Luke's BFF part 3 (Texas edition)

You might remember this little girl from such posts as "Luke's BFF" and "Luke's BFF part 2" and "disney world" . Well, about a year and a half ago the she moved to San Antonio and broke Luke's heart.  I figured since they were only 3 that they would miss each other for a while but then just forget.  Over the summer Lezlie has been asking us to come visit because Aiden really wanted to see Luke for her birthday.  She told all her friends, "there will be a boy at my birthday party that you don't know, his name is Lukey".  (She always calls him Lukey)  When their family goes on a trip Aiden brings a picture of Luke with her and then when they get to their hotel room or whatever - she pulls it out and puts it up in her room.  And Lezlie texted me the drawing she drew at school.  The name of it is "Me and Lukee getting married"

Well, we missed Aiden's birthday but we found cheap flights for Sept close to Lezlie's birthday and decided to take a trip to Texas.  I told Luke we were going to see Aiden and I've never seen him so excited.  We counted down the days taking links off a chain and it was finally time!  I was really curious how Luke would actually act with Aiden once we got there.  I just wondered if it could live up to the hype.  But he really did just completely enjoy his time with her.  When she was in school one morning, Luke was sort of pouty and ornery to me but then when she came home he just lit up and had this sparkle in his eye like the world was right again.  I've never seen anything like it.  

airport reunion

This sleeping arrangement was Aiden's idea.  She said, "but only if you won't miss your mommy too much."  They stayed up partying every night until about 10:30.  One night we went in to lay down the law and they each had a Book of Mormon reader and we stood and listened for a minute and they were talking about Heavenly Father and planets.  When we asked them what they were doing Aiden said "we are excited about learning the gospel so we are reading these books!"   Later I texted that to Joey and he said it sounded like a clever ruse.  :) 

 

 There were some other people happy to reunite as well....


  

 It was so fun for me to see Addie and how much she had changed.  She can sign! And she's potty trained!  She is good at making all her wants and wishes known.  And she has developed a new love: ROCKS.  Lezlie and Aaron made her a "rockbox" outside so she can play to her hearts content. 

She loved the Shamu Express ride too!  Look at that smile!

Since we were single moms on this trip (Aaron had been deployed for 6 months and Joey was in TN working hard... and disc golfing hard)  Lezlie and I had a fun night out where we got massages & ate at her favorite restaurant for her birthday.

 

Shamu show.  (we also saw "Azul" with beluga whales, dolphins, tropical birds and acrobats... but I didn't get any pictures of that one.  the shows were my favorite)

We were sitting in the splash zone but Lezlie, Addie, Maryanne, Lucy and I  moved back.  But Luke and Aiden wanted to stay to get splashed and they got soaked!  Luke kept saying (excitedly screaming) "that whale splashed me!  that whale splashed me!"

Lezlie kept us hydrated with all day with fancy refill drinks... which made somebody really happy

As a good-bye present, Aiden gave Luke her Shamu stuffed animal that he had been sleeping with.  It was so generous and he loved it so much.  On the way home he kept saying, "will Aiden miss me?" "what if Aiden forgets to miss me?!"  He sighed and said, "Aiden is my beautifulest friend.   Beautifuler than all the friends in Tennessee."

 

We will you miss you Terry family!  Thank you for hosting us and lending us some of your zest for life.

Luke: a budding cinematographer

A fatherly tutorial

011 from katiehale on Vimeo.



Left alone with the camera he creates an artistic portrayal of his deepest thoughts

Lukes Cinematography from katiehale on Vimeo.

Lake Enid

What is it about sand and water that makes everyone, young and old, relaxed and happy?  In August we took a trip with the Kate and Caleb fam to Lake Enid and had the whole lake to ourselves!   Caleb had some rare time off and we took advantage of that by renting a rustic (to put it nicely) cabin by the lake.  I'm sure the fact that there was great disc golfing at said lake had nothing to do with Joey zealously planing this trip for us.

Lucy takes her before-throw wind-up seriously

Malan, the disc golf photographer, got these homies to pose.  Originally she asked them to hug in front of the basket. :)

if you look REALLY close you can see a tiny and I mean TINY deer.  They were seriously chihuahua sized mini deer

The beautiful beach pictures are taken by Kate... and I love them.

