... that I've been demoted?

Got this text tonight from Kell: 

I should have known.

These days, I'm always playing second fiddle.  I can usually Facetime for 10 seconds with Babes before she pleads, "Wan talk to Mott!!"  But I guess I'm okay with everyone else thinking he is the greatest.  Let's just call a spade a spade.

I love my husband, and so does everyone else :)

... that I'm a baller?

A church softballer, that is.

I am not an athletic person (understatement of the year), but I have always loved baseball.  It started back in the 90's when my dad would take us all to Dodgers games and we would root for Mike Piazza and Eric Karros.  He even nicknamed me Mondi after Raul Mondesi... I still am not sure why.  To this day, I am a Dodgers fan... even if I don't follow them or know any of the recent players and also like the Giants.  Get over it.

I actually played softball for three seasons in elementary school.

My glove is twice the size of my head and my uniform is 300 sizes too big.  I am adorable.

I used to love to pitch, but quickly reverted to catcher when I realized that I stunk.  I hit lots of home runs, and my mom kept all of the softballs to prove it.  Okay, I was 9 and the infield was like 3 feet deep, but a homerun is still a homerun people!!  They gave me trophies!!!  I was awesome!!!

In college, my friend Andrew (a fellow Camarilloite) and I used to get together and just go play catch.  He had an old glove that he would let me use, and we'd just play catch for hours at any park we could find.  I was one of the lucky girls that never got hurt by this activity (he knocked out several girls' teeth with baseballs, including his now wife) and it has always been a fond memory of mine.

Several months ago, Matt came home with a baseball glove for me from DI saying, "Now we can play catch!"  And it has sat in our basement ever since.  Until now.

Our Stake has a softball team, and the director asked Matt to run softball for him while he was out of town last week.  So being the lovely, supportive wife that I am, I went with.  And I actually played!  And had fun!

That's right, I totally played with the big boys.  Which means I stood in the outfield between two other men where I was SURE the ball would never come to me... except for one inning where something came over me and I decided to stand next to the designated pitcher and cover the infield because no one else was standing there.  WHAT WAS I THINKING??????  Luckily, the ball didn't even come to me and I didn't touch it once.  Because if anyone had actually tried to throw it to me, I would have probably peed my pants.  I was also terrified of striking out, but I batted anyway and even got on base!  Once.  I was thrown out twice.  And I'm pretty sure I looked ridiculous both times cause for some reason I was really scared that the 1st baseman would not catch the ball and it would hit me.  And I might have screamed a little bit.  I'm such a girl.

It was fun to be outside playing, even if I barely played at all (I ended up just sitting out the last few innings) and I'm sure the rest of the team thought I was completely useless.  It reminded me of why I love baseball.  And summer.  And America.

I love baseball!

... that we are veteran gardeners/awesome cooks?

Ever since we planted our garden in May, I have been waiting for this moment: eggplant parmesean with fresh eggplants and basil from our garden!!

We made it once with our eggplants last year and it was amazing!  Who would have thought after all those years of being grossed out by my mom eating eggplant that I would actually like it when I tried it???  Not me, that's who.

A big thanks to Matt and Lance who did 90% of the cooking, and ATK for making it happen.  Undying love to all of you.

  From now on, eggplant will be a staple in our garden (if we get to have one next year).  Next recipe to try: baba ghanoush!  Seriously.  All sorts of adventurous up in here.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I love having a garden, a husband who cooks, and good food :)

... that I barely survived last weekend?

This is the longest post ever, which is fitting as it commemorates the longest weekend of my life.

One of my best friends from college, "Jimmy Mac," got married last weekend and I have been looking forward to this wedding for months and months.  Unfortunately, there was no actual planning that went along with that looking forward (I know, surprise surprise), cause two days before the wedding I realized that the reception was in Bear Lake... which is 2 and a half hours away.  Now I'm not complaining, because after all, Jimmy drove all the way from Utah to go to my wedding in LA, so really I am losing the friendship contest big time.  But still.  This required planning.  We were trying to figure out the logistics of this whole trip when Matt said the worst thing I could have possibly imagined:

"I know!!!  Why don't we go camping while we're up there?"

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like camping.  I like my bed and my shower and sanitation and I do not like sleeping on the ground.  And this particular weekend was an EXTREMELY bad weekend for camping for the following reasons: 1) Tracy and Marc were going out of town and had asked us to watch their dogs, so we would have to figure out some way to take care of them and Xena, and 2) I had been planning on going to Draper Days with Kaari for weeks and the only day we could go was Saturday, which meant we would have to rush home from the lake in order to make it to Draper Days on time.

I did not want to go camping.  But I love my husband and he loves camping, soooo whattayado?

Friday found me driving to Brigham City alone cause Matt had to work that morning (insert grumpy face here).  But the sealing was awesome and it was so great to be in the temple with so many great friends.

Me and Choc waiting for the happy couple.  Don't let these pics fool you, it was approximately 500 degrees outside the temple and we were miserable.

Newlyweds Jimmy and Lindsey!

