lol

For some reason when I read this headline: "Sting catches alleged terrorist in plot to blow up courthouse," I thought in my head that the singer Sting from "The Police" had caught the terrorist. The funny thing is, it didn't even seem that weird to me.
We all know he would be good at spying on people.

45 hours in Texas

*Joe here - I didn't want to write this post, thinking it would jinx the Cougars. Well it looks like they did a good enough job jinxing themselves. It doesn't take anything away from the Oklahoma game, which is the most fun I've had at a sporting event in my life. Now onto Britt's write up...

So we went to this football game over Labor Day weekend...you might have heard of it...

We were greeted at our gate in Dallas by Greg and Tiffany, then took take the shuttle to the Avis desk and are told were cars are available. Bummer.

I asked Tiffany to check avis.com on her iPhone while Greg looked for taxi numbers on his. Guess what? We made a reservation on avis. com, and I walked back to the same desk 5 minutes after being told no cars were available. I casually looked at the desk and realized my reservation had JUST printed off. "Oh, that's me!" I exclaimed. How convenient. As a Preferred Member, you just flash your ID and you're off. I was in and out in 2 minutes. I pulled out and picked up Joe, Tiff and Greg on the street. A pretty awesome start to the weekend.

Greg did all the legwork to find a motel that was really close to the game. They offered a free shuttle, and we got to the (gorgeous) new Cowboys Stadium around 4:30. It was pretty hot, so we tried to stay in the shade while saying hi to other friends before going inside. Eventually we got to our great seats (thanks Jack & Greg!) in a mostly BYU section. We enjoyed our $7 hot dogs and $5 drinks, stared in awe at the 60-yard-wide screen, and watched the stands fill up with Oklahoma fans.

The game was really fun; the fans in our section were pretty pumped up. A few plays brought us to our feet, but I was nervous Oklahoma would just stomp all over us at some point. Nope! The stadium got SO LOUD, each side yelling at the others' offense. I really couldn't believe we pulled it off, but am so happy we did. We stayed around in the stadium for quite a while after the game, just jumping up and down and taking pictures. We sang the fight song and watched the players do the Haka. Walking out of the stadium, we had tons of Oklahoma fans come up and congratulate us. We finished off the night with cheap Mexican food next to the motel and called it good.

Sunday morning Greg and Tiffany went back to Iowa, and we went to Austin with Liz and Reed. We caught up on a little sleep, played with Eva, and enjoyed some great ribs courtesy of Reed. As good as dinner was, Eva was definitely the highlight of the Austin portion of our trip. She is a very happy girl, and was taking out every book from her room and stacking them in the hall. Joe would put his shoe on top of the stack while she was gone, and she would just throw it back at him and continue her tower. After a while, she went back into her room and we heard a rustling sound. I looked in to see her grab a Costco-sized bag of Cheerios stashed behind her crib. She was hiding food in her room! She was very cute and walked around with her bag for awhile.

The trip was way too short! We had to come back to real life, but are SO happy we got to spend some quality time with family. Go Cougs!

p.s. Does anyone else think that the week after Labor Day was the LONGEST week in the history of life? Geez.

PHOTOS...

Joe & Britt outside the new stadium

Liz & Reed

BYU fans drinking pre-partying outside with their Coors Light. Classy.

More stadium

Met up with friends Jake & Nani

So mad I forgot my gameday dress and cowboy boots

Stands filling up with Oklahoma fans

Tiffany & Greg

Oh, hi amazing screen.

I like those numbers.

Celebrating

Happy campers

SuperGreg

Eva and her books

Chattin it up

Wouldn't let go of the Cheerios for awhile.

Looks like she's up to something :)

Reed & ribs

Austin's bats

$6 Bedroom Makeover

A few months ago Glidden was offering free paint samples so I ordered Deepest Aqua with no real plans for it. When it came in the mail, I realized it would actually look good with our new bedding. So after obsessing and over-thinking about what exactly to do with it, I went a little craft-crazy this week and came up with the following:

This is an old cake pan...I painted it, glued some scrapbook paper to it, and now it's a magnet board. $1 for the cake pan at a thrift store.

We have lots of random things in our storage unit from the last homeowner. I finally went through it and found extra shelves. So I painted the racks and hung the shelves. FREE.

See all the stuff on the shelves? Those are office organizers, cardboard boxes, soup cans, Trader Joe's plastic containers, etc. I just painted everything aqua or white. Funny how a cardboard box can look okay if you paint it. $2 for the sample of white paint at Home Depot.

The plate idea came to me at the thrift store. I got 2 plastic and one tin plate, then painted with the aqua, white, and some leftover green from the rest of the bedroom. $3 for plates.

I'm patting myself on the back for this one. Thanks to Joe for staying out of my way, repeating "Yes, Dear" a lot, and looking impressed when it mattered.

