a [fantastic] saturday in pictures

[b hacked into our mailbox because our key is in utah. it was impressive.]





[great new frozen yogurt place, squeeze & scoop. as tasty as pinkberry but you get to do your own -- a lyndsey-approved ratio of yogurt, fruit and mochi! perfect!]

i love saturdays.

t-giving week

now that we're home from utah i suppose i can recap our trip.

monday we went to the gateway to do a little shopping and have lunch with b's former boss. while there we had to stop for a picture with b's favorite slc landmark, a giant painted homage to the beatles:



that night we had dinner with my grandparents. grandma is famous for her delicious meals, so this was a fantastic treat even though cooking dinner is a huge project for her these days. i miss g&g a lot so it was great to spend time with them!



my cousins janae and kaylene came too.



b and i spent the next few days just hanging out in sandy, going places in our rival college sweatshirts (everywhere we went people said "look, how funny that one is wearing byu and the other is wearing utah!" yes, hilarious.), sweating it at the gym and playing pool with the in laws.

i was craving some fro yo so we hit up utah's latest craze, spoon me. let's just say it's not quite up to par with my california preferences.



thanksgiving was lovely -- lots of food, family and relaxing. big thanks to the in laws for the yummy food and fun times. (pictures were on the family camera and i haven't gotten them yet.)

and yesterday we flew home. we even got in a little early and didn't miss our flight. yay! it is SO GOOD to be home...back to our own routine and regular california life. and to my pleasant surprise it's a little cooler here now -- maybe in the 60s. definitely my kind of winter weather :)

happy thanksgiving!

i'll no doubt spend tomorrow stuffing my face and watching football-related movies, but wanted to wish everyone a wonderful thanksgiving!

i always feel bad for this holiday because, as a less-materialistic day, it gets forgotten between halloween and christmas. but i love the chance to spend a day being thankful for everything we have, and i will never put up my christmas decorations before thanksgiving is done to give it the respect it deserves.

so, to kick it off, here are a few things i'm thankful for this year:

• my husband -- for making me laugh, bringing me cookies and telling me every day how lucky he is to have me
• my wonderful family AND extended family (in-laws included)
• my faith and the perspective it gives me in this crazy world
• amazing friends at work, church, in my hometown, on blogger, via email -- however we keep in touch, i love having you in my life!
• my job and my paycheck when our economy is on a roller coaster ride
• my tiny apartment with a tiny kitchen, even though it smells like smoke and the water heater makes noise all night long
• living in a beautiful city with palm trees lining every street and the luxury of never worrying about the weather
• DVR -- seriously, this has changed my life
• struggles and trials that help me grow and become tougher and help me have more empathy for others
  
• knowing that i have a new day tomorrow to be better, try harder and do more good in this world

hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving -- and remember to be thankful for what you've got!

MMMMM.

and the best part of my pork barbacoa salad? it was a FREE MEAL.
i've been saving my stamps for a year and racking them up every time we visit phoenix, las vegas or utah :)

12 & 0

yesterday was a sad day for the BYU cougars. we ended up losing to the university of utah (our biggest rivals), 48 - 24. and we were there for every ruthless second of the game.

first of all let me start out by sharing the obvious: brandon and i cheer for different teams. even though, lest we forget, HE WENT TO BYU. traitor. now that i have that out of my system, we can move on.

the in laws picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the game. they are all hardcore utah fans but i would not be intimidated -- i proudly wore my blue. here's the divided couple -- me doing my best cougar hand, and b making his dumb U:



maybe i was just naive, but having only been a true college football fan for oh, about the past 18 months, i had NO IDEA what it means to attend an away game as a fan of the visiting team -- let alone at the biggest rivalry game of the season. those ute fans are brutal! i figured i'd be okay, seeing as how i am married to a ute fan AND that i'm a nice girl, but found out pretty early that i was in for a long night.

we walked up to the stadium and passed some little girls out in front of their house, selling homemade cookies for $1 a bag. my MIL is all about supporting industrious youth (not to mention very aware of my cookie obsession), so we stopped to buy some treats.

we were sampling their wares and trying to decide which to get when all of the sudden, one of the girls froze and got a very grave look on her face. she looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said "there aren't any BYU FANS here, are there???" i said...uh...maybe. and she said "well, we don't give byu fans cookies!" so i said "well, fine, but i'm taking your picture and blogging about intolerant kids who withhold cookies from innocent bystanders." so here you go:



and guess what, little girl? your cookies were DRY. behold, the cookies of hatred:



from there we continued our walk to the stadium. as we approached, some very vocal (and very inebriated) ute fans noticed me walking and started making fun of byu fans, me in particular. i didn't feel much like talking back so i just walked quietly along while they yelled jeers at my back. they only stopped when brandon put his arm around me and said, "hey, she's married to a ute fan -- she's okay!" jerks.

