Grapes of Frath Murder Mystery Dinner

The year was 1920, and here are,

The Suspects:

Fearless Captain Mal, with his medals from war where he received the injury necessitating the use of a cane

Jules, the jewel thief

Bella Maria, the conturasoprano

Nadya, the Russian brothel owner

Lucie

Miles, the race car driver

Desiree Fambeau, businesswoman, proprietor of Flambeau vineyards

Wellington, businessman and expert on fine wines

or could it have been Lily, the flamenco dancer on board?

Some of the facts unravel...

Miles and Desiree may have had something going on, and Miles kept trying to hold her hand, but she was resistant in public.

She had to hold his wrist to stop him.

Jules didn't only like the jewels, but he also liked the ladies!

And liked to share the jewels with the ladies...

Miles likes to drive the cars. Fast.

It was quite the night of crazy mayhem. Lots of French accents, accusations, laughing. Good food. Good times! 'Twas a blast. As for who committed the murder?! Well guess you'll just have to do this one yourself sometime... ;)

Utah! Utah! Utah!

July has been nuts. First weekend was the 4th, and I got to pick up Alessandra from the airport in Denver as she arrived back in the US after a month studying abroad in China. It was awesome! She was only in Greeley for 4 hours. Hah, Chelsea was able take her back to the airport in the morning, but of course we got pictures in.

This was a picture Alessandra was taking of a drum she bought so she wouldn't have to take it to Utah for her family to see...

Chelsea got to come over for a bit after the Greeley Stampede, so, like I said, she was able to take Alessandra back to the airport on her way home, it was a huge help.

The second weekend of July our friend Ryan was going out to Utah for his mission president's homecoming talk, so I went along for the ride, and to see Alessandra. We were originally going to pick Alessandra up, but her parents didn't want her to leave. And her family had tickets for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, so Ryan and I worked friday night (till 10:30pm), I went and took a couple hour nap, and we left Greeley at 3:00am Saturday morning! Ryan, has a manual so I couldn't help drive, just help keep him awake, but he was crazy fast, and we made REALLY good time to Alessandra's house. We even had time to take a wee nap. The open house was amazing! The temple is so beautiful. I look forward to going back after it's dedicated.

This is a picture Alessandra took so I could see what I looked like with her sister Luli's glasses. I wanna get new frames, so I was just curious what I looked like. I don't think they're me...

You can't see us very well, but here we are in front of the temple. Ryan, Alessandra, Michella, Ruth, and me.

After the temple, I went down to Provo and got to hang out with Nicolle and Jillaine. Michelle was at home in California.

Sunday I got to go play with my cousins. It was really fun. Here I am with Deborah and Liza! Love those two bunches and bunches!

So the next weekend, Diane was going out to Utah for a wedding reception. So her job was to pick up Alessandra. She wanted me to go with her. Of course I wanted to. I really didn't want to cancel my Sunday School class for another week, so I told her that I'd go if we could make it back in time for church sunday morning. So we decided we'd leave Utah whenever her reception was over saturday night. Crazy, but I figured we'd be able to take turns sleeping in the back seat.

So next the question was when we would leave Colorado. Originally I thought the plan was to leave on friday morning. Then maybe friday night. But that didn't work out for Diane. So we left Saturday morning at 8:00am, and we left Utah at 9:00pm to come back. It was nuts! I hung out in Provo with Michelle, where Alessandra met up with us, and then we met back up with Diane. We got into Greeley at 4:00am sunday morning. I got 3 hours of sleep before church! It was crazy! But we all survived. Whether we've recovered or not is another issue. ;) It was fun though. And how many people can say they've gone to Utah and back from Colorado in one day?! Hah, not many. But Diane and I can. In fact it was so fast there and back that I have no pictures to show from it. How'd I manage to not take pictures? I'm really not sure.

So I got Alessandra, and sunday afternoon we made a big dinner for the Toy Family who was moving away to Mississippi on that next tuesday. We ate with them of course (oh, the food turned out amazing, orange beef with broccoli, and tons of vegies), and then hung out with them till birthday cake for Kristin Nelson followed by games at the Huffines called us away.

Alessandra got quite the workout playing with the 4 adorable kids (especially since it was so hot)!

How cute is baby Ammon?

Thursday of that week we were going over to Ryan's to have some dinner, watch some of The Office, and I had some zuchini bread to make (with yellow squash as an experiment). As I took a corner a little too fast to make the light (the one at 34 and 47th Ave, horrible light), two of the eggs jumped out and cracked. Of course I had to take a picture of Alessandra with the dripping egg. Hah, I was laughing so hard. The bread turned out awesome though!

Alessandra had to be in Colorado primarily for Chelsea & Sean's wedding and reception friday the 24th. It was great, and I'll post a blog entry about it, but when we got home we were beat! It'd been a really long day--over 12 hours down in Denver area, and dancing on hard wood with bare feet (couldn't do it in my 4-inch heels), so we soaked our poor dirty and tired feet in hot soapy water while we watched an episode of Robin Hood with Ashley! It was fun. We felt better after that.

