Deer Creek

Today is my BFF Neighbor's (Darrell) birthday! Happy Birthday to you! Thanks for being the best BFF Neighbor that anyone could ask for. Seriously, who else could I have all of these heart to hearts with? What did we do on the day of my BFF Neighbor's birth? We played at Deer Creek!

The majority of the group was there all morning and afternoon. Jay and I went later and showed up closer to 3pm. I was actually glad that Jay text me that morning and we had talked about both going later. It was nice to have someone to go up with instead of going on my own. I had worked late the night before due to quarter end and wanted to sleep in that morning, so it worked out perfect.

We set up some chairs in the shade and chatted with some other people from the ward that were there. It was a perfect day out... not too hot, and the water at Deer Creek was not too cold. Perfect lake day. The lake was a little crowded since 4th of July is only a few days away, but it was fine. Some of Tara's other friends that were there had the wave runners and we all took turns riding it. One of the wave runners had a tube to ride on the back of it. I didn't ride on the tube, but Jay and I went on a ride on the other wave runner. We took turns driving. It was fun, but they were old wave runners and didn't go super fast. Jay and I still had fun and got plenty wet from jumping and crashing big waves. Good times.

Really, I was okay with the fact that I wasn't there all day, it was the perfect Summer activity. Time chillin at the lake, riding wave runners and relaxing with good friends. The good life. Thank you Tara for putting it together.

Flashback Friday 71

Today I'm flashing back to Fall 2004. I went to Rexburg Idaho for my friend JaLayn's wedding and my cousin Lauren was going to school at BYU Idaho so I stayed with her AND the next day we went on an adventure to Jackson Hole Wyoming. It was my first time there... so kind of a fun day trip.

We mostly drove around site seeing, but we also stopped by the shops and had some lunch. We even saw some mountain goats while we were driving around!

Love my cousin Lauren.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 124

When I was in St George, I went and got a pedicure by myself. For the first time... I didn't get a flower painted on my big toe. Instead... I decided to try glitter. Fun for the summer right? It sparkles in the sun. We will see if I like it enough to keep doing it. :)

I came to realize something this past week. I have become the backup girlfriend. There are two guys that call me every time their girlfriend is busy and can't hang out with them. Then they want to hang out with me? What the... how does that even happen? What are they thinking? Why did I become that? Ugh. Guys....

On a brighter note... I really like it when things remind people of me. I like that there are a lot of things that make me unique. I love it when someone sends me a funny link because it reminded them of me, or when people pin stuff at me on pintrest because it reminds them of me.... so on and so forth. Examples of this would be, people think of me when they see origami cranes or forts or the fail blog, Hot Rod or Simon and Garfunkle.... etc. Makes me feel special.

We had our 6th game in our stake softball tournament. We only have two more games and this last game was the first game where we had to switch locations. We couldn't play on an actual baseball field.   I guess we couldn't schedule the other place anymore and ended up playing at the park next to where we live. There are trees in the way and they were totally cramping my style. The team we played against was good. WE were not playing out best and were missing some of our key players at first... so for a while we were losing by a lot. I am competitive and of course want to win... however, I don't make a huge deal out of losing either. What I didn't appreciate however was the other team. They were winning and making a big deal out of every call and yelling at US for making a big deal out of things when we weren't saying it was only church ball. I would also like to note that our team is one of the only teams that plays by all the rules... playing the correct number of girls vs guys. We never call anyone out on this. We also always share our food with the other teams. We always give the calls that are on the fence to the other team AND we let anyone play that wants to play... even if they are not very good. We were NOT making a big deal out of the calls. I was next to the pitcher when someone on my team was trying to make a call on what he thought happened. The pitcher got all upset and said it was only church ball and there was no reason to get upset. In a nice voice I tried to stick up for my team and just tell her that nobody was upset. She turns to me, gives me a dirty look and said "please don't talk to me, I don't need that from you". Wow.... that turned my mood. I no longer wanted to play. It is not worth playing to have those kind of bad feelings going around just because we were catching up to their score. It was absurd. The worst part, we are all members of the same stake. I have seen her since that game and now have bad feelings towards her. I know that is my choice to take it that way.... and I choose to be offended, but I just don't understand the bad sportsmanship. It is just a game and not worth getting so upset. We ended up with a tie. Crazy huh? So.. technically, we still have not lost a game. I was so glad we caught up and didn't let them step all over us. I know I know... it shouldn't matter, but seriously, it was an intense game and it was such a victory to have our last guy make a home run and tie the game! Maybe you had to be there.