Takes the Cake

Because I work in a public area, I get a lot of stupid questions. My favorite one is when people ask, "Is this the bookstore?" I never understand why people would ask this. A bookstore requires books, and things for sale, and our office has neither. This morning, a traveling European student asked me if our office is a hostel. It's not.

Blink and you'll miss it

Some people love malcolm gladwell. Some people like to hate on him. And some people like to hate on the haters. I saw him speak at a conference, and didn't think he was a very good speaker. He also wasn't very nice when he signed my book, and looks like a mole. But, I love his theories in "Blink" about subconscious thinking. I had one such moment today.

At my job I talk to hundreds of people each day. Most of them lie to me, and all of them want money. They always say that they turned in their forms, that "someone" told them they would be getting more financial aid, etc. etc. Today I talked to a student who told me that he didn't owe the remainder of his tuition money, because someone at financial aid had promised him that the remaining balance would be covered. Nothing in our system backed up what he was saying at all. But unlike 99% of the students I talk to, there was just a more legitimate feel to what he was saying. It wasn't anything conscious, just a gut feeling. Anyway, I ran it all the way up to the assistant director, and we did some digging, and found a letter from the director himself promising the remainder of the payment. Someone had just forgot to key it in. That's all. Not sure what the point of this post is. Go Cougars!

My Humor

I laugh a lot. So many things are funny to me. I laugh when I trip; I laugh when others trip. I laugh when things start going wrong. I laugh when someone mis-speaks...like so much that I usually have to walk away from the situation, bent over, gasping for breath.

I'm so lucky Joe is funny. And that we think the same things are funny. And that he got over the fact that my laugh is so loud it sometimes hurts his ears.

I decided to make a little "best of" list; wrap it all up in a nice little package. I don't expect many of you to "get" it, but in case you were wondering, I like to:

WATCH Arrested Development


LOOK at Pearls Before Swine

from here

LISTEN to Mitch Hedberg


READ BYU's Police Beat

and STUMBLE UPON gems like this...

I might have seen that last one about ten times. Maybe more.

Cups are not for drinking out of

Last night Joe and I ended up in Chinatown after school. It was late enough that we could just walk into Matchbox without waiting, and we had one of my favorite meals in DC yet. I got the mozzi carrozzi and chopped salad. Joe strayed from his usual order of sliders and got the real deal: the bistro burger. We even got dessert!! The trio included molten chocolate cake, sorbet trio, and house-made (warm, delicious) doughnuts.
And this is when a classic Britt moment occurred. See that little cup next to the doughnuts in the back? Well, at our favorite steak place, Rays the Steaks, they sometimes give you a little cup of DELICIOUS hot chocolate at the end of your meal (or if you go to Ray's Hell Burgers when it's cold outside, they have it in a dispenser and you can get lots). So I sipped a little; not bad. Then our waiter comes up a few minutes later and is like "Make sure not to drink that; that would be disgusting. It's for dipping your doughnuts into." Well, duh...I would never drink something THAT CAME IN A CUP. Geez, false advertising. Then he told me it was kahlua-flavored coffee, and my bubble-burst was complete. Still the best dessert ever.

This reminded me of my surprise birthday lunch at Kinkeads. I got halibut, and they give me the fish and this lemon inside a little net. I had no idea what to do with it, so I rubbed it on my fish. Joe about fell off his chair, and showed me how to SQUEEZE the lemon on the fish. I told him it was his fault for not taking me to swanky places to eat more often. I grew up on McDonald's and the buffet at Sizzler; some things just go right over my head.

Anyway, you know you're in a cool restaurant when they have these hand-blowers in the bathroom. I love these things; you feel like there is no possible way for your hands to be any drier after a hand-washing.
Yeah, I took a picture in the bathroom.

Yummies

I subscribe to 95 blogs in my Google Reader. Half of them are blogs from friends and family; the rest are a pretty good mix. I read blogs about what's going on in DC, fun projects to do with the preschoolers, cooking ideas, coupon/internet deals, decorating/uncluttering ideas, modest fashion, consumer blogs, a few tech-y sites, and then I round it all out with a bunch of dumb humor blogs.

I digress.

I got the idea for the treat shown above from Conversations with a Cupcake. It's more of a summer-y snack, but you should still try it sometime. I cut pieces of bread into fourths (tangent: there is an Entenmann's outlet in town that I just discovered. I walked out with 12 english muffins, 6 subs for sandwiches and this high fiber Arnold-brand bread used in the picture for $3. Yeah, $3), then made little sandwiches with peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, nutella, bananas and strawberries. I used a toothpick to keep them together, but it really isn't necessary 'cause you'll just eat them really fast.

Creepy McCreeperton

While driving home the other day, I felt like something was watching me. I pulled over and looked closely to find THIS, and it totally reminded me of the Twilight Zone movie with the gremlin. So many similarities, really.

I told Joe I was freaked out 'cause it was looking right at me, and Joe said "It doesn't have a choice!" Touche.