And the next Nobel Peace Prize goes to...

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Because tomorrow I'm on my way to Panama to work to "strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

And, I'm even not taking a hairdryer. Me. Going a week without a shower or a hairdryer. That's prize worthy in and of itself.

me. saving you money.

This is a Public Service Announcement. I'm going to save you money. No, I'm not going to tell you about some great rebates or how you can cut out or print off a million different coupons and then add them all together and use them to save you tons of money which almost offsets the money you spend on paper and print cartridges to print all your coupons, the gas you burn driving to 10 different stores to do your shopping, and all the stamps you use to send in rebates. (No offense couponers. I'm actually a little jealous of your skills.) Instead, I'm just going to tell you how I've wasted money lately and try to warn you not to do the same. Money waster #1... Let me just say that if you were at all considering going to the theater to see "The Invention of Lying," DON'T. Just trust me on this one. I went to see it on opening night. It looked super funny. The previews looked funny. The idea of the story is super funny. And, I usually love Ricky Gervais. Jennifer Garner usually doesn't bother me too bad. I love Tina Fey (especially in 30 Rock). And besides those three actors who I like, there were a couple of my favorite Arrested Development actors playing small parts in the movie. So I thought 'this movie is going to be super.' But it wasn't. And it made me a little sad because it had so much potential. Great actors and a really funny idea. But it was stupid, kind of crude, and pretty sacrilegious. And I'm not just saying that because it was just Conference Weekend and I'm all spiritual right now. And the movie was kind of sad too because sometimes the truth is harsh and I think we need a few little lies to make the world a nicer place. Does that make me evil? Hopefully not. I mean, honestly, what if everybody went around all the time telling each other "you're fat and stupid"? And I'm not just talking about your brother telling you that when you're home fighting while your mom is at the grocery store on Saturday afternoon. I'm talking about people being completely blunt and mean all the time. Because really, the truth can be pretty cruel. So I'd rather live in the land of not being brutally honest all of the time. The movie made me kind of sad because I thought to myself, 'we humans are kind of jerks when we really say what we think.' Anyway, I'm just telling you, don't waste your time or money. I promise. I don't think Lee, Kim, or Ty really liked it either so there are 4 thumbs down for you to consider. Now I've saved you: 8 dollars if you are single, 16 dollars if you are married, and even more money if you live in New York, L.A., London, or Idaho Falls, ID where it costs more than 8 dollars to see a movie. And, if you are the type who has to have your popcorn and soda, well then I guess I've saved you even more. You can thank me later.

Now on to money waster #2... TURKEY SAUSAGE. So, those who know me well know that when it comes to meat I'm pretty picky. I don't like pepperoni, salami, bacon, sausage, hamburger (unless it is the SUPER lean kind and now that I've been reading book about Prion diseases I'm not sure I like hamburger at all anymore), or any other meat where you can see, feel or taste the actual fat. Even with chicken I have to trim off every bit of fat, tendons, blood vessels and other non-meat parts. It takes me FOREVER to cook anything with meat in it because of my meataphobia. But I do like the flavor of bacon and sausage at least. So my roommate had this yummy looking recipe for soup that has sausage, orzo, spinach, etc. in it. And since it is now freezing cold here I decided to make it while I was sort of listening to conference on Saturday. And I used turkey sausage. And it was sick. The sausage was a good brand, wasn't past date, and everything, but it just had a weird herb or spice flavor in it that sort of made me gag. So, after I made up this whole pot of soup and decided that it was the turkey sausage that was sick and not the soup, I pulled all of the sausage out of the soup and threw it away. And saved the soup in honor of my mother and my gma Fern who never throw food away. So now I have a big pot of sausage, spinach, orzo soup minus the sausage. It isn't half bad really. Oh, and also, you'd think turkey sausage would be all lean and nice but there were still chunks of fat and miscellaneous things that I had to pick out before cooking. So, my money saving tip is not to buy turkey sausage. It is sick. But that is just my opinion.

So, now that you've saved all this money because of my two warnings you're probably asking yourselves, 'What am I going to do with all this extra money?' Well, let me tell you.