Later that evening I had the girls over to watch the Bachelorette in the fort. I can't tell you how entertaining it is. We love Arie and of course we love Jef and not just because he is good friends with our friend Chris in the ward. When I watch Jef's dates.... it totally reminds me of a lot of dates that I have been on because of the way he acts and what he talks about. You can totally tell he has had the Mormon upbringing. Just makes me sad he is not still active because he is such a cool guy. Example, his last one on one date with Emily they bought puppets and went to a Library and put on a puppet show for each other recapping their dating experience. Jef made a weird/awkward date funny and charming and cool. Seriously. My favorite lines from his puppet show were "I like your nail polish" and "Can we.... get a dog together". Totally random, but had us all laughing. Megan and I may have re watched the puppet show like 5 times. No big deal. We have fun making fun of that show. Especially now that Megan introduced us to the blog I hate green beans. So funny.

Also, while we were watching the Bachelorette, my friend Leanne in the ward came over and brought her ASTYM that she uses in the physical therapist office that she works at. It is a scraping tool that you use to break up scar tissue in the muscles. I already knew about this tool because I used to work for a Physical Therapist that used it quite a bit. However, he never worked on me. Leanne brought it over to work on Megan's leg.... but I asked her to work on my arms because I am so paranoid of getting carpal tunnel. Why you ask? Because not only do I have a desk job where I type at a computer all day, but I'm also a massage therapist AND I have been addicted to Guitar Hero. Thankfully I have not gotten it, but I don't want to. She worked on my arms and it was really helpful. Painful, but helpful. I wish I could get that done once a week. She did however show me some stretches though that could help me out.

It is Quarter End at work so it has been busy... but we get vouchers to get free food in the cafe which is nice. Today we went down and got the BBQ which was awesome. I LOVE BBQ season at work. At my parents house BBQ season is all year, but I do love work BBQ's. My pregnant co-worker injured herself while floating down the Provo river and is now going around in a wheelchair. Sometimes I wheel her to the restroom. Sometimes I sit in it and my manager pushes me around in it real fast around our floor. Yeah.... grown adults at work. The wheelchair has become our new department toy. ha ha. My co-workers are great. Tomorrow we are having a pot luck with a few other departments. Should be good. It will be good just for the fact that it will help me get to know more people that I work around and send emails to all the time but never had a real life conversation with them. ha ha.

Our ward had a pool party for FHE on Monday with a couple of other wards. I went last year and it was fun.  was going to go late this time.... but I ended up showing up as it ended. Yeah... I went to a surprise birthday party instead for my friend Dallin that I met at Lake Powell. TJ was throwing it, so Vicki and I thought we would go since we don't see them often. They are fun guys. Sadly, Dallin was an hour late to his surprise party. Oh well. It was good to see them and hang out with them for a while. We really should be getting together more. We may have missed the party, but we made it to the after party at Sonic. Sonic is always a good time. They really have awesome drinks. It is the place to be in the summer. I have already been there so much this summer and I think there will be a lot more trips there as the summer continues.

Photo of the Week 122

Another shot on the Channel Islands.

Golf Club

Last week I ran into my friends hitting some golf balls at the park. Tonight, I joined a golf club. You are probably thinking... Tracy, I didn't know you golfed. Well, I don't. Tonight was my first time at the driving range and my first time golfing that didn't involve astroturf and a castle. My friends were great and let me borrow some clubs and balls and taught me proper form and let me hit some balls. I will need some practice, but for my first time... I didn't suck. I got some air and some distance on a few of my balls. It was pretty exciting actually. We decided to form a club (especially because we all also love sushi) and I felt like one of the cool kids.

Don't worry... I don't always look this bad. I just happened to just get done with our softball game.