While we were waiting for the happy couple to finish picturing, my friend Nikki called and said she had two extra tickets Saturday night to go to the 20th anniversary party of the movie The Sandlot, where they were showing the movie at the actual sandlot.  And I think waiting in the heat had done something to my brain at this point, because I told her that Matt and I would go.  Because we didn't have enough to do on our Saturday, right?  But it sounded so fun!!!  More on that later...

After all the pics were done, we went to a great luncheon at the Maddox Lodge.  Just as lunch was ending, Matt pulled into Brigham City with Lance, Renee and Korance.  I met them for a quick stop at Sonic, then we all piled into Lance's car and drove to Bear Lake.  Oh and did I mention that Lance's air conditioning was broken?  And that it was still boiling hot?  After an hour of driving in the car with all the windows down, my hair was a disastrous mess of tangles that I was positive I would have to cut out.  Me = not happy.

After checking out two campsites, we finally found an open spot and set up camp.

And obviously by "we" I mean "they" because this I was busy doing this:

And by "this" I mean combing the knots out of my hair for 15 minutes then standing in the one shady spot in our camp ground trying not to let the sweat soak through my dress or get dirt in my heels, swatting away bugs, trying to ignore a massive headache probably from dehydration, all while being very very grumpy and not helping at all.  In my defense, I had had a very explicit conversation with Matt the night before in which I clearly stated that I did NOT want to be setting up any camping materials in my wedding clothes, so he knew what he was getting into.  I WAS IN A DRESS AND HEELS PEOPLE.  Don't judge me.

After camp was set up, the kids dropped us off at the reception while they went swimming.

The reception was beautiful, aside from me STILL sweating the whole time and that blasted headache that never went away.  It was in Lindsey's parents' backyard, which is right on Bear Lake and absolutely gorgeous.  They had smores, popcorn, and lemonade bars set up, all Pinterest-worthily decorated, of course.  So cute :)

The kids picked us up and we went back to camp where I was thankfully finally able to take off my nice clothes and get comfortable camping and stop being a raging grump monster.  We whipped up some awesome tin foil dinners and finally got to eating at around 10:00 at night (most likely another factor in my killer headache- I was a little bit starving).


I dragged my exhausted self into a sleeping bag and somehow managed to sleep pretty well, even if it was cold and Matt didn't even sleep in the tent with me because he prefers to sleep under the stars with disgusting bugs and ferocious wild animals.  I hate camping.

The next morning I was in a much better mood.  After a quick oatmeal breakfast, we took down camp (yes, I helped this time) and drove out to the lake for a quick swim.

Lance decided to stay on the beach and read The Wheel of Time... nerd.

Then we stopped in town to get some lunch: delicious hamburgers and apparently famous raspberry shakes.

So yummy!  But it was hard for me to fully enjoy them because the whole time we were eating, I was just thinking about how late we were going to be getting home.  We still had to drive 2½ hours home, get cleaned up, meet Kar and Zach at Draper Days in time for the reptile shows (because obviously we weren't going to miss that), pick up our tickets from Nikki, then head over to the Sandlot to save our seats cause she was going to show up late.  And I was already exhausted.  But there was fun to be had!!!

1st stop: Draper Days!  It was seriously miserably hot, so Matt and I downed a snow cone while we waited for Kar and Zach to show up.

The fair was absolutely huge, but it was mostly full of lame cheap stuff to buy or blow up things for the kids.  We had fun looking at the doggy splash competition, the pony rides, and the kind of weird recreation of a Native American village.

G loved the swings!

Matt and I had really wanted to stop at two things there: the Reptile Rescue tent and the Scales and Tails tent.  The Reptile Rescue was less than exciting, but we stuck around for the Scales and Tails show and it did not disappoint! 

This guy was seriously so funny.  He had a ton of animals and was cracking jokes right and left.  In the end, I was glad we stayed.

As soon as the show was done, we hightailed it over to Nikki's house to pick up the Sandlot tickets and booked it to the park.  It was a good thing we got there early:

The place was packed!  But luckily there was plenty of space inside the park and we got a great spot to put down our blankets.  We didn't know this, but it turned out that a bunch of the cast had showed up for the party!  They had a little Q&A before the movie started and then spent the rest of the night signing autographs in the back.  Pretty awesome!

That's Yeah-Yeah, Timmy and Tommy Timmons, Squint's Grandpa the Police Chief, Squints, Ham, and the directors.

They had rebuilt a baseball backstop for pictures, were giving out free popcorn and selling giant bags of cotton candy for $1.  Matt was in heaven.




Nikki and her friend finally showed up


And a good time was had by all.  I fell asleep a few times cause I was so exhausted, and by the time it was over I was a walking zombie.  It was hard to remember that just that morning I had been camping at Bear Lake!  It had been the longest day/weekend ever!  I can't believe we fit it all in!  Thankfully on Sunday I was able to take a nap after church and basically spend the whole day recuperating, and boy did I need it.  Next time I decide to be extra fun and quadruple book my weekend, remind me to limit myself please.

