Road trip to Kirby

I've been waiting for this one for a long time! So were all of you, you just didn't know it. I have to preface this by telling you about my friends down the hall (Alex, Alicia, Jesika, and Sherra--they've appeared on the blog before) and their history with Kirby Heyborne. They all got to school kind of early so in that first week they were here and almost no one else was, they instantly bonded and spent a ton of time together. One thing they did together was they drove to Fillmore, a little town south of here, to a county fair or something to see Kirby Heyborne perform (the star of The RM and The Best Two Years--he's in almost every Mormon movie and now has a singing career). They said there were only about 20 people there so they got to spend a lot of time with him and had a blast. Later, they were so inspired by the experience that they filmed a short documentary, entitled "American Kirby," about, well, Kirby. It was pretty funny to hear the different reactions they got when they went around asking random people about him on camera. They sent the movie to his manager and a few weeks later heard back from her that she liked it. Okay, Fast forward to Nov. 10. The four of them and Kristin and I were planning on going to a Kirby concert that night but then part of the group wigged out and thought it wouldn't be as cool as their first time seeing him because it was at Provo High School. (Three of us decided later that we totally should have gone, but oh well.) Instead, they suggested we go see him the next day when he would appear at a few Seagull bookstores in the area. Well, Kristin needed to go to Salt Lake to pick up a music book so Alicia and I decided, since we felt like playing and all our other friends were asleep, we'd go with her and stop by the Salt Lake Seagull where Kirby would be at 11. It was fun. He played a few songs and we took a few pictures and he remembered Alicia from the last time. He said he had hoped we would be at the concert and he was disappointed that Alex and the others hadn't come with us, so he called her. She's kind of the head Kirbyite--she instigated the documentary and she's the one he remembered most. So he woke her up and told her to come see him that afternoon in Orem. When the three of us got home we shoved down some lunch, grabbed the others and our friend Raelena from a different suite (after a giggly conversation) and went to Orem. He was late. But while we were waiting we talked to two women who were there signing copies of a children's book they did together, and we had fun looking around the bookstore. This time was way more fun because all of us were there and we talked to Kirby for at least 30 minutes. He wrote some birthday cards and other such sillinesses and recorded an alarm message on Alex's phone. I asked him to write something on a piece of paper for me and sign it. He wrote "swashbuckle." And on my CD he wrote, "Summer, you're my favorite season." As Kristin, Alicia, Alex and I were leaving to go to Target(the others had to take Jesika to work), Alex accidentally erased the Kirby message. She was distraught. After the Target adventure (that'll be tomorrow's post), we decided to stop by the other Seagull in south Orem where he was supposed to be soon. He was way late again, but we entertained ourselves by looking at the CTR rings and temple figurines. This time when he came he was surprised to see us--it was the second time for Alex to see him that day and the third for the rest of us. I felt like a stalker. There weren't as many people this time but we only stayed for a few minutes, and Alex got a new phone recording. When we left the third store at about 5, it felt like bedtime because we had been gone almost all day and it was very rainy and gray. But it was a fun adventure. Kirby is a hoot and a half.

The first time.

Calling Alex.



Kirby told Kristin her lips looked like Jennifer Garner's, so they took a goofy lip picture...

...and a close-up.


The second time. Alicia waiting for Kirby.

Jesika waiting for Kirby. I don't know what she's doing.

Kirby!

I like this one.

The great signing of 2006.

Kirby and Alex.




Kirby and Jesika.



Kirby and Alicia.

Kirby and Raelena.


Kirby and Sherra.

Kirby and Summer!

The whole gang.