I've started selling MaryKay cosmetics and I'd like to have a party at your house and, using social pressures, force-sell you and all your friends some makeup. Just kidding. Oh, and if any of you are MaryKay reps, no offense, eh? But please don't ever ask me to host a party. Especially if you are going to make my guests chant "MARY KAY ROCKS!" which I was honestly asked to chant once at a MaryKay party that my mom MADE me go to. It was horrible and I'm not quite sure I've forgiven my mom for that one just yet. No, no Mary Kay, Amway, or Scentsy. This opportunity is a feel good, warm, fuzzy, donation that won't benefit anyone financially. I'm gathering children's books to donate to two different causes, one in Ethiopia and the other in Panama. And I thought to myself, 'hey, I think that like 99.9% of my blog readers are married mommies. They should know a thing or two about children's books.' The books we are trying to gather can be new or nicely used (like probably if you have 16 OOC kids, your books won't be nicely used). We need Spanish or Spanish/English books for a library that is being built for the Kuna Indians in Kuna Yala, Panama. Which I guess would have to be new unless any of you have kids that hablar espanol or if you are tight with any Hispanics who you can hit up for books. (Oh, and if you click on the link to find out more about Kuna Yala, don't be afraid. These people aren't Nazis. They just happen to have a swastika on their flag. But I promise, they are nice people.) And we need the English books for the High Risk Children's Center (aka: Orphanage) at the Village of Hope in Ethiopia. So, if your kids are all grown up, or if you've finally accepted the fact that your kids are more into video games than books, you can send your old books my way and I'll make sure they get to people who need them. So, in conclusion, if you have a bunch of children's books that aren't being used, if you know of someone who does, or if you are just feeling super generous and giving during this Halloween season and want to either go online and buy some books (especially Spanish books) or donate money for us to purchase books with, then that would be much appreciated. Oh, and any donations of money will be TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Yay! Keep the $$$ out of Barack's hands. And this will be sort of be an ongoing project for the next year, so if you have books to give but just don't want to take the time to find them all right now, or have money to give but want it to be from your 2010 taxes instead, then that's A-okay. And since I'm not into using social pressures to encourage people to do good, if you want to participate in this little project, you can either: 1) Leave me a comment and I'll contact you with more details or, better yet 2) Go to the "Email me" button on the right side of my blog page and let me know that you want to help. If the button won't work for some reason, just email me at beccalasolterona @ gmail.com. Oh, and don't get worried if I don't email you right back. I'm going to Panama this weekend and won't have Internet access for a week. And then, after you are done emailing me you can go back and leave me a comment anyway. Because, as you all know, I LOVE comments. But, no pressure to participate. Only if you want to. I hate pressuring people and I hate being pressured. Remember that Mary Kay party my mom made me go to? Yeah, I hated that. I'll leave you with three final words that you can repeat out loud with me, if you'd like... MARY KAY ROCKS!

Hi, my name is Pete, Part II: Pirate Style

Today I was driving down Highland Drive in SLC when this big white suburban-type vehicle passed me. On the back of their windshield, instead of having a happy little set of "family car stickers," as I blogged about last month in the post, "Hi, my name is Pete," this family had...

SKULLS.

That's right, a set of skulls on the back of their vehicle. My picture isn't of the greatest quality as it was taken while I was driving and through my dirty windshield, but I think you can still see the nice little family of skulls. It looks like there's a daddy and mommy skull and two little kid skulls, girl kid skull and boy kid skull. (If you can't see it the mommy and daughter skull have little pink bows on their bare skull heads.) Too bad they didn't have a little skull cat and a little skull dog. That would have been cool.

I was too busy taking the picture and trying not to get in a wreck to notice what kind of family was inside this vehicle. Really, I am curious to know what kind of people have skull versions of the family car window stickers.

Are they sarcastically making fun of people with the normal family car window stickers?

Are they just really into pirates?

Are they warning others that their family is poisonous or dangerous?

Are they fascinated with death?

Are they just super cool and in style with their skulls and crossbones?

Are they weird?

Or, are the stickers representing not their family that might be riding in that car, but deceased relatives?

Who knows?

Anyway, as another update, apparently the people who sell these family car window stickers do not want people like me mocking their industry by putting a single girl sticker on my car with Spinster written underneath. I know this because Lee and Kim told me today that they tried to buy me just a single woman sticker at the Blackfoot fair last month and they were told that you can only buy the stickers as a family set.

Now why would a single person, who wants to join in the family car sticker fun, have to buy the whole set? That is so racist against single people! I hope their family car sticker business doesn't make it through the recession. Because really, when things are tight and people are choosing between stickers for their cars or a brick of cheese to feed their starving children, I'm guessing they'll buy the brick of cheese. And cheese is not cheap according to my brother Tyler. (Sorry, inside joke.)

Anyway, lest I get a million comments about it, I do realize that single is not a race. But there isn't really a good word to describe the unequal treatment of single people. We need a word...you know, like racist or sexist, but for single people. If any of you can come up with a good one I'll give you a dollar.

That's all for now.

The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning...which is it?

