thankful thursday: picture edition

things i am thankful for this week:

1. surviving the car wreck and massive head wound harry-- so SO thankful that all of my "peeps" survived it safe and sound--i am grateful that someone upstairs was watching out for us.

2. people feeling sorry for you when you suck up for sympathy, and they give you great stuff--so many cool things came my way last week

one of my blesbians who lives just down the street, jodi, dropped off these nummies to me--how did you know i love those ghiradelli squares? btw: that bag may or may not be already open and emptied. allegedly. thanks, you hot mama!

another one of my blesbians, mia, sent a package that arrived on my doorstep. i opened it up and it was classic: no card, no note, nothing but CHOCOLATE HEAVEN!!! mia, you know me too well to know that it put a huge smile on my face--thanks, lady!!

and, now for the Pièce de résistance : my friend, dannielle, the gal who likes to give EVIL CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY PRESENTS just like me, found this bad boy in a GAS STATION IN CEDAR CITY, UTAH---behold, the joy it puts on abbey's face just to be near it. really. she knew i would hate it immediately. i loved her even more for buying it......

guess what's gonna be next month's superfantastic blog giveaway prizey......?? can't wait!!

3. anne taintor. the woman is a genius. she makes me laugh. lots. lol.

4. holy batman movie, batman!! this movie was so kick a in such a major way--we went with besties colby & kristin and steve & kamari last saturday and i have two words: christian bale.

oh, MY. that man is something else, i tell you. is he as hot as russ? well, no, how could he be? but he comes in a close second.

enjoy a little bale eye candy:

i must also say this: heath ledger lived up to EVERYTHING the critics said: he was twisted and warped and perfect in the role and if he doesn't win an oscar, i'll be shocked.

5. getting a chance to meet new "old" blogging bff's--i finally got a chance to meet erica, whom "i've loved long time" when she and ashlynn and carly met up at the restaurant carly manages, a super-hip joint called twentyfive main--if you haven't been, you need to go. NOW.

i just resumed my pills i take for my face to prevent acne that for some reason i still like to get at THIRTY-EIGHT FLIPPIN' YEARS OLD, but i had a large couple of zits on my chin that i obsessed about--this is a little how i felt walking in to meet these gorgeous, tall, beautiful, skinny gals (one with breastessess as soft as pillows....ahhhhh):

anyway, they did a good job of masking their horror and we had a blast and talked and yapped and talked some more and 2 hours just flew by. being bloggers, of course we had the cameras ready and we got a couple of shots: l to r--ashlynn, erica, mindi, carly: i heart these ladies. they make me laugh and think and ponder and gossip (only a bit :) and laugh some more.

then once we stepped outside into the sunlight, we asked a couple of forest service guys to snap one of us:

then the forest service man asked if we wanted him in one--of course, we said, "YES." random, much....???

okay, but the best part about this story is when erica called me on my cell phone about 5 minutes after leaving and told me that this guy right here followed here across the street and asked if she would like to go for a ride on his motorcycle!!! legit!!

see what happens when you're a hot blogger like erica? it's easier than shooting fish in a barrel!

thanks, girlies--let's do this again, soon!

TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN, PART TWO:

remember this post yesterday about what key phrases men should learn to complete the "happy wife, happy life" motto--yeah, this guy has it down to a SCIENCE.

watch and learn, boys. watch and learn.

thanks, lonithethersister, for the sa-weet hookup!!

pay the piper BEFORE you play

when i was a little girl, i always remember the absolute cleaning frenzy that happened right before we left for a family vacay. we all had to have our rooms cleaned and clothes hung up ( a really hard thing for mindi in her teenage years) and my mom would have the house vacuumed and scrubbed and shining like the chrysler building.

i also remember complaining and whining, saying, "why are we cleaning? this is dumb!! we aren't even gonna BE HERE!" lana would just smile and say in her sweet, cheerful voice, "won't it be nice to come home to a clean house? it will feel so good!" we didn't buy it for a second.

then russ and i got married and moved into a teensy-tinsy studio-type apartment in the back office of a motel--we were the night managers (translation: nobody on the front desk after 11pm, and people would just ring a bell and poor russ would have to drag his butt to the window. brutal. but free rent.) and i worked for skywest airlines, so we had lots of opportunities to fly places on the weekends.

one weekend before flying out the house was a wreck. like, hurting in a MAJOR way. dishes, clothes, clutter, dirty bathroom--the whole works. we said, "what the heck?", walked out the door and flitted off to bigger and better things.

yeah......that didn't work out so great. we got home late sunday night, exhausted and cranky after getting bumped off of two different flights from slc to sgu and ending up flying into cedar and having someone come and pick us up, and i walked in and saw THE MESS.

i burst into tears (pre-menstrual, maybe? perhaps....) and i have NEVER DONE THAT SINCE.