Preference

Warning: This is a long story--at least I made it one. If your attention span can't handle it, skip to the pictures.
Preference was Nov. 4th. I didn't know it was happening until a week before and I wasn't planning on going until a couple of days later. I didn't know who to ask, I figured all the good guys were taken, so I was just like whatever. But the Sunday before, my friend Stephanie and I started talking about it after choir practice because she was having the same issues and we decided we wanted to go. Once we decided I was all business and I told her I was going to get my ward directory and we'd pick some boys and decide what to do since it was Sunday and we didn't have anything to do anyway. She didn't know I was serious until I came back with the "ward menu," as some gooftroops like to call it. So we consulted friends Jodi and Maren about who was already taken and what the guys we hadn't met were like and we decided on Philip for her and Ryan for me (who's from McKinney--my ward has a strong DFW representation). But then we changed our minds because while we were deliberating we had briefly asked a boy named Cory who didn't have a date yet and he said, "Well, I haven't been asked..." So we took the hint and thought it'd be funny if Stephanie asked him. She wrote a baseball-themed note and gave him peanuts because he's a baseball fanatic. I decided to ask Philip because the day before, while walking back from Helaman Field after playing games with one of the elders quorums, I was talking to Philip and Brent (also from Texas), who was telling me how much water Philip drinks. His last name is Thurston, so Brent was joking that it'd be a great way for a girl to ask him to a dance. I wasn't planning on going then, but the next day I remembered that conversation and thought it would be cute. So I gave him a water bottle with a note taped over the label that said, "Philip, are you Thurston for a date to Preference?" Stephanie and I spent all afternoon making our items in Jodi and Maren's room, with the help of Jodi's plethora of scrapbooking supplies (which made me even more on Andra's side of that argument--all that paper and stuff is fun, but it's too much stuff. It took up at least a third of the space under her bed, which is raised.) It was really fun. Stephanie and I hadn't really bonded before then. We had our friend James deliver our things the next day. And then the next day our friend Natalie finally got up the nerve to ask someone in her calc class and oh my goodness hers was complicated. I admire him for having the patience to get through it. It was like a treasure hunt to one or two more clues and then 25 calculus problems he had to solve to decipher a coded message. But he ended up saying yes with a calc problem of his own. Natalie is such a math nerd. Anyway, we wanted to go ice skating together but Kristin and I couldn't get tickets. We were so disappointed. But we still had dinner beforehand with Stephanie and Natalie and two other couples and then we went to the semiformal luau and it was way fun. A bunch of our other friends were there and afterward we got ice cream and played Mad Gab. So, long story short, it was fun!
Getting pretty-fied. Trying, anyway. My friend Alex did my hair. You can't see the back here, but that's because it got progressively bigger throughout the night. It was a little goofy.


Kristin, Kevin, me and Philip.

Random-ography

These are all from my phone. This is the first time I've unloaded it, so they date back to June when I left home.
Acknowledgements
I'd like to thank the Academy and assistant photographers Logan White and Matthew Hepworth, without whom portions of this photo shoot would not be possible.

Abbietastic!

Doesn't this look like a scene from E.T.? I don't know how the weird blue light effect was managed. Did you take this, Logan? Or was it Tommy?

I was dog-tired. Eli was chilling and making weird faces.



Fast forward to Forrey's graduation. Heeeeere's Jenna!

Eli looks scared.

James looks biffed.

Matthew looks like he just woke up.

That's better. Isn't that cute? It's my phone wallpaper. Believe it or not, that's what I got when I told him to smile. (One of the times when I told him to smile when I was in Arizona in August--many of them were cheesy.)

This is what I saw when I woke up one morning in James' room--he was patiently waiting for me to take him out of bed, complete with binky and blankies.


Matthew took the next few. He was fascinated by my camera phone and I let him play with it. When I got back and looked at my pictures I discovered he had taken quite a few--mostly of high-excitement subjects like the carpet, toilets, and electrical outlets.



No, I didn't rotate this. That's how he took it. It's modern art, Kaci.


On Sept. 16, the Friday before Audrey was born, I went to the Gap and saw these and thought, "It's a sign that she'll be named Audrey!" So I documented the historic moment and now I have proof that I knew what her name was going to be-- although I was already pretty sure. :) Hello Audrey!
Oh, sidenote: the Audrey picture also reminded me of Kaci, so I made it her caller ID picture on my phone. Cute, huh? :)




Las 3 amigas: Alex, Kristin, and Alicia.
This was the same day, after the night we had the fort sleepover and it snowed--kind of (Sept. 15).



Logan was being goofy, as usual. That's a nice closeup of a classic smile. (Not to mention the eyebrows.) This picture says, "Hi, I'm Logan. Can you and I be friends?"

Logan and me chilling at Forrest and Abbie's new Coppell crib the weekend I went home in October.


I don't know what Logan did, but it looks weird. This picture is somewhere in between a smile and a mad dog face, except you can't see the mouth. It says, "Hi, I'm Logan. Take me away in your spaceship."
I don't know what kind of a face that is. No wait--I do. It's a Logan face that says, "I'm acting weird and am just begging for a tickle attack."

My friend Sherra and I got bored in our HEPE class. Maybe that was the day the teacher showed some really gross injuries on video. We didn't need to see that.



As my friend Stephanie and I were walking to Merrill Hall to deliver our Preference-asking objects, we came across these delightfully large and crunchy leaves that didn't make it to our side of Helaman. We had fun jumping in them and she told me to take a picture of this car.








I think this guy looks like Josh Thatcher.

And I think this girl's hair looks like a bactrian camel. I couldn't resist. Actually, I've seen it a lot higher than this.