that one time when kolton crashed the family vacation...

the next chapter of the looove story (just in case you're not sick of this long drawn out thing yet)

So I already talked about this a little bit but I just have to go a little more in-depth because it was just such a lovely weekend.

My family was headed to St. George to visit my grandparents for Easter/Conference.

So of course I invited my favorite little friend to tag along!

And he couldn't say no because we were headed to St. George which is infinitely nicer than Idaho in the spring.

So Kolton drove down to P-town on Friday and we watched a movie (Better Off Dead) in my car at the base of the Y (Sounds scandalous, right? It wasn't.).

Then the next day he spent some time at the old HBLL (the library, I just need to feel like I'm still with it on BYU terminology) while I went to a few classes.

Soon we were on the I-15 southbound headed for good ole St. Geezy.

It was quite a long drive but I really enjoyed just being able to talk to him in person (talking for hours on the phone every night was getting real old).

We had a lovely time in St. George. The weather was as beautiful as promised, the girls got to go shopping, and the boys got in a little motorbike ride. I hardly saw Kolton at all that day, but I loved that I could send him off with my dad and not worry about if that was okay with him, or if he would feel uncomfortable.

That night was when we headed to the temple and I made up the fake engagement story for my poor cousin.

All too soon, it was time to head home. Poor Kolton had a long drive ahead of him.

It had been such a good weekend, and another big turning point for us I think.

I loved how well he fit in with my family, that he didn't have to be the center of attention all the time, and that we could again spend inordinate amounts of time together without being annoyed or ready to get away.

Suffice it to say, after that weekend I was definitely looking forward to that summer. 

the one time i knew where i was

To preface this story:

I have no sense of direction.

I never know where I am or where to get to where I'm going.

I think it's a result of spending too many driving hours with my nose in a book and not looking out the window figuring out how we got to where we were going.

This problem has caused my parents and myself a lot of frustration over the years. All I have to say is I'm so grateful I always had a cell phone so I could call my parents for directions five million times before I figured out where I was exactly.

On to the story...

So Kolton and I went on a hot date one night a little bit ago.

We had gone in to Idaho Falls and because of a late movie, were heading back kind of late at night during a little snowstorm. (nothing major, but it was snowing pretty decently)

We were headed to Rexburg and because of a road closure, took a little detour. We ended up on an unfamiliar road and we were both trying to figure out where it was taking us. But we figured we would end up in Rexburg eventually (all roads lead to Rexburg, right?).

Then we passed a familiar billboard and it clicked.

"Kolton" I said, "We are headed to Ririe"

He let me know that we were definitely NOT headed to Ririe because
Ririe was that way (he even pointed with his finger in the opposite direction to get his point across).

So I nodded my head because who am I to give directions anyway?

But then we passed another landmark, I call it the green light church, and I again told Kolton, "We are headed to Ririe. This is the road to Ririe."

He again assured me that this was definitely NOT the road to Ririe and that we would see Rexburg soon.

But I was a little less trusting this time because I knew that church, but wondered if maybe this was just a roundabout way to get to Rexburg that I hadn't realized before (see the above mentioned part about the nose in the book)

Soon we are on a little more open stretch of highway and I instantly know.

We are headed to Ririe.

So I tell Kolton so.

Then I point out the cemetery where my great-grandma Johnson is buried, I show him where you can turn off the road and get to my Uncle Ron's house, I expound a little more on the green light church.

("No, seriously Kolton. That was the green light church. I know it is. It has a green light in the steeple and I remember it. There's not that many green light churches around ya know...")

But Kolton just keeps driving and assures me that we will soon see the lights of Rexburg.

So we keep driving and sure enough we do NOT see the lights of Rexburg, but instead see the sign

"Welcome to Ririe"

I cannot put into words my triumph at seeing this sign. I maybe gloated a little to Kolton because I knew where we were when he did not.

When Kolton admitted my rightness and his wrongness, we were able to move on with our journey and try to figure out how the heck we were going to get to Rexburg from here.