I am completely frustrated with my biostatistics homework right now. Therefore, I blog. After this post I'll be all caught up on my summer adventures and ready for more adventures or ready to blog about nothing. So here we go... You know those dates in history when people predict that the world is going to end? Like when the Aztec, Incan, or Mayan calendars end? Or, just when some crazy guy says that the world is going to end? I remember that 9/9/99 was supposed to be the end. And then it was 12/31/99. And now it is 12/21/12 or something. Lots of those days have come and gone but so far, we're all still here. 08/14/2009 was supposed to be the end for me. Not the end of my life, but the end of my single life. I remember when I was at BYU that was the date that my roommate Cindy and I decided that it would be okay for me to give up the idea of ever getting married. 30 years old. Sooooooooooooo old. Surely we'd give up if we made it to that point alone. So we made little cards with our names on them and then the date of our 30th birthdays. Underneath that was the name of a handicapped kid we went to high school with. I know, that is horrible. It wasn't meant to be. It actually should have been a compliment to the kid because the card signified that if I wasn't married by 08/14/09 that it was okay to completely give up and just plan on marrying that certain handicapped kid in the next life. Hopefully he'd want to marry me too. I'm pretty sure that we either made these little "end of our world" cards really late at night, or right after finals week or maybe after one or the other of us had just gotten dumped and we weren't really being too rational. I hope so, because it sounds kind of crazy. I actually still have that little card. I came across it a few months ago when I was going through some old boxes of junk. And I thought, 'Oh, yeah, I can give up now,' which should have brought me peace and comfort but didn't. Because, what if I'm not ready to give up? What if I scheduled the end of my world for 08/14/2009 but now I want to move that date back a bit? I never would have thought I'd be an "older" single person. I mean, who would think that or plan for that? Nobody wants to spend life alone. You don't hear "I want to be a Spinster when I grow up," very often, if ever. I don't think that any of us go into life expecting to NOT have things turn out the way we want them to or they way that we think that they should be or have been taught that they should be. Recently I was talking with a little 12 year old that I know. She's at that age when kids are just like "chatter, chatter, chatter." She was telling me all about a book she was writing and how when she's older that she either wants to be a writer or a veterinarian. But that her dad said that she shouldn't be a veterinarian, but that she should marry a veterinarian because her dad doesn't want her to have to work. I didn't tell her this (because I'm not going to tell a kid that their dad doesn't know what he's talking about), but I thought to myself, 'Honey, your dad is wrong, dead wrong. There aren't any guarantees to life. You should get all the education that you can and then if you have to give up your career to raise your family, fantastic, but PREPARE FOR A CAREER. Not just a job, but a CAREER. Something you are good at and love doing and could see yourself doing for the rest of your life. Because, just because you want to get married and be a stay at home mom, doesn't mean you will. Or you might get married but then your husband might get sick or die or lose his job. Life doesn't come with a certificate promising you that things will be perfect and as expected.' Why didn't someone tell me that when I was twelve? I wish they would have. I would if I could. And that, folks, is why I'm pretty sure I'll never be called to be a Young Women's leader. (Yay, no girls' camp!) Because, although of course I would teach all those wonderful idealistic lessons in the manual, I would also have a lesson at the end called "Plan B: Planning for the unplanned," or something like that and tell the girls the truth about how life turns out for some of us...even when we try to do everything just right. But anyway, the end of my world came and went. Just like dates that crazies predict. They come and go, and life goes on. Besides, if all of our lives turned out "perfectly" then things would be pretty boring I think. We'd all just be a bunch of skinny, tan, piano playing, married ladies with perfect kids and perfect husbands and then who would want to read our blogs? There are enough of those out there anyway. B O R I N G. So, if you haven't already guessed it, this post is about my 30th birthday. And I just have to say, lest any of you judge me as crazy, I think that turning 30 as a barren spinster is a lot different, even harder perhaps, than just turning 30 as a "normal" person. It should be less traumatic anyway for "normal" people. So, don't judge me for hating being 30. So, I was kind of stressing about what to do for my birthday. My travel plans to Sweden fell through a few days before my birthday. I was in Idaho. My brothers and Kim were all going to be out of town on my birthday. My grandma was scheduled to be working at the temple that day. So, basically I was going to be spending my 30th ALONE. So, I figured that if I had to be alone on my birthday that I at least didn't want to be alone in my grandma's basement in Idaho. So, I decided that to celebrate growing old, I'd head over to the Redwood National Forrest and see some trees that are older than me, way older. I'd always wanted to see the Redwood Forrest and somehow when I was younger we could just never squeeze it in, between going to gopher museums, gun museums, old prisons, and old brothels, on our family vacations. The day before my birthday I got up and was getting things packed up to leave when my grandma decided to forgo her responsibilities for the coming week, and, on the spur of the moment, gathered her things and came with me. I think she thought that if somebody didn't come with me that I might "Thelma and Louise it" off a cliff or something.

