teenagers never change. and neither to their forms of entertainment. which is why i've decided to lock my kids in their rooms until they're twenty five. maybe thirty. okay, twenty. 
so i logged on to facebook a few days ago to try to spy on some old high school friends and ended up finding a whole bunch of people that i grew up with including some from my old ward in virginia. even though i feel a little like i'm in the twilight zone, and even though the last couple nights my dreams have been about being back in high school (bleh), it's been fun to check in and see what's up with everyone. the best part is that i found laura lee! marci and i have been looking for her forever, i did a post about it a while back - click here to refresh your memory. so now that we found here all we need is a sleep-over reunion so we can try to re-creat these photos...
oh c'mon! i don't have those pjs any more, and i wouldn't fit into them even if i did, but i still think we could pull it off! or maybe we could all go goth to the next new year's eve stake dance...
what? it worked in 1988! wow, bad flash, bad flash! anyway, the point is, we found her and now my list could say "reunited with TWO old friends", and two is always better than one. well, ok, not always, but in this case, for sure.
after i posted my 200 things list, a few of you wanted to know who my "old friend" was that i found and added to my list. her name is marci mickelsen - now latimer and she was my BEST friend all through jr. high. i met her in my ward in virginia, we were in beehives and mia maids together and the best part was that our birthdays are only three days apart so we were never separated all during our YW years. i have such fond memories of marci, we really were attached at the hip, i can't even count how many sleep-overs we must have had. in order to gather a few oldie photos for this post, i had to dig through a box of fun memories that made me laugh out loud - like this one from a photo booth - remember those? thank the heavens for braces is all i have to say about this photo! sheesh!
and this is us at youth conference right before a dance, do you like my plaid dress and scarf? what a dork! marci was always way cuter and more fashionable then me! which maybe explains why i was always borrowing her clothes.
i like this photo of us at my fourteenth birthday party (notice all my cutie red-headed brothers!) because it shows how we had almost the same hair cut - super short because that's what cool skater girls did (even though neither of us actually skated!). what dorks!
ok, so the story is that when we were fourteen her family moved to arizona and we wrote letters all the time. the summer after they moved my mom got me to go on the pioneer trek for youth conference by waving a plane ticket to arizona to visit marci in my face. it worked! it was a super fun-filled ten days hanging out with her and her cute family. some time after that trip, i don't know what happened but we started to lose touch, i can't believe we let this happen! it was something i had always regreted and tried several times to find her with no luck. so years later, when we were maybe 29 or so, my dad calls me up one day to tell me that an old friend of his ran into marci's parents at a grocery store in idaho! he had written down the name of their city and i was so excited, i literally left the kids in the tub to call information and find their number. i got marci's number from them - it turned out she was living in indiana - and we talked on the phone for about an hour getting caught up! rich had to get the kids out of the bath and to bed that night! luckily, her parents living in idaho means that she has had to drive right passed my house on the freeway whenever she visits them and so we have actually had a few opportunities to see each other since that phone call! the last time they were in town, we got her parents and mine and our husbands and kids together for dinner before they left town. it was so fun to get caught up and hang out like old times. and she has the cutest kids! her dad made me feel like i was a thirteen year old air head again, he is a major teaser.
so that's the story of my long lost friend marci, i'm so glad we found each other after all these years! :) now if we could just locate our other friend from back then, laura lee andrew...
anyone know where we can find her?
ever since i was a little girl i have looked forward to seeing my grandpa and having my guts squeezed from one of his family-famous hugs. everyone in the family, even my dad, agrees that he is the world's best hugger. i used to think that it was because he was a big cowboy kind of man and he maybe didn't know his own strength. but as i got older i realized there is no accident about how tight he holds you, it's all about letting you know how much you are loved. they're the kind of hugs that say, "you are the most important thing in the whole world" and "you are my favorite granddaughter" and there's nothing in the world quite like them.