It didn't help that most of the road signs had been blasted with the earlier snow+wind combination and were now plastered with snow and therefore, unreadable.

So we follow a little sign that we can barely read that says "Rigby" with a nice little arrow.

Soon we are on a skinny little road, and it's snowing, and we don't know where the heck we are. 

(I'm no help at this point. There are no green light churches in the vicinity)

But we keep driving and driving and driving and when I take a sip of my water bottle Kolton gives me a warning look and says "You might want to save that..." (I got a kick out of that one. Still do every time I think of it, actually)

I think both of us were a titch nervous about this little road we were on, but we just kept driving because we didn't really know what else to do at this point.

I'll tell you what, I have never been so happy to see Rigby Automotive than I was at the moment we passed it and soon thereafter saw the rest of Rigby. And with that, we were found and Kolton successfully got us back to Rexburg.

I'm going to live on this incident for the rest of my life.  

things that crack me up lately

Do you ever have those moments where you are in a solemn place (or maybe a not-so-solemn place, but definitely somewhere where it would be considered socially unacceptable to burst out laughing for no reason) and you remember something funny that happened the day before, a month before, or five years before, and this memory just slays you and it takes all your willpower to hold in your laughter?

I do.

Quite frequently.
I'm going to share these stories with you, but I have to warn you. I think they're the you-had-to-be-there kind of stories.
Nonetheless....

One of these memories is from back in high school. My not-so-trusty car was getting fixed and I was stuck with an old pink/magenta-ish Nissan to drive while my car was getting fixed.

My friends affectionately named the car "The Ghetto Hoe" and I instantly became the coolest girl in school...still trying to figure out the connection there.
As you can see from the lovely picture, everyone wanted a turn to drive the ghetto hoe.
I got in trouble a few times when my parents saw the ghetto hoe driving down the highway Jayci-less.
This was West Jefferson High School and I didn't exactly lock my car...or take the keys out of the ignition, So peeps would just hop in and take it for a spin.
When I got my real car back, I got a lot of questions about what had happened to the ghetto hoe.
Unfortunately her speedometer had issues (as in, it didn't work at all) so she made me a little nervous to drive.
Honestly, I don't even know where she is now, but maybe I can talk Kolton into taking us for a spin sometime.

Memory number two is also from high school. My senior year I somehow got the defective locker.
Defective as in there was no lock.
Defective as in there was no lock, and there was a giant hole in my locker door where the missing lock would have been.
iIdidn't mind so much. It beat having to remember a combination.
About halfway through the year, I was joking with Coach K. about my locker. I mentioned my calculus teacher and how when she had issued us those fancy graphing calculators at the beginning of the year she had warned us that if we lost our calculator for any reason, we owed the school 100 dolla bills ya'll.
In my joking sesh with Coach K. I mentioned that I hoped someone would steal my calculator so I could blame it on the school because my locker had no lock.
The next day I arrived at school, swung my locker open, and just stared inside in confusion.
My locker was empty.
All my books, tablets, pencils, and all the other junk was just...gone.
Everything except my fancy graphing calculator.
It was sitting all by its lonesome on the locker shelf.

It took me a minute to process all of this, but when it finally did make it all the way through my brain, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Sure enough, when I snuck into Coach K.'s room, there were all my books, tablets, pencils, and other junk in a box beside his desk. (by other junk, I mean a cooking pot, a juice mixer, a raincoat, etc.)
So for the rest of the year my locker stayed empty and between classes I would run to Coach K.'s room to my other locker.
We got a lot of laughs out of this prank, he especially found all my extra junk strange.
In my yearbook he signed,
"I knew I should have turned you in when I found "pot" in your locker"
Oh my, those really were the bad ole days, man.

Whenever I remember those two (and many other) little incidents they without fail put a smile on my face.
I love it!

The Humiliation Chronicles: Why I don't do nice things

So a couple in our ward that we are friends with recently had a baby.

We decided to take them dinner one night.

We decided to take them dinner one freezy, rainy, icy night.