But, just for the record, I wouldn't have. It was still fun to take a little spontaneous trip with my grandma...even if she did forget her toothbrush and about the 9 Chinese people that we're planning on staying at her house later that week. Oops. I guess I didn't give her enough time to plan/pack!

Later that week my mom wrote me an email titled "To Thelma and Louise," which said,

"Have you even heard of the show, Thelma and Louise? That is what I have been calling you and Gma. I have never seen the whole show. It was R. I saw part of it on TV once. It is two women going on a road trip in a convertible. I think they might have been running from the law or something. Back in the day it was sort of famous."

To which I replied...

"I'm pretty sure that Thelma and Louise commit suicide at the end of the movie, so hopefully we won't be too much like them. Thanks for the birthday wish. Have a good one. Becca"

And luckily we didn't drive off any cliffs even though the road from ID to the Redwoods was long and winding.

Anyway, here's a picture of some of the beautiful redwoods. I was amazed at how amazing they were. Those huge trees are just awe inspiring. I want to go back sometime with more time and better gear for hiking. The California coast near the Redwood Forrest. I actually really like northern California.

And I got to drive my car through a living tree...a life-long dream of mine for some weird reason.

My grandma, the navigator...

and the tree-hugger. I'd better not let anyone who's on the Republican Women's Committee with my grandma see this picture.

So after the the Redwoods we headed up the coast to Seattle to visit my aunt and uncle who are on a mission there. They are institute missionaries and we just happened to stop in during a school break at U-Dub, so they had a little time off and were able to take us on a little trip.

First we went to Orcas Island, which is part of the San Juans.

Here is the view from Orcas Island.

Here are me, my Aunt Jenny, and gma. I feel like such an Amazon around my grandma, so I was a bit slouchy. Here we are on Orcas Island, in front of the Moran State Park sign. I guess that Moran is close enough to moron that we thought it picture worthy. And speaking of morons, we kind of look like some. I think my grandma is doing the chicken dance or something, my aunt is looking out for cars, and I'm a big enough moron to just be standing in the middle of the road and not looking for cars.

Okay, that's better. At least we're all looking at the camera.

Still on Orcas. So beautiful and peaceful.

And then there was this little peninsula/island that Mike, Jenny, and I thought it would be a good idea to walk out to...just as the tide was coming up of course.

Someday I want a cute little house like this. Except instead of facing the ocean it will face a potato field or a feed lot.

My grandma thought that this sign was SO funny. And I thought it was SO funny that she thought it was SO funny. She couldn't stop giggling. (It was almost the same as after the "What in the H does X stand for?" incident, for those of you who know what I'm talking about.) After Orcas Island we headed to Victoria, B.C.

So, I did get to leave the country again this summer, even if it was just to Canada.

I loved Victoria. It is the kind of place I could call home.

We stayed overnight in Victoria and the next morning went to Butchart Gardens, which was super cool and gorgeous. We, thanks to my Uncle Mike, were the first ones there in the morning, so we even had the place to ourselves for the first 30 minutes or so before the busloads of Chinese people with bright matching hats started pouring in. (I don't know why the Chinese have come up in my last like 5 posts. Weird. I don't have anything against them, really. They are just everywhere.)

Here are part of the gardens. Someday when I'm rich I'm going to have a big fancy garden too.

Proof that I was there.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Victoria and watched a kind of dumb IMAX movie and then took the ferry back to Seattle that night. We had to take a BUNCH of ferries to get to the San Juan Islands, then up to Victoria, and then back to Seattle. I swear we took like 6 different ferries but I really can't remember.

But every time before you can drive your car up onto the ferry they sort of check your car to make sure that you aren't a terrorist, etc. They asked my uncle if he had any weapons in the car, and he said, "No, I don't. I'm just going to wait until we get on board and then I'll take one of the big axes off the wall and use that to raise havoc on the ferry."

Just kidding. He didn't really say that, but he wanted to. We all thought it was pretty funny that they had these man killing axes just hanging barely attached to the walls. So much for preventing terrorism.

We got back to Seattle and had a day just to hang out there. We toured the institute building and the U-Dub (University of Washington) campus. The Dub is for W, as in Washington. It took me awhile to get that, so I just thought I'd share that little bit of information with you all.

Then I went by myself on a little self guided tour via bus and foot of the Pike Place market, Chinatown, and even accidentally took a tour of the Pioneer Park of Seattle where all the homeless people live, which I believe is also really called Pioneer Park, just like Salt Lake's homeless hub. So, lesson learned here. If you don't want lots of homeless in your town, don't name a park Pioneer Park.

