isn't the way things quite worked out. Midway through my poetry class (last class of the day) I was shaking like a phone on vibrate; I had a fever that was awful. I raced home with thoughts of only my bed on my mind. I met Whitney and Andy at the door to my house and sadly but swiftly canceled on the cabin and headed straight for a hoodie and some thermals, jumped under as many blankets as I could find, and buckled down for a rough night. The fever was bad but there was also coughing and a bad headache and severe joint pain and odd burning around my eyes. I ended up sleeping on the ground for a while with a bunch of pillows propped under my knees to take pressure off my lower back and knees cause they were hurting so much. And I slept with a cold wash-cloth over my eyes because they were burning so much. When my fever still hadn't broken by midday on Friday (more than 24 hours after I got it), I called my mom and asked her if she thought it was possible that I had Swine Flu. I knew it sounded crazy and over-cautious of me, but this flu just felt worse than any other flu I'd ever felt. She didn't think I had it, but she said it wouldn't hurt to go check. When I told her I didn't think I could even drive myself the five minutes it takes to get to the clinic, she said that I for sure needed to get there if I was feeling that bad. I ended up being able to drive myself. And, after tons of waiting, some blood test and them swabbing the back of my throat and the inside of my nose (gross, I know) with like six-inch long Q-tips, and more waiting and me wanting to shoot myself in the face for not bringing a blanket with me, the doctor finally told me that "the evidence is staggering": I have Swine Flu. So, they handed me a bunch of masks and told me not to touch things that other people will be touching and sent me on my way. Ok, that's not entirely true. They told me a couple more things, but that's how it felt.

So, I had it confirmed that I was contaminated; now began the quarantine. I called my mom and started crying a little because I was scared and she (being the amazing mom that she is) booked a flight for as soon as she could get away and was with me later that night. My grandpa picked her up from the airport and dropped her off at my place and gave me a sweet and beautiful blessing and then headed back to Salt Lake where I couldn't get him sick. Which is a very good thing because I love my grandpa very much and would hate myself if I got him sick. The next morning my mom and I moved in to the Provo Marriott where we've been ever since. I was told I'd be contagious for a week from the day I first got sick, so I'll be a leper till Thursday (just in time for all the final projects to be over with and Finals to begin). Do to my untouchable status and do to the fact that I'm still sick, all I do is sleep and look like Shredder.
See the resemblance?
Ok, maybe not. But I feel like him, which is cool.

If you look at it the right way, Swine Flu is a pretty fair replacement for missing out on being a Pirate.