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!