every time we leave the house to travel, which in our business is a little bit more than some, our house is sparkling and shiny and clean. and my kids complain and whine a litte--good thing to know that some things never change. and there is still no better feeling in the world than when you come home to a clean crib.

so i guess i AM turning into my mother a tiny little bit after all.....who woulda thunk?

now if i can just master lana's sweet driving skillz of one foot on the brake and one foot on the pedal........ (not kidding)

man fantasy: FULFILLED.

do you see this face? this is one happy man. yes, this is one happy man driving a sporty, expensive car that is not his. fo FREE. yup, instant love.


this is the 2008 lexus sc430 that the stein eriksen lodge loans out to certain guests. i'm not really sure why they offered it to us. all i know is that in all, ALL of our 17 years of hotel staying, we have never-ever-ever been offered something of this magnitude. i think they saw this poor guy who was overrun by 5 women/girl creatures, and, frankly--they felt oh-such pity for him.

whatever the reason was, they offered it to us for a "date night" and we snatched it right up. all we had was our SHIZZY disposable camera to document his fantasy, so most pics didn't take, but the car was black like this:

this is it from the side--i think it's really quite snazzy.

when we got there that night to take it out for a spin, giddy like kids on christmas morning, the valet said, "sir, would you like me to put the top down?"

we turned to each other and smiled. it was a CONVERTIBLE!!!

russ must have said about 13 million times how much he loved the color of the interior--i kept saying, "well, all we have to do is come up with roughly $70,000 and it could be ours."

i think he really debated for a few minutes about having me kidnapped and waking up in a tub of ice with my kidney gone--sold for this little beauty.

we were so excited--we kept thinking that ashton kutchner would jump out from behind the lighted trees and yell, "PUNKED!!!!!" he never showed.

ho, hum......just another boring night in our luxury sports car.

unfortunately, we had to return it. i think they would have held our kids hostage if we didn't come back. we decided we'd rather keep them, and just have happy memories about that car.....

TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN

so we were holed up in our basement on our big red couch watching our 745th consecutive episode of "lost" and this part struck me as so funny and TRUE. TRUE, THAT.

what had happened is that sawyer (a con-man, cynical dude), & jin ( a man from korea who speaks no english, but is just starting to learn), are sitting in the jungle next to an old volkswagon vw van they had just found--it had a bunch of food in the back, but, even better for them, BEER.

the two of them are sitting there, drunk as skunks, and sawyer is teaching jin some english-- he says, "now, jin--these are the most important phrases in the english language, especially with you being a married man. repeat after me and NEVER forget them."

1. "I'M SORRY."

2. "YOU WERE RIGHT."

3. "THOSE PANTS DO NOT MAKE YOU LOOK FAT."

smart man. very smart.

just a few things:

1. a shameless plug for the jdrf walk to cure diabetes. my nephew, kayson, and tib's son, ethan both have juvenile diabetes. my dad has diabetes, as well as my other nephew, gregory. this is a very worthy cause if you have just a bit of cash you could spare to donate to these walkers--any little amount would help. there is NO cure for type 1 diabetes, so they are raising funds to find one.

clickity on KAYSON (grandpa, grandma, aunt megan, uncle ryan, ahem...and any other family members we can guilt into it) or ETHAN (all you bloggers out there who love tib, and there are a plenty) to dontate $$$.

THANK YOU!

2. my blogging bff vanessa is having a giveaway to celebrate over 8,500 hits on her blog--check out the free loot you can score by clickity-ing HERE




3. those crafty chicks over at over the tipsy top design are giving away this adorable summer front door pot hanging--you can enter by clickity-ing HERE

oh, depeche, my love....

i realized this week that in all the time i've been doing a video of the week, i have never included my beloved depeche mode. how did that happen? i am still going down my shame spiral just thinking about it--it's no secret that i have an unhealthy-slash-obsessive love for them.

i OWN it.

but which video to pick? oh, there are too many to choose from-- it's like asking you to name your favorite child...(okay, DON'T do that, because there are many, many days that i can.)

if i wanted to go with something that was just straight up, off the chain sex (sorry, lana) it would have to be THIS, THIS, THIS, or even THIS just so you can see their sheer magnitude of fans in germany who heart them (and martin's pretty pretty bird head-dress.)

if i wanted to go with something sentimental, it would mos def be THIS, or THIS--

if i needed to put a smile on my face, i watch the "can you believe we sold out the rose bowl ?" smiles exchanged between dave and martin at :50 HERE

but today i decided to go with the video which i think shows their humorous side--

so, for your consideration, i give you dave gahan the lounge singer with his sa-weeeeeet back-up singers in IT'S NO GOOD

these call to me.....they say, "BUY ME."

wanna know when you realize that you are OFFICIALLY a blogger? when you are going down the target aisle to get some stuff for some blasted canker sores and you look across the aisle at the cutest humidifiers known to man, and you are MAD that you don't have a camera.......sick and twisted, people. sick and twisted.

i saw only this frog and the hello kitty and i swear on a stack of bibles that i had mr. ribbit in my cart and was walking to the register when i had to stop and self-assess (not a huge character trait of mindi's when shopping at target.)

problem? i already have 3, THREE humidifiers that we've collected over the years.

so i sighed really, really loud (nobody heard or cared.) and put it back. i found the whole collection here at amazon.

they range anywhere from 30 to 40 dollars--since i don't like to price things, i don't know if that's spendy, but YOU CAN'T PUT A PRICE ON THESE!!!