I love, love, loved Seattle. It was my first time there. But even before going there I always knew I loved Seattle and at one point in my life was even planning on moving there, without even seeing the place. And if I lived in Seattle I would be at Pike Place every weekend buying fresh flowers and fruits and veggies and just people watching.

So, if anyone knows of any good microbiology/public health jobs in Seattle, let me know and I'll probably still move there because I love Seattle. With or without the homeless people.

Here we are in front of the institute building.

We had such a great time in Seattle, Victoria, and the San Juans, so thanks to Jenny and Mike for letting us stay and driving us around everywhere and taking us to eat yummy Vietnamese food, etc. It was fun.

And thanks to my grandma for road-tripping with me. I had a good time.

And, 2300 miles on my car later, when I got home from my little week long 30th birthday bash adventure, I celebrated my birthday with my brothers and Kim by eating some yummy Baskin Robbins Pralines and Cream with chocolate cake birthday cake...a family tradition. Thanks Lee and Kim for buying the cake.

Lee did his best to get as much "lard frosting," as my family calls it, on the cake because my brothers love lard frosting. (Sorry dad to even mention lard frosting because I know that you love it too.) But apparently the girl at Baskin Robbins wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed because instead of lots of lard frosting we got lots of whipped cream and nasty, hard, red roses. How did she know that red roses were my favorite? Also, even though Lee told her his name about 10 times, she still had "Lee Beck" written on the slip when he picked up the cake. Oh well.

So, happy birthday to me. Really, the worst part was just turning 30. Being 30 isn't too bad.

So far.

Sometimes I'm Not the Dumb One...an addendum to Tour Guide and Birthright Son

Russell was kind enough to remind me of a few air headed moments that Lee had on our family trip. Thank you Russell. I guess I'm not the only one who has dumb moments. First of all, we were driving through some little town (I'm sure anonymous could tell us what it was) and we passed a place called Sawtooth Luces Restaurant: Pizza and Suds. And Lee said, "That's kind of a cool idea for a restaurant...you know, do your laundry while you eat pizza." To which I'm sure one of us was nice enough to say, "Suds=Beer dummy, not laundry." And then we were driving along playing little games we made up. We play fun games when we are in the car for long drives. Some of our favorites are the plus or minus game, celebrity death match using relatives instead of celebrities, games to test our knowledge of random facts, and little philosophical or ethical mind games which usually leads to interesting topics of conversation. I remember one time Lee and I were driving from Provo to home and Lee had recently heard the quote that "Stupid people spend most of their time talking about other people, people of normal intelligence spend most of their time talking about events, and intelligent people spend their time talking about ideas." So Lee and I decided that for the next 4 hours of the drive we would talk only about ideas. It was actually pretty hard, but was interesting to see the range of topics we covered. But anyway, on this most recent family trip somebody came up with the idea of playing a game where you go around in a circle and each name a country that starts with the letter "A", and then "B" and so on. Whoever is the last one that can't name a country is out and then once you have a winner you start over again. It is actually pretty fun. Especially with Lee in the backseat trying to make up country names and seeing if Ty, Russell and I would notice. We did. That game soon led us to the game where one of us would name a nickname of a state, like the Show Me State, for example, and then the first person to correctly yell out the name of the state would win. We went through all the state nicknames that we could come up with, and thanks to Russell (he's full of random information), we were able to come up with quite a few but soon enough we were running out and it started to get quiet. Then Lee pipes up from the back, "What's that state, the one with the t-shirts?...Oh yeah it is Vermont." The rest of us: "What are you talking about Lee?" Lee: "You know, those t-shirts that say Lovers are from Vermont." Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Don't you mean, Virginia is for Lovers? I still don't get why "Virginia is for lovers," though. Maybe I should go there someday and find out. Oh wait, I have been there, and I don't remember anything about any lovers. Maybe I was too young. Well, anyway, I don't think any of us had gotten enough sleep that day. We were all a little off. But it was fun anyway. And sorry to Tyler that I didn't mention you by name in the last post, but you were in three of the pictures, even if you were just Sasquatch in the background of one of them. And...how is it that my blog got EIGHTY views today and I only got like ONE new comment? Come on, there can't be that many random Chinese people accidentally clicking on my blog. Who are all of you leeches??? I mean, with 80 views in one day I would expect that at least one-eighth of the readers would like my post enough to comment. Looks like I'm going to have to publicly bust and humiliate some leeches.