i'll be honest that i was a little worried when i saw him on memorial day, it's been a few years and he's definitely looking more frail and aged. but when he saw me, he hugged me just as tight as ever, and i was so grateful. in fact, i hugged him more than once just to get my fill until the next time.
taylor and i were out running errands on monday and stopped in at the local music store to replenish spencer's lesson books. i have been forgetting to get him new books for like three weeks now! what is my problem? why can't i remember stuff like this? anyway, we saw a jar on the check out counter with these whistle suckers in them and i got so excited! of course we each bought one and played with them throughout the rest of our errand running. the little plastic stick goes in and out to make the sound go high and low. so fun, they definitely took me back to being a kid. of course, taylor decided a couple of times to try and burst my eardrums with the highest pitch the whistle would make, but hey, it was fun anyway. anyone else remember these?
i made myself some poached eggs and toast, something i remember my dad making for himself almost every saturday morning. 
the egg cooker was a wedding gift for him and my mom from his mother. i think the story goes that she got them the egg cooker because my dad loves poached eggs so much, but this must've been a premonition because before the wedding, he'd never had a poached egg in his life. the toast is an important part of the meal because you use it to soak up all the runny yolk stuff. 
(sorry patsy) so so so good. i also remember saturday mornings being sort of a party hour because my dad was nice enough to let my mom sleep in. we watched cartoons of course, while he made his famous french toast for us. some mornings we would wake up to a variety pack of hostess cake donuts which some how managed to jump into the grocery sack during his early-morning milk run.
or POPS cereal, which we loved because we weren't allowed sugar cereal growing up. what i never understood was, why the variety pack of donuts dad? all of us only ever wanted the powdered sugar ones, i mean, what the heck is the point of a plain cake donut anyway? i can't see one.
i love this photo for a few reasons, one, look at my cute mom!! it's so fun to see her twenty years old and with hair that is back in style! (she has cute hair now, i just think it's funny that this hair cut is back in style) i also think this photo is funny because having babies wear things on their heads is totally my family, now i know i wasn't left out. i have tons of pictures of my brothers and i as babies wearing all kinds of things on our heads. 
this is one of my favorite photos because i swear i can remember this! actually i just have memories of wearing these headphones (which i also have pictures of) and listening to my dads records, especially elton john don't go breakin' my heart. i still love elton to this day. i also love that i'm pretty sure my dad still has these boots, if not now, he did until really recently, i used to clomp around in them thinking my dad was a giant in reality he has very small feet, size 8 i think. i'm not sure what else it is that i love about this photo, something about my dad wanting to be a good dad by feeding the baby but still trying to hang on to his youth. that doesn't really describe what i'm thinking but it kind of does and more importantly, i can totally relate.
why this picture? i don't know, it's just funny and something about it speaks to me. it surprises me how much i look like my mom and dad both, it just depends on the day. my dad looks a lot like grandma (his mom) and i think i do too, until i see my and my mom's senior pictures side by side. she's a lot cuter than i was but there's no denying i'm her daughter. 
this is just a great photograph, probably courtesy of my dad. i love the bandana in my cute mom's hair and of course the smiling baby with the tiny legs and big diaper butt don't hurt. this picture says, "pure joy" to me, in both of our faces.
so why these pictures why now? i don't know, just something about them spoke to me and made me smile, something about seeing my parents all young and first time parents. it's a story that i only get to experience through photographs and i could spend hours (and have) sorting through them, studying the details of each one. i see how they are like me when my kids were first born, although i cringe at some of my old hair dos and clothing and my mom just always looks cute. did she ever have an ugly stage? i haven't seen proof of it yet. i on the other hand, well, let's not talk about it.
i'm so thankful to have been "born of goodly parents". they don't like to take credit for anything, but the truth is, none of us are in jail, we all graduated from high school, my brothers all served missions, almost all of us are married, those that are married good people, we have great kids, we all have testimonies and love the gospel, what else is there? i know that it wasn't easy raising the four of us, probably still isn't, but they did a great job and i for one will be forever grateful that they did. love you mom and dad!
