I've decided to make a list of some of the best/most unforgettable moments of my life. In chronological order.
1.) A boy named Andrew and a crazy old woman named Hattie
Fall senior year of high school, on the band bus driving to a cavalcade, my friend Andrew was playing with this $.88 ken doll. (A bunch of us would go buy random things at Redners before we left for a trip...not sure why, but it makes me laugh.) The doll was naked and we decided to add some anatomy using one of those thin balloon-animal balloons, not blown up...we attached it to the doll's hip area haha. As a side note, Northern Lebanon had hired this crazy little old lady to be a bus driver...she drove up on sidewalks, ran over trash cans, the works. She was on our bus that evening "training" the woman driving. Oh, and her name was Hattie...I have no idea how you spell that. We loved her, because she was crazy and we could tell stories about her, but she kind of scared the crap out of us too. So anywho, we always sat at the very back of the bus, and we're back there laughing cuz Andrew's playing with this naked doll, waving him around and making it walk around on the seat, and Hattie spotted us and yelled at him to get up there to the front of the bus and give her the doll. He stands up in the aisle and starts dancing around like an idiot and yells "make me!!". So Hattie nods and with that crazy look in her eye says "ok, I will!!" and starts charging down the aisle, which makes Andrew start screaming and shouting like she's gonna murder him and in an attempt to take cover he dives back into his seat over and on top of Josh, cowering in the fetal position. He somehow managed to get the balloon off the doll by the time Hattie came back, and when she gets to his seat, she grabs the doll from him, and starts beating him with it and saying "where'd ya put the peter you had on it?!??"
I was sitting right next to this scene, curled up in a ball leaning on Steph laughing so hard I couldn't breathe and tears were pouring down my face. I have so many good memories with that group of people, but of all of them, that one's defnitely the best.
Can't believe I found a picture to go with this story, I had to dig to find it...not sure who took it.
Fall of 2007, Elder Bednar was our visiting general authority for stake conference. For those readers not of my faith, this is a HUGE deal. He is one of the 12 apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's like being Catholic and having the pope come visit.
2007 was a really rough year. Things often seemed really gloomy and dark. That weekend spent in the presence of an apostle, listening to his words of encouragement and getting taught by him, was incredible. It was like a clear sunny day after months of dreary rain. I will never forget sitting in the 3rd row, the pulpit directly in front of me on the Saturday nite session, and him telling everyone how much he wished he could go to each of us individually, take us by the shoulders, look in our eyes, and tell us "you can do this", and how he looked me right in the eyes when he said those words. And I knew I could after that.
After that weekend, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel that wasn't there before. I wasn't just going through the motions, but moving toward something. And even though it took another year until I reached that light, it grew ever brighter and bigger from that moment on.
3.) Singing the National Anthem at the Phillies game in April of 2008 when they were presented with their World Series Rings
I used to hate baseball...hard to believe, right? I wasn't even that into it when the Phillies actually won the World Series the fall before this event took place. I remember sitting in our suite with my roomies watching it, and hearing our apartment building explode with shouts and cheers when they won, and hearing stories about how the apartment complex right next to us had set a couch on fire in the middle of the street in celebration.
In choir the following semester, our student leaders decided we should send in an audition cd to sing the national anthem at a game. Our director was cool with it, so we did. And somehow, we got chosen for the most important, landmark game in Philly history (aside from the World Series itself of course). A sold out crowd of almost 50,000 people, standing mere feet away from all the Phillies, and they even shot off fireworks when we got to "o'er the land of the free". I honestly can't describe how awesome it felt.
Afterward, we watched the game, and that was the moment I fell in love with baseball. Because that was the first time I watched it live, and there's nothing quite like it.
Me singing on the big screen.
I know several members of the choir had videos of us singing, but I've searched and searched for it and can't find one. Sad.
4.) Volunteering at Kanab
A couple weeks after the spring semester was over in 2009, a group of us from our club Helping Paws flew out to Las Vegas, and drove to southern Utah to volunteer for a few days at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. This is the largest animal sanctuary in the country, possibly the world, with 33,000 acres of owned land, home to all kinds of animals. Best Friends is known for going to scenes of disaster and/or animal abuse, rescuing animals, and rehabilitating them at the sanctuary. Best Friends became a little more known after the Michael Vick dog fighting incident, because they took these dogs and have been working with them ever since to rehabilitate them into safe, people-friendly animals again. There was a show on Animal Planet about it. Anywho, it was like the best week of my life. I love animals and getting to spend all day with them and helping them was so much fun. The scenery was gorgeous, it was in the middle of nowhere (and I MEAN the middle of nowhere...you wanna take a trip to Target, the closest one is 2 hours of no red-light, no nothing, open highway driving), no cell phone service, just a cute little town. I adored it. I can't wait to go back there one day.
We also spent 2 days in Vegas before flying back home, which was pretty fantastic. My favorite parts were eating at the Stratosphere, wandering around all the popular casinos, driving down the strip with my roomies, windows down blasting Poker Face, which was insanely popular at the time, and watching the Bellagio water show standing right where they did in Ocean's 11 after they steal all the money. Magical.
