Girls Rule, Boys Drool

Girl's Night In

Saturday, a bunch of us girls were feeling the need to get together and let our estrogen levels percolate. It just so happened that our dear friend Sara's husband had left town for a few days so we descended upon her house just before dark.

Julee and Chris seem excited. Bowman-Parris seems indifferent.

Oh, wait, she's happy!


Julee's pretty nails and her classy Cheetos appetizer.


We had a cluster mess at the fondue pot.


Here's Julee pointing out the obvious.


Here's Lisa and her spiffy new bangs.


Here's Sara rockin' out to her workout mix holding her 3rd, 4th, 5th glass of wine. Who's counting?


Several bottles of wine were also consumed (most of those by Sara) who reminded us throughout the night that her bedtime was 9:00 pm. She also insisted several times that we make a decision to either watch a movie or go to bed. We decided to do neither and just stay up and talk. This must have confused her. She asked us about the movie vs. bed thing a couple of more times, gave up and began asking for the wine bottle instead.

Julee suggested we have deep, meaningful conversations about each of our first kisses/loves, celebrity crushes and favorite family vacation. As best I can recall, here's how it went down:

Julee:
FFV: A vay-cay in L.A. at the impressionable age of 10. She went with her father and took a touristy tour of the city visiting the Mann's Chinese Theater and hopped on a home of the stars tour that included Lucille Ball's home. Little did she know at the time that this trip would forever instill in her a deep love for celebrity hook-up and scandal.
First Kiss: Colby Earl. Nuff said.
Celebrity Crush: (Dead) Mr. Shadow Dancin' himself Andy Gibb. (Alive) She'll settle for Andy's older brother Barry.

Sara:

FFV: A recent trip to the British Virgin Islands sailing with her family. Sure, it sounds nice, but did she get to see Lucille Ball's house?
First Kiss: Her answer was by far the most shocking of the evening and made for interesting dinner and breakfast conversation/speculation. Sara's first kiss was in third grade with a foreign exchange student named Paulo in a closet. Her memory was a little cloudy due to the fact that it happened at a time before she had learned long division. Also contributing to the fuzzy details? Four glasses of wine. Once we questioned her further, we believe Paulo might have been an enterprising young man from West Valley City working his way through the upper east side charming 3rd graders back in the early 80's. Sorry, Sara.
Celebrity Crush: John Mayer, Edward Norton, Orlando Bloom and Jude Law. It should also be pointed out that while the other girls had their turn to tell their deepest longings for celebrity crushes that I've now posted on our blog, Sara kept interjecting more celebrities that she thought were hot. I lost track at some point.

Bowman-Parris (Sarah)
FFV: A sweet memory of a train ride during the summer of her 7th birthday. Her family caught a train in Twin Falls, Idaho and ventured to San Diego, California stopping to visit with two sets of Grandparents along the way. And just like Paulo made the other Sara feel so very special, this Sarah also felt special by getting to ride in the dining car of the train at such a young age.
First Kiss: Some guy named Matt...when she was 18 going on 19. (Sarah was home schooled and obviously discouraged from talking to foreign exchange students)
Celebrity Crush: Christian Bale. Now, I should point when Sarah revealed her celebrity crush most of the girls squealed and claimed Christian as their own. Everyone except for Lisa. She had never heard of him and was curious. All of us began shouting out the titles to his movies and random factoids about the actor. It's really scary how much we all know about Christian Bale.

Lisa:
FFV: A family road trip across the US to visit her older sister who had just moved to Miami. While she was caught up in a moment describing all the fun site and cities they visited along the way, Julee grilled her on how they managed to fit five kids and all their luggage inside one car for such a long road trip.

First Kiss: The classic first kiss for a Utah girl. Sixth grade, summertime, neighbor's cousin from California on the hammerhead ride at Lagoon. Did I mention he looked like a surfer with his bleach blonde hair? We were all so jealous.
Celebrity Crush: Roger Federer. However, we believe that with our guidance and proper direction at her local video store her new crush will be Christian Bale.

