Nathan and Birthdays and Such

K... I'm giving into MG peer pressure and writing one of my many favorite Nathan/Jamilyn stories.  And the fun part is that it happened exactly a year ago today!!  December 10, 2007...

*Disclaimer* I realize that my blog audience is rather diverse... ranging from my dear Mom and Dad, to my newest Michigan friends.  But I'm going to write this story as if I were telling my fellow MG pals.  This is me, folks.  Take it, or leave it!

Here we go... It was the night of my 22 birthday in frigid Logan, Utah.  It was finals week, but Nathan still came up from SLC to give me a birthday visit.  I love him.  We did all sorts of fun things earlier in the day, like studying for finals together and what not.  Then by night time, we were bored and ready for some real excitement.  My roommate Karlie, and her boyfriend Ryan were likewise bored and sick of studying.  So, we decided to play a little game.  More of a competition, if you will.  Somehow we decided it would be fantastically fun to find the most random and outrageous place to make out.  Of course, there had to be some rules and conditions so that the competition was fair.  The kissing had to last at least 3 minutes... timed by cell phone.  And there had to be picture documentation of us in each make out location.  We had 30 minutes, then we'd meet back at Yellow House or automatically lose.  

Nathan and I publicly made out in the family planning isle of the local Walmart.  Also in the handicap bathroom in the basement of the Merril Caizer Library.  Third we made out on top of the USU bull sculpture where we both became true blue aggies in spring 2007.  Then we broke into a bulldozer parked on the side of the road (my personal favorite).  Even after all that, we still had about 2 minutes left, so we decided we would go make out on Kar's bed.  

Kar and Ryan got back just barely in time.  We decided to call a non-partial judge to decide the competition winner.  We called Nyle, and reported about our scandalous deeds.  Then we asked him to decide which couple came up with the most random and outrageous location.  Nathan and I went to 5 different places, had a total blast, and made Nyle laugh a lot with our stories and pictures, but it simply wasn't enough to compete with Karlie and Ryan's escapade.  They had spent their entire half hour making out in the middle of the nativity scene in the front of the Logan Tabernacle in the middle of down town Logan, with christmas light-seeing pedestrian witnesses.  I gotta admit, it was pretty good!  They totally took the prize.  

Side note: Kar and Ryan are married now, and expecting a baby in the summer.  Congrats to them, crazy kids! 

I came across the incriminating pictures of this night earlier this week and had a good laugh at the memories.  Then Karlie texted me and told me that they had put up the Tabernacle nativity scene.  And Nathan mentioned it in his email on Monday.  I can't wait for April 2010.  I'm feeling a rematch...

Now on to this year.  No Nathan stories... he's faithfully serving his mission and making me proud every day.  But this birthday was still fabulous!  I'm 23!!  After two hours of sleep, I woke up at 5:00 am and went to the adorable little Kalamazoo airport.  I continued from there to Minneapolis and finally Salt Lake City in a zombie-like daze of super-tiredness.  Turns out I was sitting next to Chris Donahue's cousin the whole flight.  Small world, eh?  I woke up in time to watch the plane descend over the wonderful Rocky Mountains.  Man, I've missed those.  Ever since September I've been craving Cafe Rio- Michigan doesn't have anything to satiate such cravings. So right after meeting my Mom and finding my luggage, we went to Cafe Rio for lunch.  Mmmm, Rio salad with black beans and tomatillo dressing was everything I've been dreaming about for the last 3 months.  Then I went home and made a significant deposit in my sleep bank.  Then I reluctantly visited my deteriorating grandparents in their new rest home.  And got a visit from my Sweet Caroline who is now 18 months old and has all sorts of new tricks to show me.  She says "veggables".  It's adorable.  Then my momma and I went Christmas/birthday shopping at the gateway mall.  I love love love downtown SLC during Christmas time.  We ate carmel pear and gorgonzola pizza at California Pizza Kitchen (delish!) and cherry pie (my fav) from Marie Calendars.  I super appreciated the birthday phone calls, texts, emails, and facebook messages from friends near and far.  Every single one made me feel extraordinarily loved.  

I can already tell that living with my parents for the next three-ish weeks is going to be lots different than what I'm used to.  Life is full of stress and change that I'm sure I'll eventually blog about.  But right now, I'm extremely happy and overwhelmingly grateful to be "home."