I love fun times and a husband who is willing to drag me through them :)

... that Matt said*:

*This is totally a copycat post.  One of my favorite bloggers, the wonderfully hilarious and also beautiful Grace, does the funniest posts about her husband's stand up comedy around the house.  I am desperately jealous that I can't come up with a clever name for my posts (I almost thought about asking Matt to change his name to Simon...), but I'll just have to settle for being a copycat.

Sooooooooo,

Remember that one time that Matt said:

On dieting:  "I don't diet.  It has the word 'die'."

Looking out the window at a rainbow:  "There's CareBears over there for sure."

On why he is not a vegetarian:
Matt:  "I don't want to turn into a fart machine."
Me:  "What?"
Matt:  "Cause of all the beans."

While reading a beginner's woodworking book:  "Honey!  I'm gonna make us a ton of crappy furniture!!!"

On my dead pet hamster in the trash can:

Matt: "If you would like to pay your respects, she'll be there... till Thursday."

Me:

Renee:  hysterical laughing.

Matt:  "It will be an open lid viewing."

Me:

Renee:  hysterical laughing.

Matt:  hysterical laughing, then looking at me, "I use humor to hide my sadness."

As I am leaning in for a kiss after he went swimming in Bear Lake:  "Giardia kiss!!"

Wistfully, as we are driving back from Bear Lake as fast as we can:  "We are probably driving past so many pet stores right now."

On what he does while I'm at work all day:  "I got a lot of work to do tomorrow.  Red Tail Boas aren't gonna learn about themselves."

On eating instant mashed potatoes vs. real mashed potatoes:  "I'd rather punch myself in the face, but if you guys want them...."

Again on dieting:  "I'll diet when I die.................. (quietly to himself) it."

I love my husband :)

... that we are rule breakers?

Cait has been in the MTC for three and a half weeks now.  And she is doing great!  She loves the work and is having a great time teaching, learning Korean, and sharing the gospel.  She is a rockstar.

So last week, I got a call from Kar saying she was going to go down to the MTC and bring Cait cookies.  I warned her that you can't just take things to the MTC, you have to mail them, and she responded that she was not going to take them to the MTC.  She had emailed Cait and they had schemed to meet at the temple on Cait's weekly Sunday walk.  Of course.  Kar is a PRO schemer.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go with her for some reason, so she journeyed down by herself.  I was super bummed that I couldn't go, until I started getting these texts:

Turns out that Cait didn't go on a walk that day cause she was called in for an interview and was assigned to be the Sister Training Leader (Awesome, right?  I'm so proud of my little baby!).  Anyway, poor Kar waited an hour by herself in the temple parking lot for Cait to show up and she never did!  Hahahahaha so horribly funny.  Obviously, Kar sent her an angry email asking why she wasn't there, and Cait told her about the interview and promised that she was definitely going to be there next week for sure.  Which just happened to also be the week that our cousin Stephanie was blessing her baby in Orem.  Perfect!  So we drove down to Utah county and right after the blessing, we ran over to the temple with baby G and a bag of cookies and waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Finally Zach called us from the car (Matt and Zach stayed in the car cause they didn't want to be associated with us rule breakers) and said that they saw her at the bottom of the hill!  So we walked down the hill and there she was, in all of her missionary glory.

She felt super bad cause I guess they had just had a big meeting where all the missionaries were told NOT to have people meet them at the temple and bring them stuff.  Hahahahaha oops.  What can I say, us Blicks are rebels.  But okay fine, we won't do it again.  Cause now she has to be an example and stuff.  Well, maybe we won't do it again.  Only time will tell.

I love my little missionary!!!

... that it was the 4th of July?

I started asking Matt if we could go see fireworks a week before the 4th because I REALLY wanted to go see some.  Last year I think we watched a few neighborhood explosions from our kitchen window.  LAME.

Then Lisa called and asked us if we wanted to do something.  Which was funny cause I think she might actually have been calling us to get out of going to a firework show, which is what Brian wanted to do.  Come on Harrisons, I thought you guys were all about fun????  THAT WAS A JOKE MATT, I WOULD NEVER SAY YOU'RE NOT FUN.

Aaaaaaaanyway, Brian and I ganged up against the nay sayers and a memory was born!  Even Renee decided to join in the party!  We started with a BBQ at the Merrills:

Burgers (made by Matt of course), sweet potatoes, chips and salsa, salad, and bacon wrapped/cream cheese stuffed jalapenos (which I'm sure would have been delicious had I been able to taste them after they destroyed my tongue).

Then it was off to Jordan Park for the "official Salt Lake City firework show."  We camped out at a great spot on the baseball field, played tag, had a handstand contest, ate Oreos, had a glow stick war, and waited for dark.

So much fun, even if there was NO MUSIC TO ACCOMPANY THE FIREWORK SHOW.  Terrible right?  Is it even Independence Day if you don't sing along when they start to play "I'm Proud to Be An American" and get all teary eyed and embarrassed at your own cheesiness and have to try to wipe away your tears without anyone seeing???  Whatever.  The show was good, it wasn't too cold, and I had two of the cutest nephews in the world snuggled next to me on the blanket.



I love the USA!!!!!