Chris:
FFV: A trip to Key West eight or nine years back to celebrate her sister's 40th birthday. Awww.
First Kiss: Oddly enough, a foreign exchange student named Paulo. No, not really. It was 7th or 8th grade at one of those pre-teen parties with a popular boy at school named Jeff B. I bet somewhere Mr. Jeff B. is recanting his version of the story to friends. Except his story involves a young Miss Chris wearing her tempting Catholic School Girl skirt with a sassy top.
Celebrity Crush: Chris "something-or-other" from the Avalanche Hockey Team. She didn't remember his name and I'm now convinced that she might not even know what he looks like due to the hockey mask covering his face.

Jen:
FFV: My parents driving down to surprise me at college to help me mend a broken heart. They scooped me up, drove to Las Vegas with no hotel reservations. After that, we toured northern Arizona and on to the Grand Canyon. It was the best ever because we didn't really have a plan.
First Kiss: 7th grade. His name was Jack and it was awful. It was on my friend's trampoline and he nearly knocked my teeth out.
Celebrity Crush: Gary Oldman, but then I was reminded of Christian Bale.

The Aftermath
The next morning me, Julee and Sara woke up early and decided that we better watch at least one movie to make Sara happy. The three of us sat wrapped in blankets and watched Say Anything starring Ione Skye and John Cusak. The three of us would now like to amend our celebrity crush to John Cusak.

We met Chris and Lisa for breakfast at Ruth's Diner up Emigration Canyon where we were served by a nice guy who we think was trying to be British with us. Strange.

Look Alikes

No, You're Still Not Penelope Cruz
So after my post about Henry mistaking me for Penelope Cruz, I got to thinkin' (BTW: when you "get to doin'" anything, it's always an in' type of deal. Never a ing type of deal). So as I was sayin', I got to thinkin' "Who DO I really look like?" Then my friend Jeff pointed me to myheritage.com

It's a fun site where you can do serious things like build your genealogy trees or you can do more relevant things like morph your face with a celebrity's face or track down the celebrities you most closely resemble. You may think I used this site to so some family research, but you'd be wrong.

It's simple, you post pictures of yourself like so...

Then you wait for your matches to pull up. Do you want to see our matches? I'll do mine first. *Spoiler Alert* Jeremy's is hysterical! I want to keep you readers hooked so I'll give you a little teaser.... Jeremy closely resembles an 80's singing icon. Who happens to be a woman!!

Jen looks like:

Sara Jessica Parker 75%

(This is troubling for Jeremy since he aggressively hates her. Seriously, he looks for reasons to dislike her. Also, she was just voted America's most unsexy celebrity. This does not bode well for me, I'm afraid.)

Shiri Appleby 72%

(She's a cute girl, but I have no idea who she is)

Hayden Panettiere 71%

(What the what? The cheerleader? Save the whales girl? Although, the site posted a picture of her in her Disney, pre-jailbait career. I guess I look like a 10 year old?)

Summer Altice 71%

(I'm a little concerned she might be a porn star)

Hunter Tylo 71%

(Pretty, older former model, but she's starting to look a little drag queenish)

Nikki Cox 70%

(No comment)

Rebecca Romijn 70%

(There is no rhyme or reason for this match. Is it the bigger teeth?)

And now for the fun stuff. I present to you Jeremy's matches!

Jeremy looks like:

James Van der Beek 60%

(Dawson himself! Yay! What a surprise!)

Billy Sheehan 59%

(Not sure who he is, but his website states that Mr. Sheehan is to bass guitar what Jackie Chan is to kung fu movies. Who am I to question the internet?)

John Woo 59%

(Asian?! If you're surprised, this is only the first of the many Asians that Jeremy resembles)

Lou Reed 52%

(Cool, very cool. Maybe Jeremy resembles him in coolness?)

Apolo Anton Ohno 58%

(Asian number 2!)

Yasujiro Ozu 58%

(Japanese born director. Strangely enough, his bio claims that Mr. Ozu is to Japanese cinema what Billy Sheehan is to bass guitar.)

I saved the best match for Jeremy for last. Ladies and gentleman, I bring you....

