Back in the day Wednesday!

I thought this time I would start out with Paris pictures and then tell weird stories after. Hope you enjoy!

My cousin Claire Vitale and me after spending the day in Luxembourg Gardens.


For some reason I like to make really weird and ugly faces. Kate and I are on top of the Arc De Triomphe.


Some of the group huddled together by the Cathedral in Strasbourg. The entire time we were there it was cold and rainy.

Most of the group went to Cleopatre the musical. It was awesome and we all had a lot of fun.

Me, the Gg, Kate and Claire in front of Sacre Coeur.

When my cousin Syd and her husband Chad came to France we went to a little cafe with my other cousins Andrew Patterson, Kate Patterson and Claire Ahlstrom. While we were waiting for our hot chocolate to come, Andrew started playing with is cup and said "We should play spin the bottle." Everyone at the table was just silent and gave him a weird look because everyone at the table was related. The rest of the time in Paris we would joke with him about it. So in this picture Andrew is pretending to play spin the bottle with me, my cousin Claire Vitale, his sister Kate and Aly a girl from the program.

In Strasbourg we found a little fair that had a few rides and I had to convince other people to go on this one with me. I love big scary roller coasters and rides, so the bigger the better!

Andrew and me waiting to get on the ride. He decided right before that he didn't want to go on it, so he held everyone's belongings.

This is another ride we went on in Strasbourg.

Aly and me on the bus, driving through Strasbourg.

This is the rum raisin ice cream that our director a.k.a my uncle Kelly ordered for the group and wasn't too thrilled to find out that it had rum in it. They brought out kids versions for my younger cousins and that is when my uncle freaked out.

When we were in Strasbourg we had a real Alsatian dinner with sauerkraut and everything! To be honest this was not my favorite meal and some of the meats were iffy. By the end of the dinner we had made a huge plate for one of the guys in the group; he didn't eat it all but he ate quite a bit.

We all looked so happy because we were unaware of how the food actually tasted. I promise I had more than a few bites because I felt bad that the program had paid for it and that people weren't eating much of it. We would dare each other to take huge bites and it was so nasty. The guy on the left side, at the very back is Chris and that is the person we gave all the food to.

We found this interesting thing at a park in Strasbourg and we have no idea what they do with it.

These little bouncing horses kept Aly and me entertained for at least 20 minutes. Also they weren't meant for people our size so if you really leaned back you could touch the ground and sometimes even fall off!

Emma and James on swings in Strasbourg. One of these two and I won't say who just wanted to sit on the swing and do nothing.

Aly and I would swing as high as possible and then jump off, which wasn't always safe because there was a river right next to us (there was a fence but it you were going fast enough you could go right over it).

The view from our hotel in Strasbourg! Don't worry the guy in the back is in a different room. haha!

For lunch Aly and I had these huge hot dogs in Strasbourg. They were so big it hurt our mouths to try and take a bite.

Everybody waiting to jump for the picture on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

Aly, me and Emma in an amazing jumping picture on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

I am not sure if I am confused, annoyed or what in this picture. Andrew, me and Aly on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

Claire Vitale, me, Aly, Kate and Emma walking up the stairs inside the Arc de Triomphe.

My host lady, Madame de Mazery (not sure if I spelled that correctly) and me.

The guys decided to pick up my uncle/the director because they could. From left to right: Abraham, Andrew, James, Chris, Grant, Zach and in front Kelly.

Last Sunday in the Paris Ward.

This is the Statue of Liberty in Luxembourg Gardens. It is a lot smaller than the one in New York obviously. There is larger one in Paris, located on the Seine River.

We all wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but unfortunately it was closed. Instead we took a lot of random pictures and I am sure the Frenchies thought we were crazy.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took of the Eiffel Tower. The sunset makes it look even better!

My cousin Claire Vitale, The Gg (my mom's mom) and me at my aunt and uncle's apartment in Paris.

