Thanksgiving 2011

Idaho Falls, ID

Our amazing view from the 8th floor of the Red Lion Hotel.

Things to remember:

• Eating in the breakroom of The Madsens
• Little kids playing on the intercom
• Uncle Dale telling me how proud he is of me
• My dad asking question after question about Topaz Mountain and if my arm was sore, or my eyes were blood shot, or if I slept well, or if I've looked at my rocks yet...
• Having to hold myself back from grabbing Buffy's boys and hugging and kissing them. I missed our boys.
• Watching Vy and Jordan play/fight. "Hi Vy!" cute little Jordan.
• Forgetting that Jay was still dancing in the basement using the kinect until he wandered upstairs an hour later. "Why are you so sweaty?"
• Fiesta Ole - My first and possibly last trip
• Dad to Jay, "Where'd you get that hat?" Jay pointing to his huge beanie, "Oh, you mean this?"
• Dad, "Now remember, you can eat for free at the bayfay tomorrow... Buffet," and Em and I going nuts teasing him until he got really loud, hit the steering wheel, and said, "Enough!" Hilarious.
• Em dramatically trying to wheel her luggage out on the wrong floor.
• Sharing a room with Em and making her laugh so hard at herself that she choked on toothpaste
• Grandma's not-on-purpose bend and snap that made me laugh so hard I both cried and drooled
• Before leaving, Grandma telling me she was looking at me during Thanksgiving dinner, and how she kept thinking to herself how absolutely beautiful I looked. I really needed that compliment.

Topaz Mountain

(Brent Bateman's Favorite)

What should I do on my first day off for the holiday? Be ready to make the drive to Topaz Mountain at 4:45 A.M. but the sheer terror of my dad's wrath if I wasn't ready to go wakes me up at 4 A.M.

I felt like a little kid ready for school when I climbed into the suburban with my backpack and lunchbox. My dad, Dra, Uncle Scott, cousin Brandon, Uncle Norman, cousin Alex, and I all rode together while my Aunt Kay, cousin Blaine, and his wife Christy followed in their car. I tried to stay awake and listen to my uncle's great stories, but I can't stay awake for long in cars.

I woke up later to my dad saying, "We went too far!" I opened my eyes, wondering why were at a toll booth, and saw my dad talking to a guy in uniform with a huge shotgun. Masking my alarm with my sleepy voice, I whispered, "Where are we?" So confusing. Apparently, we'd made it to Dugway. We flipped around and quickly found the dirt road we had missed.

Our first stop.

I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing. Dra and I started taking pictures and laughing a lot immediately. We were horsing around, using her screwdriver and hammer to chisel at the rock, and I asked if I could see it for a second. I blindly chose a spot, chipped away, and a huge piece of black rock fell out. Dra said we should show my dad, so we climbed back to where he was, and he was in awe. He called everyone over to show off the bixbyite (spelling is of course atrocious, I'd never heard of such a rock, and every time my dad said it, I thought of Clive Bixby). I was beaming until I looked over at Dra and she was scowling at me and my dumb luck. It was hilarious. My dad told us to show him where we found it, and we laughed that we couldn't because it was our secret spot. He didn't laugh. We showed him immediately.

So early in the morning, so cold and windy.

My dad was in heaven.

Our 2nd spot: The Geode ... Patch? Field? I can't remember.

It was kind of a bust. We did see a lot of sheep though. I don't like sheep, it's no secret. There were literally hundreds of them. They scattered when my cousins Brandon and Alex jumped from behind a hill and scared them, but then they would gain back their stupid sheep courage and start following us again. I stuck close to my dad, then we realized there was a muddy water hole they were trying to get to. They weren't going to mob us after all. We saw the sheep herder on his horse. He had four super cute dogs with him, but they were all business, no play.

Our third spot, the south end of Topaz Mountain.

Can you see the windy road at the bottom? We parked close to the road and climbed up to this spot. I think it was the only time I was truly warm all day. My dad kept muttering, "Shoot!" Apparently, when he had come before there were these "two rocks that were amazing," and he couldn't remember where they were. Again, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Instead of destroying rocks, I mostly watched all the people around us and talked to my non-stop-talker cousin Alex.

My partner in hilarity.

Overall, it was a great time. Would I go again? Probably, but only if it was warmer.

A few things:

1) Best run ever Monday after school. Why? Well, at one point a guy was running towards me, then we waved and passed each other, then I watched as his shadow turned around once he was past me and checked out my butt. High fived myself. (In my mind of course.)