stopped to take a family photo -- which one of these doesn't belong?:



and then it was time for the game! brandon, his younger brother jordan and i sat in the north end zone. i cheered when the cougars ran out and also (quietly) when the utes ran out. hey, i'm not a hater.



here's b and jordan watching their beloved team. they were very excited:



there was a lot of red in that stadium:



luckily for me we were sitting near some other byu fans. i was intimidated to cheer much after the people in the parking lot, but they helped me out. we even sang the fight song together :)



the game was pretty close there for a while -- it was definitely a good football game. then the cougars started to fall apart (with FIVE interceptions!!!! disgusting) and it was all downhill from there.

by the end, i could cheer for the utes. by winning this game, they had an undefeated season and are going to a BCS bowl, only the second time for this to happen in recent history.



of course, b was quite excited. he and jordan left early to rush the field, naturally, with about 6,000 other fans.



while he was down there, he got to bump chests (or slap butts or whatever it is boys do to each other when they're excited) with some of his favorite players. this was only exciting to me because of THIS picture -- here's a tiny piece of brandon's head with players ben vroman (middle) and louie sakoda (left). i LOVE louie sakoda. he is the ute's all-star kicker and has long been my favorite player -- he's always smiley and happy and he is the best kicker EVER.



it was a fun night and a great football game, that's for sure. poor cougars -- i bet max hall went home and cried himself to sleep. we randomly met his sister and dennis pitta's wife on our way out -- they were waiting for the team to come out so they could escort them to the bus without any crazy utes getting them -- and they were quite nice. poor little team.

final scoreboard: utes 48, byu 24.

entry to utah

currently blogging from salt lake city, utah. we flew in yesterday morning to go to the utah/byu football game last night (post forthcoming) and are staying through thanksgiving.



started out with a little glitch though -- our flight left burbank at 7:30 a.m. yesterday, so we planned to get up at 6 a.m. unfortunately, either because i stayed up too late watching twilight the night before or because i have this bad habit of turning off my alarm in my sleep, i opened my eyes at 6:45 a.m. uh...yeah. we slept in. i believe the exact words out of my mouth were: "brandon! we're just like home alone! we slept in!"

we grabbed all our stuff and drove 90 mph to the airport, hoping against hope that we'd make it. i didn't have high expectations however, because we were planning to check our bags (dang cowboy boots!). not sure if i was more upset about missing our flight or the fact that i didn't get up on time -- the whole ride to the airport i kept thinking "I DO NOT DO THINGS LIKE THIS!!! I am RESPONSIBLE!!" haha. surprise, lyndsey, you're not as on top of it as you'd like to think.

long story short, we didn't make it on the 7:30. rather than wait for the next flight, which got us in 30 min. before game time (assuming all flights were on time, which is unlikely), i had a flash of inspiration and got us on a direct flight out of LAX, leaving at 11 a.m. so we drove home, ate breakfast, showered and drove to the other airport. luckily, we made that flight.

and here we are. i must say, coming into salt lake is like arriving at a family reunion. i've never made it out of slc airport without running into someone we know (remember, janessa? :). yesterday we saw two friends, at two separate places. gotta love utah.

another thing to love: NO snow on the ground! i hope it stays this way for the next five days.

yeah...i saw it

think what you will of me, that i actually saw twilight on opening night. i can take it. despite the fact that i only read one book in the series and actually didn't like it, i was semi intrigued to see the movie. but when i'm invited to see it with a bunch of my favorite friends, of COURSE i won't say no!



on friday night, we went to a tiny theater in downtown which i had almost forgotten existed -- due to it's, shall we say, "lower class" status (our special tickets were only $6.50 and popcorn was like $3 -- welcome to LA's version of the dollar theater!) i am pretty sure we were in the only non-sold out twilight showing on the planet.



it was still pretty packed though (with all girls, of course) and i was pleasantly surprised by the movie. sure, it was just as disgustingly cheeseball as expected, but it was still the same great eye candy and storyline. the only difference between me and 98% of the female population is that my reaction to the corny stuff is to gag, not sigh and tear up, so i think i giggled a little more than the average movie patron. movies like this are SO fun to see in theaters though, because people are so into it. i loved hearing everyone's simultaneous reactions, laughs, awws, etc.