Left to Right: My cousins Kate and Claire, me, my cousin Andrew and James.

It took a few times to get this picture in front of Sacre Coeur because people would walk through our picture.

All of the girls sitting on a replica throne at one of the castles we visited.

Me, Claire Ahlstrom, Aly and Julianne heading over to Claire and my apartment for a sleepover! In my room there is a pull out mattress under my bed and then we piled some pillows on the floor, which I ended up sleeping on (not comfortable at all).

Aly liked to pick on me at the museums with the swords. We would wait in the gift shop when we finished at the museums so we had a little bit of time on our hands.

We wanted to participate in the Price of Right spin the wheel round, Mont St-Michel style.

These little contraptions are your best friend when you don't speak a lot of French and don't have a tour guide. They are our audio guides with really interesting information on them. The nice thing about the audio guides is that you can go at your own pace.

Julianne, Aly and me weren't willing to let our night in shining armour to disappear so we held on for dear life!

Aly and I just liked this cartoon so we took this awesome picture with it!

This is the hall of mirrors in the Palace of Versielle. It was impossible to get a picture without random people in it, so this is what you get.

Andrew and me in front of Mont Saint-Michel.

Julianne, Claire Ahlstrom and me in front of the Castle of Cheverny.

Chenonceau Castle

Night view of the Eiffel Tower.

BLAST FROM THE PAST!

Yes, I do get excited when I get underwear for Christmas!

Back in the day I would wander the neighborhood with some friends that later became known as the Red Head Gang, because Debbie Larsen decided that would be a nifty name. It included me, Kayla and Alyssa Ward. Sometimes we would even have Trina, Alysha or Lacy with us. Our little group even made up a song about Debbie's cat and performed it for her! It went something like..."Cali, Cali cat, Cali, Cali cat I love you..." I don't remember it that well.

Now for the reason I hate cats. When I was younger, I don't remember how old, I was over at Debbie Larsen's house hanging out. I was playing in her front room and I saw Cali, Debbie's cat, laying in there and of course I wanted to hold her. So I go over next to her and start petting her and then Debbie yells in from the kitchen "don't pick her up" by that time I had already tried to pick her up and she bit me. Debbie ran in the room because it was quiet and saw tears rolling down my face and freaked out, grabbed a rag and tried to clean it out. Later I went to the doctor because it was hurting a lot and there was a little bumb where she had bit me. Long story short I ended up having to take antiboitics it was infected.

Embarrassing Story
My freshman year of lacrosse the team had to run to Jordan and back to Bear Park. I of course forgot to bring my sneakers to practice so I was running in my cleats. On the way back from Jordan, we were running on the fake brick they had put in on the Sidewalks down Sego Lilly. Suddenly the two girls in front of my split and I didn't react in time so I slammed into a mailbox and fell to the ground. Not only was it embarassing because my whole team saw me fall but it was also on on busier street.

Thanks for reading I will try and come up with some more stories.

Web of lies

As I promised here are embarrassing stories from my past.

You Know What Will Happen...

When I was younger my mom would always tell me that if I sat too close to the television that I would get a mark by my eye, just like my cousin Brittany has. After she told me that every time someone would get to close to the t.v. I would inform them that they would get an ugly brown mark next to their eyes. It wasn't until I was a little older that someone finally told me that it was a birthmark not a side effect from sitting too close.

My cousin Britt is the one in the pink...you can't see her birthmark in this picture though. :)

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Another myth my mom told me and my older siblings is if we shot rubber bands at each other and got hit in the eye that it would knock our eye out or we would go blind. Then just a few years ago Chad, Rachel, me and Hayley got into a rubber band fit for some reason and Chad got hit in the eye. The first thing he said when he got hit was "Mom, it doesn't make you lose an eye."