Tour Guide and Birthright Son

The day I decided not to go to Sweden for my birthday (August 10, 2009 to be exact) and was probably just sitting around and feeling like "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa my life is so terrible, I can't find anyone to travel with," my older brother Russell called me and said, "Hey, do you want to go on a little vacation at the end of this month?" For just a split second I thought he was being a jerk and rubbing in the fact that I couldn't find anyone to go anywhere with me for my birthday. But then I realized that he was being sincere and I thought to myself, 'I have the nicest brother in the world.' (Insert tear here.) So of course I said, "Yes, we should for sure go on a little family vacation," and hung up the phone. I was in a little shock at first because really NOBODY in my family initiates trips but me. My family just isn't as into traveling as I am. I have successfully gotten ALL three of my brothers to travel with me internationally (Lee to Eastern Europe and Ty and Russell to Belize) but it took A LOT of persuading. So a few days later we were all up at my parents' house (aka Lee and Kim's house) and were talking about the little vacation and making plans. I think we were all still a little in shock that Russell initiated it. Lee and Ty both thought that I had put Russell up to it, but I didn't. So we were all just marveling over how amazing it was that we were going on a trip that I hadn't planned and that Russell, of all people, had. And then Russell says, I think to dispel our amazement about his planning the trip, "Well, I am the birthright son." Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! The birthright son? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! So then we all start teasing Russell about how yes indeed he is the birthright son and yes indeed he is hairier than Lee and he'd better watch it or Lee would steal the birthright. But Russell is watching his back apparently. He says he never accepts a dinner invitation from Lee and Kim if they're serving soup. And then the conversation was over and Russell remotely turned on, using his iPhone, the Brittany Spears song on Lee and Kim's computer that Kim claims she downloaded to do aerobics to, and Tyler started doing what we call the "Didi Dance" to the Brittany Spears song, shortly followed by Lee and Russell, who, no offense guys, aren't nearly as good at the dance as Tyler is. (major run-on, I know) Kim looks at me and says, "You know, nobody would ever believe me if I told them the kinds of things that happen when you all get together." I said, "I know, I know," and then ran to grab my camera to gather some evidence. But, the minute my camera was out the dancing stopped. The weird behavior of my brothers when they all get together is kind of like UFO's, crop circles, aliens, and Bigfoot...TOTALLY for real, but difficult to get hard evidence to prove. So after the dancing stopped we went back to planning and decided that we'd have to rent a car since none of us own a car big enough to comfortably fit four Batt sized adults and a pregnant lady. Too bad we got rid of my mom's Durango as soon as she left the country. I think we all secretly hated that car and were glad to get rid of it when my mom left. So anyway, because we had to rent the car we just decided to do a day trip and not have to spend money on a hotel. And that's all we really decided. To rent a car. Everything else we left up to Russell or up to chance. Russell just said we'd be seeing some of the "treasures of Idaho," or something like that. The night before our little trip Russell told us that we were leaving at 5 A.M. What????? But he was serious. So, we all gathered at 5 A.M. on the last Saturday in August and headed on a whirlwind, unplanned, but fun trip. Here are some pictures... This is a little old store somewhere in Idaho (maybe Challis?). I just like on the front how it says "Staple and Fancy Groceries." I would dare say that most of the groceries we buy today would be considered "fancy" groceries. We are spoiled. Or, at least I am. I've got to be completely honest, I couldn't tell you exactly where we even went on our trip. I know we went to Challis, Mackey, Stanley, Sun Valley, and everywhere in between but I'm not even sure what order or where things that we saw were. Russell was driving and was the tour guide and since I didn't plan or guide anything like I normally have to do, I'm not sure what we even did. Russell is a good tour guide though, especially when it comes to Idaho. He knows all the names of the mountain ranges and areas and little stories about the different places. I think he might have been making some of it up though. For example he told me that the Sawtooth Mountains were named for the Sawtooth Indian Tribe, which, I of course believed. And as soon as they could tell that I believed them the boys all started making fun of me for being so gullible. But I don't know what was so funny about me believing that. It seemed logical to me...Sawtooth Mountain, Sawtooth Tribe. Why not? I guess my logic is a little different than most. I think my logic is fun though. Side story: Lee and Kim recently took a pottery class. I was over at their house and I picked up a bowl they had made to look at it. When I picked it up I said, "Ooh it is warm." To which Lee replied, "Yeah, it is this cool new slightly radioactive material that you can make pottery out of. It is a soup bowl and the radioactivity keeps your soup warm." Sounded like a cool idea to me. Until my brothers (and Kim) all started laughing at me. How was I supposed to know that they had just taken the bowl out of the dishwasher? Seriously. Anyway, back to the trip. So, somewhere in Idaho we stopped at this big fault line where the ground dropped like seven feet or something when there was an earthquake there in the 80's. And there was a fence around the fault line, so of course the boys all had to start walking the poles.