i thought the actors did a pretty good job; i still don't know who kristen stewart is though and i absolutely hated that grandma sweater she wore to prom. edward was pretty cute but at times i was so distracted by how ginormous his head is that i was distracted away from the rest of him. also red lipstick is not really his thing. all in all, an entertaining film. though i told brandon he'd probably self-destruct if he had to sit through the whole thing -- this is not a man's movie, people.

and the best part of all was that i got to hang with my LA peeps. i even got to meet little tanner vandermyde, an event that was LONG in the making. here's me and kinohi, whit, baby tanner, jamie, kristi...uh, and some other girls i met that night :)

bittersweet

today i went to a motorcycle symposium and in one of the sessions the guitarists (and motorcyclists) from angels & airwaves, green day and death by stereo were part of a panel about music+motorcycling. they were quite entertaining, but that's not the point of this post.

watching them up there, with all their piercing and tattoos and alpine star shirts, brought back so many good memories. i spent the end of high school and most of college as an avid pop/punk fan...i went to tons of shows, followed all my favorite bands, hung out with and/or dated all the punk rock kids. i spent a ridiculous amount of time illegally downloading songs and prided myself on knowing all the up and coming bands. i dragged my friends and roommates to concerts from so cal to the wasatch front. my original converse were signed by members of yellowcard, new found glory, something corporate, the ataris, starting line.

now, not only have half those bands broken up, but the saddest part of all is that probably none of the people in today's day-to-day life know anything about that phase of mine. even brandon met me when i was coming off that era, launching into a more grown-up phase that involved stilettos and pinstripes, not black nail polish and dickies. it was a big part of me, a place where i felt connected and accepted and could have a blast. and now it's a thing of the past.

but it made me start thinking about how quick life goes by. in five years, will anyone in my daily life even know/care that i lived in LA once? right now i'm pretty deep into the p.r. diva fast track to careerdom, but in a few more years when i give it all up and the only thing my kids know me by is their stay-at-home mom, will they even care that once upon a time i went out and tried to make my mark in the corporate world?

it's cool that we get to keep growing up and continue learning and reshaping ourselves, but it makes me sad that we'll always leave pieces of ourselves behind. i guess it will always be part of us though, because today i like to think i still have a faint pulse on the indie scene...and i will always be able to tell stories about the time i got a bloody nose in the mosh pit at homecoming, or when the violinist from yellowcard gave me a big sweaty drunken hug.

i suppose a little part of that punky lyndsey will always be around. and i might go paint my nails black again tonight.

excruciating monday

nothing is worse than stabbing your finger with a pin...especially when that finger is your mouse-clicking finger and you have to use it nonstop for the next NINE HOURS :(

however, nothing is also better than having a whole plate of scotcharoos at my desk AND starting off the day with a JT skit from SNL. (yeah, i don't stay up that late to watch it live...)

happy monday everyone!

and....SCENE.

i have no pictures of this weekend.

with that sad fact out of the way, here's a little more about what we've been up to.

saturday we started out the day with a delish breakfast at julienne with our lovely friends t&a. any place that serves creme brulee french toast is more than okay with me.

then we watched the new james bond movie. it was quite delightful but i must say those bond girls had the ugliest haircuts i've EVER seen. i used to be totally anti-bond (due to blatant man-ishness...it takes more to get me into a movie than hot half-naked girls and cool gadgets) but these new daniel craig versions have been fantastic -- great fight scenes, cool cars, not a lot of half-naked girls (but they are in fact usually hot).

i went to a craft day after that with the ladies from church...i made some cute christmas ornaments and a wood-block nativity scene that has since proceeded to fall apart. bummer. i did however enjoy some delicious soup and some fun girl time.

we had planned to meet up with our long lost friends at the LA temple that evening, but due to the fact that most of southern california is on fire they were unable to join us. b was feeling a little sick so we opted to stay home, bake and watch the utah game. it was a fun and relaxing night.

and TODAY was the first day in MONTHS that we haven't had plans. after church we came home, laid around, cooked dinner, read our scriptures together, watched byu-tv, and generally just enjoyed some couple time. it was fantastic.

and with that i am prepared for the week ahead, which contains but is not limited to the following: LA auto show press preview day, motorcycle industry communications symposium, driving to cypress, serving food to old people, learning to make pies, flying to utah and attending one of the biggest football games of the year. bring it on.

