Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Musical Memories

Growing up in woodland Hills made it a bit difficult to roller blade because of the lack of side walks and the hills (hence the woodland HILLS). This wasn't necessarily a negative thing. My siblings and I just needed to be more creative when it came to the activities we wanted to do. To make roller blading possible we would first clear the three car garage, and sweep all the screws and other potentially hazardous particles to the sides.
Once the garage was cleared we would get the big tape player, and skate till we were too exhausted to skate anymore. We listened to the same two songs over and over again. The theme song from top gun, and Danger Zone. Anytime I hear one of those songs I can't help but smile and think of the cold garage and skating in the never ending circles.
(this paragraph is from a paper I wrote for my english class)
Ever since before I can remember the song "The dance," by Garth Brooks has been a large part of my life. I would sit cradled in a ball on the floor and just watch my dads fingers flow from sting to string. This didn't happen very often because my dad would always declare that he couldn't sing and one of the boys should play instead. Even with that declaration I always loved the sound of my dads voice and the guitar.
Ray Lynch (celestial soda pop) , and Enya will forever remind me of mom sewing and family vacations. We listened to that music over and over again in the car on our way to Missouri. I was too little to remember much about the trip but I still love the music.- Mom would also listen to it as she would sew.
I don't really know how this song really goes but as I was thinking of songs from my childhood this song kept coming to mind. "Too high you can't go over it. Too low you can't go under it. To wide you can't go around. Oh bless my soul. Bless my soul in...somthin somthin abraham."
"Love is spoken here" Is still one of my favorite primary songs because I would always sing it with Kenny growing up. Usually when we were home alone.
If Kenny was in a nice mood we would sing that song. If he was in a "funny, scare Alishia half to death mood" he would first stare out the window all creepy like, and then start pounding on the low keys of the piano. For some reason that would scare me half to death.
Other things I remember: Meet Joe Black soundtrack, Billy Joel, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Andrea Bocelli, Ace of Base, Beastie Boys, Smashmouth, Dido, and well a lot more but these are the big ones.
More songs became a big part of my life as I hit middle school and on, but from when I was a kid these are the main things.

Cousins


I love my cousins! I didn't get too see them too often growing up so, when I did get to see them it was always a party. The three cousins my age were Nikki, Brooke, and Emily. There are so many memories that it is hard to pick which memories to write down.

Ha ha Proper Ladies- Brooke, Nikki, and I started the club proper ladies when we were probably around 9ish. No matter what we were doing (eating, playing, whatever) if one of us would say proper ladies we had to act very proper and good. Sit up strait, take very small bites of our food, try and speak in a british accent (because that was more lady like). In reverse to this, I don't remember the word we used, but we would say something like gross kids and we would go to the other extreme end of the scale. We would eat all gross, snarl, and just be random like that. It was fun though.

Nikki- Nikki and I would spend hours and hours on the phone just talking. Brooke wasn't in our area code and so it was long distance to call. So, Nikki and I would talk on the phone and write book identical letters. We always had so much fun playing together growing up.
Random thoughts/memories:
For some reason I always seemed to get a bloody nose when we were at her house.
We would always walk up the stairs super bow legged with our rear ends sticking out all funny.
I was wanting to get into yoga one summer and tried getting Nikki to watch a video with me. The video was a joke. The lady was more into the bad spirits getting out of you than anything else.
We came up with the most random random games to keep us entertained.
Veggie Tales!

Brooke- Brooke's house was always super fun to have sleepovers at. Auntie Ellen had awesome food and tons of games for us to play. She really knew how to throw a party, and make it the cool place to be. Brooke and I would write letters back and forth growing up. They would get so long- and there really wasn't much too them.
Along with all sorts of games we (brooke, aubrey, kenny, and me) always played house. Kenny and Brooke were the parents, and Aubrey and I were the kids. For some reason every time we played Kenny ended up dying in some way.
Other things that come to mind: Muppets Treasure Island, Scamper, Super Nintendo, New Years Eve Parties, Throwing up on the way to their house, and so so many more.

Emily- Emily wasn't allowed to have sleepovers growing up but we were still able to play at park days occasionally, and at family reunions. She was always a sweetheart, and would put up with the rest of fighting. We (the four girls) had a sleepover at the Duncan's one weekend. We were all about thirteen or so. We were so set on sleeping outside, but it was raining. After maybe a half hour of trying sleep under a tarp/fort on the deck we ended up all inside brushing each others hair, and talking till Uncle Brent had to come out for probably the 4th time to tell us to go to bed.