It looks like Lee started it, but they all had to take a turn.

So then I decided, "Hey I can do tricks too." I remembered my days back at Falls Valley Elementary when I would hang off the bars of the merry-go-round with my knees and for some stupid reason decided that I'd hang off the fence with my knees. About this time, one of the boys saw me and said, "What are you doing?" To which I replied, "I'm going to hang off the fence with my knees." And then they started making fun of me and I COULD NOT stop laughing. Seriously could not stop. That might have had something to do with waking up at 4 A.M. that morning. Anyway, due to my laughing I lost all control and soon...

fell into the dirt.

Let's just say I was finding little pieces of weeds all day in places that weeds should never be.

So then Lee and Russell decide to re-enact my moves on the fence to see if laughing could make someone fall off the fence.

Russell got Lee laughing, even to his heee, heeee, heeeee point, but Lee didn't fall. I guess I am the weakest link. Somehow the fence tickling lead to...

This.

Fence butting. Feats of Strength my brothers call them.

Anyway, I think we were at the fault line for 20 minutes and I'm not even sure any of us got a good look at the fault. Maybe Kim.

So, I cannot recommend the fault line, but I can recommend the fence surrounding the fault line as a good stop on a tour of Idaho. Next we went somewhere else. I can't remember. But you could pan for gold at the little visitor's center. Everybody found gold except for me. All I found was some Fool's Gold and a pretty rock, but I was okay with that.

The flakes they were finding were tiny flakes though...not too impressive and not enough to make anybody want to quit their job to go pan for gold, or in my case, quit my not having a job to go pan for gold. So to make things a little more exciting I threw in a Sacajawea dollar for Lee to find. I made him give it back though. Hey, I'm unemployed! Then we went to this place where they used a huge dredge and basically ruined the whole stream to mine for gold.

Here are Lee and Kim, in front of the dredge, parked where it last was used. They had a little museum in the dredge but it was 4 bucks to get in and we were all like "no way are we paying that much to get into the museum." And then we drove on, shortly stopping at a gas station and probably each spent 4 bucks on junk food. Priorities, priorities. I thought they should have let us in the museum for free though since they messed up the whole river and raped the land of its gold. The least they could do would be to let us Idaho citizens in for free.

And then we stopped somewhere to eat. I thought we should pack a lunch but Russell said that we had to eat at a greasy diner. So we did. At the diner they had this sign....

so I immediately liked the place and wanted to support them.

I think this is me with Stanley behind me. I really don't know. But it was pretty. I was going to climb up on the railing to get a better picture, but after my experience with the fence and seeing some Chinese tourist bang up her shin pretty bad after getting down from the railing, I figured I'd play it safe and just stand in front.

Pretty pretty Idaho. We also stopped at a fish hatchery somewhere that was really cool because the salmon were coming back to spawn and you could see them jumping up the fish ladders or whatever. They were huge! I love salmon. They are tasty.

And we stopped at Craters of the Moon, but really just for a bathroom break, which started a whole conversation among my brothers of how they could design a better outhouse. That conversation pretty much carried us home.

The end. Thank you to my birthright brother for planning our little trip. It was fun!

Taking the Plunge...Finally.