cookie wrecks

last night our wonderful friends/neighbors (freighbors?) the mcmullins were kind enough to invite me over for family home evening. i think they could sense my desperation at the prospect of not having face-to-face interaction for 24 whole hours.

anyway, we celebrated thanksgiving early by talking about gratitude, watching charlie brown's thanksgiving, and...decorating cookies. maybe that's not the most harvest-type activity but let's be serious...i enjoy cookies at any and ALL seasons.

and when i got them home i realized they all looked a little wreckish. i guess i'm not the best cookie decorator...or maybe i was just feeling abstract last night. so, in honor of my favorite blog, here are a few of my own wrecks:



not sure exactly what this one was supposed to be. i was really proud of the yellow and green squiggles in the middle, but the large circle and the blue addition were totally random.

i was probably distracted because we were laughing a lot over exploding frosting bags and the horrors of childbirth. is this a flower? a sun? you decide.



since the husband was gone i of course had to make something cheesy in his memory. i definitely could have added a little more creativity, though.

and yes, i do have a middle initial (it's M, if you'd really like to know...ten points if you can guess it correctly) -- the cookie was a little too left-lopsided so i decided to add b's middle initial last minute. the two anemic hearts and gross pink dots were just afterthoughts.



this one is in honor of jurassic park, me & the husband's #1 favorite movie of all time. i just love dinosaurs. not sure they belong on cookies, though. nor do they need giant suns hovering over them. didn't you know, that's how the dinosaurs went extinct? a giant sun. once again, another case of not knowing how to adequately fill my canvas. oh well. more frosting :)

we made the frosting out of various items including meringue powder, which you can buy at michael's if you didn't know. it tasted a little chalky but luckily we had delicious cream cheese frosting also.

i ate two un-decorated, cream-cheesed cookies this morning. then i had two joe-joes in the afternoon. i'm not quite sure how i developed this huge lack of self-control -- you'd think i was raised without dessert restrictions or dietary regulations, which is not the case -- but it's disgusting. i love -- and loathe -- cookies.

and i can't believe i just spent one hour on blogs. husband, come home!!

a comparison

on typical weekdays, my schedule looks like this:

ride train
work
ride train

i usually follow that up with one or two of the following: watch simpsons (husband's choice), go to gym, do laundry, grocery shop, watch jon & kate. ONE or TWO. not all.

on days like today when i work from home, my schedule looks like this:

yoga
big breakfast
work
walk to trader joe's
watch taylor swift's "love story" video three times (oops, make that four...though the quality is much higher on the mtv buzzworthy blog)
talk to my mom/jolee/brandon on the phone
make the best chicken nachos EVER
mail back netflix
straighten up apartment
clean kitchen
gym
crafts
blog
catch up on what not to wear / byutv

pretty good, huh? i even honestly worked a good eight hour day, and still got all that other stuff done. it's amazing what an extra two hours and no husband can do for a girl.

(p.s. - brandon was supposed to come home tonight but an interview got delayed, so now he's coming home tomorrow. BOO.)

trojan pride

last night we went to the USC football game. we had our usual awesome 16th row seats, thanks to granddad, and had a blast!

i was quite happy just to have my husband home again -- he landed at 3 p.m. and we were on our way to the game by 4:15. we started out with a delicious dinner at chipotle.

i've never seen b devour something in such a carnivorous manner:



i was content just to leisurely enjoy mine. it took me almost 24 hours to eat the whole thing -- those babies are huge! tasty though...mmm:



we drove downtown and admired the AMAZING sunset.





and then it was game time! we played cal and they never really had a chance...we won 17 - 3. and usc scored their first touchdown right in front of us! with the exception of some questionable fans nearby, we had a fabulous time. i never thought i'd be the type of girl to get all crazy about football, but i can honestly say there are few things i love more than watching a good game of football with my husby.







V for trojan victory! (i'm thinking of changing my blog name to "stories of a girl who sees life through one eye"...seriously, i need to get my bangs cut!)



and of COURSE we can't forget the amazing trojan marching band! (this one's for you, jean :)



here's us at the game. i think we look way older than we did this time last year.

