Carrie, Carrie and Candace do KC

Last weekend I spent a few exciting days with my college roommates Carrie and Candace. It was the first time we had all been together since this sad day when they left me for bigger and better things:
Thursday afternoon Carrie and I picked up Candace from the airport and headed straight downtown. Well, maybe not straight downtown. Apparently Carrie and I don't know metropolitan KC as well as we thought we did. We did have the aid of a Garmin, but those things are limited by the ability of the people using them knowing how to operate them and where they want to go. Oops, my bad!

We had lunch at P.F. Changs and then walked around the plaza, occasionally ducking into stores that were way out of our price range. We even tried a few things on. Carrie and Candace looked cute in these bucket hats,

but Carrie quickly nixed the trendy tee I found.

We checked out the Power and Light District. We got there right when KC Live! was just getting started. We should have known it wasn't exactly our scene when we were carded before we could even get in, but once Carrie asked the security guards what there was to do if you didn't drink and got laughed at, we quietly exited.

I wasn't satisfied with our previous shopping trip so my friends were nice and humored me and we also checked out Target. Although we found a lot of clothes on sale, they didn't quite do it for us. We still had fun striking poses in the dressing room.

Candace wanted to get a souvenir from her trip, and we did find some cool "ruby slippers," but she ultimately decided against it.


We rounded out our first day with free ice cream (thanks for introducing us to the Sheridan's ice cream club, Carrie!), staying up late chatting, and watching an old favorite, Ella Enchanted.

Friday morning we went to Independence and Liberty Jail. Although I haven't heard it myself, Elder Holland gave a recent CES Devotional centered around Joseph Smith's experiences in the Liberty Jail. Candace told us a bit about it and now I am very interested in reading the transcript once it is posted here. I like visiting both of these places. I always leave feeling a bit better about things and things were no different this time.

Here we are in the children's area,


and again in the front amongst the elephant ears. We know it is okay to take pictures in the shrubbery because the missionaries told us we could.

We walked around in Independence a bit and boy are we glad we did! We found out that the world is ending next year! You can go ahead and thank us for passing along this valuable information. Here are Candace and I just after we found out the news!

Don't think we were rude by taking a picture. If you click and enlarge the picture, you see that we were just following directions. (Look at the top of the sign.)

That night we went to a Royals game. My sister, Laura joined us.

It just so happened to be "Buck Night," so we helped ourselves to hot dogs, small soft drinks, and peanuts for only a dollar a piece.


I think the high light of the night for me was when Garth Brooks (via the big screen) led us all in singing "Friends in Low Places." When I told Tony about that he said it was an appropriate song for the Royals because they are in, this is an exact quote, "low places." To borrow a line from my favorite Full House character Stephanie Tanner, "How rude!"

A few years have past since we all got down together, but we showed we could still bust a move.


Billy Butler became my new favorite Royal after getting a hit in the 7th to earn everyone in the stands a free ice cream sundae. Even though the Royals lost, we were still winners. That's right, we got free ice cream both nights!

Saturday morning came too fast! It was sad saying goodbye, but I'm glad we had enough fun that we want to make it happen again. Those of you who couldn't come--we missed you! Carrie and Candace, thanks for the efforts you took to make this awesome weekend happen!

Today is Carly's (Anthony's sister) birthday.

Happy Birthday, Carly!!


We hope your birthday is a BLAST!!

But also really r e l a x i n g . . . .

For the one and only, Carrie Rave

Today is the birthday of one of my best friends and former roommates, Carrie. Between middle school, high school, and 3 1/2 years as roommates, we've been through a lot together. Today she is even going to spend her birthday evening driving to Clinton, MO, to pick me up so I can spend a fun-filled few days in KC with her and our other wonderful friend and former roommate, Candace.

It's hard to sum up a twelve year friendship in only a few words, and no one wants to read an overly verbose, mushy blog post so here are some pictures from our past:

This scary picture is from Girls Camp. We are wet because it was raining. (Sidenote--As we got older we liked to look at this picture as inspiration. "Look how far we've come...") Carrie taught me that it's okay to wear shirts with words and graphics on them.

This is on a charter bus headed to Nauvoo for Youth Conference. We started the night off with a dance--hence the shiny faces, messy hair and sweaty armpits--and then drove to Nauvoo through the night. We were really smart and packed our pillows underneath. Yeah, we didn't get much sleep that night and now I fully understand the integral role the pillow plays in getting a good nights sleep.