MEOW.

and the winner is.....

and the winner of the superfantastic blog giveaway is...........




























SHAYNE OF NIVEY BLOG!!



i thought this was ironic as:


1. i just gave him a blog award (coincidence? hmmmmm) and,

b. i would rather give it to his wife daisy, (who i figure it gonna get it anyway, so, good things happening there.) and,

thirdly, shayne's two entries said, and i quote,


I think I am more likely to win the lottery than a giveaway on Mindi's blog. She has more blog friends than people that play the lottery.
July 15, 2008 8:17 AM



oh, and:


Ed McMahon is more likely to call me with good news than you are.
July 25, 2008 8:19 PM



oh, the irony.......





even paris digs shayne's hipster karaoke version of britney spear's "toxic"--she bought a copy:



AND andy warhol did a few pics of our boy shayne before kicking the bucket:

so, congrats, you lucky sob!! you beat out a LOT of other people for the prizey--don't call us, we'll call you........(cuz we actually know where you work.....)

thanks all who entered--i love seeing new faces each time. tune in next month for august's superfantastic blog giveaway!!

{images courtesy of photofunia via kami--thanks, lady!}

PARK CITY 2008

every summer we take our girls up to park city for the week--we love getting out of the heat and up into the mountains. we also love exploiting our travel connections for our personal enjoyment, and park city has never failed us yet.

this year we got a chance to upgrade mid-trip to the stein eriksen lodge which was all THAT and a bag of proverbial chips--since our camera was on the fritz, to see some pretty sweet photos of the place, clickity HERE

now, this next part is what my mother would call the "vain and pretentious" part of blogging--i call it the "i want my kids to look back and remember how great they had it this trip" part. it's just a video snippet i took of our wicked fly 3,000 sq. feet (yeah, you heard that right--when the bellman brought us in, russ and i had to pick our chins up off our chests and pretend like this was how we rolled ALL THE TIME. little did he know that we were just white trash with connections from southern yeeeewtahhh.) accommodations. we were pretty stoked. so, in order to not view our vanity, skip this. (reverse psychology? YOU decide.......)

the girls love taking the free trolley up and down main street and stopping into the marriott time-share office there to look at their live owl. what i don't like is how they are trying to talk me into a presentation the whole time, even as i am yelling, "MY HUSBAND WORKS FOR MARRIOTT! DON'T WASTE YOUR BREATH!"

other things the girls loved: watching "lost" (yeah, we can't even go up there without lugging it along), riding up to the top of the mountain on the main street chair lift, seeing 'space chimps', and swimming at the stein pool where our cabana boy--and YES, i am FULLY SERIOUS this time!--named jason basically attended to their every little whim and fancy. the guy was 24 years old and he played those little girls like a violin--in fact, i'd say he's just about the best i've seen at a job like that. everytime we'd turn around he'd be there with a fresh towel, or chilled water bottles, or pool toys for the kids, or fruit-kabobs on a platter. it was pretty uptown, and katie thought he was the cat's pajamas. the rbc was just a little bit annoyed because he knew it would just mean more $$$ out of his pocket come tip time. but we could not have asked for more--we loved every (well, except for SOME) minute of it!

**stay tuned later this week for russ's MAN FANTASY: FULFILLED post......got your attention? get your minds out of the gutter, it's the family-friendly clean version. but it made his whole decade!

CAKE: NOM NOM NOM

this is one of my blogging bff's, gina bina--

she posted these cupcakes that she made, yes MADE, for her friend's 3 year old's birthday party. now, once i got over my mini-heart attack over the thought of creating these magnificent cupcakes for 3 year olds who are gonna take one bite and then throw them away, (this is not my first rodeo, folks--learn from the master) i wanted to show you her masterpieces:

since i have my own master baker (why do i think that never gets old? strange....) in the form of my megan, i've wanted her to make these. but then i saw the photos of these spectacular cakes, and i thought you all could vote on which one i shall have her bestow upon us:


1. big, massive hunk 'o meat:

2. creepy, Creepy, CREEPY baby girl:

3. the undeniable awesomeness of the norris:

4. large mound 'o poop with flies:

discuss.