happy birthday america - sorry your party is so lame

oh how i love the 4th of july - hotdogs, fireworks, smores, but most importantly- holiday pay! such a splendid time to be an american. granted, i only hit 50% of that list this year but still, it was such a great weekend - i wish every week was a 4 day week [utah has that right] but alas, that means 10 hour work days = worst. it started off wonderful because we finally found a house we both love! we have been house hunting since last aug so quite a while [granted, we did take a 3 month hiatus when we lived in carson] but we are quite particular about what we both like and both want [thank goodness we found each other right?] but this house fits ALL our criteria. it's a short-sale [aka - i could turn completely grey by the time it goes through] so we're going to put in multiple offers on multiple houses but this is the first so very exciting!

don't hate on my giantness - it's vegas summer & i'm 7 months baking

beautiful lake mead @ 5am

look! i found the cave where voldemort hid one of
his horcruxes [horcruxi?] - people always assume
he's british but tis not so

i've always had memorable fourths. in 2007, justin & his boyfriends moved me to cedar city to start school on july 4th. growing up we always spent july 4th swimming at grandpa zobrist's then eating homemade ice cream at my aunt lori's, in 2008 shannon & i went to my brother josh's party and got her hair singed by fireworks. last year we went camping with the irelands [my virginal first] so this year we naturally spent it with them too. since the baby & meghan's work schedule put a damper on what we could do, we went out to lake mead on monday. after a sleepover sunday night and waking up at 3am, we trucked to the largest man-made reservoir with us four + mathew & anna [steven's siblings]. i was so grumpy and hungry but i'm so glad we went out so early. there was no one on the lake yet and we [and by we i mean not me] got a lot of tubing/swimming/knee boarding in before anyone else showed up. by noon we were pooped and it started to rain so we headed back in. perfect timing bc it started to rain. vegas had a flash-flood warning and some heavy rain sunday but we figured lake mead would be fine- the weatherman originally predicted 115 degrees for the weekend then changed it to 101 [it ended up being around 90ish]. on our way back in, the waves were so bad and steven was not slowing down for anything, my poor little baby got all sorts of jumbled around. it was actually scary for justin & i - i'm not even allowed on roller coasters! thankfully i felt him kick later so things should be a-ok [dr. appointment thur should confirm that]. poor little worry-wart first-time parents. overall- super fun. justin finally got himself on a boat, went tubing, knee boarded, and drove the boat [all his virginal firsts]. i got a tad bit of sun and was able to oink out all day. perfect.

when we were leaving the docks, everything was crazy hectic since it started to rain and everyone was trying to leave. i turned around one moment and guess who was there? no one other then ricki cheese! for all you crazy utards who don't know who the cheese is, she's an old-time vegas reporter whose skipped networks and prob not as popular as she once was but alas, i knew who she was. she just stuck her microphone in my face and started questioning me [what was the weather like out there? windy. was this what you expected for the 4th of july weekend? no. what did other boaters have to say about this weather? i don't know- we didnt' talk to anyone else. what are your plans for tonight? fireworks. what did you expect the weather to be like today? hot.]. now, being the huge celebutante that i am, i didn't get her too good of material. call it shock horrible questions snobbery, but i wasn't good and i knew it. still though, she said i'd be on the 6pm news. anna was thrilled! she told me she purposely walked in my background several times to get on the news. i laughed at her, knowing i was the true star. well, come 7pm i checked their website and alas, my material was cut- anna's wasn't. oh well, i'm much too big of a celebrity for local news anyways. and i looked like trash.

meghan & anna

my beloved

steven

that night we were so pooped from 3 hours of sleep + soaking in the sun all day we hit up justin's gma's bbq then went home to nap. later that night, all we could will ourselves to do was order papa johns, eat smores on the stove, and finish watching a movie. we didn't even see any fireworks. lameo old married couple but it was perfect for us.