So I whipped up a little sumin-sumin and we got ready to head across the sidewalk to their apartment.

As we were walking out the door, Kolton was given the two plates of food and I decided real quick to stick some brownies on another plate.

After a period of indecision, I decided to put the brownies on a not-so-nice plate just in case.

(Can you see where this is going?)

So we head out the door, down the stairs, and we are halfway across the sidewalk when Kolton says,

"Hey, be careful, it's pretty sli-"

but it was too late.

His sentence was punctuated by the sound of me crashing/landing on the sidewalk  ice rink.

I didn't even have time to react, I just smacked that layer of ice like my life depended on it.

The plate broke.

And not just a-few-chunks broke,

The completely-shattered-miniscule-pieces-of-glass kind of broke.

I would know.

I picked some of those miniscule pieces of glass out of my hand after the shock wore off.

The brownies-my favorite kind of brownies-were now sitting in that pile of glass

So I'm just chillin there on the sidewalk on my hands and knees seconds after the smack and the shatter, Trying to catch my breath with Kolton trying to attend to me when the friends pull into our complex (the wife had gone to pick up the husband from work)

So I slowly get up, mumble a breathless "I'm okay" to Kolton and walk towards our friends who are just getting out of the car. The husband asks me if I'm alright and Kolton explains what happened (I'm still trying to catch my breath. but mostly trying not to cry) and about how the brownies are now just chillin on the sidewalk, plateless.

The guy says, "Oh that's okay, it's just ice!" runs over to the brownies and take a big bite out of one. (This would have cracked me up if I hadn't been focusing so hard on trying not to lose it right there on their doorstep).

Just to defend myself here, I'm not really one to cry at an injury (knock on wood) but it was the someone-just-smacked-you-straight-on-the-nose-and-your-eyes-are-watering-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it kind of cry.

So we chatted for a second on the doorstep, but all I really wanted to do was go home, inspect my throbbing knee, release a few of those tears, and restore some of my pride that had shattered along with the plate.

Sweet Kolton cleaned up the glass/brownie mess while I  did the afore-mentioned things. My knee had already started to swell and was forming into a dark bruised lump.

The next day I went to kneel next to a second grader's desk and let out an audible gasp when I knelt on the wrong knee. Ouch!

Honestly, this incident happened about three weeks ago and if I happen to put too much weight on my knee it's still a little tender.

And that is why I don't do nice things.

a quarter of a century

That's a long time isn't it?
A looong time.
Don't you think that would be a long time to be alive?
Me too.

I've been trying to explain that to Kolton ever since he turned 25 almost a month ago.
bBut goll, 25 is lookin so far so good!

I started off the birthday week by doing a little online shopping. I love that concept. I could do my shopping right in the comfort of my own home. In my pajamas. And then I spent the rest of the week stopping myself every time I was about to make a comment about his presents.

We're not real exciting around here, but I did actually wrap the presents this year...the presents that arrived anyway. Some of the online purchases were about three days too late.

Later that day I went to a baby shower while Kolton chilled in the car and went to Walmart. Then my parents treated us to Jakers. Kolton got the seafood buffet and I might have helped him eat some of it...I'm a sucker for crab legs.

Then we raced home from Idaho Falls trying to make it to a movie. We were a little late, So we ended up going to "We Bought a Zoo." I thought it was the cutest movie, even if it was a one-time kind of show. I got teary eyed which never happens during movies. Kolton enjoyed it until the kid sitting behind him spit some chewed up popcorn on the back of his neck. That kind of ruined it for him.

Then we went out for ice cream and bought ourselves a two and a half gallon box of ice cream that we're still eatin on.

On Sunday we had some friends over. The Pearsons, Allens, and Tyson. We visited and shared some of our ice cream. Not very much though, cuz we didn't want them to eat it all.

All in all, it was a pretty good birthday weekend. Good eatin, good company, and a good way to celebrate 25 years of livin. (even if he does only look like he's 18) I even got a picture albeit poor quality, of the occasion.

Love you honey! Here's to 25 more years!