I know what you're thinking...a break-up? You're kidding, right? Let me explain. For the record, I think all of us agree that break-ups suck. As did this one. So no, the actual break-up wasn't one of the best parts of my life. It was in fact, a crappy awful experience. But an experience nonetheless. I graduated from Millersville a few days before Christmas in 2009, and about a month before had gone through the previously stated "experience". Things sucked. That's why this blog started, actually. But rather than get depressed, I used my support system and reached out to build a bigger support system to get myself back on my feet. And out of that one horrible situation/experience, came 9284726261 blessings and happy good wonderful things and an amazing 2010 and indeed 2011 (so far). Things dramatically turned around for me and got better than I ever even knew it could, and I owe it all to getting dumped by a guy. Why do bad things happen to good people my friends? So we can learn, grow, gain experience, and best of all, have even better things happen to us. And as for graduation, even though it took 3 months, my degree got me my job. 'Nough said. Thus, I put graduation and a break-up on this list, because it was the turning point for great things, and the reason why the past 2 years have been simply incredible.
6.) "The last summer"
Summer of 2010 Sydney was living with her mom and we got to spend so much quality time together. It renewed and strengthened our friendship. Right off the bat at the beginning of that summer, Haley, one of our best friends from high school, lost her dad in a car accident. I remember how we cried together and were so scared to go talk to her, because things had gotten kind of rocky and we didn't think she would want to see or hear from us. We went anyway. Friendships were mended. It was kind of amazing. Something you don't realize the significance of until you really stop and think about it. The 3 of us had some good times together after that. Me and Syd always referred to it as the last summer because her boyfriend (now husband) Steve was deployed to Iraq until the end of August, and it was our last summer to be just the 2 of us, no men, no full-time jobs, before going on to do big-girl grown-up things. I think if that summer had gone any differently, we wouldn't be as close as we are now and probably would have very easily grown apart.
7.) A visit from Missy, Shawn, and Ethen
My sister Missy lives in Arizona and I basically never get to see her. Shawn and Ethen are her sons. I hadn't seen Shawn since he was a year old (2 months shy of 4 at the time), and I had never met Ethen (age one at time). They came to visit for a week last October, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I love them a lot and I wish they lived here so I could see them all the time. I'm secretly hoping and praying they move back east sometime soon...shh, don't tell.
8.) A black lab named Scarlet and how she changed my life
This is a cute story. As many of you know, almost a year ago now (WOW time flies) I got asked to be the leader over the young single adults of my church, and as a part of that, activities creator/planner/overseer. March 12th of this year was a big all-day conference, where people from a large chunk of PA were going to be coming to. It was the most stressful activity I've ever planned to date. Leading up to it was terrible. Anyway, I distinctly remember sitting in the foyer of the church that morning with my planner-partner (a guy I previously dated, funny enough), before everyone else showed up, discussing how Josh liked me and it was awkward cuz I didn't like him and I didn't know what to do about it. I was telling him how I freaked out at first, "wahhh, I just wanna be friends!" and then said "but I've talked about it with him since, I told him that and we're ok now, I set him straight". HA. I readily admit that I am, indeed, an idiot.
So then people start showing up, and everyone has their own people to hang out with and I was sort of flitting around trying to organize the chaos. Josh gets there, and without even thinking or me realizing it, we stuck together. The first part of the activity was service projects, and I was in charge of getting a crew of people to the Farm Show complex to volunteer at Pawsabilities. I was stressing out a tad cuz we were late, and Josh went with me in my car and calmed me down. We parked at HACC and walked over, the 2 of us happily chatting away. When we got to Pawsabilities, we found the woman in charge who split us into groups and walked each group to where they would be volunteering. Pretty soon Josh and I were left alone at the volunteer table, unsure what to do, when I hear it. The saddest little whining dog noise I've ever heard. I turn around to see a bunch of empty cages right behind us, and turn back around thinking I'm hearing things. Then I hear it again. This time when I turned around, I looked down and spotted Scarlet, all alone in the corner in a covered-up cage, one little eyeball peaking out at me. I felt so bad. So when the lady came back, I decided to ask her if Josh and I could let the dog out and walk her, expecting her to laugh it off and give us a real job. Surprisingly, she said sure. So that's what we did for our 2-hour project...walked a dog and fed her treats and flirted. Josh was adorable with that dog too, a complete natural, which of course won him a lot of points in my book, and melted some of the I-don't-like-you ice away from my heart haha.
To make a long story shorter, we ended up spending basically the entire rest of the day together, especially during the dance, which I appreciated because I sort of felt like I was the only person without a clique.
After everyone left, and we cleaned up and I was heading out to my car, I looked at my phone and saw he had sent me a text saying how much fun he had with me that day. I smiled to myself and this is exactly what went through my head: "I had a really great time too. WHOA, WAIT. WHAT? I had a great time too. Did I just? I just spent the entire day with Josh....and had an amazing time. (Wide-eyed open-mouthed look replaces smile) OHH NOOOO"
And that friends, is the story of how, despite all my protests and fighting to prevent it, Josh and I ended up together. We've discussed this and Josh was the one that said "it was the dog". And he's so right.
Hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed reminiscing.