Web of Lies

Over the years I have spent a lot of time over at my "fairy godmother's" house aka Debbie Larsen. When I was really little her son Paul showed me his webbed toes and told me "this is what happens when you don't clean the lint out of your toes everyday." Then of course after that I was obsessed with cleaning the lint out of not only my toes but also out of my family's (I know that is gross but I was very little, you have to remember that). After a few years I finally realized that he was lying to me (I had stopped after a little while) and that he and his brother Weston were both born with webbed toes.

Well I hope you enjoyed my little blast from the past and have learned that when I was younger I would believe almost anything. Now here are some more pictures from Paris.

This is what happens when we get bored at museums and have to wait for G.G. and Grandfather to finish looking at things (that is what we call my mom's parents). In the back is James the French teacher and in front is one of my favorite cousins, Claire Vitale.


I am not sure who decided to take this picture but I thought I should give my cheesiest smile ever. We are all playing Five Crowns at the director's apartment (my aunt and uncle's place).

For ten euros you can buy seats on the very top row for the France vs some other country football, or as we call it soccer game. Okay so we weren't on the very last row, there was some little French boy yelling at the other team and telling them they should take up classical dancing instead of playing soccer.

Here is a random church in Normandy that we would pass as we walked through the town. Later that night on the way back to the hotel I almost biffed it in front of this church...pretty embarrassing.

A picture isn't complete unless you are jumping in the air and making a complete fool of yourself! Julianne and I are in front of Chambord.

Emma apparently doesn't like the camera but I say hey look how awesome I am!

For those of you who don't automatically recognize this place I am standing in front of then I will enlighten you. If you have seen the movie Ratatouille, there is a scene in it where he sees the rats hanging in the store window....well this is the place stuffed rats and all!

Aly and me in front of Mont Saint Michel which is a castle in Normandy,that you can only get to when the tide is low.

All of the girls in the Paris program in front of Mount Saint-Michel

Mont Saint-Michel

Marissa torturing Abraham while the rest of us sit by and watch.

We all put on this hat a took a picture, but it all started out with a dare from Marissa. She had Megan wear the hat all day and then Marissa would give her something. I look like I am a specail person waiting for my helper to take me on the cool tour!

My cousins Kate and Claire wanted to ride the carousel at Sacre Coeur, so I let them once!
Pulling out the big guns at Utah Beach in Normandy.

I let my cousin Andrew try and take a picture of Aly and me jumping and this is what we got. I think he could be a professional! I am just joking Andrew after a few times you got it! :]

Aly and I got these awesome headbands to wear when we played ping-pong at the church, which was also our school. I have to make great faces like this because it really adds to the picture!

I have a lot more pictures but I will stop here for now and will try and add some more with my next post.

The happenings & Paris tidbits

I am attempting to stop being such a slacker and start blogging a little more. I have decided that if nothing exciting is going on during the week I will share a memory/story from when I was younger and possibly even include old and embarrassing photos. Right now the only title I could come up with for these stories is Friday Flashbacks....(I tried coming up with something witty for another day but nothing came to mind). This week I will attempt to get you guys caught up on what has been happening lately.

I have been home from Paris for almost 4 months but it seems like it has been a lot longer. The week after I came back I started working at Tribal West Lacrosse again, along with lifeguarding at the pool. About two weeks after I took a vacation and went to California with Rachel, her boyfriend and Owen. We stayed a week in Culver City with my older brother Chad (Culver City is right by LA but it is a nicer/safer area).

The picture didn't seem to want to turn out for me so this one will have to work until I go again.

Owen and Paige watching the parade in California Adventures

The evil queen from Snow White, Paige and me.