After golf, we went to Sonic to grab drinks... because there is nothing better in the summer than Sonic drinks. Actually... they are the best all year round. :) Anyway, I am excited to be a part of the Golf Club. Now... I just need to get some of my own clubs... and maybe some golf shoes/attire. THEN it will be official.

Celine Dion

For as long as I can remember, I have loved Celine Dion. The woman has pipes and nobody can deny that she has had many hits for decades. She also happens to have great ballads that are fun to sing along to. On a roadtrip to Cali with Rachel... we discovered that we both really loved her music and both had been really wanting to go to her concert in Vegas since she came back. So we talked about planning a trip to see her.

We bought ticket's like a month in advance to see her in February. We made a fun weekend girl trip out of it. We got out there and put on sparkly outfits ready to go to her concert... only to find out that it was cancelled. We were more than disappointed. Regardless of how annoyed we were at Celine, it didn't change the fact that we wanted to see her in concert. Right when we got back from that trip we bought ticket's to try again in June. Which brings us to this trip. 

Tina and I usually go down to St. George for a weekend to hang out and see a play, so we decided to combine the two activities. So we just drove down to Vegas Saturday afternoon for the concert. Luckily this time she didn't cancel and we got to see her. Let's be honest, I don't know if I would have tried a 3rd time had she cancelled again. 

To pump us up for the concert, we listened to her music the whole way there... and back. We were excited. We got to the theater. It was beautiful. Our seats were in the very back... but it didn't matter, you could see everything and the sound was amazing.We were also surrounded by some very hard core fans which was pretty entertaining (Asian guy to the left of us that knew all the words and bobbed his head and put his hand up when he got really into it).

My review on the concert. The theater was beautiful and the concert lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. She changed outfits at least 5 times throughout the show. She was classy. I didn't want her to perform Titanic'a "My Heart Will Go On" but I knew she would. They did this cool thing where they lifted her up on a platform while water fell down all around her which was pretty cool. The Orchestra was amazing and while she changed outfits different parts of the orchestra were highlighted. When the string section was highlighted they played Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal... which I was pretty happy about.  I was told that it was an awesome Vegas show with lots of dancers and such... none of that. Just a normal concert. Not sure if I cared too much about that or not. She did a lot of covers. More than I was expecting. She did Adele, Etta James, she did a duet with a virtual version of herself and a virtual version of Stevie Wonder. My favorite cover that she did was Billy Joel's Goodnight my Angel. Love that song and she sang it beautifully. In a way I liked that she did a lot of covers because you can listen to her songs anytime... but in another way, you go to her concert to hear her songs. Although when listening to all of her songs again... she does a lot of cover songs on her CD's as well. Most of all, she sounded amazing. It was just like listening to one of her CD's. She still has it. 

Overall I loved the concert and I was so glad that my roommates and I went and made that happen. 

Aladdin

As you may know, it is our roommate tradition to go down to St. George for a weekend and see a play at Tuacahn. You can read about our other trips here and here. It is a great weekend trip. Every year we  eat at our favorite cafe (TwentyFive Main) and we shop at our favorite store (Rock n Rose) we lay out by the pool and we see a play. This year they did Aladdin. I honestly didn't even know they had made it into a broadway musical. Not that I should be surprised because almost all the Disney movies have been made into broadway musicals. I had never heard anything about Aladdin though... so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Tina and I bought our ticket's at the last minute, so we didn't even get to sit next to each other. In fact, I don't think we could have been further away. We were on opposite sides of the theater from each other.  We made the most of it though and had text conversations about the people around us and we were making each other laugh while we sat by ourselves in the theater.

Here is my review on the play. I thought it was well done. Tuacahn typically does a good job with their plays. They sang well, I liked the songs etc....What I didn't like was that #1. They had a guy instead of a bird for Eago. They could have done puppets... they do that all the time in plays/ #2. They had 3 guys instead of Abu. These 3 are the ones that were pushing the humor and trying too hard to be funny. However, they had great songs with great harmony. That aside... the set was awesome and the props were awesome. I think Tuacahn was a perfect setting for this play. They had real animals on stage for crying out loud. Camels, birds, dog.... it was awesome.