FAIL

the husband has recently become obsessed with failblog. i'm not quite converted (probably because it does not involve food or baking, as most of my favorite blogs do) but i have come to quite enjoy the highlights.

tonight i think i burned off my whole chipotle burrito by laughing so hard at THESE:

(warning...they're pretty painful to watch.)

best man fail:



parenting fail:



grape fail:



i hope you enjoy.

the aftermath

so the election is over. HOORAY. i don't have a whole lot to say about it other than i am excited to see if obama lives up to all the hype (also, i am quite happy that we now have the first african-american president in the history of this country), and that i am pleased prop 8 won. however things are definitely not settled on that front so i guess we'll see how it goes.

for the record, ALL are welcome to believe what they want and stand up accordingly. i'm not quite sure how harassment and vilification play into that and i'm realllllly starting to get tired of it.

but enough of that.

brandon is in san francisco today, going to arizona tomorrow and coming home on saturday (i made him fly home early because we have tickets to the usc game! go trojans!). he leaves again on monday for texas. i more than happily passed my travel-champion crown onto him, but it sucks that i'm home alone. feel free to call if you'd like to hang out :)

tis the season

spotted on shelves:



yes, folks, it is that season again. SO excited. i bought two boxes and it's not even december yet.



then i proceeded to eat a few for my dinner. with no other food to support it. now i am sick. oh well, what else is a girl supposed to do when her husband is gone for four and a half out of six consecutive days? boo.

i did however find this picture on my camera tonight, from the LAST time he was in san francisco...which was about, oh, six days ago. i love my husband:



i am SO OVER payzant-wells family travel.

daylight savings

riding the train is a little scarier when it's pitch black outside no matter what time i leave work.

good thing i still have entertainment. when i told the homeless crazy in the subway station that i didn't have any change, she said "god bless. i like your hair." sweet.

also, i've been pretty much conserving my political power for all things prop 8 this election season, but i have to get this out. i'll admit i've been sort of on the fence about both presidential candidates, and even with all the things i've heard about obama's ties to islam, inexperience, etc. etc. i could still see some good in him.

but his beloved grandmother dying the day before the election??? don't hate me for saying this, but does that seem like a major sympathy ploy to anyone else??

all hallows eve

i love halloween. however, yesterday kind of sucked. but that's okay, i am beginning to learn that halloween isn't that much fun unless you are associated with small children or able to dress up slutty, neither of which i do these days, so i suppose everything worked out as expected.

to begin with, we have had some amazing southern california skies here lately. i guess i'm just easily excited by any type of weather, living here, but it has rained off and on in the area of late and the clouds have been amazing. i tried to take some pictures on my way into work yesterday:






i went into work in the morning, but had a meeting at toyota at 11 a.m. my office goes ALL OUT for halloween with costumes and prizes and the works, so i was pretty excited to see everyone's outfits and join in the festivities.

i even came up with a group costume idea for me and the three other girls on the auto team -- we were grapes:



i can't really take credit for the costume fully, because i was actually a grape in 11th grade and that was megan tanner's idea. (thanks megs! your brilliance lives on :)

anyway, i couldn't dress up with the girls at 9 because i had to leave for toyota right after. so i helped blow up balloons and pin them on, then went to my meeting -- which was supposed to be done at 11:30 but lasted TWO HOURS. i probably needed to be there for about three minutes of that two hours, so that was even more frustrating. the work halloween lunch/party started at 12:30. so by the time i got to the office it was 1:30 p.m., despite driving 90 mph on the 110 freeway -- and the party was just about over.

there was no more free lunch left (but it was panda express...yuck...so i guess it's okay), no diet coke, no one to see me as a grape too. we ran upstairs and pinned me up and ran back down, but everything was over. we took that picture above and then un-pinned so i could sit at my desk. i was effectively a grape for about 10 minutes.

i spent the afternoon busting my butt to get out on time, since my morning had been wasted. they announced the winners of the costume contest -- and best group costume went to the grapes! but when they sent out the email, only the names of the three other girls were listed along with a picture of only them. not me.

i managed to leave on time...even a little early...and came home to an empty house. brandon left on thursday for a spur-of-the-moment trip to san francisco (literally...he booked his flight less than 24 hours before he left for the airport) and wasn't scheduled to land until 8 p.m. friday night. that killed our fun halloween plans with the fujis, another bummer.

so i did what i'd do any other night of the week and took myself to target to get some stuff. on the way home i saw the CUTEST little trick-or-treaters out with their parents, all dressed up and running up and down the streets. adorable. but i just felt super lonely and sad. so i went home and watched what not to wear and thought about how crappy my day had been. so much for my wonderful halloween that i had been looking forward to.

but then brandon got home, saw me all depressed and tried to cheer me up. we lit all my new halloween candle holders and watched a treehouse of horror episode (it's not halloween without the simpsons) and my all-time favorite h-ween movie, hocus pocus. i guess the night ended up great after all.

happy halloween!