Not only was Summer 2009 the Summer of Fun (except for the horrible turning 30 as a barren, spinster part) but it was also the summer of facing my fears. Okay, well really I only faced one major fear...the ocean, and yay, I took the plunge and went SCUBA diving! If you would have told me about five or ten years ago that I would become a SCUBA diver I never would have believed you. But, times change and there are fears to be faced. I went diving at Two Mile Reef in the Bazaruto Archipelago in Mozambique. Getting certified was quite traumatic (as I'm sure you regular blog readers already know) and I was sick for like a month from some weird infection I caught at the Aquatic Center (public pools sick me out) and then was added to by some infection from Blue Lake (also a disgusting body of water), where I did my open water dive for certification. But, I made it through certification and was able to actually SCUBA dive in the ocean, which is way better than certifying. And really, I didn't freak out two bad. Okay, maybe just a little bit the first time, but that is because they had too much weight on my weight belt and my BC (Buoyancy Compensator) was not inflating properly, so as soon as I jumped in I just started SINKING like a piece of lead. You are supposed to float at the top until everyone is off the boat and ready to go down. So, it was sort of scary to be sinking down into the depths of the sea by myself, when I knew I should be floating. But, I got calmed down and was able to go down 60 feet on my first dive and sort of had a good time. My second dive later that day, after they fixed my BC and weight belt, was actually really flawless and fun. We only went about 46 feet deep that time but we saw some super pretty stuff, tons of fish, and a HUGE turtle (my dive master said it was one of the biggest he'd ever seen). I had been sending out negative vibes to all the sharks and whales and other things bigger than me to stay away, but really, on that second dive when I was all calm and experienced I would have been fine seeing a nice big something. Some other people that were diving near us saw a whale shark and I was surprisingly a little jealous. Anyway, something that a few years and even months ago would have scared me to death actually turned out to be really fun. I don't see myself becoming a big time SCUBA junkie or riding on the back of a whale or anything, but I definitely hope to be able to go SCUBA diving again. Here I am looking all awesome in my wet suit and showing off my SCUBA moves. Hello everyone. I look like an alien. The reef was gorgeous, as you can see. So, one major fear faced, I was ready to take on more and I decided to go bungee jumping at Victoria Falls. Actually, I don't really have a fear of heights so I can't really say I faced another fear. I mean, yes, whose knees wouldn't be knocking a bit as they stand ready to jump off a 364 foot high bridge over a raging river certainly full of crocodiles just waiting for a taste of white meat? I guess I should say that I don't have a severe phobia of heights like I do of the ocean. Anyway, I've always wanted to go bungee jumping and decided, if not now, when? It was AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING! (That's for Tyler who called me the other day to tell me that I use the word "amazing" too much on my blog. So, expect to see it even more now.) Anyway, so bungee jumping was amazing. I would highly recommend it, even over skydiving. Skydiving was cool too, but if you are only going to either skydive OR bungee jump in your life I would have to tell you to bungee jump. But hopefully you'll be able to experience both...or actually neither if you are someone I love. I don't like people I love doing crazy things. It worries me. Anyway, bungee jumping just gives you such a great dropping sensation and a serious natural high. I was giddy all day after I took the plunge. Yay for new experiences! Here I am getting all tied up and ready to jump.

Living life just a little on the edge is so much fun!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! AMAZING!

Oh, and if you are really interested and have two minutes to spare, you can watch my bungee jumping video. Lee was making fun of me for showing everybody my video and saying "Hey, want to see the coolest video ever?" but then the next day he was online looking for bungee places in the U.S. because now he wants to go too. So there.

Oh, and you should all watch my video if for no other reason then it took me FOREVER to figure out how to edit the video and get the audio to sync with the video. I had about given up when I thought to myself, 'Becca, you figured out that horrible statistics computer program, surely you can figure out how to edit a video and put it on your blog.' So, I did learn how, and without even one phone call to Tyler. (Oh, and by the way, thanks Ty for helping me get rid of that virus I accidentally installed on my computer last week.)

Here you go adrenaline junkies... So, let's just make 2009 the year of facing all my fears, BECAUSE, now I have yet another fear to face. It was a fear that I didn't even recognize as a fear until just lately. So, in a couple of weeks I'm taking a kind of shotgun trip to Panama over fall break to do some volunteer public health work with some friends from school. One of my friends emailed me about the trip a couple of weeks ago and he was like, "Hey want to go to Panama for a week of volunteer work during fall break?" And I was like, without even thinking, "Of course, that would be great!" So, I committed to it and then it all started to settle in...my fear.

I am AFRAID of not being able to shower daily and blow dry and flat iron my hair. It is one thing to be somewhere humid and have your hair get messed up, and it is another whole thing to not even be able to shower and attempt to do your hair.

I honestly cannot remember the last time that I went a day without showering and washing my hair. Sometimes I'll get up in the morning and won't shower right away if I'm going to work outside or exercise or something, but I ALWAYS shower. Even this past Spring when I swear I had the swine flu, I would crawl out of bed, shower, and then get back into bed.

Necessity. Major necessity. I never go into public without showering. Even if I'm going to do something like go run a 5K or a service project hoeing weeds, I will shower first and then shower again when I get home.

I know all of this might sound weird to those of you out there who don't maybe have a little tiny bit of OCD behavior as most of us do in some way.

Anyway, I'm totally freaking out about this. I mean I don't even go camping where there isn't a flush toilet and a shower and now I'll be spending a week on an island off the coast of Panama where they don't have ANY option for showering, no electricity, and only latrines!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh what am I going to do? I will seriously be bathing in a river for a week. There goes any shred of self esteem I have and there goes all hope for having even one decent picture of myself from this trip.

Oh, and I'm not high maintenance. I'm just clean. What can I say?

And, in my defense I have short, yucky hair. So it's not like I can just put my hair up in a ponytail for a week or anything. So, please, if any of you that are clean campers (with short hair) have any suggestions for how I can get through this trial, please let me know. Thanks!