We were handed 3D glasses at the beginning of the show. There is a portion of the show that is in 3D. The whole play... I kept waiting for them to tell me to put them on. Some people just put them on anyway. I never put mine on and wondered if I missed out on anything because I never put mine on. Wouldn't they have told me to put them on though? I asked after the show what I missed and they said nothing.... because they ended up cutting that part out because it was too windy for it and ended up cutting out 10 minutes of the show. Could have been cool. Guess I will never know. Genie was pretty funny though. Best part was when Genie sang Celine Dion's "All By Myself" and I thought to myself, Celine, I will see you tomorrow and I really hope you sing that song. And she did... It was a great day.

Tuacahn is a great tradition and I recommend it to everyone. All of the show's they do there are some. They announced the show's they are going to do next year. Ready? Marry Poppins and Camelot! Awesome right? I loved Marry Poppins when I saw it on Broadway. Anyway... good show, good weekend, good friends.

How to Get Free Food

In Vegas tonight. Super hot. Celine Dion concert is over and all I want is something cold. Serendipity is next door. We wait 45 minutes to be seated. I got free food. I wasn't even trying to get anything free. All I wanted was something cold and refreshing.

This is how you get free food.

#1- Have a cute waiter
#2- Waiter is flirty, be flirty back
#3- *This is the most important one* Kill some sort of bug
#4- Tell the waiter

This is what went down. We got seated. Tina and I are waiting for Rachel to get back before we order. I'm looking at the menu and in the corner of my eye I see a cockroach on the floor coming toward my feet. Without thinking about it, I step on the cockroach and kill it. I tell Tina what happened because she is freaked out of all the bugs. Tina is looking under the table to see if there are any more she needs to know about. Waiter comes back to our table... also starts looking under the table and asks what we are looking at. Not thinking it is a big deal I tell him that I smashed a cockroach with my shoe by my chair. I'm not trying to complain or anything... he asked what we were looking at so I told him why we were looking. He got a napkin and cleaned it up. I say thank you. He goes and tells a manager or something. He comes back and asks us what we want to drink and such. I order a water and a frozen hot chocolate (which I love with all of my heart). I'm a little hungry so I also order some fries. Tina also orders some fries. It all gets brought out right away. Rachel then shows up. I'm completely content with what I have, Tina order's a frozen hot chocolate and Rachel orders something as well. When we are all done he brings out the check.

Fries = $5 (2 orders)
Frozen Hot Chocolate = $11 (2 orders)
Carrot Cake Sunday (what Rachel ordered) = $15

Total should have been around $47 plus tax. We were charged $27.

Tina and I were both not charged for our fries and I was not charged for my Frozen Hot Chocolate. Pretty awesome deal since I wasn't even trying to get anything free or make a big deal out of the situation.

Lesson Learned: Killing a Cockroach in Serendipity = Free Food.

Flashback Friday 70

Flashing back to summer 2005 today. I went home to Idaho with my roommate Brittany and her fiance at the time and Monica and another friend in the ward Megan came along. We went white water rafting in the Payette river. It was my first time white water rafting. Good times.  I was always scared of getting tossed out of the raft. That didn't happen from the rapids... but it did happen from Brittany's dad. He tossed me right out of that raft. We had a playful fun group.

*I didn't want to buy the pictures.... so that is why it has the watermark across the picture. Deal with it.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 123

This week has been really busy.. Why? Because it is my 3rd annual fort week. Of course I will do a whole blog post dedicated to it... but there has been lot's going on in the fort. In fact, I feel like this is going to be a short confessions because everything about this week was pretty much centered around the fort.... which is going to be it's own blog post.

We had our 5th softball game this week. We had a lot of our players missing, so I was nervous at first about how we would do. Turns out, we won by a lot. That would put us as the team to beat. 5-0. We have not lost a game yet and I am wondering how long we can keep this on. We have 5 games left. We are hoping we win it all.

I went to Yoga this week. I still don't love yoga, but I should probably try and go more because I need the deep stretching. What I need to do is start counting my calories again (because I have not been good lately) and I need to start running and biking in the morning before I go to work. This is a heavy task for me, but I have enough friends getting up early to run that I should be able to do it too I feel like. Wish my luck.