Saturday was another wedding reception, then Sunday was filled with church (of course), choir stuff, visiting teaching, the Nursing home, packing, dinner, fireside, and finally we left Fort Collins at 8:55pm for Alessandra's house in Sandy. Doesn't Alessandra look so happy to be driving? She drove first of course.

I slept in the back seat while she drove for the first 4 hours. I slept for prolly around 2.5 hours. Not bad! Would've totally thought that would've been enough. She was still feelin alright to drive when we filled up on gas at 1:00am. Look at that! We didn't even end up having to buy gas on the Sabbath!

But we decided I'd drive anyway since I'd slept so much.

Well turned out I was WAY tired, normally I'm way good to go late at night and stuff. But turns out that was a big negatory. I was okay driving, but I was way tired. So after trying to get some Taco Bell and failing (apparently Wyoming doesn't believe in 24-hr Taco Bells, a friend mentioned Taco Bell a few too many times during the month of July, and I really wanted some), I lasted only until 3:00am.

We were already in Utah at this point. I knew we were close to Sandy, about 45 minutes away was all. But I had to close my eyes for a bit. So I pulled into a rest stop, Alessandra stirred in the backseat and I told her where we were. I curled up in the drivers seat thinking that I'd sleep for a half hour or maybe an hour. (I don't normally sleep very well in cars.) Yeah, Alessandra and I woke up at 6:00am! We slept for 3 hours! So I drove the 45 minutes to her family in Sandy, where I then slept for another 5 hours! Guess everything else in July just wore me out!

So I drove to Utah for 3 of the weekends in July (hence the blog title, know what movie it's a play on? I haven't actually seen the movie, but I've heard of it anyhow). And I saw Alessandra every weekend of July! It's been crazy!

Now Alessandra and I are at my house in California. Again, more to come later.

Till then...

Life since Nauvoo

So I decided I oughta put a little about what I've been doing since then. I decided (prolly dumb, oh well) to do them backwards chronologically. Well I have been super cleaning/organizing (for me at least) my room, and I will do it's own post with pictures when I'm all done, there are still some finishing touches I've been working on. It's been quite the process. I also haven't been taking that many pictures, and some that I have taken are still on my camera. Hah.

Many of you may know that I'd gotten fairly addicted to Alias. Well we finished all 5 seasons just last week! It was very exciting, started April 7th, finished June 26th. Not too bad. On one episode in season 3 or 4 (shoot, I can't remember) Jennifer Garner had her hair in three braided buns on the back of her head and I LOVED it. So I tried it once, and it was a disaster, but then one day I tried it and was fairly successful if I do say so myself. ;) I should have used clear hair ties, it could still take some perfecting, and my hairs a little long for it, but it was fun. Nerdy I know, haha.

Alessandra's in China for study abroad, and we were video chatting on Skype, and she took a picture of me and sent it to me. It's always funny because the video will pause momentarily on the funniest facial expressions. She caught me at quite the moment with this picgture, Jessica was staying at our hours that night, so she was talking to her too.

It was a friend of our's birthday, so we bought some army men and bobble head people, made signs and put them all over his car and front porch. It was awesome! Unfortunately he figured out was us and a member of our band ratted us out. Oh well for anonymity...

Tanner and I went put-put one night, it was fun, I actually beat him (by 4) which is amazing because I'm TERRible at it. We both had way high scores, but it was fun.
Aagh, who's hands are whose?! Wacky...

The night we got back from Nauvoo we went to a baby shower, and my foot ran away with me hypermimiating a little too much, and dumped Cheche's chocolate all over her. I felt so bad, but it was really funny too! I'm ridiculous.

Almost caught up...yay!!

OMAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I feel the need to explain a little, and no pictures of Omaha/Winter Quarters made it in my last post. Oh yeah, that's because strangely enough I didn't take any. Lame, right? Oh well. I guess I figured I had enough pictures from when I lived there. It was awesome going to the Winter Quarters Temple because I was just going home. It was amazing.

Here's home for me:

So I was of course excited to go to Omaha because I hadn't been there since I moved (almost a full 2 years). So before we left on the trip I got excited talking about it. I always hypermimiate (excessive use of the hands while talking) in general, so especially as I was excited about Omaha I guess I threw my hands up in the air because I couldn't contain it very well. So as we were driving in everyone (well Bryn and Bishop Hatch led it, I think Bryn started it) started shouting OMAHA!!!!!! And throwing their arms up in the air. I was excited to see familiar places, and everyone just made fun of me. Bryn and Bishop Hatch were dancing in their seats, then standing up. That was probably the loudest the bus was the whole trip! It was really hysterical really. Embarassing to some degree, but SO funny!

While I was in the temple Alessandra and Megan took this picture in honor of me, that's what any of them do now anytime Omaha may come up, throw their arms in the air as they say it and act really excited. It's crazy. Just a little odd that everyone on the bus was making fun of me. But it was all in good fun.