This trip to Disney Land was even more fun because Owen could go on some of the bigger rides including the Tower of Terror. It was hilarious to see how he reacted to some the adult/larger rides. While we were waiting in line Owen was happy and excited to go on the ride and then when we finally get on he is silent (which is very rare for this child). When a ride like this starts you expect a 3 year old to start crying or freak out but Owen was silent the entire time. After we got off Rachel asked Owen if he wanted to go again and he says "I don't like the lightning tower." A few days later we take another trip to Disney Land and Owen kept on telling us that he doesn't want to go because he doesn't want to go on the lightning tower. So I guess it is safe to say that he is scared of that ride and will probably never go on it again. Now when there are lightning storms Owen asks if the lightning from the tower was going to hit our house and make it disappear. I will have to download the picture we got of him on the ride.

The week of June 15-20 was crazy busy. The weekend before I was attending a goodbye party for my cousin Eugena who moved to Pennsylvania and Soni was there too. For those of you who don't know who Soni is, she was my high school lacrosse coach and now she is the co-owner of Tribal West where I work. Anyway she is there and that morning she woke up and half her face was paralyzed and she was leaving for Vail, Colorado on Monday to coach the Mamaci teams. That wouldn't be too difficult if she didn't have an 8 month old little boy, so she asked if I could go and help out with Ethan. The drive out there seemed ridiculously long because I didn't feel like I could sit there and tell everyone everything that is going on or just sing. Honestly one of the hardest things for me to do is let people see be stupid or vulnerable. I do have some friends that have heard my horrible singing and seen me dance but there aren't that many of them.

I know this is a side story but just as an example I drove to Vegas a year ago to coach the Jordan team and it was just me and Thaxton in the car. In that case we were both singing, dancing and occasionally venting about stuff. On the ride home Soni and Erin came with us and all I did was talk occasionally and drive. No offense to you Soni if by chance you read this.

Back to the Vail story...So we finally get out there and I wake up early and watch Ethan, feed him and all that other stuff and occasionally we would go to the field and watch some games so we weren't stuck in the condo the whole time. Then on Thursday we take another long drive back to Utah and I finally get home at 12 and go to bed around 1. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal but the next morning I had to be in Park City at 6:30am to run a tent at the Ski Town Shootout tournament. I did this both Friday and Saturday and normally didn't get home until 6 or 7 (Saturday we didn't have to be there until 7 or 7:30), so I was exhausted.

Four weeks ago we had a Paris reunion at my aunts house (for those who are unaware of this the director of the study abroad program I attended was my uncle). It was fun to see some of the students again and catch up with them. I learned from one of them that I am apparently good at organizing events in advance and so he is going to have me plan his wedding :) This was pretty entertaining to hear because I had tried so hard to organize a game night with a few of them and would try and pick a date 2 weeks ahead which never seemed to work. Amazingly a days notice is good for guys...it drives me nuts!

PARIS

Here is a little tidbit from Paris. I don't know if anybody really cares but I am sharing it just in case.

This lady or Madame Rolland, was our Art History teacher. We had class with her once a week for three hours each time. She drove mostly all of the students crazy and even annoyed some of the people who weren't her students!

Even when you are at the Louvre Museum you are bored after three hours of class.
We would sit in front of some pictures and pretend to analyze them just so we could take a break.
Occasionally the lecture would put people to sleep!Sometimes we would try and pass the time by taking random pictures or by playing "pass the wink." We would try and bring candy or make up some crazy game to make class a little more enjoyable.
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This is in a huge cemetery, we are attempting to imitate the sculpture behind us! I think we pulled it off pretty well, don't you?

Now some of us are pretending to kiss this tombstone, can you tell who actually did it?-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am attempting to make a fool of myself at the Louvre's Pyramid. Mission Accomplished!

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The last week we were in Paris we went on a River Cruise and here is a picture of the other statue of liberty with the Eiffel Tower.

I promise I am not trying to be an Asian tourist I am actually signing 102 to our French professor so that he will come over and take a picture with our class.French 102 Class

Professor: James Mayo Students:Grant, Claire, Caitlin and me!
Let's be honest this was the cool table! ha ha!
I love seeing the Eiffel Tower light up at night and can't wait for the chance to go back.