Hermana Richey

So this last weekend I headed down to St. George.
Alone.
It was my favorite little Hermana Richey's farewell!

I love that girl.
She was an old roommate and just the sweetest thing alive. She brought me clam chowder when I was sick. and not just any clam chowder...Skipper's clam chowder! (I have a thing for old nasty restaurants)
Anyway, she was leaving on her mission and I decided it was high time I met up with old friends and took a road trip.

So on Friday after class, I headed out after coming in and out of the house at least five times and telling Kolton goodbye at least five times. by the time I came back in the house to refill my water bottle, he didn't even come out of the back room to say goodbye because we had done it five times before! And honestly, I got a little teary eyed leaving him. And I'm not a mushy gushy sappy person like that, but I did. He was headed home to his mama's though, so he was definitely taken care of. (She probably gets teary eyed when he leaves her because she knows he doesn't get taken care of by me!)

So after that in and out goodbye fiasco, I was off. I drove and drove and drove and finally got to Provo around 9. And it was 65 degrees! And I couldn't remember why I left that place in the first place. (my teary eyed goodbye was long gone by this point. beautiful weather takes priority here.) I went inside my old roommate's apartment (Amy and Kelsee), sat on the bed, and Kelsee and Ii chatted for the next two hours straight. Then Amy came home and we chatted some more!
I just really love old friendships where you can not see or talk to each other for a while, but the second you see each other again it's like you never left.
We FINALLY went to bed (I'm not nearly the night owl I used to be) and then got up bright and early to get on the road.
We picked up Chelsea (who I knew from summers she spent in Monteview and who replaced me as a roommate when I got married and stuff) and we were on the road.
We didn't talk a ton on the way down for some reason. We were all still a little sleepy I think, and we made pretty good time. (except for the part where I thought I'd lost my phone and we had to pull over to look for it because I  just knew it had fallen out of the car at the last rest stop and was now in pieces in the parking lot. Not so crazy. It's happened to me before.)
When we showed up to Kyleigh's house they had a spread of food the likes of which I have never seen. They had every single kind of chips and dip/crackers and dip that you could even think of. (I was partial to the strawberry salsa and cinnamon chips myself) that was some good eatin man. After we gorged ourselves and chatted some more (obviously) and headed to Kyleigh's closet to check out her new missionary clothes (obviously). We hid out in her room and chatted some more. (I thoroughly enjoyed talking to girls all weekend. I like talking to Kolton but usually his responses are along the lines of "oh" or "I don't know" instead of "oh my gosh!" "yes! I know exactly what you mean! this one time..." girls are just a lot easier to talk to than husbands sometimes)
After we came out of hiding Kelsee, Chelsea, Amy, and I all went shopping (cuz that's what girls do during a reunion). I was determined not to buy anything, but I'm pretty sure you know how that went down.
Then we went to Pizza Factory for dinner.

We were a little surprised when we ordered a pizza to share and they brought out personal pan sized pizzas that were teeny. Luckily we weren't too hungry and the massive twisty breadsticks combined with the miniscule pizzas were the perfect amount of dinner after the appetizer/dip fiasco earlier in the day.

We stayed the night at my grandparents house and it was just so nice to see them! I visited with them quite a bit, joked around, and just had a really nice time. They were shoving food at us all weekend and definitely took good care of us.

On Sunday, thanks to Amy's aggressive, speedy driving skills, we made it to church on time. Kyleigh did an awesome job with the limited amount of time she had.

(Sidenote: it snowed while we were in St. George. not exactly the weather I was hoping for, but I wore my capris anyway. out of principle, ya know).

After church we headed back to the Richey's for another stuff your face fest. They had a pasta bar with delicious lasagna and the best caesar salad I have ever encountered. All too soon, it was time to head out. We said our goodbyes, said our goodbyes again, and finally got outta there.

Then it was a looong drive home for me. We made good time on the way home and I was able to make it back to Rexburg by about 10:30 to be reunited with my one and only. (He missed me. I finally coaxed that confession out of him) What a weekend!