Went on a date Wednesday with this guy that used to be in the ward. Besides the fact that his BFF and his fiance showed up at the same place we were at for dinner and sat and ate with us... I thought it went well. People crashing on my dates tends to happen to me I guess. I know him though so it wasn't bad. I still had a great time and hope we go out again. He is a great guy with a fun sense of humor.

I had this HUGE stack of CD's. I had heard that you could go to FYE and they would possibly buy your CD's from you. I brought the whole stack in. They probably rejected half of my CD's or maybe a little less. Regardless, I still left with 45 bucks. Not too bad huh? First thing I do? I bought Nacho Libre because I have been looking for it for a while and couldn't find it anywhere because it is out of print. It's mine now.

Now that I have a beach cruiser, I bike around the neighborhood. It's awesome. If there is an activity at the park... although I could walk there in a couple minutes, I ride my bike. It's the best. Except I was putting my air in the tires and one of the tubes ripped and I had to take it to Walmart to get it fixed. Ugh.

Speaking of the park... my good friends Sara and Megan have started playing golf at the park. They have all the stuff, why pay to do to the driving range? I thought it was brilliant. This way... I can try it out too. I'm not very good... but I want to try and get better.

Photo of the Week 121

Went on an evening stroll with my BFF Neighbor to take pictures. We went by Utah Lake and found the perfect spot.

The Sandlot

I have posted about our outdoor movies before... but I had to post about this one because we watched one of my favorite movies... The Sandlot. I actually provided the movie this time as well. I have been fighting for them to play this movie outside for a while. Not only because I love it and it is so funny, but I also think this movie defines summer.

Seriously think about it.....
Softball
The Fair
Fireworks
The Pool
The Heat
Playing until it gets dark
Sleepovers
S'mores

I just love everything about it and have been wanting to watch it even more since we have been playing softball. By the way our team is awesome and so far we are at 5-0. That is right, we have not lost one game yet. Anyway, it was so fun to watch the Sandlot.. especially fun to watch it outside.

Oliver was awesome and invited other wards to come too... so we actually had a ton of people there. More people socializing. This is a good thing. We used to be the weird ward and nobody wanted to be a part of... but now we are the cool socializing ward that is awesome at softball. I love it.

I just love this movie and even though my summer so far as been amazing... it made me want to take full advantage of the summer months and have the best summer ever! Thank goodness I have lots of awesome people in my life to help make that happen. :) I love you summer!

P.S. Vicki, Rich and I had the best seats up front. I didn't even realize how many people had ended up coming until toward the end of the movie when I looked back. Oh, and did I mention that they are going to be doing this twice a month for the whole summer? Yeah, I thought that was an amazing idea as well.

Mormon Matchmaker

t all started back at the end of February. I got a call from my friend Kayleigh that I used to work with at Apx but we became good friends when we found each other's blogs and became blog buddies after we both were no longer at Apx. She called me to tell me that a girl that we used to work with at Apx was working on a Mormon dating project and asked me if I would be interested in helping out. I asked what I would be helping with exactly and she wasn't totally sure. A video thing about dating in Utah. I still wasn't exactly sure what she meant, but I said sure... why not. So she sent me a list of questions and told me to fill them out and send them to this lady along with my picture.

The questions were all about my dating experience, if I went through any hardships, talking about the importance of religion with dating, what my interests and hobbies were.... etc... I filled out the questions in the only way that I do. In GREAT detail. That is me... I'm a talker. I'm sure you figured that out from my blog. Anyway... I just opened up in my questions still not knowing what the heck it was really for. Then I sent it along with my picture. I got an email back right away from the lady I sent it to saying it looked great and thanks. I then forgot about it and went on with my life.

Maybe a week later I was at work when I received a phone call. My caller ID showed a 3 digit number on my phone. I thought to myself how strange that was and answered out of curiosity. It was a lady on the phone asking for me. Conversation went as follows:

