faces i love

when life gives you lemons, pack your bags and take a trip with your BFF

I took a trip to Chicago this weekend to visit my Brother and Sister-In-Law. With all the craziness going on this year it was good to just relax, eat, site-see, and sleep with a view of the Chicago Sky Line. Rodney and Kylee are moving in a couple of months so I'm glad I went to see them once more before they leave. We saw everything there is to see about the city and ate at 11 restaurants in 3 days... So.., the indicators that I had a good weekend are a camera full of pictures, and a way too tight pair of jeans. Let's ignore the jeans and focus on the pictures.

• Major highlight, hanging with my little love muffin, Carly. This is on a Water Taxi we took to get home one afternoon. Does your city have water taxis? ..because they are magical.
• When Rodney and Kylee were engaged they were known to photo bomb EVERY picture they were in. We thought they grew out of it. Really ruined this picture of us four at The Bean in Millenium Park. They are too funny.
• On Monday Carly and I had a "competition" to see who could spend $100 in Nordstrom before the other person. I left empty handed and Carly hit the jackpot. Definitely a first for me.
• Everyone must visit Bijan Bistro downtown- preferrably after midnight when the crowd is reallly having a good time. I am normally not that much of a night owl (or a night carnivore- we ordered the Ribeye) but #YOLO and #VRA (vacation rules apply). Going out late on vacation is a must-do because we ended up laughing the entire time, mostly because Carly would say funny things like this.
• And of course, the beautiful Chicago Skyline, accompanied by unseasonably warm temperatures made this the perfect weekend getaway!

Family Matters

My mom urged each of her children to write a paragraph about ourselves and send it to her so she could compile the Christmas Newsletter. I know, seems like a dream right? You get 350 words to write about yourself? But.. No thanks, I don't like writing about myself...

The deadline for entering our Autobiography came and went with none of us turning it in. Now, she has the liberty to say whatever she wants about me to the 3,000 people who consider us their "best friends". For my mother's tender eyes, I have maintained the image of a very kind, well spoken, successful woman. This is my warning that your Christmas Newsletter may not be the whole truth.

Merry Christmas from the Dials!

Spotlight

We've been in exactly two fights. One was about pizza, the other about the dumbest game on earth called Monopoly Deal. I, of course, started both of them. What both fight boiled down to..... I Miss You (Didnt even need therapy to figure that one out.)


Meet Kyria. The girl who's stilletoes I am not worthy to shine. She is rambunctious, beloved, determined, hilarious, and sassy. Our friendship began in high school when she proved to be good enough company to bring around my friends. Then again in college when we lived together and she was forced to grow up too fast and learn what emotions look like. People LOVE her. I repeat, people LOVE her. Kids love her, adults love her, grown men, young boys, people I am trying to date.. Everyone loves Kyria. I have never met a person who meant her and said, "ew".

She loves horses and chocolate desserts and repetition and exercise and spicy sushi. She used to sleep in a 3 foot space by choice. She sees the world as she should, real and flawed but beautiful. She's vulnerable and not easily persuaded. She smells like Japanese Cherry Blossoms. I envy the man who she will take care of tenderly and the children who get to be hers.

I know I encourage you to not read the blog, but this is an exception.

Happy Birthday Luke! Today is your birthday and that's wierd because I wish I was there so you could wipe the lip gloss off your cheek after I gave you a big birthday kiss and made fun of you because you don't like girls. You are the greatest younger brother a girl could ask for. I still remember that time in San Diego when we on the beach and I was supposed to be watching you but I fell asleep so you wandered off and somehow got yourself extremely muddy and when you came back you woke me up and I looked at those board shorts that you wore sagging down half your butt and I just laughed at you because of course you're mischievous enough to somehow find the only mud in California, but, true to character, you came back because you wouldn't have the mind to run away or anything. That's you, never trying to cause any stress for people, but sometimes you can't deny your childish ways. 

I called you today to wish you happy birthday and you proceeded to give me a list of your "Top Three Boy I've Dated". I thought this was a fitting present because, if I can be honest, the way I judge if a boy is worth my time is if he will pass the Lucas test. Newsflash to any prospects, Luke can be bought at the cheap price of a wakeboard and a basketball. 

Those are my other favorite memories of you. Those days a couple summers ago when Rodney was gone and the Wakerats were gone and Dad and I would go on the boat and bring you along and you would take a run chilling behind the boat with your typical Dial Man stare. Then you would talk about going on the boat until the next time we took you out. You would also request going to McDonald's. Luckily that phase is over. 

You are the best, Luke, and I love every minute I spend with you.

after the Birds And The Bees

It's Christmas time, which, in the Dial home, is always the same. There's  Mom reminding us all that "this Christmas" is going to be a "scaled down gift receiving year" and we should all expect "one thing", and it needs to be "under $5", and then Christmas morning we come out to each of the little boys having shiny new matching Mercedes Benz's and everyone with like a bajillion electronics. It's also the time when you will find 15 children and 10 adults dressed in our best Bethlehem garb displaying the birth of our Savior and acting like barnyard animals. This always ends up looking like a dress-up party where Osama Bin Laden was the muse for everyone's costume considering our version of Bethlehem style clothing equates to turbans and robes. 

About every three years one of the children has reached that golden age of childhood ruining when it become requisite to tell them the TRUTH. About mmm-hmm-mmm. The talk in between the "when a man loves and woman..." talk, "well, what are your intentions with her?". 