2) Embarrassed myself Monday night. How? For FHE we had a turkey dinner and auction to raise money for a family's Christmas. We've been hearing about this auction for about two months, and there has been a sheet passed around relief society every single week. Last week I was real tired of reading lame auction items. (They weren't lame, they were typical: 1 plate of cookies! or 2 loaves of my homemade pumpkin bread!) So I wrote down: One Drop it Like it's Hot Lesson by Amy Bateman. I passed the sheet to my roommate and watched carefully, excited to make her laugh in church. I got no reaction. Argh. So boring. She didn't even notice. I had great intentions of crossing my name off ... and I forgot to cross my name off. The joke came back to bite me in the drop it like it's hot butt. So Monday night, I'm sitting next to my friends and being ridiculous and laughing a lot and having fun during the auction. Then I see my roommate Natalie who was handing our Bishop (the emcee) the certificates for auctioned items look at me funny, then she handed him the certificate, then he looked at me funny. My insides dropped. I tried to get my Bishop to look at me and notice my miming motions of tearing the paper up, and the slitting my throat motions to get him to abort. It did no good. My face went bright red as the Bishop laughed into the mic, "I'm just going to read this one off! One drop it like it's hot lesson by Amy Bateman!" The entire room erupted in cheers and woots and laughter. I turned sideways and shake-laughed. I refused to demonstrate even though I felt extreme peer pressure from the chanting crowd. My other roommate Baylee was laughing so hard she was crying, and I was laughing so hard, my armpits were sweaty. My lesson went for $60. Guess I'll have to get my nephew Eli to give me lessons before I give lessons.

3) Today at school I asked one of my boys to stomp on our recycling. He stood in it and bounced, then tried to step out, but his foot was stuck in an empty kleenex box. I laughed way too hard.

4) I went disco skating with Eric, Andrea, and Kolten at Classic last Saturday. It was an absolute blast. Eric and Kolten have some major moves on rollerskates; I was so impressed and entertained. We met up with some of their friends who were also pros on skates. At one point while Dra and I were rollerblading around, one of their excellent skater friends jumped out of the rink on to the carpet and started doing sexy leg lifts with his rollerskates on. I will never stop laughing about it.

Crazy Hair Day - Spirit Week

This picture doesn't do the height justice, there's a cup under my hair.
When I got in my car this morning, I bonked my hair and managed to honk the horn at the same time.
Have a great Friday.

Tiny Tribute to My Dra

You're always happy to cheer on the mutton busters. Why do we struggle to take good pictures of the two of us? Remember when the lady lost her shoe?

You're always up for something fun, and it's always so much more when you're with me.

You're always with me during the hardest things I do in life. I couldn't ask for a kinder more thoughtful person to have on my side no matter what.

You make me laugh harder than I think is possible. I'm so proud of you in this picture.

Latelys:

1) Four grants down, one left to write ...

2) Girls night out? I loathe them. I'm surrounded by girl idiots at all times. The other night, I convinced myself that I need to work on being nice to girls outside my usual circle, so I got it together and went to a girls-only get together. I was really struggling after we ate disgusting homemade english muffin pizzas, then I got pulled into a corner and asked how my love life was going, then I was forced to sit in front of a t.v. that was insultingly playing a soap opera. I was ready to kill everyone in the room just to climb over their dead bodies and get out. I begged them to watch something else, pointed out that we could be watching Extreme Animal Phobia, and convinced the room of screaming girls that it'd be way more entertaining than a soap opera. On the show, one lady was deathly afraid of spiders, and she was forced to complete a task where she carried a tarantula from one container to another. Again, the room of girls was screaming, I was laughing, then I hear one winner cry out, "Wait! Are those trained spiders?!" Forehead slap. See? Idiots.

3) Andrea turns 25 this week. I cried while running on the treadmill yesterday morning. Why? Shrug. Dra's going to be 25? It just got to me.

4) Toby calls everyone Amy, and I love love love it.

5) Our stake halloween party was a huge success. Being in charge of the food wasn't too bad. My buddy Kolten and I paraded around in our matching pink pegasus costumes, learned the sweet moves to Thriller, and repeatedly raced through the huge blowup obstacle course. We might have thought it was a great idea to race backwards, but I managed to slam right into a girl version of Monstro. Oops. I was fine, she was fine, so it was all just hilarious. I would have beat him though.

6) Went paintballing for the first time yesterday. Drive out there: 20 minutes. Gear: $26. Excuse to shoot a guy who has a girlfriend yet kept telling me how hot I looked all decked out: Priceless