Me: "Hello?"
Lady: "Hi, may I speak with Tracy?"
Me: "This is she"
Lady: "Hi Tracy, this is ___ from the Mormon Matchmaker Casting. We read your questionnaire and we think you would be a great candidate for the show. Can we set up an interview with you?"
Me: " Say What?"
Lady: "You filled the questions out in great detail, which we appreciate. We want to interview you for the show."
Me: "Wait, that questionnaire that I filled out was for a show? What kind of show?"
Lady: "A show on National television about Mormon dating."
Me: *starting to get nervous not knowing what I had signed up for* "Oh... where would the show take place? I don't know anything about this. What is the premise of the show? Is it like the Bachelor?"
Lady: "We are a casting agency in LA, but the show would be filmed in Utah. I can't tell you what station it will be on and I can't tell you much about the show. They can tell you more about it and any other questions you may have in your interview."
Me: "Ok"
Lady: "You really didn't know anything about this when you filled out your questions?"
Me: "Nope"
Lady: "Well.... would you still be willing to interview for it?"
Me: "Mmmm... Sure, why not."
Lady: "Alright, I like your attitude! You will need to have Skype and your interview will be over Skype with our casting director."

We then went on to set up the skype interview over the phone and I put it on my calendar. I'm not going to lie. I was nervous. If I would have known it was going to be for National television, I would have never agreed to it. I had no idea. My biggest fears (because I watch shows like the Bachelor) is that #1- they were going to make the church look bad on National TV. I know people are curious about our church more than ever.... I mean with Mitt Romney running for president and other Mormon celebrities... and then the Book of Mormon Musical came out on Broadway and more and more we are in the spotlit. We are a fad of people's curiosity that don't know anything about our church. I could totally see them setting up a show to make us look like weirdos because we date a little differently than everyone else (aka no sex before marriage) etc... #2- They were going to make me look stupid on national tv. I didn't want this. Not at all. I make fun of people on the Bachelor all of the time. I didn't want to be one of those people. Putting those fears aside, I decided that there is no harm in an interview and if anything else I just wanted to find out more about the show.

A week later it was time for my Skype Interview. I put on a cute outfit and fixed my hair and make up and waited. I waited for an hour for them to call. At first I thought they just changed their mind. I was ready to put my computer away when they finally called an hour later. They made sure everything was set up correctly and then it was time to interview with the casting director. At first he didn't like the lighting in the room so he made me walk around the kitchen until I was under the right lighting before we started our interview. This was important because I was going to be recorded. No pressure right? He wanted me looking into the camera and not at his picture on his screen... so he turned his off so all I could hear was his voice and I tried to remember to look at the top of my laptop as I spoke since that is where the camera was. Not going to lie... it was a little strange. Not a natural setting. So there I was in the middle of my kitchen talking to my computer. My hope was that my roommates were not going to come home in the middle of my interview and wonder what the heck was going on since I had not told hardly anyone what I was doing. The interview lasted about an hour. The questions they asked me were based off of how I answered my questionnaire. I would talk about something like having the peter pan syndrome and then he would ask me to say a statement of what I just talked about. Like look into the camera and say.... "My name is Tracy and I am passionate about music and looking for a guy that is passionate about music too" bla bla bla. I'm not a natural at that sort of thing, but at least I can laugh off my nervousness. I also discovered that being filmed or not, I have no problem talking. Ask me a question and I will talk away. Whether they are looking for that or not I don't know. The casting director thought it was great and said that he would be in touch with me. Again, not many of my questions were answered about the show. Just that it wasn't like the Bachelor where it is a lot of people dating one person and living in the same house. That was all I knew, so I was still curious about it all.

At this point I started to tell people. I told my BFF neighbor and he wished me luck on facebook and said he would have viewing parties if I made it on the show. Someone else said they would make shirts. I had a lot of people rooting for me to get on the show and thought I would be great to watch on tv and were very excited about the possibility. There were a few that thought it was a really bad idea because of possible humiliation. I didn't think I would give them any material to make me look stupid.... so more and more I was excited rather than nervous.

Next I got an email from the casting agency asking to add them on facebook so that they could go through my profile pictures. As soon as you hear this you start to think about all of the pictures you have used as your profile pictures and wondering if you look really good in all of them or whatever. I didn't really care too much throughout this whole process... I mean I didn't even realize I was signing up for it, so either way it went I didn't care, I was just going along for the ride and seeing what happened.