With Stephanie before a stake dance. Not sure why I thought my outfit was cute, but I think we had more fun getting ready and then hanging out afterwards than we ever did at the dances.

With our roommates Kathryn, Candace, and Melissa at Extreme Sports after an awesome ward activity.

One of my favorite things about Carrie is she is never afraid to experiment with her hair. Our sophomore year Melissa and I permed her hair in our kitchen. If you look closely at this picture you can see that my hands are brown. After a summer of hi-lights Carrie decided that she wanted her natural dark hair back. I agreed to help her dye her hair, acknowledging my inexperience. As I worked I was careful to not to get any of the dye on her face and neck. If only I had been so careful about my own skin! We spent the rest of the night trying to get the get the dye off my hands. We tried hand soap, lemon juice and salt, rubbing alcohol, gasoline, lighter fuel, and finally bleach. It was the bleach that finally got most of it off.

This is at my wedding open house. We still hang out as often as we can now that we are married and living in different states.

Happy Birthday, Carrie!

Thanks for picking me up tonight!

Look below

Make sure you scroll down, past my football post, for Anthony's post on our trip to Mexico. Although he started it long before I made my post, he finished after I posted. We don't want his hard work to be overlooked by our blog-visitors.

Gooooooooo Cougars!

To make up for the fact that we saw my sister Jill on TV three times this afternoon we had to take a picture of us in our BYU gear watching the game. Although technically this picture was taken post-game this is what we were wearing and some of the sweet faces we were making while watching the game.

Several of our siblings were there and we were watching for all of them. In fact, crowd watching is one of our favorite things to do, especially when the opposing team never scores!

To prove we have been BYU Football fans for awhile, I thought I would include a few photos from our past. Enjoy!

November 2007
At the BYU-Utah Game with Emily, Jill, Meredith & Steven (not pictured: Carly, Daniel, Doug, Alicia & Matt)

Fall 2006

Yeah, I don't know what is going on with Anthony's hair either. He needs to stay away from my volumizing hair products.

I have more pictures I could add, but it is too late for me to scan any. I guess I'll just tempt you with more flashback posts to get you to stay tuned to our blog.

MEXICO!!!

While Mexico, Missouri is quite the hot spot, I endorse Playa del Carmen as a nice vacation spot.

Trying to sum up a delicious week of Mexican vacation is difficult, so difficult that it has taken me over a month to do so, even though I have promised Carrie I would do it multiple times. I do not want to do a day by day journal entry because I can't remember what happened on which days. That being said, this blog entry will become a sequence of great pics with accompanying explanations and interspersed, must-hear stories. Brace yourself---

This picture was taken after we finally ALL arrived from different parts of the country, convening in Playa del Carmen. This beach was 100 yards from the back door of our villa. Carrie and I got to Mexico first and waited over 4 hours in the car rental shop for the rest of the family to arrive. We had left early in the morning from Kansas (thank to the Cranes for their kindness) and were tired. We were so incoherent that we did not notice that our new laptop computer had disappeared...NOT the way to start a successful, relaxing vacation with a budget expert wife let me tell you, but Carrie was great about it.
We explored the area around our home and met our neighbors when he or she fell out of the tree and startled us. Being from Massachusetts, I think I speak for the whole John family when I say that we Massachusetts-ites are not used to any sort of exotic animals, and I was intrigued by the variety of iguanas, salamanders, and R.O.U.S.'s we saw scampering around our neighborhood. Our home for the week was beautiful, and my mom did a great job of finding such a bargain. We had four bedrooms, 2.5 baths for 11 of us. The "glue" of the sleeping arrangements were my younger siblings who were troopers about not getting their own rooms and slept on hide-a-beds and mattresses. Carrie and I salute them! Our home had a private pool and underground cenote cave. The pool was strangely critical considering how close we were to the ocean, but we had to cool down often and rinse off quickly, and the pool was a center of activities. We had a full kitchen which we used to prepare almost all of our meals. We also were lucky to have a bottled water dispenser that allowed us to avoid "Montezuma's Revenge"...though Carrie did experience some gastrointestinal distress our last couple nights. If we weren't out at the beach we enjoyed our villa, especially me as I dominated everyone in ping pong who dared challenge me. I am glad I took a break to take this sweet action shot. We ended every night chanting "Frappes! Frappes!", and in response my father would make Cookies'n'Cream Frappes for everyone.