I'm so excited for my dear Kyleigh. I know she'll be a great lil missionary and the people of New York are lucky to have her! See ya in 18!

this is not a story about bad parenting

Even though it may seem like it.

This is a story about one of my favorite childhood memories.

The story begins with last weekend. We went to Ethan's state wrestling tournament in Pocatello. (still working on the wrestling fan thing).

Now we need some background....

Two years ago

 Kolton gave me, for my birthday, a homemade gift certificate that stated he would take me to my favorite restaurant, Mama Inez, anytime I wanted. 

Ten years ago

 The restaurant Mama Inez closed in Idaho Falls. The only available location was in Pocatello.

Thirteen years ago

I decided Mama Inez was my favorite restaurant. My family would go there ALL the time. It was in the older part of town and a little shady-ish, but nine year olds don't think about that kind of stuff. All I could think about was the squeaky front door, the slight smell of smokers in the air (this was a result of the tables around the outside perimeter of the inside  of the restaurant being the "smoker friendly" tables...we never sat there.) Where we did sit was always in the middle of the room, always at the same table. We didn't even need to look at the menu because we knew exactly what we wanted.

We got the same thing every time we went there.

My dad would order the crab and shrimp monterrey, and my mom and the kids (Tylee, Brody, and I) would share a crab and shrimp nacho.

Every time.

The whole family would share one large plate of steaming, saucy, cheesy, crab and shrimp nachos.

Twelve years ago

My parents were invited to a wedding. It was an outdoor wedding and they didn't want three pesky kids running around wreaking havoc. My sister Addi had just been born, was deemed not too pesky for the wedding, and was allowed to go with my parents.

My parents didn't know what to do with the three of us, and then they stumbled upon a brilliant idea.

Sure enough, they drove to the old part of town and dropped us three off at good ole Mama Inez. (I'm pretty sure I was no older than nine) they handed us some cash, told us to order the usual, and said they'd see us in about three weeks (they wish!)

So that's what we did.

Tylee, Brody, and I waltzed ourselves into the restaurant not thinking anything of it (except the three weeks thing. we didn't know for sure what to think about that) We sat at our usual table and waited for the waitress to come around.

Being the oldest, I put in our order (one large plate of crab and shrimp nachos) and the waitress only gave me a bit of a funny look. After she walked away, we decided that we would pretend we were three rich orphans so we faked a snooty accent as we worked our way through those nachos. (the only regret we had is that I forgot to say "hold the onions", otherwise, they were delicious as usual)

After we finished up our meal, we paid and then walked out the door. We walked down to the movie theatre that was probably about three blocks away, bought our tickets and enjoyed the movie while we waited for our parents to come get us.

Present day

Every time I think of that little outing I get this grin on my face. It's so funny because we didn't think anything of it! We were at Mama Inez so we didn't have a care in the world! Oh it just cracks me up.

Every time.

So last week at the wrestling match, I remembered the coupon, and the restaurant, and most especially, the crab and shrimp nachos so I informed Kolton that if I had to sit at a wrestling match all day I wouldn't make a peep if he would just take me to Mama Inez. It took a little convincing, but he finally agreed.

After the wrestling match was over, we were ready to head out. Kolton's family decided to eat with us, and I got a little embarrassed. Mama Inez isn't real fancy-kinda trashy (my 20 year old self can see that now) but they insisted, so we all got to experience a little piece of my childhood.

I don't think they enjoyed that piece of my childhood half as much as I did...but they can't say I didn't warn them! :)


We sat down to order and I got a big ole grin on my face as I told the waitress I wanted the crab and shrimp nachos.
The grin only got bigger once she set that gigantic, steaming, saucy, cheesy plate of seafoodness and tortilla chips in front of me.

I was in heaven.

As I was raving about it the whole way home, Kolton had to mention that maybe iIonly like that place because of my memories associated with it. (he thinks he's a psychologist)
He might be right.
But it doesn't make any difference.
I'm counting down the days till we can make it down to Pocatello again.