I have so many memories of these guys growing up. There is no way I can write them all down. I am sure I will remember more but these are the one that come to mind right now. Sleepovers with sugar water, eating way too much food, whipped cream fights (i'll probably do a post on new years parties), being scared to death of getting in trouble, fake sleeping, and well lots more.

Aubrey, Kelly, and Connie were a couple years younger than us but we still played with them quite a bit. Me and Aubrey were "Two bugs" forever, and I sadly made her play barbies with me for much longer than normal.

Danny was two years older than me but he was still awesome. When we got to hang out with there family it was always fun :)

We are all still close now too. I lived with Brooke and Nikki this past summer, and stay in touch with Emily here and there. I love my family.

Nikki, Emily, Danny, Brooke, Me

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Bubble Gum

I absolutely loved gum growing up. I liked other candy sure but if I had a choice I would always choose gum. It wasn't a secret that I had an obsession with this candy. I still get bubble gum every Christmas/Easter/Birthday from my cute mom who always remembers the small things.
Growing up there were so many options to choose from. They had the Zebra Gum, Bubblicious ( my personal favorite, especially watermelon), Bubble Jugs, Gum balls, Bubble Tape (I had a weird habit of always swallowing this kind of gum, and going through the roll in a matter of hours), The gum in the band aids box, double bubble, and so many others.
I was always excited when I was able to have some of the specialty kinds. They had gum that was in the shape of checks, or bills. The gum was thick strips of original flavored bubble gum in a small package.
I remember that I didn't get this kind of gum very often but when I did it was very exciting. I don't think I was ever able to chew a pack by myself though. I have a very distinct memory of being in the kitchen in Woodland Hills, and having Kenny try and convince me to give him a check of gum (there were only like 3 checks in a package). I did not want to share! When I got this gum I wanted to save it for as long as a could, and I did not want to have to give him a whole piece. I was willing to give him a piece but not a whole check.
I lost the battle of having the gum all to myself. Kenny threatened to never be my friend again, and as it was I was so scared of that actually happening that he ended up with a whole check of my gum....Kenny won a lot of arguments that way.
When I was younger the Wrigley gum was the grown up kind of gum. Mom always had the dark blue kind. She always had that gum in her scripture case at church, and without fail I would ask for a piece every Sunday. My siblings would be annoyed, and I am sure Mom was too, but she gave me a piece anyways.
My favorite grown up gum was any kind of cinnamon gum. I think it was cinnamon because it was my dad's favorite. My dad loves cinnamon, and I wanted to have something the same. So, I think subconsciously cinnamon became my favorite.
Aunt Ellen (lee) always gave me gum when I saw her. I remember we were gum buddies. I wonder if she even remembers that. Probably not- I knew she would give me gum if I asked for it. So, I probably just tagged her has my gum buddy.
........
I still like gum but I actually rarely chew it anymore..hmm?

Saturday, November 13, 2010

My Dad!!

So, I love my Dad! This past week I went and took some pictures for Dad at work. It wasn't anything big but I had a good time doing it. I had lunch with Dad and his guys afterwards and overall it was a fun morning.
As I was going back through all my pictures of the day I found this gem. I told Dad to look happy in his picture because the previous 6 or so were very serious faces. This was the result. I love this picture. Every time I see it, it makes me smile and think of how much I love my Dad.
There is plenty I could talk about of why I love him and all that great stuff, but I wanted to keep it simple this time.



PS. My favorite part of the entire session was the picture taken just after this one. I was laughing at the picture from above, and so I tried to explain to him that I was looking for just a pleasant smile but not a big grin. I told him to just think of mom, and the face that followed was the perfect sweet smile. It was the smile I was looking for, and the one that I ended up using.
THE END

Monday, November 1, 2010

Halloween Weekend!

My Halloween weekend actually had very little Halloweeness to it. It was still a lot of fun though!

There was a big stake Dance on Friday, but it didn't sound appealing to me at all. Luckily Tyler doesn't like dances either. So, we spent the evening having Cafe Rio and watching Finding Nemo.

Saturday was so much fun. We (Me and Jenny) planned a group date. Because we were setting our friend, Trent up on a date it ended up with the girls being in charge. I came up with the idea of having it a kids themed night. :) We made homemade pizza, played with play-dough (homemade mind you), made a giant fort in our family room, and watched sword in the stone.
Me and Tyler- I don't really like this picture of me but I still like the picture.


This is mine and Tyler's Play-dough creation. It's a duck pond...use your imagination to fill in the gaps.


The whole gang in our fort!

I only wore the costume for a few hours cause I didn't end up going to the party on Friday.


Me and my beautiful roommate Jenny! ps. you can totally see my purple hair!