Our first tourist stop was Tulum, a large site full of Mayan ruins. It was WICKED hot, and we all were affected by the humidity and sun. The strange picture of my sister Carly and her husband Daniel actually has an obvious explanation: exhausted by the heat, Daniel could not help but succumb to the local custom of human sacrifice by ripping out the heart. Luckily for us, and I think every national monument should be similar, Tulum was built on a cliff, overlooking the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. Don't worry- we did spend a lot of time on the beach, but there will not be gratuitous swimsuit shots in this blog. I decided I wanted to add this one of Carrie because I think she is gorgeous.
Our next stop was Xel-Ha, a water park with all naturally occurring attractions. We started the day snorkeling in the ocean, which was fun. It was amazing to swim around with fins on, and we made multiple allusions to Harry Potter when he sprouted gills and webbed toes and fingers. In the first picture of that day it is important to point that the person in the top left of the picture is my mom who seemed to floating away during the picture, which made our family laugh afterwards very much. We also ended the day snorkeling, and that time we were a bit more off the beaten path and saw multiple sting rays and some GIANT fish. The first strange fish we saw looked like the barracuda from Disney's Sword in the Stone (It's one of the good "boy" Disney movies, like Robin Hood). The fish was long, we could see its teeth, and it had a very serious underbite. It didn't seem to be afraid of us, which seemed to make Carly especially nervous so she screamed. Xel-Ha also is a resort which caters to a lot of Americans, so our tickets included all you can eat food, which was great. For those in the know, Carrie's favorite ride at any water park is the lazy river, so Carrie and I really enjoyed tubing down a short river to the inlet of the ocean. It was grown over with brush on the sides and above us, so it was like we were in a cave of bush (the picture is needed to understand what I am describing). Once the brush ended, the river widened and there occasional cliffs on the side, which were fun to jump off of. The funnest moment was to hear Matthew's genuine scream of fright as he flailed his arms and legs. It was scary for me too, and i think that it we may have a family tendency to be afraid of heights. Carrie didn't seem to be bothered too much, so I hope our kids have her sense of adventure. We also went exploring in caves that were on the sides of the inlet where the ocean water had worn through. It started pouring rain only after we decided it was time to go home, just like every year at the Palmyra Pageant.

Our final big tourist stop was Chichen Itza, the largest group of Mayan ruins. It needs to be said that my father did a masterful job of navigating around strange highways without ever being pulled over or infuriating the locals while chauffeuring a large sunburned, sleepy family. Chichen Itza was very very cool. Rumor has it that not too long ago people were aloud to climb up the ruins, but now everything was roped up and we could only look and imagine. Carrie, while still looking so good, had a horrible headache but was a trooper about it. The ruins looked like something out of the movies. The tall pyramid with snakes coming down it was very cool. There were also a giant ball court where they played some sort of ball game, though they are not sure how it was played or who got sacrificed to the gods afterward, the winners or losers. You can see from the picture that Carrie instinctively picked up the sport as she does with every athletic endeavor. We managed to take a family picture up in some of the ruins that were not roped off. Hope that was not illegal, but if the Mexican authorities start chasing me I am taking that picture off the internet. I have heard that while they may appear lax in the real world, the Mexicans have a very aggressive virtual police. Chichen Itza was littered with local merchantmen who claimed to handmake all their goods, but everyone had the same goods. Carrie and I bartered with many of them and did not buy very much, so they probably all talked bad about us in their weekly meeting. The funniest purchase award has to be given to Matthew, though we did by some drug paraphernalia for Melanie for BYU, who bought a hand knife carved from obsidian and a skull on it. After seeing all the sites there we ate at the closest restaurant after realizing it may be one of the only places with air conditioning. The food was good, and they had dancers there.

We did some relaxing when we were not busy being tourists. The beach near our house was picturesque. We all went out for dinner our last night at a hotel on the beach. It was great. Both Carrie and I had so much fun laughing and catching up with everyone, as we have missed being around everyone at BYU. I also really enjoyed being around my younger siblings. I have been away for so long I sometimes forget that they have grown up so much, and they surprise me with how funny they are. It was also great to drive past my little sisters in the late Mexican evening and witness Daniel catcalling to them in a thick accent. It was one of the funniest moments of this year. Although Carrie got sick as we left that last morning, we did end up finding our computer, so the trip ended perfectly. Many thanks to the John parents!