High School friends

In August, my best friend from high school came to visit.  And I know I'm a nerd, but I loved high school...so much.  I remember crying at graduation and even afterwards - driving by Weber High - I would sing our school anthem and cry.  I know, don't make fun of me.  But really, when you think about it, I got to show up every day for school and hang out with all the best people of my life so I think I was right to love it so much.  Those people just clicked with me.  I married one of them.   Joey's sister married another one so he is now my brother-in-law.  And I stay in touch with 5 or 6 other dear ones.  Well, I'm not very good about that but when I do see them - it's just like old times.

This particular friend has been featured in a few other posts like this one and this one.  She's Trisha.  And I love her.  She and her three kids came to visit for a week.  We read old journals and silly (I mean artistic) poems we wrote, looked at pictures, went on barefoot walks at midnight and even prank called Spencer Burton.  Which ended up not being a prank call but just Spencer being funny and us laughing at his jokes.  And the whole time she was here I did not get a single picture of her.  But here is a really pretty one from high school that I found.

 Our kids had a blast together

oh wait, there IS a picture of trish... the little smiling face peeking out

Her kids are so adorable, polite, talented and speak Chinese.  I know. I am so impressed by Trisha as a mom. I've never seen anyone just truly enjoy being a mom as much as Trisha.  It made me want to remember the high school Katie and be better at laughing at my kids.  That's right laughing AT them.  It's what all the good moms do.  But truly - she is pretty amazing. 

Trish and I in our chamber choir dresses with our high school administrators and our beloved principal.  I wish I had a picture of the time that we switched dresses for a concert so Trisha's dress was dragging on the floor and mine was to my knees (I'm about 5 inches taller than her).  We thought we were so funny but our choir director didn't think so. 

My best friends in high school (clockwise starting with me): Katie, Stacy, Hailey, Trish

And it gets even better.  In June I got to see Stacy.  STACY.   I haven't seen her for at least 5 years and she is soooo funny and just the same.  Trisha and I just happened to be in Utah at the same time and Stacy invited us to dinner.  We laughed so hard our cheeks ached.  It was tremendously fun. 

Back in the day, Stacy and I decided to cut each other's hair to try to be cuter so we could get asked to prom.  She had pretty long hair and I just had medium length.  But here is our beautiful result.  Like we just stepped out of a salon.  I think we look like little kids.  Maybe cause we just woke up.

But it totally worked.  She went to prom with Nick (her husband now) and I went with Nick's best friend TJ. Poor TJ.  He was this cool kid (Prom King no less) and instead of being pretty for prom - I went with the more... funny approach.  I wonder now what he thought when he I opened the door and saw my hair done in swirly little buns all over my head and sparkly doc martins and my aunt's 2,000 dollar (yet hideous) dress.  Stacy and I were laughing so hard about that night - how her mom saw me and said "Well, I think Katie will want to go and finish getting ready."

Stacy and Katie forever

And THEN - I got to see Robspierre ... (featured here and here)...who I went to high school with but I really fell in love with her in college.  Presenting "Miss Priss" in our college days. 

Yeah, pretty sultry huh?  Now, I called her miss priss because I used to kinda gross her out sometimes.  I mean what a prude right?  But turns out later now that she tells me that I did stuff like put cereal in my macncheese bowl without rinsing it out first so little chunks of cheese would be floating in my milk.  That is pretty gross.

Miss Priss happened to be passing through Memphis on her way to Alabama helping her brother move and we had a few minutes to catch up.  And she got to meet Maryannie.
 

(And pssst --- Hailey ---- I miss you.)

And since my real best friend and crush in high school was Joey Hale - we'd better include him in this high school post.  Some bonus dance pictures.

Joey and Stacy ---

Joey and Trisha (and me and TJ and Stacy and Nick... btw people always thought Stacy had special needs when seeing this picture... oh and in the couple picture there was a swing for the girl to sit in and when I sat in it, the whole set came down! .... and those are our baby pictures on the shirts we made....

Joey and Katie

 
Oh this picture. Joey looks younger NOW than in this picture. :)

Speaking of young Joey -  I just found this picture. 



Ok, ok - I'm done reminiscing.  Thanks.  Stay cute and cool.  Have a fun summer.  Call me.