My Best Friend's Wedding

It happened again. . . my best friend got married. I seem to have a knack for being the supportive friend, wishing congratulations to the happy couple, helping pick out lingerie, making sure trains don't drag, and telling the bride she does NOT look fat in her wedding dress. My sister in law says that I am like the girl on 27 Dresses. I don't think it's gotten to that point, but it's pretty close!
My roommate Emerald got married in her hometown just outside of Sacramento, CA this weekend. So I made the 10 hour drive with our other roommate Lindsay (who is also engaged; the big day is Aug. 22). We had a blast driving down just the two of us girls, listening to everything from cheesy romantic songs to Journey to The Backstreet Boys to Celine Dion. We sang so much that I still have a hoarse voice today! When we got there, her parents Bobo (our spiced up version of bob) and Mayloni put us up in a hotel and treated us to pedicures and lots of food. They were SOO generous! We had the best time, and the wedding was BEAUTIFUL. Emmie's friend said it best when she walked into the backyard and saw the gorgeous set up: "It's Jennifer Aniston's Wedding!!" As sad as it is to see your best friend drive away with her new best friend, it was such a happy event! Emmie and Josh are so happy together and I'm just glad that they're sticking around Provo for another year before Josh starts law school.

Just a few hours into the trip, my car came un-duct taped, so we pulled over and I reinforced it. Yes, the fender is currently held together by some very trusty duct tape. The same thing happened again on the way home...I wasn't a happy camper.

The beautiful Bride and her roomie

The Bride's maids. . . Michell, Mikey, Me, and Kristy

The beautiful dessert. I spent a lot of time around these platters!

It happened again. . . my best friend got married. I seem to have a knack for being the supportive friend, wishing congratulations to the happy couple, helping pick out lingerie, making sure trains don't drag, and telling the bride she does NOT look fat in her wedding dress. My sister in law says that I am like the girl on 27 Dresses. I don't think it's gotten to that point, but it's pretty close!
My roommate Emerald got married in her hometown just outside of Sacramento, CA this weekend. So I made the 10 hour drive with our other roommate Lindsay (who is also engaged; the big day is Aug. 22). We had a blast driving down just the two of us girls, listening to everything from cheesy romantic songs to Journey to The Backstreet Boys to Celine Dion. We sang so much that I still have a hoarse voice today! When we got there, her parents Bobo (our spiced up version of bob) and Mayloni put us up in a hotel and treated us to pedicures and lots of food. They were SOO generous! We had the best time, and the wedding was BEAUTIFUL. Emmie's friend said it best when she walked into the backyard and saw the gorgeous set up: "It's Jennifer Aniston's Wedding!!" As sad as it is to see your best friend drive away with her new best friend, it was such a happy event! Emmie and Josh are so happy together and I'm just glad that they're sticking around Provo for another year before Josh starts law school.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Somebody Call the Wambulance

Saturday night was quite the adventure. Dave and I doubled with our friend Rob and a friend in our ward, Maelyn. We decided to "do the canyon." Dave and I were on longboards and Rob and Maelyn were on razor scooters. We knew from the beginning that it was a cursed night--Dave biffed it as he was telling me to watch out for a bump. I thought for sure he had broken something, but after a few minutes of me holding him in my lap on the ground, he was fine. So on we went. Dave and I were pretty are ahead of Rob and Maelyn, when we get a phone call from Rob asking us to come pick them up because Maelyn fell. We had no idea how bad it was. . . but when we got there and saw her face, we were pretty concerned. She couldn't remember where she was, what she was doing in the mountains or anything. We were pretty nervous so we drilled her with questions as Dave drove us to the hospital. We sat in the ER waiting room for a few hours, and finally we got sent back to a room. They took Maelyn to get a CAT scan and an X-Ray for her wrist; meanwhile, Dave and I took a field trip to the cafe for some 2 am snacks. We ended up waiting in the ER a grand total of 5 1/2 hours, from 12:30 to 5:00 a.m. But let me just say, that was probably the most fun ER trip I've ever had (and I've had a LOT). We all played games and told jokes and stories and chatted for hours. It was like a sleep over party! Although we were all so tired to the point of delirium afterwords, it was quite the memorable experience!

Dave's elbow after he fell. . . not so bad compared to Maelyn's face.

After the adrenaline of the nights activities wore off. . .

The clan waiting in the ER for Maelyn to be seen

Feel The Love

These old pictures of my parents when we were little kids are so adorable, I had to put them on. Props to all the parents who emulate this same behavior that my parents taught us so well: Enjoy your kids, exercise a LOT of patience and kindness, and just teach them how to LOVE; both themselves, and others.