A couple of weeks later I got another email from the casting agency saying they were coming to SLC and wanted to set up a personal interview. At this point it is the end of March. I emailed back and told them what day and time would work best for me. I got a call later to confirm my interview and for them to tell me how to be camera ready. Don't wear solid black or white or loud prints. Fix up my hair and wear extra make up.... because my second interview was also going to be filmed. Then they told me I could bring a prop for my interview and to make sure to bring lots of personality and most importantly be myself. Because it is easy to be yourself talking to a complete stranger that is video taping you for the possibility of being on national television. No big deal.

Mid April I drove to SLC for my interview. It was a rainy day. I thought about things I could say in my interview not knowing what they were going to ask me or what exactly to expect. I got to the place that they were interviewing and had to sign a few papers that was basically signing over my life to be on National Television if I was picked. It started here. I was making the choice to actually do it if I get picked. I signed the papers and went in the back room. They had the camera all set up and had me sit in front of a while screen while they hooked me up to the mic. The prop that I chose to bring was a picture of me in a Salwar Kameez riding an elephant in India to show my love of traveling. I thought that I would be really nervous for this interview, that I would be nervous in front of the camera, but I wasn't at all. I was completely at ease. The guy interviewing me was super nice. We bonded over both knowing Katy Perry and how we both don't like listening to her. He asked me about what it was like to grow up in Santa Barbara (that is how that got brought up) and about how I almost got married and what happened with that and about a lot of the things I talked about in my first interview. My interview lasted about an hour and then it was over. I felt good about it. I was able to ask questions about the show. I found out it is going to be on Lifetime and I found out that there is an actual matchmaker who matches people up and then they video tape your dates. I asked them if they were going to make the church look bad and he said no way. He had learned so much by the end of all the interviews and thought we were such great people. In the interview he asked me what I thought a matchmaker could do for me. My answer: "Well, I obviously have not been able to figure it out on my own, so if she could help me out that would be great." He laughed and that concluded my interview.

I was surprised how well it went and how comfortable and fine I was with being video taped while being put on the spot. I thought to myself... I can do this. Not only did I think I could do it, I wanted to do it now. Think of the possibilities it could bring. Maybe I could actually meet someone from this. Wouldn't that be nice. Even though my attitude toward the whole thing had changed I had asked the guy how many people he was interviewing. He said 40. I asked him how many were going to be chosen in the end. He said probably 6. I knew my chances were slim. I do think that I have a fun personality and the fact that I was comfortable in front of the camera I think played in my favor and I do think that I am photogenic. However, I am sure he interviewed lots of people that fit that description and even more so. Either way I decided I was going to be fine with. Can't be too disappointed when you didn't even realize what you were signing up for to being with right? That night I went out to dinner for my roommates birthday. We were there kind of late and we saw a camera crew come in and set up for a show they were going to be filming there for Ballet West. I watched everything they did. I pictured myself going on with my day to day life and wondered if I could act normal like the camera's were not even there. I really think I could. But who really knows until your in the situation.

I wrote the agency about a month ago and asked them if they were going to let me know or not if I made it. They said they were still making their final decision but they would let me know only if I made it. Kind of frustrating. I wasn't going to blog about it until I knew for sure either way... but I am pretty sure that I was not chosen. If I am wrong I will let you know, but I am just assuming that I didn't have what they wanted for the Mormon Matchmaker. That is okay. Hopefully I will still find someone soon, but i still wanted to blog about this because it is a funny story either way. Who accidentally signs up to interview for a show on national television? Me. Story of my life. My life is weird. Weird things happen to me all the time. A lot of cool things and a lot of weird things. So... share them. It would have been fun to be on tv... but I guess it just wasn't in the cards for me. However, if anyone else wants to play matchmaker in my life... I wouldn't mind being set up on some dates. Just sayin.

Sunday Afternoon's

We have church from 10 am to 1pm. When people get home from church, they eat and then they either nap or some of us like to take advantage of the warm weather and the fact that we live right next to a beautiful park and sit on a blanket in the park. Today I sat at the park with some friends, but this time my friend Megan and I both brought our guitar's so we could learn from each other and do a little bit of singing there too.

I love Sunday afternoon's. I love summer.

*Girl in the ward came by with her pet bird and Liz wanted to hold it. I can't blame her.

Megan and I just strummin some tunes.

A couple other people had joined us and we had a great time at the park relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.