This year it was Joseph's turn. I asked my mom if Joseph had had THE TALK yet.

"Yeah, I'm sure we told him."

This didn't make sense considering THE TALK usually looks much more like an intervention where Kyria is holding a box of Kleenex and mom is giving the history of Santa Claus saying, "There really WAS a guy named Santa Claus in Switzerland who gave out presents to children, so NO you're parents haven't been lying to you." All the older kids get to stand by and watch the poor innocent child have their first of many difficult talks about how things aren't perfect and no, magic men don't come into your life and give you presents (they are still trying to teach me that one). We as the older children get some sick thrill out of this because we remember being talked to about the same thing and how it felt like a part of your heart had just been taken away.

"Are you sure, Mom? I would have remembered."

"Ya. He knows."

Well, this was disappointing. Nikka and I had already planned to tell him so we could be those cool older sisters that tell the younger siblings the truth about something childish; their introduction to sadness and disappointment. Kind of like the sister who lets her sibling try pot or alcohol under her watchful eye. Except I do not condone either of those things, so I will stick to telling my parent's secrets to gain popularity.

Despite my mom insisting that she had already spoiled the surprise, we pulled Joseph aside and asked if he knew.

"Yes."

"Did Mom and Dad tell you?"

"No."

"What?! How do you know?"

"I don't know."

"It was public school wasn't it?"

"Ya. Plus common sense. I mean if I was a reindeer and I could fly I would have better things to do than carry around 42 tons of presents for a fat man."

Children today are too smart. I believed in Santa until I was 12 years old. And that was even after a year when my dad came into my room in the middle of the night Christmas eve and said, "Whatever you do, don't come out of here. I know you hear banging around but that's just because there are elves outside your room and they are working." I came out the next morning to a life size dollhouse and was really glad those elves stayed at our house that long. Really,  12 year old Elyse? Are you really that gullible? I have to give him props though. Reindeer really aren't believable. We need to tell the next generation a different story. I vote Helicopters.

And now, no children will be allowed to read my blog again. I have successfully made this a censored site!

1, 2, 3- see ya there

this is happiness. gosh i miss my happiness.

homely.. i mean homey

I am hardly what one would call 'artsy'. I do, however, have a recessive (very recessive) creative gene (more like if I'm bored and if the temperature is just right, I might, in the right lighting, create something slightly resembling creative). My parents gave me most of their other qualities like the 'wakeboarding' gene, the 'loud' gene, the 'very opinionated, and willing to share' gene.. But, not so much of the 'let's make our house look like the inside of a Better homes magazine' (mom), or 'let's turn barn wood into picture frames and sell them for millions of dollars' (dad) gene. Basically, my parents are very creative. This morning I made ma mama proud (yay!). It all began when I was accessorizing for work. I went looking for the usual array of bangles to add to my attire. Bangles are like my quintessential accessory. I have every color and therefore they go with every outfit on any day. As an added bonus, they make noise so no matter where you go it's like a warning sound of "I'M COMING." Perf. Anyhow, I have this huge jewelery basket (rivals Rachel Ray's bread basket in size. We're talking vast, man.) Every time I look through this basket I find something new. I have jewelry to match every outfit, and lots of it... Or so I thought. My catastrophe this morning proved I am too confident in my jewelry. I could only find two of the brown bangles I wanted to wear. EVERYONE knows you can't just wear two bangles, three is the magic number. My options were to a.) stay home and watch movies all day, or b.) problem solve/ create a masterpiece. Regrettably, I chose b. I disentangled some earrings I had never worn and used the pointy part to hold the bangles in place. TA DA! Brown hoop earrings. HUGE brown hoop earrings that I got three compliments on and was able to say, "Oh these old things?" Perf.

Craftiness strikes again: for Rodney's birthday I wanted to give him a picture of us so that when it's summer and I'm in Texas and he's in Utah and he thinks to himself "what did I used to do on Friday/Saturday/ Sunday/ Monday (you get the picture) nights?" he will be able to look at a picture and remember his sister, 1200 miles away, who he used to hang out with all the time; So much, in fact, that people would always think we were dating and not be shy about telling us which would make Rodney so mad because he thought it scared girls and that is why they wouldn't come up and talk to him. The truth is that we live in Provo and girls don't go up and talk to guys, because that would just be too bold, instead we are bread to be old fashioned and wait for them to make all the moves. Psh. Well, anyways, Rodney's not a cutesy guy so the pictures and frame needed to be way nondescript and masculine. I found this turnable frame at Target that holds two pictures, and can be put on a guy's desk without all his roommates being like, "dude, that's gay." When printing the pictures I decided- just to be corny- that i should caption them. So what Rodney got was this simple but modern picture frame with two pictures of us, captions included: "When family.. turn into friends." Terrible, i know, but i couldn't resist. I apologize ahead of time for when your roommates are like, "dude, that's gay." At least now you can't forget about me!

These kind of projects make me want to be crafty more and more. I can't wait to have my own house someday and have decorating projects all the time. If I'm expected to be a Stay-At-Home-Mom I might as well make the most of my down time and have a kick-A house. I'll be like supermom, only my weapons will be an IKEA Credit Card and a Williams and Sonoma catalog. I will also clean up messes before they happen, learn how to sew on my husband's buttons and master 30-Minute-Meals, just to fulfill the stereotype. Oh, what a woman in Zion I will be then.