Stevie Nicks 58%

(Former Fleetwood Mac and treadmill walker while singing 80's icon who so happened to maybe be a witch. This is stunning, but sort of understandable. I couldn't being myself to crop the bird or her hair or her stunning dress out of the picture)

Before the Lovin' Starts

Not Even Close…But Thanks
Sunday night we had the Grammys on in the background. I was hoping to catch Amy Winehouse perform, but no, no no, I didn’t get a chance. However, When Morris Day and Time broke into Jungle Love (Ohwee, ohwee, oh) I was stunned. Mr. Day, what are you doing at the Grammys? And Herbie Hancock? Your presence only fueled a long running joke that my husband borrowed from the film Tommy Boy years ago.

But, these two random faces from the 80's are not my reason for blogging the Grammys. No, it was a Loreal commercial that brings us here today. Henry and Jeremy were snuggled watching commercials during the award show, when Henry said, “Look, Dad, she’s just like Momma.” This caught my attention because I was worried somehow Amy Winehouse had showed up and Henry had mistaken her for me. But no, I looked at the television and there was Penelope Cruz. Penelope Cruz you say? Yes, Penelope Cruz.

Now folks, don’t get me wrong here, I know I look nothing like the Latin beauty, but who am I to correct a small child? We all kind of laughed (maybe Jeremy laughed a little too hard for a little too long). But I hugged my child and thanked him from the bottom of my heart.


Miss Your Face
I miss one of my BFFs ever so dearly. Roslin and I used to see each other 4 days a week at work. Now, that she works from home (still for us, yay!) I only get to hear her voice. She’s one of the funniest gals I know and I always value her opinions and cherish our talks together. We used to sit at work in the same area and we were positioned so that we would only have to glance up and we would see each other. After about a year, we developed sort of a secret language that didn’t even need to be spoken. We could just look at each other and know what the other was thinking. And the strange thing is, that’s how we communicated a good deal of the day. Now that I’m back, I find myself looking over at her area, but there’s no Rozzie. (Think of The Office when Jim left and Pam found herself instinctively looking up at Jim empty desk).

So Rozzie and I have decided until we can webcam, we will take photos of ourselves pulling the faces that we know and send them to one another. It sounds all good, but when I actually took the photos of myself, I realized how dorky and sad I truly am. So, Rozzie, the following pictures are for you. If any of you other peeps out there want to download these to keep you company at work, feel free. But your co-workers might judge you for it. And folks, if we’re lucky, Rozzie will let me post her photos here and you will finally see who REALLY looks like Penelope Cruz.

Time Warp Commute
It’s simple, we live 35 minutes from our office. We can be at work at 7:30 am or at 8:10-8:15 am. We CANNOT be at work at 8:00 am. There is some time/space travel continuum at the Davis County – Salt Lake County lines. Who are we to fly (or speed excessively) in the face of science?

The Destroya
Jeremy, Reese and I heard a ruckus coming from Henry’s room Monday night. What was this ruckus you ask? Here it is….

When questioned about the noise, Henry was very, very cooperative. He said that Cera (his Triceratops Dinosaur) wrecked the train village on his train table. Apparently she also flung her body around and knocked over other dinosaurs, derailed a few trains and broke off all the trees at the stump. Hmm. Jeremy insists on further investigation. I say, Triceratops are well known for their temper.

*If you enjoyed this mystery story, be sure and stay tuned for other classics such as....

Who Dumped the Doritos on the Kitchen Floor?
Who's Been Eating Dog Food Again?
Who Locked All the Interior Doors in the House?
Why is There a Huge Puddle of Water in Front of the Fridge?

And the New Awesome is.........
Our Conservative Dogs are the New Awesome
That’s right, DOGS, plural. I was mistaken when I thought that Maxie was the only right-winged canine in our house. I guess Bat’s a member of the GOP too! Truthfully, I think he just follows Maxie’s lead when it comes to politics. Max is the top dog and he agrees with Bush's stance on capital spending. A few of you were intrigued to learn that our dogs had an affiliation. Don’t yours?

Here’s Maxie doing his best Dick Cheney impression.

Here’s Bat hoping that the camera is a chew toy.