Today I have been pondering being a parent. Although I am not yet a mother, I can't help but watch as people my own age start having kids. I watch all of the sacrifices they make and all of the effort and patience that goes into caring for little children. I have always known this fact: Kids are hard work. But I never quite realized what a true labor of love it is until I started watching it first hand. And although I still can't quite fully appreciate it since I don't have any kids of my own, I just keep having these thoughts of awe and reverence towards my parents. I can already tell that I am going to be a paranoid, overprotective mother (pray I marry someone who will fight for my kids' rights to have some real fun). So I can't blame my parents when they would get upset when I didn't come home on time, or when I wanted to do something that I thought was a brilliant idea, but was in actuality ridiculously stupid. I think they did a pretty good job of not freaking out about all the many stupid things I did! I suddenly have so much remorse for my completely-selfish-bratty-stage. And for all of the times I bathed myself in vaseline, tore the cupboards apart, called 9-1-1 for fun, and countless poopy diapers, I should probably say "Thank You" to my parents and also throw out an "I'm Sorry". (For the rude teenager phase; I couldn't really do anything about the poopy diapers.)

Cousin Reunion!

Mark, Ben, Josh, Barrett, AJ, Zach (with Jonah), Matt
Jana, Me, Erinn, Brekke, Caitlin

So after much orchestrating and schedule rearranging, we finally got together with almost all of the cousins from the Christensen side of the family that are living in the Provo/Salt Lake area. It was such a wonderful reunion! My Uncle Steve and Aunt Linda are mission presidents in the Salt Lake South Mission, and they were kind enough to let us all gather at the mission home for our little shin dig. They bought us all pizza which was well enjoyed and we spent the evening talking and catching up with each other. I have to admit, it is was very strange as I realized that we are all the "younger" cousins, now at college and all living on our own, whether single or married. Time has gone by so fast! I don't know when we all grew up. Mark is leaving on Wednesday for his mission. A mission!! I feel like we were all just little children, jumping on Grandma and Grandpa's amazingly bouncy trampoline and watching movies with popcorn in her basement. Those were the good ol' days. As fun as the memories are, it is fascinating to watch as we grow up and make choices that lead each of us down such diverse paths in our lives. As different as we all are, it is so wonderful that we all share the common thread of family. Erinn and I were saying that although we rarely see each other in spite of the fact that we are all so close, it is such a wonderful feeling to know that we have that network of people who love and accept us no matter what, and who would be there in a second if any of us were ever in trouble. Family is a wonderful, special thing and it is so important that we keep the ties strong between all of us!! Love you guys!

Vegas and a Marathon

Ok, so it was only a 1/2 marathon.

Last weekend I ran the Painter's Half Marathon in St. George. I've been training for the past few months for this, and it felt so good to finally do it! I hit my goal of running it under two hours; my time ended up being 1:53:47. It was a tough 13 miles, but the atmosphere was so pumped and it was a really fun course. I ran it with a group of kids from my ward, so it was fun having a bunch of us spread out along the course. Since my Bishop was running the marathon also, we all rode down together in 3 cars and spent the night in my Bishop's condo. Bishop Beckstead is 70 years old and still runs half marathons a couple of times a year. He is so great! So we all ran the marathon Saturday and then that night about half of us drove to Vegas to hit the strip. I've never been to Vegas so it was fun to finally get to see the sights a little bit! Although I wouldn't recommend walking the strip after running 13 miles, it was so much fun. We ate ice cream in the Paris Hotel and watched a couple of the fountain shows in front of the Bellagio. Plus half of the fun was just watching the people who populate sin city. So interesting/hilarious/wonderful!

All of us with our wonderful Bishop Beckstead after he
finished the race. What a champ!!


Don't Worry. . . I couldn't figure out how to pull the slots.

Dave, Nat, Scott, Jamie, Trent, Connor and Me post-race

A New Year

So I've been thinking. Life is wonderful. I mean truly, it is! Who can dispute it. I just turned 20. This is strange because I somehow still feel like I am that little girl who sat on her grandpas lap and told him stories. But I think I really must be getting older because the other day I had a thought process that really surprised me. In light of recent events, I was having a sit-and-feel-sorry-for-myself-moment. But then I thought, well, Katie, If you could change something about this, what would it be? And you know what? I realized that I wouldn't change a thing. Granted, sometimes life is so frustrating and so hard, but I am so glad that it is filled with ups and downs rather than a plain old boring level of bliss!! Trials are interesting. They give you something to look back on and laugh about, or maybe even cry about. But nonetheless, they keep us alive; thriving; feeling. They help us remember how to breathe. How numb we would all become if all we ever experienced was happiness. Anyways. Since this little epiphany cheered me up, I figured I would share it with anyone who is experiencing something of the sort. Don't worry. Just smile and make it through, because every experience is truly changing us for the better. We all change, we all grow and move on. And most of the time, we never end up where we thought we would. But I think that's ok; because usually things are even better than we could have pictured.